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Jack watched the dormant figure on the CCTV. Ianto was riding the high on whatever sedative Owen had injected him with, and had been left to sleep it off in the cells. As a sop to Gwen, the door had been left open.
"He's not a threat to anyone but himself," she'd said, hands balled into fists at her hips.
Toshiko hadn't spoken, but nodded agreement. She'd also nodded when Owen had sworn and called Ianto an idiot. Tosh wasn't taking sides, she just wanted this to be in the past already instead of needing to be cleaned up, disassembled, destroyed, and hidden away behind layers of subterfuge and lies.
Dammit.
Someone entered his office without knocking. Jack didn't turn to look at Gwen. "I thought you went home."
"In a minute." It was Owen.
"Need something?"
Owen joined him by the monitor. "What are you going to do with him?"
"I'll let you know."
"You know what you ought to do."
No, he didn't. That was the issue. Jack rarely knew what he ought to do and relied on instinct, intuition, and when those failed, luck to see him through. His initial instincts and intuition had been set aside when he'd brought Ianto on board, and it was sheer luck none of his team had been killed during the Cyberman's rampage.
"I'm sure you have a suggestion." Jack hadn't asked for opinions. This wasn't a democracy. Asking a group of terrified, angry people how to deal with their colleague who'd nearly killed them and destroyed the planet wouldn't give Jack the answer he needed, and if he did kill Ianto, the others would carry that on their consciences forever.
"I do. You won't like it."
"Assume I'm not looking for advice."
"Like I care." Owen was going to suggest a bullet. Hell, Owen might offer to do it, and Jack couldn't take him up on that, couldn't shirk his responsibility. "Retcon him and send him away."
Jack sat back, watching the screen. "Why?"
"Because shooting him would only make you feel better for about ten minutes."
"It'd be a good ten minutes."
"Yeah, but then you'll hate yourself and take it out on us."
"We could keep him on."
Owen laughed, stopping only when he saw Jack wasn't joining him. "No. He's not some puppy who messed on the floor and just needs training up. He's a traumatised kid who wasn't smart enough to walk away when he had the chance. We can't trust him if he stays, and killing him would be vengeance, not justice."
Vengeance sounded good. Jack wasn't going to forget dying at the hands of that Cyberman in a hurry, wouldn't forget the sight of Gwen strapped down in the machine, or the Frankenstein-stitching in that poor girl's forehead. All that went at Ianto's feet. Letting him forget and walk away didn't seem fair.
"I'll deal with it."
"If you shoot him, I'm not cleaning it up." Owen turned and walked out.
Jack followed Owen with the cameras, out of the Hub, out to his car, out into the streets. When he was well away, and the Hub was empty except for the low moans of the injured pterodactyl, Jack emerged from his office and walked slowly down to the cells.
He pulled up a chair and sat outside the open door. The cameras hadn't picked up on the bloodstains, or the dark circles under the eyes. Ianto was thinner than when he'd started two months ago. Jack had dismissed this in the back of his head: Torchwood Three wasn't the soft desk job Torchwood One had been. Lack of sleep, a poor diet, and shoving all his efforts down the well of keeping Lisa alive had eaten away at him like a cancer, and Jack hadn't noticed more than to appreciate the sharp lines and planes developing on Ianto's body.
He knew better than to think this situation was his own fault, but damn if there wasn't a piece of blame staring him in the face.
"Wake up."
Ianto didn't stir.
"I said wake up. You aren't completely under. I can tell by the way you're breathing."
Ianto's eyes came open. He kept his head down on the shelf where he rested. "I wasn't expecting to know who you were when I woke up."
"Kinda optimistic, expecting to wake up."
"If you're trying to scare me, don't bother." He rolled and sat up. His suit was crumpled and covered in brown, dried blood, and his face was blotchy, unpleasant.
"If I wanted to scare you, I'd tell you all the things I could do to you, and nobody would ever know. I'm absolutely gifted at hurting people when I want to." He watched, hoping for some reaction, and was disappointed. Like a sore tooth, he pushed harder. "Big shot guys like to talk about breaking bones, but I say, you can't go wrong with nerves. You can only break a bone once, maybe twice, but I can keep individual nerves screaming for hours, and come back for more as soon as you're conscious."
Not so much as a twitch.
"That's if I wanted to scare you."
"Kill me if you're going to kill me. Otherwise," Ianto lay back down, "go away."
"Do you want me to kill you? You think I'd let you off that easy?"
"No."
Silence fell between them. Jack sat, watching. Ianto remained where he was, eyes open, looking at the wall.
"I don't know what to do with you, Ianto. If I kill you, it's a waste. If I retcon you, it's a waste. If I let you stay, I'm not sure I'll ever trust you again. I can't just tell you not to go in the basement anymore, but I can't let you out of my sight, either. I don't have options here, and I hate not having options."
