Torchwood fic: Redemption in Figures
Title: Redemption in Figures
Rating: NC-17. A lot of swearing, graphic sex. Unpretty emotions.
Characters: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Owen, Toshiko
Spoilers: Set at some point after 1.07 (Greeks Bearing Gifts). Minor spoilers for that episode; major spoilers for Cyberwoman.
Other notes: Comments and constructive criticism welcomed! Beta-read (and edited) by the amazing drowning_london, who never ceases to do too much for me.
Since I hate cross-posting so much, I’d be obliged if, even if you don’t have time to leave a review, you pop me a quick note telling me how you found this fic - which community etc. Just so I know what advertising works, and what is useless spam.
Summary: Time passes in Torchwood Three. The cat gets the cream.
* * *
JACK
Ianto’s a strange one.
Jack knows that. Still waters run deep, and all of those other sayings that people tell their kids for no specific reason. All the same, he’s never really cared what was going on underneath - not till now. Or at least, not till last week, when he and Ianto had sex for the first time (over Jack’s desk, with Ianto begging for more: Jack doesn’t like to boast, but he has got experience on his side). Since then, there have been over a dozen more times, if you include hand jobs and a quick suck in the gents’. Each time Jack gets a little more interested in Ianto, likes him a little bit more. He’s not a bad kid, despite it all.
Not bad at blowjobs, either: Jack would be lying if he said Ianto had anything but a beautiful mouth. Happy to use it, too: eager, even. Eager enough to have beckoned Jack down to the showers this morning and to be on his knees now, Jack’s cock in his mouth, sucking like there’s no tomorrow. Making tiny little whimpering noises that send thrills of pleasure down Jack’s spine.
Not like Jack would mark the boy down for being keen, though. Passion goes a mile in this game. Jack’s had enough blowjobs - from enough different species - to know that skill is a hundred times less important than being eager. If Ianto’s teeth perhaps scrape a little too much, if sometimes his nails dig slightly too sharply into Jack’s hips… well, that can all be forgiven. Jack knows he is Ianto’s first male partner, after all - gives Jack a thrill, knowing that his is the first cock Ianto has sucked. That he’s the first person who’s come inside of the Welshman.
Any passing flickers of pain - from the inexpert brushes of Ianto’s teeth, for instance - are easily swept away, anyhow: by the warm wetness of Ianto’s mouth, by the eager, hungry slide of his tongue. It doesn’t take Jack long to reach his orgasm, twisting his fingers in Ianto’s hair and holding him close, groaning as he comes inside of the younger man’s mouth.
And that’s another thing Jack loves about Ianto: he swallows. Eager and hungry, like he wants it all - like he wants Jack inside.
Jack leans back against the wall, takes deep breaths, slides his fingers slowly through Ianto’s hair. Luxuriates in the feeling of Ianto licking him clean, tucking him back into his trousers neatly, infinitely careful. Looks down, looks deep into those beautiful blue eyes, looks at those lovely lips - the way Ianto licks a trace of semen from them sends a jolt of feeling down Jack’s spine, makes his cock tingle with pleasure.
“Thank you, sir,” Ianto says, low and husky and absolutely without guile.
If Jack were a religious man, he’d say he was on the fast road to Hell with the thoughts he’s thinking right about now.
IANTO
They fuck on Jack’s desk, because it isn’t worth stumbling to the comfort of the bed. This isn’t making love, this isn’t even what Ianto would call having sex (that implies, to him, something more than just dealing with an urge): this is fucking, nice and simple and animalistic. Good change after all the complexities of this job. There is an undercurrent of violence beneath kisses and thrusts, but nevertheless Ianto finds it relaxing, almost, to let go of worrying about secrets and shifting alliances and innuendoes and to instead just bend over a desk, get fucked by the boss.
(Ianto shifts his balance, a little; opens his mouth for the obligatory moan; wriggles his toes to stop cramp setting in. Smiles against the hardness of the wood to hear Jack groan with pleasure.)
It wasn’t hard to get Jack in this situation. All of Torchwood knows he thinks with his cock - when he’s not trying to save the world, that is. And even then… well, being a hero always gets the groupies. Predictable man, Jack Harkness. Not that they aren’t all predictable, the Backwater Brigade. Torchwood Three wasn’t exactly where you’d tuck away the nation’s brightest and best. You’ve got the sex-obsessed doctor, the repressed lesbian techie and the doe-eyed, empty-headed cop: not the most challenging environment Ianto has ever worked in.
(“That good?” Jack whispers against his ear, and Ianto mumbles something stereotypically encouraging, some porno cliché, some recycled pulp about ‘big boy’ and ‘oh, yeah’. Jack, predictably, likes it; thrusts harder. Ianto grits his teeth and grips the edge of the desk, white-knuckled.)
