TW/Heroes: The Tea War (Ianto/Mohinder) Teen
Title: The Tea War
Author: technosage
Fandoms: Heroes/Torchwood
Pairing: Ianto/Mohinder
Words: 2320ish
Warnings: referenced character deaths, delayed gratification, boy-touching.
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: None really. Entirely AU, set sometime after the end of s. 2 Heroes and Torchwood 2x08, "Day in the Death".
Summary: Ianto and Torchwood's new genetics expert settle a tea war over target practice.
A/N: crack-smut for sparky77, my virtual personal assistant, because she wanted Mohinder/Ianto and she's good at her job. ;) Thanks way2busymom for a super-fast beta. Everything awful is mine.
The first thing Mohinder had done upon being escorted into the Hub (actually, the second after assuring Jack he wouldn't be ill performing an autopsy on the remains of the vile-smelling octopodal encephalo-parasite that'd been responsible both for the powers of Sylar's last victim and Sylar's demise) had been to make himself a cup of what passed for tea.
The next morning, he'd taken the liberty of restocking the tea cabinet with some of his own from India and the spices necessary for chai with milk the way he preferred it in the afternoons.
Ianto hadn't stopped glaring daggers at him for days.
Even now, two weeks after he'd taken over for Owen Harper as Torchwood's medical professional, and the others had finally stopped tearing up, choking up (or sicking up) every time they passed his lab, Ianto still hadn't let up.
"I'll never understand how you can spoil perfectly good tea with all that sweetness and spice," Ianto said slightly less peevishly than usual, setting Mohinder's chai by his elbow. He seemed not at all concerned that Mohinder might spill it on his handwritten notes should he be startled or have cause to turn abruptly.
"It's called preparing it, not spoiling it."
Setting aside his tray to perch at the edge of Mohinder's workstation, Ianto rolled his eyes. He did that a lot around Mohinder. Jack assured him it meant Ianto liked him. "Preparing it for what, embalming?"
"Yes, that. Which is what I'm going to do to you if you don't remove your arse from my notes." Mohinder tugged several sheets of paper out from under Ianto's admittedly pert posterior while trying not to think what Jack of all people meant by saying Ianto "liked" him.
"Since you seem to be removing your notes from my arse, I believe I'll stay here." Ianto crossed his arms over his chest. He looked remarkably smug. "At least until you accompany me to the firing range."
"What?" Mohinder blinked; Ianto sounded serious. "It was a joke, the embalming. I'm not planning to kill you."
"Color me absolutely pastel with relief." Ianto leaned forward to push Mohinder's glasses up his nose like the cheeky prat he was (Mohinder really did prefer British English to the American version, he might swear with so much more precision). "As I understand it, it probably wouldn't matter if you did."
Scowling, Mohinder looked away. "Unless you have a previously unrevealed talent for telekinesis, I'm sure I can hit you from point-blank range."
"Shall we…" Ianto smiled a small tight-lipped smile. Mohinder hadn't been around long enough to decide what it meant. "Make a little wager?"
Rubbing his hand over his face - he didn't have time for this sort of thing, but even two weeks had taught him how valuable Ianto's good will could be (most notably in the absence of it toward himself), and if this would help him acquire it… -- Mohinder sighed. "Let's hear it."
"If you hit the target three times, under conditions of my choosing, I'll stop twitting you about your tea."
At that, Mohinder sat up fast, nearly toppling the mug. "Jack put you up to this, didn't he?"
Ianto shrugged. "Yup. He wants you to learn how to shoot and it was either me or Tosh."
He might've kissed Ianto for that. Toshiko and he…with Owen…that was to say, Toshiko had stopped treating him like he'd broken her favorite computer, but their approaches to life were nearly diametrically opposed, even if she hadn't had a personal attachment to Owen. "Thank you."
"I'm doing it for Tosh's sake." His tone was so dry and his expression so bland, Mohinder almost missed the hint of a sparkle in his eyes.
"I see." Mohinder ran a hand through his hair and watched Ianto's gaze track the movement. Perhaps Jack was right after all. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?"
"Nope." Ianto stood. "Might as well come peaceably."
"Now?" Mohinder glanced mournfully at his spiced chai, which was steadily growing colder. Protest aside, Ianto made the best he'd ever had the considerable pleasure of drinking.
