"Who is he?"
It's not a question that surprises Ianto, not at this point. It's normally right before they're slipped the littlest of pills that makes it all fade into obscurity and oblivion, but not before they can ask about him. Normally, it's Ianto who delivers them off because he's the best employee you could ever ask for. He drives them right back and sometimes, even tucks them in, listening to their questions that have started ever since Captain Jack Harkness slipped in through the very rift they're located upon.
He's carefully crafted an answer now that would have been approved by the very best. He ran it through Tosh, let Owen have a go at it, and had even let Suzie vet it before the…unpleasantness.
"Who is this man, this Captain Harkness?" It usually gets a bit dreamy there and Ianto isn't sure yet whether that's just Jack or whether their little substance makes them more than a little wistful by the end of those memories.
So Ianto sits down beside them and taps on the duvet – or, occasionally, the futon – and he takes a moment to compose himself as the sedative slowly works its way through the unwitting, unknowing mark's body. "Captain Jack Harkness," he narrates, in his best fairytale-telling voice, "is a mystery."
The person normally falls asleep approximately two and a half minutes after Ianto begins speaking, and he finishes his little drafted speech down into a whisper, tucking the person in and making sure there is no proof left behind, no trace of another man in the flat.
Captain Jack Harkness is a mystery. An enigma that draws your eye because he sparkles and shines, but like all beautiful things, he is dangerous at the core because you will never truly know Captain Jack Harkness and this is because Captain Jack Harkness does not even know himself. That is what makes him dangerous, because he is on a search to find knowledge that may not even be of this world and because we are all of this world, we are merely in the way.
Captain Jack Harkness is a beautiful thing with cracks and they are simply waiting to be patched up or to grow larger.
Ianto has a perfectly kept flat that is exactly three kilometres away from Torchwood, Cardiff. It may not appear completely neat, but ask him about any object inside the flat and Ianto can find it within twenty-five seconds or less. It's quite a feat, and even he knows this.
He believes in organisation and order, that they are the gateway to a better, more fulfilled life.
He'd first gotten wind of Jack's predilection for not sleeping one evening whilst he was tidying up loose ends from his home-computer and making sure the trail of alien slime from a rare species of reality-transmitters was all gone and no longer twisting anyone's perceptions of what could possibly be real.
The knock at his door was brusque and came once, twice, thrice, followed by a quick, "It's me," to let Ianto know that it wasn't any of his ex's, come to talk about why they'd broken up or why they should give it another shot.
They never did understand why he devoted himself so much to his work. He's hoping his latest won't fall into that nasty trend.
Ianto opens the door and straightens his tie, back on duty the moment Jack set foot on his doorstep. "Sir," he greets, very much perfunctory, even though he notices that he's been brought a pizza. "You came with food."
Jack shoots him a grin, the kind that would probably be a weapon in the Old West in America. "Man and a meal, Ianto. You're not just going to let me waste away out here on your doorstep, are you?"
He debates reminding his boss that he has a girlfriend and that he knows this piece of information, but to Jack, some things are never properly digested and simply left to fritter away in the wasteland of information Jack chooses to not hear. He watches Jack come in and study his flat, hands in his pockets so casually that he could be out for a stroll. Ianto had taken the pizza, because food was his duty, just as it was to drive the team around. Wheels and meals, he was.
"Sir, is there a specific reason for your visit?" he inquires, shoulders straight, posture tall. Even if there's only one person to see you, that's one person who still has a perception about his image.
Jack just loops about, taking the pizza out of Ianto's hands and sliding it onto the table. "Why the suits? I mean, they make you look amazing and dead sexy…"
"Sir," Ianto says gently, warningly.
"Yeah, yeah," Jack waves it off. "Harassment. But seriously?" And if his worries of harassment had been ample before, now they were simply amplified when Jack began running his fingers up Ianto's tie, tugging it away from her perfectly pressed, starched shirt.
To his credit, Ianto does not even falter as he exhales, simply stands there as if being studied under a microscope. Jack has pleasantly warm fingers and knows how to unknot a tie without yanking on it and appearing out of control. He merely slips it out of its knot and continues speaking.
"Did you have any trouble with the transmitters?" Jack asks, casually, like it's the end of a day and they're just recapping it before going to bed.
Ianto peers lower and finds that his tie is very much unknotted, but Jack is taking care to fold it up properly, adhering to the standards that Ianto has set for his life; a perfect outline without any slips, faults, or taints. Both hands stroked up and flipped the lapels of the suit jacket up and he simply indulged in Jack's obsession of treating Ianto like his own personal dress-up doll.
