Fic: 5 People Jack Harkness Didn't Sleep With
Title: 5 People Jack Harkness Didn't Sleep With (And Five Times He Had to Tell Ianto About It)
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: See Title
********
The first time was almost an accident, an argument that arose out of a bit of (In Jack’s opinion, anyway), harmless flirting.
The mood in the Hub had been unbearably tense all afternoon, even though no one seemed consciously aware of the cause. The rest of the team had made their excuses and ducked out early to leave them to it, citing a weevil hunt, a possible alien artifact at an auction and a need to wash a cat.
Jack finally cornered Ianto by the sofa above the autopsy room, sorting the mounds of files that had accumulated around the empty coffee mugs and pizza boxes.
“All right, Ianto. You’ve been acting odd all day. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, sir,” Ianto looked in vain for a way to dodge Jack’s skillful blocking.
“If you’d let me by, I have to catalogue the-“
“Cut the crap. What’s wrong?”
Clutching a stack of files to his chest, Ianto faced Jack directly for the first time.
“I’m aware I’m just a convenient shag to you, but it would be considered common courtesy not to rub my face in it. I’m aware you’ll sleep with anything that shows an interest.”
Jack stared in disbelief. “Is that what this is about?”
Ianto took a sudden and silent interest in the pile of coffee mugs at his feet. Jack stepped back to let him through. Before Ianto could take more than a half a dozen hurried steps, he called after him.
“You want to know a story?” Ianto paused, turning back slowly.
“A few years ago, right after I took over Torchwood Three, one of my first recruits was this young kid, named Richard. Bit green, but he showed a lot of promise, so I took him on.”
“I really don’t feel the need to hear about my predecessors, thank you.” Ianto replied, tight, turning to leave again.
Jack’s voice followed him, raising slightly.
“Oh, I think you do. See, Richard was a nice kid. Smart, sweet, good-looking, mooned after me for months...and I never did anything about it. Do you know why?”
Something inside Ianto appeared to snap. “No Jack, I don’t. I really don’t,” he shouted, spinning to face him. “I don’t understand most of the things you do. So why don’t you tell me? Why?”
“Because I knew it wasn’t a good idea to get involved with a member of the team!”
Jack’s countering shout rang around the empty hub, climbing higher and higher until it echoed away into the distance, leaving a hollow silence in its wake.
Jack sank down on the couch, knocking a pizza box and a magazine onto the floor as he did so, wincing at the obtrusively loud crash they made in the quiet.
“He got himself killed, seven months after he started.”
Quietly, Ianto released the files he’d held a death grip on throughout, neatly stacking them on the ground before sliding in beside him, reaching for the arm nearest him, and wrapping it around his shoulders.
They sat in silence for a long time.
********
The second time was just after the first appearance of John Hart.
Everyone scattered, Gwen delighted to have a night off to spend with Rhys, Owen to the bars, Tosh in tow, insisting she was not going to spend all her free time working, and Jack ended upstanding in Ianto’s flat, somehow looking too big for the place.
After unlocking the door, Ianto stood off to the side, jacket and tie still in place, waiting for Jack to make the first move.
“Can I have a cup of coffee?” Jack asked brightly. ”I haven’t had a cup of your coffee in forever.”
Ianto folded his arms. “If you talk while I make it.”
“It’s a deal.” Jack grinned, following him into the tidy kitchen.
As Ianto started the water and ground the beans, Jack kept up a peppy strain of conversation.
“So there’s John and I, trapped under a three ton boulder that’s going to crush us in less than a minute, our lives flashing before our eyes, and what’s he focusing on? The fact that we’re going to miss our date with these octuplets we’d picked up on-”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Ianto interrupted.
Jack smiled, and glanced down. “I know.”
“Are you going to tell me where you were?”
Jack was saved from replying, when the bag of Peruvian coffee slipped from Ianto’s hands to spill across the floor.
