My writing she is broke!
The following came about because I am still in a deep funk and can't seem to focus on doing any proper writing. It's nearly been an entire week now and zip, nada, nothing. *much whimpering noises* I desperately need to get my Torchwood focus back, damn it! Anyway, one of the things I have been brooding on is the Janto (or lack thereof) in the series, and I started to wonder how I would sneak little scenes into the episodes that would underline that the boys are doing something a little more committed than just messing about in hothouses whenever Jack's feeling a tad frisky.
Anything to try and jumpstart a stalled engine, damn it! It's not in script format because, quite frankly, I can't get my head around script format, so just pretend you're seeing it on the screen instead. The rules were that each scene wouldn't last more than 2-3 minutes and that they would either be part of a larger, ongoing sequence, introduce another scene or be a tag at the end of an episode. I hope they work!
Scene One:
The sound of a mobile going off shattered the peaceful dimness of the bedroom. When the phone showed no sign of letting up, a groan issued from underneath the duvet and a hand reached out to grope blindly for the side table and the offending machine before it was dragged back under the duvet.
"Ianto Jones." There was a moment of silence before Ianto groaned again and flailed his way out from underneath the duvet. Twisting around in bed, he prodded hard at the mound next to him. "Jack, it's your bloody phone!"
Jack clawed at the duvet covering him and peered blearily at the phone Ianto was holding out. "Take a message?" he asked hopefully, then sighed as Ianto scowled, thrust the phone into his hand and turned back to burrow underneath the duvet. "Yeah?" he said into the phone as he scrubbed at his hair. "Hey, Gwen, what's up?" He frowned as he listened, before throwing back the duvet and getting out of bed.
"Uh-huh. What do the readings show?" he asked as he went over to the chest of drawers and opened one drawer, pulling out some underwear before moving on to another drawer and selecting a t-shirt at random. "Okay, give me time to get changed and I'll come and join you. Yeah, that's fine. See you soon."
Closing the phone, Jack placed it on top of the chest of drawers before quickly pulling a shirt and trousers out of the wardrobe. Padding back to the bed, he aimed a slap against where he thought Ianto's backside was and grinned at the indignant yelp he got. "Any chance of some coffee?"
Ianto emerged enough to glare at him. "It's my turn to lie in. You know where everything is. Get it yourself!" He disappeared under the duvet, leaving Jack to laugh softly to himself as he made for the bathroom.
"And to think that before we started all this I thought you were a morning person," he observed.
A single hand emerged from the bedclothes to give him the finger.
Scene Two:
The restaurant was quietly expensive and Ianto was torn between gratification and dismay. "This had better not be coming out of the Torchwood expense account," he said as severely as possible when facing a Jack Harkness lit by candlelight and after a very good meal and several glasses of champagne.
"I wouldn't dream of it," Jack said in mock offence. "Besides, I know I'd never get it past your gimlet eye and I can't take the nagging."
"Nagging?" Ianto's eyebrows rose up, even as he attempted to control the smirk that threatened to escape. "So I'm a nag now, am I?"
"Well-" Jack broke off as both his and Ianto's pagers went off at the same time. "Damn!" he said, looking down and seeing the readout.
"Rift alert," Ianto sighed in agreement as Jack gestured for the bill to be brought around. "You know, one of these days we're going to get as far as dessert!"
Scene Three:
Gwen grabbed for her phone as it went off. "Hello? Ianto, how's things?"
"Please tell me there's some kind of emergency back at the Hub that needs Jack's immediate attention," Ianto said urgently.
Gwen struggled to keep a straight face, knowing that he would hear a smile in her voice. "Sorry. Everything's as quiet as a church mouse."
"You could make something up!" Ianto hissed at her. "Kick the Rift Manipulator or something. I'll make it worth your while, I swear!"
"Jack giving you a hard time, is he?" Gwen managed after a moment.
"He's decided he's going to help me with the housework," Ianto said in despair.
"Where's the harm in that?" Gwen asked, enjoying herself hugely.
"Gwen, Jack's idea of housework comes from somewhere around the 1950s. You've never known fear until you've seen Jack Harkness with a can of Pledge and a dust- Jack, no!" he barked. "Pull the plug out and step away from the vacuum cleaner! I mean it!"
The connection was broken and Gwen was left to laugh herself silly.
