Title: Untitled
By: cupiecake
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jack takes Ianto home, because he's worried.

***

Jack takes Ianto home, because he's worried. Ianto hasn't complained but he wouldn't go with the paramedics. Owen'd looked him over, but said he could go home. Jack isn't so sure.

Ianto's shaking just a little bit when he unlocks the door; Jack's positive he must be tired, but Ianto doesn't say a thing, just puts his keys on the table beside the door. Jack follows him into the flat, even though Ianto doesn't explicitly invite him in.

"Would you like something to drink, sir?" Ianto says quietly from the kitchen, and Jack's been looking around the stark room. Everything has a place, and everything is exactly in place, and it's startling to realize that Ianto carries that over into his personal life. He turns to see Ianto in the kitchen watching him with weary eyes.

"No," Jack says, and he tries to smile, adding, "we're not at work, Ianto. You don't need to call me 'sir' in your own home." Ianto doesn't smile back, just nods in response. "No coffee, Ianto. You need to sleep."

Ianto just nods again. "Yes, sir." He fills a kettle, sets it on the stove to boil. Jack looks at Ianto sadly, but Ianto just looks away, finds something to busy his hands with - rearranging his spice rack or something, no doubt.

"If you want to talk about it, I'm here, Ianto," Jack says softly.

Ianto doesn't reply for a long time. When he does, it's while handing Jack a cup of tea, even though he hadn't asked for it. "I hope you'll forgive me if I don't, sir."

"Ianto, this isn't -" and he frowns, because Ianto's still doing it, still calling him sir. "This is just you and me, Ianto. I'm not your boss right now. Stop calling me sir, okay?" Ianto holds his cup of tea carefully, watching Jack. Somehow Jack makes the tidy organized space seem wrong, like his very person exudes chaos. Ianto wonders if maybe he ought have taken the medication Owen offered for shock, because it's entirely possible he's slipping. He feels the fog more strongly than it's been in weeks, just numbness.

It's sort of nice, really, he thinks. Like a cushion between him and the world, not like the loneliness he's used to. He finds himself giggling, and then Jack's staring at him like he's grown a second head (wouldn't that be strange? Maybe not for Torchwood, he amends), guiding him to the sofa behind him. His tea spills a little but it doesn't bother him at all. "Ianto, are you alright?" Jack's anxious voice slips in (Ianto really likes Jack's voice, even though he doesn't usually admit it even to himself. It's not really betraying Lisa if he doesn't do anything about it, is it?).

"I think Owen may have slipped me something, sir," Ianto replies dreamily. "I do believe I'm high." Jack's expression turns to knowing, and relief - ahh, boss' orders, of course - but then to shock again, because Ianto's forgotten the bandage on his upper arm (it's possible it's slipped, but he's pretty sure that it's just bleeding heavily again. It was starting to heal this morning, but the beating he'd gotten probably broke the clotting).

"Did they do this?" Jack's already asking, unbuttoning Ianto's shirt hastily, trying to get to Ianto's wounds. Owen's done a good job with the pain medication, though; Ianto can't feel a thing, and he doesn't care that Jack's undressing him, that Jack's going to see and understand.

He just smiles. "No," and giggles again, because Jack's fingers are tracing the scars on his arms, and it tickles. "No, I did it." Then he has to laugh, because Jack looks horrified and it's too ridiculous, because, "really, Jack!" he gasps (he's pretty sure this is hysterics, but it feels rather far away anyway). "There's stuff in the bathroom, plasters and antiseptic," he tells Jack, because Jack's trying to use his shirt, and Ianto won't have that.

Jack gets up clumsily from his knees, disappears into the bathroom. It's just as neat as the rest of the flat, everything in its place. Just as Ianto says, in the cabinet there's bandages and antiseptic. Sleeping pills from Owen. Antidepressants from someone else, three of them, Seroxat and Lustral and Ativan (the last marked "panic attacks"). Latex gloves, and scapels, neatly on the shelf like they belong there with Ianto's toothpaste, shaving supplies, comb, hair gel. Like there's nothing out of the ordinary.

Jack takes the bandages and antiseptic and closes the door on the rest, remembering the blood dripping down Ianto's arm because he can still hear Ianto laughing in the other room, hysterical and humorless.

Ianto's got sterile gauze to clean up the blood, and iodine wipes, and then Jack can wrap Ianto's arm, cover the surgically precise slices. He's silent, and disbelieving, because how could he have known how bad it was, and he ought to have known, because it's Ianto. Ianto's watching him carefully, saying, "I clean up after you and say nothing, not even when it's your blood I'm cleaning up, your brains on the wall, because you're just the same as me," and suddenly he's not laughing anymore, he's sobbing, tears streaming down his face.

Jack doesn't have a response to that; he doesn't have any clue what to do. So he climbs up next to Ianto; pulls the blanket from across the back (so neat, folded exactly in half, lines as straight as Ianto can make them without using a level, because his psychiatrist has forbidden them) and wraps it around Ianto, and holds him tight.

Jack murmurs soothing words, strokes Ianto's hair, presses a kiss to Ianto's temple; Ianto's tears seep through his shirt, his hands clutching fistfuls of the thin cotton. Jack's admired Ianto's slim wrists, long fingers, lithe body, but he's never before realized how fragile Ianto is, how young Ianto is; Ianto's always hiding behind his formality, taking things cooly and rationally behind cups of coffee. Today he's come completely undone. The cannibals have unraveled him, and now Jack can see so much that's been hidden. It's terrifying that Ianto keeps surprising him, how little he knows about Ianto, and how much he knows about him now.

Ianto slowly slips into sleep in Jack's arms, but Jack's wide awake, wondering how he can ever put things back together again.

***