Fanfic - Green Clouds and Evil Cheese [Torchwood: Jack/Ianto]

[soera]

Title: Green Clouds and Evil Cheese
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: A day in the life. Ianto takes the day off.
Author's Notes: No real warnings/spoilers. Beware the domesticity? Rhiannon and family appear, but there are no mentions of CoE. Spot the (unsubtle) metatextual reference!
Apologies for vanishing for so long; RL was being RL. On the plus side, I have graduated from my Honours course... and done pretty damn well, if I do say so myself. =D


Green Clouds and Evil Cheese

It must have been Sod’s Law. The one day he was allowed to sleep in, someone would decide to call at an unearthly hour and wake him up anyway. He fumbled blindly for his phone and nearly dropped it twice before managing to bring it to his ear.

“Yeah?” he said tiredly, muffling a yawn. He couldn’t quite convince himself to open his eyes yet. Maybe later.

“You sound like you just woke up,” someone laughed. Woman’s voice. He tried to focus.

“I did,” he replied.

“It’s eleven, you lazy bugger,” she scolded him. Rhiannon, of course.

“Late night yesterday,” he replied, huddling back under his blanket. He felt vulnerable, somehow. He didn’t want to get up yet; he was still sore and aching and muscles he didn’t know he had were all protesting the abuse he’d put them through the previous night. Morning. Early morning, very early.

“Oh?” Rhiannon asked, and he could practically hear the arched eyebrows. “Interesting sort of late night?”

Jack had gotten between Ianto and a Weevil intent on eating Ianto. Jack had also been quite thoroughly shredded for his pains. It had taken three bullets to kill the Weevil and three minutes for Jack to come back to life.

“Work,” Ianto said. “Not at all interesting.”

“Really now,” Rhiannon said sceptically.

“Really,” Ianto sighed. “Did you call for something?”

“David’s birthday party,” Rhiannon said. “Are you coming?”

Ianto paused. “What day is it today?” he asked.

“Saturday,” she said, amused.

“It’s today, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Last week, you said you’d come.”

Ianto muffled a sigh into his pillow. “Right,” he said. “I’ll be there. Four, yeah?”

“That’ll do,” she said. “I’ll see you later then.”

Four, he thought, ending the call and dropping the phone on the bed. Which really meant two because Rhiannon would be expecting him to help with the preparations. Which meant that he ought to get up and stretch a bit, convince his muscles that they were in fact capable of movement, whatever they might think.

Ianto groaned and buried his face in his pillow.

An hour later saw him freshly showered and dressed. There were two eggs, a bit of mouldy green cheese and half a carton of fried rice in his fridge. The cheese might have been smirking at him. He suppressed the urge to bring in a scanner from work and make sure it wasn’t alien.

Cheese in the bin, eggs in the saucepan. A nearly empty bottle of ketchup sat alone in his cupboard. Funny, he could have sworn he’d had a bit more in there than that.

He tossed the rice in his microwave and returned to the eggs just in time to save them from a fiery death. Fried rice, scrambled eggs and ketchup. Very healthy meal there, Ianto told himself. Time to go shopping.

Maybe he would have time to do a grocery run before heading over to Rhiannon’s. Yep. And maybe the sky would turn neon green.

He finished off his lunch and binned the carton. Wandering through the house, he picked up any stray clothes he found, then sat down to sort them out. Five minutes later, he gave up as he always did and tossed the lot in the machine together. It hadn’t hurt his clothes thus far.

The drycleaner’s was only a ten minute walk away from his apartment. He neatly avoided the brunette from down the hall who always tried to flirt with him and promptly got waylaid by another neighbour from a floor down. By the time he got back home with his freshly-cleaned suits, it was time to leave for Rhiannon’s.

So much for that food run.

He got caught in a traffic jam on the way to Rhiannon’s. When, for the fifth time, traffic came to a standstill, he pulled out his mobile phone and called his sister. Thankfully, no one picked up and so he was able to get away with leaving a message about being late. Then he hung up and stared at his phone, wondering if he should bother trying to find out what was causing the jam.

It wouldn’t help anyway. He returned the phone to his pocket just as the car behind him started blaring its horn. He leaned on his steering wheel and watched the bumper of the car before him. It hadn’t gotten any further away in the past two minutes.