Scene Four:
"Jack, come on!" Gwen ran over to where Jack was standing in front of a shop window, staring at the display. "Jack, Ianto just came through with the co-ordinates. We know where Bilis is!"
Jack grinned wolfishly. "That's my Ianto. Let's go!"
He took off but Gwen paused for just a second to see what had attracted his attention. It was a jeweller's, she realised, with a wide selection of rings in the window. She ran after Jack, mindful that time was short, but she was grinning as she went.
Scene Five:
Jack yawned and watched in amusement as Ianto tried to suppress his own, answering, yawn.
"Bastard," Ianto mumbled, already half-asleep.
"Come on, let's finish off the last of the updates and then make for home. I'll cook tonight."
"Lasagne?" Ianto asked hopefully as he went to make them one last coffee.
"You only love me for my pasta," Jack observed soulfully before grinning and running the final checks.
Scene Six:
"No," Ianto said in complete and utter revulsion.
"Why not?" Jack asked at his most innocent.
"Jack, we are not doing the bathroom out in pink!"
"But pink is very restful," Jack argued, "and psychologically speaking-" He broke off as he saw a Weevil lope past the wide glass doors of the DIY store. "Okay, work first and bathroom décor later," he said as he took off after the Weevil.
Ianto paused to shove the offending tin of paint back on the shelf and gazed heavenwards. "Thank you," he said sincerely before going after Jack.
Scene Seven:
"Close your eyes."
"Why?" Ianto demanded suspiciously. Jack grinned, his eyes sparkling and repeated his demand. Making an issue of obeying, Ianto huffed and did as he was told. "We are technically at work, you know, even if we are waiting for the test results." He felt something settle in his hand and opened his eyes to see that Jack had handed him an envelope. "What's this?"
"Open it and see."
Ianto obeyed with alacrity, his eyes widening as he realised what he was holding. "Two tickets to the world premiere in London? These are like gold dust! How-?"
"I called in a favour or two," Jack said with a wave of his hand. "Provided we get this little problem sorted, we can get up to London in time."
Ianto gave him a dazzling smile. "Those aliens are toast!"
Scene Eight:
Jack sighed. He hated stakeouts. Ianto was much better at them and was sitting alongside him in the SUV, a serene expression on his face. Jack sighed again. He needed a distraction.
"Do you remember our first stakeout together?" he asked abruptly.
Ianto blinked. "Of course."
"It was in the dead of night-"
"It was in the middle of the day," Ianto corrected in amusement.
"You were wearing black."
"I was wearing grey."
"Ah yes, I remember it well," Jack said soulfully and watched with pleasure as the laughter leapt in Ianto's eyes.
"We were hunting Weevils-"
"We were after alien tech."
"We ate French bread-"
"We had doughnuts and coffee."
"Ah yes," Jack sang, making a passable fist at a French accent, "I remember it well."
The beep of the tracker brought their minds back on business, but there was still a smile on Ianto's face as they pulled away.
Scene Nine:
"Let me back on my ship or I will kill this human!" the alien yelled as it pressed the muzzle of its weapon against Jack's head.
"Christ on a bike, that's done it," Andy muttered under his breath. Gwen gave him a startled look and he rolled his eyes. "Come on, Gwen, a blind man would notice!"
A shrill sound suddenly blasted the air apart, making the alien keen and instinctively clap its hands against its ears. In seconds Jack had regained the upper hand and disarmed the alien, slapping the restraints on it and handing it over to Gwen before turning and bracing himself to face Ianto as he approached.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said softly as Ianto's hands patted across his arms and head. "It wouldn't have mattered if he had blown my head off, anyway."
"It would have mattered to me," Ianto snapped. "Doesn't that count for anything?"
Jack risked a quick kiss and realised how unsettled Ianto was when he not only accepted the gesture but tried to deepen the kiss. "It counts more than anything else apart from the end of the world," he said quietly.
Ianto sighed and smiled reluctantly. "Business as usual, then."
And the one scene we will never get, but I'm already fantasising, so what the hell! This would be the final scene of the final episode of the season.
Scene Ten:
"Torchwood has some kind of policy or regulation for every contingency, don't they?" Jack asked idly, watching Ianto pour them both a glass of brandy.
"Pretty much," Ianto agreed, flashing him a smile. "Any particular one in mind?" he asked as he handed Jack his glass.
