TW: Q.E.D. (Martha, Jack/Ianto) PG
Title: Q.E.D.
Characters/Pairing: Martha, Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Warnings: Cheek.
Spoilers: AU; Takes place several months after "Reset." Spoilers for "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang."
Words: 1829
Summary: Ianto gets a bit of help with an avant-garde problem.
Notes: After In Service, I needed to write something light, sweet, and fluffy. linaerys indulged my "Reset" squee storytelling in IM, and so this fic's for her. way2busymom helped keep me on point and sharpened the ending. Thanks to poisontaster for tidying it up, and reassuring me that I'm not a complete crack-whore.
Ianto's mobile rings while he's stirring milk into his evening tea. "Ianto Jones."
"Hello, Ianto Jones. What colour is your necktie?"
"Chartreuse," he answers, lips twitching up at the corners.
"Of course it is. My brassiere's fuschia, in case you're curious."
Ianto sets his spoon on the serviette. "I couldn't be less curious, as fate would have it."
"Just as well I don't depend on you for satisfaction, then, isn't it?"
"Pity, you've ruined it now. I'd a mind to ask if it was good for you."
There's a brief pause on the other end followed by easy laughter. "Blinding, it was. Absolutely the best ever."
Lifting his cup, Ianto settles back in the chair. "It's to be expected, really."
"Oh, go on with you! Now you sound like him."
"Not a bit, ma'am. I didn't ask after your name." Ianto suppresses a sigh - him is a decidedly sore subject at the moment - and inhales the fragrant Darjeeling steam instead.
"Well, it's Miss Martha Jones, if you want to know."
From the brush of fabric and hair against the phone, Ianto imagines her shifting positions on the settee. Or, knowing Martha, hanging upside down off it with her hair in the floor. For such a beautiful woman, she has shockingly poor deportment. Not that he'd ever speak it, but Ianto finds it altogether charming.
"But I'm spoken for, by absolutely the loveliest man. He took me to Paris at the weekend, can you imagine?"
He bites back the observation that imagining a weekend in Paris is all he's likely ever to do. "No Hugoian Hunchbacks at Notre Dame to spoil the trip, then?"
"Only the one, and easily enough dispatched. The trolls under Pont Neuf had me a bit fussed, I admit."
"Only a bit? I suppose they went quietly once they knew who they were dealing with."
"Actually…" Ianto sips his tea and waits, knowing there's a punch-line coming. In this, Martha is very like him. "I threatened to bludgeon them with the ego of one Captain Jack Harkness, if you'll believe that."
Oh yes. He most certainly will. "And they all returned happily to Never-Never at that, did they?" Around a sip of tea, Ianto mutters, "It's well it's good for something."
"Hark, you," Martha answers with a laugh. "How was your weekend, love?"
"We're Torchwood, ma'am. 'The twenty-first century is when it all changes. We have to be ready.'" He rolls his eyes. "We don't take weekends."
"Seems you're a bit fussed, yourself." When he doesn't answer - what's he to say? - Martha clucks at him. "This'll be about him, I'm sure. Go on, what's he done this time?"
What hadn't he done? What hadn't they? Or, who, rather. Ianto sets his cup down beside the spoon. "Another of his 'old friends' stopped round. Bit of a surprise visit, that."
"Oh, brilliant."
He can almost hear her grimacing, but Captain John Hart and his tendency to drop by unannounced isn't the problem. "Actually, it was," Ianto teases, letting a hint of the sly slip into his tone at the memory of Jack catching John snogging him in the lift - and what happened after. "Blinding, really."
"Really!" Her tone says she's grinning. Immediately he feels that much better. It's near impossible to believe anything ill of the world when Martha smiles. "So then, why the fuss?"
Better or no, this next bit's difficult to admit. He picks up the spoon and stirs desultorily at his tea. "A steady diet of the avant-garde is a touch…hard on the stomach."
"And the heart, too, yeah? I'm sorry, Ianto. There's a reason half the known universe calls him the Captain Jack Harkness."
"I know." He does. It comes with the territory of being the Captain's boy. "I could stand a trip to Paris if he fancies French, though."
