A/N: Woo, the confrontation! I've been looking forward to this one - not sure why, I think I must like making the boys argue, it leads to thoughts of angry sex. Not that there's any in this chapter. Aww :(
Jack tailgated Ianto's car all the way back to the Hub, following closely to make sure he didn't run away. He doubted Ianto would try to flee, he really wasn't the type, but Jack wasn't willing to take any chances. He wanted this problem sorted immediately, without any more distractions.
They parked in adjacent spaces in the underground car park and walked over to one of the lesser-used entrances to the Hub. Ianto looked around, checking there was no one nearby to spot them passing through the unmarked door, but Jack simply strode forward, too preoccupied by what he had just discovered to worry about witnesses.
He said nothing to the other man as they made their way through narrow corridors to the centre of the Hub, didn't even look at him directly, though he was conscious enough of Ianto's presence to know that he still followed. Once they reached the large open area, Jack continued on towards his office, ignoring Owen and Tosh in his determined state.
The briefest hesitation in Ianto's footsteps alerted Jack to an impending attempt to veer away and he scowled back over his shoulder at the young Welshman, silently informing him that he wasn't dismissed yet. Ianto's expression remained blank as he fell back into step with the Captain.
As they passed Tosh, she gave them a slightly panicked look, clearly sensing the tension in the air, but neither man had the energy to reassure her with false platitudes.
Once inside the office, Jack left Ianto to close the door, knowing he wouldn't want the others to hear what they were about to discuss, and moved around to take his seat behind the desk. Ianto followed and sat on the other side, the furniture forming only half of the barrier now present between them.
Jack fixed him with a stern gaze, projecting a far calmer outward appearance than he truly felt.
"So..." he drawled, an edge to his tone, "anything you want to tell me?"
Ianto's eyes flashed and Jack saw his defensive streak kick in. "What would you like me to say, Sir?"
"The truth would be nice, seeing as how you've clearly been lying to me recently. I take it all these trips to the dentist, urgent errands and such haven't been quite what they seem, right?"
"Why did you follow me?" asked Ianto in response.
Jack smiled humourlessly at his aggressive tone. "I knew you were lying about something," Jack answered without any feeling of remorse. "It was necessary."
The younger man folded his arms across his chest. "It was childish."
Jack gave a sharp laugh. "Oh, come on," he said in disbelief, "what did you expect? You run out of here right after a conversation like that and you think I'm not going to follow you?" He shook his head. "You knew what would happen. Subconsciously perhaps, but you knew."
"You think I wanted you there?" Ianto countered. "That's absurd! I've done a bloody fine job of keeping that part of my life separate so far, why would I just toss it all away now?"
"Ianto, for fuck's sake, you're far too smart not to see that you led me there! You wanted me to find out what you've been doing."
Anger coloured Ianto's view briefly with light, the lamp on the corner of the desk a solar flare of heat and brightness, and beyond that, Jack eyes, piercing in their perception. Fear pushed his heart against his ribcage with violent staccato thumps and air rattled out through his nose until there was nothing left in his lungs.
He blinked but the panic remained.
"Why do you care?" he demanded, voice shaky and unsure. "What I do outside the Hub is my own business and you're not supposed to give a damn about it! What about Gwen? Shouldn't you be worrying about her right now? She's dying and you're chasing me around the bloody city, prying into my private life!"
Jack did not rise to meet Ianto's raging. Instead he stared at the flustered man, absorbing the reaction and its various insinuations. "Gwen is safe," he explained calmly. "Her illness won't progress whilst she's in cryo, giving us time to find a solution at a sensible pace. Don't get me wrong, I want her cured as soon as possible, but rushing around now won't do any good at all."
There came no response and Jack went on, hoping to provoke another outburst with his next question. "Or would you prefer I ignore you and sit in the morgue all day, crying 'woe is me' until Owen stumbles over an idea that works?"
Ianto licked his lips and Jack read the answer in the tightening of his features. He wanted to say no; no, he wouldn't prefer Jack a sobbing mess. No, he wouldn't prefer Jack obsessing over Gwen's semi-demise. But he wouldn't say it. Not out loud. Not within Jack's presence.
Ianto looked away, opting to stay silent instead of incriminating himself.
Jack leaned forward, hands flat against the desk. "Okay, here's the deal. Either you tell me what the hell is going on, or I go back to that guy's home and make him tell me instead." Ianto's gaze flicked back quickly and Jack knew the young man could hear the honest threat in his tone. He almost wished Ianto would refuse and give him an excuse to go beat the crap out of that smug bastard, but, as expected, Ianto wasn't about to let another person to suffer for him.
"I'm not sure I can explain it," he said hesitantly, the fight swiftly melting from both body and mind as realisation of his position finally, finally, sunk in.
"Try," Jack pleaded, desperate for cooperation. He didn't want to give in and allow Ianto his dangerous secrets, but he didn't want to have to extract the truth in any way other than asking.
Ianto sighed and there was clear resignation in his voice as he began to speak. "It's just something I...need."
"What is? What were you paying him to do?"
Ianto visibly gathered himself and his eyes met Jack's. "To hurt me."