"What happens when an employee of Torchwood gets pregnant?"
Ianto froze with the glass halfway up to his lips, giving Jack a look of consternation. "Gwen's pregnant?"
"No," Jack said as he took a healthy swig from his glass. "Gwen isn't."
"Jack?"
Anything to try and jumpstart a stalled engine, damn it! It's not in script format because, quite frankly, I can't get my head around script format, so just pretend you're seeing it on the screen instead. The rules were that each scene wouldn't last more than 2-3 minutes and that they would either be part of a larger, ongoing sequence, introduce another scene or be a tag at the end of an episode. I hope they work!
Scene One:
The sound of a mobile going off shattered the peaceful dimness of the bedroom. When the phone showed no sign of letting up, a groan issued from underneath the duvet and a hand reached out to grope blindly for the side table and the offending machine before it was dragged back under the duvet.
"Ianto Jones." There was a moment of silence before Ianto groaned again and flailed his way out from underneath the duvet. Twisting around in bed, he prodded hard at the mound next to him. "Jack, it's your bloody phone!"
Jack clawed at the duvet covering him and peered blearily at the phone Ianto was holding out. "Take a message?" he asked hopefully, then sighed as Ianto scowled, thrust the phone into his hand and turned back to burrow underneath the duvet. "Yeah?" he said into the phone as he scrubbed at his hair. "Hey, Gwen, what's up?" He frowned as he listened, before throwing back the duvet and getting out of bed.
"Uh-huh. What do the readings show?" he asked as he went over to the chest of drawers and opened one drawer, pulling out some underwear before moving on to another drawer and selecting a t-shirt at random. "Okay, give me time to get changed and I'll come and join you. Yeah, that's fine. See you soon."
Closing the phone, Jack placed it on top of the chest of drawers before quickly pulling a shirt and trousers out of the wardrobe. Padding back to the bed, he aimed a slap against where he thought Ianto's backside was and grinned at the indignant yelp he got. "Any chance of some coffee?"
Ianto emerged enough to glare at him. "It's my turn to lie in. You know where everything is. Get it yourself!" He disappeared under the duvet, leaving Jack to laugh softly to himself as he made for the bathroom.
"And to think that before we started all this I thought you were a morning person," he observed.
A single hand emerged from the bedclothes to give him the finger.
Scene Two:
The restaurant was quietly expensive and Ianto was torn between gratification and dismay. "This had better not be coming out of the Torchwood expense account," he said as severely as possible when facing a Jack Harkness lit by candlelight and after a very good meal and several glasses of champagne.
"I wouldn't dream of it," Jack said in mock offence. "Besides, I know I'd never get it past your gimlet eye and I can't take the nagging."
"Nagging?" Ianto's eyebrows rose up, even as he attempted to control the smirk that threatened to escape. "So I'm a nag now, am I?"
"Well-" Jack broke off as both his and Ianto's pagers went off at the same time. "Damn!" he said, looking down and seeing the readout.
"Rift alert," Ianto sighed in agreement as Jack gestured for the bill to be brought around. "You know, one of these days we're going to get as far as dessert!"
Scene Three:
Gwen grabbed for her phone as it went off. "Hello? Ianto, how's things?"
"Please tell me there's some kind of emergency back at the Hub that needs Jack's immediate attention," Ianto said urgently.
Gwen struggled to keep a straight face, knowing that he would hear a smile in her voice. "Sorry. Everything's as quiet as a church mouse."
"You could make something up!" Ianto hissed at her. "Kick the Rift Manipulator or something. I'll make it worth your while, I swear!"
"Jack giving you a hard time, is he?" Gwen managed after a moment.
"He's decided he's going to help me with the housework," Ianto said in despair.
"Where's the harm in that?" Gwen asked, enjoying herself hugely.
"Gwen, Jack's idea of housework comes from somewhere around the 1950s. You've never known fear until you've seen Jack Harkness with a can of Pledge and a dust- Jack, no!" he barked. "Pull the plug out and step away from the vacuum cleaner! I mean it!"
The connection was broken and Gwen was left to laugh herself silly.
Scene Four:
"Jack, come on!" Gwen ran over to where Jack was standing in front of a shop window, staring at the display. "Jack, Ianto just came through with the co-ordinates. We know where Bilis is!"
Jack grinned wolfishly. "That's my Ianto. Let's go!"
