Torchwood FF: 4 ways things unexpectedly didn’t lead to an orgy (and 1 way they unexpectedly did)
Title: Four ways things unexpectedly didn’t lead to an orgy (and one way they unexpectedly did)
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Team. Explicit het and slash only in the last, but implications long before that.
Rating: R. Not kidding guys
Genre: Drama/Humour
Length: 2,500 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to RTD and the BBC.
Spoilers: Up to end of S1
Summary: Again: take the title literally. Four fannish cliches that should lead to an orgy, and the way it eventually happened without any help.
1
Jack wasn’t sure which of them had decided to be chivalrous. It didn’t matter much - whichever one of them had started it, the other wouldn’t have been able to take being shown up. So the girls were huddled together in the centre, with Ianto and Owen on the outside.
Given that the two of them were rake-thin, with Owen in a t-shirt and Ianto in his shirt sleeves, it mightn’t have been their brightest idea. In the damp air, Owen shivered.
Jack watched with curiosity as they managed to wedge themselves even tighter together. Tosh’s head rested in the crook of Gwen’s shoulder, Gwen twisting herself sideways to curl the two of them around each other like one of those optical illusions where you couldn’t see where one ended and the other began. When they had turned, Ianto’s arm could stretch the whole way across them. His hand skittered, once, across the bare skin above Owen’s elbow. Owen’s face was buried in Gwen’s hair, but Jack could still see him jolt. After a moment, Ianto’s hand returned to where it was, stroking up and down that small patch of skin, and intruding no further.
Their breathing slowed, and Jack’s pacing slowed with it. He draped the heavy great coat over Owen’s bare arms, and laughed at the low moan of appreciation. Ianto stopped moving long enough for Jack to settle behind him and map his limbs onto Ianto’s. They resumed the pattern, Ianto and Jack’s hands over the top of Gwen and resting on Owen’s arm, Owen’s fingers rubbing warmth down Tosh’s wrist. They could worry about getting out in the morning, when it wasn’t so cold to be alone.
* * *
2
The hub looked like a monument to the ill effects of drug use. Particularly alien drugs, of unknown properties, in your place of work. There was an impressive - and colourful - stain on the roof, of all places. Thankfully it had missed Myfanwy, although she now appeared to be trying to lick it. The mark was directly above Owen’s workstation, and the equally colourful chemicals he had spread liberally over it, so chances seemed high that it was their doctor who would be bearing most of Ianto’s ire.
Gwen and Tosh seemed to have treated the whole intoxicating experience as nothing more troublesome than a slumber party. Granted, their pillow fort spanned both their workstations, was in some places taller than Jack, and appeared to be constructed from alien tech that had previously been in Tosh’s question-mark box. It beeped and twittered ominously, but didn’t look to be in danger of actually exploding, so it was probably safer to leave Tosh to take it apart again later.
The coffee machine was still standing, which would be useful later, and was proof that there was some things people wouldn’t mess with, even while stoned.
And the girls had braided their hair. Tosh’s was very neatly done, but only half-finished, which suggested the reason she had been shrieking and slapping at Ianto’s hands until quite recently. Gwen’s was finished, but in different proportions, and flying about her messily. Owen’s fingers were working in the tails of it, which answered that question. Ianto looked as though he might be seriously considering taking Gwen’s braids apart to redo them properly.
But no one looked permanently injured, and there didn’t seem to be any mysterious bruises or strains Jack couldn’t explain.
They had draped themselves, giggling, over the one sofa, and at some point pizza must have been ordered. He couldn’t quite seem to remember anyone going to pick it up, but there was no one else in the vicinity, the doors were closed, and none of the alarms were going off. Jack sat on the floor, nudged Gwen’s knee with his head, and stole Owen’s pizza.
* * *
3
If his team had spent any time at all in the further reaches of even this galaxy, they would understand why the aliens keep coming to earth for sex. As it was, they were always stupidly confused.
“I don’t understand,” Gwen complained, somewhere on the edge of Jack’s hearing.