"Fine." Ianto rolled over onto his back. "Keep me on. Use me."
"I just told you I can't use you. I can't let you go into places in the base that aren't monitored."
"No, Jack. Use me." His voice was dull, almost dead. "It's what you wanted from me. It's what I offered you when you hired me. You don't have to like me, or trust me, and if you won't kill me or let me work, then at the minimum, I'll be doing something useful."
His words sunk in.
They'd fooled around before, quick kisses and fumbles while the rest were nearby, always at the wrong time to go further, always when it was too awkward to ask Ianto to stay. Looking back, it was easy to see the pattern. Ianto was willing to tease, to make Jack think they were involved in a slow seduction. Now he was offering everything he'd pretended to consider before, in exchange for his life and a place here. And he expected Jack to accept.
Jack's stomach curdled.
"Come with me." He stood, and shoved Ianto as gently as he could from the shelf, nudging him and leading him to the showers. "Get out of those, you're a mess."
Ianto didn't object. His fingers moved clumsily at his buttons, and a flush moved into his cheeks when he saw Jack wasn't going to turn away. But his eyes only objected when he pulled away his shirt to see how much blood had caked onto it, and then his mouth trembled. "The room. Where she."
"It's been dealt with. You were out for a long time."
He jerked a nod and threw the ruined suit to the floor. He stood there until Jack pushed him into the shower stall. "Wash off."
Jack waited. Soap and shampoo were utilised, and then again as Ianto saw the blood pooling in the water at his feet. Shame was gone, replaced by apathy. When he finished, Jack handed him a towel. Ianto dried his body, rubbed at his hair, then wrapped the towel around his waist.
"I have a change of clothes upstairs," he said without any hope in his voice.
Jack nodded. "You changed clothes when you spent the night with her."
"Yes."
Clever little details of a clever little plan that had no chance of success. Such a waste. Jack stepped up to him, grabbed his head, and kissed him, hard. He didn't bother with teasing, instead went for a firm press of lips and a demanding tongue, hands sliding down Ianto's body after his mouth opened to the onslaught. Jack took his hips, digging in with rough fingers as he pushed them up against the nearest wall. Ianto didn't kiss him back, didn't hold him, but didn't prevent him or shove him away.
Jack broke the kiss. "Come on."
Ianto followed him, a bit out of breath, and that was something. Jack didn't watch, merely listened to the bare pad of his feet as Jack marched them through the Hub and into his office. Ianto's eyes went to the bare expanse of Jack's desk, and Jack grinned. Oh yes, he'd had that fantasy involving Ianto and his ties, and Jack himself had been fucked on this same desk numerous times.
He indicated the cover to his bunker. "In there. Go."
If it was fear that crossed his face, Ianto closed it off quickly. He wasn't permitted down here, didn't know for sure what was awaiting him. Jack looked for but couldn't see if he was reconsidering Jack's comment about nerves and torture.
"Hurry up."
Ianto's body passed through a quick shiver, and then he climbed down, the towel hindering his legs. Jack followed, closing the cover behind him.
Ianto took in the personal effects. "This is your room?"
"It's not much, but it serves. Sit down."
Now the fear had returned, if it had ever left. Ianto was never an open book, but Jack could read his mind unspooling: here he was and here he would be kept, just as he'd requested, left in the dark like a pet in a room no-one else ever entered. He said nothing, only wet his lips in the low light. Jack had ideas about those lips.
He stood in front of Ianto, and held his eyes as he unbuckled his belt, then slowly unzipped himself. Ianto let out a shaky breath, and his hands came up to pull aside the flies, to tug down at Jack's pants. At the first brush of his mouth, Jack tensed, then relaxed, pushing his cock between those lush lips, letting Ianto find a rhythm, revelling in the sensation and the fear. Ianto had threatened to kill him. Surely biting wasn't off the table.
Jack loved the slapping, slurping sound they made together, loved the firm wet heat of Ianto's mouth, loved the danger of it, and yes, the power as well. This was wrong. He knew it was wrong.
He pulled away from Ianto, pushed Ianto's chin up. "Not bad. Have you done that before?"
"I practised." So he had intended to do what was necessary to keep Jack's interest. That made this easier.
"Take off the towel and lie down."
Ianto was half-hard as he pulled the wet towel off, throwing it into the corner without concern. That also made this easier, certainly moreso than the tight line of his mouth, or the twitch in his eyes as Jack came closer.
"Here's the deal," Jack said conversationally, rubbing a hand on Ianto's calf and moving slowly up his damp skin to his thigh. "You're probably not going to enjoy this much. Normally I take my time with these things, but it's been a very long day, and I don't care. I'm not going to go easy on you, but if you tell me to stop, I will."
"And then you'll kill me."