Ianto's lips twitched. "Drink your embalming fluid. I'll meet you on the firing range in ten minutes."
*
By the time Mohinder finished his tea and his notes, then found his way to the firing range through the twists and turns of the subterranean hub, substantially more than ten minutes had passed. In fact, it had been nearly twenty-five, and it didn't take a genius to see that Ianto, sleeves rolled up and foot-tapping, was not particularly pleased.
"You're late."
"I apologize. I still haven't accustomed myself to-"
"Hub monitoring showed you leaving the lab less than ten minutes ago." Ianto pursed his lips. "Punctuality matters in our work. Lives depend upon it."
"No one's life depended on me being here in precisely ten minutes." He'd been writing up the genetic sequencing of what Jack had, over Ianto's objection, dubbed the Hub Shrub, that had come through the Rift four days ago. "And someone's life might depend on the state of my research."
"And if there'd been an alien invasion of Cardiff?"
"I'd have been on time."
Ianto humphed. "You might've commed me to let me know. I do have other responsibilities, you realize."
It hadn't even occurred to him. Mohinder dropped his chin and the challenge in his gaze. "I'm unused to being accountable to others for my time. Please. Forgive my rudeness."
Something in Ianto shifted then, the stiff set of his shoulders softening and a hint of warmth creeping into his reserved demeanor. He nodded. "Here," he said, holding out a pair of yellow goggles and a headset. "Put these on."
If he wanted anything less than to learn how better to kill, Mohinder couldn't think of it. Yet he remembered the feeling of powerlessness that horrible day in New York, when the gun had shook in his hand while he tried to protect Molly. He thought of those who'd been lost in the past year, and those he'd only just now met whom he might lose, one day when the world was ending, if his aim proved false. He'd improved since the day of the explosion, but not nearly enough.
Not to mention he'd finally gained some ground with Ianto by apologizing, and for reasons that had little to do with tea, he was loathe to lose it.
Mohinder put on the goggles and headset.
Ianto had watched him all the while in that curious appraising way he had where he pretended to be invisible, as though a man with eyes - and who worked at Torchwood (as opposed to the NCIS in the States, for example) - might not notice the subtle sleekness of Ianto's form, his dry wit and clever mind. Now, he gestured to a table in front of him littered with guns.
Guns. They each had proper names, though Mohinder didn't recognize any of them. He lifted the nearest which looked similar to the one with which he'd shot Bennet, as though he might at least fire it creditably, and with Ianto's help loaded its cartridges, not once but twice to be sure he could do it again. When Ianto's fingers fell away, Mohinder raised the gun to shoulder height.
Eyes widening, Ianto grabbed his hands and pointed them toward the targets. "Until we find a medical doctor, let's keep the shooting of the tea-boy to a minimum, please."
Heat scalded Mohinder's cheeks, flooding to the tips of his ears. Not for the first time since taking this job, he found himself thankful that his skin tone effectively hid a blush. He had the distinct impression that if Jack Harkness, or Ianto Jones, knew half as often as he blushed, they'd never let up with the teasing. "Right, yes, of course."
Quietly, efficiently, Ianto stepped behind him and, hands on his hips, angled him toward the range. His breath blew warm on the back of Mohinder's neck as his fingers slid the length of Mohinder's left arm and tugged it down. "It's best to use one hand, unless the weapon has a lot of kick. You'll want the other for balance."
Mohinder nodded, though Ianto's closeness made it difficult to think. He'd been too long without some form of release, too busy with Sylar and then Torchwood to attend to his purely physical needs.
"Relax," Ianto told him, as if he didn't have his palm splayed over Mohinder's hip and his surprisingly broad chest pressed to Mohinder's shoulder blades.
Mohinder expected he was doing well not to either shiver or sigh at the sparks down his nerves, when Ianto dragged his fingertips over Mohinder's right shoulder and bicep. "Look down along your arm, a straight line through the sites to the target. Breathe. Slow. It's all in the breathing."
Though the lilting Welsh inflection was all Ianto's, Mohinder heard the echo of another's though patterns in his speech. How many times had Ianto delivered it? And to whom?
For some reason the question made him irritable. "I'd breathe slower without you purring in my ear." Ianto chuckled, and Mohinder's head slumped forward on a half-moan when he realized what he'd said. "You're doing that on purpose."
