Fic: Highly Unlikely Occurrences
Title:Highly Unlikely Occurrences
Author: cowgrrl
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-15 (for naughty bits in the first two paragraphs)
Spoilers: None
Summary: Ianto plays with Jack’s vortex manipulator and they take an unexpected trip in time and space. (Crossover with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)
Word Count: Approx. 1750
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood or Hitchhiker’s Guide. I’m just playing with them.
Author’s Notes: Written in response to Jantolution Challenge #14. Thank you to my fabulous beta, gracewillow
Ianto slowly kissed his way up Jack’s body, settling into Jack’s arms. He was feeling rather proud of himself-if they hadn’t been down in Jack’s well-soundproofed hole, he was sure all of Cardiff would have heard Jack’s cries as he climaxed. Those sound effects were proof of Ianto’s exceptional skills as a lover, not to mention his ability to keep Jack right on the edge for a very long time no matter how pitifully he begged for release.
Ianto kissed Jack, who was still limp from his long, happy ordeal. Jack’s mouth opened purely on reflex, allowing Ianto’s tongue easy entry. Jack responded lazily. Oh great, Ianto thought. Here he was, still full of energy and wanting more, and Jack was done for. Must be old age-what was Jack now? 200 years old? Ianto watched Jack breathe for a few minutes, admiring his lover’s beauty. Jack was pretty, but Ianto had needs going unmet. Restless, he grabbed Jack’s vortex manipulator from the side of the bed and started fiddling with it.
“What’s this little knob over here?” he asked, running his finger over one of the many mysterious controls on the 51st century device.
Jack opened his eyes lazily. “Oh, that’s for time travel. The Doctor disabled it. He still doesn’t trust me.” He shrugged. Normally that idea hurt but at the moment he was far too relaxed to care. He was feeling a slight chill though, as he came down from his orgasmic high, and he wrapped a sheet around the two of them.
“Huh,” Ianto grunted in response, still playing with the wristband. “So if it was working all I’d have to do is press this button and…”
Before Ianto had a chance to finish the sentence, something felt terribly, horribly wrong. And then they were no longer in Jack’s bed, no longer safely tucked away in the Hub. Instead they were outdoors, their arms around each other, wrapped only in a sheet, and several oddly dressed people were pointing guns at them. They squinted up at the sunlight and their captors.
“Oh, no!” Jack was instantly awake. Very awake. “This is impossible!”
One of the oddly dressed gunmen pulled them to their feet. The sheet dropped and they were both now quite naked, a stark contrast to the robed captors who looked like a cross between monks and puritans.
“You are under arrest,” one of the puritan monks informed them, “for the capital crimes of sex, public nudity, and homosexuality.” And with that, they were shackled and transported to a prison where they were given robes like their captors before being thrown in a cell.
It all happened so fast Ianto didn’t have time to think. Once their captors were gone, Ianto turned to Jack, his heart still pounding. “Where are we?”
“The better question might be ‘when are we?’” Jack responded. “And the unfortunate answer is we are on planet Earth, about 500 years in your future, in a country run by religious extremists who have outlawed anything even remotely pleasurable. I was here once before. John and I barely escaped with our lives. I put a setting in the vortex manipulator instructing it to never, ever bring me here again. Not for any reason. And apparently that, along with the Doctor’s disabling of the device, has failed.”
“Well, you escaped once before. We can do it again!” Ianto exclaimed.
“Do you still have the vortex manipulator?”
Ianto shook his head. When they’d transported, the wristband had somehow stayed behind. Ianto was alarmed to feel Jack trembling, and not from lust. This was fear.
Their farce of a trial was held later that day. Ianto learned that in Puritania (as Jack called this hell hole) sex was outlawed. Reproduction took place entirely in vitro. The sentence for sex? Death. The form of death? Because of the additional charges of nudity and homosexuality, rather than being allowed a humane death they were to be publically flogged to death the following morning.
Back in the cell, Ianto paced. “There has to be a way out,” he insisted.
“Do you see one?”
“What about those windows?” Ianto pointed to a fairly large window with bars on it. Determined, he examined the bars and was pleased to see one of them looked like it would come loose quite easily. And his death sentence had given him so much adrenaline that even if the bar wasn’t loose he’d have found a way to break it. Within an hour, he had the window open, looked out, and his heart sank. They were high up in a tower. There was barely a window ledge, and definitely no way to climb down. They were utterly trapped.
Neither of them slept that night. “You’ll play dead and then find some way out of here, won’t you?” Ianto asked.
“I always find a way,” Jack answered. But that would be after a particularly unpleasant death. And the thought of losing Ianto… Jack shuddered and held his lover tightly. I couldn’t protect him, he chastised himself. I never can…it’s all my fault…
Sensing Jack’s mood, Ianto tried to reassure him. “My time with Torchwood…my time with you….I wouldn’t change any of it. Not even for a longer life. No regrets.” He looked at Jack. “Actually, I do have one regret.”
