Fic: Sans Chips (Doctor Who/Torchwood)
Title: Sans Chips
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 2.3k
Warnings: None
Beta: vyctori
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: This is not the man he wants to be out on a lunch date with. Not even close.
“It doesn’t matter, you know,” the alien has the gall to tell him, leaning forward with his chin on his palm. Brown eyes roll a little, that expressive almost-human face cast into a display of boredom. “This possessive act of yours. Not really effective.”
“You’re wrong,” Ianto tells him, sitting up straight. In the public setting, he comes off as the rude one, but he knows better - and that’s all he needs. Actually, being the one of this pair who’s not eating a lunch makes him look slightly less rude, but again, he doesn’t care.
The alien laughs a little and it sounds so pleasant. It sounds so much like Jack. “Really? Can’t say being possessive of Jack Harkness ever worked for me. Well. I say ever, I mean once. Well. I say once.” He raises his eyebrows, his eyes flashing their whites. He’s eager and grinning and the façade of humanity is more grating than the noise of a pterodactyl accidentally electrocuting herself. It’s just as horrifying, though. Just more subtly.
Ianto wants to tell him to stop it. A simple and straightforward command that would provoke a ridiculing response. So instead, he simply corrects: “It’s not an act. And it’s not possessive.”
Those eyes light up once more, light up again but differently. “Protective, then?”
He can’t quite pin down what sort of animal the alien reminds him of. There’s something almost birdlike in the way he pays attention, but he shifts too slowly for all he stares too long. He knows that when the alien walks, that coat of his swishes differently than it ought. Maybe some turn of the hips, maybe the shoulder blades pushing out in some way; he doesn’t know.
What he does know about this creature is that the first time he saw him, Jack was dead. When the alien left, Jack was alive again. He knows of a capacity for anger and, for all the alien prods at him for it, he knows he’s not the only one possessive when it comes to Jack.
“It’s my job to look after him,” Ianto says. “What’s your excuse?”
“I ruined his life,” the alien replies. Shrugs like an indifferent human. “Well. I say his life.” This time, the alien doesn’t even attempt to clarify.
If it’s not life he means, then... only one real alternative there, when it comes to Jack. “Are you saying you’re the reason he can’t die?” But if he were trying to make it up to Jack - in some strange, twisted way, make it up to Jack for letting him live - then why bring him back when he seemed truly dead?
The plethora of questions doesn’t make Ianto feel out of his depth. Not at all. It makes him curious, more so.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop asking, when it comes to Jack.
He’ll never stop asking, but the alien doesn’t answer his question. Not the one he just asked, anyway. He hopes it’s a non sequitur. “Friends look after friends,” the alien says with another shrug. Ianto’s uncertain of whether the gesture looks right. It could be natural behavior or it could be as much a piece of adaptation as the London accent is. Must be.
Or maybe the alien learned English in London. He’ll have to dig through the records, once they’re done here. It’s a strange place to start, but, again, he’s curious.
“And is that why you wanted to have this little chat?” Ianto asks, his voice steady, his tone casual. Company policy dictates that he capture the creature sitting across from him. Personal preference tells him to punch that too-human face.
He knows Jack isn’t loyal, not when it’s about sex, but the captain is the most steadfast man he knows when it comes to his duty. Why this one? Why this figure from history with destruction filling his footprints?
Ianto knows he’s overanalyzing, tries to force himself back fully into the moment.
But it’s hard. The way the alien is picking at that plate of fish without chips - hold the chips, that had been the order - it’s difficult to see him as a threat. He looks more like a bored little boy who simply happens to be in his mid-thirties than he looks like an alien. Though, in Ianto’s experience, that does happen more often than one might think.
“Are you listening?” he prompts, thinking his question ignored.
The alien continues to look at the bit of fried haddock on the end of his fork, peers at it intently. It’s not the sort of false fascination he’s seen Owen use to ignore him, a feigned interest that excludes. It’s a puzzle that’s more pressing than Ianto’s question and it’s the odd sincerity behind the captivation that makes Ianto keep quiet. Perhaps the alien is wondering about marine life; it could reflect on his home planet and is therefore worth noting.
Blinking, the alien comes back to himself and takes that long-suspended bite. While chewing, he reflects, “It’s not the same without the chips.”
“Then why didn’t you order them?” Ianto finds himself asking, put off by the waiting for so small a reason. “Have you some awful potato feud going on? Time travelers against tubers?” It’s not his best, but he has more to think of at the moment than that.