“Well, at least we know why Jack ended up here,” Owen muttered, clearly thinking he was on the edge of Jack’s hearing.
Jack slapped the back of Owen’s head and walked forward to try and start negotiations. Selling the whole lot of them as concubines was, regrettably, not an option. He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “Gentlemen. How can we help you?”
“You are the one in charge?”
“Of the planet, no. Of this lot, yeah that’s me.”
“We are conducting a…”
Jack interrupted. “…Scientific investigation? Yes, we get a lot of those. It’s almost as if this information isn’t freely available in any standard anthropology textbook.”
He wasn’t sure which colour designated shame for a race that started off pretty much purple, but he was still willing to bet that he was witnessing a blush. “Field research is always most valuable,” one said.
“Okay then. So what do you need before you’ll go home and stop lighting up my city’s sky like a Christmas tree?”
“We would like to take a reading,” he replied, waving a little scanner in the air that Jack knew Tosh would now be itching to get her hands on. Owen too, assuming it was biological and not just an efficient way of making porn. Probably even then.
“Okay. What of?”
“The moment of… completion, possibly, is the word.”
When Jack looked around, his entire team seemed to have taken a step backwards, shuffling their feet, and not meeting his eyes. Looking as though they were waiting for him to play executioner. And really, really¸ the day had been long enough without this.
He held his hand out. “Give me that.” Jack took the scanner, and stormed - alone - into the next room.
When he came back, the aliens were still looking shame-faced, the team were still looking at their feet, and the alien ship was still driving Cardiff’s UFO enthusiasts wild. At least someone was having a good day.
Jack handed the scanner back, and it was received with the kind of delight that indicated that perhaps he had just starred in an alien porn film. Wouldn’t be the first time.
The aliens flew off, the sky was dark again, and they could head back to the SUV.
“What was that all about?” he asked, eyes flashing, leading the way out.
“We were waiting for you to…” Gwen tried.
“Waiting for me to what? Point? And then what would you have done? Just assumed that I would make you…?”
Owen tilted his head, considering, walking at Jack’s left shoulder. “It’s never been a normal job.”
Jack turned to look over one shoulder at them.
Gwen was nodding. “If you asked… I mean, threat of invasion, up against…”
“We trust you.” Tosh agreed quietly.
Ianto had closed up to Jack’s other side without him noticing. He quoted whimsically, and mostly to himself, “Whither thou goest…”, and then shrugged.
Jack took a deep breath. “Okay then.” So he wouldn’t sell them quite yet.
* * *
4
“Fuck it.” Owen muttered again. “Fuck this.”
Gwen tapped a nervous litany on the stair-rail, with Tosh pressed against her side so tightly that Jack couldn’t see the space between them.
Ianto had come right down to stand beside the table, to take the shirt and jacket from Owen, who had stripped them from Jack.
Owen’s fingers ran gently over the spot on Jack’s ribcage where the bullet had entered, and caused his heart to stop. He replaced warm fingers with a cold stethoscope, and listened intently. “Normal,” he concluded.
“See,” Jack said. “Right as rain.”
Ianto had pushed his finger through the hole in the shirt, pulled it back with a wedding ring of blood around his finger.
“Jack!” Gwen admonished.
“I’m good,” he said. “Go home.”
His back to the rest of them, Owen dropped a beaker, which shattered nosily in the quiet hub. “Fuck it,” he repeated.
Ianto bent down to find the dustpan and brush. “I’ll get it.”
“I can get it,” Owen said.
“It’s okay.”
“I can fix my own bloody messes, Ianto!”
At ground level, they nearly butted heads. Leant foreheads together for a brief moment instead, and rose as one. A hand each on Jack’s back, they pointed him upstairs. “You should get some rest,” Ianto said.
“I’m fine,” he protested again.
“We’re not,” Gwen said, quietly, when he had reached her and Tosh.
Tosh touched his shoulder gingerly. “You were dead.”
“Not the first time,” he said.