"Yup." Ianto smiled. Mohinder didn't have to see it to know. Not only did he hear it in his tone, but his lips curved upward…against the back of Mohinder's neck. "I did mention the conditions of my choosing, didn't I?"
Mohinder didn't know whether to moan with pleasure or groan in resignation. "You'll make my chai with no taunting?" he asked instead.
"Yup." Ianto nipped at the back of his neck, at once directing his gaze back to the target and sending streamers of erotic pleasure down his spine.
He ought to put a stop to this. Really. But his lips wouldn't form any words but "nngh" which wasn't precisely a word, and, he realized, he didn't actually want Ianto to stop tormenting him - in the lab or on the firing range.
"And if I were to concede I couldn't possibly make the shots with you doing…" Ianto traced the swell of Mohinder's cock so casually Mohinder thought he'd scream. Swallowing hard, he choked out: "That."
"You would still be required to learn to shoot," Ianto said crisply, not quite all-business, as his index finger still pressed very lightly on the crown of his cock.
"It might be safer," Mohinder began. "If you were to stop…" He glanced back over his shoulder, gaze heavy-lidded. "The lesson until you've finished what you're doing now."
For a fraction of a moment, Ianto's palm curved over Mohinder's erection. His hips bucked - but met with nothing. The pressure had already gone, Ianto's hand dropped away even as he himself stepped back. "Or if I stop this, until you've learned to shoot." He tugged Mohinder's shirt straight over his shoulders. "Sex is a powerful motivator."
That, Mohinder didn't need to ask where he'd learned. He did work for Jack Harkness after all.
Lowering the gun to the ground, Mohinder turned toward Ianto and lifted an eyebrow. "How do I know you'll follow through?"
Ianto smirked. "You don't."
"Then why should I comply?"
"First, because these are, in a manner of speaking, Jack's orders." With Jack, it might well be more than a manner of speaking, but Mohinder let that pass. "Second, because if you don't, then I definitely won't follow through."
Mohinder refused to whimper at that. Absolutely refused. He pulled back the safety on the gun and aligned himself again.
Ianto stepped up behind him, the action no longer even nominally innocent, and yet there was nothing overtly sexual in his hands moving over Mohinder's limbs, arranging them. "And third," Ianto said quietly, warmth pervading his tone. "Because now that you know, you can't just do nothing. You care too much."
That, at the last, was true. When he'd learned, first of aliens causing unevolved humans to manifest superpowers, then that the mutation sequence was an alternate timeline retrovirus that had come through the Rift, he couldn't say yes to Jack fast enough.
Inhaling, he thought through Ianto's instructions, sighted down his arm - "Gently," Ianto urged - then squeezed the trigger. The bullet took the Weevil right through the eye.
"I stand corrected." Ianto sounded surprised.
"The relevant incident was wiped from my files. Not even Toshiko would know to look for it." Of course, he couldn't do it three times in a row, under any circumstances, and least of all not with his cock pulsing eager reminders against his zipper.
He fired off five more rounds from that weapon, acquitting himself decently, then lay it down on the table. "What's next?" he asked, and managed to keep the pleading note out of his voice.
"Take your pick. You need to learn them all."
Then Mohinder did groan.
Ianto tsked.
Mohinder rolled his eyes, then then picked up the next in the row of guns. A long barreled slender piece. Ianto showed him how to load and fire. He practiced until he'd emptied the magazine, and then continued to the next. So it went, until he'd reached the end.
"Nice," Ianto praised.
He lifted off his headset and goggles and set them on the table. "What now?"
Ianto removed his own, and leaned across the table into his space. "Sex," he teased, eyes bright and wicked, then brushed his lips across Mohinder's.
Ianto had been right to wait. He felt…exhilarated…by the training. Empowered. Aroused.
All right, yes, he could live with this new method of torment between them, if… He curled his fingers in Ianto's belt loop and tugged him forward. "Chai?"
"Embalming fluid," Ianto replied but his shudder wasn't, Mohinder thought, for the tea.
"Call it what you like, so long as you keep making it for me," he said.
Ianto shrugged as though unaffected, but the pink in his cheeks pleased Mohinder immensely. "Of course."
