Archive of Our Own ^beta

         Jack Harkness was not known for being a patient man. That was the great thing about being the boss of Torchwood—if you demanded something, you usually got it. Quick, smooth, and painless. That’s how Jack liked things. So when nearly three weeks had gone by and he still hadn’t gotten a call from Ianto Jones….Well. It just wasn’t to Jack’s taste.

         Not that he was pining or anything like that. He honestly just couldn’t understand why fixing a coffee machine was taking so long. He started to wonder if making plans to go over a stranger’s house (because, really, that’s what he was: a stranger) to have…coffee (?)...had been such a good idea. What if Ianto was an alien in disguise? Lord knows Cardiff had seen enough of those. What if Ianto was sent to spy on him and Torchwood? It seemed unlikely that he would keep Jack away this long if he was. But, you can never be too careful when it comes to flirting with someone that might jeopardize the secrecy of your secret organization. There are all sorts of tactics that can be played. Trust me. He knows from previous experience.

         Maybe he didn’t really want to have Jack over. Maybe he just said those things to get Jack off his back.

         Nope. That wasn’t it.

         Maybe he’d gotten shy again. Maybe he’d lost the number. Maybe he had someone else. Maybe he’d been mauled by a Weevil.

         The point behind all these “maybes” was Jack didn’t know what had happened to the ever-distracting Ianto Jones and his delicious coffee, and it was pissing him off. And as the Rift monitor blared throughout the Hub, Jack accepted with a huff that he was going to have to be pissed off even longer…but not as long as he expected.

         Pulling up Greyfriars Rd, Jack, Suzie, Tosh, and Owen dashed out of the SUV, Jack bellowing commands at the rest of the team as they all headed inside of the Glam Nightclub…to find everything perfectly normal.

         “What the hell?” Jack said, shielding his eyes against the flashing lights as he scanned the room. He raised his voice over the pounding music. “Tosh, are you sure this is the place?”

         “Of course I’m sure, Jack. Look!” She thrust her PDA towards him so he could examine it. “Alright, Tosh,” said Owen, “then why is it that the only running that’s going on here is people running to throw up in the toilet?” Suzie shot him a glare that shut him up quickly.

         “I swear, the signal came from here. Maybe the aliens just…haven’t made themselves known yet. Could still be settling? Or they could be very small?” she suggested, looking to Jack for backup. He shrugged. “Could be. Let’s spread out, cover different spots of the club. Nothing shows up, I’ll head to the roof.” Jack paused as he glanced around. “Keep a lookout for any behavior weirder than what’s to be expected here,” he added, nodding towards a group of particularly bad dancers. And with that, he took the lead in dispersing the team.

         He headed towards the huge booths lining the walls, which were filled with laughing, chatting, drinking, and snogging. He gently pushed through the clusters of people, eyeing them closely for any alien-like signs. Occasionally, he’d catch someone looking him over. He’d grin before turning his face away. Not interested. Not now. Not tonight.

         That is, until his gaze landed on a familiar face; one that made his stomach flip.

         Ianto Jones was sitting four booths away. He was hunched over, looking at his mobile intently, seemingly oblivious to everything going on around him.

         And boy, did he look gorgeous as ever.

         Taking note of his current position in the room, Jack quickly made his way to the bar. Tosh could have told him a bus-sized Weevil had come through the Rift, and he still would have made time to order a drink in that moment of time. Gingerly making his way back through the crowd, he finally made it to Ianto’s booth. He stood there for a moment, right in front of him. The young man didn’t notice. He was so engrossed in whatever was on his screen. Although a little put out, Jack couldn’t help but be grateful for those few moments. A black racer jacket covered Ianto’s dark purple button-down. He wore a pair of black jeans that looked like they were wearing thin; even from this point of view, they were obviously just as fitted as the last pair he’d seen him in. He was intense. Focused. Undisturbed. Utterly and annoyingly handsome.

         A sight like that is good for the soul.

         And, apparently, too good to last.

         Ianto finally looked up at the man and mouthed an obvious “Shit.”

         “What?” Jack said, taking a sip of the coffee in his hand. “It’s not that bad. But I’m sure you could do better.” He shot him his emptiest wink—it barely dripped charm—before sliding onto the bench opposite him. All Ianto could do was stare with his mouth slightly open.

