Dinner, and a Movie?

Author: Pippychick
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto
Summary: A little one-shot that I couldn't help but write.
Disclaimer: Russell T Davies owns these characters and their world. Please don’t sue me for playing with them, mister. They're so pretty. 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 Notes:

Hi everyone.

First of all, thank you to kay for the review - I'm glad you're enjoying the story. :)

Here is the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it. I did. So did Jack, Ianto... and someone else.

Warning for mature content, as if you hadn't already gathered. Also if you haven't caught the new series yet - HERE BE SPOILERS.


Coffee Addiction

Somewhere in the depths of the Hub was a kitchen, and this was where Jack currently sat with his first cup of coffee. He took a sip and then sighed happily. He could relax around Ianto in a way he couldn't in front of the others. Not yet, anyway. Give it time, and really, he had a lot of time. “You make really good coffee,” he said as a way to put off the inevitable conversation about Bezalean sea lizards. “Have I ever told you that?”

“Yes, you have, Sir,” Ianto replied, hands wrapped loosely around his own mug where he sat opposite Jack at the table, once more immaculate in his suit. “You wrote me a letter once.”

“I did?” Ianto almost seemed to flinch, and his lips tightened as if he wanted to speak. “Am I missing something?” Jack prodded with a slight smile.

With a silent sigh, Ianto looked away slightly to the left as if recalling a memory. “At my interview you introduced yourself, smiled, shook my hand and then asked me if I wanted a coffee. When I said yes you very helpfully showed me where the machine was.”

Jack laughed. “Oh, yeah!” he said, and took another sip of his coffee, quite unable to keep the grin from his face. “I remember that!” Ianto looked directly at him, and his grin faded a little. “I'd done lots of interviews that day,” he said, trying to excuse himself. “My throat was getting really —”

“You said in your letter,” Ianto declared, looking away again, “and I quote: 'Nice coffee. Congratulations.' You then went on to tell me all about the facilities here, including the size and capacity of your machine.”

“Hm-mm...” Jack said into his cup, trying his damnedest not to laugh, knowing everything the letter had said. “Did I?”

“You also said you liked my suit,” Ianto said pointedly, and Jack snorted.

“Is it too much to hope that you actually read my CV?” Ianto sounded suspiciously emotional, perhaps even slightly annoyed. “Or checked my references?” Of course, he would have done a lot of work on those to hide his past with Torchwood One and any relationship with the then missing Lisa, and Jack forced himself to look serious.

“Of course I did. I checked with all of your previous employers,” he said firmly. Ianto appeared to be slightly mollified. They sat in silence for a minute or two, drinking their coffee.
Daring a glance, Jack found Ianto looked entirely too serious, and he couldn't stop himself from carrying on. “Obviously, as soon as I found out that every single one of them missed your coffee, I —”

“Jack!” Ianto snapped, and Jack had the good sense to stop.

“Sorry. Just playing. I really wasn’t lying about the machine, though,” he added devilishly. There it was. Ianto’s eyes twinkled just a little bit, seeing the humour of the situation. He’d lied to Jack all along, and now he was doing the job he applied for in truth. Something crossed Jack’s mind as he took another sip of his coffee.

“I don't suppose you would have taken the position if...? You know…” he let his words trail off, looking at Ianto closely.

“No, I wouldn't,” Ianto replied, meeting his eyes, and Jack asked himself what he had expected. He looked down into his mug suddenly, a little dissatisfied. “And I would have missed something,” Ianto said eventually, making him look up again. He didn’t mean the work. They smiled at each other. Nothing else, just a smile.

“So would I,” Jack said meaningfully. He didn’t do meaningfully all that often. For Ianto he had done it twice in one morning. And a Sunday no less. Perhaps it was a new record. He found himself wondering just what Ianto had done in the past.

“After all,” Ianto continued with that smile still in his eyes, “you do need someone skilled to take care of the, um, lower levels.”

“Not to mention the electrics,” Jack said with a grin. He would not be outdone.

“And the timing.” Jack, who had been taking another drink of his coffee to celebrate having the last word, nearly choked on it. Then he laughed out loud, remembering not just their date, but also a certain evening in his office with Ianto and the stopwatch.

“Absolutely,” he agreed, letting Ianto win. “You're extremely good at timing.”