Ianto hates it here. Hates being some glorified secretary. He wishes, sometimes, that he’d just given it up after the fall of Torchwood One; gone and done something else where his talents would have been appreciated. Where he wouldn’t be smothered by the suffocating stupidity of some self-centered under-trained second-rate wannabes. And if it weren’t for Lisa, he would have done. But she needed him - and he would have done anything.
(Jack’s breathing becomes more ragged; his fingers dig hard into Ianto’s thighs, sliding over sweaty skin, scrabbling for a grip.)
And Ianto would do anything still, including this. Was easy as anything, anyway. Just a matter of holding Jack’s gaze for a little longer than usual; bringing him extra coffee. Barely needed any encouragement, Jack - took barely any manipulation before he told the others to get home early tonight, asked Ianto to ‘help him with something.’ Which Ianto is doing with skill, if not with eagerness. Though, to be frank, how much skill is necessary to make such a self-centered man come? All Ianto needs to do is lie still and make the right noises. He’s been more excited filling out tax returns.
(Jack’s thrusts are irregular, now: he grunts and pants as he forces himself into Ianto’s body, powerful movements banging Ianto’s hips painfully against the edge of the desk. Ianto does not complain. He thinks Jack might get off on the bruises. The more turned on he is, the better.)
It’s vaguely repulsive, this: the sweat, the latex of the condom, the necessary awkwardness of the mechanics of sex. There’s none of the synchronicity there was with Lisa; none of the laughter, none of the kisses. Ianto tries not to look at his reflection in the monitor: his body, bent deceptively vulnerable over the desk, and Jack moving behind him, grasping and thrusting, consumed by his imminent orgasm. It is a picture Ianto would prefer not to see, if only because it is distracting. If only because this is business, and you don’t watch business sex in mirrors: that’s for love or for kink. This is neither.
(Jack’s hand slides up Ianto’s back, fingertips fumbling round to press against Ianto’s lips, and Ianto obediently opens his mouth, licks at them, sucks at them with the expected hunger.)
This is business. This is a means to an end. This is -
(Ianto shifts to allow Jack’s hand to reach for him, formulates a grateful sound around Jack’s fingers as the man proceeds to jerk him off roughly -)
-- for Lisa.
(An arching, a loud “fuck”, a tightening of fingers and a final jerking thrust: Ianto assumes Jack has come. He lies, passive and quiet, and thinks of Lisa until he ejaculates over Jack’s hand.)
OWEN
Gwen wants him, he knows it. She’s been watching him all day. He can see the lust in her eyes. Not that he blames her, of course. He is pretty goddamn irresistible. He can see himself in the brightly-polished silver morgue implements, so he knows it. That hairdresser he went to last weekend really knew her stuff. (Good fuck, too. Owen might have to visit again.)
Can’t make a move in front of Tosh, though. Not after that necklace malarkey. Have to wait till lunch break instead - he can get Gwen down in the showers, do it up against the tiled wall. Yeah, that sounds good. Sounds really good, in fact.
He walks to the other side of the table so Tosh can’t see the tent in his pants.
Work, then. A recently dead Weevil lies on the morgue table, naked and prone and smelling to high Heaven. Owen doesn’t like rotting things, but at least these patients don’t talk back. Easier to get on with the job, that way: intellect not hampered by the bloody-mindedness of humans.
Can’t sue for sexual harassment, either. Can’t lodge a complaint. Can’t -
Owen grunts, shakes his head, reaches for a scalpel. Clicking on the recorder with a nudge of his foot, he clears his throat, enunciates carefully: “continued dissection of Weevil number thirty-three. Time, eleven-forty-two a.m. Location, Torchwood Three Hub. Autopsy carried out by Dr Owen Harper.”
He thinks about fucking Gwen as he begins to remove and photograph the Weevil’s organs. Christ, she’s hot.
GWEN
She’s as interested in sex as Owen is - and bless him, he’s eager today - but there are more pressing things on her mind, really, even more insistent than Owen’s erection against her thigh. Pushing at him without much conviction she turns her head to the side, evades his lips.
“Owen, do you think Ianto and Jack -” she gasps as Owen’s fingers unzip her jeans - “really, Owen, do you think Ianto and Jack are - you know?”
“Fucking?” Owen remarks carelessly from between her breasts (which he has been covering in kisses), deftly pushing down his own jeans. “Nah. He killed Ianto’s little robogirl, remember.”
“It’s just that,” and she squirms, his fingers cold between her legs, “they’re spending a lot more time together than usual.”
“I spend a lot of time with dead people, babe. Doesn’t mean I fuck them. Well,” and he looks up at her with that devilish glint in his eyes, grins, “not most of them.”
She laughs, and feels, for a moment, uncomfortable. She can never tell if he’s joking. Not that she has the willpower to complain, though - not when his fingers are touching her like that, not with his hot solid mass pressed against her, not with him licking and nibbling his way from her breasts to her neck, his breath moist against the vulnerable skin of her throat. She lets her eyes close; slides her fingers under his shirt, traces the bumps of his spine under her fingertips.
