Fic: Quadruple Trouble - Part 1-2
Title: Quadruple Trouble - Part 1-2
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Gwen, OC.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada
Summary: One Jack is plenty for Ianto, so he really has his hands full when he suddenly finds himself with four identical Jacks.
Word Count: 2277
Written For: Challenge 111: Four at beattheblackdog.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Exactly how it happened even Jack couldn’t have said, although the involvement of some sort of alien technology was a reasonably safe bet, this being Torchwood. One minute he was in his office, alone, bemoaning the fact that he had so much paperwork it would take at least four people to get it done by the end of the day, and the next minute, there were four of him.
On the face of it, that might seem a useful, even fortuitous occurrence; however, four Jacks were the same as one Jack, only more so, and none of them were any more enthusiastic about doing his paperwork than the original Jack had been.
The four Jacks looked at each other, leered at each other as the thought of certain interesting possibilities popped into their heads, and then three of them broke into identical pouts as the fourth one picked up the mug of Ianto’s coffee that was sitting on the desk and drank it. Naturally they’d all wanted it and an argument broke out, which was when Ianto dashed up to Jack’s office to see what the commotion was about and discovered four identical copies of his lover. Just the sight alone was enough to give him a headache, even without all the yelling they were doing.
“Jack!” he bellowed.
Four mouths clicked shut in unison, with four identical winces, and all four Jacks turned to face him with sheepish expressions on their faces. “Yes, Ianto?” they chorused, trying and failing to look innocent of any kind of wrongdoing.
Ianto didn’t buy it for a second; it didn’t take a genius to notice that something suspicious was going on.
“This may be a silly question, but why are there four of you?”
“No idea,” the four Jacks replied with identical shrugs.
“Wonderful.” Ianto’s tone should have made it clear to everyone present that he meant the exact opposite, but the Jacks were distracted enough by their multiplicity that they either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Isn’t it?” They beamed at Ianto in four-part harmony.
Ianto closed his eyes, rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and sent up a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening that the next time he looked he’d only have one Jack to contend with, and this would all turn out to be just a temporary hallucination brought on by overwork. Or possibly a bad dream. No such luck; on opening his eyes again, he was met by the same sight, only now the four Jacks looked more concerned than happy.
“What’s wrong, Ianto?” two asked, while the other two piped up with, “Are you alright, Ianto?”
“No, I’m not alright, and neither are you! There’s only supposed to be one of you, not four! Which of you is the real you?”
That supposedly simple question caused some confusion as the four Jacks all stated firmly, “I am!” then turned to glare at each other.
“Of course you are.” Ianto sighed tiredly. “Why can’t anything around here ever be simple?” Turning on his heel, Ianto left Jack’s office, a line of Jacks scuttling along in his wake almost like a bunch of ducklings following their mother, except for the fact that ducklings didn’t tend to push and shove each other, fighting over who got to be at the front and therefore closest to mum, or in this case, Ianto. It wasn’t easy to ignore them, but he did his best. “Tosh, we have a problem.”
Taking in the flock of Jacks, Tosh offered her friend a sympathetic smile. “I noticed.” To her credit, she didn’t seem fazed by the sight, but then after five years with Torchwood such bizarre sights had become business as usual. She turned her attention to the Jacks clustered behind Ianto, all of them still vying to be closest to him. “Jack, what exactly were you doing when this happened?”
The Jacks frowned and shook their heads. “I don’t remember.”
Not the helpful answer Ianto had been hoping for, but about what he’d expected. Jack was easily distracted, and probably hadn’t been paying attention in the first place.
“I’ll check the CCTV in his office,” Tosh promised, swivelling back to her computers, and pulling up Jack’s office cameras on one of her screens. “I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Thanks, Tosh.” Ianto turned away and set off across the Hub, the line of Jacks in tow, then stopped so abruptly they all piled into his back, nearly knocking him off his feet. “Jack, stop following me!”
“But Ianto…”
He spun on his heel to frown at the Jacks. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“It’s boring,” one said.
“He drank all the coffee,” another complained.
“I did not!” the accused protested.
“I’m hungry!” whined the fourth.
“Fine, I’ll make you more coffee, lunch should be here soon, and you can have some biscuits to tide you over until it arrives.”
With the Jacks trooping behind him, Ianto went into the kitchen area and started coffee brewing, before digging out some of the spare mugs. He passed the biscuit tin to one of the Jacks, with instructions to share the contents with his other selves, then once their drinks were poured, he sent the four Jacks back to their office with their snack. Peace at last, not that he could rest; as he’d told Jack, lunch was due to arrive shortly, and someone had to be on hand to take delivery.
