Yaya, more! Hope you like this! I may have been a little mean to Jack in this chapter because I'm a bit narked at how John Barrowman's been treating Jesse on 'I'd Do Anything' - He's being COMPLETELY unfair to her! -fume- But yes, I will eventually forgive him (probably when Jack comes back to Doctor Who, but maybe before). In the mean time, please bear with me! Its not Jack-bashing, it's just me messing with him a little, don't worry.. I'm not THAT annoyed at him!

Naming Competition

The winner is Lyra the Badwolf with 'Jaffa Cakes'!

That means that I shall no refer to this as Jaffa Cakes and Lyra will get another plot bunny written up for her! Woooo! Round of applause please.

Disclaimer: -ninjah- I own nothing, it belongs to Russel T. Davies.

Chapter 6: Vanity

The closer he got, the more muffled his hearing became, like his head had been shoved violently underwater. He could barely make out of the sounds of his own heartbeat and breathing, let alone the two faint clicks of gun safeties being taken off, almost simultaneously.

He didn't hear the gruff, harsh voice yell at the alien to freeze, to stop what it was doing and back down. He didn't hear the sarcastic mutter that followed and he didn't hear the footsteps as the two men who had come to his rescue descended a few more steps. He wasn't aware of anything around him except for those huge silver eyes.

Until the fingers touched him, sending shoots of pain careering through his skin where they met. His body was suddenly ablaze with the icy fire that travelled violently through him, his mind too slow on the uptake to move away or defend itself. The pain continue, growing stronger and fiercer until, with a loud cracking sound, it stopped, as suddenly as it had started.

Jack snapped out of his trance and looked first at the alien, lying wounded at his feet, clutching at one of its eyes. Then he turned around to see what had happened and his eyes met the concerned frown of Ianto Jones and the annoyed mask of Owen Harper. He took a step towards them and the floor came up violently to meet him.

When Jack woke up, he found himself laid out on the sofa in his office, his boots resting by his desk and the lights turned down. As he tried to sit up, his abused nerves and muscles screamed in protest, forcing him back down into his original position. Even keeping his eyes opened hurt. On any other day, Jack would have suspected a hangover, but as he lay in the dark, he caught flashes of memories of why he was incapacitated.

He managed to crack an eye open and look around him at the final memory of Ianto's face. When the immediate pain subdued a little, he forced a second eye open to fully take in his surroundings. At first, he saw nothing but his empty office, but as his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a figure sitting in a chair across the room from him. It was so perfectly still that Jack had a hard time believing that it wasn't just a figment on his imagination.

He struggled with his protesting limbs a little more and managed, with a scream of effort, to sit upright and get a closer look at the person that seemed to be in the room with him. He almost leapt out of his seat when it moved, the elbows that had been resting on the chair's arms, dropping them down so that the hands were resting on the motionless legs.

"You need to lie back down, Jack." He felt relief wash through him at the sound of Ianto's voice, no matter how clipped it was.

"What happened?" He ignored Ianto's suggestion and sat forwards a little.

"Some sort of mind control. Owen scanned you and it looks like it fried your nerve endings pretty badly, making you pass out like you did. Your mind just shut itself down from the pain." Jack shivered involuntarily at the memory of the frozen fire burning its way through him. Ianto must have seen it, as when he spoke again, his voice was less harsh.

"Get some more rest, Jack. The creature's still out cold from the sedative Owen gave it, there's no need for you to question it just yet." He pushed himself up out of his chair at that and moved towards the older man, running his fingertips gently over Jack's cheek before pressing his lips gently to his forehead and leaving the office.

Jack's hand involuntarily went to his face to touch where Ianto's fingers had just been, and he was horrified at what he felt there. He jumped up, pushing the pain to the back of his mind as he scrabbled for the light switch and a mirror, bringing it up to his face to take in what he saw.

On the right side of his jaw, where the alien's fingers had contacted his skin, there were three burns, each the size of a cigarette burn. He wasn't fussed about those, they would heal eventually. No, what bothered him were the thin blue lines that spread out from each, in all directions. Some moved up towards his temples, some to his lips and others along the bottom of his jaw and down his neck, forming a delicate, raised web of blood vessels. It looked like his face was being attacked by some tentacular life form.