The condom packet crackles. She can hear the faint squeak of latex rolling over latex; opens her eyes to kick off her shoes (the shower tiles are chill against her skin, sending goosebumps up over her legs) and pull off her jeans and knickers entirely. Owen still has his trousers around his ankles. Biting her lip, leaning back against the wall again (putting her arms around him, hands clasped behind his neck), she can’t help but ask: “really, Owen. Do you think they are?”
“Babe -” he looks at her earnestly, grips her left leg firmly behind the knee and pulls it up around his waist - “I’ve told you. I don’t. And do we have to discuss what the boss is doing while we’re having sex?”
Gwen smiles, faltering, and shakes her head. “Course not. I’ll stop, honest.”
They kiss for a bit, but it’s not all that great, not really. She’s not quite in the mood. Bit cold down here, with all the tiles. The thin plastic curtain between them and the room at large bothers her, too: what if Tosh comes down? Wouldn’t want that. Tosh hurts enough already, Gwen thinks.
After a while - when Owen’s inside of her and they’re moving together and she’s gingerly trying to stand on his feet to keep her toes away from the cold tiles - she pulls away from the kiss, swallows, says quickly, “it’s just that I saw them coming out of here earlier, Jack and Ianto. Together. And Ianto had wet patches over the knees of his trousers.”
Owen stops thrusting, closes his eyes wearily, rests his forehead against the wall to her right. His hands briefly grip her hips too hard as he takes a deep, slow breath. “Gwen. Please. Can we just try to fuck without thinking about Jack? Please? That mental image is really fucking disgusting.”
“Mmm. Of course,” Gwen says quickly, reaches up to touch his cheek. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Good. ‘Cause even if they are,” and he starts to thrust again, pushes back her hair so he can kiss the sensitive spot behind her earlobe, “I couldn’t care less. Why are you interested, anyway?”
Gwen smiles, bright as she can, and gives his arse a little pat. “No reason.”
Owen leans back, arches an eyebrow. “Curiosity killed the cat, Gwen. Also made the cat’s fuckbuddy bugger off and go somewhere he was appreciated.”
Laughing, she reaches up and touches his cheek, shakes her head quickly. “Okay, okay. I’ll forget about it. Now keep moving, you, or else.”
She doesn’t stop thinking about it, though - doesn’t stop wondering about whys and hows. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Ianto, not that (he’s lovely, really he is), but… something is off. Something’s not quite right. The bad feeling gnaws in her belly when she sees the way Jack looks at Ianto, the way their fingers brush around coffee mugs and plates of biscuits. She knows it’s silly - knows it’s especially stupid that it’s preoccupying her even as she’s getting dressed again after, giving Owen a sloppy post-sex kiss - but sometimes she gets these feelings, and she can’t ignore them. Had them ever since a girl, and they’re right more often than she’d like.
Not that she thinks they’re right this time, no. She’s just being stupid. People are funny - she might not understand how Ianto could forget Jack’s role in Lisa’s death so soon, but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t. Love moves in mysterious ways, like her nan says. (Not that she believes it’s love.) Just because she doesn’t understand Ianto’s motives doesn’t mean that they’re anything other than pure.
She feels guilty for obsessing over it later; makes up for it (she hopes) by e-mailing Owen when the end of the working day arrives:
Feel like going back to your place for a cup of tea and a chat?
His message back is brief, to the point, everything she thinks she might be starting to - maybe, possibly - love about him.
Nah, I’m going out with some mates for a couple pints. Wouldn’t mind a quick shag before, though.
TOSHIKO
She stays at the Hub beyond the hour noted in her contract as the official end of her working day. That’s nothing new, of course: the contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, and she knows that. She works whatever hours she’s needed, and then some more. Aliens won’t decide to come through the Rift only between the hours of eight-thirty a.m. and seven-thirty p.m., Monday to Saturday.
This kind of job isn’t one that can be kept in neat blocks in a personal organizer. It can’t be separated, compartmentalized, kept apart from the rest of your life.
Since Mary, though, Toshiko has worked even longer, often not going home till well after midnight, stumbling in the next morning with wide black circles under her eyes and a craving for Ianto’s perfectly-made coffee. She searches for some kind of redemption in figures and data and binary, trawls the endless database as penance, searching files and images and recordings. It’s harder to find atonement when you don’t know quite how to make amends. She has no idea what she is looking for.
The unexpected touch of gentle fingers on her shoulder blade makes her start, and she jerks back from the screen, turning in her chair and blinking wide eyed at - Gwen. Gwen, smiling gentle and hopeful, parted lips revealing the little gap between her front teeth. Gwen, just about managing to hold two steaming mugs of what smells like tea in one hand. Gwen, familiar and surprisingly friendly again, standing close, her sweater a little creased over the front as if it lay on the floor before being worn.