Letting Ianto win also meant facing up to the day, and Jack put down his mug to rest his arms on the table, taking a last carefree moment to notice the slight red marks on his wrists where the handcuffs had been. He’d really wanted to get out of them by the end.

“So what do we do?” Ianto asked. Jack sighed and rested his chin on his hand thoughtfully as he looked at Ianto over the table.

“We can't kill it. And believe me, you don't want to try.” He’d never tried it himself, but he’d heard stories about those who had. Jack wanted to shiver, but resisted the temptation.

“Ok,” Ianto replied, with a little bit less sincerity than Jack would have liked to hear.

“No, really,” he said with an earnest look. “When they feel threatened they emit an hallucinogenic into the atmosphere. It works like a bad acid trip.”

Without telling him about it first, his mind floated back a few decades. He’d had great hopes for the sixties that had been completely dashed. The era of sexual freedom and revolution, and still half of the things he was fond of were illegal. The rest were frowned upon, misunderstood, or just completely beyond the comprehension of those around him. Jack sighed, but knew he’d live to see freedom again. All he had to do was wait for it.

“Hmm...” Ianto said expressively, deep in thought. Jack considered him, and his lips lifted in a little smile. Things weren’t all bad here and now, but he had to make sure Ianto understood what he was saying.

“Ianto, we have so many things to have waking nightmares about here, not least of which is a storage facility full of dead bodies.” There was a frisson of fear in the room then that flashed between them. A betting man would have put his money on them both thinking about Suzie. A betting man would be wrong. There were worse things than their ex-colleague down there, and both of them knew it. “The right bad dreams can kill,” Jack continued, waiting for Ianto’s terse nod. “And we've got things that can kill as well.” Jack paused again. “You know the archives better than any of us. You know what we've got stored there.”

He could see Ianto’s mind working, his imagination picking up where that left off and painting pictures for him. For a second there was sheer terror in Ianto’s eyes, then, just like that, it was hidden. But at last Jack felt his words had sunken in. “Point taken,” Ianto said somewhat gravely. Both of them thought in weighty silence for a moment.

“How does something like that come to exist, Jack?” Ianto asked with a shake of his head. “It's so unlikely.”

“Not really,” Jack argued. “The earth has variety enough, and we’re talking about an entire universe of possibility once you move past that.” Ianto didn’t look entirely convinced, so Jack decided to give him a bit of a lesson in Bezalean sea lizards. It was something he’d picked up from a galactic broadcast once. “You see in its natural habitat, the lizard feeds on these little fish. All it needs to do is emit that light and all the little fish stop what they're doing. The sea lizard then just skims along the surface of the water, catching all the floating fish.”

“I’m having sex with David Attenborough,” Ianto said laconically, and Jack fought the urge to giggle.

“As for the hallucinogen,” he continued. “That's airborne, since their natural predator is this kind of big bird. They go mad when it hits them. Works like octopus ink, and the lizard uses the time to get away.”

“Hmm...” said Ianto doubtfully, “still rather unlikely if you ask me.”

“Let's have a look at it,” Jack suggested, and Ianto looked at him as though he’d just said they should go out and mug old ladies. He stood up. “Come on.”

“But I thought...” Ianto said with a raised eyebrow. “You said it wasn't harmless,” he pointed out.

“It's when you get in the water with it that you're lost,” Jack explained as Ianto stood as well… just a little too quickly. “We'll be all right if we just take a look.” His voice and words were reassurance itself, and he smiled just to complete the experience. Trust me, he said in silence. But it was a trap. He knew it, and Ianto knew it. But neither of them were going to say no. They were going down there for more. It was worse than nicotine with a side order of heroin.

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


“Where's the light?” Ianto asked as they walked into one of the lower rooms. None of the others had any reason to venture here. It was in complete darkness, except for a slight phosphorescence that came from the lizard where it lay at the bottom of the tank. “Is it dead?”

Jack shook his head. They wouldn’t have luck like that. He found the light switch and a single fluorescent tube lit up, giving the room just enough light to see by but no more. He would suggest they get more lights set up, but there really wasn’t any need for them. Nothing was supposed to be happening down here.

“It reacts to presences in the water,” Jack said as they both walked nearer, compelled to do it. Ianto had managed to get hold of a large clear perspex tank with high sides. Since Jack had asked for a shallow tank, he had made sure that one side was almost completely removed, and the water level was just underneath that edge. “Watch.”