"Good," Mohinder slurred softly across Ianto's mouth, and then kissed him.
Author: technosage
Fandoms: Heroes/Torchwood
Pairing: Ianto/Mohinder
Words: 2320ish
Warnings: referenced character deaths, delayed gratification, boy-touching.
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: None really. Entirely AU, set sometime after the end of s. 2 Heroes and Torchwood 2x08, "Day in the Death".
Summary: Ianto and Torchwood's new genetics expert settle a tea war over target practice.
A/N: crack-smut for sparky77, my virtual personal assistant, because she wanted Mohinder/Ianto and she's good at her job. ;) Thanks way2busymom for a super-fast beta. Everything awful is mine.
The first thing Mohinder had done upon being escorted into the Hub (actually, the second after assuring Jack he wouldn't be ill performing an autopsy on the remains of the vile-smelling octopodal encephalo-parasite that'd been responsible both for the powers of Sylar's last victim and Sylar's demise) had been to make himself a cup of what passed for tea.
The next morning, he'd taken the liberty of restocking the tea cabinet with some of his own from India and the spices necessary for chai with milk the way he preferred it in the afternoons.
Ianto hadn't stopped glaring daggers at him for days.
Even now, two weeks after he'd taken over for Owen Harper as Torchwood's medical professional, and the others had finally stopped tearing up, choking up (or sicking up) every time they passed his lab, Ianto still hadn't let up.
"I'll never understand how you can spoil perfectly good tea with all that sweetness and spice," Ianto said slightly less peevishly than usual, setting Mohinder's chai by his elbow. He seemed not at all concerned that Mohinder might spill it on his handwritten notes should he be startled or have cause to turn abruptly.
"It's called preparing it, not spoiling it."
Setting aside his tray to perch at the edge of Mohinder's workstation, Ianto rolled his eyes. He did that a lot around Mohinder. Jack assured him it meant Ianto liked him. "Preparing it for what, embalming?"
"Yes, that. Which is what I'm going to do to you if you don't remove your arse from my notes." Mohinder tugged several sheets of paper out from under Ianto's admittedly pert posterior while trying not to think what Jack of all people meant by saying Ianto "liked" him.
"Since you seem to be removing your notes from my arse, I believe I'll stay here." Ianto crossed his arms over his chest. He looked remarkably smug. "At least until you accompany me to the firing range."
"What?" Mohinder blinked; Ianto sounded serious. "It was a joke, the embalming. I'm not planning to kill you."
"Color me absolutely pastel with relief." Ianto leaned forward to push Mohinder's glasses up his nose like the cheeky prat he was (Mohinder really did prefer British English to the American version, he might swear with so much more precision). "As I understand it, it probably wouldn't matter if you did."
Scowling, Mohinder looked away. "Unless you have a previously unrevealed talent for telekinesis, I'm sure I can hit you from point-blank range."
"Shall we…" Ianto smiled a small tight-lipped smile. Mohinder hadn't been around long enough to decide what it meant. "Make a little wager?"
Rubbing his hand over his face - he didn't have time for this sort of thing, but even two weeks had taught him how valuable Ianto's good will could be (most notably in the absence of it toward himself), and if this would help him acquire it… -- Mohinder sighed. "Let's hear it."
"If you hit the target three times, under conditions of my choosing, I'll stop twitting you about your tea."
At that, Mohinder sat up fast, nearly toppling the mug. "Jack put you up to this, didn't he?"
Ianto shrugged. "Yup. He wants you to learn how to shoot and it was either me or Tosh."
He might've kissed Ianto for that. Toshiko and he…with Owen…that was to say, Toshiko had stopped treating him like he'd broken her favorite computer, but their approaches to life were nearly diametrically opposed, even if she hadn't had a personal attachment to Owen. "Thank you."
"I'm doing it for Tosh's sake." His tone was so dry and his expression so bland, Mohinder almost missed the hint of a sparkle in his eyes.
"I see." Mohinder ran a hand through his hair and watched Ianto's gaze track the movement. Perhaps Jack was right after all. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?"
"Nope." Ianto stood. "Might as well come peaceably."
"Now?" Mohinder glanced mournfully at his spiced chai, which was steadily growing colder. Protest aside, Ianto made the best he'd ever had the considerable pleasure of drinking.