“Not interrupting anything, am I?”
Tosh smiles, quickly - expecting, for just a moment, to hear thoughts again - and raises a hand. “Oh. No. Of course not.”
“Good.” Gwen beams, nods down towards one of the mugs. “This is for you. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I can’t stand coffee all the time. Not that I’d tell Ianto,” she says quickly in a conspiratorial whisper. “Can you imagine it? He’d go through the roof.”
Laughing despite herself, Tosh takes the mug, wincing a little as the hot china burns her fingertips, and murmurs a “thank you”. For a moment she is awkwardly quiet, trying to take a sip of the tea only to find that it’s too hot, that it makes her lips tingle uncomfortably. She has no idea what to say, just watches Gwen’s midsection: watches as Gwen shifts to lean back against her desk, settles to get comfortable.
“…Mind if I ask you something, Tosh?”
“Of course not.” She looks up at Gwen with her best helpful, friendly, normal smile; cradles the tea close to her chest. It has just the right colour, is mixed with the perfect amount of milk. Something in her chest flutters.
There is a pause, and Gwen bites her lower lip, looks thoughtfully at her tea (frown between her eyebrows), finally laughing and looking to Tosh. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Okay. It’s just that -” Gwen shrugs, looks back to her mug: one fingertip traces about the rim, round and round and round. “Do you think Jack and Ianto are - you know?”
“…Sleeping together, you mean?”
Gwen smiles that gap-toothed smile. “Yes.”
Toshiko has absolutely no idea: the thought had not even crossed her mind. She runs back through a memory of today, the day before, yesterday - checks for signs, for hints, for the gesture or the word that would give away their secret. But… nothing. Not that she’s had an excuse to see them together recently; not that, she supposes, they would be obvious in public.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. But it’s not my business, is it? What they do in their spare time.”
Gwen laughs, begins, “that’s what Owen -” but cuts herself off quickly, blushes. “I’ve been told that before. I just…” she raises her shoulders a little and looks out over the Hub, eyes unfocused. (Toshiko can’t help notice that she has beautiful eyes.) “I guess that something just feels wrong.” She smiles self-derisively, waves a hand. “Oh, ignore me. There I go again.”
Toshiko swallows a scalding mouthful of tea, quickly shakes her head. “No! No. I’m interested.” A quick look about for Jack or Ianto reveals nothing and, feeling a little thrill running through her at the prospect of a real chat in this place, she leans forward, can tell that her smile is girlish and excited. “Do you think they are?”
To Toshiko’s surprise, Gwen does not seem to be interested in engaging in gossip: she retains her faraway look, frowning into the distance as she cups her mug between her hands. “Yes,” she says after a little pause, fumbling over the word: one syllable drawn out into an unsure two. “I mean, yes. I’m sure they are. It’s just that…” she searches for words, waves one hand vaguely. “I’m not sure it’s… something feels wrong. You know?”
“How?”
“Everything. I mean - Lisa. How could Ianto just forget her like that? He loved her. And Jack killed her, didn’t he? So how could Ianto forgive him enough to sleep with him? And how could Jack trust Ianto enough, after all that? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Despite her logical mind telling her that Gwen has a point, Toshiko cannot entirely focus on it. The squirming in her belly has returned, and she feels suffused, all of a sudden - aglow. It’s nice to be trusted with confidences. Nice to feel, once more, like part of the team. She has to work to keep her expression calm, professional, detached. But she doesn’t want to be detached, not anymore: she wants to have someone she can trust. (Isn’t that, she thinks, what all of them want in the end? What Gwen wants from Owen. What Ianto wants from Jack, maybe. Or what Jack wants from Ianto?)
Gwen shrugs, takes a sip of her tea. “Well, it was just a thought. I don’t know. It’s not like -” she laughs, shakes her head sharply, “not like Ianto would have a secret plot to get close to Jack and assassinate him, or anything. Honestly, I sound like I’m expecting some Hollywood thriller revelation, don’t I? Rhys always says I’m a bit of a sensationalist.”
They laugh about it together, then; end up finishing their teas and chatting: about the attractiveness of the Welsh rugby team, about Jack, about the new big movie they both want to see. Tosh enjoys it so much that she feels like nothing could bring her down, not tonight.
She barely even pauses as, later - going looking for her mobile; she has no idea where she’s left it - she sees Ianto down in the Alien Artifacts Storage room, carefully transferring the contents of one of the deposit boxes into a different bag. Why should she worry? After all, he’s a Torchwood employee like any other; he has a right to examine alien weaponry, with the proper permission. And Jack, when she asks (out of duty, not out of suspicion) just grins, waves a hand, tells her that Ianto’s earned his trust.
When she passes Ianto on the way out of the Hub - heading home, to much-needed sleep - she beams at him, and he smiles back, wider than she’s seen in a long time. He looks, for all the world, like the cat that got the cream.
