Someone to Watch Over Me - Chapter 8
Title: Someone to Watch Over Me (8/?)
Pairing(s)/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Tosh/Owen and OCs.
Rating: NC17 (overall)
Warnings: smarm, sap and crack - of the mills & boon type (seriously), m/m pairing
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its associated characters, and events are property of the BBC and Russell T. Davies but shamelessly borrowed for some fun.
A/N 1: I decided to go all Mills & Boon on you. But no swooning allowed. More talking and the beginning of something else, maybe...
Summary: Jack Harkness, a close family, and owner of a prestigious security firm is asked to take on the task of protecting Ianto Jones when he starts receiving death threats.
EIGHT
He really should give Jack a break, even though he disliked the way Jack had barged into his life. Having suffered such a tragic loss, he was obviously protective of those he was close to-and that protective instinct even extended to helping his former neighbours.
‘What are you thinking, Button? Jack asked. ‘I can almost hear the wheels turning in that head of yours.’
Ianto gave his head a slight shake, his lips curving upward. ‘It’s hard to believe, I was feeling almost inclined to like you.’
Jack stared at him intensely for a moment. ‘You should smile more often.’
Their eyes caught and held before Ianto looked away, feeling suddenly, uncharacteristically shy and awkward.
‘What about you?’ Jack said, leaning back against the counter and breaking the mood. ‘Your mother is a Magistrate and you’re a prosecutor. Seems to me you’re just as guilty of some semi-conscious influences.’
Ianto relaxed as they seemed to be back on safer grounds. ‘Psychoanalyse away,’ he said lightly, ‘but you should know the analogy doesn’t work well. If I’d really wanted to make my family happy, I’d have stayed away from prosecuting criminals and gone to some nice, comfy law-firm’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘You know, doing non-profit law or some such, which would have dovetailed nicely with all those charity auctions I’m supposed to be organising.’
Jack grinned, seeming to recognise the jab at him and his comment the night he’d turned up at Ianto’s house. ‘Alright,’ he said, folding his arms, ‘maybe I was too quick to judge.’
Ianto gave him a look of mock scepticism. ‘You think?’
Ignoring the bait, Jack realised it was time to turn the tables on Ianto. He’d probed and poked and made him realise and acknowledge more than he’d wanted to. He figured he was entitled to reciprocate. ‘Why do you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Work at the Prosecutor’s Office when you clearly don’t have to, and when you could have gotten a cushier job, which your family clearly expected you to do. Hell, you could have even gone to work in the family company.’
Ianto considered for a moment, as if deciding how much to divulge.
‘Fess up, Button. You’re not the only one who knows how to be dogged with questions.’ Ianto looked deliciously tasty perched up on the bar stool, his long legs encased in snug blue jeans and a thin red, cotton T-shirt. He should always wear red.
‘Would you believe me if I said a passion for justice?’ he asked. ‘Before a late-life start in the law, my mother was the queen of those philanthropist charities benefits you’re so fond of. I guess some of that do-gooder stuff rubbed off on me.’
‘And yet, your family wasn’t thrilled by your choice of jobs.’ Jack’s forced himself to focus on what they were talking about despite the weight that had settled in his groin. He’d like to be rubbing off on Ianto right now.
Ianto looked down as if to shield his expression from Jack, stretching his legs out as he did so. ‘You may have noticed that they’re rather protective.’
‘No more so than with you, the baby of the family and, perhaps because of your sexuality.’
Ianto looked up, meeting Jack’s eyes. ‘Exactly. Unfortunately, as liberal as my mother is, she seems to think I am different than her other children. Still, it doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.’
Jack smiled. ‘Well you really didn’t make it easy on them. From what I recall, you did a good job of rattling the bars of the cage.’
Ianto gave him a meaningful look. ‘You’d know something about that, wouldn’t you, Jack?’
He held his hands up in mock surrender. ‘Let’s make a deal to steer clear of that episode in the bar. I’ll admit it wasn’t one of my finer moments. I usually don’t deal in trickery.’
Ianto looked somewhat appeased by his almost apology.
‘You know you are driving your family crazy with your job.’
‘That’s debateable whether I drove them crazier than they drove me,’ he muttered.
‘Ah.’
‘The Prosecutor’s Office was the first time I felt I had established an identity for myself that wasn’t tied to my family. I wasn’t the son of philanthropists Bryn and Eleanor Jones, or brother of Owen the tycoon, Rhi the good girl and Geffin the playboy.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you, really?’ Ianto asked. ‘At the office, I am first and foremost Ianto Jones, Prosecutor. Many of the defendants in my cases hadn’t even heard of me or my family. And, the other lawyers at the office didn’t care what my name was as long as I was pitching in with everyone else to help dig us out of the mountain of cases.’
His voice had risen and his voice was coming faster. Jack had touched a nerve that was for sure.
The Prosecutor’s Office had been a means to independence for Ianto and Jack had been making light of it. Suddenly, he was sorry for that.
‘Do you really understand, Jack? He continued. ‘Because sometimes you seemed to act no better than my sister and brothers.’
‘Believe me, the last thing I feel for you is brotherly,’ Jack said, half under his breath. Ianto’s impassioned speech had brought a spark back into his eyes and boldness to his body language that Jack’s libido was intuitively responding to.
‘What?’ Ianto asked, although the flushed look on his face said he’d heard Jack.
‘Did you not hear me, Ianto?’ Jack asked, meeting his eyes. ‘Or, is it that you just can’t believe what you heard?’
All the reasons he’d given himself over the years not to test the waters with Ianto flew out the window. In reality, he had already tested the waters where Ianto was concerned and, now that he had had a taste of him, he wanted more.
Ianto gave a laugh that sounded forced. ‘I imagine it was hard to feel brotherly when I was a thorn in your side.’
Jack pushed back from the counter. ‘Loss of courage isn’t something I’d imagine I’d ever have to accuse you of.’
They were alone in the mountains together at the getaway cottage Jack had recently finished building and where he’d brought no one else. Suddenly, he didn’t give a damn about the consequences of getting romantically involved with Ianto. All that mattered was now.
The threat he’d gotten in the mail, the proof that some nut had been watching him, waiting to strike, all that hammered home that he could have lost him already. He’d be damned if he was going to wait any longer wondering what might be.
Ianto straightened on the stool, his brows arching. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘Don’t you?’ Jack asked softly. With two strides, he was in front of him, within touching distance. To Ianto’s credit, he stayed where he was, the look on his face similar to when he was just about to verbally pounce.
Jack almost smiled and reached out to touch him.
‘Don’t,’ Ianto breathed. It wasn’t fear in his eyes-or panic-but a mix of emotions.
‘Why not?’ The urge to touch Ianto was overwhelming and there didn’t seem to be a reason why he shouldn’t. ‘Because your brothers and sister would beat me to a pulp?’ He touched Ianto’s face and caressed his lower lip. ‘I think I’ll risk it.’