The alien’s expression takes a sharp turn from discomfort to glee, a transition more than quick enough to unnerve Ianto. There is something about food here that depresses the alien, just as there’s something about sarcasm that delights him.
“There it is,” the alien announces, just that, and Ianto feels that unnerved feeling spreading. This is not someone he wants praise from.
“There’s what?” he asks. It’s probably not a good sign, he realizes now, the way he’s the only one here asking questions. Not when he’s here on the alien’s invitation. There’s something Ianto must be here to provide or answer, but no demands have yet been made. Just comments. Just little jibes about him and Jack.
“Oh,” the alien says, stretching the syllable out, scrunching up his face while he rubs at the back of his head. “Well. Leave it for now. Just wanted to talk to you.”
Ianto doesn’t want to leave it for now. Not when that means there’s a later yet to come. “What for?”
Again, the alien shrugs. Again, he eats his fish. Just with the fork, Ianto notes automatically. He doesn’t use the knife, hasn’t touched it; Ianto wonders vaguely, for just a moment, if that’s a gesture of goodwill.
When he’s waited long enough, the alien swallows. Looks at Ianto’s side of the table with raised eyebrows. “Are you sure you’re not hungry? You need to eat more greens,” he adds, like this knowledge is somehow as obvious as the colour of his eyes.
“Is that your professional opinion as a doctor?” Ianto counters and once more, the alien beams at him.
“Nope,” he says, popping the “p” in clear enjoyment of the sound. “Though, well, on second thought, yes. But mostly, it’s Jack.”
“Jack?” he echoes dumbly. Jack, who has been after his eating habits for months. Who has begun to actively bribe him.
Who apparently discusses Ianto’s general health with aliens.
The alien nods, hums out a noncommittal sort of agreement. “He has a vested interest in your longevity,” he says, letting go of the words so simply that he cannot possibly be aware of their impact.
Because that is a very, very long term way of thinking.
He’s not sure which scares him more: that he likes the idea, or that he had to find out through a complete stranger.
And then, like a punch from a cannibal, it hits him and immediately begins to eat his insides: no chips, though clearly wanting them. Ianto’s not the only one eating healthy.
“You all right?” the alien asks, his expression so close to human concern that he almost wants to accept it as such. But that makes no sense.
“Did Jack tell you this last Wednesday night?” he counters. “Or on the eighth of last month? Two months before that on the twenty-eighth?” He lists the dates - and they are, he knows they are, in both senses of the word - and he could keep listing them, all the way back to that first night, not so long after the Dogon Sixth Eye incident. He could keep listing them, but the look in the alien’s eyes stops him.
He wants it to be a threatening look, some sort of inhuman glare to raise his hackles and help him build his resentment. That would be so much better than this sad understanding.
It’s impossible to call someone a heartless bastard when they look so sorry.
“You knew it wasn’t going to be normal with Jack from the beginning,” the alien reminds him.
“And you’re not normal at all,” Ianto finishes for him. It’s a good thing he hasn’t eaten, he knows now. It’s a very good thing as his stomach churns. He remembers the way Jack tasted after he’d been dead for so long. After the alien had woken him up.
The strangeness wasn’t entirely from chemicals after all.
“I’m as not normal as they come,” the alien admits. He shrugs again, this time letting the motion be expressive, not dismissive. Maybe it is a natural motion after all, Ianto notes, still keeping track of all the little details.
“So is that it? Accept the alien affair or back off? Or are you here to tell me I’ve gotten space AIDS?”
“If you have, they’re not from me.”
Only with that assurance does Ianto realize he was concerned. Just slightly. There are some things he doesn’t want to let Owen check him for. He nods, takes a breath. Acts, for some reason, with some measure of common courtesy. “I’m clean, too.”
Again, the alien shrugs.
“Does it not matter? Species barrier prevents transfer?” If he doesn’t follow curiosity, he’s going to follow something else entirely and he can’t do that, certainly not in public.
The alien shrugs again, truly seeming not to care. “It’s a nonissue.” He goes back to his lunch, finishing it up.
“Right,” he answers, processing, attempting to. Jack cares enough to make him eat his veg, but not enough to keep from running off to aliens. The puzzle pieces he has don’t fit together.
Which can only mean there are more pieces out there. The puzzle is bigger than he’s giving it credit for.