Ianto's lips twitched. "Drink your embalming fluid. I'll meet you on the firing range in ten minutes."
*
By the time Mohinder finished his tea and his notes, then found his way to the firing range through the twists and turns of the subterranean hub, substantially more than ten minutes had passed. In fact, it had been nearly twenty-five, and it didn't take a genius to see that Ianto, sleeves rolled up and foot-tapping, was not particularly pleased.
"You're late."
"I apologize. I still haven't accustomed myself to-"
"Hub monitoring showed you leaving the lab less than ten minutes ago." Ianto pursed his lips. "Punctuality matters in our work. Lives depend upon it."
"No one's life depended on me being here in precisely ten minutes." He'd been writing up the genetic sequencing of what Jack had, over Ianto's objection, dubbed the Hub Shrub, that had come through the Rift four days ago. "And someone's life might depend on the state of my research."
"And if there'd been an alien invasion of Cardiff?"
"I'd have been on time."
Ianto humphed. "You might've commed me to let me know. I do have other responsibilities, you realize."
It hadn't even occurred to him. Mohinder dropped his chin and the challenge in his gaze. "I'm unused to being accountable to others for my time. Please. Forgive my rudeness."
Something in Ianto shifted then, the stiff set of his shoulders softening and a hint of warmth creeping into his reserved demeanor. He nodded. "Here," he said, holding out a pair of yellow goggles and a headset. "Put these on."
If he wanted anything less than to learn how better to kill, Mohinder couldn't think of it. Yet he remembered the feeling of powerlessness that horrible day in New York, when the gun had shook in his hand while he tried to protect Molly. He thought of those who'd been lost in the past year, and those he'd only just now met whom he might lose, one day when the world was ending, if his aim proved false. He'd improved since the day of the explosion, but not nearly enough.
Not to mention he'd finally gained some ground with Ianto by apologizing, and for reasons that had little to do with tea, he was loathe to lose it.
Mohinder put on the goggles and headset.
Ianto had watched him all the while in that curious appraising way he had where he pretended to be invisible, as though a man with eyes - and who worked at Torchwood (as opposed to the NCIS in the States, for example) - might not notice the subtle sleekness of Ianto's form, his dry wit and clever mind. Now, he gestured to a table in front of him littered with guns.
Guns. They each had proper names, though Mohinder didn't recognize any of them. He lifted the nearest which looked similar to the one with which he'd shot Bennet, as though he might at least fire it creditably, and with Ianto's help loaded its cartridges, not once but twice to be sure he could do it again. When Ianto's fingers fell away, Mohinder raised the gun to shoulder height.
Eyes widening, Ianto grabbed his hands and pointed them toward the targets. "Until we find a medical doctor, let's keep the shooting of the tea-boy to a minimum, please."
Heat scalded Mohinder's cheeks, flooding to the tips of his ears. Not for the first time since taking this job, he found himself thankful that his skin tone effectively hid a blush. He had the distinct impression that if Jack Harkness, or Ianto Jones, knew half as often as he blushed, they'd never let up with the teasing. "Right, yes, of course."
Quietly, efficiently, Ianto stepped behind him and, hands on his hips, angled him toward the range. His breath blew warm on the back of Mohinder's neck as his fingers slid the length of Mohinder's left arm and tugged it down. "It's best to use one hand, unless the weapon has a lot of kick. You'll want the other for balance."
Mohinder nodded, though Ianto's closeness made it difficult to think. He'd been too long without some form of release, too busy with Sylar and then Torchwood to attend to his purely physical needs.
"Relax," Ianto told him, as if he didn't have his palm splayed over Mohinder's hip and his surprisingly broad chest pressed to Mohinder's shoulder blades.
Mohinder expected he was doing well not to either shiver or sigh at the sparks down his nerves, when Ianto dragged his fingertips over Mohinder's right shoulder and bicep. "Look down along your arm, a straight line through the sites to the target. Breathe. Slow. It's all in the breathing."
Though the lilting Welsh inflection was all Ianto's, Mohinder heard the echo of another's though patterns in his speech. How many times had Ianto delivered it? And to whom?
For some reason the question made him irritable. "I'd breathe slower without you purring in my ear." Ianto chuckled, and Mohinder's head slumped forward on a half-moan when he realized what he'd said. "You're doing that on purpose."