Rating: NC-17. A lot of swearing, graphic sex. Unpretty emotions.
Characters: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Owen, Toshiko
Spoilers: Set at some point after 1.07 (Greeks Bearing Gifts). Minor spoilers for that episode; major spoilers for Cyberwoman.
Other notes: Comments and constructive criticism welcomed! Beta-read (and edited) by the amazing drowning_london, who never ceases to do too much for me.
Since I hate cross-posting so much, I’d be obliged if, even if you don’t have time to leave a review, you pop me a quick note telling me how you found this fic - which community etc. Just so I know what advertising works, and what is useless spam.
Summary: Time passes in Torchwood Three. The cat gets the cream.
* * *
JACK
Ianto’s a strange one.
Jack knows that. Still waters run deep, and all of those other sayings that people tell their kids for no specific reason. All the same, he’s never really cared what was going on underneath - not till now. Or at least, not till last week, when he and Ianto had sex for the first time (over Jack’s desk, with Ianto begging for more: Jack doesn’t like to boast, but he has got experience on his side). Since then, there have been over a dozen more times, if you include hand jobs and a quick suck in the gents’. Each time Jack gets a little more interested in Ianto, likes him a little bit more. He’s not a bad kid, despite it all.
Not bad at blowjobs, either: Jack would be lying if he said Ianto had anything but a beautiful mouth. Happy to use it, too: eager, even. Eager enough to have beckoned Jack down to the showers this morning and to be on his knees now, Jack’s cock in his mouth, sucking like there’s no tomorrow. Making tiny little whimpering noises that send thrills of pleasure down Jack’s spine.
Not like Jack would mark the boy down for being keen, though. Passion goes a mile in this game. Jack’s had enough blowjobs - from enough different species - to know that skill is a hundred times less important than being eager. If Ianto’s teeth perhaps scrape a little too much, if sometimes his nails dig slightly too sharply into Jack’s hips… well, that can all be forgiven. Jack knows he is Ianto’s first male partner, after all - gives Jack a thrill, knowing that his is the first cock Ianto has sucked. That he’s the first person who’s come inside of the Welshman.
Any passing flickers of pain - from the inexpert brushes of Ianto’s teeth, for instance - are easily swept away, anyhow: by the warm wetness of Ianto’s mouth, by the eager, hungry slide of his tongue. It doesn’t take Jack long to reach his orgasm, twisting his fingers in Ianto’s hair and holding him close, groaning as he comes inside of the younger man’s mouth.
And that’s another thing Jack loves about Ianto: he swallows. Eager and hungry, like he wants it all - like he wants Jack inside.
Jack leans back against the wall, takes deep breaths, slides his fingers slowly through Ianto’s hair. Luxuriates in the feeling of Ianto licking him clean, tucking him back into his trousers neatly, infinitely careful. Looks down, looks deep into those beautiful blue eyes, looks at those lovely lips - the way Ianto licks a trace of semen from them sends a jolt of feeling down Jack’s spine, makes his cock tingle with pleasure.
“Thank you, sir,” Ianto says, low and husky and absolutely without guile.
If Jack were a religious man, he’d say he was on the fast road to Hell with the thoughts he’s thinking right about now.
IANTO
They fuck on Jack’s desk, because it isn’t worth stumbling to the comfort of the bed. This isn’t making love, this isn’t even what Ianto would call having sex (that implies, to him, something more than just dealing with an urge): this is fucking, nice and simple and animalistic. Good change after all the complexities of this job. There is an undercurrent of violence beneath kisses and thrusts, but nevertheless Ianto finds it relaxing, almost, to let go of worrying about secrets and shifting alliances and innuendoes and to instead just bend over a desk, get fucked by the boss.
(Ianto shifts his balance, a little; opens his mouth for the obligatory moan; wriggles his toes to stop cramp setting in. Smiles against the hardness of the wood to hear Jack groan with pleasure.)
It wasn’t hard to get Jack in this situation. All of Torchwood knows he thinks with his cock - when he’s not trying to save the world, that is. And even then… well, being a hero always gets the groupies. Predictable man, Jack Harkness. Not that they aren’t all predictable, the Backwater Brigade. Torchwood Three wasn’t exactly where you’d tuck away the nation’s brightest and best. You’ve got the sex-obsessed doctor, the repressed lesbian techie and the doe-eyed, empty-headed cop: not the most challenging environment Ianto has ever worked in.
(“That good?” Jack whispers against his ear, and Ianto mumbles something stereotypically encouraging, some porno cliché, some recycled pulp about ‘big boy’ and ‘oh, yeah’. Jack, predictably, likes it; thrusts harder. Ianto grits his teeth and grips the edge of the desk, white-knuckled.)