Without thinking too much — because what could that help — Jack plunged both of his hands into the warm water. The temperature was kept constant and even by a clever device Ianto had somehow appropriated from the specialist aquarium on the other side of the city. He felt his eyes flutter closed as the lizard sent flashes of light through the water, and he dragged his hands out with a herculean effort of self-control. The faint red marks were gone.

He turned to Ianto with the intention of showing him, and Ianto’s eyes were on the pulsing light inside the tank. Without any thought at all, Jack cupped Ianto’s face with his wet hands and kissed him right there. It was something he needed more than life. He pushed Ianto into the side of the tank that was whole and broke the kiss to slide his hands down Ianto’s face, wet fingertips brushing over his lips and Jack saw the exact moment when it overcame him.

His eyes closed, and he leaned his head back against the tank as his hands settled on Jack’s hips to pull him closer. They were separated from the pulsing light by a wall of perspex, and it was beautiful torment. Since Ianto had moved his head back, Jack latched his lips onto Ianto’s neck and tasted traces of the water that had run down from his face.

“Ok,” Ianto said; the first one of them to speak. “I get it.”

“Yeah,” Jack broke off from his diligent worship of Ianto’s neck to reply. Ianto’s hands had found their way under his shirt, and the undershirt beneath, roving his skin. In response he pressed Ianto into the side of the tank, grinding against him slow and hard. “Now sooner or later,” Jack said breathlessly, still trying to fool them both, “you're going to think it's a good idea to get in there again.”

Ianto moaned and met Jack’s slow grinding movement as his hands worked at getting Jack’s shirt off. Similarly, now Jack was concerned with removing Ianto’s jacket and tie. He yanked at the tie to loosen it, and that made Ianto fall against him in such a way that instead of concerning themselves with clothes they ended up kissing each other again, arms around each other as if they would never let go. After a long minute, the kiss ended and they went back to clumsily removing each other’s clothes. “I'm thinking that now,” Ianto confessed in a roughened voice that Jack only recognised because he had heard it for the first time the night before.

“So am I,” Jack said urgently, success with the tie meaning that now he could take off Ianto’s shirt. His talented fingers fumbled with buttons, and when was the last time he had fumbled? Losing patience, he tore the shirt apart and the buttons made violent little clinking sounds where they bounced on the floor and on the side of the tank.

“They come from the planet Beza,” Jack said as if facts could save them. He left off Ianto’s shirt for a moment as his own was removed, and his t-shirt was pulled over his head. Immediately, Ianto’s hands fell to his pants as he leaned forward and bit into Jack’s shoulder. With a savage shout, Jack slammed Ianto back into the side of the tank which replied with a dull thunk as he resumed the slow grinding motion. He could feel the hardness there — in them both — and he raised one hand to Ianto’s hair and pulled. His lips dragged over Ianto’s like fire, and then they stared into each other’s eyes helplessly. Ianto’s pleaded, maybe for some kind of sanity, and Jack continued with his story.

“The first two transport ships that tried to move them away from that planet crashed into their stations,” he said, aware that both of them were taking advantage of the lull to finish the job of undressing. Both of them were nearly naked now. Jack kicked off his shoes with a growl of impatience and then buried his face in the side of Ianto’s neck as the other man squeezed at his buttocks. “The crew were too busy to pay attention to protocol,” he gasped, “and correct docking procedures.”

“Jack,” Ianto said, and he didn’t know if he’d ever heard anyone sound so full of lust. That it was Ianto, so usually restrained and in control almost drove him wild. “I'm really not taking that seriously enough.” Jack still had the capacity to smile — just — and he did.

“No, neither am I,” he said. They leaned against each other for a short moment, clothes strewn over the floor around them, a brief respite before the violence began again.

“Can we get out of here?” Ianto asked, sounding strangely aware of exactly what was happening to him, and Jack wondered if perhaps staying out of the water for this long might have saved them.

“I don't know,” he confided. “Do you want to?” His eyes closed as he breathed in with his nose buried in Ianto’s neck, still feeling very much the animal. “How far away is the door?”

“Further away than me.” It was a new voice. They were no longer alone, and Jack stared helplessly at Ianto as he felt someone else, fully clothed, press against his back. “Well! Hello again, eye candy. Like your present?” There was enough of Ianto left to look a little horrified.