He sat heavily back down on his sofa and tossed the mirror onto the other seat, his eyes staring unseeingly at the wall, his mind running through all his options. He could live with this new cosmetic development, and the pain in his limbs, until his body naturally healed, if it ever did. Who knew how long his body would take to recover? From the sound, and feel, of it, this would be a very long and painful healing process. Still, Jack being Jack, couldn't sit and wait it out when he had a perfectly reasonable fail safe to fall back on.

Ianto was at the coffee machine when he heard the gunshot. At first, his instincts set him on alert, and his hand went straight for the pistol in its holster. After that momentary reaction, his logic kicked in and he thought it through thoroughly.

The alien was still out cold, so it couldn't have got hold of a gun. Tosh was sitting at her workstation, unperturbed by the noise. Gwen was up in the Tourist Office, keeping out of Ianto's way after she had tried unsuccessfully to be the bleeding heart for Jack when he passed out. A blubbering, inconsolable woman was the last thing Ianto needed when he was simply trying to move Jack to his office. She'd received a short, sharp request to go work the civilian side of the organisation, and with one look at Ianto's face, she'd disappeared.

The only options were Jack and Owen. As he headed toward that general area of the hub, he realised that Owen may just have been testing how thick the alien's skin really was, and so dropped into the autopsy bay first, looking down to see the alien strapped to the table and Owen filling in a form.

"Did you just shoot that thing again?" Owen looked up and gave him a very dry look.

"A, you were the one that shot it, remember? And B, why would I shoot it?" Ianto just nodded and shrugged his shoulders. He was half way through the motion when he realised what must have happened, his eyes rolling in their sockets with annoyance. He gritted his teeth and pushed himself forcefully away from the barrier at the top of the room.

He walked round to Jack's office door and kicked it open, not bothering with the door handle. Sure enough, Jack was slumped sideways on the floor, his gun gripped loosely in his hand and his head lying in a rapidly growing pool of blood. On closer inspection, there was a bullet hole in his left temple, and the exit wound was presumably the right side of his head. Ianto already knew what the size of that wound would be and didn't bother to check for a pulse: Jack knew how to kill himself quickly, especially with his own gun.

Ianto just returned to his previous seat in the shadows and waited for the inevitable to happen, grinding his teeth together broodingly.

With a rush of fear, adrenaline and oxygen, Jack found himself alive and breathing, gasping at the air like a half drowned man. He sat up and shook his head, leaning his head forwards as he panted to get his breath back. Eventually, when he tested to see how his limbs felt, he realised that his plan had worked. His nerves were no longer mutinying against him.

He bought a hand up the gingerly probe the right side of his head, finding the skin and hair replaced but still tender as the bone underneath strengthened itself. He slowly brought his hand away, trying to ignore the feel of blood, half congealed, in his hair and on his fingers. Next, he tested the side of his jaw, desperately hoping that the raised lines had vanished as well. To his immense relief, the right side of his face now felt like it had done that morning, fresh and clear of injury and mutilation. He sighed happily, stretched his arms out and hoisted himself up onto his feet.

He barely had time to look around him when something light and made of cloth flew at him and wrapped itself around his face, temporarily blinding him. After a couple of seconds of fumbling, he managed to peel away the dirty t-shirt, looking around to find his attacker.

It was in the form of an irritated Welshman standing across the room from him, his mouth a thin line of disapproval, his jaw tense and stern. Jack caught the flash in his eye which clearly said 'Don't push your luck' and he managed to smile apologetically at the young man.

"You're cleaning that up yourself," was Ianto's only reply, his face dark and his tone cold as he stalked past him. "Idiot."

Jack whirled round at that last, whispered remark, but the young man was already gone.

It was times like these when Ianto became increasingly annoyed with himself. The fact that he'd been worried for Jack when he'd passed out was proof of this. There was nothing Ianto could do to stop himself from feeling just a little bit insignificant when he remembered that Jack was incredibly attractive and immortal. Maybe that was why he didn't like seeing Jack lying dead on the floor.

Or maybe it was because every time he did, his mind started to speculate about the deaths he'd suffered at the hands of Harold Saxon. Just the thought of Jack being chained up and in pain for the best part of a year made Ianto long to hold the man close for as long as he needed, until he felt safe.

