Title: Don't Say You Love Me
By: ebonyjet
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Note: Thank you to my beta Bonzodog.
Summary: Jack/Ianto have a fight.

***

God, there he was Ianto Jones in his perfect suite and tie wandering around making the coffee. How did he do that? How did the wonderful example of manhood all way make Jack feel so... desperate? Jack wanted him, no needed. Needed that wonderful feeling when the Welsh mans skin connected with his own, the tingle that shot up his spin every time Ianto's head moved even a tiny bit in he direction made him feel so important. I was like the feeling he'd got when he first stepped into the Doctors Tardis, like every thing is new and wonderful an adventure.

Ianto bowed his head and turned in his direction carrying a plain black mug of coffee,
"Sir? Are you ok Sir?"
God, Jack loved the was his voice sounded loved the way Ianto's perfect tongue moved him his perfect mouth to form those beautiful Welsh vowels.
"Sir?" Ianto asked again looking down at him and placing a soft hand on the other mans shoulder. Jack closed his eyes for a moment smiling before looking around to make shore now one was around. As Ianto placed the cut on his desk Jack pounced, leaping from his chair to turn Ianto around so his well formed Welsh bum was just on the edge of his desk. Running an eager hand throw the dark hair that covered Ianto's head and kissing him more passionately then he thought was really possible. Ianto returned the kiss with a little interest adding his tongue to Jacks mouth. They where just two lonely people breaking the solace and solitude of there lives to join if only for a few seconds in complete bliss. When the kiss broke Jack gazed into those light blue eyes he knew so well and smiled, "Speak to me."
Ianto looked confused and fronded.
"Just talk to me... I need to hear that voice... touch that flesh, I need you Ianto, I want you!" Jack pressed him self against Ianto's body feeling the warmth that came from there touch.
"I don't know what you want me to say sir." Ianto informed him leaning in for another kiss.
"Any thing... Anything you want Ianto."
"I love you."
"WHAT?!" Jack let go of Ianto and backed away, glaring back at him, "What did you just say To me?!"
"I said I love you Jack!"
"Don't!" Jack pointed a finger suddenly angry his face twisting in to a look of white-hot rage, "Don't ever say that ever again!"
"But I..." Ianto felt like crying as his heart sank into his shoes.
" People who love me leave! Don't love me!" Jack shouted at him, "Don't! Now get the hell out of my office!"
Ianto opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it turning to run from the room, muttering, "I'm sorry as he past Jack, "I can't help it."

***

Ianto kept his ice blue sorrow filled eyes fixed on the floor as he walked thought the hub, ignoring Toshiko's gentle voice asking him, "Are you ok, Ianto?" and Gwen's protesting noise as he point blank refused to take her now empty coffee cup. He still refused to raise his eyes from the floor when Owen deliberately side stepped around a desk to block his way out of the main area in the Torchwood hub.

"Oi, Yan mate, you feel like working some coffee magic? I'm bloody parched."

"Owen, I'm done for the day. I'm going home. You know where the kettle is." Ianto replied, still without looking at anyone and hunching his shoulders in his shy and apologetic way, that he always seemed to do.

"Aww come on Yan. No one makes a cupper quite like you!" Owen begged, attempting to do puppy dog eyes but just ending up looking as if some one had just poked him in the eyes. Ianto sighed, knowing quite well he wasn't done for the day and that by leaving it would mean all the others would have to stay at work for another two hours on top of there own work time. He couldn't do that to Gwen and Tosh.



Gwen was supposed to be going out with her long suffering boyfriend, and although Ianto would never voice an opinion of this, he believed that if Gwen was his girlfriend and all she did was run off to work or didn't tell him where she was going, he would of left her a while ago. Toshiko had an engagement. She was meant to be going to her grandfather's house for some kind of party. Owen and Jack, however, the Welshman decided he would have been happy to leave them working to the small hours if it meant he didn't have to see Jack for the rest of the day.



He was just so embarrassed. Out of all the bloody things he could have said to Jack, all the words and languages in the universes he could have used, he had to tell the American how he felt! He couldn't just have done what he usually did, and told Jack those words in a different language his boss didn't understand! Welsh would have done. "Dw i'n dy garu di". Or Mandarin. He was sure his boss couldn't speak Mandarin and there for he would never know "Wo men bu hui pao qi ni de, wo men ai ni", meant "We will never leave you, we love you."



"Why are you lot only ever nice to me when you want something?" The Welshman asked, shaking his head at Owen's confused expression, "Fine, whatever."