“Do you like Frisbee?” the alien asks him, polishing off the fish.
“Do I what?” That last word must be wrong, garbled up in the chewing. Aliens and table manners never do seem to mix.
“Do you like Frisbee?” the alien repeats, pronouncing each word carefully, turning the sounds over with a relish that combines oddly with the intensity in his eyes. The voice is young and the eyes so old and it occurs to Ianto for the first time why Jack might go off with this man, might run to him.
“Um,” he says.
“Frisbee is good,” the alien continues, his eyes hiding their age as makes himself look happy, or at least not sad. He’s so much like Jack in that moment, so much like him. It completely crosses Ianto’s signals and the worst part is that it doesn’t seem to be intentional. “Frisbee is very good,” he says again. “We play it a lot.”
There’s a moment of confused white noise in Ianto’s brain that he pushes past. “You and Jack?”
“Yep!” Again, said brightly. Again, that “p” popped.
“At night?”
“We’ve got one that glows in the dark,” the alien explains.
Ianto opens his mouth to say something. Looking at the expression on that face, he wants to close his mouth again without speaking a word. Because if that expression means the same thing it would on a human face.... “Are you inviting me along?”
He expects a shrug.
What he receives is a simple “If you like.”
“That would definitely be against company policy,” he answers after quite the pause.
The Doctor laughs. “Too bad,” he says and he might even mean it. He stands up then, his business apparently done. He turns away, takes a step. Turns back. “Oh, and thanks for lunch.”
Instead of being surprised or annoyed, Ianto says, “When?”
It’s the alien’s turn to blink in confusion. “This lunch just now.” He points at the plate.
Ianto shakes his head. “No. When?”
Brown eyes study him as that brown tufted head tilts ever so slightly to the side. He thumbs his ear and it makes him look like any normal man. It’s better for Ianto’s pride, though, that he isn’t. “You’ll know,” he says. “You’re good at that.”
“I am,” he says, still seated.
The standing man waves goodbye; the sitting man nods.
The Doctor walks away and Ianto waits to pay for a meal he wasn’t the one to eat. It takes a few minutes for the waitress to come over, a moment longer than that for him to be pulled out of his thoughts.
He puts the meal on Jack’s tab and then orders one of his own, asking for chips he already knows he won’t eat.
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 2.3k
Warnings: None
Beta: vyctori
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: This is not the man he wants to be out on a lunch date with. Not even close.
“It doesn’t matter, you know,” the alien has the gall to tell him, leaning forward with his chin on his palm. Brown eyes roll a little, that expressive almost-human face cast into a display of boredom. “This possessive act of yours. Not really effective.”
“You’re wrong,” Ianto tells him, sitting up straight. In the public setting, he comes off as the rude one, but he knows better - and that’s all he needs. Actually, being the one of this pair who’s not eating a lunch makes him look slightly less rude, but again, he doesn’t care.
The alien laughs a little and it sounds so pleasant. It sounds so much like Jack. “Really? Can’t say being possessive of Jack Harkness ever worked for me. Well. I say ever, I mean once. Well. I say once.” He raises his eyebrows, his eyes flashing their whites. He’s eager and grinning and the façade of humanity is more grating than the noise of a pterodactyl accidentally electrocuting herself. It’s just as horrifying, though. Just more subtly.
Ianto wants to tell him to stop it. A simple and straightforward command that would provoke a ridiculing response. So instead, he simply corrects: “It’s not an act. And it’s not possessive.”
Those eyes light up once more, light up again but differently. “Protective, then?”
He can’t quite pin down what sort of animal the alien reminds him of. There’s something almost birdlike in the way he pays attention, but he shifts too slowly for all he stares too long. He knows that when the alien walks, that coat of his swishes differently than it ought. Maybe some turn of the hips, maybe the shoulder blades pushing out in some way; he doesn’t know.
What he does know about this creature is that the first time he saw him, Jack was dead. When the alien left, Jack was alive again. He knows of a capacity for anger and, for all the alien prods at him for it, he knows he’s not the only one possessive when it comes to Jack.
“It’s my job to look after him,” Ianto says. “What’s your excuse?”
“I ruined his life,” the alien replies. Shrugs like an indifferent human. “Well. I say his life.” This time, the alien doesn’t even attempt to clarify.
If it’s not life he means, then... only one real alternative there, when it comes to Jack. “Are you saying you’re the reason he can’t die?” But if he were trying to make it up to Jack - in some strange, twisted way, make it up to Jack for letting him live - then why bring him back when he seemed truly dead?
