TW FIC: Meeting the In-Law (1/1)
Title: Meeting the In-Law
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, the Master Tailor
Summary: Jack explores various new aspects of Ianto’s Time-Lord life, as well as meeting the Master Tailor himself.
Series: Sequel to "Son of a Master Tailor"
Set: Season Two, just after “Something Borrowed”
Spoilers: just general ones up to mid-season two
Rating: R (for implied scene set immediately prior to the fic) but mostly PG
Category: AU, vignette
Warnings: none
Word count: approx. 2,278
Prompt: ‘Parallel Worlds’ for au_bingo card
Notes: Wow - I have never got so many reviews for short story before and I am extremely flattered that all of you enjoyed it so much!! Sorry it’s taken so long to get the sequel out - I hope that you all like it as well! If you do, please leave feedback :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So, if the Doctor fixes things so history unfolds correctly, what does your father do?” Jack asked curiously as they lay together on Ianto’s bed after a spectacular bout of sex.
“Something similar,” Ianto replied as his breathing returned to normal, “only more subtle. The Doctor’s approach tends to be heavy-handed whereas my father tends to stay behind the scenes, stitching time back together.” That was how his father had explained it anyway, and what Ianto knew of the Doctor, he tended to agree. “Also, he was well known for his love of well-fitted suits.”
Jack grinned at the image. He knew that the present incarnation of the Doctor wore suits - they fitted well but the colours… “I’m guessing that’s where you got your love of suits from.”
“Definitely.” Ianto had watched his father go to work every morning immaculately dressed in the best suits - well, as good as he could get while keeping up appearances in their less affluent part of town - and had created a similar style of dress once he had started working at Torchwood.
Shifting slightly, Jack rested his head on Ianto’s bare chest. He could hear the double heartbeat that was distinctive to all Time Lords. How had he missed hearing it before? This wasn’t the first time Jack had lain like this but it was the first time that Ianto had kept the stopwatch away from the bed, thus reducing the effect of the perception filter. “So are you going to give me any hints as to when I’ve met your father before?”
Ianto smiled and ran his fingers through Jack’s hair. “You’ve been trying to work it out, haven’t you?” He knew Jack would have been curious ever since he had made that off-hand comment the other day.
“Are you sure that I’ve met him?” Jack queried.
“Positive,” Ianto chuckled. “Tad told me when I joined Torchwood to keep an eye out for you. He said to stay well away from you and not to fall for your charm.”
“Really?” That didn’t help narrow down the list of possible suspects. “Why?”
Ianto’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Because you almost seduced him once.” That was a story he had only heard about when he moved back to Cardiff and it was amusing yet somewhat disturbing.
Jack lifted his head in surprise. “I did?” That didn’t really help narrow the field any either. “When?”
“1934. Tad was working for Torchwood at the time, a regular agent, while you were doing freelance work,” Ianto stated, revealing how he knew so much about Jack. “Every time you were in Cardiff, you flirted with him - as well as everyone else - and one evening actually tried to seduce him.”
Jack’s mind worked furiously, trying to remember back that far.
“He looked about twenty-five but was actually over three hundred at that time,” Ianto continued. “And you used to comment on how good he looked in a suit.”
Recognition hit. “Dafydd Jones? That’s your father?” Remembering what Jones looked like, Jack could now see a family resemblance. Except… “I thought he died.”
The corners of Ianto’s mouth lifted in an amused smile. “No, just got restless. Made a jump back in time, visited Australia one hundred years earlier, helped to set up a department store known for its fashion, lived there for a while, then came back to the 1970’s here, changed his name, met Mam, fell in love and stayed. Died again, changed his name back to Dafydd Jones, and as I said, mainly lives in Newport.”
Jack couldn’t believe that he had been in the presence of a Time Lord in the thirties and hadn’t realised it. “He had a perception filter too, I take it.”
Ianto nodded in confirmation. “He was always a bit worried that you would find him out, given how you were looking for the Doctor, so that’s part of why he never let you close. The rest of the reason was that you just weren’t his type,” he added with a larger grin. Time Lords didn’t adhere to Earth stereotypes when it came to relationships so they didn’t worry about whether someone was the same gender or not.
