Kissing Friday
Title: Kissing Friday
Characters: whole team
Rating PG
“Ianto, you are a prince among men,” Owen said, taking his coffee cup gratefully.
“I am,” Ianto agreed, handing a full cup to Gwen.
“Thank you pet,” she said, putting her cup on a bridal magazine.
Can you sue a coworker for harassment? Ianto wondered.
Moving on … “Tosh, here’s yours.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks, Ianto. We couldn’t get through the morning without you.”
“And my coffee.”
“And your coffee.”
He leaned forward, so no one else could hear. “I made yours mocha. You deserve the extra treat.” He winked at her as she turned to her computer, her eyes twinkling.
And finally, Jack, who was casually standing by Tosh’s desk. Ianto proffered the tray to him, his fingers tucked away so Jack couldn’t touch them when he reached for his cup.
Laughter played across his face at Jack’s surprised and slightly annoyed expression.
Seeing Ianto’s amused smirk, Jack’s eyes narrowed and his face took on his ‘mister, you are going to be so sorry you did that’ look.
Ianto looked at Jack from under his eyelashes. “Promises, promises,” he whispered..
Jack grinned and took a sip of coffee. His whole body seemed to shimmy each morning when he took his first sip of coffee, and today was no exception.
You are so easy, Ianto thought affectionately.
Easy in so many ways. His body did its own shimmy at the thought, blushing when he realized Jack was watching him and knowing full well that Ianto was remembering last night.
Jack leaned over Tosh’s shoulder to look at her computer screen. “So, our Queen of All Things Technical, what does the rift predictor predict for today?”
Tosh pulled the program up. “Not a thing. The next 24 hours should be completely quiet.”
“Barring an alien invasion,” Owen chimed in, sprawled bonelessly in his chair.
“Or space pigs,” Tosh said, looking sideways at Owen and grinning. He grinned back cheekily.
“Or mermaids,” Ianto added, glancing idly through the newspaper Owen had left on the couch.
“Or weevils -“ Gwen started “-I’m sorry, mermaids?”
Ianto nodded absently, his attention caught by an article on the merits of rugby versus soccer, as if there were any question. “Why do you think it’s called Mermaid Quay?” He flashed a smile at her. “But they’re cyclical. We shouldn’t have a problem with them for at least two more years.”
Gwen gaped at him. “Why have I never heard of mermaids?”
“Because we can usually persuade them to say underwater,” Jack told her.
“And we write cover stories for those who do surface,” Tosh said, looking at Gwen over her glasses. “Really, Gwen, pirates in the Quay? You accepted that as truth?”
“ - there weren’t any pirates?” Gwen asked weakly.
“Not a one,” Jack told her. “Amazing what people will believe.”
He handed his empty cup to Ianto and climbed to his office, taking the steps two at a time.
30 minutes later he ran back down. He pressed the comm in his ear. “Ianto, come on down.”
Ianto locked the door to the Tourist Office and joined the others.
Jack grinned at them. “Okay kids, nobody’s doing anything earth-shatteringly important, so go home.”
“ - what?” Gwen asked.
“Home. Go. I’m giving you all the day off. I need you back here at seven tonight, but until then, play hooky, enjoy this beautiful fall day.”
“I have filing to do,” Ianto said.
“And that filing will still be here tomorrow,” Jack assured him. He put his hands on his hips. “Why is nobody moving?” he asked in exasperation.
As one, Owen, Tosh, and Gwen looked at Ianto. He shook his head. No idea.
“Tick tock, kids.” Jack bounded back up to his office. “Oh, and Gwen,” he called over his shoulder, “bring Rhys.”
Later, with the others safely gone from the Hub, Jack sipped water from a crystal glass and sighed. “We’re alone at last.”
He put the glass down and reached forward. “I have been thinking about you all day.” He frowned. “But you have way too many layers on.” He peeled those layers away, eagerness competing with the joy of anticipation.
“Hello beautiful!” he exclaimed when the last layer was stripped away. He looked at the contrast of smooth skin and muscle, his eyes glazing over for a second. “You are worth every bit of the effort it took to get you here.”
