Dinner, and a Movie?

Author: pippychick
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto
Summary: At least one of the things on Jack's list is not quite what it seems. And it seems strange enough.
Disclaimer: Russell T Davies owns these characters and their world. Please don’t sue me for playing with them, mister. They're so pretty that I couldn't help it. I promise to wash them both down afterwards with hot soapy water and give them back. I make no money out of this.

Author’s Note:

Hi again, everyone. I said I wasn't going to write anything else, and told myself that the list Jack referred to was just for fun effect. And yet here I am, having written something else for these two.

Thank you so much to my reviewers, PaipurrbakRighter, popcorn oracle, kiltlover and carmeleyes. It really means a lot that you took the time to leave such wonderful words, so thank you.

Jack has something particular in mind for one item on the list. Kudos for whoever can identify subtle references to both Twin Peaks and Douglas Adams.

Hopefully, this is funny. I know I laughed a few times while writing it. Jack just feels so nice to write. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.


The List

It was another one of those ordinary days they weren't supposed to get. Jack was leaned against Tosh's desk while she rambled on about the species database, and how she had improved it while he had been away. It was actually very interesting. Toshiko was a genius, and Jack was listening, but he was also watching Ianto. Just thinking about him made Jack take a sip of the coffee he was holding. Damn good coffee.

Currently, Ianto was wandering around the hub with a clipboard. He kept looking at different things, then looking back at whatever was on his list like some kind of interior designer. Ha! There! He noticed when Ianto made his way over to them, his eyes checking out certain places. And he kept looking Jack's way.

“Problem, Ianto?” Jack asked pleasantly, laughing inside. Ianto did that cute dancing around the point thing when he spoke.

“No, well. No. Except – this list,” Ianto said. Jack nodded encouragingly. “Not a problem as such, but...”

“Yeah?” Jack challenged, knowing Ianto couldn't say it. Not in front of Tosh and the others. They caught each other's eye, and Ianto straightened up even more, if that was possible. He almost smiled, and Jack knew he was about to lose the game somehow.

“Number thirteen,” Ianto said politely, fully intending to continue, and Jack turned to Tosh.

“Erm, sorry... back in a minute,” he said, excusing himself. “You carry on. It's great!” So saying he walked away to his office, forcing Ianto to follow him. As he had gambled, Ianto didn't begin to speak again until they were stood facing each other with the door closed.

“You haven't gone into detail,” he said with a raised eyebrow, glancing back down at the clipboard, “which is surprising in itself, but I don't think we have any Bezalean sea lizards in stock, Sir. And to be honest, I really don't think the speciality fish market will have any either.”

Jack wanted to smile. None of the others got Ianto's sense of humour. They thought he didn't have one. Yes, he wanted to smile, but instead he put on his look of mock outrage at the suggestion. “Ianto, please!” he said, grabbing the man's arms dramatically just because he could and he wanted to. “You mean the pet store. It has to be alive!”

“Alive!?” Ianto spluttered, and he really was shocked. There was no faking that. Jack smiled in brilliant victory. “But you've written here it's an aphrodisiac,” he said, glancing down at the list to make sure. Jack winked.

“It is.” They stared at each other. Eventually, Jack let go of Ianto's arms and backed off, but he watched as Ianto's imagination went to work, and his eyes softened in amusement. Ianto swallowed slowly.

“Well, I don't see any,” Ianto said at last, and there was just a tiny bit of relief there if you knew how to listen. “That's the issue.”

Shrugging, Jack sighed. “I sort of thought one might, you know, fall through.”

“The rift? We get the things that people lose or throw away, Jack. This is where all the biros end up. What are the chances of someone carrying one of these lizard things around?”

Laughing, Jack reached out and pulled Ianto towards him. “Oh, you'd be surprised,” he said, actually quite serious. There was a lot Ianto didn't know. Sometimes he just forgot. “And I'd love to surprise you,” he finished suggestively.