"No. I won't kill you, and I won't hurt you intentionally. Say stop and I'll stop. Say nothing, and I won't." He didn't give Ianto time to agree or disagree before draping his own clothed body over the naked one in his bed and resuming the kissing. Still there was no returning response.
He sighed.
Jack had been disrobing at speed for over a century. He dropped his clothes in the hamper, because he wasn't a slob, then grabbed a half-empty bottle of lube and crawled back onto the small camp bed.
"Now, typically, I like to start with a lot of kissing. Kissing's great. After that, I like to see what my partner is into. I try for some neck, some ear, some flurp." Ianto's eyebrows narrowed. "Wrong species. Don't worry about it. Humans tend to have similar erogenous zones, but it's nice to know who's got special ones. For example." Jack grasped Ianto's right foot, and began rubbing the ball of it with one thumb, pressing a kiss to the webbing at the space between his big and second toes while Ianto gasped. "That was a guess, but a good one."
"Yeah."
Jack grinned. "I go for oral after that. I give fantastic blow jobs, and I'm practically a professional at cunnilingus."
"Tosh always said you were bisexual."
"You don't have words yet for what I am." He wet his hands with the lube. "I love rimming, too. The first time you tongue anybody, it blows their mind. But we aren't going that route tonight." He pushed Ianto's legs apart with his knees and pressed his thumb against Ianto's arsehole. "Which I have to say is a damn shame, because I bet you'd love it, and with that detailed little mind of yours, you'd be a pro at licking my arse in two days, tops."
Ianto squinted at him in the darkness, then gasped as Jack pressed his thumb inside. He was hot and tight as Jack went in to the first knuckle, and then to the base. He withdrew, slicking first one then two fingers inside, dribbling more lube over them.
"This won't be as good," he said conversationally, pouring more lube into his hand and slicking himself up. "I mean, I'll enjoy it, but you could have had a much better experience."
Ianto was tensing up, which wouldn't help him, but Jack could either coddle him back to calm, or fuck him now, and he opted for fucking. He hadn't opened Ianto up much, and he felt the too-tight give of him as he went in fast. Ianto cried out, and Jack stilled.
"You can still say no. You can still say stop." His breath was ragged but his head was clear.
Ianto said nothing.
Jack grabbed his legs and went for it, pounding in ruthlessly. Ianto stayed partially erect, never getting into it really but getting something out of Jack's deep thrusts. If he'd grab at his own dick, that'd be fine, but his hands stayed at his sides, jerking only in time with Jack's movements. If he didn't want to make this any better, if he wanted to forgo an orgasm, that was his problem.
"You ... "
The word escaped Ianto's throat. Jack had to pause to hear. "What?"
"You're not wearing a condom."
"No kidding." Jack returned to his work. Sweat ran down his face and chest. He felt good, really good, but he was getting tired. He bent Ianto's legs over more for a better angle, and drove in again to that clenching warmth. When he couldn't catch ill, couldn't catch his partner ill, condoms were only useful to help prevent babies, in Jack's mind. He'd wear one to appease his partner, but this wasn't about appeasement.
"Roll over." He pulled out and smacked Ianto's arse until he rolled onto his belly. Then he hitched up Ianto's thighs, and yes, that was the friction and angle he needed. His balls drew up. He was going to come any minute. As a last olive branch, he grabbed Ianto beneath him and gave his cock a few friendly tugs. There was a grunt of acknowledgement.
Jack came, grateful for the release as he spilled into Ianto's body. Not the best climax he'd had, but definitely a nicer ending for the night than he would have thought earlier. Ianto was panting beneath him. Jack groaned as he withdrew. "Use your hand. I know you know how."
Ianto took it as an order, and began wanking himself. Jack turned away this time, not wanting to watch, listening as Ianto gasped into the pillow, almost crying. He took another two minutes to come, making a mess on Jack's bed. Couldn't be helped.
Jack was sore and tired, but he wasn't finished with tonight's work. "Done?"
Ianto nodded.
"Great." Jack left him there in the camp bed, climbing up the ladder to his office. He came back down carefully balancing the items in his hand. Ianto's eyes went wide.
"Jack?"
"It's the high dose." He held out the pills and the glass of water. "You'll lose a little more than two years. We'll send you somewhere you won't be triggered."
"Jack, please don't. I'll do anything." Desperation edged his voice, but Jack had taken what he wanted, and there wasn't anything left to offer.
"I can't keep you around, and I won't kill you. This is the best you can hope for, and you know it."
"Please. I don't want to forget her."
"I don't care."
Ianto took the pills. He stared at Jack, then swallowed them with one gulp of water. He didn't speak again, and his eyes grew glassy, empty. Jack waited until Ianto nodded off, then went back upstairs to find Ianto's spare clothes and begin the process of terminating his employment.
Such a damned waste.