Or maybe it was because every time Jack lay dead on the floor, that niggling doubt in his stomach almost convinced him that this time, it was permanent. He couldn't stand to see Jack kill himself so carelessly, convinced that he would return, just like always. It was because vanity had pushed him to put the barrel of his gun to his head this time that made Ianto angry. Why would anyone risk death for a few lines on their face? But then again, Jack wasn't just anyone. Jack was Captain Jack Harkness, and his looks were very high on his agenda.

He just shook his head in disgust as he stalked down to the archives, intending on brooding to himself a little more whilst he finished filing the latest paperwork and artefacts, counting down the time until he could just curl up in bed and sleep.

Jack had quickly set to work on cleaning up the mess he'd left on his office floor, working fast to make sure the blood didn't become too hard to clean up. Next, he went to the shower room and washed himself and his hair, having not had a chance to bath since coming back from the stake out. He hurried that too, grabbing a clean set of clothes and dressing himself haphazardly, as always.

When he left the steamy room, he headed towards the door down into the archives, ignoring Owen as he tried to get his attention about something. It could wait for fifteen minutes, then he would be the boss again. First, he had to attend to a personal issue.

He started to whistle to himself as he walked, feeling slightly uplifted now he was in clean clothes and his body wasn't aching any longer. He slowed as he reached the corridor that Ianto would be in, sorting the most up to date files. He walked quietly along the stone tunnel, slowing even more as he approached the half open door spilling light out into the corridor.

He hesitated for a moment before pushing the door further open and stepping into the brightly lit room. Ianto, as always, was diligently processing his work, already making a good deal of headway after only half an hour. He was also extremely alluring as he worked, his jacket slung across the back of a chair and his shirt sleeves rolled up. On this particular occasion, he was wearing a silk backed waistcoat over his deep purple shirt, fitting his figure perfectly.

Jack stepped up behind him and wrapped his arms tightly around his catch, resting his chin on Ianto's shoulder, angling his mouth inwards to kiss the soft skin of his lover's neck gently. Ianto remained unresponsive in his arms, continuing to flick through the folder in his hands before firmly easing himself free of Jack's embrace and heading over to file the last on the folders on the desk. He quickly slotted them in their correct places and closed the drawers before turning round, hands in pockets to look at Jack. The older man was slightly taken aback by the look of contempt on his face.

"Don't you ever pull something like that on me again." His voice was low and menacing as Jack frowned in confusion, trying to work out what he'd done, if anything, to annoy the man in front of him.

"Ianto… what? What did I do?" Jack felt himself grasping at stray ideas to explain this to himself, but Ianto remained motionless.

"You just don't get it at all, do you?" He shook his head slightly in disgust and walked towards Jack, stopping just before their bodies touched. Jack felt himself close his eyes in preparation for whatever Ianto was about to do, and he was incredibly startled to feel the barrel of a gun pressed between his eyes. He didn't even flinch, trying to stay as still as possible.

After several tense seconds, he opened his eyes to find Ianto standing a little further back, enough to see the new expression on his face. Jack was startled to see a mixture of hurt and irritation, but he got the feeling that the irritation wasn't directed by him. He let himself look deep into Ianto's eyes, like so many times before, and recognised the faint click in his mind as Ianto's emotions changed a little more, to defeat more than annoyance. Then, as if to solidify the defeat, he leaned forwards until his lips were next to Jack's right ear and he simply whispered one word.

"Pow." Then he let the gun drop from Jack's forehead as he reached back to grab his jacket with his free hand and moved past him, heading out of the door. He stopped just inside the doorway, remembering his real job in Torchwood and made a forced effort to stop himself from letting his state of mind collapse in on itself. "Owen needs you upstairs, the sedative's wearing off."

Then he vanished, heading back up into the hub. Jack hadn't even turned around. He was still frozen on the spot, his mind reeling from what Ianto had done. Could this possibly have been about killing himself earlier? He shook his head slightly and managed to snap out of his second trance of the day, spinning on his heel and heading out of the door, along the corridor and up to the workstations, taking the stairs two at a time. Owen was standing there, waiting for him to turn up, a mildly annoyed expression on his face.

"We good to go then? Or would you like to shoot yourself once more for luck?" Jack gave Owen a withering look and turned away, heading to the interrogation room to begin the questioning.

A/N: Plot Bunny to anyone who can guess what film I borrowed the 'Pow' bit from! Well, anyone who can guess before I post the next chapter!