He leaned down, his nose inches from the smooth skin. “You smell delicious.”
He paused. “Hmm, you are awfully big.” A corner of his mouth turned up. “Don’t worry, though, I’ve put bigger things than you in there.”
It took maneuvering and contorting his body in a way he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to go, but, as predicted, Jack finally fit it in.”
“There you go, sweetheart, nice and snug. Just the way we like it.”
He reached over and pulled a bottle of oil from a bowl of warm water. “This is what’s going to take you over the top.” He unscrewed the bottle’s cap. “I know, you thought it couldn’t get any better.”
He tilted the bottle, watched the warm oil slur up the side.
“Most people would have put this on cold, but warm is so much better.” He held his hand out and poured oil onto it, watching the thick liquid dribble between his fingers in lazy drops.
Jack spilled oil from one hand to the other and started caressing the tender pliant skin. “The Captain always knows what’s right,” he murmured, paying special attention to one leg, rubbing his hand softly up one side and down the other.
“Does the Captain want more time with just the two of you, or is company welcome?” Ianto asked, leaning against the doorjamb.
“I’m always in the mood for a threesome,” Jack grinned, not missing a beat. He wiped his hands and put the turkey in the oven.
Ianto came into the kitchen.
Jack pulled Ianto close. “Thought I told you not to come back till tonight.”
Ianto hooked his thumbs in Jack’s belt loops. “I decided to ignore you.”
Jack looked at him through impossibly long eyelashes. “I’m glad you did,” he said lustfully. He tugged Ianto even closer, till they stood belly to belly. “Because I have something long and hard, just for you.” He reached behind him and held up a carrot. “Peel this.”
Later, after the vegetables had been chopped, and after Jack had mashed the potatoes, too enthusiastically in Ianto’s view, eying potato globs on the wall, after the pies had been baked and the bread warmed, after the table had been set and Jack had transferred to golden-brown turkey to the platter and carefully carried it to the conference room where it joined the covered serving dishes already there, only then did Ianto ask Jack why.
Jack shook his head in amusement. “Took you long enough to ask” He grabbed a bottle of wine and corkscrew.
“Patience is its own reward, Jack.”
“I never did like that proverb,” Jack said, setting the open wine on the table.
“Colour me dumbfounded,” Ianto said dryly, adjusting a place setting.
Jack chuckled.
Ianto waited till it was obvious no answer was forthcoming.
“I repeat,” he pressed, “for those absent when I asked the question initially, why?”
Jack fidgeted with a fork.
“Jack!” Ianto said firmly.
“Sorry,” Jack said. He sat down, gesturing for Ianto to sit beside him. “When I was a boy, before the attack, I had the perfect life. I really did. Endless beaches and oceans, and a home straight out of one of your Norman Rockwell painting. My parents loved Gray and me with no reservations and we knew it.”
He reached for Ianto’s hand absently, scraped his fingernails against Ianto’s palm. “Then they attacked and I suddenly had no family. Trust me, the Time Agency was not a good substitute.”
“I tried to make my own family with Susannah -“ he looked at Ianto inquiringly.
“Your wife,” Ianto said softly. Jack had spoken of her just once, very late at night.
Jack nodded “ - but she died of influenza. I had to let Estelle think I died. Eric left me, because - well, the ‘50’s were not a good decade to have a same-sex lover.”
He twined his fingers through Ianto’s. “I thought I’d have my own kind of family with them, but they all ended with me in tears. After Eric, I decided never again.”
Ianto rubbed his thumb over Jack’s knuckles, pulling Jack back from the edge of the darkness he fell into so easily.
Jack smiled gratefully. “But on the Valiant, I had a lot of time to think. A whole lot of time.” He leered at Ianto. “Admittedly, most of the time I was thinking lewd thoughts about you -“ he wagged his eyebrows and Ianto found himself laughing “-but when I wasn’t thinking about you in the Cute Suit - or better yet, you OUT of the Cute Suit - I thought about the rest of the team. What we have here.”
He smiled softly. “And I realized we are a family. A dysfunctional, most-of-the-time-want-to-kill-each-other type family, but a family.”
