Birthday & TW Gift Fic: Ianto in Scarlet (Jack/Ianto, 15)
HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY, ICE_ELF!
Hope you have a fantastic day. *sends hugs* In honour of this auspicious occasion, I wrote a fic. I'd hardly call it my best work, but I think - I hope - you'll enjoy it. :)
Title ~ Ianto in Scarlet
Rating ~ 15
Pairing ~ Jack/Ianto
Summary ~ Ianto decides to take an afternoon off, and Jack comes to the conclusion that he must be up to something.
Notes ~ Set between Dead Man Walking and Fragments.
Technically, this is a Trip of Whom fic. I think it was ice_elf who wrote this particular prompt on the list - but regardless, this one's for her. Thanks to scripteens for reading it through for me.
Disclaimer ~ Torchwood and its characters do not belong to me.
It was rare for Ianto to request an afternoon off, so when he did Jack agreed almost without thinking. He was owed holidays anyway, and it wasn’t as if Jack had a legitimate reason to make him stay. However, his curiosity had been piqued when he had asked if Ianto was going anywhere nice; Ianto had replied that he was staying in with a smile that bordered on a smirk.
At noon he brought their lunch in, as usual, then headed off home with a cheery wave. The topic of lunchtime conversation had inevitably been Ianto’s potential social life, which hadn’t helped to assuage Jack’s curiosity in the slightest. Toshiko’s theory - that Ianto was marathoning James Bond from Connery to Craig - was probably closest to the mark, but Jack still couldn’t help but wonder.
Years of working for Torchwood had probably made him more suspicious than he had any right to be, but something in Ianto’s demeanour that morning - the smile, the gleam in his eye, the spring in his step when he walked into the Hub that no man ought to have at half past eight in the morning - suggested that he was up to something.
If it were any other member of his team, Jack wouldn’t hesitate to make it his business to find out what. Unfortunately for him, this was Ianto, and Ianto was touchy about his personal life. Jack already knew more than Ianto was really happy with, and poking his nose in wouldn’t be appreciated. He would just have to wait until Ianto told him.
Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t spend the whole afternoon speculating wildly.
Five o’clock came slowly. It was an unusually quiet day: no alien threats, no mysterious missing persons, and only background Rift activity. There was nothing much to do besides paperwork, and he had no Ianto to distract him from the monotony. There was no decent coffee, either; no one but Ianto had the magic touch when it came to the Hub’s temperamental coffee machine.
When the clock reached half past four and there were still no aliens in evidence, Jack decided that they could call it a day. He stepped out of his office and looked down at his team. Toshiko’s monitor displayed the readings for Rift activity, but she wasn’t paying it any attention. Instead, her focus was flicking between the newspaper cryptic crossword on her lap and Gwen and Owen, who were playing a first-person shooter across the network. A few seconds later, Gwen swore and threw up her hands in defeat.
“You are too bloody good, you are!” she laughed, poking Owen’s arm.
“No, you just suck,” Owen replied with a smirk that earned him a thump on the arm. Jack smiled to himself and decided that now was as good a time as any to interrupt.
“OK, guys,” he called as he walked across to them. “Time to shut down your game.”
Toshiko laid aside her newspaper. “You have something?”
“Nope,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “The Rift has apparently taken a day off, so I thought it’d be nice if you all got to go home early for a change.”
“Seriously?” Gwen asked. Jack nodded and a broad grin spread across her face. “I can go home and surprise Rhys?”
“Surprise away,” Jack replied with a smile. Immediately, Gwen started grabbing her things, thanking Jack over her shoulder. Owen spun his chair around and stood up to grab his coat. Toshiko, however, didn’t move; she laid a hand on Jack’s arm.
“Do you want me to stay?”
“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Jack replied, smiling at her. “I can call if there’s a problem. You go home and do whatever it is you do when you’re not here.”
“Sleep?” Toshiko replied dryly with a small, sardonic smile. Jack laughed softly, even as he felt a pang of regret. Torchwood did take up too much of his team’s lives. Especially if it had got to the stage where he was suspicious when one of them asked for time off, he thought, remembering his reaction to Ianto’s request earlier.
He watched them all out of the main door, chatting away to one another, then want back to his office. He heard the distant cry of the pterodactyl and smiled to himself.