         “Long time no see.” Jack tried his best to sound as if he wasn’t bristling. Which he wasn’t, thank you very much.

         “Yeah....” Ianto said cagily. “Two weeks, has it been?”

         “Nearly three.”

         “Ah.”

         Ianto’s eyes flicked to his screen, then flicked away. He seemed to fidget a bit.

         “Coffee machine still broken?” Jack asked in a faux-casual tone. What was wrong with him? The kid wasn’t some heartbroken ex. They hadn’t even slept together. So why the hell was Jack suddenly feeling so defensive? What did he even have to be defensive about?

         “No,” Ianto murmured, eyes still dancing between Jack’s gaze and his mobile. Finally, the penny seemed to drop. Jack leaned his head back against the booth and crossed his arms.

         “You could have told me you were with someone.”

         “What?” Ianto said, his full attention finally on Jack. “What do you mean?”

         Jack let out a breathy laugh. “Oh, come on, Ianto Jones. I’m pretty, but I’m not stupid. No one looks at their phone that much in a nightclub unless they’re expecting someone. So. He—or she—or whatever—stood you up?”

         Ianto squinted at him.

         “You must be very distracted right now, Jack,” he said, a smile almost quirking his lips for the first time. “Because I’m not holding a mobile.”

         Just as Jack opened his mouth to say something, two sounds instead of his voice filled the nightclub. One was a beeping coming from the device in Ianto’s hands. The other was a scream.

         Jack’s head snapped to face the direction of the mayhem and, as he bolted out of his seat, he briefly forgot Ianto Jones.

         Seeing Toshiko, he made a grab for her hand, and together they charged towards the sea of club patrons running in the opposite direction. “What is it, Jack?” Tosh asked as she strained her neck in a futile attempt to see over the heads of the crowd. Jack scanned the room once more and spotted Suzie elbowing her way over to them.

         “Where’s Owen?” Jack asked as they all linked arms in another attempt to get through the mob. “He dove into the thick of it, the idiot!” Suzie yelled, shoving forward. “He was trying to get to the girl who screamed, but what’s the point if he gets crushed?!”

         “Did you see why she screamed?”

         They finally broke their way through the biggest part of the crowd, and suddenly had a pretty good idea of why the poor girl had screamed.

         “A vampire!” gasped Tosh.

         “No,” Jack shook his head, pulling his arms out of their link and pushing onward, faster than ever. He yelled back to them, “Saturnyn! Can’t believe one’s here….Thought they all died out, but,” he grinned, “species get a kick out of fooling you like that. They use a perception filter! Look like vampires, aren’t vampires. If this is what they hide themselves as, imagine the real thing. Trust me, not a good look to wake up to in the morning—”

         Jack stopped mid-sentence and mid-stride as he saw Ianto Jones ahead of him, jumping from booth to booth. Finally, he lept off of a table behind the Saturnyn, and with one swift movement, took a stun gun from the pocket of his jacket and jabbed the fanged woman in the back. As she crumbled to the floor, her body began to flicker as if it was made of an old TV screen. By the time Jack had reached her and a panting Ianto, it settled on its original form. Jack looked from her to the breathless man. He tried to keep his tone even—really, he did—but he couldn’t help the sparks of anger that flared in his voice.

         “Why do I get the feeling you’ve been hiding something from me?”

         Jack watched from his place at the bar as Tosh and Suzie carried the stunned Saturnyn out of the nightclub and to the SUV. Owen stayed behind with the girl who had been attacked as she slowly regained consciousness. Once the paramedics arrived, he followed them and the girl to the hospital. Jack’s attention was called back to the present as the bartender (what a loyal bartender, Jack thought. What a stupid man, staying here after all that.) handed him his drinks: two glasses of scotch and one glass of water. Jack turned to make his way across the nightclub before stopping and glancing back at the bartender.

         “Have one on me,” Jack said, pushing one of the scotches back to him. “You’ve had quite the night.” The young man’s chest rose with a grateful sigh as he shakily grabbed at the scotch, downing it in one gulp.