"Or a cozy weekend with no distractions, I reckon." Martha's sympathetic without being cloying or false. They both know who he's involved with. "Have you tried talking to him?"
"In case you hadn't noticed, neither of us exactly fit in for hens' night." Even if Jack did like the look of him in a skirt.
"You do look rather fetching in your suits."
Now she sounds like him. "You've been checking out my assets, then, have you?"
"The tailoring leaves little enough to the imagination." Martha snorts. "As if you're not purposely inviting the world to unwrap you like a pressie, Eye Candy."
And now she sounds like John. "If you've a taste for the avant-garde, I'm sure he'd move you to the head of the queue," Ianto says flatly.
"Ianto Jones, we shop together. I do not want to play with your dangly bits. Ew."
"Oh, but you'd like a go with his now, would you?" Ianto snaps. It's sharp and bitter on his tongue.
"Not especially, no." Before he can raise an eyebrow at that, she continues, "Of course I'm curious, Ianto, who wouldn't be? It's the Captain Jack Harkness we're on about. But even if I did fancy him, and he me, it's never going to happen."
Ianto stirs his Darjeeling rather harder. He reckons she can hear it.
"First, there's Tom. I love him, and he's not exactly the avant-garde type. Second, the Captain Jack Harkness. I'm not as daft as you, love. Third, been there, utterly over that with nearly immortal types, yeah? And all that aside, there's the Code."
His daftness they've been over no end. But Jack does try for him, and he'd rather have part of him than none. So he allows himself to be distracted by this mention of "the Code." That'll be a work thing, he expects. "If I'm meant to be comforted that UNIT has regulations prohibiting you from-"
"The Code of Friendship, Ianto. It's practically rule one that you don't pull with a friend's...interest."
Ianto winces for her careful choice of words. Better than Owen calling him a temporary shag, but it's really the crux of the problem, isn't it? "Pity some of us haven't heard of it."
"Talking about me, Ianto?" Jack gestures to the phone and lifts an eyebrow as he steps into the kitchenette.
"He's not conceited. No, not a bit, is he?" Martha scoffs through the phone.
Ianto's cheeks push up in false cheer. "Always, sir."
"I thought so." Jack opens the cupboard in search of the chocolate biscuits that are his favourites. "Who're you talking to?"
"Don't tell him. It's good for him to wonder."
"Actually, sir, it's my boyfriend."
Jack stops rooting around in the cupboard and looks back over his shoulder, Captain Jack Harkness smirk firmly in place. "Really? When do I get to meet him?"
By which he means when does he get to shag him, of course. "Q.E.D.," he tells Martha while glaring at Jack.
"Well, let's have a go at him, shall we? Put him on, love."
He manages a sour face for Jack as he holds out the phone. "He'll speak with you now, if you'd like."
Winking, Jack takes the phone. "Hi. I'm Jack Harkness. What's your-" There's hardly a beat before he answers, "I was just saying hello…" And Ianto's still rolling his eyes when Jack shoots him a look. "…Martha?"
Smug, Ianto crosses his arms over his chest.
Jack furrows his brow at Ianto. "Since when are you two--"
"Oh, for god's sake, Jack," Ianto says. "Not every relationship is-"
Glaring, Jack makes a chopping sign across his throat. Ianto would be peeved, except from Jack's expression, Martha's doing it for him. He's not sure he wants to know what she's on about.
"You're just saying that because you can't have me," Jack answers whatever it is.
Now Ianto's annoyance takes the fore. "How you fit in the room with your ego, I'll never understand," he lifts his cup and mutters into the lukewarm tea.
"I heard that, Ianto." Jack's not quite scowling at him.
Ianto doesn't care. "Oh, go on and eat your biscuits, will you?" He holds out his hand again. "I'll take the phone back now."
There's that stubborn look, the one that goes along with everything from mission briefings to what they're having for takeaway. Ianto's about ready to trounce him - or at least make him sleep on the settee - when Jack's face…softens.
He won't quite meet Ianto's gaze when he says, "Nice talking to you, too, Martha," and drops the mobile back into Ianto's open palm.