Momentarily distracted, he bent to salvage the precious beans. Frowning, Jack knelt to help.
“When’s the last time you slept?”
“It’s been a while,” Ianto evaded, chasing a handful of beans that had rolled under the refrigerator.
“Yan?” Jack grabbed at his elbow, forcing the other man to look him in the eye. “How long?”
“I forget.”
Minutes later, Jack was hustling a protesting Welshman into bed, suit and greatcoat strewn untidily across a chair.
“At least let me hang the suit up. It’s going to crease.”
“You, are going to get at least eight hours of sleep, starting as soon as possible. I’ll hang the suit.”
Looking unsatisfied with this arrangement, but seeming to realize it was the best he was going to get, Ianto watched warily as Jack tried to ascertain where in the rainbow of dress shirts the pale pink number he had worn today belonged.
“You promised to talk.”
Jack laughed. “What, you want a bedtime story?”
“You can either tell me where you were, or you can tell me a different story. It’s up to you,” Ianto said stubbornly, propping himself up to fix Jack with a steely glare.
Jack sighed, closing the closet and making his way to sit on bed. Ianto immediately pulled him closer and leaned into the warmth of his chest, pulling up the blankets to cover his new shoulders.
“This is the only way I’m getting you to sleep, isn’t it.”
“Mmmm.” Ianto hummed in agreement, almost immediately relaxing from the combination of Jack’s fingers in his hair and the knowledge that he had won the argument.
“All right. How about I tell you about when I knew Lord Byron.”
Lacking the strength to fly open in shock, one of Ianto’s eyes opened lazily to assess his human pillow.
“You’re joking.”
“Scout’s honest truth.”
“You were never a scout,” Ianto scoffed.
Jack managed to look affronted. “Sure I was!”
“What, the Space Scouts?”
“Nah, never made Space Scout. Do you want to hear this story or not?”
Turning on his side slightly to find a more comfortable position, Ianto waved a lazy hand in affirmation. Jack chuckled and looked pensive.
“Actually, there’s not much to tell. I spent a summer hanging out with George and Mary-”
“-As in Shelley?”
“Yes, as in Shelley. It was pretty fun, y’know, for Victorian times. We went boating, played cards…I won a couple of those evening horror story contests.”
Ianto snorted, his voice vaguely muffled beneath layers of sleep and bedding. “I’ll bet. Your stories are still terrifying. So what, did Byron base Don Juan after you?”
Now it was Jack’s turn to snort. “I doubt it. To tell you the truth, he was kind of nuts. Reminded me of John, actually. No, I kept my distance, but trust me, he tried…not too subtle, really. Kept ‘accidentally falling asleep’ in my bed. Not to mention Mary would have had my head, and it wasn’t so permanently attached back then.”
A soft snore brought Jack’s attention back to the present. Smiling, he leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes.
********
By the third time it had almost become a tradition. Jack would cross that paper thin line, grin apologetically, wrap Ianto in his arms and tell him a story.
“Let’s see…I was in Washington D.C., in the early forties, and I was at this adorable little diner, waiting for this contact. He was running late, so the waitress and I started flirting a bit.”
Ianto gave a little noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “You mean you started-“
“Who’s telling the story here?”
Jack could swear he felt Ianto open his mouth to protest, but he fell silent.
“Pretty girl, nice smile, dark hair in those pin curl bobs that were so popular back then. Anyways, she couldn’t have been more than seventeen.”
“It’s nice to know you have some standards.”
“Hush. Anyways, she wanted to be a model, and I told her I might be able to help her out.”
“You didn’t. That may be the worst, no the lowest chat up line…” Ianto was reduced to near sputtering as Jack laughed.
“I was completely honorable, I swear. I gave her a three hundred percent tip, and made a few calls. She got a job the next day, photographing for a magazine. Sweet Norma Jean. She got into movies eventually.”
“Norma Jean? Norma Jean Baker? Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn. Monroe. You gave career advice to Marilyn Monroe.”
