I think part of why I'm so haunted by Jack / Ianto can be boiled down to Ianto's lines in Cyberwoman.
"Haven't you ever loved anyone" he brokenly asks jack, a plea for mercy. Jack will go on to love Ianto so fiercely it almost breaks him.
"One day I'll have the chance to save you and I'll watch you suffer and die" Ianto proceeds to be the only character to consistently offer jack comfort after a death and not just brush it off, shows pain at jack's suffering and rescues him multiple times.
Like, there's enemies to lovers, and then there is Jack/Ianto.
In all seriousness, I have a fan fic idea with plot details I’ve been working on that is crying out for someone who knows how to write.
It’s based on Torchwood 1 and the possible ghosts of the aftermath that put beloved Cardiff team have to deal with. If anyone feels the need to write a Torchwood fanfiction please let me know and I’ll share the details with you.
I would write it if I could but I wouldn’t know where to start in all honesty and this story needs to be written 🙈
“ being here, i've seen things i never dreamt i’d see. LOVED people i never would have known if i'd just stayed where i was. and i wouldn't change that for the world. ” — jack harkness, to the last man
I really need my own room to draw Janto. My PC is in the living room,and my kids keep asking me who they are and why they look so intimate…. and I dare not draw this kind of stuff when my husband is in the same room :-/
The mere moments between these two gifs absolutely ruins me.
I know that word of God has said that Jack and Ianto didn't sleep together while Lisa was alive. I know it and I respect it. Because the alternative is, frankly, awful. It's an awful way to begin a relationship, and an awful thing to do to yourself and to someone else. So I understand why they chose to not go down that route.
This moment, however, tells me something different.
Because the first gif is Ianto feeling relief. He got the job because he impressed Jack. His life is shit and the next however long will be hard but this is the beginning of the end. Everything will be okay as long as he can get through these next few months.
The second gif is Ianto realizing that the reason he got the job is because Jack wants him. This is Jack setting a precedent. You come to work for me because I like how you look and I like how you felt on me. Everything will be okay, he still knows. But he'll have to do something awful to make that happen.
So I respect the writers intention, I live in that little sliver of grey area. The area where maybe Jack was surprised to be kissed in the SUV not for the first time, but for the first time of Ianto's own choice. Because it's so deliciously devastating.