Ianto studies Jack before putting the phone to his ear. It almost looks as if… He is. "He's pouting, if you'd believe that." His own mouth twists, caught between smile and frown. He tries to tell himself he's twitting Jack by asking in front of him, but the soft hurt in Jack's eyes tugs at Ianto. As it always does. "What on earth did you say to him?"
"Never mind that, love. Just run along and comfort him, yeah?"
She did it on purpose, the gorgeous prat. "Absolutely."
"Ring me up later to tell me how it turns out. And I want to tell you all about Tom and Paris."
Jack's crumbling biscuits rather than eating them - making yet another mess for Ianto to clean up. It makes him a little puckish himself. "Always with gory details, you. I'm beginning to think you've exhibitionist streak."
"I do not! Go on, give Jack a platonic kiss from me."
Ianto spares another glance for his sulking…whatever he is. "Mmhmm," he answers, then inspiration strikes. "Kiss kiss. All my love."
Quite at odds with Martha's bright laughter, Jack's frown deepens.
"Kiss kiss, Ianto. I do love you, you know."
He hadn't, but he finds he rather likes the idea. "At least someone does," he says, pleased.
"Don't be too hard on him, now." She pauses, then laughs again, as if she's only just realized what she's implied.
"Not a bit, ma'am. I'll give you a bell later." He eyes Jack who leans at the counter, studiedly not listening to him. "Or tomorrow."
After she bids him goodnight, he closes his mobile and tucks it in his pocket. For a full minute, Jack pretends to be engaged, sweeping up the crumbs and dumping them in the bin.
As it's Jack's own fault for poking his nose where it didn't belong, Ianto merely waits.
When he finally speaks, Jack has his back half to Ianto. "She said you deserve better than me."
"I do." Jack's broad shoulders stiffen, then his head drops and Ianto takes pity on him. "But since that hardly exists…"
Spinning around, Jack catches Ianto's gaze as if to ask really? His eyes brighten in the way Ianto loves.
Ianto rolls his own eyes anyhow. "You are so easy."
Arching both eyebrows, Jack spreads his hands. "What can I say? I'm a sucker for a smart mouth in a well-fitted suit."
He is a charming bastard. Ianto has to give him that. "Well, then. Let's see about that, shall we?"
Characters/Pairing: Martha, Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Warnings: Cheek.
Spoilers: AU; Takes place several months after "Reset." Spoilers for "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang."
Words: 1829
Summary: Ianto gets a bit of help with an avant-garde problem.
Notes: After In Service, I needed to write something light, sweet, and fluffy. linaerys indulged my "Reset" squee storytelling in IM, and so this fic's for her. way2busymom helped keep me on point and sharpened the ending. Thanks to poisontaster for tidying it up, and reassuring me that I'm not a complete crack-whore.
Ianto's mobile rings while he's stirring milk into his evening tea. "Ianto Jones."
"Hello, Ianto Jones. What colour is your necktie?"
"Chartreuse," he answers, lips twitching up at the corners.
"Of course it is. My brassiere's fuschia, in case you're curious."
Ianto sets his spoon on the serviette. "I couldn't be less curious, as fate would have it."
"Just as well I don't depend on you for satisfaction, then, isn't it?"
"Pity, you've ruined it now. I'd a mind to ask if it was good for you."
There's a brief pause on the other end followed by easy laughter. "Blinding, it was. Absolutely the best ever."
Lifting his cup, Ianto settles back in the chair. "It's to be expected, really."
"Oh, go on with you! Now you sound like him."
"Not a bit, ma'am. I didn't ask after your name." Ianto suppresses a sigh - him is a decidedly sore subject at the moment - and inhales the fragrant Darjeeling steam instead.
"Well, it's Miss Martha Jones, if you want to know."
From the brush of fabric and hair against the phone, Ianto imagines her shifting positions on the settee. Or, knowing Martha, hanging upside down off it with her hair in the floor. For such a beautiful woman, she has shockingly poor deportment. Not that he'd ever speak it, but Ianto finds it altogether charming.
"But I'm spoken for, by absolutely the loveliest man. He took me to Paris at the weekend, can you imagine?"
He bites back the observation that imagining a weekend in Paris is all he's likely ever to do. "No Hugoian Hunchbacks at Notre Dame to spoil the trip, then?"