“Just you and me tonight, old girl,” he murmured. Normally, he would have Ianto to keep him company after everyone else had left. Lately, he had taken to coaxing Jack out for dinner a couple of nights each week, and Tuesday evenings had become something of a regular thing between them, barring alien invasion. Jack found himself missing the routine of it as well was Ianto’s company. He went back to his paperwork with a wistful sigh.
Forty monotonous minutes later, the phone on Jack’s desk rang. He looked up, frowning; calls directly to his desk didn’t usually herald good news when he wasn’t expecting them. He lifted the receiver to his ear, steeling himself for the worst.
“Hello?”
“Hey.”
Not UNIT, or any of the other organisations and individuals he had been dreading; just familiar Welsh vowels and a voice he had missed for the past five hours.
“Ianto!” he replied, unable to prevent a grim from forming on his lips. “Hey. What’s up? How did you get this number?”
“I work in the Archives, Jack, I know all the numbers,” Ianto told him. His tone suggested that it was a stupid question; Jack laughed. “Listen, I was wondering if you fancied coming over.”
Ianto’s tone was casual, but Jack knew him too well to be fooled; he had practiced that line in front of the mirror. After a moment of silence, Ianto cleared his throat and spoke again.
“To my house, I mean,” he qualified unnecessarily, betraying his nerves. “I could make us something to eat later.”
“Sounds great,” Jack smiled, wanting to give him all the reassurance he could. “When d’you want me to arrive?”
“Shall we say six?”
“Six it is,” Jack replied, glancing at the clock to judge how much time he had before he needed to leave. “I’ll see you in a little while, then.”
“OK,” Ianto said softly. “Oh, and Jack? I left my flat key in my desk drawer, can you bring it?”
Jack frowned; that didn’t sound much like Ianto, who could be relied upon to remember absolutely everything. Still, everyone had off days, Jack thought, trying to repress his suspicion as it reared its ugly head again. He shook his head at himself and said, “Sure.”
“Thanks. Bye, then.”
Ianto hung up. Jack put the phone down slowly, without paying much attention, and stared into a space for a few minutes. The phone call had aroused his earlier suspicions: he was almost certain now that Ianto was up to something. The only question now was what, exactly. Jack began to smile; it wouldn’t be long before he found out.
Jack arrived at Ianto’s flat at six o’clock sharp, uncertain of what he ought to expect. Ianto had never invited him into his home before; all of their sexual encounters had taken place within the confines of the Hub - except for that one occasion in the SUV, memorable only because it had been disastrously uncomfortable - and although Jack had dropped Ianto off and picked him up from his house, he had never been inside. He had thought until now that Ianto was reluctant to let him into the truly personal space of his home, for fear that he was just another of Jack’s meaningless flings - but apparently his feelings had changed.
Jack tried to stop analysing Ianto’s potential motives as he climbed the stairs to the correct floor and found Ianto’s door. Over-thinking relationships didn’t end well, he found. He took a breath and rang the doorbell.
There was a brief pause, then a voice - indistinct, but definitely Ianto’s - called, “Let yourself in!”
Jack frowned, but decided not to shout questions through the door. It was hardly as if he were in a hostile situation, after all; it was only Ianto’s flat. He pulled the key from his pocket, fitted it into the lock and turned, pushing the door open as he did so.
The first thing Jack realised was that the front door opened directly into the living room; the second was the low, warm lighting. The room was lit by a couple of lamps with deep red shades that cast scarlet and gold light across the walls and ceiling. Then Jack saw what was right in front of his: Ianto Jones, reclining on his sofa wearing only a pair of scarlet boxers and - Jack started to grin - a UNIT beret.
“Where did you get that?” he asked softly, knowing that Ianto would be well aware of what he was talking about. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him without taking his eyes off Ianto.
“Your friend Martha,” Ianto said, shrugging. His muscles moved fluidly beneath his skin, and Jack felt his heart speed up with anticipation.
It was easy to forget that - beneath the mild-mannered, suit-wearing exterior - Ianto had the build of a Rugby player, and he was more than in shape from his work with Torchwood. He looked good wearing next-to-nothing; the beret was just an added bonus. Jack let himself stare, his eyes raking over Ianto’s body and his mind already half-imagining, half-remembering what it was like to touch.
