For Schermionie's 5, 10, 20, 50, 70, 100 Fandoms Challenge.
"When did you last ask me anything about my life?"
— Ianto to Jack —
Cyberwoman (S01E04)
The way he says it—the way it's wrenched so painfully from his throat—makes Jack's heart drop. It's as if Ianto's been keeping it bottled up inside for so long and that now...now that's he's on his knees and at gunpoint, he's allowing words that he's wanted to say, but never would, to slip from his mouth. And to top it all off, he looks completely shattered.
Jack knows it's true. He knows he never asks Ianto about his life. He knows he never asks anyone about their life. He doesn't ask about others' lives and they don't ask about his. It's the way things have always been and for Jack, it's always worked. No one's ever called him out on it before; no one's cared that he does everything in his power to distance himself.
Ianto's face is dripping with a mixture of sweat and tears and while he's raving about how nobody understands and how much he loves dear sweet (robotic, deadly) Lisa, he looks so sickeningly sincere and pathetic that Jack lowers his gun and takes a step back.
For just that moment, he's a friend. But that moment passes quickly, and soon Jack can't afford to be a friend anymore. He has to be a leader; he has to be the leader of Torchwood, for goodness sake.
So he makes the calls. He yells more than he ought to. He asks—demands—that Ianto...well, he asks him to do something truly awful. It's shameful, he knows, to ask someone to kill the person they love. And he knows that he could (and should) handle it differently. But he doesn't and everyone's looking at him like he's a complete monster and Ianto looks so damn terrified as he scrambles away from him.
Everything works out okay, just as it always does. Jack even does the noble thing, for once in his life, and takes the shot that he'd told Ianto to take.
But even though everything's worked out fine, Jack still can't get Ianto's voice or face out his mind. Every time Jack sees him, all he can think of is how broken he'd looked and sounded as he'd knelt there, begging for Lisa's life.
He tries to push it out of his mind by over-compensating. He's as nice to Ianto as he can manage and tries to get things back to where they used to be by doing all he usually does—touching his shoulder and patting his back to get his attention or when he's done a good job. He even tries to tease him again with friendly, mostly innocent flirting.
But Ianto's a little fucked up now. Jack supposes that's what happens when you watch the person you love get shot dead by the four people you trust most in the world. And so, Ianto doesn't respond to Jack; he barely even speaks to Jack unless it's of great importance. It's almost as if Ianto's blanked Jack from his mind—that Jack doesn't exist unless the planet's in grave danger.
Ianto, however, is still very much alive in Jack's mind. Now, more than ever, he's aware of the few moments that Ianto spares a glance in is direction. He's even come to appreciate the few looks he gets that aren't filled with emptiness, sorrow or hatred (not that those pop up very often). He notices how whenever he says anything, Ianto is always listening, even if he's never looking. He realises, with a tinge of surprise, that Ianto follows every one of his instructions with astonishing accuracy, efficiency and speed, no matter what Jack asks of him.
Mostly, he notices that even though he now knows all of these things, he doesn't know anything about Ianto at all. Ianto was right; Jack never asks because Jack doesn't care. At least, he's not supposed to care. After all, he's going to live forever and everyone else is going to drop dead; he can't afford to care. And even though he knows that; he knows that caring about anyone is a bad idea because when they die (and they will; they always do), it's only going to hurt.
But what hurts right now is that he wants to know a ridiculous amount about Ianto. He wants to know everything about Ianto. All of a sudden, Jack wants to ask. He wants to ask about Ianto's life. He wants to find out what makes him tick, what makes him happy, what makes him mad...
And it's going to hurt, but because Jack is Jack and Jack's not very good at doing what's best for himself, he'll probably do it anyway.