Ianto hates it here. Hates being some glorified secretary. He wishes, sometimes, that he’d just given it up after the fall of Torchwood One; gone and done something else where his talents would have been appreciated. Where he wouldn’t be smothered by the suffocating stupidity of some self-centered under-trained second-rate wannabes. And if it weren’t for Lisa, he would have done. But she needed him - and he would have done anything.
(Jack’s breathing becomes more ragged; his fingers dig hard into Ianto’s thighs, sliding over sweaty skin, scrabbling for a grip.)
And Ianto would do anything still, including this. Was easy as anything, anyway. Just a matter of holding Jack’s gaze for a little longer than usual; bringing him extra coffee. Barely needed any encouragement, Jack - took barely any manipulation before he told the others to get home early tonight, asked Ianto to ‘help him with something.’ Which Ianto is doing with skill, if not with eagerness. Though, to be frank, how much skill is necessary to make such a self-centered man come? All Ianto needs to do is lie still and make the right noises. He’s been more excited filling out tax returns.
(Jack’s thrusts are irregular, now: he grunts and pants as he forces himself into Ianto’s body, powerful movements banging Ianto’s hips painfully against the edge of the desk. Ianto does not complain. He thinks Jack might get off on the bruises. The more turned on he is, the better.)
It’s vaguely repulsive, this: the sweat, the latex of the condom, the necessary awkwardness of the mechanics of sex. There’s none of the synchronicity there was with Lisa; none of the laughter, none of the kisses. Ianto tries not to look at his reflection in the monitor: his body, bent deceptively vulnerable over the desk, and Jack moving behind him, grasping and thrusting, consumed by his imminent orgasm. It is a picture Ianto would prefer not to see, if only because it is distracting. If only because this is business, and you don’t watch business sex in mirrors: that’s for love or for kink. This is neither.
(Jack’s hand slides up Ianto’s back, fingertips fumbling round to press against Ianto’s lips, and Ianto obediently opens his mouth, licks at them, sucks at them with the expected hunger.)
This is business. This is a means to an end. This is -
(Ianto shifts to allow Jack’s hand to reach for him, formulates a grateful sound around Jack’s fingers as the man proceeds to jerk him off roughly -)
-- for Lisa.
(An arching, a loud “fuck”, a tightening of fingers and a final jerking thrust: Ianto assumes Jack has come. He lies, passive and quiet, and thinks of Lisa until he ejaculates over Jack’s hand.)
OWEN
Gwen wants him, he knows it. She’s been watching him all day. He can see the lust in her eyes. Not that he blames her, of course. He is pretty goddamn irresistible. He can see himself in the brightly-polished silver morgue implements, so he knows it. That hairdresser he went to last weekend really knew her stuff. (Good fuck, too. Owen might have to visit again.)
Can’t make a move in front of Tosh, though. Not after that necklace malarkey. Have to wait till lunch break instead - he can get Gwen down in the showers, do it up against the tiled wall. Yeah, that sounds good. Sounds really good, in fact.
He walks to the other side of the table so Tosh can’t see the tent in his pants.
Work, then. A recently dead Weevil lies on the morgue table, naked and prone and smelling to high Heaven. Owen doesn’t like rotting things, but at least these patients don’t talk back. Easier to get on with the job, that way: intellect not hampered by the bloody-mindedness of humans.
Can’t sue for sexual harassment, either. Can’t lodge a complaint. Can’t -
Owen grunts, shakes his head, reaches for a scalpel. Clicking on the recorder with a nudge of his foot, he clears his throat, enunciates carefully: “continued dissection of Weevil number thirty-three. Time, eleven-forty-two a.m. Location, Torchwood Three Hub. Autopsy carried out by Dr Owen Harper.”
He thinks about fucking Gwen as he begins to remove and photograph the Weevil’s organs. Christ, she’s hot.
GWEN
She’s as interested in sex as Owen is - and bless him, he’s eager today - but there are more pressing things on her mind, really, even more insistent than Owen’s erection against her thigh. Pushing at him without much conviction she turns her head to the side, evades his lips.
“Owen, do you think Ianto and Jack -” she gasps as Owen’s fingers unzip her jeans - “really, Owen, do you think Ianto and Jack are - you know?”
“Fucking?” Owen remarks carelessly from between her breasts (which he has been covering in kisses), deftly pushing down his own jeans. “Nah. He killed Ianto’s little robogirl, remember.”
“It’s just that,” and she squirms, his fingers cold between her legs, “they’re spending a lot more time together than usual.”
“I spend a lot of time with dead people, babe. Doesn’t mean I fuck them. Well,” and he looks up at her with that devilish glint in his eyes, grins, “not most of them.”
She laughs, and feels, for a moment, uncomfortable. She can never tell if he’s joking. Not that she has the willpower to complain, though - not when his fingers are touching her like that, not with his hot solid mass pressed against her, not with him licking and nibbling his way from her breasts to her neck, his breath moist against the vulnerable skin of her throat. She lets her eyes close; slides her fingers under his shirt, traces the bumps of his spine under her fingertips.
