FIC: The Hub in Autumn
Title: The Hub in Autumn
Author: blue_fjords
Word count: 1,765
Characters: Ianto, Tosh, Jack, Jack/Ianto; special appearances by Myfanwy, Gwen, Owen
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Setting: Early season two.
A/N: For the lovely and amazing kel_reiley, as an early birthday present! Much love to you, sweetheart! Written in the same vein as Bruges in Spring and Oslo in Summer, but not a sequel to those two. Many, many thanks to misswinterhill for the awesome beta! Huggles!
Light through the leaves, and somewhere over to his left someone is giggling. He blinks once, twice. Definitely Tosh. The sun glints gold through the dying canopy and he gives up trying to focus and just shuts his eyes. He can see the patterns of leaves through his eyelids anyhow. A heavy weight is draped across his knees, holding him to Earth; otherwise, he just might fly away.
“Ianto?” There’s a crunching sound of leaves weaving through Tosh’s giggles now, as she drags herself through the remains of summer to flop, breathless on the ground near his head. She miscalculates, and heads collide. “Sorry!”
Her hair brushes his cheeks as she leans over him, another giggle escaping her lips, and he opens his eyes to see her smile. She blocks the sun, and everything is much clearer now.
“Jack is on top of me,” he tells her seriously, as if she cannot see for herself, and her eyes widen, as if she had not, in fact, noticed until he pointed it out.
“Can you breathe?” she whispers in a piercing hiss, like a lizard, and he briefly pictures her as one before he nods.
“Yes. Jack shares the air. He likes to share the air with me.” There’s a rock digging into his back, though, and he’d like to move. Something is niggling at the back of his mind, too, but he can’t for the life of him think what. It’s not as interesting as the leaves, and the halo around Tosh’s head. It is entirely possible that Tosh is an angel.
“Ianto, I think we may have made a mistake,” Tosh says, settling onto her back and head-to-head with Ianto, with her head just barely resting on his shoulder. Ianto squints as the sun is revealed once again.
“What kind of mistake? Like my pink shirt?”
“Your pink shirt is most definitely not a mistake,” a muffled voice drifts up from around Ianto’s knees. The bees’ knees, Ianto thinks, and smirks. Jack sits up slowly and glances blearily around the clearing. Ianto stares at him for a moment. His hair is sticking up a bit, like it does first thing in the morning when they tumble out of bed; wriggling like puppies and licking an ear here, pawing a chest there.
“You have porcupine hair,” Ianto says, a note of wonder in his voice. He raises his hand, and Jack obligingly bends closer and allows him to pat the bristly pelt, stiff with product.
“Tosh!” Jack exclaims, a wide grin breaking out across his face as he notices her head. “Your head is growing out of Ianto’s shoulder!”
All three start laughing and cannot stop. Tosh laughs so hard her head rolls off Ianto’s shoulder and wedges against his neck. Ianto can feel her sniffing at his ear, and his shoulders shake, causing her to laugh even harder. Jack laughs so hard he topples over yet again, this time landing more spread-eagled across Ianto’s body. Ianto’s laughter moves down his shoulders and causes his chest to shake, too, and Jack looks like a pirate ship on a choppy sea, an image reinforced when Ianto’s laughs turn into grunts that sound distinctly like “argh.”
“Am I crushing you?” Jack manages to get out. Ianto stares up at him, hard, thinking, thinking.
“No,” he says finally. “Besides, I like your body.”
“It’s a good one, isn’t it?” Jack replies. They are laying nose to nose, eyelashes to eyelashes, chin to chin. Jack lowers his head, rubs his smooth cheek against Ianto’s and notices Tosh’s head on the ground. “Did you lose your head, Tosh?”
Tosh is still laughing, but at his words, she carefully raises one arm and draws her fingers along the length of her neck. “I’m attached! I’m attached!” she crows.