“That’s sort of the point, now, isn’t it?” Owen’s voice was still unsteady.
Gwen smiled brightly. “Well, come on then.” She walked off towards the stairs to the kitchen.
“Should I make coffee?” Ianto asked.
She shook her head. “It’s always hot chocolate for slumber parties, Ianto, did no one ever teach you that? Chocolate of any kind, really.”
They walked off in different directions, only Owen left standing beside Jack. He took another opportunity to check heart beat and lack of blood loss. Jack considered making a break for his office and hoping they wouldn’t follow him down to bed. Or hoping they would follow him, and would stop flapping around him like he was about to fall over.
Except that when he looked to hear where the thumping noise was coming from, Tosh was dragging up the duvets from the medical suite. She settled them about the floor like a demented nest, possibly for the pterodactyl, and patted the floor invitingly.
Gwen approved whole-heartedly when she and Ianto returned with steaming and too-sweet cocoa. “Perfect,” she concluded.
“You can’t seriously want us to sleep on the floor, Gwen,” Owen complained. Ianto didn’t say anything, but looked like he was agreeing.
She smiled again, and settled down on the ground, kicking off her shoes, and pulling the duvet over her feet. Under the duvet, she wriggled for a moment or two, and threw her jeans out from under the edge.
Owen shrugged eloquently, and sat down between her and Tosh, before reaching for a mug.
Ianto hovered at Jack’s elbow. “Sir?”
“No one is getting paid overtime for this,” he warned. And sat down beside Gwen, raising the duvet so Ianto could settle down beside him.
As babysitters, they were useless, nodding off one by one, and nearly spilling sticky drinks all over the quilt. Between Jack and Ianto, they salvaged three mugs, before Ianto too drifted off, falling easily into the loose curve of Jack’s arm. Four times during the night Owen woke up so suddenly that he woke Tosh up too, both of their first acts being to focus their eyes on Jack. He smiled patiently until they had seen enough and fallen asleep again. Jack’s chest rose and fell under Ianto’s cheek, and Gwen’s fingers pressed into his wrist, where he had felt his pulse jump.
* * *
5
Something wasn’t quite right.
“You know,” he tried, “I really think instigating the orgies is meant to be my job.”
Gwen lifted her mouth from where it had been sucking, and already he was regretting speaking. “You really want to make an objection? Now?” she asked.
“Not at all. Just a casual observation.”
It was just that they had, from what he could remember, been having a fairly ordinary day. Chinese takeout after capturing a weevil that had somehow got into a supermarket’s stockroom and traumatised the employees. So clearly he had missed a signal of some kind - and he never missed the signals - but one moment they had been finishing off the food, and the next he had Gwen’s mouth on his neck and Ianto’s arm working away under his shirt.
Tosh, from the sounds of her, was enjoying the benefits of Owen’s mouth. Another theory confirmed, and at least this was equal opportunity. It was fair, and he was rapidly forgetting why it had seemed a bad idea.
Gwen’s torturous journey down Jack’s body at long last reached the right place, and Ianto’s fingers had finally started tracing down the bones of his spine instead of up.
Tosh’s hands ran through Owen’s hair, working it into unruly spikes, as she arched up underneath his mouth and his hands.
Gwen stood up, and he had always known this was going to happen at the conference table at some point. She lowered herself from its edge slowly, trusting his arms to keep holding onto her. Ianto’s chest behind the two of them felt steady, though his movement wasn’t doing much for Jack’s ability to concentrate.
When he moved away though, Jack would have protested, were it not for the fact that now, kissing Gwen’s shoulder, he could see Ianto kneel behind Owen. It was the counterpoint to each movement he and Gwen made - the bend of Ianto’s back over Owen; Owen biting into Ianto’s shoulder with each thrust, leaning his cheek back against Tosh’s with each twist of her hand.
It finished more slowly than it had started. He could see them return back to themselves, breath slowing back down, heart beat easing back from its frantic pace. Clothes that he could not remember being removed were strewn around the room, and the place was thick with the smell of sex.
