The Memo.
OR: The time when John Hart made sense, Gwen was put in her place, and Jack and Ianto got a laugh. Janto: John Hart ships it. Warning: JANTO. For Janto shipper's eyes only! Gwen-Bashing! Humor!
NOT ACTUALLY A NEW STORY. It took me reading this after I posted it to realize just how desperately I need a beta that isn't Word Spell Check. I will employ Beta on the principle of getting to read it first (since I have no other currency).
Disclaimer: No, I'm secretly RTD and Bash myself and my favorite pairing deliberately because I have MPD. Right. No.
HAHAHAHA
"So, where's the eternal pairing gone off to?" John Hart asked brazenly, holding…
Woah woah woah…. That made no sense without a back story.
Well, about ten minutes prior…
It was a quiet day at torchwood. And: translation for anyone who doesn't know, that means that three things were inevitably happening. A) Jack and Ianto had disappeared to who knows/wants to know where, B) Gwen was busy in a wet fantasy about Jack (Yuck.) and C) Tosh was actually working.
Of course, all of that changed when John Hart decided to walk through the rolling door. Two guns were pointed at him immediately, a third only after a brief pause, (presumably for Gwen to button up her shirt).
"Great Gwen. You have the worst reaction time ever." Owen commented, snarling. John rolled his eyes.
"Seriously, this is the welcome I get?" He did NOT put his hands above his head, instead talking to someone behind him. "See, I told you! They have no respect for individualism. Or young love."
"I can see that." Commented Andy Davidson, who walked through the door behind John, much to the team's surprise. Well, surprise was a mild way to put it. Gwen dropped her gun, and a bullet narrowly missed putting a hole in John's foot.
"Oi!"
Gwen shrugged, clearly not sorry. Andy scowled.
"And I can see Gwen is just as much of a Bitch as ever." He snarkily added. John rolled his eyes.
"There isn't a cure for that yet." Then, he turned around, facing the other two torchwood agents.
"So, where's the eternal pairing gone off to?" John Hart asked brazenly, holding his boyfriend with one arm.
NOW that made sense.
"The WHAT?!" Gwen shrieked, before Tosh had a chance to squeal (she had always supported Andy switching teams, and from how he was cuddling into John's neck, she figured it was safe to demand her money out of the office pool. Oh, and she was the leader of Cardiff's "Harkness and Jones" supporters.)
John raised an eyebrow. "You didn't get the memo?"
The looks shared conveyed that they had, indeed, not been aware of any such memo existing. Though Owen took it on himself to help the others realize the freaking obvious, bless him.
"What Memo?"
Andy rolled his eyes. "The Pairing memo?"
More blank stares. Andy sighed. John could explain this one. John grinned.
"Well, basically, the world at large has accepted my pairing theory as fact." He smirked, ruffling Andy's hair affectionately. "And it's about time too."
"What exactly is the pairing theory?" Tosh asked, just as Jack and Ianto managed to find time to make an appearance. Jack simply grinned as John talked, having already read the memo. This is what led to him and Ianto disappearing for the extended period of time. And the hickey.
"Well, basically, if you fancy two people being in a relationship, you take their names, put them together where the letters are the same, and judge it based off of that."
"Like what?" Gwen asked cautiously (though she was very curious as to what this meant about her and Jack.)
"Like Janto." Andy interrupted. "Jack and Ianto. Janto."
Jack couldn't help but laugh at that. John shot him a look, taking in their disheveled state, and simply muttered, "So that's where their memo ended up. They need to send these things to Eyecandy."
"They did." Ianto yelled back. At that, both he and Jack started laughing. John shrugged.
"Anyway, their pairing is pretty much set in stone. Even if, say, the holy RTD were to have Ianto die in an alien attack, the pairing would live on in the Real-verse."
"Huh?"
John rolled his eyes. "What are they teaching children in schools in this century?" He wondered uselessly.
"Basically, the better it sounds, the more likely they are to stay together." John condensed.
"Oh, and get to the best part!" Jack interrupted.
"Oh, yeah. That memo? It was a memo stating that Janto was, what, 'an impenetrable, irresistible pairing, which would no doubt last for eternity, which is only to be expected for the Fan-vere's number one gay pairing.'" John recited, smirking at the end.
"It – they – the WHAT?!" Gwen screeched. John winced, Andy rolled his eyes, and Ianto dragged Jack back into his office. They were going to have to get that Memo framed.
"Well, I guess it does sound realistic." Tosh was the first to acquiesce. "And it sort of … flows." She spent the next ten seconds saying 'Janto' different ways. Owen looked like he want to speak, but the tomato soup that had somehow materialized on his face was making it difficult.
"What Owen?" John sighed. At this rate, he was never going to get to the best part.
"What about… um... well, you know. Meandtoshiko…" Owen managed to mumble out.