“What’s that?” Jack ran his fingers through Ianto’s hair.
“I regret pressing the bloody button on that sodding vortex manipulator!”
That got a weak smile out of Jack. Even at their darkest hour, Ianto could manage humor.
As the room brightened with the coming dawn, Ianto stood. “Let’s jump!” he declared, pulling Jack to his feet.
“But we might still find a way out,” Jack said.
“There’s no way out,” Ianto insisted. “Unlike you, I only get one death. And I’d rather fall to my death than get beaten to death slowly while entertaining crowds of religious nuts. Come on! Let’s go fly!” He held his arms out, as if imitating a bird’s wings.
Jack’s eyes filled with tears as he looked at his beautiful lover. How many people would face death with such grace, such dignity? “Okay, Ianto. Let’s fly!” He pulled Ianto in for one last embrace, burying his face in Ianto’s hair, inhaling his lover’s scent, as if to memorize it for all eternity. He forced his tears back, forced himself to be as brave as Ianto.
Ianto opened the window and they climbed onto the narrow ledge together. The sun was rising. Ianto’s last sunrise. “Ready?”
Jack nodded. “I love you,” he said. He took Ianto’s hand, gripped it tightly, and they leaped.
* * *
What they didn’t know was at the very second they jumped off the ledge, a spaceship piloted by a two-headed humanoid named Zaphod Beeblebrox had just had its Infinite Improbabity Drive activated. Now, what was the probability that, at the very moment Jack and Ianto jumped toward certain death, Zaphod Beeblebrox’s improbability drive would in fact grab them and pull them into the ship? A billion to one? Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one? Whatever. Improbable, but that’s why it’s called an improbability drive. And that’s exactly what happened.
One second they were leaping to their deaths, the next second they were making a soft landing in the bridge of The Heart of Gold.
Ianto stared, incredulous. “We’re alive!”
“We’re alive!” Jack echoed. “And it is so good to be alive!” Exuberantly, he grabbed Ianto and lifted him off the floor in a giant hug. Then he beamed at his rescuer. “Zaphod Beeblebrox, it’s good to see you!”
“Nice of you to drop in, Jack,” Zaphod said.
Jack let go of Ianto just long enough to hug Zaphod, then his arm was around Ianto again. I don’t want to let go of you. Not now. Not ever.
All Ianto could do was stand there, his mouth wide open, looking at the two-headed man, then at Jack. Not only were they alive, but…how could this be? And they knew each other?! “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is real?” was all he managed to squeak out.
Jack grinned. “Yes, Hitchhiker’s Guide is real. Douglas Adams was permitted to write the books, but only as fiction, of course. Because the human race isn’t anywhere near ready for the truth. Not in your time period anyway. But of course you know that.”
“Zaphod? Have you been playing with the improbability drive again?” said a man who entered the room wearing a miniature live elephant on his head.
“Sorry, Arthur, I should have warned you,” Zaphod said.
“Arthur Dent?” Ianto ventured.
“Yes. But sorry, if we’ve met before, I’m afraid I don’t remember your name. You, I remember, though.” Arthur said, turning to Jack.
“Arthur Dent, Ianto Jones,” Jack made introductions. “And the lovely lady at the computer console is Trillian.” He flashed her a dazzling smile and she blushed.
“This is fantastic!” Ianto said. He’d been envious of Jack’s adventures in time and space, with the Doctor, with his heinous ex-boyfriend, John. And now he was in a real spaceship, somewhere in the future! And he wasn’t dead!
As Zaphod and his crew went about their business, running the spaceship, cleaning up whatever messes might have occurred as a result of the improbability drive, Jack took Ianto aside.
“What I said to you right before we jumped,” Jack started, and Ianto held his breath, so afraid Jack was going to try to take it back. “I meant it. I love you.”
“I love you, too Jack. Very much.” Relieved, Ianto pulled Jack in for a long, passionate snog, which went on quite a while, until they were interrupted by a morose mechanical voice.
“My day was already going poorly and now I have to endure public displays of affection.”
“It’s good to see you too, Marvin,” Jack responded to the depressed robot. All Ianto could do was laugh, which prompted Marvin to complain about being mocked, which caused Ianto to laugh even harder.
After having a thoroughly good laugh at Marvin, the Paranoid Android’s expense, Jack and Ianto walked back into the ship’s control room. “Hey, Zaphod, any chance you could take us home? I don’t have my vortex manipulator.”
“Sure,” Zaphod answered. “Would you like to go straightaway? Or shall we stop for a bite to eat first?”
Jack looked at Ianto.
“Well…now that you mention it, I am feeling a bit peckish.”
“Then it’s settled,” Jack said. “Lunch first, then home.”