By common consensus, they moved, in various states of undress, to find a flat surface and blankets. Then came the first difficult part of the night.
For a long five minutes Jack was considering the possibility that his team was entirely composed of knees and elbows. Finally, when it became obvious that they didn’t have enough practice with this part, he tugged one of Tosh’s arms, pushed Gwen’s right leg, and pulled her left towards him. Like a jigsaw puzzle, they suddenly fell into shape, Ianto and Owen dropping easily into the spaces left.
Owen murmured something in Tosh’s ear which made her blush - which should have been an impossible feat after all that. Ianto, of course, tried to get up.
“Ianto?” Jack asked.
“I just need to check the locks.”
Gwen made a tired noise of protest when he tried to get out from under her arm.
“Nope,” Owen said. “You’ll come back, and your feet will be bloody freezing, and we’ll have to do this all over again. Just lie down, you prat - the doors are locked, the pterodactyl’s fed, and anyone stupid enough to try and break in deserves to get eaten.”
Jack couldn’t really object to any of that. And so didn’t, and so Ianto rested his head back over the top of Jack’s arm. Jack rubbed the narrow shoulder until Ianto gave in, and finally unwound again.
But Jack couldn’t help asking, “Was this a plan?”
“Sorry?” Gwen asked, half-asleep voice muffled against his side.
He couldn’t reach out to gesture - each arm pinned down by two people - but managed to indicate the situation.
“Mmm-mmm,” Tosh responded, although what she thought she meant was up for debate.
“Sleep,” Owen suggested. The hand he had resting on the Tosh’s waist made a little abortive motion, rubbing his knuckles against Jack’s stomach. “Shut up, would you.”
“No plot,” Ianto answered, when Jack had assumed they had all gone to sleep. “We just got tired of waiting for you to make the first move.”
FIN!
Obviously: Huddling together for warmth; alien drugs; Aliens-made-them-do-it; near-death experience (although, I'm not sure that counts for Jack...) Again, my Owen/Ianto and Owen/Jack preferences didn't come over too strongly, I hope? I try to be fair....
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Team. Explicit het and slash only in the last, but implications long before that.
Rating: R. Not kidding guys
Genre: Drama/Humour
Length: 2,500 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to RTD and the BBC.
Spoilers: Up to end of S1
Summary: Again: take the title literally. Four fannish cliches that should lead to an orgy, and the way it eventually happened without any help.
1
Jack wasn’t sure which of them had decided to be chivalrous. It didn’t matter much - whichever one of them had started it, the other wouldn’t have been able to take being shown up. So the girls were huddled together in the centre, with Ianto and Owen on the outside.
Given that the two of them were rake-thin, with Owen in a t-shirt and Ianto in his shirt sleeves, it mightn’t have been their brightest idea. In the damp air, Owen shivered.
Jack watched with curiosity as they managed to wedge themselves even tighter together. Tosh’s head rested in the crook of Gwen’s shoulder, Gwen twisting herself sideways to curl the two of them around each other like one of those optical illusions where you couldn’t see where one ended and the other began. When they had turned, Ianto’s arm could stretch the whole way across them. His hand skittered, once, across the bare skin above Owen’s elbow. Owen’s face was buried in Gwen’s hair, but Jack could still see him jolt. After a moment, Ianto’s hand returned to where it was, stroking up and down that small patch of skin, and intruding no further.
Their breathing slowed, and Jack’s pacing slowed with it. He draped the heavy great coat over Owen’s bare arms, and laughed at the low moan of appreciation. Ianto stopped moving long enough for Jack to settle behind him and map his limbs onto Ianto’s. They resumed the pattern, Ianto and Jack’s hands over the top of Gwen and resting on Owen’s arm, Owen’s fingers rubbing warmth down Tosh’s wrist. They could worry about getting out in the morning, when it wasn’t so cold to be alone.