“See, I never really liked the name change. But I suppose ‘Norma Jean’ really just brings to mind the image of a bouncy girl with a coffee pot and frilly apron. Not really what she’s remembered for.”
“What were you doing in America?”
Jack pursed his lips and heaved a sigh. “That’s another long story. I had to get out of Britain for the Blitz.”
Sensing a touchy subject, Ianto dropped the topic, letting them fall into a comfortable silence for a minute.
“Y’know, I was the one who told her to go blonde.”
“Of course you were.”
********
The fourth time arose out of team movie night, hosted by Gwen, and assisted by a half a dozen tequila shots. Everyone was relaxed and laughing.
“You really believe Pierce Brosnan was a better Bond than Dalton? Really, Tosh.”
“Yes, Owen, I do,” Tosh replied defiantly, “And sexier too.”
“Amen to that!” Gwen high-fived her, before turning on Jack.
“What about you, Jack?”
“Oh God,” Ianto rolled his eyes, “He’s probably going to tell us he’s shagged every actor that’s ever played Bond and half of the girls.”
“No, not all of them, but I did have a bit of a fling with ‘Miss Tanya Romanova’ back in the sixties.” Jack waggled his eyebrows, “And you can talk! I know about your little crush on Sean Connery.”
Poker faced, Ianto calmly gestured to the room, “Go on then. You know the deal.”
“Oh-ho! There’s a deal, is there?” Gwen crowed. “What do you have to do to get out of the doghouse, then?”
“I don’t think I want to know,” Owen groaned, leaning back against arm of the chair he’d slid out of an hour or so ago.
Jack grinned. “Nothing much. I have to tell him about a time I struck out. It’s an easy out.”
“It would be if you didn’t have your ego and horrible reputation to uphold,” Ianto said crisply.
While the rest of the team laughed too loudly and reached for the bottle again, Jack mimed an arrow to the chest, and failed to keep his grin from running through.
“Okay then, if you’re making it official, you have to come sit over here.” Jacked patted his lap.
Rolling his eyes, Ianto crawled the few yards to his designated seat and let Jack wrap his arms around him as the rest of the team catcalled and laughed.
“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Owen smirked, as everyone settled in for story time, Torchwood style.
“Oh yeah,” Jack grinned back. “I’ve got a great one I’ve been saving.
“A little bit after ‘Miss Romanova’, I started dating this girl, kind of prudish, obsessed with her ex, I probably liked her because she was rare challenge.”
“If that’s your ‘great one’, it’s crap,” Ianto interrupted, but still relaxing into Jack’s grip.
“Patience. I’m getting to it. Anyway, to impress her I took her to a Beatles Concert. And it worked…until we ran into her ex-boyfriend at the concert.”
“She dumped you?” Gwen failed to conceal her amusement under her usual compassion.
“Never even bothered. Just followed him out of the stadium. Never heard from her again.”
“That’s a bit cold,” Tosh offered, her smile slightly better hidden than Gwen’s.
“Oh no, it’s gets better, see? I decided I was going to get revenge, and show her what she’d done. I had this bit of psychic paper on me, and I headed backstage with the full intent of seducing the Beatles.”
“Okay,” Owen groaned, “I definitely don’t want to know.”
Jack held up a hand. “No, you see, really good bouncers are impervious to psychic paper, and apparently the Beatles warranted the best.” He laughed. “They wouldn’t let me within a hundred feet of the band! I got thrown out to the curb, it was humiliating!”
The entire team finally broke down into hysterics.
“So what did you do then?” Tosh asked when they had regained the ability to breathe properly.
“Went home with half a dozen of the groupies and one of the bouncers,” Jack replied, starting the roar of laughter up again.
Ianto looked up at him again, eyes heavy with exhaustion but determined. “That just evens itself out. You owe another one.”
Smiling, Jack placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, watching the fluttering eyelashes fight to stay open.
