FIC: A Trip to the Coast, in Which Things Go Wrong (and Then Right)
Title: A Trip to the Coast, in Which Things Go Wrong (and Then Right) (Red Is My Colour Prompt for Day Eighteen)
Author: blue_fjords
Pairings/Characters: Ianto/Jack
Rating: R
Setting: series one, circa “Random Shoes”
Words: 1,650
Summary: Ianto is stranded and Jack finds him.
Prompt:
Crispy chimes of Autumn, spread out upon natures floor.
The falling greens of spring and summer, now taking on a brown like decor.
Bare bodies stand naked, their bones clanging in the wind.
Hoping to soon be reclothed, by winters cool new offerings.
--Robert M. Hensel,
Winters Offerings
Ianto was shivering violently, teeth chattering loudly, toes curled up in a futile attempt to hold in some kind of warmth. His pitiful attempt at a fire sent up a feeble imitation of a roaring flame. If he still had his pockets, he would have reached into one and pulled out his stopwatch to check the time yet again. However, the thing about having no clothes was that one also had no pockets or stopwatches.
Ianto shifted on the cold stone slab, pulled his knees closer to his chest, and peered off into the distance. Still no sign of Jack, not that he had actually been expecting the man.
A seagull cawed overhead, and circled down to land next to Ianto. He cocked his head, as if to ask for food.
“I obviously have nothing for you now,” Ianto told the bird. “But if you’re willing to carry a message to Captain Jack Harkness, there’ll be a crust of bread in it for you.”
The seagull hopped on one foot, considering, but apparently decided that Ianto was a lost cause and took off flying north. Ianto sighed. Jack would be coming from the south, if he thought to wonder why his archivist/bed-warmer/coffee-supplier was not in his usual place, a half-step behind Jack himself. And hopefully he would be bringing dry warm clothes.
Jack wouldn’t be able to replace the contents of his pockets, though. The stopwatch had been in his pocket, as well as his wallet, his cell phone, the business card from the pretty redhead who had flirted with him in the bank over a month ago. Ianto had pocketed it with no intention of calling. She had blue eyes, he recalled, but not near as blue or shining as Jack’s. There was a tracker in the seam of his right trouser-leg, so Ianto had high hopes that his clothes would eventually be recovered, even if he froze to death on this God-forsaken slab of stone on the God-forsaken coast of Wales. Maybe the business card would wash up on the shore, and Jack would call the redhead, take her out to dinner, and give her the shag of her life in the restaurant bathroom.
The wind moved over his naked skin, raising goosebumps and tying knots in his hair. Ianto decided that he wouldn’t feel quite so cold if it wasn’t so obviously his own fault that he was in his current predicament. It was Lisa’s birthday, and he had the day off. And what better way to celebrate the birth of one’s dead true love than by going to a romantic beach and getting pissed drunk? However, being pissed drunk, Ianto had taken an impromptu dunk in the ocean.
The cold of the water had shocked him to partial soberness, at least, and he had climbed out and managed to get a fire going on his little slab of stone with only a few pieces of driftwood and sheer Welsh ingenuity. Only thing was, the fire was not hot or strong enough to either warm him up or dry his clothes. Ianto looked out over the ocean. Perhaps the tracker in his cell, down at the ocean floor, would have survived total immersion. Tosh had made it, so quite possibly.
Ianto held his hand out to his fire and tried to remember Owen’s first aid training. If one was suffering from hypothermia, was it a better idea to be completely naked or to wear clothes that were still damp, though not soaked anymore? He frowned. The words on the page in his mind were fuzzy, the effects of the whiskey he’d drunk and the cold water. At least he was in a partially sheltered alcove, or the closet thing he could find to one, at any rate. His car would have been a better option, but it was parked eight kilometers down the beach.
Jack would be expecting him to check in, Ianto decided. And when he didn’t, Jack would try to call him. When he couldn’t reach Ianto, he would go looking for him. Yes, that’s exactly what would happen. Ianto nodded to himself. He was about two hours north of Cardiff. He should have been calling Jack in about an hour. So all he had to do was hold on for three more hours. He had fallen into the ocean well over an hour ago. Four or five hours of exposure to this weather wouldn’t kill him, surely. He was just being morose and self-pitying earlier. He would be fine. As long as Jack didn’t get distracted by a Weevil or blip on the Rift or a new chip shop.
