AN: Think I could get a review? Any kind, really. 'Great,' 'Angsty,' 'Oh, please stop writing, you're terrible?' I'll take whatever I can get, honestly. Just to let me know how I'm doing.

Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood. I don't even own the planets that are mentioned, I got them off a website listing different planets that have been mentioned in Doctor Who.

For months - years - Jack turned to John. When he'd had too much to drink, when he'd had a long day, when someone said something that reminded him of Grey, his father, his mother, his failure, he always turned to John.

And John was always there. He practically preened under the attention. He loved the fact that it was him, no one else, just him, that Jack turned to when he needed someone. He had never been a comforter before, but he was clearly doing something right. Jack always seemed more relaxed and well-distracted by the time he and John were done.

John loved Jack. He hadn't had much of a stable life growing up, bad parents and no real friends to speak of, and he'd never really felt love before. But this had to be what it was like. This was love, what he and Jack had. And he liked it. It was good.

John never knew what changed. Sometimes it seemed as though Jack had been Retconned. He just stopped. Stopped agonizing over it. Stopped crying. Stopped being crushed by the memory of losing his little brother.

Stopped. Needing. John.

And John couldn't have that. He couldn't take Jack not needing him. It had been barely noticeable at first. Jack had stopped instigating kisses when no one was looking. He stopped pulling John away to the closets for a quick shag. He'd only half-heartedly returned the kisses John initiated.

One day, John made a move to pull Jack away for a kiss - and Jack pushed him back. "No."

He'd said it simply, plainly, as though it was nothing. As though it meant nothing. "What do you mean, no?" John said, voice harsh and bitingly angry to cover up the rising terror in his chest.

Jack seemed taken aback by the tough tone. "John, we can't be doing this," he said. He said it clearly, in a tone one might expect to be used with a small child that was being told that it shouldn't throw rocks into the neighbor's yard. It said only too clearly that he thought what he was saying was obvious, expected John to be in complete agreement with him about this.

"We can't keep this up. It's unprofessional. It's bad for us, bad for our jobs, bad for the people we work with… You realize we're about to graduate? This is about to be the big time for us. Not just little missions that take maybe two days at the most, no more classes to pretend to pay attention in. We're about to be professionals. And this… whatever the hell it is... it needs to stop. I'm grateful for what you did for me, I really am. But I don't need it anymore and it's not healthy. So we're stopping. Right now, while we still can. We both know it's the best thing."

John stood there, shocked and unable to speak as Jack continued speaking. What the hell was he talking about? Going on and on about how this what they both wanted, what they both needed. What the hell did Jack know? How was he standing there, looking expectant and not the least bit guilty, never once thinking that it might mean something to John?

John nodded mute agreement, jaw locked furiously. His body was moving on autopilot, barely requiring any attention at all. He nodded, began to follow Jack along once more. If his anger showed on his face, Jack didn't give any indication that he noticed.

John's brain, on the other hand, was going so quickly that if it had been any sort of vehicle it would have gone skidding right off the road and crashed into a horrifying inferno.

'Can't do this, can't do it,'

'Not fair, not fair,'

'Stupid, stupid, he's so bloody thick, doesn't know anything,'

'Thinks I don't care, I do, I love him, doesn't he get that doesn't he see…'

'Thinks it's all about him, stupid ponce, get him back, I will, I'll show him, he'll need me and I'll show him…'

John said nothing. Jack's blatant obliviousness made it only too clear that he thought their long affair had been nothing but sex to distract him from his guilt.

But he was wrong. So wrong. And it made John so angry.

He worked with Jack through the end of training days. Stood next to him as they officially graduated. Followed him through one mission after another. And he fumed silently about the injustice of it all, because how dare Jack just walk away from him like that? Didn't he think John deserved anything?

And then Jack went and took it another step further. He got himself a different bloody partner.

"Oh, it's just this once, you know? Terrence is the resident expert on the Baydafarn recession, after all. You can go do a mission with Connor, keep yourself from getting bored."

He'd smiled that stupid, cocky grin of his that never failed to make John's heart hurt just a tiny bit. It was his weak spot, that stupid grin. And then Jack had walked away, giving John a friendly punch to the shoulder as he went by.

And red had filled John's vision. He'd stormed around the base for a few minutes, and bad timing had him standing there as Jack and Terrence went off on their mission.

Connor had come bounding up, all smiles - and ears, he had stupid, giant ears - and John had hated him.

"Hi! So, since our partners are off causing trouble without us, there's a mission going on in Collabria, if you want to team up with me and we can take it together?"

Endless energy, the pest. John had been about to say no, and tell Connor to go away in a very unpleasant manner, but a horrid idea started to emerge from all that red that was still blinding him, and he'd smiled instead.

"Yeah, sure. I'm ready when you are."

Connor beamed.

Ten minutes into the mission, he wasn't beaming anymore. No one can beam when they're slumped over, coated in their own blood, body slowly cooling in the way that is common after life has departed.

John stared at the corpse with vague interest on his features. That was good therapy. Almost as good as fucking Jack would have been. Of course, if that had been an option, he wouldn't have been in need of therapy the way he was. Maybe it would have been best if he'd made it last longer, not killed him so quickly...

Oh well. John would take what he could get. He put an arm around what was left of Connor, making a face of disgust at the bloodstains appearing on his coat. Maybe he should have waited until the blood had dried before returning to the Agency. It was too late to do anything about it now.

John transported himself and Connor back to the Agency and they were met by panicked shouts and then people were all over the both of them, trying to fix John up despite his constant insistence that he was fine, so sod off already, and shouting at him for answers.

John gave them some bullshit story about being attacked and he was too far away to help, and he killed the guy, but it was too late, and then he started shaking and told them that he needed to go lay down. They all but rushed him back to his room and they put him under strict orders to stay there, for his own good.

John had no problem with that and he remained there, reading and feeling smug until, several hours later, Jack came bursting through the door without bothering to knock first.

"Are you okay? You are okay, aren't you? They said you were okay, but I had to come make sure, oh God, and we saw Connor, and Terrence just about lost his mind, he looked awful, and I had to come see if you were alright, and… You are okay, right?"

John was pleased at the panic in Jack's eyes. "I'm alright. Don't worry. The guy just got Connor."

Jack nodded, looking relieved. "Good. That's good. Fantastic. Okay. I'm going to go check on Terrence, alright? Make sure he's handling it okay by himself."

He walked out of the room before John could object. The slightly older boy sat on his bed, gaping at the door his friend had just departed through. That hadn't had the effect he was hoping for at all.

He was going to have to take Terrence out of the picture.