Sorry for the delay I just moved and everything has been a bit hectic, here's Meat. Look for the next chapter of Two Way Road here in a few days!

Unpleasant or Extraordinary Drabbles

Meat

By Wildfire

Ianto sat at his computer trying to concentrate on the work he was doing. Honestly he had no idea what to do with all the plankton he'd ordered; all several tons of it. Well, he'd ordered enough to feed that giant slug after all, and now it was just sitting there.

Well, truth be told, the plankton situation wasn't really what was bothering him, rather his mind was fixated on the stupid argument that Jack and Gwen had just had a few moments before. An argument that had ended with Jack racing up to his office to watch her leave on the CCTV; he really hated Gwen sometimes.

It wasn't a fair statement, but it was so very true. Rationally he knew she was a good person with a good heart, but… well really it was just pure and simple jealousy. He had long ago realized he was in love with Jack and knowing that Jack was in love with her didn't really make him feel all that good inside.

"Hey," Tosh said softly from beside him.

Ianto looked up at her with an unconvincing smile. "Hello."

Seeing his face she pulled over a chair sitting down. "You alright?"

"No." Ianto gave an apathetic shake of the head. "I have 2 tons of plankton and nothing to feed it to. You think I could sell it to a Sea World? We could ship it to them, yeah?" Ianto looked back to his computer.

Tosh shrugged "Someone shipped it to us. Surely we should just be able to ship it back; but that wasn't what I was talking about and you know it."

"What were you talking about then?" Ianto asked putting off the inevitable for a few more moments.

"Jack practically confessing his love to Gwen in front of us all."

"Yeah," Ianto sighed. "Well, it's not like we didn't already know," he added in a cheerful voice which made Tosh wince at its obvious falseness.

"Ianto..." She frowned at him, but Ianto didn't respond. "Want to go out to the pub?" she ventured finally.

"God, yes!" Ianto immediately started shutting the computer down as Tosh went to get their coats.

They ended up in a small bar that had decent prices and killer nachos. Tosh watched as Ianto finished off his third beer in thirty minutes, which was both a little amusing and also discouraging.

"You ever think about ending it? Jack's not the only person here, and you deserve someone who thinks the world of you," Tosh said softly sipping on her drink. Ianto wasn't sure what it was apart from the fact that it was a pale pink colour, was rimmed with sugar and looked tooth-achingly sweet.

"So do you," Ianto retorted starting on his forth beer.

"No argument, but we're not talking about me. Ianto, Jack's a good man, but no one should make you feel this bad about yourself."

"He doesn't always," Ianto said defensively. "I mean, sure, a lot of times I'm the second choice. But then every once in a while he'll do something… something just to prove that he thinks I'm special. In those few moments I know I won't leave him." He paused. "Plus, he's fantastic in bed." He raised one eyebrow suggestively.

Tosh snorted into her drink, "Now that I can believe," she giggled.

"Owen's a prat." Ianto declared bluntly, the drink loosening his tongue.

"Well, yes…" Tosh acknowledged ruefully, "but I still care for him deeply." She took a rather deep drink, hoping the pink of the cocktail would hide the blush in her cheeks.

A grin split Ianto's face. "We're two bloody messes, you and I."

"Yeah, and yet neither one of us is willing to clean up."

Ianto nodded. "It's because every time one of the prats does something nice for us we have this fleeting hope we won't have to clean up the mess and that it'll just get better."

Tosh nodded, unable to deny the truth of his statement.

"Gwen's a bitch." Ianto said, finishing off his forth beer.

Tosh laughed. "She's not trying to hurt you."

"Bollocks! She knows damn well Jack and I have some weird… thing. She ignores it because she likes flirting with him, even though she knows it's just leading him on."

"Well… yes, but she sees it as harmless. Both her and Jack know that there can't be a relationship between them. She just enjoys the attention."

"Well her attention seeking is at the cost of me."