In the end, he got to Rhiannon’s at half past three. Earlier than he’d said, later than he’d intended. She greeted him with an armful of crepe streamers which he obediently hung up at her directive. Some days, it didn’t pay to be tall.

Fifteen minutes later, the first kids started arriving. Ianto thought about hiding in the back, but Rhiannon kidnapped him to help welcome the little terrors. He herded them in, pointed them towards David and/or the snacks, then gladly washed his hands of them. He would, he decided, make a terrible parent.

Cake, ice-cream, fairy bread, soda, jelly. They sent home some very sugar-high children and then Ianto quietly started clearing up while Rhiannon handled her kids. They’d gotten into a spat over who got to play with one of David’s new toys.

His phone beeped at him and he checked it, one hand full of shredded balloon bits. Jack, of course. Missed you today. Starbucks does not compare. He typed a reply - You only want me for my coffee. Fed Myfanwy? and got on with the cleaning.

Thirteen minutes later, a response. That and your very talented hands. M tried to eat me!

Will that teach you to stop spilling sauce on yourself when you eat? Ianto replied, and resolutely ignored the phone when it rang a few moments later.

“What is that?” Rhiannon asked suddenly, looking up at the sky. Ianto followed the direction of her gaze and resignedly took in the low-lying, neon green clouds.

“I was only joking,” he murmured as he fished his phone out and hit speed-dial one.

“I’m not that messy an eater!” Jack greeted him.

“The sky is green,” Ianto said. There was a pause.

“What?” Jack asked.

“More accurately,” Ianto said, “The clouds in the sky are green. A rather lurid shade of neon green, to be exact.”

“Brilliant,” Jack said. “Alien weather falling through the Rift, that’s all we need.”

“Need me in?” Ianto asked.

“No, no,” Jack said. “It’s your day off. We’ll handle it.”

“All right,” Ianto said. “What do green clouds rain, I wonder?”

“Better not be methane,” Jack said. “I visited this planet once, liquid methane oceans? Nearly froze my balls off, even in the shelters and wearing protective clothing. But, you know -”

“Green clouds,” Ianto interrupted.

“Okay, okay,” Jack said. The line went dead. Neither of them ever said goodbye to the other. Ianto flipped his phone shut and put it back in his pocket, moving to join Rhiannon.

“More weird stuff,” she said. “Sometimes, I feel like I’m living in a movie.”

“Wouldn’t be a movie,” he said. “TV series at best. Night-time viewing, only after eleven.”

“Hardly enough sex for that,” she said, after a quick glance around to make sure the kids weren’t in ear-shot. Ianto thought it might have been a wasted effort.

“You haven’t met my colleagues,” he said. “I don’t think they know anything else exists.”

Rhiannon laughed out loud at that, one of those big, galumphing laughs that came from deep in her chest. The ones she’d used to belt out all the time when they were kids, before she got all conscious about how she sounded and appeared. Before she got so worried about how maternity had rounded her figure and therefore took to wearing make-up even at home, just to feel pretty. “You’re the odd one out then,” she teased.

Ianto smiled. “Maybe a little,” he said. The green clouds moved away from them, towards the city centre. He wondered how the team would possibly catch clouds. A small part of him was relieved at not having to be involved. Mostly, though, he couldn’t stop trying to figure out what the team was doing.

“I should be going now,” he said. “Early day tomorrow.”

“On Sunday?” Rhiannon asked incredulously.

“Just catching up on some overdue paperwork,” Ianto said. “Couple of my colleagues have been out sick this past week. The rest of us have had to pick up the slack.”

Rhiannon shook her head. “Well, you come down for Sunday roast if you can,” she said. “I’m doing up a nice roast lamb with all the trimmings.”

Ianto thought of his empty fridge and the ketchup bottle sitting in his kitchen cupboard. “I’ll see if I can make it down,” he said, and kissed her goodbye.

He wasn’t in a hurry to get home, so naturally traffic was smooth sailing all the way. He could hear a voice from within his apartment when he drew near. Instinctively, he reached for a gun he wasn’t wearing, then relaxed when the sound became more distinct. A familiar voice was belting out an unfamiliar song. He went inside, kicked off his shoes, hung up his jacket, then wandered over to the kitchen.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he felt obliged to point out.

“Did you know,” Jack said, waving a spatula. “That you don’t have any milk?”

“Or meat,” Ianto added, watching as beef strips sizzled on the stove.

