Only you.

You rested your arm across my shoulder, and a sigh echoed through the room which I can only assume originated from my own mouth. I had been sorting the stuff on my desk in preparation to go home after the abnormally wear day, picking out the things I needed to take with me and throwing out any excess junk (mostly empty coffee cups that only remained for the effect they had provided.) However, true to form, and as much as I tried to continue, that one small motion made sure I was thinking only of you.

It was hard to imagine that just a few hours ago you had been gone to god knows where; where perhaps the stars don't shine quite so brightly and most likely safety is a luxury they forgot to provide. It was hard to imagine and I didn't want to think of it. I didn't want the warmth you provided as you leaned so close that I could feel your heartbeat echo through my spine, or the memories that your uniquely intoxicating aroma was brought to the forefront of my mind. I had asked for the tears that I knew would fall like snowflakes, lacing our bodies in a coldness of emotion that would be next to impossible to ignore.

That same hand squeezed that should gently, and I could feel you turning me around. I almost pushed it off and instead ran far away, mockingly imitating your own actions from before. But instead a shudder glued me to my spot, although whether it was out of longing or despair I could begin to say. It's a wonder I didn't collapse with the contradictions that it stirred within me.

Of course I was angry. If I had kindly accepted your teasing and even the date you offered me earlier, it was only out of a fear for the consequences of letting this rage engulf me. It seemed as if you were simply trying to placate me through a small consolation prize; As if you just expected me to put up with you throwing my heart in the dumpster and then prancing back with nary a piece of tape with which to mend it.

"What's the matter, Ianto?" you whispered, breath tickling my ear. As if you didn't know.

"What's isn't the matter, Jack?" I assumed a harsh tone of voice, and squirmed within your near embrace.

Your eyes, more blue than usual, matched your now saddened tone as you frowned my way. "Ianto..." you trailed off. Your lack of words indicated how we both knew I'd be nearly inconsolable at a time like this, and not just because of that anger. After all, I'd been that way with you before (albeit only once.) But, it had eventually ended with something much more pleasant than guilty stares and an awkward silence, which was something I wasn't sure tonight we'd be able to say. No, if that was the only imposition on our path to reconciliation, I highly doubt I would have held out even this long.

"Is it something I said?" My shaking head forced you to continue, "Just cause I left then?"

I decided to let what my mother taught me guide my actions, and honesty move my mouth to say, "not just that, though." It was after all a huge part of this tragic mess. I couldn't begin to tell you how I"d spent each and every night seemingly diseased, craving your body to cling to, or how when circumstances at work forced me to enter your office my breath would slow down and my heart gallop in a symptom of a soon to be destroyed hope. I also couldn't claim that I hadn't longer after your compassionate caresses or the taste of your lips against mine, salty and sweet all at once I'd needed you as much as oxygen, and so, naturally, your sudden disappearance made me splutter and spurt with the devastation dawning on my heart.

Oh, if only it was simply that. For now I saw realisation tinting your eyes. They grew steadily wider in what could have only been disbelief, and a guilt-fueled fire arose in the pit of my stomach, agitating my emotions. "Oh, Ianto..." you pleaded once again, your face softening to become sadder than ever before. It also contained a weariness I never knew you could possess. I was being too harsh on you, I know. We sighed in perfect unison, and I took a step to fill the gap I'd created between us before; It was my turn to offer the consolation.

"I just can't help being jealous of him, " I nearly cried out to you, and your actions proved you could tell. Your powerful arms embraced me in a protective gesture, and your mouth gently "shhh"ed in my ear: one gesture you surely knew would calm me down. "It's... you know..." I stuttered, unsure how to make thoughts combine to form words to pry open my mouth.

"Go on," you urged, and if I had been able to resist you so much before it was all that much more the opposite now, and so I couldn't refuse what you asked for.

"You used to..." I stopped slightly once again, forcing my shaky breaths to continue on their way out. "I mean, it's the way you used to talk about him. It was like you didn't have eyes for me because he was the only person in your whole field of vision. You used to recall your adventures together with such a sincere love painted in your voice that I couldn't help silently calling out in despair, for it felt increasingly hopeless to think I'd ever mean half as much to you. But, even that I could manage. After all, that wasn't your reality anymore. He had left you to die out like a cigarette flung not so gracefully into the street once it's purpose is served; He left you, Jack, and we were coping together, making the best of both of our battered dreams. You were broken and used and I was trying my hardest to mend it all, patching what I could with my not so practiced love. And then what do I know but without a second thought you do the same to me, only it's him you're running away to." I doubt I could have controlled the deluge of tears that fell from my eyes just then, but my head and heart were battling for control of my mouth, one telling me I'd said far too much and the other urging me onward. And so I barely noticed until they splattered at your feet. I could have laughed at how perfect a visualisation they were of my heart.

However, I didn't get the chance, for you were pulling me closer, moving your lips on mine, regret etching in your features, and passion pouring off you just to invigorate me to respond. We stayed like that for what felt like a lifetime but was probably less than a minute, letting actions speak louder than words for this one. As we separated slightly, I couldn't help but allow my eyes to linger, soaking up all that I had missed for too long.