"She doesn't think like that, Ianto," Tosh chided gently reaching across the table to squeeze Ianto's hand reassuringly. "She's not doing it to hurt you, she just doesn't realize."

Ianto harrumphed, and his expression was mocking. "She realizes. She just doesn't care. She tells herself that it doesn't matter because Jack and I aren't serious. It's rather ironic don't you think that she's suppose to be our heart yet she doesn't seem to mind smashing mine to pieces." He stood up. "You ready for another drink?"

"Yeah," Tosh said softly, not knowing what else to say.

Ianto moved to the bar to order them more drinks.

**~~TW**~~

Jack was seething with anger.

He sat at his desk the following morning absolutely livid. Gwen's actions yesterday had been horrible and he was dying to give her a piece of his mind.

An hour ago the need to tell her exactly what he was thinking had overridden last night's decision to wait until morning so at 4 am he'd sent her a text message to 'Get in here now!'. It was now 5am, and he was tense and ready for the coming fight. Perhaps waking Gwen up like that would make it much worse, but part of Jack relished the challenge of it.

He didn't care if Gwen screamed at him or not; he was going to put her in her place today.

He looked up as he heard the cog door roll open, his body stiffening in the anticipation of the stomping that was bound to come next.

Gwen didn't disappoint as she stormed up the stairs, her boots clanging loudly on the metal treads.

"Jack! Some of us bloody sleep! Just because YOU don't need to, doesn't mean others don't!" Gwen shouted the moment she stormed into the room.

"Would you rather I did this with the rest of the team here to listen? Sit down!" His voice was tight, but he wasn't yelling; at least not yet.

"I'll stand, if you don't mind." She crossed her arms stubbornly.

"Fine." Jack stood so that he was looking down at Gwen's face, rather than looking up, his imposing bulk suddenly making the office seem a good deal smaller. "Your actions yesterday endangered everyone!"

"Rhys knowing is not a danger to ANYONE!" Gwen argued "I trust him and I think you ought to have enough trust in ME to take my word that-"

"I am NOT talking about your tantrum with Rhys remembering! I am talking about your ACTIONS during the mission!" He stepped round the desk forcing Gwen to take a step backwards. "You SAID you could handle having him around on the team, but you clearly could not! How many times did I have to redirect your attention back onto the mission? Or have to forcefully pull you back in line so you didn't go racing off after him?"

"I did my job!" Gwen shouted, outraged at the accusation.

"Did you? What did Owen say before everything went to hell?" Jack asked coldly.

"That they have Rhys! You couldn't have expect me to just stand-"

"AND? Who else did they have Gwen?" Jack glared at her, his shaky control on his temper slipping further with every word..

"Ianto is TRAINED, it's different!" Gwen suddenly sounded defensive.

"Oh, is it? Would he be any LESS dead if they had shot him? Which was actually very likely with you jumping out and saying you were there! It proved he had lied to them, and he was being held by a hot head that had a gun! You could have killed him with that stunt, Gwen!"

"They didn't shoot him! They shot Rhys!" she retorted.

"No, Gwen, they shot at you! He chose to step between you and the bullet! There's a difference. Rhys chose to be involved in this mission! It was you who couldn't handle it! And you almost cost Ianto his life!"

"You are over reacting, Jack," Gwen protested. "Ianto is fine; there are no bullets in him."

"No thanks to you! You sat there holding Rhys! Tosh and I were stuck because of the creature and Ianto was left to tackle all the arseholes with guns. Alone! You realize if they had even been halfway organized he would be dead! It's a miracle he's not, the only reason he's alive is because the idiot had fired all his bullets before bringing Ianto down! Gwen, that freak fired point blank at him, TWICE. He just didn't have any bullets! You could have helped him, but you didn't!" The last three words were shouted as the last of Jack's control vanished.

"I couldn't just leave Rhys!" Gwen countered, but there was fear in her eyes. Suddenly Jack looked every inch the 'alien' he was.