The condom packet crackles. She can hear the faint squeak of latex rolling over latex; opens her eyes to kick off her shoes (the shower tiles are chill against her skin, sending goosebumps up over her legs) and pull off her jeans and knickers entirely. Owen still has his trousers around his ankles. Biting her lip, leaning back against the wall again (putting her arms around him, hands clasped behind his neck), she can’t help but ask: “really, Owen. Do you think they are?”
“Babe -” he looks at her earnestly, grips her left leg firmly behind the knee and pulls it up around his waist - “I’ve told you. I don’t. And do we have to discuss what the boss is doing while we’re having sex?”
Gwen smiles, faltering, and shakes her head. “Course not. I’ll stop, honest.”
They kiss for a bit, but it’s not all that great, not really. She’s not quite in the mood. Bit cold down here, with all the tiles. The thin plastic curtain between them and the room at large bothers her, too: what if Tosh comes down? Wouldn’t want that. Tosh hurts enough already, Gwen thinks.
After a while - when Owen’s inside of her and they’re moving together and she’s gingerly trying to stand on his feet to keep her toes away from the cold tiles - she pulls away from the kiss, swallows, says quickly, “it’s just that I saw them coming out of here earlier, Jack and Ianto. Together. And Ianto had wet patches over the knees of his trousers.”
Owen stops thrusting, closes his eyes wearily, rests his forehead against the wall to her right. His hands briefly grip her hips too hard as he takes a deep, slow breath. “Gwen. Please. Can we just try to fuck without thinking about Jack? Please? That mental image is really fucking disgusting.”
“Mmm. Of course,” Gwen says quickly, reaches up to touch his cheek. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Good. ‘Cause even if they are,” and he starts to thrust again, pushes back her hair so he can kiss the sensitive spot behind her earlobe, “I couldn’t care less. Why are you interested, anyway?”
Gwen smiles, bright as she can, and gives his arse a little pat. “No reason.”
Owen leans back, arches an eyebrow. “Curiosity killed the cat, Gwen. Also made the cat’s fuckbuddy bugger off and go somewhere he was appreciated.”
Laughing, she reaches up and touches his cheek, shakes her head quickly. “Okay, okay. I’ll forget about it. Now keep moving, you, or else.”
She doesn’t stop thinking about it, though - doesn’t stop wondering about whys and hows. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Ianto, not that (he’s lovely, really he is), but… something is off. Something’s not quite right. The bad feeling gnaws in her belly when she sees the way Jack looks at Ianto, the way their fingers brush around coffee mugs and plates of biscuits. She knows it’s silly - knows it’s especially stupid that it’s preoccupying her even as she’s getting dressed again after, giving Owen a sloppy post-sex kiss - but sometimes she gets these feelings, and she can’t ignore them. Had them ever since a girl, and they’re right more often than she’d like.
Not that she thinks they’re right this time, no. She’s just being stupid. People are funny - she might not understand how Ianto could forget Jack’s role in Lisa’s death so soon, but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t. Love moves in mysterious ways, like her nan says. (Not that she believes it’s love.) Just because she doesn’t understand Ianto’s motives doesn’t mean that they’re anything other than pure.
She feels guilty for obsessing over it later; makes up for it (she hopes) by e-mailing Owen when the end of the working day arrives:
Feel like going back to your place for a cup of tea and a chat?
His message back is brief, to the point, everything she thinks she might be starting to - maybe, possibly - love about him.
Nah, I’m going out with some mates for a couple pints. Wouldn’t mind a quick shag before, though.
TOSHIKO
She stays at the Hub beyond the hour noted in her contract as the official end of her working day. That’s nothing new, of course: the contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, and she knows that. She works whatever hours she’s needed, and then some more. Aliens won’t decide to come through the Rift only between the hours of eight-thirty a.m. and seven-thirty p.m., Monday to Saturday.
This kind of job isn’t one that can be kept in neat blocks in a personal organizer. It can’t be separated, compartmentalized, kept apart from the rest of your life.
Since Mary, though, Toshiko has worked even longer, often not going home till well after midnight, stumbling in the next morning with wide black circles under her eyes and a craving for Ianto’s perfectly-made coffee. She searches for some kind of redemption in figures and data and binary, trawls the endless database as penance, searching files and images and recordings. It’s harder to find atonement when you don’t know quite how to make amends. She has no idea what she is looking for.
The unexpected touch of gentle fingers on her shoulder blade makes her start, and she jerks back from the screen, turning in her chair and blinking wide eyed at - Gwen. Gwen, smiling gentle and hopeful, parted lips revealing the little gap between her front teeth. Gwen, just about managing to hold two steaming mugs of what smells like tea in one hand. Gwen, familiar and surprisingly friendly again, standing close, her sweater a little creased over the front as if it lay on the floor before being worn.