He was on his way up to the Tourist Office to pick up and pay for the pizzas he’d ordered when he met Owen and Gwen coming the other way, Owen carrying the containment box holding the Rift’s latest gift, which they’d just been out to retrieve, and Gwen with a stack of pizza boxes.
“Ran into the delivery girl on our way in,” she explained.
“Yeah, and I had to foot the bill,” Owen grouched. “I expect to be reimbursed.”
Ianto turned around and led the way back to the lift; there was little point in going the rest of the way, even though the money to pay for lunch was in the office drawer up there. “I’ll take it out of petty cash when we get back down to the Hub,” he promised. “In the meantime, I should probably warn you…”
“Four Jacks?” Owen yelped after Ianto told them what had happened. “Bloody Hell! One’s bad enough; four doesn’t bear thinking about!”
“Just be glad they’re not all fixated on you,” Ianto told the medic with a long-suffering sigh as the lift came to a stop and the cog door opened to the accompaniment of the usual sirens and flashing lights. “It’s nowhere near as much fun as it might sound.” Plucking one of the pizzas off the stack in Gwen’s arms, he took it up to the office to feed the Jacks and get Owen’s money from the petty cash box that lived in Jack’s top desk drawer.
The Jacks fell to like a ravenous horde, which didn’t surprise Ianto. Jack had always had a healthy appetite, and he hadn’t expected four Jacks to be any different from one. Leaving them to their lunch, he checked in with Tosh to see if she’d found anything useful on the CCTV footage, which she hadn’t because it had flickered oddly and when the image had cleared again, it had revealed four Jacks where there’d previously only been one. She was trying to extract usable data from the frames that had been affected, but even for a tech genius that was a slow and painstaking process.
Making coffee for the rest of the team, Ianto passed it around, and then had to go and break up another argument in Jack’s office, something about one Jack drinking another Jack’s coffee, another Jack taking the last dark chocolate Hobnob from the biscuit tin, and there not being enough pizza for four hungry Jacks, which in retrospect, Ianto should have realised. Promising more coffee, pizza, and cookies, Ianto went to see to it, leaving the four Jacks to their own devices again; probably not the most sensible thing to do, but he couldn’t be expected to supervise them all the time.
Once supplied with more food, the Jacks quietened down for a bit, and Ianto was able to sit down in the kitchen, where it was a bit more peaceful, and grab a badly needed bite to eat himself. Wrangling multiple Jacks really worked up an appetite. He was just finishing his third slice of pizza when a Jack wandered into the kitchen carrying four empty mugs. He looked a bit put upon but perked up when he spotted Ianto.
“You drew the short straw?” Ianto asked, correctly guessing that the Jacks had drawn lots to see who’d do the post-lunch cleanup. Ianto preferred everyone to return dirty mugs and plates to the kitchen, so he didn’t have to spend ages searching for them before doing the washing up. He had the team just about trained by now, including Jack, because anyone who didn’t bring their mug back for washing didn’t get coffee the next time he made some.
“Yep!” Jack grinned. “And suddenly I’m glad.” He put the mugs down beside the sink and advanced on Ianto, an unmistakeable look in his eyes.
Ianto wasn’t having any of that!
“Oh no! You just keep your hands to yourself!” He stood up from where he’d been sitting at the small kitchen table and shifted so that it was between him and Jack, for whatever small amount of protection it offered. It would be no obstacle for a determined Jack, but all Ianto really needed was a chance to speak before Jack could make that impossible.
“But I’m me!” Jack whined. Ianto was almost always willing, except when he was either very tired or very busy, neither of which seemed to apply right at that moment.
“So are all the rest of you.” Ianto folded his arms over his chest and stared Jack down. “If I let you have your way with me, it wouldn’t be fair to the other three; they’d all want their turn, and I draw the line at fivesomes, especially since it would be four on one.”
Jack’s bottom lip wobbled, but Ianto was unmoved.
“No, Jack. Not until there’s only one of you again.”
“But what if I’m not the original? You’ll really deny me even just one little kiss?”
“If you’re not the original, all the more reason for me to say no. Kissing you would be like cheating on my Jack, and I refuse to do that, even with another one of him. Another one of you.” Ianto was beginning to confuse himself. He shook his head. “Whatever. Sorry; that’s just the way it is. Now, you’ve all had lunch; isn’t it about time you all got on with something useful? I’m sure the four of you could make good progress on that pile of paperwork if you put your minds to it.”