“Okay, there was this other time I was in Germany…”
The next morning none of them could tell you what movie they had been watching, or what had happened, except for the one person who had drank nothing but water and who wandered around with a grin that grated on hung-over nerves all day.
********
The fifth time didn’t start with an argument at all.
It was a quiet, lazy afternoon, the kind that came only once in a blue moon. The kind where the rift lay dormant, the weevils behaved themselves, and all the paperwork was sorted and filed. Tosh was happily buried in her projects, Gwen had gone out to lunch with a friend from her constable days, Owen was browsing a magazine down in Autopsy, and Jack had called Ianto down to help with some storerooms desperately in need of sorting.
On a broken down couch, hidden behind rows of shelves, full of books and scrolls and even tablets in alien text, they lay, curling into each other to make room, blanketed under Jack’s coat.
“Jack?”
“Hmm?”
“Tell me about the Doctor?”
He hadn’t really expected an answer, merely a deflection or a silence broken with another story of lesser controversy brought to the surface. Instead, Jack began to talk.
“What’s to tell? You worked for Torchwood One, you know the basics…though most of that information is a little skewed…”
“Tell me what he’s like. What he’s really like. Not what the files say.”
“That’s…difficult. He changes. But he’s always fundamentally kind, brilliant…absolutely batty…”
Ianto listened as Jack spoke, with a smile on his lips and a far away look in his eyes, but he could not reconcile the legends of wisdom and power and infinite kind mercy with reality.
“What did you see in him?”
Jack chuckled.
“You were angling for subtlety there, weren’t you?”
“Mmhmm.”
He sighed, and fell quiet for a few minutes, as if seriously pondering the question before answering.
“I suppose I saw the same thing everyone saw in him, really. He saved my life a couple of times, cut me down a bit, made me a better time…the usual, I guess. I was just a bit more stubborn than most.”
Swallowing something hard that had formed at the back of his throat, Ianto asked the question he really wanted an answer to.
“Are you going to go back?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
He knew it wasn’t a proper answer, but for once he decided not to care.
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: See Title
********
The first time was almost an accident, an argument that arose out of a bit of (In Jack’s opinion, anyway), harmless flirting.
The mood in the Hub had been unbearably tense all afternoon, even though no one seemed consciously aware of the cause. The rest of the team had made their excuses and ducked out early to leave them to it, citing a weevil hunt, a possible alien artifact at an auction and a need to wash a cat.
Jack finally cornered Ianto by the sofa above the autopsy room, sorting the mounds of files that had accumulated around the empty coffee mugs and pizza boxes.
“All right, Ianto. You’ve been acting odd all day. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, sir,” Ianto looked in vain for a way to dodge Jack’s skillful blocking.
“If you’d let me by, I have to catalogue the-“
“Cut the crap. What’s wrong?”
Clutching a stack of files to his chest, Ianto faced Jack directly for the first time.
“I’m aware I’m just a convenient shag to you, but it would be considered common courtesy not to rub my face in it. I’m aware you’ll sleep with anything that shows an interest.”
Jack stared in disbelief. “Is that what this is about?”
Ianto took a sudden and silent interest in the pile of coffee mugs at his feet. Jack stepped back to let him through. Before Ianto could take more than a half a dozen hurried steps, he called after him.
“You want to know a story?” Ianto paused, turning back slowly.
“A few years ago, right after I took over Torchwood Three, one of my first recruits was this young kid, named Richard. Bit green, but he showed a lot of promise, so I took him on.”
“I really don’t feel the need to hear about my predecessors, thank you.” Ianto replied, tight, turning to leave again.
Jack’s voice followed him, raising slightly.
“Oh, I think you do. See, Richard was a nice kid. Smart, sweet, good-looking, mooned after me for months...and I never did anything about it. Do you know why?”
Something inside Ianto appeared to snap. “No Jack, I don’t. I really don’t,” he shouted, spinning to face him. “I don’t understand most of the things you do. So why don’t you tell me? Why?”