I'm sorry," you practically sang to me, your eyes glistening in a matching dance, and your heart drumming against my frame in time to it all. "I'm oh so sorry that I'm a rotten mess, and just look what I've done; I've brought you down with me too, and how can I ever repay that? I thought that going with him would make things better. I knew I felt strongly for him. It coursed through my bones and invaded my brain whenever least wanted, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I'd only confront it it'd all melt away. I wanted to scream at him for leaving me stranded for so long as much as I wanted to forgive all his faults, but mostly I just wished to forget and move on with my life. Foolishly I convinced myself that I needed him there in order to accomplish that, if only to give in to some secret longing. But then as soon as I made it I knew the mistake that it was. I began to see that some things can only be fixed through the patchwork of love. So, if you really must know the truth, Ianto Jones, there wasn't a night I spent during the whole journey when I wasn't restless with an unbearable need for your touch, and that was when I knew it was never him I loved," but only you

I know that's how you would have finished, but this time it was my lips on yours that cut the speech short. Perhaps tonight would end in something more than our mutual silence.

Portrait of a Writer

Anybody that ever has the misfortune to open the door to that chaotic mess of an abode wonders what sort of creature could deem that place home. Simply to say that she has a lack of organisational training would be the biggest understatement in the world. Clothes strewn around in an explosive fashion mingle with other misplaced remnants of inhabitation: dirty dishes, piles of books, and the occasional (pet?) mouse or two scampering away in the blink of an eye. The whole collective energy of the place practically screams out, "Enter if you will, and clean if you care," but if you even think to take that advice, what exists in the middle instead leaves you stunned in your spot.

A million and one sheets of paper lay crumpled and discarded on the floor, as if the tiny nothing of a girl within is a tree getting ready for the winter by tumbling its leaves to the ground. She reels and flails, jabbing pen on paper in the most frantic rhythm imaginable, and it's hard not to wonder if she is possessed. In fact, it may be that she is, for the tiny frown etched into her face denotes how futile her attempts at converting the noise in her head into something of meaning have become. Frustration flows from her every pore, its level constantly rising with a threat to overflow. Maybe it will drown her in the turmoil of emotion steadily invading her mind. Or, perhaps, a fiery passion will consume her until her body falls away like ash dancing gracefully off the tip of a cigarette.

At any rate, I know one thing for sure: I pity the mother who must trespass in her space just to beg and plead some food into her mouth. She's most likely seen a different future for this poor soul in which she slowly withers away, melting into the floorboards just to haunt the woman and her home for an eternity more. However, the girl simply waves these cautions away with a flick of her wrist. She's developed a taste for nothing but ink pouring from clammy, shaking hands, spelling out our destinies one by one.

The demise she dictates is not of the hell fire and brimstone variety, but rather the product of an overrun imagination. It creeps within her sanity, like poison ivy climbing up her tree, and waits to infect any who so unfortunately stumble blindly along this path.

Sometimes, tears twinkle on the very tips of her elongated eyelashes to speak of a misfortune she would rather not share. But, other times, her body heaves and convulses with a hearty laughter, and then you know she's onto something really good. Her lips curl upward in a vague attempt at a smile, and her tongue pokes out in the universal sign of concentration, as she increases the frantic pace of her scrawls. Her hand races across page after page as if her whole existence depends on this one moment, and before you know it, she jumps up, glowing with the most sincere flavour of victory. She replaces her pens, (the only things she finds important enough to lose,) and that's that.

Exiting that disaster zone, she runs straight outside to invigorate the tree of her body with the sunlight it craves and deserves. And, as if nothing happened, she prances along like every other normal girl.

Once in Love, Never at Peace

I didn't believe that I would miss you so much until you were actually gone. The force of knowing that I would never again have your beautiful, glistening eyes to stare into, and that the half smile on your ever effulgent face wouldn't again be in response to something silly I had said, threatened to stomp on all the hope you had dutifully gifted me over the years. Those years that I had learned the hardest lesson of all; Those years during which I had learned to love myself through loving you.

It had never been easy, after all emotional stability was never something I could have even pretended to possess. Well, for the sake of the team's survival I would fake it, but we both know that I also broken down constantly, clinging to your heart and soul as if nothing else mattered, and I'm still not sure that anything else did. Sometimes even now, thinking of how you would hold me so close that your heartbeat sang a joyful lullaby to pacify all of my tears, I wonder how the thought ever entered my mind that I could live without you when I left you before.

While now I'm proving each and every day that I can't.

I remember how you used to cradle me against you and whisper so sweetly in my ear the three simple words I longed to hear. Ever filled with cynicism, we never claimed that they were anything except a meaningless cliché. Still, you infused them with a brand of passion all your own, speaking volumes beyond any words yet invented. My eyes would get teary in response, and my mouth would embrace your own, melting our souls in the fire of our need for one another. My fear of just how immense that need actually was never allowed me to say those words back, but in compensation I would attempt to spell them out as my tongue danced in your mouth. We'd spend the night trying to forget everything that wasn't us, and in the morning I'd leave before you even woke up, once again letting my fear get the best of me.

Was I ever anything but an awful mess?

But, mostly, we'd fight like the hopeless lovers we were destined to become, and I'd shove away all of your apologies just to whimper and whine my way through another restless night. I never admitted it to you, but I always craved the feel of your breath pulsing against my neck in a rhythm identical to the one in my own heart. And when all was said and done, I always was the one to let your carefully placed kisses mend my broken frame, whispering, "I'm sorry; I'm sorry," in the most desperate way I knew. For, when was it ever any body's fault but my own?

Even now, I know that every regret I possess is of my own manufacture.

And if I could spend the next million years whispering, "I'm sorry," it would never be enough.