"Only the one, and easily enough dispatched. The trolls under Pont Neuf had me a bit fussed, I admit."
"Only a bit? I suppose they went quietly once they knew who they were dealing with."
"Actually…" Ianto sips his tea and waits, knowing there's a punch-line coming. In this, Martha is very like him. "I threatened to bludgeon them with the ego of one Captain Jack Harkness, if you'll believe that."
Oh yes. He most certainly will. "And they all returned happily to Never-Never at that, did they?" Around a sip of tea, Ianto mutters, "It's well it's good for something."
"Hark, you," Martha answers with a laugh. "How was your weekend, love?"
"We're Torchwood, ma'am. 'The twenty-first century is when it all changes. We have to be ready.'" He rolls his eyes. "We don't take weekends."
"Seems you're a bit fussed, yourself." When he doesn't answer - what's he to say? - Martha clucks at him. "This'll be about him, I'm sure. Go on, what's he done this time?"
What hadn't he done? What hadn't they? Or, who, rather. Ianto sets his cup down beside the spoon. "Another of his 'old friends' stopped round. Bit of a surprise visit, that."
"Oh, brilliant."
He can almost hear her grimacing, but Captain John Hart and his tendency to drop by unannounced isn't the problem. "Actually, it was," Ianto teases, letting a hint of the sly slip into his tone at the memory of Jack catching John snogging him in the lift - and what happened after. "Blinding, really."
"Really!" Her tone says she's grinning. Immediately he feels that much better. It's near impossible to believe anything ill of the world when Martha smiles. "So then, why the fuss?"
Better or no, this next bit's difficult to admit. He picks up the spoon and stirs desultorily at his tea. "A steady diet of the avant-garde is a touch…hard on the stomach."
"And the heart, too, yeah? I'm sorry, Ianto. There's a reason half the known universe calls him the Captain Jack Harkness."
"I know." He does. It comes with the territory of being the Captain's boy. "I could stand a trip to Paris if he fancies French, though."
"Or a cozy weekend with no distractions, I reckon." Martha's sympathetic without being cloying or false. They both know who he's involved with. "Have you tried talking to him?"
"In case you hadn't noticed, neither of us exactly fit in for hens' night." Even if Jack did like the look of him in a skirt.
"You do look rather fetching in your suits."
Now she sounds like him. "You've been checking out my assets, then, have you?"
"The tailoring leaves little enough to the imagination." Martha snorts. "As if you're not purposely inviting the world to unwrap you like a pressie, Eye Candy."
And now she sounds like John. "If you've a taste for the avant-garde, I'm sure he'd move you to the head of the queue," Ianto says flatly.
"Ianto Jones, we shop together. I do not want to play with your dangly bits. Ew."
"Oh, but you'd like a go with his now, would you?" Ianto snaps. It's sharp and bitter on his tongue.
"Not especially, no." Before he can raise an eyebrow at that, she continues, "Of course I'm curious, Ianto, who wouldn't be? It's the Captain Jack Harkness we're on about. But even if I did fancy him, and he me, it's never going to happen."
Ianto stirs his Darjeeling rather harder. He reckons she can hear it.
"First, there's Tom. I love him, and he's not exactly the avant-garde type. Second, the Captain Jack Harkness. I'm not as daft as you, love. Third, been there, utterly over that with nearly immortal types, yeah? And all that aside, there's the Code."
His daftness they've been over no end. But Jack does try for him, and he'd rather have part of him than none. So he allows himself to be distracted by this mention of "the Code." That'll be a work thing, he expects. "If I'm meant to be comforted that UNIT has regulations prohibiting you from-"
"The Code of Friendship, Ianto. It's practically rule one that you don't pull with a friend's...interest."
Ianto winces for her careful choice of words. Better than Owen calling him a temporary shag, but it's really the crux of the problem, isn't it? "Pity some of us haven't heard of it."
"Talking about me, Ianto?" Jack gestures to the phone and lifts an eyebrow as he steps into the kitchenette.
"He's not conceited. No, not a bit, is he?" Martha scoffs through the phone.
Ianto's cheeks push up in false cheer. "Always, sir."
