Rating: T

Word count: ~ 1,400

Warnings: Abuse of parenthesis, temporary major character "death."

Summary: Ianto stares down at his (young, strong, calloused, unscarred) hands as he sits on the bed, Jack humming happily in the bathroom, and wonders.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Urg, this was mostly written in the middle of the night (gods damn and devour you, insomnia) but thankfully I waited until later to post. However, it may still be fairly (all right, very) incoherent. Apologies. It exists because the vast majority of immortal!Ianto fics have it as a sudden change. But…what if it wasn't? (Title fro Lewis quote, "The safest road to Hell is the gradual one.")

The Safest Road to Hell

It starts slowly.

A coincidence, Ianto thinks. A fluke. Seeing things, assuming things.

It can't be real, he tells himself.

A hair that had gone grey a month ago is black again.

The wrinkles around his eyes have faded once more to nothingness.

His right leg, which he's broken four times now and which usually aches in the cold weather, remains strong.

Ianto stares down at his (young, strong, calloused, unscarred) hands as he sits on the bed, Jack humming happily in the bathroom, and wonders.

Refuses to wonder.

But he thinks of it.

Can't help himself.

He's only human, after all.

(Or he was.)

"Fucking hell, I hate blowfish," Owen wheezes, staggering against and alley wall.

Ianto doesn't have the breath to agree aloud, but he nods emphatically, trying to gather the strength to keep up the chase.

"On your right," Tosh urges over the comms, and Ianto wants to swear at her. "Hurry or you'll lose him!"

Sucking in a last lungful of oxygen, Ianto lurches forward and breaks into a sprint, gun drawn but down by his side.

(He never has time to use it.)

The blowfish is waiting in a camera blind spot around the corner, armed with an older gun (first generation Glock 17, 9mm short recoil-operated locked breech semiautomatic, double-stack magazines with a 17-round capacity, muzzle velocity of 375 meters per second, effective range of 50 meters), and there is not even half a second before Ianto rounds the building and the first shot is fired.

It hurts.

(But not nearly as much as it should.)

"Missed," he tells Owen, who believes him because he had an extra shirt in the SUV and could dump his old (bullet-torn, bloody) one in a nearby trashcan. "Must have been high on something, or he would have gotten me."

Jack looks at him, pale but (mostly) composed, and nods. "Good work recovering the diamonds," he offers.

(But Ianto knows Jack probably won't let him out of sight once the others are gone, will keep him close and coddled all evening.)

(He's still shaking; can't find it in himself to mind at all.)

It's not every day one comes back from a bullet wound to the heart.

Not when one's name isn't Jack Harkness.

(Or, apparently, Ianto Jones.)

Ianto cooks dinner, Italian.

The puttanesca sauce looks like blood.

Like the blood that splashed down to the asphalt when Ianto staggered and fell, dying in the cold darkness of a Cardiff night.

(There was an even darker place waiting for him, but Ianto doesn't think of that.)

(He can't.)

Jack leans his elbows on the island counter, rests his chin in his hands. He looks relaxed, at ease.

Ianto can see the tension in the line of his body, the set of his jaw.

The silence between them should be stifling, but it's revitalizing instead.

The water boils, and Ianto adds salt, a little oil, and the linguine, and stirs three times counterclockwise. In the other pot, the heat is on too high, and the red sauce bubbles and splatters, macabre smears against the white ceramic stovetop. Mechanically, Ianto puts a lid on the pot and blinks down at the stains.

Blood, he thinks, and it's the first time he's really let himself think of it since The Incident.

There is the sound of a chair being pushed back, and then footsteps. Jack wraps his arms around him from behind and rests his cheek on Ianto's shoulder, breathing out in a warm, damp rush.

He doesn't say, "I'm sorry," but it hangs unspoken in the air nevertheless.

(So does Ianto's, "There's nothing to forgive.")

Ianto can't help but think that he might have once been angry, might have once resented this.

It's not something that's done, and even if it was, there's no earthly reason to do it to Ianto of all people.

But it has been done, and now it can't be taken back. The gradual changes are often the most permanent, Ianto thinks, and this is no exception.

But now he no longer has to fear the darkness. Now he can step into shadows and walk out unscathed.

Now he can stay with Jack forever.

Forever is a very long time.

Ianto is under no delusions that they will love each other for all of it.

Doubtless they will have their fights, and their falling outs. Doubtless there will be times when they are separated or separate themselves. There will likely even be times whey they are each other's greatest enemies.

But passionate hate is still very much akin to love, and Ianto will not bemoan the day that it happens. They will have forever, together, no matter the emotions between them and how hot or cold they burn.

That fire, the fire that has smoldered steadily since their first meeting, through aliens and betrayals and departures and returns, will keep burning right up until the moment their lives are extinguished.

Ianto find that he cannot resent anything, if that is the end result.

He used to have a scar, a small one, on the inside of his left wrist. To a doctor, it looked a little like Ianto had once tried to slit his wrist right up the vein.

When Owen had first seen it, he'd gone a little quiet, and then he'd pulled Ianto aside and informed him sharply that if he ever saw any stupid suicidal behavior, he would bench Ianto until Torchwood One made peace with all alien species and greeted the Doctor with open arms. And he'd kick Ianto's arse as he did it.

Ianto had stared at him for a moment before dissolving into what the uncharitable might call giggles.

(In all reality, the scar was from a fairly stupid teenage phase [weren't they all] when he'd caught his sister's boyfriend cheating on her with her best friend, and put his fist through the bastard's window in friendly warning.)

That scar is gone now, not even the faintest white line to mark its former presence.

(He mourns it, just a little.)

But…there's Jack.

Ianto could never, ever mourn Jack.

Jack tumbles them into bed, rolls them over until he lies fully on Ianto, solid and real. His fingers trace Ianto's chest, linger on the skin over his heart like he knows where the bullet went in, and then drift down to lace themselves with Ianto's. He rests his forehead against Ianto's sternum and simply breathes.

Ianto closes his eyes and wraps his arms around Jack, tight and close.

There is silence for the space of ten breaths. And then—

"How?" Jack whispers.

Because he's been looking when he can no longer stand not knowing, Ianto answers, "The negative Rift spikes, together with the Void energy around you. I think…we're close to the same now."

Ianto counts twenty-six breaths before Jack finally whispers, "I told Suzie I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, but—this makes me happy. I'm—"

"If the next word out of your mouth is 'sorry,' Jack Harkness, I won't be held accountable for my actions," Ianto warns. He strokes Jack's hair, the smooth, golden skin of his shoulder. "There are far worse things in this universe than an eternity by your side."