"I don't understand," Jack said, though he had a sinking feeling he could guess.
Ianto smiled grimly. "I guess you were right about me having kinks after all."
Jack couldn't quite process what he was hearing. Of course he was aware of, and had experienced in the past, what Ianto was hinting at, but he would never, ever, have thought the Welshman could possess such a desire. He'd never expressed any kind of preference for rough play over tender and they'd engaged in both variants enough over the past year for Jack to be sure he'd never seen the same light in Ianto's eyes that he'd seen for a spilt-second upon bursting into that apartment.
"You..." he began, not sure what he could say to that. "Wow." He thought about it for another few minutes, unable to completely wrap his head around this dark side to his young lover. "So it's... what? Some kind of rape fantasy?"
Ianto huffed out an exasperated breath. "God, what is it with you and rape? No, I don't want to be raped; it has nothing to do with sex at all."
Jack's memory unhelpfully produced the image of Ianto standing with another man's hands down the back of his trousers. "But you have slept with him, right?"
Ianto's mouth worked briefly before he answered, "No, not exactly."
"Then how, exactly?" Jack pushed, ignoring for now the revelation of yet another lie that Ianto had told him.
Something shifted in Ianto's expression and the professional mask he often wore slipped into place. "He tied me up, spanked me, then got himself off using my bound hands," he said without emotion.
Jack blinked at the crude description, but he knew Ianto was only speaking bluntly to unnerve him.
"Oh, he took care of me too, so don't think badly of him," the other man added casually.
Jack had to bite his tongue to keep his initial response in, then forced himself to calmly say, "That sounds like sex to me."
"Yeah, well, it would, wouldn't it?" retorted Ianto with a roll of his eyes.
"And what I walked in on earlier...what was that then?"
"It isn't about sex!" Ianto repeated in frustration. He leapt to his feet and began to stalk across the office. "Dammit, Jack, don't you get it? It's about control." He lifted his hands and tangled his fingers in his hair. "It helps me regain control of myself."
Jack watched him pace. Had it been anyone else but Ianto saying that he might have accepted it. As it was... "Says the most controlled man I've ever met."
It came out slightly harsher that he'd intended and Ianto paused in the middle of the room, his back to the desk and his body tensing defensively. "I think you're giving me too much credit," he bit out.
"And I think you're the one who's always made a show of being in control."
The young man turned, arms dropping back down to his sides, and frowned at Jack, genuinely confused. "When have I made a show of anything?"
The Captain shrugged, dismissing the exaggeration with a wave of his hand and pushing on eagerly now that he had Ianto off-balance. "My point is; how do you suddenly figure you need help regaining control?" Jack rose from his chair. "Did you accidentally put on odd socks one morning and everything's fallen apart since then?"
"You still think I'm lying, don't you?"
"Well I wouldn't be surprised," Jack admitted. "But if you must know, I think you're doing your best to fob me off with the bare minimum of details."
Ianto shook his head helplessly. "People generally don't know the psychological reasons behind their needs."
"People, yes. But you're not people, Ianto." The older man moved around to the front of the desk. "Your brain is far too crammed with information not to be able to give me a proper reason for your behaviour recently."
"And I should tell you because...?"
"Because I'm your boss and what you're doing could endanger Torchwood." He took a step closer and lowered his voice. "Because I'm your lover, your friend, and I worry about you."
Ianto's eyes slid shut and he turned his head away as though to deflect the gentle words.
"Ianto," Jack pressed on. "Please."
The young man's shoulders slumped and he sighed in defeat. "Lurrelia," he whispered dejectedly.
"You said you were dealing with it," Jack pointed out with a frown, "but this..."
"She used my body, Jack. She made me do things I would never have done and worst of all, she made it feel like I wanted to do them. Since then, even though I know she's gone, I've felt out of control."
"In what way?"
Ianto grimaced, clearly finding the truth difficult to admit aloud. "Emotionally." His expression twisted into a wry smile. "It used to be so easy to separate things. Now I can't trust myself to get through the day without getting angry or scared or...or jealous or anything!"
Jack studied him sympathetically. For all that Ianto claimed, he had hidden it well, but to actually be voicing it now, and to have been seeking help where he had, Jack knew he was finally hearing the truth. He felt for the young man, even more so now that he knew the incident had struck Ianto even deeper than he'd previously thought.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked quietly. At the same time he asked himself why he hadn't seen it. Why he hadn't allowed himself to see it.
"Tell you?" echoed Ianto in amazement, strength returning not only to his tone but his stance as well. "Why would I tell you?"
Jack looked at him, taken off guard by the reaction. "Because we...share..." he replied cautiously.
Ianto gave a bitter laugh. "Only we don't, do we?"
"Don't we?"
Ianto gave him a look that Jack had experienced a number of times in the past few years. It was one that said: 'You know the answer and I'm not going to waste my breath spelling it out for you'.
"You should have told me," Jack said. "I could have helped."
"How?" Ianto snidely asked. "By coming along to hold my hand whilst he whipped me?"