         Finally, Jack returned, and for the second time that night, stood in front of one tense Ianto Jones. The young man had refused to sit down, so they simply leaned against a booth. Jack tried to catch his eyes, but the young man refused to accept his gaze. “Good,” Jack thought. “Nothing like the gnawing feeling of knowing someone is staring you down.”

         “So,” he said, handing the scotch to him, “How does someone like you end up in a place like this? A place where an alien just happens to be, and you just happen to decide, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll tuck my stun gun in tonight, just to be safe.’ How does that happen, Ianto Jones?” He continued his stare down. Jack was pretty good at this by now, so he wasn’t surprised by the fact that he didn’t get the response he wanted immediately. Most people cowered before they conceded defeat.

         “Jack, please—”

         “I’m talking,” growled Jack. Ianto immediately shut his mouth...but nevertheless, you could debate about the trace of a challenging arched eyebrow there. “I don’t want your excuses. I want to know why the hell you’re here. Did UNIT send you to check up on us rogues? And if you were planted here by someone else, why would they have to send in a pretty coffee boy to do the job? Why not come directly to me?”

         A jolt of anger shot up through Ianto. He was more than that. Of course he was, and he’d be damned if Torchwood Three was going to tell him otherwise after seeing him jump across the length of a club and stun an alien. But, naturally, none of that came out of his mouth. Cool, calm, and collected, Ianto Jones quietly and slowly stated, “I haven’t been sent as a spy. No organization has “planted” me here, as you so dramatically put it, because I don’t belong to one. I worked for the Torchwood Institute. It fell. Now I’m back home. Just an unemployed alien specialist with some salvaged kit.” At this point, with a thin smile, he held up what Jack had earlier misjudged as a mobile. It turned out to be (if Jack was being perfectly honest with himself) a much more impressive version of Tosh’s PDA.

         “If you were that worried about me, you should have looked me up. And, no,” Ianto said, a first real smile starting to twitch on his lips, “I don’t just mean in the phonebook. Satisfied?”

         Jack took a deep breath. The more Ianto explained, the more Jack felt uneasiness growing in his stomach. It turned and punched him from the inside. He shot Ianto a wry look before pressing his fingers to his comm.

         “Toshiko. Yeah, yeah, I’ll be at the Hub soon. Can you do a background check for me? I’m looking for one Ianto Jones. That’s—” He looked to Ianto, who rolled his eyes before hissing, “I-A-N-T-O.” Jack repeated it and waited. Eventually, the interrogee began to notice the color draining from his interrogator's face. Jack signed off without a goodbye and turned his gaze to Ianto. His eyes seemed to droop.

         “Shit.”

         A satisfied smirk fell onto the young man’s face. “Finally getting the picture, are we?”

         Jack simply let out another brusque, cutting, “Shit.”

         “What?”

         Jack sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “It's nothing. There's nothing we can do about it now. Just let it happen...and, God, don't hate me.”
         “What?” Ianto said. “Why are you…oh.”

         He fell forward, reaching a hand out to steady himself on Jack’s shoulder. He looked up into Jack’s face to see the regret painted onto his eyes.
         “What did you do to me?”

         “Retcon. I thought—wait, so Torchwood One really never nicked our formula? Thought you would’ve worked up an immunity or someth—Jesus, sorry. Anyways, Ianto, I'm sorry—hang on, please—”

         “I don't know how!” Ianto moaned, clutching Jack’s shoulder til it hurt. “You've fucking drugged me!”

         “And suddenly the flashiness of Torchwood London isn't that impressive compared to Men in Black-esque amnesia pills, now is it?” Jack tried to joke desperately as he gently placed the man against the booth to keep him upright. He was pretty sure he heard something along the lines of “bastard” fall from Ianto’s tired lips.

         “Hang on, please. I’ll get you home. I promise I’ll tell you everything when you wake up. What’s your address?” The young man growled at him. “Alright, alright,” Jack said defensively. “Leaving me no choice—” He gave Ianto an apologetic glance before reaching into his trousers’ pockets.

         “Bet you...planned this whole thing...just to do that….”

         Jack let out a breathy, empty laugh as he retrieved Ianto’s keys and wallet. Good. Ianto was the sort of person to keep his address on his key ring. Stupid thing to do, really, but good in this situation nevertheless.