“That’s cause for a celebration!” Jack shouts back, and his words echo in the clearing, ringing like a gong. Ianto frowns slightly. They shouldn’t really be ringing like a gong in the woods, but then Jack’s mouth is over his in the celebration and he forgets why that doesn’t make sense. He can taste peppermint candy on Jack’s tongue. It’s refreshing, and Ianto parts his lips wider, getting sloppier and sloppier as his tongue explores Jack’s mouth for sugar. He doesn’t stop until small fingers curl in his hair and yank at his head.
“Ouch!” Ianto looks up, panting, but it wasn’t Jack pulling his hair. Belatedly, he recalls that they should celebrate with Tosh, too, but she doesn’t seem interested.
“Ianto, Jack!” Tosh has sat up, and she tugs on Ianto’s head again to get them to follow her gaze to the trees. “I think, isn’t that, oh, damn, I forget what it’s called.”
Ianto stares hard at the trees. Their bark is brown. Their leaves are mainly brown. They look perfectly normal. Or maybe it is just his angle. He is still flat on his back, his favorite blanket covering him tight. Jack is very warm, and Ianto slides a hand over his back, then frowns. Braces. Braces are on Jack’s back, not his greatcoat. Except that it’s autumn and he should be wearing his proper outerwear.
“What, Tosh?” Jack’s voice enters his consciousness through his mouth instead of his ears as the kissing starts up again in earnest. Ianto keeps his eyes wide open, but he’s too close to really see the sweep of Jack’s lashes on his cheek and really, that was the point. He pulls Jack’s face away, briefly, but his words don’t trip off his tongue. They’re held hostage by flapping wings, passing through the sparse canopy of dying leaves, and everything blurs.
“Tosh! Did you see that? Did you?” He turns his head to look at her, feels Jack turning above him. Tosh is still staring at the trees.
“I need to touch a tree.” She stands awkwardly, brushes off dead leaves, and shuffles to a tree. Jack has lowered his head to Ianto’s chest, but he is watching Tosh, just like Ianto. Her hand gets closer and closer to a tree. She places it on the first branch.
Or would have, if the tree had any substance. All three of them gasp, and Jack pulls himself off Ianto and stands, offering a hand down. “Ianto, Tosh,” Jack says, hoisting Ianto to his feet and running a hand down Ianto’s backside to dislodge leaves and dirt, “there is something weird about that tree.”
Tosh glances back at them. “You mean other than the fact that it’s not really here?”
“No, I think that’s pretty much it. And I don’t think there’s any dirt either, Jack, so you could probably stop with the brushing,” Ianto replies. Jack’s hand stills, settles on the small of Ianto’s back, and Ianto sighs contentedly at the comforting weight.
“What are you thinking, Ianto?” Tosh turns to them, trips, falls. “Oof.” A wayward giggle escapes her throat.
“I’m not sure what I’m thinking.” Ianto frowns. There was something about the sound, and the trees, and the usually graceful Tosh giggling and flailing about, like a … like a … “You’re like a kite in the wind, Tosh, and usually you’re more like one of those stealth jets.”
Tosh gapes up at him. “You’re so eloquent.”
He preens for a moment. Tosh’s admiration shines a warm light on his face, and Jack’s hand is warm on his back. They could just stay there, in the clearing with the autumn sun and the echo of laughter, cozy and loved. But there is something wrong, and as his eyes wander back to the trees, he realizes what it is. This isn’t real.
He takes a step back, reeling, and his heel connects with the rock that had been digging into his back. Only it is not a rock. Tosh scoots closer as Ianto pulls Jack down to hunker on their knees and survey the object.
“Well, I’ll be a Rhanian’s nursemaid!” Jack whistles and stretches forth a finger to stroke the ‘rock.’ “I haven’t seen one of these in … decades.”
Tosh digs her fingers into Ianto’s knee, edging closer. “I didn’t know Rhanians had nursemaids.” She leans down until her nose is practically touching the object.
“Only the attractive ones,” Jack murmurs. He settles an arm loosely around Ianto’s waist. “You’d both have nursemaids.”