* * *
2
The hub looked like a monument to the ill effects of drug use. Particularly alien drugs, of unknown properties, in your place of work. There was an impressive - and colourful - stain on the roof, of all places. Thankfully it had missed Myfanwy, although she now appeared to be trying to lick it. The mark was directly above Owen’s workstation, and the equally colourful chemicals he had spread liberally over it, so chances seemed high that it was their doctor who would be bearing most of Ianto’s ire.
Gwen and Tosh seemed to have treated the whole intoxicating experience as nothing more troublesome than a slumber party. Granted, their pillow fort spanned both their workstations, was in some places taller than Jack, and appeared to be constructed from alien tech that had previously been in Tosh’s question-mark box. It beeped and twittered ominously, but didn’t look to be in danger of actually exploding, so it was probably safer to leave Tosh to take it apart again later.
The coffee machine was still standing, which would be useful later, and was proof that there was some things people wouldn’t mess with, even while stoned.
And the girls had braided their hair. Tosh’s was very neatly done, but only half-finished, which suggested the reason she had been shrieking and slapping at Ianto’s hands until quite recently. Gwen’s was finished, but in different proportions, and flying about her messily. Owen’s fingers were working in the tails of it, which answered that question. Ianto looked as though he might be seriously considering taking Gwen’s braids apart to redo them properly.
But no one looked permanently injured, and there didn’t seem to be any mysterious bruises or strains Jack couldn’t explain.
They had draped themselves, giggling, over the one sofa, and at some point pizza must have been ordered. He couldn’t quite seem to remember anyone going to pick it up, but there was no one else in the vicinity, the doors were closed, and none of the alarms were going off. Jack sat on the floor, nudged Gwen’s knee with his head, and stole Owen’s pizza.
* * *
3
If his team had spent any time at all in the further reaches of even this galaxy, they would understand why the aliens keep coming to earth for sex. As it was, they were always stupidly confused.
“I don’t understand,” Gwen complained, somewhere on the edge of Jack’s hearing.
“Well, at least we know why Jack ended up here,” Owen muttered, clearly thinking he was on the edge of Jack’s hearing.
Jack slapped the back of Owen’s head and walked forward to try and start negotiations. Selling the whole lot of them as concubines was, regrettably, not an option. He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “Gentlemen. How can we help you?”
“You are the one in charge?”
“Of the planet, no. Of this lot, yeah that’s me.”
“We are conducting a…”
Jack interrupted. “…Scientific investigation? Yes, we get a lot of those. It’s almost as if this information isn’t freely available in any standard anthropology textbook.”
He wasn’t sure which colour designated shame for a race that started off pretty much purple, but he was still willing to bet that he was witnessing a blush. “Field research is always most valuable,” one said.
“Okay then. So what do you need before you’ll go home and stop lighting up my city’s sky like a Christmas tree?”
“We would like to take a reading,” he replied, waving a little scanner in the air that Jack knew Tosh would now be itching to get her hands on. Owen too, assuming it was biological and not just an efficient way of making porn. Probably even then.
“Okay. What of?”
“The moment of… completion, possibly, is the word.”
When Jack looked around, his entire team seemed to have taken a step backwards, shuffling their feet, and not meeting his eyes. Looking as though they were waiting for him to play executioner. And really, really¸ the day had been long enough without this.
He held his hand out. “Give me that.” Jack took the scanner, and stormed - alone - into the next room.
When he came back, the aliens were still looking shame-faced, the team were still looking at their feet, and the alien ship was still driving Cardiff’s UFO enthusiasts wild. At least someone was having a good day.
Jack handed the scanner back, and it was received with the kind of delight that indicated that perhaps he had just starred in an alien porn film. Wouldn’t be the first time.
The aliens flew off, the sky was dark again, and they could head back to the SUV.
“What was that all about?” he asked, eyes flashing, leading the way out.
“We were waiting for you to…” Gwen tried.
“Waiting for me to what? Point? And then what would you have done? Just assumed that I would make you…?”
Owen tilted his head, considering, walking at Jack’s left shoulder. “It’s never been a normal job.”