         “Believe it or not—despite what some people like to say about me—I like my sex to fit the basic definition of sex. It's not exactly the same thing when someone’s verging on unconscious.” He let out a huff as he pulled Ianto towards him and hoisted him over his shoulder. “Ianto Jones, you are heavier than you look.”

         “Mphfuckoff.”

         “Should’ve told me that nearly three weeks ago. Can't get rid of me now!” And with one more adjustment to the poor man’s position on Jack’s shoulder, he headed out of the Glam Nightclub—but not before slipping a generous tip into the pocket of the very much asleep (and very much retconned) bartender.

He flagged down a cab and gently placed the sleeping Ianto onto the seat before closing the door behind them.

         Jack couldn’t remember the last time he had hated stairs so acutely. But, after a tiresome and painful trip (especially for Ianto; he was bound to discover some odd bruises in the morning), the two men successfully made it to the door leading to Ianto’s flat. Jack let out a low whistle as the door swung open to reveal a tiny room, sparsely adorned with a couch, a coffee table, and a tiny TV. To the left was a neat and shining (but, again, rather empty) kitchen, and to the right a hallway that Jack could only assume led to a bathroom and bedroom.

         Well. Only one way to find out. He maneuvered Ianto’s position on his shoulder one more time before marching into the bedroom and laying him onto the bed—okay, dropping him onto the bed. Jack may’ve been fit, but immortality didn’t give him super-strength or anything. Give the man a break.

         He let his eyes fall onto the young face below him. Ianto seemed, for the moment, at peace. Jack wondered when was the last time the member of the fallen Torchwood Institute had felt anything close to “at peace.” It had only been a few months since the attack. Jack pictured the long list of the dead, and as he continued to gaze at this calm, blissed face, he tried not to let his mind wander to a faraway grin that playfully held her tongue between her teeth, and how he would never see it again.

         Shaking the memory away, Jack began to become aware of how uncomfortable Ianto must be. He sent an unseen grimace his way (another apology unaccepted) before beginning to carefully pry off Ianto’s shoes. He slipped a gentle hand behind his head and pulled a pillow underneath it. He stepped back to look at his handy work and deemed it the least he could do for Ianto Jones. A thought struck Jack, making him slip back into the living room. He searched for the phone, and sure enough, there was a pen and a pad of paper next to it.

         Suddenly, his plan didn’t seem as brilliant as it had when it first came to him. How exactly do you properly explain to someone that, “Hey, you tased a vampiric bug alien last night and I thought you were a spy so I drugged you, but I wish I hadn’t, and those jeans do look as good on you as I expected they did, and it’s nice to see you so relaxed, even if it’s because you’re sleeping because of the drug I gave you, and I've been waiting all night and all morning for you to wake up, and boy, is this a fine morning for that coffee that I haven’t stopped thinking about since you gave me a taste of it nearly three weeks ago.”

         (Seriously. If you know how to properly explain that in a note, let Jack know. He’s still wondering.)

         He scribbled down the best attempt he could muster and read it over. He tore the note up and put the pieces inside his greatcoat’s right pocket. He tried again. Those pieces went into the left pocket. He ran a hand through his hair, a spark of anger surging all the way to his fingertips, causing them to tug at the strands. He couldn’t get it right. How could he get it right? Jones Ianto Jones, the pretty boy with the studded belt and the smiling eyes was lying unconscious in his bed and it was all Jack’s fault, and not in the way he had planned.

         Finally, he decided to stick to the bare minimum facts. No emotion, no apologies. He could do that. He could do that, and deal with the explanations and everything else later. But now, stick to business.

         He opened the bedroom door (hand gripping the doorknob too tightly), and set the paper on the floor where Ianto was guaranteed to see it when he woke up. Jack took a deep breath and closed his eyes before taking a risk and peeking at Ianto one more time. His heart began to race. He was beautiful, and Jack had hurt him. He began to remember a poem that an old boyfriend used to read him. A few lines crept into his mind, clawing away at its insides.

           Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party

                      and seduced you

           and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.

         Who could forgive someone for that? Jack left the room and sunk onto the couch, resting his chin on his steepled fingers. It was going to be a long night, Jack thought to himself. And he deserved every second of it.