“It's him,” he said, eyes not on Jack but on who was behind him. An angular chin rested itself on his shoulder, and Jack closed his eyes.

“Yeah. I can tell.” How had he got in here? And with that thought he knew there was something he had been meaning to do. Change all of the access codes. Though maybe even that wouldn't have kept him out.

“I'm suddenly feeling a bit overdressed. What do you say we all go for a little dip?” Was he still playing at being Captain John Hart, Jack wondered? Where had that disguise come from anyway? He groaned in unwanted but helpless lust when John pressed him forward, trapping him between them both.

“Jack,” Ianto gasped as they rolled against each other deliciously. Jack opened his eyes and he just couldn’t regret the way Ianto looked.

“Now, now, eye candy,” the man behind him chastised. “No need to be like that. We'll all get a chance to be in the middle.” Ianto shook his head as if to clear it, but the look of desperate desire stayed in his eyes. He turned those eyes meaningfully on Jack.

“Money...” he said, obviously meaning much more than that. Jack wanted to understand so much that he growled and behind him John laughed.

“Oh, you're still trying to think!” he exclaimed, the comment directed at Ianto. “Cute! I can't wait have you...”

“No gun?” Jack asked sarcastically, aware that the man behind him was removing his clothes as well, though far more efficiently than either he or Ianto had.

“Well, you know,” John said, a smirk in his voice that Jack knew well. “I'm sure you’ve told him. Best not to scare the lizard.” He pulled one of Jack’s still slightly damp hands to his mouth and sucked on one of his fingers so suggestively that Jack groaned and thrust against Ianto, pressing their hardnesses together. He saw Ianto’s eyes roll up in his head in pleasure. “And it's not like I'm going to have to throw you in,” John said then, his voice a little deeper. “Is it?”

Jack didn’t answer, and Ianto recovered, only to look behind Jack again. “Is it?” John repeated, this time to Ianto.

“You nag like a wife,” Jack said with a sneer that only Ianto could see.

“What can I say?” John replied breezily. “Learnt it all from my mother. Wonderful woman. Twelve husbands.”

Ianto half smiled, and Jack wanted to kiss him again when he spoke. “Lucky it wasn't thirteen.”

Behind him there was an expressive groan. “You can't really enjoy it with these people,” John said in disgust. Jack thought about the list, and thought about the lizard being number thirteen.

“He might have a point,” Jack said, and he and Ianto shared a smile that had nothing to do with numbers. He wasn’t expecting it, so when John wrenched him back he went heavily, and Ianto slipped from his hands and stood alone by the side of the tank.

“Into the water, eye candy,” John ordered, and Ianto rolled his eyes before throwing such a dirty look John’s way that Jack laughed. But he wasn’t prepared for Ianto to look at him with a question in his eyes, and had he thought earlier it was like nicotine and heroin? They were nothing compared to the futility of resisting this.

“Do it,” he commanded harshly, his voice tight with need, suddenly dropping the smile that had been on his lips, and there was such a fleeting, beautiful look of betrayal before Ianto glowered at him, too. He was going to pay for this later, and Jack found that at this precise moment, he didn’t really care. There was nothing he wanted more than this again. Again, and again and again.

They both watched as Ianto climbed over the edge, and then Jack turned to face his friend and nemesis. “Just get in the water,” John suggested with a wicked smile before Jack could speak. He was naked now too, and Jack held his arm out politely to let him go first. John obliged him too eagerly, eyes on Ianto as Jack spoke.

“Ladies before gentlemen,” Jack murmured. As he lowered himself into the water, and Jack prepared to follow him, John turned and glared.

“I'm so going to kill you,” he promised. Jack smiled.

“Still can't die,” he advised. Something gleamed in John’s eyes as Ianto embraced him from behind.

“And still you say we aren't meant to be together,” he said with a look of intense concentration as Ianto’s lips moved on his neck and he struggled to remain lucid enough to speak. “That's denial.”

Jack followed him into the water, where the light pulsed a mindless staccato, and he put his arms around John, grabbing at Ianto’s hips to hold all three of them together, making sure that John groaned in lust before him. “Oh, yeah?”

He could feel himself tuning out as it began, and yet he heard John’s last words. “Maybe not.” They were the last coherent words any of them would speak for a while.


Author's Note: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Comments/constructive criticism welcome.