“Or vegetables,” Jack went on. “Or bread. Or cheese.”

“There was cheese,” Ianto said, opening his fridge. He eyed the stocked shelves, then picked up a carton of orange juice. It was already open, but still mostly full. “It was green and it was laughing at me.”

“Edible cheese,” Jack amended. “Not evil cheese.”

“I was going to do the shopping today,” Ianto muttered. He took a quick swig of juice straight from the carton, then put it back in the fridge.

“But did you?” Jack asked archly.

“Bite me,” Ianto said, and headed for the bathroom, ignoring Jack’s shouted, “Gladly!”

He re-emerged after a quick shower, feeling slightly more alive. “Aren’t you supposed to be chasing alien clouds?” he asked. Plates and utensils for two had mysteriously appeared on the kitchen table. There was a big bowl of rice sitting innocently between the settings.

“That’s the wonderful thing about being the boss,” Jack said. “I get to delegate.”

“What is it, anyway?” Ianto asked, dishing rice out onto both plates.

“Don’t tell them,” Jack said. “But I recognised the results of the spectrum analysis.”

“And?”

“And it’s basically a fancy hallucinogenic,” Jack said. “It’ll dissipate soon enough on its own. If it rains, whoever it hits will have a few wild fantasies. No harm done.”

“I’ll put the news on,” Ianto said. “Hopefully, Owen gets sprayed. And someone gets good footage.”

Jack smirked and turned the stove off. “Meat or vegetables?” he asked, brandishing the saucepan.

“Meat,” Ianto said, and watched as Jack plopped a hefty serving of stir-fried vegetables over his rice. “That’s not meat.”

“You need to eat more vegetables,” Jack said unrepentantly.

Ianto gave him his best glare. Sadly, it had no effect whatsoever on Jack, who spooned even portions of meat and vegetables onto his own plate. Ianto briefly considered hijacking the saucepan and getting his own share of beef, then resignedly dug into his food instead.

They both had seconds. Jack wordlessly scraped all the remaining meat (more than he’d had) onto Ianto’s plate.

Dessert, such as it was, was a couple of chocolate bars. Ianto let Jack have half of his.

“Shoul’ be goin’ now,” Jack sighed. Ianto kept petting his hair, staring at the television without taking in anything. “Tol’ Tosh I’be back t’night t’baby the Rift.”

“Okay,” Ianto said. Jack didn’t move, save to close his eyes. “That is not the face of someone who’s leaving now,” Ianto added.

“Mmf,” Jack said intelligently, and fell asleep.

Ianto sighed and fumbled for Jack’s phone. Redirect any Rift alerts to my wristband, he wrote. Won’t be back till later. Thanks, J.

Tosh’s reply came a couple of minutes later. Done, it said. Take care of yourself! And say hi to Ianto for me.

Ianto smiled and put the phone back in Jack’s pocket. It was just a guess of course, but from the way Jack was whining and pushing lightly against Ianto’s hand in his sleep, Ianto would venture to say that Jack was rather enjoying the unintentional attention.

“Wake up,” Ianto said, poking Jack’s shoulder hard. One blue eye opened in annoyance. “I’m not bloody carrying you to bed,” he said. “I’m still sore from yesterday.”

Jack yawned and shuffled to his feet. “C’mon then,” he said. Ianto followed him into the bedroom and kicked off his clothes without fuss, crawling into bed. Jack joined him moments later, sprawling across him.

“Heavy,” Ianto moaned, and Jack shifted just slightly.

“Enjoy your day off?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Ianto said.

“That’s a good start,” Jack said.

“Don’t make me do that again,” Ianto added.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Jack laughed quietly. “I missed your coffee today.”

“Always the bloody coffee,” Ianto grumbled into his pillow.

“And the suits,” Jack said. “Go to sleep, Ianto.”

“I’m asleep,” Ianto told him, and got a quiet huff of laughter in response.

There was a familiar warm body pressed up against his and he could get back to work tomorrow and Myfanwy would receive him with shrieks of pleasure as was always the case when he’d been away for a while and Tosh and Gwen would want to know what he’d done with himself and Owen would make snarky comments and Jack would flirt outrageously and he was never taking another day off again no matter what Jack said and he’d cuff himself to Jack’s chair if need be although Jack would probably enjoy that a little too much…

Ianto fell asleep feeling secure.

~fin