Slipping Through -- Shift
Book cover by et_muse.
Title: Slipping Through
redismycolour Snippet: Shift
Date Written: 1/23/09
Rating: PG/K+
Word Count: 637
Fandom: Torchwood/FAKE
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Ryo/Dee, Gwen, Owen, Tosh
Spoilers: Up through Torchwood 02 and FAKE Like, Like, Love.
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Written for redismycolour Day Seventeen.
Slipping Through master list found here.
One of the first things that Torchwood did with its newest freelance agents was make a list of things that were different between the universes - between the manga and what Ryo and Dee had done and between the television series and what had actually happened to the Torchwood team.
There were minor differences, of course, but all the major plot points were accurately hit. These minor things that took a bit of time to work out, and Dee was usually more than happy to go on and on about this case or that subject. Ryo usually sat next to him and corrected him, although there were times that the half-Japanese man could get into a story just as much as his husband.
It was after that horrible business with Gray and Hart, when the world above the Hub was just beginning to start thawing out, Dee asked Ianto an incredibly out of the blue question in front of the team.
“Hey, Ianto? Where’s the best walking view of Cardiff? Preferably by the water.”
The rest of the team looked at the two Laytner-MacLeans in question, and Ryo rolled his eyes. “That’s not for a few more months.”
“I want to be prepared,” Dee defended. “I may have to make reservations way in advance.”
Ryo rolled his eyes again.
Tosh caught on first. “Oh! Your anniversary?”
Dee nodded. “We have a standing reservation on that day, and then we take a walk and look at the lights.”
Ryo smiled and put a fond hand on Dee’s knee, just resting it there. Somehow they made the cliché image of two deliriously happy people look completely natural.
“If we’re still here in Cardiff when the date rolls around, we’re still going to do it,” Dee declared. “Even if we have to tweak the setting just a bit.”
“That’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard,” Gwen declared.
Jack caught his eye and smiled across the table. Ianto abruptly stood. “I’m going to get a fresh round of coffee. Can’t be dozing off if the alarm goes off.”
Outwardly, he was completely composed when he left the meeting room, but inside he was a jumble of emotions. Going through the mechanics of making coffee helped him calm down a little bit and untangle the knot in his head.
It… was ridiculously easy to draw parallels between the Laytner-MacLeans and himself, he knew. Dee, the rash, hot-headed playboy tamed by the quieter, subdued, know-it-all, broken in his own way Ryo. Part of him wanted that sort of quiet domestic life with Jack. The part of him that still wanted what everyone else seemed to have. A normal life.
He also knew that he could no more change Jack than he could change the weather. If Jack didn’t go about flirting with everything that moved then he wouldn’t be Jack. Simple as that. That was the part that wanted to keep Jack at arm’s length, if only to spare the immortal the pain that would surely come when he died.
Selfish or self-sacrificing? That was the question.
He smiled a little to himself as he stirred creamer into Gwen’s cup. He and Jack had been spending so much time together lately, sometimes out on doubles with Ryo and Dee, that Jack was practically living with him. He had a toothbrush in permanent residence by Ianto’s, and there was even a bottle of Jack’s aftershave in his bathroom for crying out loud. He hadn’t even realized it when Jack put it in there.
That was the difference between them, he decided. The Laytner-MacLeans had an anniversary, a set date to be hearts and flowers, while he and Jack had sort of… fallen in together. Things between them shifted without them realizing it.
And he was curious to see how things would shift next.