“We Joneses help one another out, you know,” Ianto continued. Jack laughed at that, but Ianto wasn’t finished. “She sent me a whole uniform, but I thought that might be a bit too much at once for you.”
Images of Ianto in tight-fitting military green flashed through Jack’s mind; he swallowed hard. “Good old Martha.”
Ianto shifted, probably self-consciously aware of how much flesh he was showing in comparison to Jack himself. “So, are you planning on standing there all night …?”
“Just appreciating the view,” Jack told him with a charming grin, and even in the low light Jack saw him blush. He shrugged his greatcoat off and tossed it over the back of an armchair as he walked across and sat down on the edge of the sofa. “You know that song, ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ …?”
He saw Ianto roll his eyes, but his lips turned up at the corners in amusement. He grinned and cut off any answer Ianto might have had with a kiss. Immediately, Ianto’s lips parted to give his tongue access and Jack too advantage of the fact, pressing deeper. Ianto’s hands came up to clutch his shoulders.
Jack pulled back, his breath coming in pants already. Ianto shifted, moving one hand to the back of Jack’s neck. When he spoke, his voice was low and gravely with desire, his lilting accent catching on the vowels.
“Been waiting for this all day,” he growled, and yanked Jack back into another searing kiss.
Ianto had never been a reticent lover by any means, but Jack could feel the difference in him now. For all that he might have played the part of the submissive partner so far, Jack had no illusions as to who was in charge tonight. Ianto pulled back sooner than Jack expected and pushed him upright, then shifted across the sofa and climbed to his feet. He walked across to one of the doors, Jack’s eyes following him all the way, then turned and regarded Jack over his shoulder.
The light from the lamps cast half of his face into deep shadow, and Jack could see the muscles on his back defined in brilliant light and shadow. He wanted to reach out and touch those muscles, trace over the marks that Torchwood had scarred into his skin with fingertips and tongue. He wanted to feel Ianto’s often hidden strength.
“Bedroom?” Ianto suggested, jerking his head towards the door he stood against. Jack nodded and rose to his feet. Ianto’s smile was small and secret - cunning, almost, Jack thought - as he pushed open the door and stepped into the room without turning on the light. Jack didn’t hesitate for a moment; he strode across and followed Ianto into the darkness.
end
.
Hope you have a fantastic day. *sends hugs* In honour of this auspicious occasion, I wrote a fic. I'd hardly call it my best work, but I think - I hope - you'll enjoy it. :)
Title ~ Ianto in Scarlet
Rating ~ 15
Pairing ~ Jack/Ianto
Summary ~ Ianto decides to take an afternoon off, and Jack comes to the conclusion that he must be up to something.
Notes ~ Set between Dead Man Walking and Fragments.
Technically, this is a Trip of Whom fic. I think it was ice_elf who wrote this particular prompt on the list - but regardless, this one's for her. Thanks to scripteens for reading it through for me.
Disclaimer ~ Torchwood and its characters do not belong to me.
It was rare for Ianto to request an afternoon off, so when he did Jack agreed almost without thinking. He was owed holidays anyway, and it wasn’t as if Jack had a legitimate reason to make him stay. However, his curiosity had been piqued when he had asked if Ianto was going anywhere nice; Ianto had replied that he was staying in with a smile that bordered on a smirk.
At noon he brought their lunch in, as usual, then headed off home with a cheery wave. The topic of lunchtime conversation had inevitably been Ianto’s potential social life, which hadn’t helped to assuage Jack’s curiosity in the slightest. Toshiko’s theory - that Ianto was marathoning James Bond from Connery to Craig - was probably closest to the mark, but Jack still couldn’t help but wonder.
Years of working for Torchwood had probably made him more suspicious than he had any right to be, but something in Ianto’s demeanour that morning - the smile, the gleam in his eye, the spring in his step when he walked into the Hub that no man ought to have at half past eight in the morning - suggested that he was up to something.
If it were any other member of his team, Jack wouldn’t hesitate to make it his business to find out what. Unfortunately for him, this was Ianto, and Ianto was touchy about his personal life. Jack already knew more than Ianto was really happy with, and poking his nose in wouldn’t be appreciated. He would just have to wait until Ianto told him.
Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t spend the whole afternoon speculating wildly.