Jack sighed, shoulders drooping. “I suppose so.” Looking like someone on the way to his execution, he reluctantly slouched his way out of the kitchen and back up to his office.
Ianto sat down at the table again and put his head in his hands. He loved Jack, but loving four of him at the same time… “If this doesn’t kill me, nothing will,” he muttered.
For a while, everything was quiet, the Jacks sulkily doing paperwork in their office and the rest of the team getting on with their own work, except for Tosh, who was still trying to find out where the surplus Jacks had come from. About mid-afternoon, the Rift alert sounded, bringing four eager Jacks bounding down the steps, anticipating escape from tedium. Their hopes were immediately dashed by Ianto.
“We’re supposed to be a secret organisation! One of you draws enough attention; four would be impossible to overlook. You’d be splashed across the front page of the evening edition! Not to mention you only have one coat and you’d all be fighting over it. No, I think it’s best if the four of you stay in the Hub, out of sight, until we work out where the extra three came from. I’ll go, and I’ll take Gwen with me. I want Owen to run some tests on you anyway; I should’ve had him do that before, just to be sure you really are all you.”
Needless to say, the Jacks weren’t happy, even though they understood Ianto’s reasoning. They weren’t exactly delighted by the idea of being prodded and poked by Owen either, although at least that would get them out of doing paperwork for a bit, so they sullenly agreed.
“If you promise to behave, I might bring you all back a treat,” Ianto told them. One unhappy Jack he could just about cope with, but four of them would soften the hardest heart, and when it came to Jack, Ianto’s heart was about as hard as the average marshmallow.
“We’ll be good!” the Jacks chorused.
“Alright then. Hopefully Gwen and I won’t be gone long.”
Telling him to be careful, four Jacks waved goodbye as Ianto and Gwen left through the garage entrance. This Rift alert was further afield than the earlier one, which had been within easy walking distance of the Hub, so they were taking the SUV. Ianto didn’t mind; he welcomed the chance to put some distance between himself and his quadrupled lover. He badly needed a breather, and the way he was feeling right at that moment, he was half tempted not to bother coming back at all…
TBC in Part 2
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Gwen, OC.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada
Summary: One Jack is plenty for Ianto, so he really has his hands full when he suddenly finds himself with four identical Jacks.
Word Count: 2277
Written For: Challenge 111: Four at beattheblackdog.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Exactly how it happened even Jack couldn’t have said, although the involvement of some sort of alien technology was a reasonably safe bet, this being Torchwood. One minute he was in his office, alone, bemoaning the fact that he had so much paperwork it would take at least four people to get it done by the end of the day, and the next minute, there were four of him.
On the face of it, that might seem a useful, even fortuitous occurrence; however, four Jacks were the same as one Jack, only more so, and none of them were any more enthusiastic about doing his paperwork than the original Jack had been.
The four Jacks looked at each other, leered at each other as the thought of certain interesting possibilities popped into their heads, and then three of them broke into identical pouts as the fourth one picked up the mug of Ianto’s coffee that was sitting on the desk and drank it. Naturally they’d all wanted it and an argument broke out, which was when Ianto dashed up to Jack’s office to see what the commotion was about and discovered four identical copies of his lover. Just the sight alone was enough to give him a headache, even without all the yelling they were doing.
“Jack!” he bellowed.
Four mouths clicked shut in unison, with four identical winces, and all four Jacks turned to face him with sheepish expressions on their faces. “Yes, Ianto?” they chorused, trying and failing to look innocent of any kind of wrongdoing.
Ianto didn’t buy it for a second; it didn’t take a genius to notice that something suspicious was going on.
“This may be a silly question, but why are there four of you?”
“No idea,” the four Jacks replied with identical shrugs.
“Wonderful.” Ianto’s tone should have made it clear to everyone present that he meant the exact opposite, but the Jacks were distracted enough by their multiplicity that they either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Isn’t it?” They beamed at Ianto in four-part harmony.
Ianto closed his eyes, rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and sent up a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening that the next time he looked he’d only have one Jack to contend with, and this would all turn out to be just a temporary hallucination brought on by overwork. Or possibly a bad dream. No such luck; on opening his eyes again, he was met by the same sight, only now the four Jacks looked more concerned than happy.