“Because I knew it wasn’t a good idea to get involved with a member of the team!”
Jack’s countering shout rang around the empty hub, climbing higher and higher until it echoed away into the distance, leaving a hollow silence in its wake.
Jack sank down on the couch, knocking a pizza box and a magazine onto the floor as he did so, wincing at the obtrusively loud crash they made in the quiet.
“He got himself killed, seven months after he started.”
Quietly, Ianto released the files he’d held a death grip on throughout, neatly stacking them on the ground before sliding in beside him, reaching for the arm nearest him, and wrapping it around his shoulders.
They sat in silence for a long time.
********
The second time was just after the first appearance of John Hart.
Everyone scattered, Gwen delighted to have a night off to spend with Rhys, Owen to the bars, Tosh in tow, insisting she was not going to spend all her free time working, and Jack ended upstanding in Ianto’s flat, somehow looking too big for the place.
After unlocking the door, Ianto stood off to the side, jacket and tie still in place, waiting for Jack to make the first move.
“Can I have a cup of coffee?” Jack asked brightly. ”I haven’t had a cup of your coffee in forever.”
Ianto folded his arms. “If you talk while I make it.”
“It’s a deal.” Jack grinned, following him into the tidy kitchen.
As Ianto started the water and ground the beans, Jack kept up a peppy strain of conversation.
“So there’s John and I, trapped under a three ton boulder that’s going to crush us in less than a minute, our lives flashing before our eyes, and what’s he focusing on? The fact that we’re going to miss our date with these octuplets we’d picked up on-”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Ianto interrupted.
Jack smiled, and glanced down. “I know.”
“Are you going to tell me where you were?”
Jack was saved from replying, when the bag of Peruvian coffee slipped from Ianto’s hands to spill across the floor.
Momentarily distracted, he bent to salvage the precious beans. Frowning, Jack knelt to help.
“When’s the last time you slept?”
“It’s been a while,” Ianto evaded, chasing a handful of beans that had rolled under the refrigerator.
“Yan?” Jack grabbed at his elbow, forcing the other man to look him in the eye. “How long?”
“I forget.”
Minutes later, Jack was hustling a protesting Welshman into bed, suit and greatcoat strewn untidily across a chair.
“At least let me hang the suit up. It’s going to crease.”
“You, are going to get at least eight hours of sleep, starting as soon as possible. I’ll hang the suit.”
Looking unsatisfied with this arrangement, but seeming to realize it was the best he was going to get, Ianto watched warily as Jack tried to ascertain where in the rainbow of dress shirts the pale pink number he had worn today belonged.
“You promised to talk.”
Jack laughed. “What, you want a bedtime story?”
“You can either tell me where you were, or you can tell me a different story. It’s up to you,” Ianto said stubbornly, propping himself up to fix Jack with a steely glare.
Jack sighed, closing the closet and making his way to sit on bed. Ianto immediately pulled him closer and leaned into the warmth of his chest, pulling up the blankets to cover his new shoulders.
“This is the only way I’m getting you to sleep, isn’t it.”
“Mmmm.” Ianto hummed in agreement, almost immediately relaxing from the combination of Jack’s fingers in his hair and the knowledge that he had won the argument.
“All right. How about I tell you about when I knew Lord Byron.”
Lacking the strength to fly open in shock, one of Ianto’s eyes opened lazily to assess his human pillow.
“You’re joking.”
“Scout’s honest truth.”
“You were never a scout,” Ianto scoffed.
Jack managed to look affronted. “Sure I was!”
“What, the Space Scouts?”
“Nah, never made Space Scout. Do you want to hear this story or not?”
Turning on his side slightly to find a more comfortable position, Ianto waved a lazy hand in affirmation. Jack chuckled and looked pensive.
“Actually, there’s not much to tell. I spent a summer hanging out with George and Mary-”
“-As in Shelley?”