When Jack pouted, obviously a little put out that someone didn’t want him, Ianto shifted so that he could give his partner a kiss. “But you’re definitely my type.”
Mollified, Jack lay back down, his head on Ianto’s chest. “Did he tell you about this before or after we started sleeping together?”
“Before. I think he wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t fall for your charms,” Ianto replied. He hadn’t fallen for Jack’s charms either; rather, for the man that lay underneath the surface.
Jack was silent for a few moments, then asked, “Did he have family on Gallifrey? You know, when the Doctor Time-Locked it?”
“Yes.” His father hadn’t talked about it much but Ianto knew anyway. “Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren… I think that’s why it took such a long time for him to find love again.” Roughly one hundred years, by Ianto’s calculations. “He was away on a mission for the Council when the War started. He tried to get back but his TARDIS wouldn’t let him so he was stranded.”
Jack frowned. “Why not?”
“Presumably so that the Time Lord race didn’t completely die out,” Ianto replied. “If Tad had died, or been caught in the Time Lock, I would never have been born and therefore wouldn’t be able to have children.”
Jack decided not to pursue that line of conversation; he hadn’t told Ianto that he could have children yet. Although, considering how much the younger man knew about him, he might already know. “So your father knew the Doctor.”
“Sort of.” Ianto wasn’t fond of the other Time Lord, knowing the Doctor’s history and what the man had done to Jack. “The Doctor is much older than Tad, so they didn’t really mix in the same circles. But they met a few times after the Doctor stole the TARDIS and began trying to save history.”
That caught Jack’s attention. “The Doctor stole the TARDIS?” Why hadn’t he heard that little fact before?
Ianto’s expression become amused as he remembered the tale. “Apparently, there was an old model TARDIS in the museum that the Doctor took a liking to. One day, he and the TARDIS disappeared together, and have been running ever since.”
Jack made a note to ask the Doctor about that next time he had the chance. “So why hasn’t your father let the Doctor know that he’s still alive?”
“You’ll have to ask him when you see him.” Ianto tugged Jack up to lie beside him, too tired to keep talking. “He’ll be here in the morning.”
Jack put an arm across Ianto’s chest and pulled him in close. “I can’t wait.”
~~~~~~~~~~
A loud banging noise woke Jack from a deep sleep. Rubbing his eyes to help clear the blurriness, Jack turned his head and saw that the clock said 3:14am. Another noise, quieter this time, caught his attention and this time Jack automatically reached for the revolver he kept in the bedside drawer. It sounded someone had broken into Ianto’s house.
Stopping only long enough to put a pair of trousers on, Jack quietly headed out of the bedroom, listening carefully for clues as to where the burglar was. Another noise - was that a kettle boiling? - indicated that he should head for the kitchen.
He poked his head around the doorframe and saw a skinny red-headed man in his thirties snacking on a piece of apple tart that had been in the fridge. What the…? Jack stepped into the kitchen and aimed his revolver at the man. “What are you doing?” he asked in a hard tone.
“Oh, Jack, sorry, did I wake you?” The man put his fork down and grinned at the immortal man. “Ianto did mention I was coming, didn’t he?”
Jack was startled, both by the Welsh accent and the realisation that this was Ianto’s father, and therefore he couldn’t answer immediately.
“I did wake you,” the Master Tailor apologised. “Oh well, can’t be helped. The TARDIS always did have a mind of her own, and I’m afraid I forgot to be more specific when telling her when to arrive.” He looked Jack up and down. “I see you haven’t changed.”
Jack slowly lowered the revolver. “You’re the Master Tailor?”
The Time Lord stood and bowed fluidly. “At your service. Well, considering the circumstances, since you’re seeing my son, you’d probably better be at my service.” He chuckled at his own joke. “And I think you’d better call me Mr. Jones.”
“Are you going to ask him what his intentions are as well, Tad?”