Jack turned to look over one shoulder at them.
Gwen was nodding. “If you asked… I mean, threat of invasion, up against…”
“We trust you.” Tosh agreed quietly.
Ianto had closed up to Jack’s other side without him noticing. He quoted whimsically, and mostly to himself, “Whither thou goest…”, and then shrugged.
Jack took a deep breath. “Okay then.” So he wouldn’t sell them quite yet.
* * *
4
“Fuck it.” Owen muttered again. “Fuck this.”
Gwen tapped a nervous litany on the stair-rail, with Tosh pressed against her side so tightly that Jack couldn’t see the space between them.
Ianto had come right down to stand beside the table, to take the shirt and jacket from Owen, who had stripped them from Jack.
Owen’s fingers ran gently over the spot on Jack’s ribcage where the bullet had entered, and caused his heart to stop. He replaced warm fingers with a cold stethoscope, and listened intently. “Normal,” he concluded.
“See,” Jack said. “Right as rain.”
Ianto had pushed his finger through the hole in the shirt, pulled it back with a wedding ring of blood around his finger.
“Jack!” Gwen admonished.
“I’m good,” he said. “Go home.”
His back to the rest of them, Owen dropped a beaker, which shattered nosily in the quiet hub. “Fuck it,” he repeated.
Ianto bent down to find the dustpan and brush. “I’ll get it.”
“I can get it,” Owen said.
“It’s okay.”
“I can fix my own bloody messes, Ianto!”
At ground level, they nearly butted heads. Leant foreheads together for a brief moment instead, and rose as one. A hand each on Jack’s back, they pointed him upstairs. “You should get some rest,” Ianto said.
“I’m fine,” he protested again.
“We’re not,” Gwen said, quietly, when he had reached her and Tosh.
Tosh touched his shoulder gingerly. “You were dead.”
“Not the first time,” he said.
“That’s sort of the point, now, isn’t it?” Owen’s voice was still unsteady.
Gwen smiled brightly. “Well, come on then.” She walked off towards the stairs to the kitchen.
“Should I make coffee?” Ianto asked.
She shook her head. “It’s always hot chocolate for slumber parties, Ianto, did no one ever teach you that? Chocolate of any kind, really.”
They walked off in different directions, only Owen left standing beside Jack. He took another opportunity to check heart beat and lack of blood loss. Jack considered making a break for his office and hoping they wouldn’t follow him down to bed. Or hoping they would follow him, and would stop flapping around him like he was about to fall over.
Except that when he looked to hear where the thumping noise was coming from, Tosh was dragging up the duvets from the medical suite. She settled them about the floor like a demented nest, possibly for the pterodactyl, and patted the floor invitingly.
Gwen approved whole-heartedly when she and Ianto returned with steaming and too-sweet cocoa. “Perfect,” she concluded.
“You can’t seriously want us to sleep on the floor, Gwen,” Owen complained. Ianto didn’t say anything, but looked like he was agreeing.
She smiled again, and settled down on the ground, kicking off her shoes, and pulling the duvet over her feet. Under the duvet, she wriggled for a moment or two, and threw her jeans out from under the edge.
Owen shrugged eloquently, and sat down between her and Tosh, before reaching for a mug.
Ianto hovered at Jack’s elbow. “Sir?”
“No one is getting paid overtime for this,” he warned. And sat down beside Gwen, raising the duvet so Ianto could settle down beside him.
As babysitters, they were useless, nodding off one by one, and nearly spilling sticky drinks all over the quilt. Between Jack and Ianto, they salvaged three mugs, before Ianto too drifted off, falling easily into the loose curve of Jack’s arm. Four times during the night Owen woke up so suddenly that he woke Tosh up too, both of their first acts being to focus their eyes on Jack. He smiled patiently until they had seen enough and fallen asleep again. Jack’s chest rose and fell under Ianto’s cheek, and Gwen’s fingers pressed into his wrist, where he had felt his pulse jump.