"Yup." Ianto smiled. Mohinder didn't have to see it to know. Not only did he hear it in his tone, but his lips curved upward…against the back of Mohinder's neck. "I did mention the conditions of my choosing, didn't I?"
Mohinder didn't know whether to moan with pleasure or groan in resignation. "You'll make my chai with no taunting?" he asked instead.
"Yup." Ianto nipped at the back of his neck, at once directing his gaze back to the target and sending streamers of erotic pleasure down his spine.
He ought to put a stop to this. Really. But his lips wouldn't form any words but "nngh" which wasn't precisely a word, and, he realized, he didn't actually want Ianto to stop tormenting him - in the lab or on the firing range.
"And if I were to concede I couldn't possibly make the shots with you doing…" Ianto traced the swell of Mohinder's cock so casually Mohinder thought he'd scream. Swallowing hard, he choked out: "That."
"You would still be required to learn to shoot," Ianto said crisply, not quite all-business, as his index finger still pressed very lightly on the crown of his cock.
"It might be safer," Mohinder began. "If you were to stop…" He glanced back over his shoulder, gaze heavy-lidded. "The lesson until you've finished what you're doing now."
For a fraction of a moment, Ianto's palm curved over Mohinder's erection. His hips bucked - but met with nothing. The pressure had already gone, Ianto's hand dropped away even as he himself stepped back. "Or if I stop this, until you've learned to shoot." He tugged Mohinder's shirt straight over his shoulders. "Sex is a powerful motivator."
That, Mohinder didn't need to ask where he'd learned. He did work for Jack Harkness after all.
Lowering the gun to the ground, Mohinder turned toward Ianto and lifted an eyebrow. "How do I know you'll follow through?"
Ianto smirked. "You don't."
"Then why should I comply?"
"First, because these are, in a manner of speaking, Jack's orders." With Jack, it might well be more than a manner of speaking, but Mohinder let that pass. "Second, because if you don't, then I definitely won't follow through."
Mohinder refused to whimper at that. Absolutely refused. He pulled back the safety on the gun and aligned himself again.
Ianto stepped up behind him, the action no longer even nominally innocent, and yet there was nothing overtly sexual in his hands moving over Mohinder's limbs, arranging them. "And third," Ianto said quietly, warmth pervading his tone. "Because now that you know, you can't just do nothing. You care too much."
That, at the last, was true. When he'd learned, first of aliens causing unevolved humans to manifest superpowers, then that the mutation sequence was an alternate timeline retrovirus that had come through the Rift, he couldn't say yes to Jack fast enough.
Inhaling, he thought through Ianto's instructions, sighted down his arm - "Gently," Ianto urged - then squeezed the trigger. The bullet took the Weevil right through the eye.
"I stand corrected." Ianto sounded surprised.
"The relevant incident was wiped from my files. Not even Toshiko would know to look for it." Of course, he couldn't do it three times in a row, under any circumstances, and least of all not with his cock pulsing eager reminders against his zipper.
He fired off five more rounds from that weapon, acquitting himself decently, then lay it down on the table. "What's next?" he asked, and managed to keep the pleading note out of his voice.
"Take your pick. You need to learn them all."
Then Mohinder did groan.
Ianto tsked.
Mohinder rolled his eyes, then then picked up the next in the row of guns. A long barreled slender piece. Ianto showed him how to load and fire. He practiced until he'd emptied the magazine, and then continued to the next. So it went, until he'd reached the end.
"Nice," Ianto praised.
He lifted off his headset and goggles and set them on the table. "What now?"
Ianto removed his own, and leaned across the table into his space. "Sex," he teased, eyes bright and wicked, then brushed his lips across Mohinder's.
Ianto had been right to wait. He felt…exhilarated…by the training. Empowered. Aroused.
All right, yes, he could live with this new method of torment between them, if… He curled his fingers in Ianto's belt loop and tugged him forward. "Chai?"
"Embalming fluid," Ianto replied but his shudder wasn't, Mohinder thought, for the tea.
"Call it what you like, so long as you keep making it for me," he said.
Ianto shrugged as though unaffected, but the pink in his cheeks pleased Mohinder immensely. "Of course."
"Good," Mohinder slurred softly across Ianto's mouth, and then kissed him.