TW: Underhanded Tactics, Chapter IV (T-M)
Fandom:
Torchwood
Title:
Underhanded Tactics
Chapter IV:
Upping the Ante
In which Jack joins the party and Owen starts paying attention.
Author:
lt_indigo
Pairing(s):
Jack/Ianto(/Tosh)
Warning(s):
Insinuations of both sex and voyeurism.
Disclamer:
No-one bought me the boys as an Easter present. I am therefore forced to conclude they still belong to the BBC.
Word count:
1,732
Author's note:
There will, in time, be an 'extended edition' of this chapter that will earn itself an MA/NC-17 rating. But it's not ready yet, and I was trying to actually keep this story clean-ish. The current intention is to post the extended scene as an interlude, like I have been doing with Remus' Secret, but I should actually finish the story before I start writing extras.
back to Chapter III
on to Chapter V
Things seemed to be progressing: Owen was starting, with a little nudging from Gwen, to notice that Tosh and Ianto were inappropriately close. At first he had laughed it off, then he had seen it for himself. Then he started to look not at Tosh, but the Teaboy, trying to recall if he had received a head injury recently. Or if both of them had been dosed with one of those aphrodisiac pollens that Jack talked about so wistfully 20. He ran surreptitious scans, but found nothing out of the ordinary for the Hub.
After another couple of days of Ianto and Tosh ‘subtly’ sneaking off for snogs, Jack decided it was time to up their game. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact he was starting to feel left out 21; just that Owen didn’t quite seem to believe that Ianto would cheat on Jack 22.
So Jack descended one day when they were playing the monitor game (this time with Tosh leaning over Ianto’s shoulder). He immediately draped an arm over Ianto’s shoulder and rested his other hand on Tosh’s bottom. He felt her tense, just a fraction, and he was a hair’s-breadth away from removing it when she tipped her head and rested it against his shoulder. Not a mixed signal at all, then. There was a strangled gasp behind them from Gwen, followed by a frantic tapping of keys - no doubt IMing Owen.
“So, what’re you kids up to?” Jack asked loudly.
“Just compiling some data on Rift spikes,” Tosh said. “Ianto wanted to collate some of the old records and compare them with the Rift figures.”
“It might give us better predictions,” Ianto said. And, glancing at his screen, Jack discovered that that was exactly what they were doing! Go figure. “Or at least a better indication of whether I need to stock up on plankton, carrots or baby rats.”
“So, is this going to free you up for more worthwhile pursuits any time soon?”
“It’s a work in progress, Jack,” Tosh piped up. “But hopefully.”
She sounded a bit too cheerful at the prospect.
“Brilliant. Keep me posted.” He turned Tosh’s head and kissed her. It was quick and flirty, but to the casual observer it would suggest familiarity. It was how he would kiss Ianto in the Hub when they didn’t want it to lead to something else. Ianto, not wanting to be left out, tipped his head back. Jack moved readily, bending over to kiss his partner.
Gwen was gaping like a fish out of water. Oh, this was going to be great.
.oOo.
“But how does it even work?”
Owen fixed her with a disbelieving look. “Do you want me to draw you a picture?”
“No! Well… How?”
Owen sighed. “It’s the same, only with more people. How the hell do you think Jack and Ianto do it?”
Gwen flushed 23.
“Teaboy sticks his cock up Jack’s arse,” Owen said bluntly. “If Tosh is playing too, then I’m sure I don’t want to know who sticks what where, but good for Tosh. She could stand to unwind a bit.”
“Ianto?” Gwen’s eyes were wide. “No. Don’t be daft, Owen.”
Owen gave her a condescending smile. “You watch them after they’ve been ‘in the archives’ and tell me if I’m wrong.”
Gwen smiled and shook her head. “You’re wrong. I just know it. Jack’s not like that.”
Owen sighed. “Whatever. You just keep watching them.”
Given that they were in the autopsy bay, neither of them saw Tosh’s eyes light up as she hastily compiled an audio file of the conversation from the Hub’s surveillance equipment and emailed it to Jack, with instructions to open it only when he and Ianto were alone. Which, of course, she knew very well they were. She was treated to the sound of Jack roaring with laughter a few moments later.
.oOo.
They took her out that evening. Ianto had booked a table at a nice Italian restaurant well-frequented by Cardiff’s LGBT and poly communities 24. It wasn’t something that they usually worried about when they went out together, but a romantic meal for three might raise too many eyebrows elsewhere. They talked, laughed (at first about Gwen and Owen and the plan, but then about normal things like last week’s snot monster), flirted. Ianto and Tosh shared a bottle of wine, which led Jack to believe he was being indoctrinated into their ‘let’s whine about men’ club. At least, that was what he assumed they did when they went to the pub together 25.
Tosh was positively beaming as Jack drove them back to Ianto’s flat, where they, for some reason known only to themselves, determined it would be a good idea to start a game of Monopoly. Ianto appeared to have an opened bottle of wine from when they had cooked bolognaise last week, and it got emptied into three glasses 26.