Ianto leans into the touch. Memories are tickling his mind now, and he recalls that normally, he’d be uncomfortable with all the touching. But the affection is real, even if nothing else here is. Tosh gasps and reaches for the object. He can see knowledge and certitude creeping back into her eyes, and he lays a hand on her head before she can fix the situation. Just one touch before reality. Tosh’s fingers close around the rock as she smiles at him. Light bleeds from the rock.
***
He’s flat on his back, cold seeping into his bones from the Hub’s stone floor. The grating of a catwalk crisscrosses his vision, and a gust of wind from the flap of wings ruffles his hair as Myfanwy’s cawing cry sounds in his ear. There’s a heavy weight across his chest, and to his right Tosh is kneeling on the floor, cradling an object to her chest.
“Hey, Ianto,” she says, and offers a half-smile. He nods back, and gently shoves Jack off his chest. Jack comes to with a start.
“Huh,” he says, looking around. “We never even left the Hub.”
An awkward silence falls, broken only by the sound of Myfanwy’s cries. Ianto reaches into his pocket and unwraps a chocolate, tosses it into the air for her to grab and gobble.
The cog door rolls back, sirens blaring, as Gwen and Owen walk in, Owen in mid argument and Gwen in mid annoyance. She smiles when she sees them. “Lunch!” she calls out. “I treated, so it’s even edible!” They continue to the conference room, the cadence of Owen’s discourse on the perils of pub peanuts following them.
Ianto thrusts his hands into his pockets and looks at the other two. Tosh is still holding the rock. “Well …” he says finally. “Lunch, then?”
Jack claps him on the back and starts towards the conference room, plucking the rock from Tosh’s hands as he passes. “I’m saving this one for a rainy day, you realize,” he says to them over his shoulder.
Ianto watches Tosh’s lips quirk, her giggle still echoing in his memory. He’d like to hear her laugh like that again. He offers his arm, and the delighted little smile on her face is warm, and real.
Author: blue_fjords
Word count: 1,765
Characters: Ianto, Tosh, Jack, Jack/Ianto; special appearances by Myfanwy, Gwen, Owen
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Setting: Early season two.
A/N: For the lovely and amazing kel_reiley, as an early birthday present! Much love to you, sweetheart! Written in the same vein as Bruges in Spring and Oslo in Summer, but not a sequel to those two. Many, many thanks to misswinterhill for the awesome beta! Huggles!
Light through the leaves, and somewhere over to his left someone is giggling. He blinks once, twice. Definitely Tosh. The sun glints gold through the dying canopy and he gives up trying to focus and just shuts his eyes. He can see the patterns of leaves through his eyelids anyhow. A heavy weight is draped across his knees, holding him to Earth; otherwise, he just might fly away.
“Ianto?” There’s a crunching sound of leaves weaving through Tosh’s giggles now, as she drags herself through the remains of summer to flop, breathless on the ground near his head. She miscalculates, and heads collide. “Sorry!”
Her hair brushes his cheeks as she leans over him, another giggle escaping her lips, and he opens his eyes to see her smile. She blocks the sun, and everything is much clearer now.
“Jack is on top of me,” he tells her seriously, as if she cannot see for herself, and her eyes widen, as if she had not, in fact, noticed until he pointed it out.
“Can you breathe?” she whispers in a piercing hiss, like a lizard, and he briefly pictures her as one before he nods.
“Yes. Jack shares the air. He likes to share the air with me.” There’s a rock digging into his back, though, and he’d like to move. Something is niggling at the back of his mind, too, but he can’t for the life of him think what. It’s not as interesting as the leaves, and the halo around Tosh’s head. It is entirely possible that Tosh is an angel.
“Ianto, I think we may have made a mistake,” Tosh says, settling onto her back and head-to-head with Ianto, with her head just barely resting on his shoulder. Ianto squints as the sun is revealed once again.