Jack bit the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping back and letting the conversation degrade into a full-blown argument. He had nothing but appreciation for Ianto's sharp tongue, except when it worked against him, and didn't really want to encourage its insertion into the conversation now.
"By giving you what you needed," he replied instead, wisely letting the mention of whipping slide. He gave the younger man a reassuring smile. "I would have understood if you'd just told me what you wanted me to do."
Ianto gaped at him. "You're not serious?"
"Of course I am. It's not like I'd be disgusted by the idea."
"You still don't understand, do you?" Ianto said, incredulity filling his voice.
"Then make me!" Jack demanded in response.
The young man turned away without answering.
"I refuse to let this lie, Ianto," Jack went on. "You're putting us all at risk and I won't allow you to damage Torchwood like this."
"It's got nothing to do with Torchwood," Ianto protested.
"If you're not able to trust your own emotions, then it has everything to do with Torchwood. Your attention is diverted and you've been letting that man do things to you that could compromise you in the field-"
"No," Ianto interrupted firmly, spinning back and slashing a hand through the air to silence him. "No, I made sure from the start that it wouldn't inhibit me in that way. No damage, no lasting marks, that was the deal."
"Listen to yourself," Jack sighed. He leaned back against the desk, weary from the emotional strain of the argument. "You don't see the danger in this at all, do you?"
"It's no different than Owen going out drinking every night." Ianto pulled a face. "When he could, I mean."
"It's nothing like that. This kind of thing...it messes with your head."
"It was helping my bloody head! It was the only thing that worked."
"Did you think to try talking about it?"
Ianto sneered a little at that suggestion and Jack shrugged. He knew the young man wasn't much of a talker, but this was far too serious a situation for his innate quietness to kick in. "You're talking fine right now," Jack pointed out.
Ianto rolled his eyes. "Under duress."
"Just cut the crap, okay?" Jack glared at him and Ianto glared right back, his obstinate nature never more evident. "You're not going to see him again," Jack said abruptly, the need to establish that fact pushing the words from his mouth without any input from his brain.
Which might well have been a mistake, considering the fury that filled Ianto's eyes at his words. "What?" the Welshman said in a tight voice.
"I mean it," Jack ploughed on. "It can't happen again."
Ianto's entire body tensed up. "You can't tell me what to do in my private life."
"I can if it impacts on Torchwood," the Captain informed him. "And if I don't get a promise from you now to stop, then I'll keep you here until I do."
"Keep me prisoner?" One corner of Ianto's lips quirked up in a weak smile. "Then I guess I'll have to promise to behave. Can I go now?"
Jack closed his eyes at the mocking tone. "Why couldn't you just come to me?" he asked again. "At least explain why it had to be some god-damned stranger?"
"That's the point," Ianto replied in exasperation. "Can't you see that? He is a stranger, he's nothing to do with Torchwood. Nothing to do with you!"
"Me?" Just when Jack thought the situation couldn't get any more confusing... "Why am I a factor?" he asked, his instincts telling him there was something important behind Ianto's clarification.
Ianto shrugged like a petulant teenager, staring off to the side and avoiding Jack's gaze.
The Captain frowned, suspicion growing that Ianto held him responsible for some part of this. He thought back to the cause of Ianto's failing control, to the alien's psychic inhabitation of his body. "When Lurrelia was in your head, she did something to make it hurt every time I touched you," he said quietly, grasping the faint thread connecting all the elements together. "Do you...do you blame me for that? Is that why you wouldn't trust me with this? I said I was sorry for pushing it when I knew I was hurting you, but you didn't stop me. You told me not to stop."
The clenching of Ianto's jaw spoke louder than words. "That isn't the reason."
"Well why else would you go to someone else instead of me?"
Ianto seemed to be fighting an internal battle with himself, his expression twisted and strained.
"Tell me, Ianto," Jack went on, recognising the signs of imminent surrender. "Tell me." He moved nearer to the young man, using his close presence to further push Ianto into relenting.
"What happened back then," Ianto began at last, anguish clear in his voice, "that was...God, I can't even being to explain how fucking good that felt."
Jack froze, the words failing to sink in for a few eternal heartbeats. "What?"
"It was ten times, a hundred times, better than anything I'd ever experienced before!" continued Ianto, animated and yet appearing pained by his own enthusiasm. "I didn't know my body could be made to feel that way and it was because of pain."
Jack was vaguely aware of his mouth hanging open. "What?" he asked again.
"It was good, Jack," Ianto repeated, something akin to pleading in his tone. "You hurt me and I loved it."
"You did?" Jack asked obtusely. His eyes fell away from the other man's face and then snapped up again as the astonishment dwindled abruptly. "But if you liked it so much, why go to some fucking sadist instead of me?! You know I would have given you that if you'd asked."
Ianto dropped his gaze to the floor. "Yes," he quietly said. "I know."
"Then why?" Jack demanded, stepping even closer.
"Because I couldn't let you be the one to do it."
"Why?" Jack asked again.
"Because it would have meant giving you everything that I am." Ianto's head bowed forward. "You said you didn't trust me with myself...well, I guess I can't trust you with myself either."