Had he told Jack what he was planning to do with his day off? He didn’t think so. Jack had even asked where he was going, but Ianto had been buried deep inside of him and seconds away from welcome release so all he had said was “Hnggjkly.” Jack had laughed, and then gasped as Ianto’s fingers remembered their courtesies and proceeded to bring him off. Jack had kissed his neck, and laughed again when his tongue tickled Ianto’s ear and Ianto had squirmed into the mattress. He had left Ianto alone for the rest of the night, climbing up the ladder to his office and reading reports. Ianto had made him coffee before he left for his day off. Jack had barely even looked up, just giving him a flash of those blue eyes and a murmured, “Have a good day.”
“Ianto!”
Ianto’s head snapped up. He had just heard his name. Hadn’t he?
“Ianto!”
Ianto crawled to the edge of his rock and craned his neck around the alcove to look up the slope. Jack had his gun drawn, and the wind whipped his coat out behind him, giving him the air of dashing hero to the rescue. Great. But at least he would be warm.
“Over here, Sir,” Ianto called, and gave a half-assed wave of his hand that he immediately regretted for looking pathetic.
Jack clambered down the slope and onto Ianto’s stone slab.
“What are you doing here?” they both asked at the same time.
Jack gestured to Ianto, indicating that he should answer first. Of course. Ianto cleared his throat, and left Lisa out of his story, as she was still a sore point and would probably always be. “I wanted to go to the ocean, but I unexpectedly fell in. I made a fire,” he concluded, pointing out his fire, which was clearly the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of fires. Ianto felt his face flame.
Jack shrugged off his coat and threw it round Ianto’s shoulders, pulling him closer. The coat was incredibly warm and smelled of Jack. Ianto took a deep shuddering breath.
“The tracker in your cell phone malfunctioned, as did the one in your trousers at the same time. Tosh was able to recover enough of a signal to pinpoint your location,” Jack said, warm breath dancing over Ianto’s cheek and ear. “How about we put out this fire and warm up in the SUV?”
Ianto nodded, embarrassed, and grateful, and angry at being embarrassed and grateful. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Jack looked at him like he knew what Ianto was thinking. He opened his mouth, but then changed his mind as something in the water caught his eye. “Is that the stopwatch?”
Ianto followed his line of sight. Sure enough, the stopwatch had caught on one of the rocks farther out in the water and was glinting in a shallow pool. Jack hopped down from stone to stone, boots getting wet, and snatched it up.
“I bet we could get that fixed.”
He flashed Ianto a reassuring smile as he returned and placed the stopwatch in Ianto’s hand, curling his fingers around it. Then he bent, gathered up Ianto’s damp clothing, and kicked the fire into the water. “How did you make that without any matches, Ianto?”
“Sheer Welsh ingenuity, Sir.”
“Well, that’s very impressive. You’ll have to show me how.”
Ianto huffed a laugh, and held onto Jack’s shoulder as he guided him up over the rougher rocks to the top of the slope and the well-heated SUV. Ianto moved into the backseat to root around in the emergency kit for some spare clothes. Jack followed him in, pulling the door closed behind them. Ianto turned to him, nonplussed.
“Sir?”
“Best way I know of warming you up.”
Jack already had his braces pushed down and didn’t even bother with the buttons on his shirt, just gripped them both and pulled them over his head. Ianto finally recovered his wits enough to help with the belt, and the rest of Jack’s clothes followed his shirts into the front seats. Jack’s hands and lips were everywhere, and with each touch Ianto felt a little warmer. He was still wearing Jack’s coat, and the scent of Jack completely engulfing him aroused him to the point that he thought he would go mad. He heard himself growl Jack’s name and Jack just grinned, and kissed his shoulder as he pulled Ianto’s legs around him and gripped them both in his large hand. It was definitely a good way to warm up, Ianto had to agree. And Jack was saying his name, like he meant it, and hadn’t he just dropped everything at the first sign that Ianto was in trouble? Hadn’t he come all this way, just for Ianto? The thought warmed something that had been cold inside him since he had lost Lisa, and he came in a hot flash.
Jack drove them away from the coast about an hour later, Ianto dozing in a spare set of clothes, leaning his head against the passenger seat window. Later on, Ianto would rationalize that Jack would have come to the aid of any of his teammates. It was only prudent, in their line of work.