“Not interrupting anything, am I?”
Tosh smiles, quickly - expecting, for just a moment, to hear thoughts again - and raises a hand. “Oh. No. Of course not.”
“Good.” Gwen beams, nods down towards one of the mugs. “This is for you. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I can’t stand coffee all the time. Not that I’d tell Ianto,” she says quickly in a conspiratorial whisper. “Can you imagine it? He’d go through the roof.”
Laughing despite herself, Tosh takes the mug, wincing a little as the hot china burns her fingertips, and murmurs a “thank you”. For a moment she is awkwardly quiet, trying to take a sip of the tea only to find that it’s too hot, that it makes her lips tingle uncomfortably. She has no idea what to say, just watches Gwen’s midsection: watches as Gwen shifts to lean back against her desk, settles to get comfortable.
“…Mind if I ask you something, Tosh?”
“Of course not.” She looks up at Gwen with her best helpful, friendly, normal smile; cradles the tea close to her chest. It has just the right colour, is mixed with the perfect amount of milk. Something in her chest flutters.
There is a pause, and Gwen bites her lower lip, looks thoughtfully at her tea (frown between her eyebrows), finally laughing and looking to Tosh. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Okay. It’s just that -” Gwen shrugs, looks back to her mug: one fingertip traces about the rim, round and round and round. “Do you think Jack and Ianto are - you know?”
“…Sleeping together, you mean?”
Gwen smiles that gap-toothed smile. “Yes.”
Toshiko has absolutely no idea: the thought had not even crossed her mind. She runs back through a memory of today, the day before, yesterday - checks for signs, for hints, for the gesture or the word that would give away their secret. But… nothing. Not that she’s had an excuse to see them together recently; not that, she supposes, they would be obvious in public.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. But it’s not my business, is it? What they do in their spare time.”
Gwen laughs, begins, “that’s what Owen -” but cuts herself off quickly, blushes. “I’ve been told that before. I just…” she raises her shoulders a little and looks out over the Hub, eyes unfocused. (Toshiko can’t help notice that she has beautiful eyes.) “I guess that something just feels wrong.” She smiles self-derisively, waves a hand. “Oh, ignore me. There I go again.”
Toshiko swallows a scalding mouthful of tea, quickly shakes her head. “No! No. I’m interested.” A quick look about for Jack or Ianto reveals nothing and, feeling a little thrill running through her at the prospect of a real chat in this place, she leans forward, can tell that her smile is girlish and excited. “Do you think they are?”
To Toshiko’s surprise, Gwen does not seem to be interested in engaging in gossip: she retains her faraway look, frowning into the distance as she cups her mug between her hands. “Yes,” she says after a little pause, fumbling over the word: one syllable drawn out into an unsure two. “I mean, yes. I’m sure they are. It’s just that…” she searches for words, waves one hand vaguely. “I’m not sure it’s… something feels wrong. You know?”
“How?”
“Everything. I mean - Lisa. How could Ianto just forget her like that? He loved her. And Jack killed her, didn’t he? So how could Ianto forgive him enough to sleep with him? And how could Jack trust Ianto enough, after all that? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Despite her logical mind telling her that Gwen has a point, Toshiko cannot entirely focus on it. The squirming in her belly has returned, and she feels suffused, all of a sudden - aglow. It’s nice to be trusted with confidences. Nice to feel, once more, like part of the team. She has to work to keep her expression calm, professional, detached. But she doesn’t want to be detached, not anymore: she wants to have someone she can trust. (Isn’t that, she thinks, what all of them want in the end? What Gwen wants from Owen. What Ianto wants from Jack, maybe. Or what Jack wants from Ianto?)
Gwen shrugs, takes a sip of her tea. “Well, it was just a thought. I don’t know. It’s not like -” she laughs, shakes her head sharply, “not like Ianto would have a secret plot to get close to Jack and assassinate him, or anything. Honestly, I sound like I’m expecting some Hollywood thriller revelation, don’t I? Rhys always says I’m a bit of a sensationalist.”
They laugh about it together, then; end up finishing their teas and chatting: about the attractiveness of the Welsh rugby team, about Jack, about the new big movie they both want to see. Tosh enjoys it so much that she feels like nothing could bring her down, not tonight.
She barely even pauses as, later - going looking for her mobile; she has no idea where she’s left it - she sees Ianto down in the Alien Artifacts Storage room, carefully transferring the contents of one of the deposit boxes into a different bag. Why should she worry? After all, he’s a Torchwood employee like any other; he has a right to examine alien weaponry, with the proper permission. And Jack, when she asks (out of duty, not out of suspicion) just grins, waves a hand, tells her that Ianto’s earned his trust.
When she passes Ianto on the way out of the Hub - heading home, to much-needed sleep - she beams at him, and he smiles back, wider than she’s seen in a long time. He looks, for all the world, like the cat that got the cream.