“What kind of mistake? Like my pink shirt?”
“Your pink shirt is most definitely not a mistake,” a muffled voice drifts up from around Ianto’s knees. The bees’ knees, Ianto thinks, and smirks. Jack sits up slowly and glances blearily around the clearing. Ianto stares at him for a moment. His hair is sticking up a bit, like it does first thing in the morning when they tumble out of bed; wriggling like puppies and licking an ear here, pawing a chest there.
“You have porcupine hair,” Ianto says, a note of wonder in his voice. He raises his hand, and Jack obligingly bends closer and allows him to pat the bristly pelt, stiff with product.
“Tosh!” Jack exclaims, a wide grin breaking out across his face as he notices her head. “Your head is growing out of Ianto’s shoulder!”
All three start laughing and cannot stop. Tosh laughs so hard her head rolls off Ianto’s shoulder and wedges against his neck. Ianto can feel her sniffing at his ear, and his shoulders shake, causing her to laugh even harder. Jack laughs so hard he topples over yet again, this time landing more spread-eagled across Ianto’s body. Ianto’s laughter moves down his shoulders and causes his chest to shake, too, and Jack looks like a pirate ship on a choppy sea, an image reinforced when Ianto’s laughs turn into grunts that sound distinctly like “argh.”
“Am I crushing you?” Jack manages to get out. Ianto stares up at him, hard, thinking, thinking.
“No,” he says finally. “Besides, I like your body.”
“It’s a good one, isn’t it?” Jack replies. They are laying nose to nose, eyelashes to eyelashes, chin to chin. Jack lowers his head, rubs his smooth cheek against Ianto’s and notices Tosh’s head on the ground. “Did you lose your head, Tosh?”
Tosh is still laughing, but at his words, she carefully raises one arm and draws her fingers along the length of her neck. “I’m attached! I’m attached!” she crows.
“That’s cause for a celebration!” Jack shouts back, and his words echo in the clearing, ringing like a gong. Ianto frowns slightly. They shouldn’t really be ringing like a gong in the woods, but then Jack’s mouth is over his in the celebration and he forgets why that doesn’t make sense. He can taste peppermint candy on Jack’s tongue. It’s refreshing, and Ianto parts his lips wider, getting sloppier and sloppier as his tongue explores Jack’s mouth for sugar. He doesn’t stop until small fingers curl in his hair and yank at his head.
“Ouch!” Ianto looks up, panting, but it wasn’t Jack pulling his hair. Belatedly, he recalls that they should celebrate with Tosh, too, but she doesn’t seem interested.
“Ianto, Jack!” Tosh has sat up, and she tugs on Ianto’s head again to get them to follow her gaze to the trees. “I think, isn’t that, oh, damn, I forget what it’s called.”
Ianto stares hard at the trees. Their bark is brown. Their leaves are mainly brown. They look perfectly normal. Or maybe it is just his angle. He is still flat on his back, his favorite blanket covering him tight. Jack is very warm, and Ianto slides a hand over his back, then frowns. Braces. Braces are on Jack’s back, not his greatcoat. Except that it’s autumn and he should be wearing his proper outerwear.
“What, Tosh?” Jack’s voice enters his consciousness through his mouth instead of his ears as the kissing starts up again in earnest. Ianto keeps his eyes wide open, but he’s too close to really see the sweep of Jack’s lashes on his cheek and really, that was the point. He pulls Jack’s face away, briefly, but his words don’t trip off his tongue. They’re held hostage by flapping wings, passing through the sparse canopy of dying leaves, and everything blurs.
“Tosh! Did you see that? Did you?” He turns his head to look at her, feels Jack turning above him. Tosh is still staring at the trees.
“I need to touch a tree.” She stands awkwardly, brushes off dead leaves, and shuffles to a tree. Jack has lowered his head to Ianto’s chest, but he is watching Tosh, just like Ianto. Her hand gets closer and closer to a tree. She places it on the first branch.