"I thought so." Jack opens the cupboard in search of the chocolate biscuits that are his favourites. "Who're you talking to?"
"Don't tell him. It's good for him to wonder."
"Actually, sir, it's my boyfriend."
Jack stops rooting around in the cupboard and looks back over his shoulder, Captain Jack Harkness smirk firmly in place. "Really? When do I get to meet him?"
By which he means when does he get to shag him, of course. "Q.E.D.," he tells Martha while glaring at Jack.
"Well, let's have a go at him, shall we? Put him on, love."
He manages a sour face for Jack as he holds out the phone. "He'll speak with you now, if you'd like."
Winking, Jack takes the phone. "Hi. I'm Jack Harkness. What's your-" There's hardly a beat before he answers, "I was just saying hello…" And Ianto's still rolling his eyes when Jack shoots him a look. "…Martha?"
Smug, Ianto crosses his arms over his chest.
Jack furrows his brow at Ianto. "Since when are you two--"
"Oh, for god's sake, Jack," Ianto says. "Not every relationship is-"
Glaring, Jack makes a chopping sign across his throat. Ianto would be peeved, except from Jack's expression, Martha's doing it for him. He's not sure he wants to know what she's on about.
"You're just saying that because you can't have me," Jack answers whatever it is.
Now Ianto's annoyance takes the fore. "How you fit in the room with your ego, I'll never understand," he lifts his cup and mutters into the lukewarm tea.
"I heard that, Ianto." Jack's not quite scowling at him.
Ianto doesn't care. "Oh, go on and eat your biscuits, will you?" He holds out his hand again. "I'll take the phone back now."
There's that stubborn look, the one that goes along with everything from mission briefings to what they're having for takeaway. Ianto's about ready to trounce him - or at least make him sleep on the settee - when Jack's face…softens.
He won't quite meet Ianto's gaze when he says, "Nice talking to you, too, Martha," and drops the mobile back into Ianto's open palm.
Ianto studies Jack before putting the phone to his ear. It almost looks as if… He is. "He's pouting, if you'd believe that." His own mouth twists, caught between smile and frown. He tries to tell himself he's twitting Jack by asking in front of him, but the soft hurt in Jack's eyes tugs at Ianto. As it always does. "What on earth did you say to him?"
"Never mind that, love. Just run along and comfort him, yeah?"
She did it on purpose, the gorgeous prat. "Absolutely."
"Ring me up later to tell me how it turns out. And I want to tell you all about Tom and Paris."
Jack's crumbling biscuits rather than eating them - making yet another mess for Ianto to clean up. It makes him a little puckish himself. "Always with gory details, you. I'm beginning to think you've exhibitionist streak."
"I do not! Go on, give Jack a platonic kiss from me."
Ianto spares another glance for his sulking…whatever he is. "Mmhmm," he answers, then inspiration strikes. "Kiss kiss. All my love."
Quite at odds with Martha's bright laughter, Jack's frown deepens.
"Kiss kiss, Ianto. I do love you, you know."
He hadn't, but he finds he rather likes the idea. "At least someone does," he says, pleased.
"Don't be too hard on him, now." She pauses, then laughs again, as if she's only just realized what she's implied.
"Not a bit, ma'am. I'll give you a bell later." He eyes Jack who leans at the counter, studiedly not listening to him. "Or tomorrow."
After she bids him goodnight, he closes his mobile and tucks it in his pocket. For a full minute, Jack pretends to be engaged, sweeping up the crumbs and dumping them in the bin.
As it's Jack's own fault for poking his nose where it didn't belong, Ianto merely waits.
When he finally speaks, Jack has his back half to Ianto. "She said you deserve better than me."
"I do." Jack's broad shoulders stiffen, then his head drops and Ianto takes pity on him. "But since that hardly exists…"
Spinning around, Jack catches Ianto's gaze as if to ask really? His eyes brighten in the way Ianto loves.
Ianto rolls his own eyes anyhow. "You are so easy."
Arching both eyebrows, Jack spreads his hands. "What can I say? I'm a sucker for a smart mouth in a well-fitted suit."
He is a charming bastard. Ianto has to give him that. "Well, then. Let's see about that, shall we?"