“What’s wrong, Ianto?” two asked, while the other two piped up with, “Are you alright, Ianto?”
“No, I’m not alright, and neither are you! There’s only supposed to be one of you, not four! Which of you is the real you?”
That supposedly simple question caused some confusion as the four Jacks all stated firmly, “I am!” then turned to glare at each other.
“Of course you are.” Ianto sighed tiredly. “Why can’t anything around here ever be simple?” Turning on his heel, Ianto left Jack’s office, a line of Jacks scuttling along in his wake almost like a bunch of ducklings following their mother, except for the fact that ducklings didn’t tend to push and shove each other, fighting over who got to be at the front and therefore closest to mum, or in this case, Ianto. It wasn’t easy to ignore them, but he did his best. “Tosh, we have a problem.”
Taking in the flock of Jacks, Tosh offered her friend a sympathetic smile. “I noticed.” To her credit, she didn’t seem fazed by the sight, but then after five years with Torchwood such bizarre sights had become business as usual. She turned her attention to the Jacks clustered behind Ianto, all of them still vying to be closest to him. “Jack, what exactly were you doing when this happened?”
The Jacks frowned and shook their heads. “I don’t remember.”
Not the helpful answer Ianto had been hoping for, but about what he’d expected. Jack was easily distracted, and probably hadn’t been paying attention in the first place.
“I’ll check the CCTV in his office,” Tosh promised, swivelling back to her computers, and pulling up Jack’s office cameras on one of her screens. “I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Thanks, Tosh.” Ianto turned away and set off across the Hub, the line of Jacks in tow, then stopped so abruptly they all piled into his back, nearly knocking him off his feet. “Jack, stop following me!”
“But Ianto…”
He spun on his heel to frown at the Jacks. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“It’s boring,” one said.
“He drank all the coffee,” another complained.
“I did not!” the accused protested.
“I’m hungry!” whined the fourth.
“Fine, I’ll make you more coffee, lunch should be here soon, and you can have some biscuits to tide you over until it arrives.”
With the Jacks trooping behind him, Ianto went into the kitchen area and started coffee brewing, before digging out some of the spare mugs. He passed the biscuit tin to one of the Jacks, with instructions to share the contents with his other selves, then once their drinks were poured, he sent the four Jacks back to their office with their snack. Peace at last, not that he could rest; as he’d told Jack, lunch was due to arrive shortly, and someone had to be on hand to take delivery.
He was on his way up to the Tourist Office to pick up and pay for the pizzas he’d ordered when he met Owen and Gwen coming the other way, Owen carrying the containment box holding the Rift’s latest gift, which they’d just been out to retrieve, and Gwen with a stack of pizza boxes.
“Ran into the delivery girl on our way in,” she explained.
“Yeah, and I had to foot the bill,” Owen grouched. “I expect to be reimbursed.”
Ianto turned around and led the way back to the lift; there was little point in going the rest of the way, even though the money to pay for lunch was in the office drawer up there. “I’ll take it out of petty cash when we get back down to the Hub,” he promised. “In the meantime, I should probably warn you…”
“Four Jacks?” Owen yelped after Ianto told them what had happened. “Bloody Hell! One’s bad enough; four doesn’t bear thinking about!”
“Just be glad they’re not all fixated on you,” Ianto told the medic with a long-suffering sigh as the lift came to a stop and the cog door opened to the accompaniment of the usual sirens and flashing lights. “It’s nowhere near as much fun as it might sound.” Plucking one of the pizzas off the stack in Gwen’s arms, he took it up to the office to feed the Jacks and get Owen’s money from the petty cash box that lived in Jack’s top desk drawer.
The Jacks fell to like a ravenous horde, which didn’t surprise Ianto. Jack had always had a healthy appetite, and he hadn’t expected four Jacks to be any different from one. Leaving them to their lunch, he checked in with Tosh to see if she’d found anything useful on the CCTV footage, which she hadn’t because it had flickered oddly and when the image had cleared again, it had revealed four Jacks where there’d previously only been one. She was trying to extract usable data from the frames that had been affected, but even for a tech genius that was a slow and painstaking process.
Making coffee for the rest of the team, Ianto passed it around, and then had to go and break up another argument in Jack’s office, something about one Jack drinking another Jack’s coffee, another Jack taking the last dark chocolate Hobnob from the biscuit tin, and there not being enough pizza for four hungry Jacks, which in retrospect, Ianto should have realised. Promising more coffee, pizza, and cookies, Ianto went to see to it, leaving the four Jacks to their own devices again; probably not the most sensible thing to do, but he couldn’t be expected to supervise them all the time.