“It wouldn’t be Torchwood if we were a normal family,” Ianto said, a smile playing own his own lips.
“Precisely!” Jack exclaimed. “And what do families do? They celebrate holidays together. So I prepared this.” He gestured broadly at the covered food dishes and shining china.
Ianto thought a moment. “You created an American Thanksgiving.” He frowned. “But you’re not American.”
“No, but everyone thinks I am, and it is November, and besides, I can’t remember what we ate on Boeshane.”
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “This is just the beginning,” he promised excitedly.
“There’s setsubun in January. It’s a Japanese holiday where you throw beans and yell at the demons to go away - is that Torchwood or what? And in February, St David’s Day, can’t leave the Welsh out - where apparently guys go around dressed in leeks. Make me happy, tell me that’s all you guys wear.”
Ianto gave him The Look.
“We’ll work on that,” Jack said blithely. “And for Owen, a British Holiday, Kissing Fri, where boys can kiss girls and the girls can’t say no.”
“You’re making that up!”
“I swear. Gwen and Tosh better practice their puckering.” He put the paper back in his pocket. “We’ll find others as the year goes on.”
“There’s Dyd -“ Ianto stopped himself. Jack and he had never had the kind of relationship to celebrate a day for lovers. It would have been nice, though…
Jack was too busy topping water glasses to have heard.
God, Ianto thought, that could have been embarrassing. He cleared his throat. “You know, you’d never have finished cooking all this in time by yourself. What would you have done if I hadn’t come back early?”
Jack smiled serenely. “I knew you’d be back to help me.”
“But what if I hadn’t?”
Jack leaned down, his lips just touching Ianto’s. “You are always here when I need you.” He kissed Ianto lightly. “Which is why we’ll celebrate Dydd Santes Dwynwen this year, just you and me.”
They heard the cog door roll open. Jack brushed Ianto’s shoulder and ran out of the room. “Just in time!” he shouted as he ran down the stairs.
Ianto sat still a moment. What an endearing, astounding man, he thought.
Then he straightened his tie and went to join the others.
If I've messed up any Holidays, please accept my apologies.. I used Google to find holidays, hope they're right.
Characters: whole team
Rating PG
“Ianto, you are a prince among men,” Owen said, taking his coffee cup gratefully.
“I am,” Ianto agreed, handing a full cup to Gwen.
“Thank you pet,” she said, putting her cup on a bridal magazine.
Can you sue a coworker for harassment? Ianto wondered.
Moving on … “Tosh, here’s yours.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks, Ianto. We couldn’t get through the morning without you.”
“And my coffee.”
“And your coffee.”
He leaned forward, so no one else could hear. “I made yours mocha. You deserve the extra treat.” He winked at her as she turned to her computer, her eyes twinkling.
And finally, Jack, who was casually standing by Tosh’s desk. Ianto proffered the tray to him, his fingers tucked away so Jack couldn’t touch them when he reached for his cup.
Laughter played across his face at Jack’s surprised and slightly annoyed expression.
Seeing Ianto’s amused smirk, Jack’s eyes narrowed and his face took on his ‘mister, you are going to be so sorry you did that’ look.
Ianto looked at Jack from under his eyelashes. “Promises, promises,” he whispered..
Jack grinned and took a sip of coffee. His whole body seemed to shimmy each morning when he took his first sip of coffee, and today was no exception.
You are so easy, Ianto thought affectionately.
Easy in so many ways. His body did its own shimmy at the thought, blushing when he realized Jack was watching him and knowing full well that Ianto was remembering last night.
Jack leaned over Tosh’s shoulder to look at her computer screen. “So, our Queen of All Things Technical, what does the rift predictor predict for today?”
Tosh pulled the program up. “Not a thing. The next 24 hours should be completely quiet.”
“Barring an alien invasion,” Owen chimed in, sprawled bonelessly in his chair.
“Or space pigs,” Tosh said, looking sideways at Owen and grinning. He grinned back cheekily.
“Or mermaids,” Ianto added, glancing idly through the newspaper Owen had left on the couch.
“Or weevils -“ Gwen started “-I’m sorry, mermaids?”
