Locks, Keys, Vaults

The week had been weird.

No, no, wait! Scratch that! It had been more than just weird. It'd been downright strange, curious, peculiar, funny, bizarre, uncanny, and extraordinarily perplexing that Jack Harkness wanted nothing more than to return to the Hub, crawl into his manhole beneath his office, and sleep for the next three days straight. Even his tiny little camp bed was starting to sound ridiculously good, and it only ever did that when he was way beyond tired. Strange, Jack thought, that he hadn't noticed until he'd blow way past the point of being tired and straight into exhaustion.

But instead, Jack had come back to the Hub to find Ianto talking to someone who shouldn't have been there. Someone very, very un-welcomed.

Well, to be honest, neither of them should have been there. He'd given the day off to the rest of his team after their latest encounter with some race of aliens that had been extinct for quite a long time, a singular pod ship having been caught in the Rift and then spat out here in Cardiff. The aliens in question had then proceeded to do what they were supposed to, which was to capture, catalogue, and then collect unknown species. Gwen had called their ship an Ark, and later upon seeing it for himself when the faulty cloaking device failed, he'd have to agree. Noah's Ark was an apt representation for what these tenacious little guys did. When he'd figured out finally that they were Yagamir'r -which was the closest English representation of their names possible- he'd easily been able to solve their problem before the Rift had flared and swallowed the ship once more. It have left his decidedly unease for the remainder of the evening.

Now something else was doing a good job at filling their spot.

And it was sitting in one of his office chairs.

"Ah, Captain Harkness." Mycroft Holmes practically purred upon spotting him in the doorway, his eyes watching with a distinct edge as Ianto rose to presumably fetch more coffee. "I hear you've been having some minor problems with a race of collectors, but that it had a satisfactory end. Ianto has been telling me all about it."

"Minor problems doesn't even begin to cover it. That word is an abomination when applied to this job." Jack said with a sigh before sitting in his own desk chair, across the way from where Holmes had arranged himself to presumably wait and then chat with Ianto. "But in the end everything resolved itself, so I suppose it is fair to say that it had a satisfactory end."

"Quite." Holmes closed his eyes for a moment, a lull before the storm. "But of course, that's not why I'm here. Your pursuit of fleeing refugees is hardly my concern."

"Oh? Could have fooled me." Jack snarked back, temper flaring slightly where it normally wouldn't, the round of known-twenty-questions only fueling the fires of his already shortened temper. "And what do you want, exactly?"

"Nothing from you. I was merely dropping in on an old...friend." Friend was not the word that Mycroft wanted to use here, clearly, but maybe it was the closest he could come up with. Jack hardly gave it a second thought. "But now that that is taken care of, I can be on my way. I'll leave you to your hard-earned rest."

Jack didn't care much what Mycroft was talking about until it clicked in his head just who this friend was. And just why he'd probably dropped by when Jack wasn't in.

That sneaky bastard.

"Goodnight, Captain Harkness." Holmes smirked at Ianto, who had once again come up behind both of them silently, a nod in his direction as he stood, the ever-present umbrella clutched tight like a child, his eyes sparkling with something devious. "Do think about my offer, Mr. Jones. I can be quite generous when the mood strikes me. Your help wouldn't be unrewarded."

Ianto inclined his head but remained silent, watching, doing what he did best.

Holmes continued to meet his stare as Ianto showed him out.

Jack just glared daggers at the man's suited back.

And later when Jack demanded answers from Ianto -perhaps during or after certain physical activities that could be taken as signs of dominance and or possessiveness- he would remain just as silent. Just as casually stoic as he always was when certain bits of himself were prodded or poked.

Ianto's secrets were his own, and though Jack wanted them, they weren't his to take.

But Jack had a feeling he knew what Holmes had wanted, and he wasn't getting Ianto in any way, shape, form, or fashion in this or any future. Ever. Not over Jack's dead body or the ruins of the entire Hub. Never ever was that...man touching his precious Ianto!