But he held the memory of his name on Jack’s lips tight to his chest, keeping him warm.
Author: blue_fjords
Pairings/Characters: Ianto/Jack
Rating: R
Setting: series one, circa “Random Shoes”
Words: 1,650
Summary: Ianto is stranded and Jack finds him.
Prompt:
Crispy chimes of Autumn, spread out upon natures floor.
The falling greens of spring and summer, now taking on a brown like decor.
Bare bodies stand naked, their bones clanging in the wind.
Hoping to soon be reclothed, by winters cool new offerings.
--Robert M. Hensel,
Winters Offerings
Ianto was shivering violently, teeth chattering loudly, toes curled up in a futile attempt to hold in some kind of warmth. His pitiful attempt at a fire sent up a feeble imitation of a roaring flame. If he still had his pockets, he would have reached into one and pulled out his stopwatch to check the time yet again. However, the thing about having no clothes was that one also had no pockets or stopwatches.
Ianto shifted on the cold stone slab, pulled his knees closer to his chest, and peered off into the distance. Still no sign of Jack, not that he had actually been expecting the man.
A seagull cawed overhead, and circled down to land next to Ianto. He cocked his head, as if to ask for food.
“I obviously have nothing for you now,” Ianto told the bird. “But if you’re willing to carry a message to Captain Jack Harkness, there’ll be a crust of bread in it for you.”
The seagull hopped on one foot, considering, but apparently decided that Ianto was a lost cause and took off flying north. Ianto sighed. Jack would be coming from the south, if he thought to wonder why his archivist/bed-warmer/coffee-supplier was not in his usual place, a half-step behind Jack himself. And hopefully he would be bringing dry warm clothes.
Jack wouldn’t be able to replace the contents of his pockets, though. The stopwatch had been in his pocket, as well as his wallet, his cell phone, the business card from the pretty redhead who had flirted with him in the bank over a month ago. Ianto had pocketed it with no intention of calling. She had blue eyes, he recalled, but not near as blue or shining as Jack’s. There was a tracker in the seam of his right trouser-leg, so Ianto had high hopes that his clothes would eventually be recovered, even if he froze to death on this God-forsaken slab of stone on the God-forsaken coast of Wales. Maybe the business card would wash up on the shore, and Jack would call the redhead, take her out to dinner, and give her the shag of her life in the restaurant bathroom.
The wind moved over his naked skin, raising goosebumps and tying knots in his hair. Ianto decided that he wouldn’t feel quite so cold if it wasn’t so obviously his own fault that he was in his current predicament. It was Lisa’s birthday, and he had the day off. And what better way to celebrate the birth of one’s dead true love than by going to a romantic beach and getting pissed drunk? However, being pissed drunk, Ianto had taken an impromptu dunk in the ocean.
The cold of the water had shocked him to partial soberness, at least, and he had climbed out and managed to get a fire going on his little slab of stone with only a few pieces of driftwood and sheer Welsh ingenuity. Only thing was, the fire was not hot or strong enough to either warm him up or dry his clothes. Ianto looked out over the ocean. Perhaps the tracker in his cell, down at the ocean floor, would have survived total immersion. Tosh had made it, so quite possibly.
Ianto held his hand out to his fire and tried to remember Owen’s first aid training. If one was suffering from hypothermia, was it a better idea to be completely naked or to wear clothes that were still damp, though not soaked anymore? He frowned. The words on the page in his mind were fuzzy, the effects of the whiskey he’d drunk and the cold water. At least he was in a partially sheltered alcove, or the closet thing he could find to one, at any rate. His car would have been a better option, but it was parked eight kilometers down the beach.
Jack would be expecting him to check in, Ianto decided. And when he didn’t, Jack would try to call him. When he couldn’t reach Ianto, he would go looking for him. Yes, that’s exactly what would happen. Ianto nodded to himself. He was about two hours north of Cardiff. He should have been calling Jack in about an hour. So all he had to do was hold on for three more hours. He had fallen into the ocean well over an hour ago. Four or five hours of exposure to this weather wouldn’t kill him, surely. He was just being morose and self-pitying earlier. He would be fine. As long as Jack didn’t get distracted by a Weevil or blip on the Rift or a new chip shop.