Ianto nodded absently, his attention caught by an article on the merits of rugby versus soccer, as if there were any question. “Why do you think it’s called Mermaid Quay?” He flashed a smile at her. “But they’re cyclical. We shouldn’t have a problem with them for at least two more years.”
Gwen gaped at him. “Why have I never heard of mermaids?”
“Because we can usually persuade them to say underwater,” Jack told her.
“And we write cover stories for those who do surface,” Tosh said, looking at Gwen over her glasses. “Really, Gwen, pirates in the Quay? You accepted that as truth?”
“ - there weren’t any pirates?” Gwen asked weakly.
“Not a one,” Jack told her. “Amazing what people will believe.”
He handed his empty cup to Ianto and climbed to his office, taking the steps two at a time.
30 minutes later he ran back down. He pressed the comm in his ear. “Ianto, come on down.”
Ianto locked the door to the Tourist Office and joined the others.
Jack grinned at them. “Okay kids, nobody’s doing anything earth-shatteringly important, so go home.”
“ - what?” Gwen asked.
“Home. Go. I’m giving you all the day off. I need you back here at seven tonight, but until then, play hooky, enjoy this beautiful fall day.”
“I have filing to do,” Ianto said.
“And that filing will still be here tomorrow,” Jack assured him. He put his hands on his hips. “Why is nobody moving?” he asked in exasperation.
As one, Owen, Tosh, and Gwen looked at Ianto. He shook his head. No idea.
“Tick tock, kids.” Jack bounded back up to his office. “Oh, and Gwen,” he called over his shoulder, “bring Rhys.”
Later, with the others safely gone from the Hub, Jack sipped water from a crystal glass and sighed. “We’re alone at last.”
He put the glass down and reached forward. “I have been thinking about you all day.” He frowned. “But you have way too many layers on.” He peeled those layers away, eagerness competing with the joy of anticipation.
“Hello beautiful!” he exclaimed when the last layer was stripped away. He looked at the contrast of smooth skin and muscle, his eyes glazing over for a second. “You are worth every bit of the effort it took to get you here.”
He leaned down, his nose inches from the smooth skin. “You smell delicious.”
He paused. “Hmm, you are awfully big.” A corner of his mouth turned up. “Don’t worry, though, I’ve put bigger things than you in there.”
It took maneuvering and contorting his body in a way he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to go, but, as predicted, Jack finally fit it in.”
“There you go, sweetheart, nice and snug. Just the way we like it.”
He reached over and pulled a bottle of oil from a bowl of warm water. “This is what’s going to take you over the top.” He unscrewed the bottle’s cap. “I know, you thought it couldn’t get any better.”
He tilted the bottle, watched the warm oil slur up the side.
“Most people would have put this on cold, but warm is so much better.” He held his hand out and poured oil onto it, watching the thick liquid dribble between his fingers in lazy drops.
Jack spilled oil from one hand to the other and started caressing the tender pliant skin. “The Captain always knows what’s right,” he murmured, paying special attention to one leg, rubbing his hand softly up one side and down the other.
“Does the Captain want more time with just the two of you, or is company welcome?” Ianto asked, leaning against the doorjamb.
“I’m always in the mood for a threesome,” Jack grinned, not missing a beat. He wiped his hands and put the turkey in the oven.
Ianto came into the kitchen.
Jack pulled Ianto close. “Thought I told you not to come back till tonight.”
Ianto hooked his thumbs in Jack’s belt loops. “I decided to ignore you.”
Jack looked at him through impossibly long eyelashes. “I’m glad you did,” he said lustfully. He tugged Ianto even closer, till they stood belly to belly. “Because I have something long and hard, just for you.” He reached behind him and held up a carrot. “Peel this.”
Later, after the vegetables had been chopped, and after Jack had mashed the potatoes, too enthusiastically in Ianto’s view, eying potato globs on the wall, after the pies had been baked and the bread warmed, after the table had been set and Jack had transferred to golden-brown turkey to the platter and carefully carried it to the conference room where it joined the covered serving dishes already there, only then did Ianto ask Jack why.
Jack shook his head in amusement. “Took you long enough to ask” He grabbed a bottle of wine and corkscrew.