Zaphod agreed, and set his ship’s coordinates for the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
*end*
Author: cowgrrl
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-15 (for naughty bits in the first two paragraphs)
Spoilers: None
Summary: Ianto plays with Jack’s vortex manipulator and they take an unexpected trip in time and space. (Crossover with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)
Word Count: Approx. 1750
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood or Hitchhiker’s Guide. I’m just playing with them.
Author’s Notes: Written in response to Jantolution Challenge #14. Thank you to my fabulous beta, gracewillow
Ianto slowly kissed his way up Jack’s body, settling into Jack’s arms. He was feeling rather proud of himself-if they hadn’t been down in Jack’s well-soundproofed hole, he was sure all of Cardiff would have heard Jack’s cries as he climaxed. Those sound effects were proof of Ianto’s exceptional skills as a lover, not to mention his ability to keep Jack right on the edge for a very long time no matter how pitifully he begged for release.
Ianto kissed Jack, who was still limp from his long, happy ordeal. Jack’s mouth opened purely on reflex, allowing Ianto’s tongue easy entry. Jack responded lazily. Oh great, Ianto thought. Here he was, still full of energy and wanting more, and Jack was done for. Must be old age-what was Jack now? 200 years old? Ianto watched Jack breathe for a few minutes, admiring his lover’s beauty. Jack was pretty, but Ianto had needs going unmet. Restless, he grabbed Jack’s vortex manipulator from the side of the bed and started fiddling with it.
“What’s this little knob over here?” he asked, running his finger over one of the many mysterious controls on the 51st century device.
Jack opened his eyes lazily. “Oh, that’s for time travel. The Doctor disabled it. He still doesn’t trust me.” He shrugged. Normally that idea hurt but at the moment he was far too relaxed to care. He was feeling a slight chill though, as he came down from his orgasmic high, and he wrapped a sheet around the two of them.
“Huh,” Ianto grunted in response, still playing with the wristband. “So if it was working all I’d have to do is press this button and…”
Before Ianto had a chance to finish the sentence, something felt terribly, horribly wrong. And then they were no longer in Jack’s bed, no longer safely tucked away in the Hub. Instead they were outdoors, their arms around each other, wrapped only in a sheet, and several oddly dressed people were pointing guns at them. They squinted up at the sunlight and their captors.
“Oh, no!” Jack was instantly awake. Very awake. “This is impossible!”
One of the oddly dressed gunmen pulled them to their feet. The sheet dropped and they were both now quite naked, a stark contrast to the robed captors who looked like a cross between monks and puritans.
“You are under arrest,” one of the puritan monks informed them, “for the capital crimes of sex, public nudity, and homosexuality.” And with that, they were shackled and transported to a prison where they were given robes like their captors before being thrown in a cell.
It all happened so fast Ianto didn’t have time to think. Once their captors were gone, Ianto turned to Jack, his heart still pounding. “Where are we?”
“The better question might be ‘when are we?’” Jack responded. “And the unfortunate answer is we are on planet Earth, about 500 years in your future, in a country run by religious extremists who have outlawed anything even remotely pleasurable. I was here once before. John and I barely escaped with our lives. I put a setting in the vortex manipulator instructing it to never, ever bring me here again. Not for any reason. And apparently that, along with the Doctor’s disabling of the device, has failed.”
“Well, you escaped once before. We can do it again!” Ianto exclaimed.
“Do you still have the vortex manipulator?”
Ianto shook his head. When they’d transported, the wristband had somehow stayed behind. Ianto was alarmed to feel Jack trembling, and not from lust. This was fear.
Their farce of a trial was held later that day. Ianto learned that in Puritania (as Jack called this hell hole) sex was outlawed. Reproduction took place entirely in vitro. The sentence for sex? Death. The form of death? Because of the additional charges of nudity and homosexuality, rather than being allowed a humane death they were to be publically flogged to death the following morning.
Back in the cell, Ianto paced. “There has to be a way out,” he insisted.
“Do you see one?”
“What about those windows?” Ianto pointed to a fairly large window with bars on it. Determined, he examined the bars and was pleased to see one of them looked like it would come loose quite easily. And his death sentence had given him so much adrenaline that even if the bar wasn’t loose he’d have found a way to break it. Within an hour, he had the window open, looked out, and his heart sank. They were high up in a tower. There was barely a window ledge, and definitely no way to climb down. They were utterly trapped.
Neither of them slept that night. “You’ll play dead and then find some way out of here, won’t you?” Ianto asked.
“I always find a way,” Jack answered. But that would be after a particularly unpleasant death. And the thought of losing Ianto… Jack shuddered and held his lover tightly. I couldn’t protect him, he chastised himself. I never can…it’s all my fault…
Sensing Jack’s mood, Ianto tried to reassure him. “My time with Torchwood…my time with you….I wouldn’t change any of it. Not even for a longer life. No regrets.” He looked at Jack. “Actually, I do have one regret.”