Tosh sighed, leaning back against the sofa. “This is nice. We need to do this more often.”
Jack took advantage of her inattentiveness to land on her property without paying.
“You’re welcome any time, Tosh.”
Tosh looked positively scandalised. “But if I was always here, I wouldn’t get to hear about your nocturnal adventures.” She grinned up at Jack, all traces of the innocent computer geek gone.
“No, you might actually hear them instead,” Jack replied.
“No she wouldn’t,” Ianto said bluntly as he took his turn. “CCTV is one thing, actually listening in from the next room is creepy.”
“Spoilsport,” Tosh grumbled good-naturedly. She picked up the dice and blinked, noticing the board. “Hey, I’m already losing, Jack.”
“I’m not that far behind you,” Jack replied, gesturing to his meagre funds, then pointing to Ianto’s quietly-accumulated fortune.
“You know, I’m glad neither of you are into world domination,” he added. “You’d be very good at it between you, and the world would probably be grateful by the time it actually noticed.”
“Who’s to say we haven’t already started?” Ianto said. He raised an eyebrow as Tosh landed on Piccadilly. She sighed and flipped over her few remaining properties in order to raise the cash to pay him.
Jack shrugged. “Just be discrete. Lizzie disapproves of abusing Torchwood facilities for that kind of thing.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t call her majesty ‘Lizzie’,” Ianto grumbled. “It’s disrespectful.”
Jack laughed. “I’ve known her since she was ten,” he pointed out. “And I won’t tell you what old Bertie caught us doing in the glasshouse, back in ‘45.”
“Please don’t.”
Tosh actually did want to hear more, but was surprised when she yawned suddenly.
“Oh, it’s late!”
Tosh privately thought Ianto wasn’t entirely accurate when she looked at the clock: at three a.m., it was dangerously close to being early. Thank goodness they didn’t have to be in work tomorrow.
“Let’s say Ianto’s won, and I’ll go and get the sheets,” Jack suggested, getting up and clearing their long-empty wine glasses away.
“You can’t tell me that’s not a relationship,” Tosh hissed as she started to gather up the property cards and sort them into order 27. “He’s ‘getting sheets’. He lives here.”
Ianto shrugged and sorted the money. “It’s not that simple. Jack doesn’t like labels.”
“A name doesn’t change anything,” Tosh pointed out. “We haven’t got names for half the things in the archives, but that doesn’t change what they do, or did. You’re a couple.” She prodded an accusing finger at Ianto.
“Perhaps.” He folded the board into the box and placed it carefully to one side. “Now, give me a hand with this.”
Together, with the ease born from lots of practice, they unfolded Ianto’s sofa bed, just in time for Jack to appear with the bedding. They made short work of making up the bed, and Tosh let them both use the bathroom before inquiring after her toothbrush.
“Same place as usual,” Ianto told her.
It was. In the few weeks since she had last stayed with Ianto, his toothbrush holder had acquired another resident, but her spare one was still there. Gwen really would have a fit if she saw that - it really did look like the three of them were living together. Now, if only Owen would wake up and smell the roses.
.oOo.
Jack pressed Ianto against the wall, kissing him soundly.
“Tosh is in the next room,” Ianto hissed when Jack finally let him up for air.
“You don’t normally have a problem with that,” Jack said softly.
“Because you can measure that distance in multiple yards, with soundproof glass between your office and the main Hub, not a couple of feet and a stud wall.”
“You’ll have to be quiet then,” Jack challenged.
“Me?” 28
Jack pressed a finger to his lips and nodded. Ianto gave him a withering look before deftly sucking Jack’s finger into his mouth. Jack bit back a whimper as Ianto illustrated with his tongue exactly what he would do to Jack’s cock.
20 Not that they had ever found any. Owen was starting to believe that it was all bollocks, and Jack was winding them up.
21 Nope, definitely not
22 Proving once and for all that Owen understood absolutely nothing about Ianto, or their relationship.
23 Honestly, this from a woman who had walked in on them at least twice to Owen’s knowledge. Perhaps they hadn’t gotten to the main show either time, but Owen was pretty certain she was disappointed by that fact.
24 If nothing else, Ianto had done his homework. By which, he had Googled it.
25 To be fair, he was right, on the whole: Tosh moaned about the fact Owen appeared to be blind; Ianto groused about how much of an arse Jack had been that particular day/week/century.
26 It was nice wine. It had been sacrilege to cook with it in the first place and Jack wasn’t being left out this time. He could bitch about his man too (even if he was in the room). Unfair use of Eyebrows counted, right?
27 She knew better than not to pander to Ianto’s OCD just because it was three in the morning. That sort of thing could get a girl uninvited, or her CCTV privileges revoked for an unspecified period, or decaf, or instant, or, worst of all, an unleashing of The Eyebrows. Possibly coupled with The Hands On Hips for maximum effect.
28 Because Ianto was the one with volume-control issues. Yeah…
back to Chapter III
on to Chapter V