"Not a problem, sir," he confirms. "Everything went off without a hitch."
Jack is in the midst of unbuttoning Ianto's shirt, practiced hands doing what they do best – discovering the man beneath the uniform. "Good. Didn't want you to get your hands too dirty," Jack says, with that lascivious grin he has – that Ianto believes he practices, because it appears unnatural in its early stages, as though too much grief had prevented Jack from ever being truly carefree again.
"For this job, I'd do anything," Ianto remarks.
And it's true.
Jack looks Ianto in the eye and his hands pause in their undressing, like some secret had been whispered that changed everything. Jack pats Ianto on the chest, just once and leans in, as though about to kiss him, but he eases back, apparently changing his mind.
"You enjoy that pizza," Jack says as he departs. "That's an order."
Orders, Ianto reflects, are the one thing he's very best at.
It's a Wednesday night and Tosh and Owen have left, taking Gwen with them to the bar over her protests. Wednesday means that Jack will likely do some reading, will want Chinese picked up – egg rolls, chow mein, and a serving of pork dumplings – and will want all this at midnight, on the dot.
He holds up the brown paper bag in the doorway, noting how tired Jack looks this evening.
"You're my personal saviour," Jack tells him, as Ianto unpacks everything down to the plastic culinary the restaurant has sent, his actions those of any practiced butler. Jack watches Ianto with appreciation in his eyes and it's looks like those that make his routines and the devotion he puts into his careful appearance, it makes those things very much worth it.
Ianto begins folding up the brown paper bag for recycling, as there's no use to waste anything, before standing straight and tall. "Is there anything else you need tonight, sir?"
Jack has opted to use chopsticks instead of the proper utensils and he gestures to the chair across from the desk. "Yeah. I could use some company. Sit."
Ianto sits, crossing his legs and resting a pad of paper against his knee, waiting for his next order or assignment but Jack takes care of that when he leans over the table and picks up the notebook so that Ianto has nothing to do but regard Jack and wait, just wait.
The food is abandoned as Jack's eyes rove over Ianto's form and a response bubbles on Ianto's lips about being more than a piece of candy for Jack's eyes and that he was hired for his skills.
"Sir?"
"Ianto, my name's Jack," he reminds him, with a softer smile than Ianto has seen on Jack's face in a very long while. He rises to his feet and circles to the other side of the desk, leaning back against it to study Ianto a little closer. "Can you do it?"
"If that's what you'd like, Jack," Ianto replies dutifully.
Jack shakes his head, pressing his lips together thoughtfully as it looks as though a dozen thoughts flicker through his mind. "You see?" he says, steepling his fingers at his lips. "You say that and all I hear is the 'sir' in that Jack," he teases, voice quiet. "What is it you want to call me?"
Ianto sits up, earnestly, searching Jack's eyes to find the answer that he wants to hear, but to his surprise, he can't predict the answer like he normally can predict everyone's movements and wishes, five steps ahead.
"Sir," Ianto remarks.
"Ianto," Jack mimics, and leans in to kiss him with the sort of kiss that belied no secrets, told no truths, but gave no lies. It was a kiss insomuch as a rose was a rose, and Ianto is not one to protest.
He knows that Captain Jack Harkness is a broken man with a fairytale built up around him. In this case, neither of them is particularly Sleeping Beauty, but if a kiss is what will help, then Ianto will oblige.
It is his job and duty.
So when Jack leads him down the labyrinth-like halls to a room that could only be conceivably called Jack's sleeping space – not a particularly warm room – and asks if Ianto would like to stay the night, Ianto knows that there will be no sleeping.
He also knows that his duty had ended the moment he stepped through the door.
"Only if you'll respect me in the morning, sir."
He smiles a rather mischievous smile, Ianto's calm and perfectly coiffed exterior cracking to let the man within shine through; being set aside so he can suit up into it when the morning rolls around once more.
Just like he suspects Jack to do every day.
"Only if you'll let me call you sir," is Jack's reply and really, Ianto would hardly mind that. Not for one evening.
Captain Jack Harkness is the shooting star that you made your wish on. He seems bright and brilliant and you attach your hopes and dreams and deepest desires to its' tail and hope that one day, somehow, those wishes will be granted. But despite being beautiful, he is already miles away, light years gone, and he doesn't ever return, not the same as he was before.
Captain Jack Harkness is a fairytale. One that doesn't end with 'happily ever after', but starts with 'once upon a time'.
THE END