He took off but Gwen paused for just a second to see what had attracted his attention. It was a jeweller's, she realised, with a wide selection of rings in the window. She ran after Jack, mindful that time was short, but she was grinning as she went.
Scene Five:
Jack yawned and watched in amusement as Ianto tried to suppress his own, answering, yawn.
"Bastard," Ianto mumbled, already half-asleep.
"Come on, let's finish off the last of the updates and then make for home. I'll cook tonight."
"Lasagne?" Ianto asked hopefully as he went to make them one last coffee.
"You only love me for my pasta," Jack observed soulfully before grinning and running the final checks.
Scene Six:
"No," Ianto said in complete and utter revulsion.
"Why not?" Jack asked at his most innocent.
"Jack, we are not doing the bathroom out in pink!"
"But pink is very restful," Jack argued, "and psychologically speaking-" He broke off as he saw a Weevil lope past the wide glass doors of the DIY store. "Okay, work first and bathroom décor later," he said as he took off after the Weevil.
Ianto paused to shove the offending tin of paint back on the shelf and gazed heavenwards. "Thank you," he said sincerely before going after Jack.
Scene Seven:
"Close your eyes."
"Why?" Ianto demanded suspiciously. Jack grinned, his eyes sparkling and repeated his demand. Making an issue of obeying, Ianto huffed and did as he was told. "We are technically at work, you know, even if we are waiting for the test results." He felt something settle in his hand and opened his eyes to see that Jack had handed him an envelope. "What's this?"
"Open it and see."
Ianto obeyed with alacrity, his eyes widening as he realised what he was holding. "Two tickets to the world premiere in London? These are like gold dust! How-?"
"I called in a favour or two," Jack said with a wave of his hand. "Provided we get this little problem sorted, we can get up to London in time."
Ianto gave him a dazzling smile. "Those aliens are toast!"
Scene Eight:
Jack sighed. He hated stakeouts. Ianto was much better at them and was sitting alongside him in the SUV, a serene expression on his face. Jack sighed again. He needed a distraction.
"Do you remember our first stakeout together?" he asked abruptly.
Ianto blinked. "Of course."
"It was in the dead of night-"
"It was in the middle of the day," Ianto corrected in amusement.
"You were wearing black."
"I was wearing grey."
"Ah yes, I remember it well," Jack said soulfully and watched with pleasure as the laughter leapt in Ianto's eyes.
"We were hunting Weevils-"
"We were after alien tech."
"We ate French bread-"
"We had doughnuts and coffee."
"Ah yes," Jack sang, making a passable fist at a French accent, "I remember it well."
The beep of the tracker brought their minds back on business, but there was still a smile on Ianto's face as they pulled away.
Scene Nine:
"Let me back on my ship or I will kill this human!" the alien yelled as it pressed the muzzle of its weapon against Jack's head.
"Christ on a bike, that's done it," Andy muttered under his breath. Gwen gave him a startled look and he rolled his eyes. "Come on, Gwen, a blind man would notice!"
A shrill sound suddenly blasted the air apart, making the alien keen and instinctively clap its hands against its ears. In seconds Jack had regained the upper hand and disarmed the alien, slapping the restraints on it and handing it over to Gwen before turning and bracing himself to face Ianto as he approached.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said softly as Ianto's hands patted across his arms and head. "It wouldn't have mattered if he had blown my head off, anyway."
"It would have mattered to me," Ianto snapped. "Doesn't that count for anything?"
Jack risked a quick kiss and realised how unsettled Ianto was when he not only accepted the gesture but tried to deepen the kiss. "It counts more than anything else apart from the end of the world," he said quietly.
Ianto sighed and smiled reluctantly. "Business as usual, then."
And the one scene we will never get, but I'm already fantasising, so what the hell! This would be the final scene of the final episode of the season.
Scene Ten:
"Torchwood has some kind of policy or regulation for every contingency, don't they?" Jack asked idly, watching Ianto pour them both a glass of brandy.
"Pretty much," Ianto agreed, flashing him a smile. "Any particular one in mind?" he asked as he handed Jack his glass.
"What happens when an employee of Torchwood gets pregnant?"
Ianto froze with the glass halfway up to his lips, giving Jack a look of consternation. "Gwen's pregnant?"
"No," Jack said as he took a healthy swig from his glass. "Gwen isn't."
"Jack?"