"You're a star!" Owen told him pressing his still warm but empty mug into Ianto's hands and turned his back on the other man, to walk merrily back in to his post-mortem room. He stayed there so he could at least pretend to work every time someone walked past, by jabbing the Weevil corpse that lay on the sliver table and making thoughtful noises.



Ianto let out a small sigh before turning back to Gwen who was still holding out her cup in shocked horror that it hadn't been immediately removed from her possession and filled, the first time she'd done so. "Would you like a cup of Owen's stupidly week coffee?" He asked, taking the cup from her hands and holding it in the same hand he had Owen's mug in.

"Yes." Gwen replied, waiting for Ianto to get to work. When he didn't she rolled her eyes, "Yes please Ianto."

Ianto nodded and began to walk away. But of course Jack had to stop the Welshman in his tracks, didn't he.

"Ianto, my office. Now!" came the loud American tones through the open door of his office.

***

Ianto felt like turning around and placing Gwen and Owen's coffee cup on the nearby desk and marching right out of the hub, but what good would that of done? He would have to face Jack at some point, and if it wasn't now then it would be at some point over the next couple of days. So what was the point in even trying to avoid his boss?

"Coming!" He called back, leaving the cups on the top of the cold and slightly rusty steps, and slowly walking up and in to Jack's office. He kept his head down and eyes on the floor as he walked around the door.
"Ianto..." Jack began softly, as he stepped out from behind the door and closed it behind him, using a remote control to shut the blind so nobody could eavesdrop on their conversation.
Ianto still didn't look up, but he raised an eyebrow. "Jack, I'm not in the mood for your games right now. What do you want?"

Jack stepped a little closer to Ianto, and tried to get eye contact with the other man. Ianto had done his usual thing and fixed his eyes on the dustiest bit of floor he could find, and was now refusing to look up. Jack slowly slipped a hand under his chin and gently moved the other man's face to his, trying to kiss him. Ianto pulled away violently, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and glaring at Jack, "Don't touch me!"

"Ianto, I'm so sorry." Jack told the Welshman, stepping a little closer to him. "I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sorry."
"No... You're not. We both know that, and I'd prefer you didn't lie to me. Sir."
"Yan, I don't say thing I don't mean."
"Yes you do. You do it all the bloody time! I might not show how I feel, but at least you know now when I say I love you, I mean it. I love you, Sir. You don't have to like it, I'm not asking you to feel the same. I'm not asking you for anything. When I say I love you, its not because I want anything from you. It's just because I needed to tell you. All I wanted was for you to know." He said quietly, keeping his eyes on Jack slightly tanned feature. "Don't you dare tell me not to, because I can't just turn it off or make it stop. God knows I've tried!"

Jack frowned. "Ianto, I don't love you. I just can't. I'm sorry. I would be so happy if I could just wake up one day and love you, because you deserve it so much. But I think, in life, everyone has one person they're meant to end up with. Mr or Mrs right... and the women that was supposed to, and did love you, died." Jack reached out, and brushed the tear that had slowly trickled down Ianto cheek at the thought of Lisa off of his beautiful face.

"You are the most beautiful, and nicest man alive Ianto Jones. The best shag too, and I have feelings for you, everyone knows that... But I can't give you what you want because I'm not her." Jack looked deep into the ice like pool of blue before him. "And by the way, what do you mean I say stuff I don't mean?"

Ianto felt as if someone, somewhere, was trying to slowly and in the most painful way possible, rip him into bloody tatters. Why him? Why did he have to do this to himself? Why did Lisa die? What was it about him that stopped Jack for loving him? He's heart felt heavy, and as if it was desperately trying to escape his ribcage. "What's your name?" He asked the American, this time keeping his eyes fixed on Jack's as the other man frowned. "You wanna know why I always call you Sir? It's not a respect thing like you all guess. It's because I know you are not called Captain Jack Harkness. You were born in the future.......... lived in the past.....travelled through time. So Jack, my question is, if in every lifetime there's one person for everyone, how many lifetimes have you and the Doctor had? How many people have you loved, because they and you were born to love each other? And why can't I be one of them? Because you know what I think?"

Jack shook his head in silence, just trying to give himself time to think. "I think you do love me and I've found the one thing in this world that scares the shit out of you." He turned his back on Jack, wiping his face and straightening his suit, before slowly making his way out of the room to go and make the coffees. "But I'm not so scared of losing you I'm not prepared to try. I guess that make me braver then you, Ay Sir?"

And then Ianto was gone, letting the door swing shut behind him and leaving Jack to stand with shock and sadness on his face, his lips partly opened and his eyes wet with uncryed tears. "Well done Ianto, got it one." He whispered to himself. He just stood there by himself in the darkness that came from the closed blinds and door.
"So much braver."

***