“What’s that?” Jack ran his fingers through Ianto’s hair.
“I regret pressing the bloody button on that sodding vortex manipulator!”
That got a weak smile out of Jack. Even at their darkest hour, Ianto could manage humor.
As the room brightened with the coming dawn, Ianto stood. “Let’s jump!” he declared, pulling Jack to his feet.
“But we might still find a way out,” Jack said.
“There’s no way out,” Ianto insisted. “Unlike you, I only get one death. And I’d rather fall to my death than get beaten to death slowly while entertaining crowds of religious nuts. Come on! Let’s go fly!” He held his arms out, as if imitating a bird’s wings.
Jack’s eyes filled with tears as he looked at his beautiful lover. How many people would face death with such grace, such dignity? “Okay, Ianto. Let’s fly!” He pulled Ianto in for one last embrace, burying his face in Ianto’s hair, inhaling his lover’s scent, as if to memorize it for all eternity. He forced his tears back, forced himself to be as brave as Ianto.
Ianto opened the window and they climbed onto the narrow ledge together. The sun was rising. Ianto’s last sunrise. “Ready?”
Jack nodded. “I love you,” he said. He took Ianto’s hand, gripped it tightly, and they leaped.
* * *
What they didn’t know was at the very second they jumped off the ledge, a spaceship piloted by a two-headed humanoid named Zaphod Beeblebrox had just had its Infinite Improbabity Drive activated. Now, what was the probability that, at the very moment Jack and Ianto jumped toward certain death, Zaphod Beeblebrox’s improbability drive would in fact grab them and pull them into the ship? A billion to one? Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one? Whatever. Improbable, but that’s why it’s called an improbability drive. And that’s exactly what happened.
One second they were leaping to their deaths, the next second they were making a soft landing in the bridge of The Heart of Gold.
Ianto stared, incredulous. “We’re alive!”
“We’re alive!” Jack echoed. “And it is so good to be alive!” Exuberantly, he grabbed Ianto and lifted him off the floor in a giant hug. Then he beamed at his rescuer. “Zaphod Beeblebrox, it’s good to see you!”
“Nice of you to drop in, Jack,” Zaphod said.
Jack let go of Ianto just long enough to hug Zaphod, then his arm was around Ianto again. I don’t want to let go of you. Not now. Not ever.
All Ianto could do was stand there, his mouth wide open, looking at the two-headed man, then at Jack. Not only were they alive, but…how could this be? And they knew each other?! “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is real?” was all he managed to squeak out.
Jack grinned. “Yes, Hitchhiker’s Guide is real. Douglas Adams was permitted to write the books, but only as fiction, of course. Because the human race isn’t anywhere near ready for the truth. Not in your time period anyway. But of course you know that.”
“Zaphod? Have you been playing with the improbability drive again?” said a man who entered the room wearing a miniature live elephant on his head.
“Sorry, Arthur, I should have warned you,” Zaphod said.
“Arthur Dent?” Ianto ventured.
“Yes. But sorry, if we’ve met before, I’m afraid I don’t remember your name. You, I remember, though.” Arthur said, turning to Jack.
“Arthur Dent, Ianto Jones,” Jack made introductions. “And the lovely lady at the computer console is Trillian.” He flashed her a dazzling smile and she blushed.
“This is fantastic!” Ianto said. He’d been envious of Jack’s adventures in time and space, with the Doctor, with his heinous ex-boyfriend, John. And now he was in a real spaceship, somewhere in the future! And he wasn’t dead!
As Zaphod and his crew went about their business, running the spaceship, cleaning up whatever messes might have occurred as a result of the improbability drive, Jack took Ianto aside.
“What I said to you right before we jumped,” Jack started, and Ianto held his breath, so afraid Jack was going to try to take it back. “I meant it. I love you.”
“I love you, too Jack. Very much.” Relieved, Ianto pulled Jack in for a long, passionate snog, which went on quite a while, until they were interrupted by a morose mechanical voice.
“My day was already going poorly and now I have to endure public displays of affection.”
“It’s good to see you too, Marvin,” Jack responded to the depressed robot. All Ianto could do was laugh, which prompted Marvin to complain about being mocked, which caused Ianto to laugh even harder.
After having a thoroughly good laugh at Marvin, the Paranoid Android’s expense, Jack and Ianto walked back into the ship’s control room. “Hey, Zaphod, any chance you could take us home? I don’t have my vortex manipulator.”
“Sure,” Zaphod answered. “Would you like to go straightaway? Or shall we stop for a bite to eat first?”
Jack looked at Ianto.
“Well…now that you mention it, I am feeling a bit peckish.”
“Then it’s settled,” Jack said. “Lunch first, then home.”
Zaphod agreed, and set his ship’s coordinates for the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
*end*