The plethora of questions doesn’t make Ianto feel out of his depth. Not at all. It makes him curious, more so.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop asking, when it comes to Jack.
He’ll never stop asking, but the alien doesn’t answer his question. Not the one he just asked, anyway. He hopes it’s a non sequitur. “Friends look after friends,” the alien says with another shrug. Ianto’s uncertain of whether the gesture looks right. It could be natural behavior or it could be as much a piece of adaptation as the London accent is. Must be.
Or maybe the alien learned English in London. He’ll have to dig through the records, once they’re done here. It’s a strange place to start, but, again, he’s curious.
“And is that why you wanted to have this little chat?” Ianto asks, his voice steady, his tone casual. Company policy dictates that he capture the creature sitting across from him. Personal preference tells him to punch that too-human face.
He knows Jack isn’t loyal, not when it’s about sex, but the captain is the most steadfast man he knows when it comes to his duty. Why this one? Why this figure from history with destruction filling his footprints?
Ianto knows he’s overanalyzing, tries to force himself back fully into the moment.
But it’s hard. The way the alien is picking at that plate of fish without chips - hold the chips, that had been the order - it’s difficult to see him as a threat. He looks more like a bored little boy who simply happens to be in his mid-thirties than he looks like an alien. Though, in Ianto’s experience, that does happen more often than one might think.
“Are you listening?” he prompts, thinking his question ignored.
The alien continues to look at the bit of fried haddock on the end of his fork, peers at it intently. It’s not the sort of false fascination he’s seen Owen use to ignore him, a feigned interest that excludes. It’s a puzzle that’s more pressing than Ianto’s question and it’s the odd sincerity behind the captivation that makes Ianto keep quiet. Perhaps the alien is wondering about marine life; it could reflect on his home planet and is therefore worth noting.
Blinking, the alien comes back to himself and takes that long-suspended bite. While chewing, he reflects, “It’s not the same without the chips.”
“Then why didn’t you order them?” Ianto finds himself asking, put off by the waiting for so small a reason. “Have you some awful potato feud going on? Time travelers against tubers?” It’s not his best, but he has more to think of at the moment than that.
The alien’s expression takes a sharp turn from discomfort to glee, a transition more than quick enough to unnerve Ianto. There is something about food here that depresses the alien, just as there’s something about sarcasm that delights him.
“There it is,” the alien announces, just that, and Ianto feels that unnerved feeling spreading. This is not someone he wants praise from.
“There’s what?” he asks. It’s probably not a good sign, he realizes now, the way he’s the only one here asking questions. Not when he’s here on the alien’s invitation. There’s something Ianto must be here to provide or answer, but no demands have yet been made. Just comments. Just little jibes about him and Jack.
“Oh,” the alien says, stretching the syllable out, scrunching up his face while he rubs at the back of his head. “Well. Leave it for now. Just wanted to talk to you.”
Ianto doesn’t want to leave it for now. Not when that means there’s a later yet to come. “What for?”
Again, the alien shrugs. Again, he eats his fish. Just with the fork, Ianto notes automatically. He doesn’t use the knife, hasn’t touched it; Ianto wonders vaguely, for just a moment, if that’s a gesture of goodwill.
When he’s waited long enough, the alien swallows. Looks at Ianto’s side of the table with raised eyebrows. “Are you sure you’re not hungry? You need to eat more greens,” he adds, like this knowledge is somehow as obvious as the colour of his eyes.
“Is that your professional opinion as a doctor?” Ianto counters and once more, the alien beams at him.
“Nope,” he says, popping the “p” in clear enjoyment of the sound. “Though, well, on second thought, yes. But mostly, it’s Jack.”
“Jack?” he echoes dumbly. Jack, who has been after his eating habits for months. Who has begun to actively bribe him.
Who apparently discusses Ianto’s general health with aliens.
The alien nods, hums out a noncommittal sort of agreement. “He has a vested interest in your longevity,” he says, letting go of the words so simply that he cannot possibly be aware of their impact.
Because that is a very, very long term way of thinking.
He’s not sure which scares him more: that he likes the idea, or that he had to find out through a complete stranger.
And then, like a punch from a cannibal, it hits him and immediately begins to eat his insides: no chips, though clearly wanting them. Ianto’s not the only one eating healthy.
