Food for Thought
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"
Jack jumped guiltily. He hadn't heard Ianto come back into the house, let alone the kitchen. He contemplated his response. But the facts were undeniable; the evidence weighed very heavily against him. He was standing - trapped - between the fridge and the oven, holding a warm meringue in one hand and a pot of cream in the other. Had he not actually been caught directly swigging from the pot of cream, he thought he might have found a believable excuse. Though he doubted it would have been convincing, given that the last thing Ianto had said to him before he went out was "Whatever you do, don't open the oven door."
"Quality control." he ventured feebly, trying to look cute, hungry, and vulnerable simultaneously. In reality, it made him look as if he had indigestion. Even so, he might still have got away with it. But, as he realized afterwards, his next sentence didn't help his cause: "They're overcooked."
Ianto bent down and retrieved the tray of meringues from the oven, slamming them onto the kitchen work surface so hard that they jumped an inch into the air and Jack jumped six inches in his skin. It didn't escape Ianto's eagle eye that missing from the tray was not only the one he'd caught Jack inflagranti with, but also three others as well, even though the remaining ones had been carefully spaced out equally to try to disguise the gap. He looked piercingly at Jack. "Over cooked, eh?"
"Well, they were a little brownish, they should've been white." He knew instantly that he was digging his own grave. A better response would have been "but they are absolutely delicious."
"Brownish. Brownish? Brownish!" Ianto progressed through various emotions with each word he uttered. He went from disbelief, through disbelief, to disbelief. But still distinctly different flavours of disbelief.
Jack reached for his fifth meringue; Ianto smacked his hand away. "They aren't for you."
Jack looked miserable. Although Ianto didn't cook much, Jack always relished those quiet weekends when they had some time to themselves to live the normal life that he always encouraged Gwen to maintain.
"If they aren't for me, who are they for?" he asked curiously, doing a quick mental check that he hadn't overlooked Gwen's, Owen's, Tosh's or even his own birthday. He concluded he hadn't. Maybe Rhys's? Surely not PC Andy Davidson?
"Myfanwy." said Ianto. "They are for Myfanwy. It's her birthday. That's why I told you not to open the oven."
"Huh?"
"Well, I knew if I left them out cooling, you would have eaten them. Not that you didn't anyhow." he gestured with an outstretched hand, and a look of disappointment, towards the depleted oven tray.
"But, Ianto, it's not the end of the world. It's very sweet that you think of Myfanwy as one of the team, and even bake her a birthday treat. But there were plenty, and I only had a couple."
Ianto didn't even comment on the notion that five constituted 'only a couple'.
"I bought the ingredients from a pet food supplier – the eggs weren't for human consumption and the sugar was extracted from sugar beet passed fit only for animals."
"Oh," Jack looked slightly queasy.
Ianto, on the other hand, cheered up considerably. "Mind, with your constitution, what's the worst that can happen, eh? They can only kill you."