"That bullet wound was not life threatening and you damn well knew it! You were just so oblivious to everything else that you didn't even notice that one of your team mates was about to DIE!"

"HE DIDN'T DIE!" Gwen screamed "And Rhys is my lover. I LOVE him and you can't expect me to just abandon him when he'd been shot!"

"I didn't jump out when they came in Gwen! Ianto's my lover— partner. He was in danger too. You have to keep your head and not do stupid things!"

"Oh, don't you dare compare the relationship that I have with Rhys, whom I'm marrying, to your relationship with Ianto!" Gwen shot back nastily.

Jack's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You're right. I've never cheated on Ianto."

Gwen's eyes grew large, her jaw clenching. "You fucking bastard! That was a long time ago!"

Jack's voice was cold, his expression scornful. "You're the one that wants to claim that my relationship with Ianto is less than yours with Rhys. Tell me Gwen, when you told me you were getting married didn't you justify it by saying 'no one else would have me'? Oh those are words from a real true honest love, aren't they? You cheat on him, you constantly treat him like shit, and you lie to him - and not just about work! What have I done to hurt Ianto? Why is MY relationship worth any less than yours?"

Gwen's jaw clenched tighter as she searched vainly for an answer.

"You make me second best," interrupted Ianto's calm quiet voice, shattering the uncomfortable silence which followed Jack's question. He walked in carrying two cups of coffee. "Good morning, sir." He handed Jack the blue and white cup before handing Gwen hers. "Good morning, Gwen." He turned and walked back out before either one had chance to get over the shock of seeing him.

**~~TW**~~

Ianto didn't expect either Jack or Gwen to talk to him about what he'd just witnessed. It just wasn't something he thought would happen; so he was rather surprised when Gwen was suddenly standing beside him.

"Yes, Gwen?" Ianto asked, not looking up from his work.

"I… do care about you a lot, Ianto. You're my friend." She said awkwardly, her eyes locked on the rope burns on his wrists and tops of his fingers.

"No, I'm not." Ianto looked up at her candidly. "The Earth is going to be destroyed unless you kill one member of your team. Jack's not immortal in this scenario. So, who do you kill?"

Gwen's eyes widened at that, her face paling.

"We're not friends, we're co-workers," Ianto continued evenly. "It's not even a hard choice in your mind as to who it would be if something like that happened."

"That's not really fair, Ianto! I mean it's your place in the company-"

"I'd choose you," Ianto interrupted her calmly. "But it'd be a really close call with Owen." He gave her a soft smile to lessen the blow. "If it makes you feel better Owen would choose to kill me too."

Gwen smiled a little at that, though she was still very uncomfortable with the conversation. "Jack wouldn't," she said slowly.

"No, Jack would try to find a way to make himself be the one to die, and when that didn't work he'd kill Owen," Ianto said typing something on the computer.

"Owen? Why do you say Owen?" Gwen asked a little confused on how sure Ianto was of this statement.

"Because Owen is second-in-command and if Jack can't take the hit, it lies with Owen next; its logical thinking. I would actually be last to take the hit in Jack's world. Not because he cares for me the most, but because I'm the least trained in the field so he feels I should be the most protected."

"I wouldn't say Owen's second-in-command…" Gwen grumbled. "You know, it might not all be logical on why he'd save you for the last kill." Gwen said softly, she gave his shoulder a light squeeze before moving away.

Ianto sighed trying to focus back on the computer screen in front of him but he couldn't concentrate on the small typed words which now seemed to swim in front of his eyes. Instead he decided to head down to the archives; he found that physical work was always better when your mind was stuck on something.

He knew Jack would never apologize to him. He also knew Jack would never admit his feelings for Gwen to him. Reason told him his relationship with Jack was unhealthy and not something he should be involved with.

He gave a small smile as he heard the heavy footsteps behind him and a set of warm strong arms wrapped around him from behind.

And as Jack kissed Ianto's cheek Ianto knew that for all of Jack's short comings he would never leave him; not by choice anyway.

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