Ianto’s voice, coming from the doorway, startled Jack. He spun around to see his lover standing there, dressed only in a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. A part of Jack wanted to take Ianto back to bed, the rest of him was well aware of the Master Tailor still being in the house.
“Don’t be absurd, Ianto,” the Time Lord waved off the question before sitting down again. “I just thought he might be stuck for something to call me. The Master Tailor is so pretentious, and Dafydd is a bit too familiar for a possible future father-in-law. And I like being Mr. Jones.”
Ianto rolled his eyes; in some respects, his father never changed.
Jack reflected that this man was not someone to cross and it wouldn’t hurt to indulge him. He would, however, ignore the ‘father-in-law’ part until such time as he was ready to propose to his younger lover. “It’s okay, Ianto. I don’t mind.”
“See?” The self-christened Mr. Jones beamed at his son. He wasn’t the least embarrassed by the two men’s state of dress - or undress in Jack’s case. “So, would you both like a cup of tea? This regeneration is partial to tea,” he explained to Jack.
“It’s 3:18 in the morning, Tad, we would both like to go back to sleep,” Ianto pointed out. Even if neither of them needed much sleep, they liked to indulge in it whenever the Rift allowed them.
“Right.” The Time Lord nodded at them. “Sorry. I’ll just wait in here then, drinking my tea.” His face was the very picture of innocence but his blue eyes, still so much like Ianto’s despite being a different regeneration, twinkled.
Ianto rolled his eyes, used to his father’s ways. Jack, however, put his revolver on the bench and then took a seat opposite Mr. Jones. A stray thought had occurred to him and he wanted the answer. “You can look at me.”
“Of course I can look at you, Jack, I have eyes,” came the quick reply. Too quick, which meant he was avoiding what the statement had meant.
“The Doctor said he has trouble looking at me because I’m wrong, I’m not meant to exist,” Jack continued, ignoring the Time Lord’s words. “You’ve never had any trouble, not even from the first time I met you.”
Ianto moved to put a hand on Jack’s shoulder; he knew how much the Doctor’s words had hurt and wanted to support his lover.
Mr. Jones took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He hadn’t wanted to get into this so soon but since Jack had asked, he wasn’t going to refuse to reply. “A trained Time Lord can see a person’s life and all the possibilities they could encounter in that life. Your life extends so far that it gives us a headache until we learn to block it out. Before you met me, I had watched you from afar, learning to do exactly that so I could interact normally with you. There have been so many people that have treated you like a freak and I wasn’t going to be one of them.”
Jack noted the veiled reference to the Doctor and various Torchwood agents but didn’t say anything about that. “So you thought I was wrong too?”
“No. Unique,” the Master Tailor corrected him. “There’s a difference. The Doctor’s TARDIS knew what she was doing when she created you, I would bet on it. If he says it was an accident, then he’s lying. TARDIS’ are sentient beings so if she allowed you to become immortal, then she had a reason for it. Most likely, though, you’ll never know what it is.”
“Well, that’s helpful,” Jack muttered, a little annoyed about that. But that did raise some interesting points that he would be discussing with the Doctor at the next opportunity. “You said it gives us a headache. Who’s ‘us’?”
Dafydd looked over at his son. Jack followed his gaze.
“Ianto?”
“I’m not trained like Tad but when we met, I could see part of what he does,” Ianto confessed. “Not in any great detail but enough to give me a headache. It took some time to block that out and just see you.”
Jack nodded, his expression displaying understanding. “That’s why you treat me different than the others do.”
“Part of it. But mainly it’s because I see the man, not the hero or the immortal,” Ianto agreed, squeezing Jack’s shoulder.
“Awww.”
Both men looked over at the Time Lord.
“What?” he protested. “That was cute!”
“And on that note, I’m going back to bed,” Ianto stated. He knew what his father was like in this mood. “Make yourself comfortable, Tad.”
The Master Tailor waited until Ianto had left the room before innocently asking, “So, Jack, what exactly are your intentions towards my son?”
The speed with which Jack left the room was impressive.