Title: Things To Regret
Author: JE / immortalje
Pairing: pre-slash Ianto/Jack, past Jack/Doctor
Summary: Jack watches Ianto shower, pondering about his relationship with Ianto and how it might never be.
Rating: FRM
Beta: nobody
Warnings/Spoilers: voyeurism, Spoilers for Cyberwoman
Challenge: 10prompts @ IJ
Prompt: 01. spying
Words: 530

Whenever Ianto used the showers at the hub, Jack made sure to watch the security feed of the room. Everybody knew that none of the others had doubts about watching things like that when they happen upon them, but what he had kept well hidden so far is that he intentionally watched Ianto shower (not to mention making sure that the others couldn't spy).

He couldn't get enough of spying on his almost lover washing himself, imagining it were his own hands that were wandering over the lean and just slightly muscled body. He imagined how washing Ianto's back led to other things, but had to remind himself that things were more difficult than that.

There had always been something between them, lurking in the shadows until it had come to the light of day. They had taken tentative steps towards a relationship and then Ianto's girlfriend in the cellar had been revealed.

Jack didn't like thinking of that day. It had ended in a destroyed hub, broken trust and the death of Ianto's girlfriend. Not to mention a whole lot of words that still stood between them, creating a large rift.

As Jack watched Ianto lean down to ash his legs, Jack pondered about how out of control things had been that day. He stood by what his decisions, it was necessary to save them all after all, but he knew that he had overreacted as well. Killing Lisa was unavoidable, sending Ianto to do so and in the way he did it, certainly wasn't. Neither had he handled Ianto right afterwards.

How could he have though? He had trusted Ianto, had given him his heart and been willing to commit even with the knowledge that he'd have to watch Ianto grow old and die. Realising that he hadn't been the one to hold Ianto's heart in return had hurt and that wasn't even taking into account the betrayal and deception he had been faced with on top of it.

In that moment he had realised that Ianto meant as much, if not more, than the Doctor did to him. The only time he had felt as hurt as he had felt that moment, had been when he had watched the TARDIS leave him behind on Satellite 5 in the year 200,100.

How was he supposed to tell that Ianto? It wasn’t his style to open up that wide to anyone. Not even the Doctor would have seen that much of him being bared open.

The fact that things had stagnated between Ianto and him after that fateful day was frustrating him slowly, but surely and watching Ianto shower was starting to become painful, always reminding him what he might never have after all. It was becoming a punishment, unless he managed to figure out how to resolve the trust issues between them.

Jack watched Ianto finish his shower and turned the feed off. He had a solution to find that brought him closer to Ianto again without having to retort to spying. Or was he simply doomed to watch on the sidelines as everybody around him was happy with their live while he spent his in eternal loneliness?

The End