Once supplied with more food, the Jacks quietened down for a bit, and Ianto was able to sit down in the kitchen, where it was a bit more peaceful, and grab a badly needed bite to eat himself. Wrangling multiple Jacks really worked up an appetite. He was just finishing his third slice of pizza when a Jack wandered into the kitchen carrying four empty mugs. He looked a bit put upon but perked up when he spotted Ianto.
“You drew the short straw?” Ianto asked, correctly guessing that the Jacks had drawn lots to see who’d do the post-lunch cleanup. Ianto preferred everyone to return dirty mugs and plates to the kitchen, so he didn’t have to spend ages searching for them before doing the washing up. He had the team just about trained by now, including Jack, because anyone who didn’t bring their mug back for washing didn’t get coffee the next time he made some.
“Yep!” Jack grinned. “And suddenly I’m glad.” He put the mugs down beside the sink and advanced on Ianto, an unmistakeable look in his eyes.
Ianto wasn’t having any of that!
“Oh no! You just keep your hands to yourself!” He stood up from where he’d been sitting at the small kitchen table and shifted so that it was between him and Jack, for whatever small amount of protection it offered. It would be no obstacle for a determined Jack, but all Ianto really needed was a chance to speak before Jack could make that impossible.
“But I’m me!” Jack whined. Ianto was almost always willing, except when he was either very tired or very busy, neither of which seemed to apply right at that moment.
“So are all the rest of you.” Ianto folded his arms over his chest and stared Jack down. “If I let you have your way with me, it wouldn’t be fair to the other three; they’d all want their turn, and I draw the line at fivesomes, especially since it would be four on one.”
Jack’s bottom lip wobbled, but Ianto was unmoved.
“No, Jack. Not until there’s only one of you again.”
“But what if I’m not the original? You’ll really deny me even just one little kiss?”
“If you’re not the original, all the more reason for me to say no. Kissing you would be like cheating on my Jack, and I refuse to do that, even with another one of him. Another one of you.” Ianto was beginning to confuse himself. He shook his head. “Whatever. Sorry; that’s just the way it is. Now, you’ve all had lunch; isn’t it about time you all got on with something useful? I’m sure the four of you could make good progress on that pile of paperwork if you put your minds to it.”
Jack sighed, shoulders drooping. “I suppose so.” Looking like someone on the way to his execution, he reluctantly slouched his way out of the kitchen and back up to his office.
Ianto sat down at the table again and put his head in his hands. He loved Jack, but loving four of him at the same time… “If this doesn’t kill me, nothing will,” he muttered.
For a while, everything was quiet, the Jacks sulkily doing paperwork in their office and the rest of the team getting on with their own work, except for Tosh, who was still trying to find out where the surplus Jacks had come from. About mid-afternoon, the Rift alert sounded, bringing four eager Jacks bounding down the steps, anticipating escape from tedium. Their hopes were immediately dashed by Ianto.
“We’re supposed to be a secret organisation! One of you draws enough attention; four would be impossible to overlook. You’d be splashed across the front page of the evening edition! Not to mention you only have one coat and you’d all be fighting over it. No, I think it’s best if the four of you stay in the Hub, out of sight, until we work out where the extra three came from. I’ll go, and I’ll take Gwen with me. I want Owen to run some tests on you anyway; I should’ve had him do that before, just to be sure you really are all you.”
Needless to say, the Jacks weren’t happy, even though they understood Ianto’s reasoning. They weren’t exactly delighted by the idea of being prodded and poked by Owen either, although at least that would get them out of doing paperwork for a bit, so they sullenly agreed.
“If you promise to behave, I might bring you all back a treat,” Ianto told them. One unhappy Jack he could just about cope with, but four of them would soften the hardest heart, and when it came to Jack, Ianto’s heart was about as hard as the average marshmallow.
“We’ll be good!” the Jacks chorused.
“Alright then. Hopefully Gwen and I won’t be gone long.”
Telling him to be careful, four Jacks waved goodbye as Ianto and Gwen left through the garage entrance. This Rift alert was further afield than the earlier one, which had been within easy walking distance of the Hub, so they were taking the SUV. Ianto didn’t mind; he welcomed the chance to put some distance between himself and his quadrupled lover. He badly needed a breather, and the way he was feeling right at that moment, he was half tempted not to bother coming back at all…
TBC in Part 2