This is a piece of fanfiction based on Torchwood. This story takes place during season 1 right after Cyberwoman. The pairing is Jack/Ianto, God help me. Usually people depict Ianto as being the one in love, but as I've been watching the series I don't think so. Jack doesn't seem to be used to love, and definitely not commitment but I'm pretty sure he was the first to fall. I don't own anything, only my mind and the strange balloon animals it makes.
Watching You
When Gwen asks him if he's ever been so in love he'd do anything for the other person, he doesn't answer. Only continues to stare down, at Ianto, who is straightening up after them, as he's always done. He can't tell her, and even if he could what would he say? There was the Doctor. There will always be the Doctor. The one heart Jack could never win, although God knows he tried, will probably never stop trying. The Doctor he expected to fall in love with, the Doctor he can understand loving. Like wishing for death Jack's always been good at wanting what he can't have, even if he is even better at getting it in the end. Than there's Ianto, and there's no good way to talk about that either. No good way to say that Jack Harkness has fallen madly in love with the tea boy. No, that doesn't sound good, not in any century.
Jack leans his head against the glass and metal of the conference room window, while Gwen putters around, picking up files and papers that have gotten thrown about by the latest near death experience. The problem is that Jack's not in lust with Ianto. That would be easy. Jack's used to being in lust, it's pretty much his constant state of being. He knows what to do, you seduce the person, you sleep with them, you move on. It's the way he's been doing things for a long time, and technically speaking the way he will be doing things for a long time to come. Jack's not used to being in love. He's particularly not used to being in love with someone who doesn't reciprocate his feelings, and Ianto had made himself very clear, kneeling there in the hub with Jack's gun to his head. Jack's never been so utterly and totally turned down before, most certainly never for a cyberman-woman-whatever, and especially never by someone where it mattered. It had mattered though it had mattered a lot. Jack thought closing his eyes, it would have just been easier if Ianto had shot him, and gotten it over with. The Doctor had been unattainable too, but the Doctor was a nine hundred year old Time Lord, Ianto was a twenty-something welsh office assistant. There was something devastatingly not right there. Especially when Jack considers the terrifying fact that at this point seeing Ianto smile again would be almost as satisfying an experience as shagging him, almost. That thought scares him, Ianto scares him, Jack isn't used to that. Down below him, Ianto finishes stuffing a soggy pizza box into the plastic garbage bag than glances up towards Jack. Jack schools his face to complete blankness, but he has the uncomfortable feeling that Ianto sees more than Jack wants anyway.
Jack sighs then stomps out the conference room down to his office. He drinks a glass of scotch and hopes aliens will decide to invade soon. Anything to distract him. Aliens are pesky though in that they never do what you want when you want them to. Jack roles his glass between his hands and swears silently to himself that he'll figure it out. One of these days he'll figure out the pretty much unsolvable puzzle that is Ianto Jones. When Ianto passes by his office though, and catches Jack's eye for a moment, Jack begins to suspect Ianto might be something he doesn't want to figure out. Because loving Ianto feels a little bit too much like truly dying, and for Jack that's not a bad thing.
