❤️ Torchwood // Janto Oneshots ❤️

Burden.

FYI TikTok banned me today so no more o' that‼️🥶

------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you sitting in my office ALONE?"

Jack's voice startled Ianto, he honestly hadn't expected him back so soon. Glaring quickly over his shoulder, catching him leaning against the door frame, Ianto quickly regained composure and shrugged. "Just wanted a break."

Stepping slowly into the office, Jack left a pause lingering in the air, "With MY whiskey?" Jack circled around Ianto towards his chair, eyeing the glass on the desk in Ianto's grip. Ianto tipped his head back and took a quick swig from his glass before putting it down and folding his arms. "Yes."
"You NEVER drink on the job." Jack sat down and leaned his boots against the desk, putting a hand on his knee. "-And you KNOW I don't appreciate people drinking my whiskey."

With a short-tempered stare, Ianto sipped from his glass again. "Sod off. I buy your whiskey for you."
"-No," Jack cut in, voice patient as he could manage, "you COLLECT my whiskey for me. You didn't pay for squat."

Even though Ianto could kind of tell that Jack was messing with him, he wasn't in the mood to play; he simply turned his head away with a sigh. Luckily, Jack was a lot of things, but he wasn't untrained-- he very quickly got the message to straighten up and act all serious. "You never drink on the job.. Sooo.... What's wrong?"

That WAS the question. Ianto was starting to speculate if there was anything that WASN'T wrong. Tosh and Owen were dead, Gwen was still away, he and Jack were working constantly and Jack had just given that Yalnix baby back to Jonty, meaning he was basically in a perpetually blue mood. There wasn't a day that went past where he didn't still miss Lisa too, but that was something he'd learnt to deal with alone.

"Nothing."

That never really worked on Jack so he wasn't entirely sure why he still tried but there wasn't much good in telling him anything anyway; he had enough on his plate as it was and Ianto wasn't a child. He could handle himself. Not to mention he was a little pissed off for no particular reason-- one thing he knew about him and Jack was that they were both angry kinds of people. Fire was no good at fighting fire.

"Ianto, you really are a terrible liar. C'mon, if you didn't want to talk just a little bit you wouldn't be sat in my office." Jack took his legs off of the desk and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He DID have a point, if Ianto hadn't wanted company a little bit he could've just gone home or into the archives at least. "I don't 'talk', Jack, you know that."
"Right. What DO you want, then?"

Usually Jack was pretty open-minded and experienced with different coping mechanisms, he seemed to prefer taking his anger out on cardboard cut-outs and sexual partners (not that he was complaining) so he certainly didn't do much talking to Ianto either.

Ianto coped through talking and drinking-- he was just fairly certain Jack wasn't the man he wanted to confide in; not that he had any other choice considering Tosh was dead, Lisa was dead, Yvonne was dead, Gwen was in another country and Owen was a shit confidant dead or alive.

"I want it all to. Just. Go. Away." Ianto spat, a lot angrier than he thought he was. Truth was, he couldn't handle losing all these people, relying on a stubborn, egotistical asshole to keep him just above the water and working his ass off every single day trying to balance his own problems with literally saving the world.

Regretably, he'd been quite possessive over Jack-- possibly quite hard on him as well recently. He'd barely even been allowed into his apartment since Tosh and Owen died, let alone anything more personal than that. Maybe it was making him tetchy, it certainly FELT like they were on a break.