“Oh, kay,” Ianto said carefully, freeing himself from Jack's grip as his eyes flickered through the glass walls to make sure no one had been watching them. “What else do I need to know about our glittering future?”

Jack shook his head and thought for a moment, full of nostalgia. “Free love, Ianto... I really miss that.”

“I wasn't under the impression you were paying for it here, Sir.” He looked up quickly, but Ianto was deliberately misunderstanding him in order to tease. He should pay for that.

“Aww...” he said softly, smiling, “and I didn't know that you loved me.”

Ianto bristled. “I don't.”

“I love you too,” Jack said, ignoring the denial and leaning forward to kiss Ianto on the forehead. “For free.”

“Right,” Ianto said crisply, and Jack realised he was uncomfortable with emotion. It came so easily to him he didn't even need to think about it, but he wasn't upset by Ianto's reaction. Actually, he thought it was sort of sweet. “Well, you're going to have to do it without number thirteen. Hmm,” Ianto deliberated, “it's unlucky anyway.”

“No, it isn't,” Jack said without thinking. “They worked that out in 2351.” Ianto just stared at him.

“In three and half centuries time, they figure out that the number thirteen isn't unlucky?” he asked in disbelief. Jack nodded slowly, wondering if he had upset anything by letting it slip. He had learnt it at school, in ancient history. “Well, now I'm filled with hope for the future of scientific achievement. And here I was fearing a slow down in new discoveries.”

“It was all something to do with low-level telepathy, passed on from generation to generation,” Jack explained patiently. “It was a great breakthrough at the time. I wasn't even born then.” He considered that statement, and knew he was frowning.

“Jack?” There was concern in Ianto's voice, and Jack realised he was holding his head.

“I wasn't born,” he repeated. “Yet,” he added. “Ouch.” Arms closed around him and he breathed in Ianto's scent as he let his hands rest lightly on the other man's waist.

“Be here, now, with me,” Ianto suggested, and Jack nodded, bringing the terrible sense of approaching time under control. All that mattered was now. He heard the door open, and he looked up just in time to catch Owen rolling his eyes.

“Call coming through,” he informed them matter-of-factly before walking straight back out again, and he and Ianto both rushed from the office.

“Tosh?” Jack questioned.

“The police are calling us in,” she replied, staring at the species database on her screen. “They've found a warehouse full of stolen goods, but they've sealed the area. They're saying that among everything else, there's some strange kind of luminous fish there, alive in a jar.”

“Ha!” Jack almost shouted, doing everything but jump for joy, rushing over to Tosh. “Yes!” Ianto followed him more sedately, and he turned only to seize Ianto's upper arms dramatically again, because he could and he wanted to.

“See?” he said happily. “Thirteen! Not unlucky.”

“No...” Ianto replied slowly, his face expressionless, “not for some.” For a moment Jack stared, completely taken aback, not certain he had heard correctly. Then he laughed. Wow! They had been right, and the number thirteen thing wouldn't be discovered until 2351 no matter what Jack said. He shook his head to clear it and let Ianto go. They had work to do now.

“Ok! Tosh, Gwen, Owen. You're gonna need sunglasses. And don't kill it. Trust me, it's not dangerous. Well... it's not dangerous,” he said again, more firmly. He checked the screen to find the address and got his coat.

“Ianto,” he said without looking, “we'll need a shallow vat of saline water, about two point five percent, at twenty five degrees Celsius. PH 7.5.”

“Yes, Sir.” Jack looked around, and Ianto was noting the requirements on his clipboard.

“That easy, huh?” he asked, slightly amazed at Ianto's efficiency. Ianto only smiled politely.

“This is nothing. Remember that time once when you asked me for a tub of silt?”

“That wasn't so hard,” Jack said in confusion. “And it took you a week,” he accused with a little bit of disapproval. Ianto stared back at him, completely deadpan.

“You wanted it from the middle of the Dead Sea.”

