Title: Unintended
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Word Count: 170
Rating: PG
Summary: On occasion, it occurs to Jack...
Notes: Written for
whoniverse1000 and
justprompts.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.
It occurs to Jack every now and then that he doesn't know how this happened. He loves all of his team, but there's a gap between love and in love, and one day he looked up and found he'd slipped somehow from one to the other.
It occurs to him that he can't afford this anymore - bad enough to watch everyone die around him, to know he'll outlive everything he cares about, but it's a step further, digs the knife a little deeper when he cares about them like this.
There are a hundred things that occur to him, lying in the dark while Ianto sleeps - plenty to think about when you never sleep yourself. Sometimes he pushes himself out of bed, climbs back up to his office and finds some way to keep himself occupied, keep himself from thinking about it. Other times, he stays in the bed, listens to Ianto's breathing, his heartbeat, and finds he stops thinking about those things without even trying.