“You all right?” the alien asks, his expression so close to human concern that he almost wants to accept it as such. But that makes no sense.
“Did Jack tell you this last Wednesday night?” he counters. “Or on the eighth of last month? Two months before that on the twenty-eighth?” He lists the dates - and they are, he knows they are, in both senses of the word - and he could keep listing them, all the way back to that first night, not so long after the Dogon Sixth Eye incident. He could keep listing them, but the look in the alien’s eyes stops him.
He wants it to be a threatening look, some sort of inhuman glare to raise his hackles and help him build his resentment. That would be so much better than this sad understanding.
It’s impossible to call someone a heartless bastard when they look so sorry.
“You knew it wasn’t going to be normal with Jack from the beginning,” the alien reminds him.
“And you’re not normal at all,” Ianto finishes for him. It’s a good thing he hasn’t eaten, he knows now. It’s a very good thing as his stomach churns. He remembers the way Jack tasted after he’d been dead for so long. After the alien had woken him up.
The strangeness wasn’t entirely from chemicals after all.
“I’m as not normal as they come,” the alien admits. He shrugs again, this time letting the motion be expressive, not dismissive. Maybe it is a natural motion after all, Ianto notes, still keeping track of all the little details.
“So is that it? Accept the alien affair or back off? Or are you here to tell me I’ve gotten space AIDS?”
“If you have, they’re not from me.”
Only with that assurance does Ianto realize he was concerned. Just slightly. There are some things he doesn’t want to let Owen check him for. He nods, takes a breath. Acts, for some reason, with some measure of common courtesy. “I’m clean, too.”
Again, the alien shrugs.
“Does it not matter? Species barrier prevents transfer?” If he doesn’t follow curiosity, he’s going to follow something else entirely and he can’t do that, certainly not in public.
The alien shrugs again, truly seeming not to care. “It’s a nonissue.” He goes back to his lunch, finishing it up.
“Right,” he answers, processing, attempting to. Jack cares enough to make him eat his veg, but not enough to keep from running off to aliens. The puzzle pieces he has don’t fit together.
Which can only mean there are more pieces out there. The puzzle is bigger than he’s giving it credit for.
“Do you like Frisbee?” the alien asks him, polishing off the fish.
“Do I what?” That last word must be wrong, garbled up in the chewing. Aliens and table manners never do seem to mix.
“Do you like Frisbee?” the alien repeats, pronouncing each word carefully, turning the sounds over with a relish that combines oddly with the intensity in his eyes. The voice is young and the eyes so old and it occurs to Ianto for the first time why Jack might go off with this man, might run to him.
“Um,” he says.
“Frisbee is good,” the alien continues, his eyes hiding their age as makes himself look happy, or at least not sad. He’s so much like Jack in that moment, so much like him. It completely crosses Ianto’s signals and the worst part is that it doesn’t seem to be intentional. “Frisbee is very good,” he says again. “We play it a lot.”
There’s a moment of confused white noise in Ianto’s brain that he pushes past. “You and Jack?”
“Yep!” Again, said brightly. Again, that “p” popped.
“At night?”
“We’ve got one that glows in the dark,” the alien explains.
Ianto opens his mouth to say something. Looking at the expression on that face, he wants to close his mouth again without speaking a word. Because if that expression means the same thing it would on a human face.... “Are you inviting me along?”
He expects a shrug.
What he receives is a simple “If you like.”
“That would definitely be against company policy,” he answers after quite the pause.
The Doctor laughs. “Too bad,” he says and he might even mean it. He stands up then, his business apparently done. He turns away, takes a step. Turns back. “Oh, and thanks for lunch.”
Instead of being surprised or annoyed, Ianto says, “When?”
It’s the alien’s turn to blink in confusion. “This lunch just now.” He points at the plate.
Ianto shakes his head. “No. When?”
Brown eyes study him as that brown tufted head tilts ever so slightly to the side. He thumbs his ear and it makes him look like any normal man. It’s better for Ianto’s pride, though, that he isn’t. “You’ll know,” he says. “You’re good at that.”
“I am,” he says, still seated.
The standing man waves goodbye; the sitting man nods.
The Doctor walks away and Ianto waits to pay for a meal he wasn’t the one to eat. It takes a few minutes for the waitress to come over, a moment longer than that for him to be pulled out of his thoughts.
He puts the meal on Jack’s tab and then orders one of his own, asking for chips he already knows he won’t eat.