“Yes, as in Shelley. It was pretty fun, y’know, for Victorian times. We went boating, played cards…I won a couple of those evening horror story contests.”
Ianto snorted, his voice vaguely muffled beneath layers of sleep and bedding. “I’ll bet. Your stories are still terrifying. So what, did Byron base Don Juan after you?”
Now it was Jack’s turn to snort. “I doubt it. To tell you the truth, he was kind of nuts. Reminded me of John, actually. No, I kept my distance, but trust me, he tried…not too subtle, really. Kept ‘accidentally falling asleep’ in my bed. Not to mention Mary would have had my head, and it wasn’t so permanently attached back then.”
A soft snore brought Jack’s attention back to the present. Smiling, he leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes.
********
By the third time it had almost become a tradition. Jack would cross that paper thin line, grin apologetically, wrap Ianto in his arms and tell him a story.
“Let’s see…I was in Washington D.C., in the early forties, and I was at this adorable little diner, waiting for this contact. He was running late, so the waitress and I started flirting a bit.”
Ianto gave a little noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “You mean you started-“
“Who’s telling the story here?”
Jack could swear he felt Ianto open his mouth to protest, but he fell silent.
“Pretty girl, nice smile, dark hair in those pin curl bobs that were so popular back then. Anyways, she couldn’t have been more than seventeen.”
“It’s nice to know you have some standards.”
“Hush. Anyways, she wanted to be a model, and I told her I might be able to help her out.”
“You didn’t. That may be the worst, no the lowest chat up line…” Ianto was reduced to near sputtering as Jack laughed.
“I was completely honorable, I swear. I gave her a three hundred percent tip, and made a few calls. She got a job the next day, photographing for a magazine. Sweet Norma Jean. She got into movies eventually.”
“Norma Jean? Norma Jean Baker? Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn. Monroe. You gave career advice to Marilyn Monroe.”
“See, I never really liked the name change. But I suppose ‘Norma Jean’ really just brings to mind the image of a bouncy girl with a coffee pot and frilly apron. Not really what she’s remembered for.”
“What were you doing in America?”
Jack pursed his lips and heaved a sigh. “That’s another long story. I had to get out of Britain for the Blitz.”
Sensing a touchy subject, Ianto dropped the topic, letting them fall into a comfortable silence for a minute.
“Y’know, I was the one who told her to go blonde.”
“Of course you were.”
********
The fourth time arose out of team movie night, hosted by Gwen, and assisted by a half a dozen tequila shots. Everyone was relaxed and laughing.
“You really believe Pierce Brosnan was a better Bond than Dalton? Really, Tosh.”
“Yes, Owen, I do,” Tosh replied defiantly, “And sexier too.”
“Amen to that!” Gwen high-fived her, before turning on Jack.
“What about you, Jack?”
“Oh God,” Ianto rolled his eyes, “He’s probably going to tell us he’s shagged every actor that’s ever played Bond and half of the girls.”
“No, not all of them, but I did have a bit of a fling with ‘Miss Tanya Romanova’ back in the sixties.” Jack waggled his eyebrows, “And you can talk! I know about your little crush on Sean Connery.”
Poker faced, Ianto calmly gestured to the room, “Go on then. You know the deal.”
“Oh-ho! There’s a deal, is there?” Gwen crowed. “What do you have to do to get out of the doghouse, then?”
“I don’t think I want to know,” Owen groaned, leaning back against arm of the chair he’d slid out of an hour or so ago.
Jack grinned. “Nothing much. I have to tell him about a time I struck out. It’s an easy out.”
“It would be if you didn’t have your ego and horrible reputation to uphold,” Ianto said crisply.
While the rest of the team laughed too loudly and reached for the bottle again, Jack mimed an arrow to the chest, and failed to keep his grin from running through.
“Okay then, if you’re making it official, you have to come sit over here.” Jacked patted his lap.