Five o’clock came slowly. It was an unusually quiet day: no alien threats, no mysterious missing persons, and only background Rift activity. There was nothing much to do besides paperwork, and he had no Ianto to distract him from the monotony. There was no decent coffee, either; no one but Ianto had the magic touch when it came to the Hub’s temperamental coffee machine.
When the clock reached half past four and there were still no aliens in evidence, Jack decided that they could call it a day. He stepped out of his office and looked down at his team. Toshiko’s monitor displayed the readings for Rift activity, but she wasn’t paying it any attention. Instead, her focus was flicking between the newspaper cryptic crossword on her lap and Gwen and Owen, who were playing a first-person shooter across the network. A few seconds later, Gwen swore and threw up her hands in defeat.
“You are too bloody good, you are!” she laughed, poking Owen’s arm.
“No, you just suck,” Owen replied with a smirk that earned him a thump on the arm. Jack smiled to himself and decided that now was as good a time as any to interrupt.
“OK, guys,” he called as he walked across to them. “Time to shut down your game.”
Toshiko laid aside her newspaper. “You have something?”
“Nope,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “The Rift has apparently taken a day off, so I thought it’d be nice if you all got to go home early for a change.”
“Seriously?” Gwen asked. Jack nodded and a broad grin spread across her face. “I can go home and surprise Rhys?”
“Surprise away,” Jack replied with a smile. Immediately, Gwen started grabbing her things, thanking Jack over her shoulder. Owen spun his chair around and stood up to grab his coat. Toshiko, however, didn’t move; she laid a hand on Jack’s arm.
“Do you want me to stay?”
“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Jack replied, smiling at her. “I can call if there’s a problem. You go home and do whatever it is you do when you’re not here.”
“Sleep?” Toshiko replied dryly with a small, sardonic smile. Jack laughed softly, even as he felt a pang of regret. Torchwood did take up too much of his team’s lives. Especially if it had got to the stage where he was suspicious when one of them asked for time off, he thought, remembering his reaction to Ianto’s request earlier.
He watched them all out of the main door, chatting away to one another, then want back to his office. He heard the distant cry of the pterodactyl and smiled to himself.
“Just you and me tonight, old girl,” he murmured. Normally, he would have Ianto to keep him company after everyone else had left. Lately, he had taken to coaxing Jack out for dinner a couple of nights each week, and Tuesday evenings had become something of a regular thing between them, barring alien invasion. Jack found himself missing the routine of it as well was Ianto’s company. He went back to his paperwork with a wistful sigh.
Forty monotonous minutes later, the phone on Jack’s desk rang. He looked up, frowning; calls directly to his desk didn’t usually herald good news when he wasn’t expecting them. He lifted the receiver to his ear, steeling himself for the worst.
“Hello?”
“Hey.”
Not UNIT, or any of the other organisations and individuals he had been dreading; just familiar Welsh vowels and a voice he had missed for the past five hours.
“Ianto!” he replied, unable to prevent a grim from forming on his lips. “Hey. What’s up? How did you get this number?”
“I work in the Archives, Jack, I know all the numbers,” Ianto told him. His tone suggested that it was a stupid question; Jack laughed. “Listen, I was wondering if you fancied coming over.”
Ianto’s tone was casual, but Jack knew him too well to be fooled; he had practiced that line in front of the mirror. After a moment of silence, Ianto cleared his throat and spoke again.
“To my house, I mean,” he qualified unnecessarily, betraying his nerves. “I could make us something to eat later.”
“Sounds great,” Jack smiled, wanting to give him all the reassurance he could. “When d’you want me to arrive?”
“Shall we say six?”
“Six it is,” Jack replied, glancing at the clock to judge how much time he had before he needed to leave. “I’ll see you in a little while, then.”
“OK,” Ianto said softly. “Oh, and Jack? I left my flat key in my desk drawer, can you bring it?”
Jack frowned; that didn’t sound much like Ianto, who could be relied upon to remember absolutely everything. Still, everyone had off days, Jack thought, trying to repress his suspicion as it reared its ugly head again. He shook his head at himself and said, “Sure.”
“Thanks. Bye, then.”
Ianto hung up. Jack put the phone down slowly, without paying much attention, and stared into a space for a few minutes. The phone call had aroused his earlier suspicions: he was almost certain now that Ianto was up to something. The only question now was what, exactly. Jack began to smile; it wouldn’t be long before he found out.