Had he told Jack what he was planning to do with his day off? He didn’t think so. Jack had even asked where he was going, but Ianto had been buried deep inside of him and seconds away from welcome release so all he had said was “Hnggjkly.” Jack had laughed, and then gasped as Ianto’s fingers remembered their courtesies and proceeded to bring him off. Jack had kissed his neck, and laughed again when his tongue tickled Ianto’s ear and Ianto had squirmed into the mattress. He had left Ianto alone for the rest of the night, climbing up the ladder to his office and reading reports. Ianto had made him coffee before he left for his day off. Jack had barely even looked up, just giving him a flash of those blue eyes and a murmured, “Have a good day.”
“Ianto!”
Ianto’s head snapped up. He had just heard his name. Hadn’t he?
“Ianto!”
Ianto crawled to the edge of his rock and craned his neck around the alcove to look up the slope. Jack had his gun drawn, and the wind whipped his coat out behind him, giving him the air of dashing hero to the rescue. Great. But at least he would be warm.
“Over here, Sir,” Ianto called, and gave a half-assed wave of his hand that he immediately regretted for looking pathetic.
Jack clambered down the slope and onto Ianto’s stone slab.
“What are you doing here?” they both asked at the same time.
Jack gestured to Ianto, indicating that he should answer first. Of course. Ianto cleared his throat, and left Lisa out of his story, as she was still a sore point and would probably always be. “I wanted to go to the ocean, but I unexpectedly fell in. I made a fire,” he concluded, pointing out his fire, which was clearly the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of fires. Ianto felt his face flame.
Jack shrugged off his coat and threw it round Ianto’s shoulders, pulling him closer. The coat was incredibly warm and smelled of Jack. Ianto took a deep shuddering breath.
“The tracker in your cell phone malfunctioned, as did the one in your trousers at the same time. Tosh was able to recover enough of a signal to pinpoint your location,” Jack said, warm breath dancing over Ianto’s cheek and ear. “How about we put out this fire and warm up in the SUV?”
Ianto nodded, embarrassed, and grateful, and angry at being embarrassed and grateful. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Jack looked at him like he knew what Ianto was thinking. He opened his mouth, but then changed his mind as something in the water caught his eye. “Is that the stopwatch?”
Ianto followed his line of sight. Sure enough, the stopwatch had caught on one of the rocks farther out in the water and was glinting in a shallow pool. Jack hopped down from stone to stone, boots getting wet, and snatched it up.
“I bet we could get that fixed.”
He flashed Ianto a reassuring smile as he returned and placed the stopwatch in Ianto’s hand, curling his fingers around it. Then he bent, gathered up Ianto’s damp clothing, and kicked the fire into the water. “How did you make that without any matches, Ianto?”
“Sheer Welsh ingenuity, Sir.”
“Well, that’s very impressive. You’ll have to show me how.”
Ianto huffed a laugh, and held onto Jack’s shoulder as he guided him up over the rougher rocks to the top of the slope and the well-heated SUV. Ianto moved into the backseat to root around in the emergency kit for some spare clothes. Jack followed him in, pulling the door closed behind them. Ianto turned to him, nonplussed.
“Sir?”
“Best way I know of warming you up.”
Jack already had his braces pushed down and didn’t even bother with the buttons on his shirt, just gripped them both and pulled them over his head. Ianto finally recovered his wits enough to help with the belt, and the rest of Jack’s clothes followed his shirts into the front seats. Jack’s hands and lips were everywhere, and with each touch Ianto felt a little warmer. He was still wearing Jack’s coat, and the scent of Jack completely engulfing him aroused him to the point that he thought he would go mad. He heard himself growl Jack’s name and Jack just grinned, and kissed his shoulder as he pulled Ianto’s legs around him and gripped them both in his large hand. It was definitely a good way to warm up, Ianto had to agree. And Jack was saying his name, like he meant it, and hadn’t he just dropped everything at the first sign that Ianto was in trouble? Hadn’t he come all this way, just for Ianto? The thought warmed something that had been cold inside him since he had lost Lisa, and he came in a hot flash.
Jack drove them away from the coast about an hour later, Ianto dozing in a spare set of clothes, leaning his head against the passenger seat window. Later on, Ianto would rationalize that Jack would have come to the aid of any of his teammates. It was only prudent, in their line of work.
But he held the memory of his name on Jack’s lips tight to his chest, keeping him warm.