Jack laughed a little, and just managed to stop himself from stroking the soft skin of his face. “Oh... well, yeah...”

The others were ready, sunglasses abounded. “We'll be back,” Jack promised.

“Jack,” Ianto said sharply, glancing down at the clipboard, preventing him from leaving. “Six, seven, and nineteen.”

“What about them?” he asked, waving the others on to the underground garage.

“Impossible,” Ianto informed him, shaking his head.

Jack smirked. “Not with me.”

Ianto looked faintly incredulous. “Really?” Jack folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe to better enjoy the moment.

“Did you check the attachments?” He saw the effect of that in Ianto's eyes. He hadn't checked, because if he had, he would have come across the diagrams. He watched as Ianto's eyes flickered across to the nearest terminal. “Have fun,” he said with a grin before walking off to catch up with everyone else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took effort to open his eyes, but he did it. Somehow they had made it back to his bed space in the main part of the Hub. “If I'm ever going to sleep again, it will be now,” he said with a satisfied groan. Ianto stirred in his arms tiredly. They were so close he could feel Ianto's heartbeat. It felt warm. Nice. Cuddly.

“You wake me in the morning,” Ianto said, his voice muffled as he spoke into Jack's hair. “Erry...” Jack guessed that Ianto meant to say early.

“Fun, wasn't it?” Jack said, managing to hold off a yawn. Well! Maybe he really would sleep. Ianto twitched. “What?”

There was a heartfelt sigh from his partner. “Itch,” he said, moving his head so that Jack could hear his relaxed, breathy voice. “Left leg, near my hip.”

“Okay,” Jack said, wondering if he could remember how his arms worked. Eventually, he managed to get a hand there. “Here?”

“Mmm...” Ianto said, snuggling into his shoulder.

He tried, but his fingertips were not up to scratching at anything, and he just grazed his nails over the skin. Ianto giggled, and Jack did too. It was the first time he had ever heard Ianto giggle, and it proved to him that nothing was impossible.

“Did we really...?” Ianto asked softly, and Jack tried to nod, and ended up rubbing his cheek against the pillows. He moaned.

“Oh, yeah. We did.” He meant to carry on talking, and explain about the aphrodisiac and restorative properties of the sea lizard. It was all in the light. And you had to be in the water with it, so now they were nice and clean as well. Some moments later, Jack realised he was going through this in his head, instead of out loud. “Oops,” he said with a little laugh.

“What?” Ianto asked.

“Just thinking,” Jack replied. They lay together for a couple of minutes, and Jack very nearly drifted off, but not quite.

“What's that?” Ianto asked, and slowly, Jack followed the line of his sight to a rectangle of brown. It looked familiar. Then he had it.

“Oh, it was tied to the jar. Some kind of card,” he explained, managing to raise just enough energy to reach for it and flop back down onto the bed. Ianto snuggled up to him again, and Jack smiled, draping his free arm around Ianto's shoulders. He liked this. A lot.

“What does it say?” Ianto questioned, trying to stifle a yawn and not succeeding at all. Jack focused his eyes on the card carefully. Four words.

“'Have fun, eye candy,'” he read carefully. He sighed. It didn't mean anything. Just something that fell through the rift.

“Oh!” Ianto said. He sounded slightly astonished, and Jack looked at him, but his eyes were closed. Next, there was a quiet snore.

“I'll wake you up,” Jack promised, clutching the card in his hand. He might not be able to sleep after all, but he could rest. He closed his eyes with a happy sigh and savoured the way Ianto clung to him. It was warm, comfortable and perfect. They had to do this again. Although, in the morning, he would have to tell Ianto about the very real dangers of Bezalean sea lizard addiction. Whoever lost it might not have minded it being lost so much. Jack gulped, imagining the reaction.

Oh, dear.


Author's Note: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Comments welcome and will encourage me to write more, and this being adultfanfiction, there will be smut in the next chapter.