“Patience is its own reward, Jack.”
“I never did like that proverb,” Jack said, setting the open wine on the table.
“Colour me dumbfounded,” Ianto said dryly, adjusting a place setting.
Jack chuckled.
Ianto waited till it was obvious no answer was forthcoming.
“I repeat,” he pressed, “for those absent when I asked the question initially, why?”
Jack fidgeted with a fork.
“Jack!” Ianto said firmly.
“Sorry,” Jack said. He sat down, gesturing for Ianto to sit beside him. “When I was a boy, before the attack, I had the perfect life. I really did. Endless beaches and oceans, and a home straight out of one of your Norman Rockwell painting. My parents loved Gray and me with no reservations and we knew it.”
He reached for Ianto’s hand absently, scraped his fingernails against Ianto’s palm. “Then they attacked and I suddenly had no family. Trust me, the Time Agency was not a good substitute.”
“I tried to make my own family with Susannah -“ he looked at Ianto inquiringly.
“Your wife,” Ianto said softly. Jack had spoken of her just once, very late at night.
Jack nodded “ - but she died of influenza. I had to let Estelle think I died. Eric left me, because - well, the ‘50’s were not a good decade to have a same-sex lover.”
He twined his fingers through Ianto’s. “I thought I’d have my own kind of family with them, but they all ended with me in tears. After Eric, I decided never again.”
Ianto rubbed his thumb over Jack’s knuckles, pulling Jack back from the edge of the darkness he fell into so easily.
Jack smiled gratefully. “But on the Valiant, I had a lot of time to think. A whole lot of time.” He leered at Ianto. “Admittedly, most of the time I was thinking lewd thoughts about you -“ he wagged his eyebrows and Ianto found himself laughing “-but when I wasn’t thinking about you in the Cute Suit - or better yet, you OUT of the Cute Suit - I thought about the rest of the team. What we have here.”
He smiled softly. “And I realized we are a family. A dysfunctional, most-of-the-time-want-to-kill-each-other type family, but a family.”
“It wouldn’t be Torchwood if we were a normal family,” Ianto said, a smile playing own his own lips.
“Precisely!” Jack exclaimed. “And what do families do? They celebrate holidays together. So I prepared this.” He gestured broadly at the covered food dishes and shining china.
Ianto thought a moment. “You created an American Thanksgiving.” He frowned. “But you’re not American.”
“No, but everyone thinks I am, and it is November, and besides, I can’t remember what we ate on Boeshane.”
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “This is just the beginning,” he promised excitedly.
“There’s setsubun in January. It’s a Japanese holiday where you throw beans and yell at the demons to go away - is that Torchwood or what? And in February, St David’s Day, can’t leave the Welsh out - where apparently guys go around dressed in leeks. Make me happy, tell me that’s all you guys wear.”
Ianto gave him The Look.
“We’ll work on that,” Jack said blithely. “And for Owen, a British Holiday, Kissing Fri, where boys can kiss girls and the girls can’t say no.”
“You’re making that up!”
“I swear. Gwen and Tosh better practice their puckering.” He put the paper back in his pocket. “We’ll find others as the year goes on.”
“There’s Dyd -“ Ianto stopped himself. Jack and he had never had the kind of relationship to celebrate a day for lovers. It would have been nice, though…
Jack was too busy topping water glasses to have heard.
God, Ianto thought, that could have been embarrassing. He cleared his throat. “You know, you’d never have finished cooking all this in time by yourself. What would you have done if I hadn’t come back early?”
Jack smiled serenely. “I knew you’d be back to help me.”
“But what if I hadn’t?”
Jack leaned down, his lips just touching Ianto’s. “You are always here when I need you.” He kissed Ianto lightly. “Which is why we’ll celebrate Dydd Santes Dwynwen this year, just you and me.”
They heard the cog door roll open. Jack brushed Ianto’s shoulder and ran out of the room. “Just in time!” he shouted as he ran down the stairs.
Ianto sat still a moment. What an endearing, astounding man, he thought.
Then he straightened his tie and went to join the others.
If I've messed up any Holidays, please accept my apologies.. I used Google to find holidays, hope they're right.