Rolling his eyes, Ianto crawled the few yards to his designated seat and let Jack wrap his arms around him as the rest of the team catcalled and laughed.
“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Owen smirked, as everyone settled in for story time, Torchwood style.
“Oh yeah,” Jack grinned back. “I’ve got a great one I’ve been saving.
“A little bit after ‘Miss Romanova’, I started dating this girl, kind of prudish, obsessed with her ex, I probably liked her because she was rare challenge.”
“If that’s your ‘great one’, it’s crap,” Ianto interrupted, but still relaxing into Jack’s grip.
“Patience. I’m getting to it. Anyway, to impress her I took her to a Beatles Concert. And it worked…until we ran into her ex-boyfriend at the concert.”
“She dumped you?” Gwen failed to conceal her amusement under her usual compassion.
“Never even bothered. Just followed him out of the stadium. Never heard from her again.”
“That’s a bit cold,” Tosh offered, her smile slightly better hidden than Gwen’s.
“Oh no, it’s gets better, see? I decided I was going to get revenge, and show her what she’d done. I had this bit of psychic paper on me, and I headed backstage with the full intent of seducing the Beatles.”
“Okay,” Owen groaned, “I definitely don’t want to know.”
Jack held up a hand. “No, you see, really good bouncers are impervious to psychic paper, and apparently the Beatles warranted the best.” He laughed. “They wouldn’t let me within a hundred feet of the band! I got thrown out to the curb, it was humiliating!”
The entire team finally broke down into hysterics.
“So what did you do then?” Tosh asked when they had regained the ability to breathe properly.
“Went home with half a dozen of the groupies and one of the bouncers,” Jack replied, starting the roar of laughter up again.
Ianto looked up at him again, eyes heavy with exhaustion but determined. “That just evens itself out. You owe another one.”
Smiling, Jack placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, watching the fluttering eyelashes fight to stay open.
“Okay, there was this other time I was in Germany…”
The next morning none of them could tell you what movie they had been watching, or what had happened, except for the one person who had drank nothing but water and who wandered around with a grin that grated on hung-over nerves all day.
********
The fifth time didn’t start with an argument at all.
It was a quiet, lazy afternoon, the kind that came only once in a blue moon. The kind where the rift lay dormant, the weevils behaved themselves, and all the paperwork was sorted and filed. Tosh was happily buried in her projects, Gwen had gone out to lunch with a friend from her constable days, Owen was browsing a magazine down in Autopsy, and Jack had called Ianto down to help with some storerooms desperately in need of sorting.
On a broken down couch, hidden behind rows of shelves, full of books and scrolls and even tablets in alien text, they lay, curling into each other to make room, blanketed under Jack’s coat.
“Jack?”
“Hmm?”
“Tell me about the Doctor?”
He hadn’t really expected an answer, merely a deflection or a silence broken with another story of lesser controversy brought to the surface. Instead, Jack began to talk.
“What’s to tell? You worked for Torchwood One, you know the basics…though most of that information is a little skewed…”
“Tell me what he’s like. What he’s really like. Not what the files say.”
“That’s…difficult. He changes. But he’s always fundamentally kind, brilliant…absolutely batty…”
Ianto listened as Jack spoke, with a smile on his lips and a far away look in his eyes, but he could not reconcile the legends of wisdom and power and infinite kind mercy with reality.
“What did you see in him?”
Jack chuckled.
“You were angling for subtlety there, weren’t you?”
“Mmhmm.”
He sighed, and fell quiet for a few minutes, as if seriously pondering the question before answering.
“I suppose I saw the same thing everyone saw in him, really. He saved my life a couple of times, cut me down a bit, made me a better time…the usual, I guess. I was just a bit more stubborn than most.”
Swallowing something hard that had formed at the back of his throat, Ianto asked the question he really wanted an answer to.
“Are you going to go back?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
He knew it wasn’t a proper answer, but for once he decided not to care.