Or would have, if the tree had any substance. All three of them gasp, and Jack pulls himself off Ianto and stands, offering a hand down. “Ianto, Tosh,” Jack says, hoisting Ianto to his feet and running a hand down Ianto’s backside to dislodge leaves and dirt, “there is something weird about that tree.”
Tosh glances back at them. “You mean other than the fact that it’s not really here?”
“No, I think that’s pretty much it. And I don’t think there’s any dirt either, Jack, so you could probably stop with the brushing,” Ianto replies. Jack’s hand stills, settles on the small of Ianto’s back, and Ianto sighs contentedly at the comforting weight.
“What are you thinking, Ianto?” Tosh turns to them, trips, falls. “Oof.” A wayward giggle escapes her throat.
“I’m not sure what I’m thinking.” Ianto frowns. There was something about the sound, and the trees, and the usually graceful Tosh giggling and flailing about, like a … like a … “You’re like a kite in the wind, Tosh, and usually you’re more like one of those stealth jets.”
Tosh gapes up at him. “You’re so eloquent.”
He preens for a moment. Tosh’s admiration shines a warm light on his face, and Jack’s hand is warm on his back. They could just stay there, in the clearing with the autumn sun and the echo of laughter, cozy and loved. But there is something wrong, and as his eyes wander back to the trees, he realizes what it is. This isn’t real.
He takes a step back, reeling, and his heel connects with the rock that had been digging into his back. Only it is not a rock. Tosh scoots closer as Ianto pulls Jack down to hunker on their knees and survey the object.
“Well, I’ll be a Rhanian’s nursemaid!” Jack whistles and stretches forth a finger to stroke the ‘rock.’ “I haven’t seen one of these in … decades.”
Tosh digs her fingers into Ianto’s knee, edging closer. “I didn’t know Rhanians had nursemaids.” She leans down until her nose is practically touching the object.
“Only the attractive ones,” Jack murmurs. He settles an arm loosely around Ianto’s waist. “You’d both have nursemaids.”
Ianto leans into the touch. Memories are tickling his mind now, and he recalls that normally, he’d be uncomfortable with all the touching. But the affection is real, even if nothing else here is. Tosh gasps and reaches for the object. He can see knowledge and certitude creeping back into her eyes, and he lays a hand on her head before she can fix the situation. Just one touch before reality. Tosh’s fingers close around the rock as she smiles at him. Light bleeds from the rock.
***
He’s flat on his back, cold seeping into his bones from the Hub’s stone floor. The grating of a catwalk crisscrosses his vision, and a gust of wind from the flap of wings ruffles his hair as Myfanwy’s cawing cry sounds in his ear. There’s a heavy weight across his chest, and to his right Tosh is kneeling on the floor, cradling an object to her chest.
“Hey, Ianto,” she says, and offers a half-smile. He nods back, and gently shoves Jack off his chest. Jack comes to with a start.
“Huh,” he says, looking around. “We never even left the Hub.”
An awkward silence falls, broken only by the sound of Myfanwy’s cries. Ianto reaches into his pocket and unwraps a chocolate, tosses it into the air for her to grab and gobble.
The cog door rolls back, sirens blaring, as Gwen and Owen walk in, Owen in mid argument and Gwen in mid annoyance. She smiles when she sees them. “Lunch!” she calls out. “I treated, so it’s even edible!” They continue to the conference room, the cadence of Owen’s discourse on the perils of pub peanuts following them.
Ianto thrusts his hands into his pockets and looks at the other two. Tosh is still holding the rock. “Well …” he says finally. “Lunch, then?”
Jack claps him on the back and starts towards the conference room, plucking the rock from Tosh’s hands as he passes. “I’m saving this one for a rainy day, you realize,” he says to them over his shoulder.
Ianto watches Tosh’s lips quirk, her giggle still echoing in his memory. He’d like to hear her laugh like that again. He offers his arm, and the delighted little smile on her face is warm, and real.