Jack arrived at Ianto’s flat at six o’clock sharp, uncertain of what he ought to expect. Ianto had never invited him into his home before; all of their sexual encounters had taken place within the confines of the Hub - except for that one occasion in the SUV, memorable only because it had been disastrously uncomfortable - and although Jack had dropped Ianto off and picked him up from his house, he had never been inside. He had thought until now that Ianto was reluctant to let him into the truly personal space of his home, for fear that he was just another of Jack’s meaningless flings - but apparently his feelings had changed.
Jack tried to stop analysing Ianto’s potential motives as he climbed the stairs to the correct floor and found Ianto’s door. Over-thinking relationships didn’t end well, he found. He took a breath and rang the doorbell.
There was a brief pause, then a voice - indistinct, but definitely Ianto’s - called, “Let yourself in!”
Jack frowned, but decided not to shout questions through the door. It was hardly as if he were in a hostile situation, after all; it was only Ianto’s flat. He pulled the key from his pocket, fitted it into the lock and turned, pushing the door open as he did so.
The first thing Jack realised was that the front door opened directly into the living room; the second was the low, warm lighting. The room was lit by a couple of lamps with deep red shades that cast scarlet and gold light across the walls and ceiling. Then Jack saw what was right in front of his: Ianto Jones, reclining on his sofa wearing only a pair of scarlet boxers and - Jack started to grin - a UNIT beret.
“Where did you get that?” he asked softly, knowing that Ianto would be well aware of what he was talking about. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him without taking his eyes off Ianto.
“Your friend Martha,” Ianto said, shrugging. His muscles moved fluidly beneath his skin, and Jack felt his heart speed up with anticipation.
It was easy to forget that - beneath the mild-mannered, suit-wearing exterior - Ianto had the build of a Rugby player, and he was more than in shape from his work with Torchwood. He looked good wearing next-to-nothing; the beret was just an added bonus. Jack let himself stare, his eyes raking over Ianto’s body and his mind already half-imagining, half-remembering what it was like to touch.
“We Joneses help one another out, you know,” Ianto continued. Jack laughed at that, but Ianto wasn’t finished. “She sent me a whole uniform, but I thought that might be a bit too much at once for you.”
Images of Ianto in tight-fitting military green flashed through Jack’s mind; he swallowed hard. “Good old Martha.”
Ianto shifted, probably self-consciously aware of how much flesh he was showing in comparison to Jack himself. “So, are you planning on standing there all night …?”
“Just appreciating the view,” Jack told him with a charming grin, and even in the low light Jack saw him blush. He shrugged his greatcoat off and tossed it over the back of an armchair as he walked across and sat down on the edge of the sofa. “You know that song, ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ …?”
He saw Ianto roll his eyes, but his lips turned up at the corners in amusement. He grinned and cut off any answer Ianto might have had with a kiss. Immediately, Ianto’s lips parted to give his tongue access and Jack too advantage of the fact, pressing deeper. Ianto’s hands came up to clutch his shoulders.
Jack pulled back, his breath coming in pants already. Ianto shifted, moving one hand to the back of Jack’s neck. When he spoke, his voice was low and gravely with desire, his lilting accent catching on the vowels.
“Been waiting for this all day,” he growled, and yanked Jack back into another searing kiss.
Ianto had never been a reticent lover by any means, but Jack could feel the difference in him now. For all that he might have played the part of the submissive partner so far, Jack had no illusions as to who was in charge tonight. Ianto pulled back sooner than Jack expected and pushed him upright, then shifted across the sofa and climbed to his feet. He walked across to one of the doors, Jack’s eyes following him all the way, then turned and regarded Jack over his shoulder.
The light from the lamps cast half of his face into deep shadow, and Jack could see the muscles on his back defined in brilliant light and shadow. He wanted to reach out and touch those muscles, trace over the marks that Torchwood had scarred into his skin with fingertips and tongue. He wanted to feel Ianto’s often hidden strength.
“Bedroom?” Ianto suggested, jerking his head towards the door he stood against. Jack nodded and rose to his feet. Ianto’s smile was small and secret - cunning, almost, Jack thought - as he pushed open the door and stepped into the room without turning on the light. Jack didn’t hesitate for a moment; he strode across and followed Ianto into the darkness.
end
.