* * *
5
Something wasn’t quite right.
“You know,” he tried, “I really think instigating the orgies is meant to be my job.”
Gwen lifted her mouth from where it had been sucking, and already he was regretting speaking. “You really want to make an objection? Now?” she asked.
“Not at all. Just a casual observation.”
It was just that they had, from what he could remember, been having a fairly ordinary day. Chinese takeout after capturing a weevil that had somehow got into a supermarket’s stockroom and traumatised the employees. So clearly he had missed a signal of some kind - and he never missed the signals - but one moment they had been finishing off the food, and the next he had Gwen’s mouth on his neck and Ianto’s arm working away under his shirt.
Tosh, from the sounds of her, was enjoying the benefits of Owen’s mouth. Another theory confirmed, and at least this was equal opportunity. It was fair, and he was rapidly forgetting why it had seemed a bad idea.
Gwen’s torturous journey down Jack’s body at long last reached the right place, and Ianto’s fingers had finally started tracing down the bones of his spine instead of up.
Tosh’s hands ran through Owen’s hair, working it into unruly spikes, as she arched up underneath his mouth and his hands.
Gwen stood up, and he had always known this was going to happen at the conference table at some point. She lowered herself from its edge slowly, trusting his arms to keep holding onto her. Ianto’s chest behind the two of them felt steady, though his movement wasn’t doing much for Jack’s ability to concentrate.
When he moved away though, Jack would have protested, were it not for the fact that now, kissing Gwen’s shoulder, he could see Ianto kneel behind Owen. It was the counterpoint to each movement he and Gwen made - the bend of Ianto’s back over Owen; Owen biting into Ianto’s shoulder with each thrust, leaning his cheek back against Tosh’s with each twist of her hand.
It finished more slowly than it had started. He could see them return back to themselves, breath slowing back down, heart beat easing back from its frantic pace. Clothes that he could not remember being removed were strewn around the room, and the place was thick with the smell of sex.
By common consensus, they moved, in various states of undress, to find a flat surface and blankets. Then came the first difficult part of the night.
For a long five minutes Jack was considering the possibility that his team was entirely composed of knees and elbows. Finally, when it became obvious that they didn’t have enough practice with this part, he tugged one of Tosh’s arms, pushed Gwen’s right leg, and pulled her left towards him. Like a jigsaw puzzle, they suddenly fell into shape, Ianto and Owen dropping easily into the spaces left.
Owen murmured something in Tosh’s ear which made her blush - which should have been an impossible feat after all that. Ianto, of course, tried to get up.
“Ianto?” Jack asked.
“I just need to check the locks.”
Gwen made a tired noise of protest when he tried to get out from under her arm.
“Nope,” Owen said. “You’ll come back, and your feet will be bloody freezing, and we’ll have to do this all over again. Just lie down, you prat - the doors are locked, the pterodactyl’s fed, and anyone stupid enough to try and break in deserves to get eaten.”
Jack couldn’t really object to any of that. And so didn’t, and so Ianto rested his head back over the top of Jack’s arm. Jack rubbed the narrow shoulder until Ianto gave in, and finally unwound again.
But Jack couldn’t help asking, “Was this a plan?”
“Sorry?” Gwen asked, half-asleep voice muffled against his side.
He couldn’t reach out to gesture - each arm pinned down by two people - but managed to indicate the situation.
“Mmm-mmm,” Tosh responded, although what she thought she meant was up for debate.
“Sleep,” Owen suggested. The hand he had resting on the Tosh’s waist made a little abortive motion, rubbing his knuckles against Jack’s stomach. “Shut up, would you.”
“No plot,” Ianto answered, when Jack had assumed they had all gone to sleep. “We just got tired of waiting for you to make the first move.”
FIN!
Obviously: Huddling together for warmth; alien drugs; Aliens-made-them-do-it; near-death experience (although, I'm not sure that counts for Jack...) Again, my Owen/Ianto and Owen/Jack preferences didn't come over too strongly, I hope? I try to be fair....