Andy grinned at him. "You owe me a drink John. Owen was the first to ask."
"Grrr…" John growled. He was actually looking forward to Gwen talking for once. That didn't take long.
"Cooperkness…" she was muttering, writing down different words on a piece of paper. It was clear that she was trying to figure out a better pairing name for herself and Jack than Janto. She wouldn't find one.
"Owen, you and Tosh are already geared as soon as you take her out on that date." John commented, half-heartedly listening to Gwen. It was getting kind-of funny.
"Gweness"
"So what is it called?" tosh asked. She was feeling pretty good about this after all. John and Andy grinned at one another.
"Towen." They answered at the same time. Gwen fell off her chair. It just wasn't fair that everyone else would get apparently perfect names for their crushes, but she had yet to find a good one for her and Jack. (Good luck to her. We all know RTD shipped it enough.)
"That's…"
"Wow…"
"Yeah…"
"Really…"
"We should go on that date."
"Sure Owen. How about tonight?"
"That sounds great."
"Good."
"Good."
"Thanks."
"No, thank you."
They seemed oblivious to the rest of the world during this exchange. John turned his attention back to Gwen, who was still trying to figure out names.
"Gwack." He interrupted her, knowing she would never get it. "That's the paring name for you and Jack. Gwack."
"But that doesn't have any shared syllables!" Gwen complained. John rolled his eyes.
"Because what you're trying to do goes against the laws of pairings. It was in that memo. They sent one to every fandom. There's a list of all the possible pairing names, and they're ranked."
"So where does… Gwack… fall?"
Andy snorted. "Beneath John and I. and that's saying something. We have, like, six supporters!"
"What – why?"
John had the common sense to laugh at that. Tosh gave her a 'WTF did Jack ever see in you?' look, and Owen was too busy on cloud 7 and ¾ to care.
"Because it sounds like the anemic spawn of a sheep and a duck that has just started puberty?" John suggested. "Seriously, the Pairing police have spoken. If there is no good name, they make one up that sticks."
"You do have hope though." Andy supplied. "Gwys sounds quite nice. The pairing is quite popular actually, seeing as most shippers seem to prefer not to break up functioning marriages."
"And before you asked, Gwen, you and Owen were doomed from the start." John sighed. "The only options were 'Owen' and 'Gwen'. Unstable relationship there."
Andy could see the welsh woman turning red.
"Oh, so what about you and Gray then, John?"
"That depends on how you look at it." John shrugged. "No way to at all combine the first names either means it's doomed, or it's a 100% flawless pairing."
"Probably the doomed than." Owen supplied, having stopped planning which shirt to wear that evening.
"Yeah, probably."
"What about the two of you?" Tosh asked suddenly. "You and Andy seem to be… content."
"Oh, us." John shrugged. Andy giggled.
"It's the perfect name." he admitted, wrapping an arm around John's neck.
"So what is it?" Gwen demanded. It couldn't be worse than hers, surely. Handy…
"Johndy." They said at the same time. Gwen's mouth fell open. Normally, John would have made a comment along the lines of "Gwen, close your mouth you're letting the flies out", but he was busy kissing his boyfriend at the moment.
"WHAT?!"
"It sounds like something we should, like… name our kids or something." Andy admitted, a bit winded. John grinned.
"Alright then, that's going on the top of the names list for the little one."
Andy's mouth fell open. "You – you're – I"
John waited for him to manage a complete sentence. "I'm gonna' be a Tad?" he asked, looking down at John's still flat stomach. (Of course it is. I only invented the baby two days ago.)
John nodded, placing a hand on his stomach, and gesturing to Andy to do the same. The PC did, a little in awe of what apparently happened last night (or the night before).
"I'm Gonna' Be a Tad!" Andy shouted, overjoyed at this revelation. He then proceeded to snog John senseless.
Jack stuck his head out the doorway.
"Oh, good. John finally broke the news to Andy."
"How did it go?" Ianto asked from his perch on Jack's desk.
"Pretty well, I'd guess. 'Cause either Andy is overjoyedly trying to kiss his boyfriends face off, or he's trying to suck his life force out with his tongue."
"So pretty good then." Ianto agreed. "Now come over here." He ordered. Jack snickered, moving to stand between his boyfriend's legs.
"How long do you think it'll take for them to figure it out?" Jack asked quietly. Ianto smiled.
"I think Owen will be the first to notice. We'll have to tell him anyway."
"Alright." Jack sighed, rubbing a hand on his abdomen. "I just can't wait to be a dad!" he chuckled.
"Looks like we're going to have to have a dual baby shower." Ianto commented, pulling Jack close once more.
A great atmosphere of tenderness (except for Gwen) fell over the Torch-Verse that day. And from above, the mighty controllers of the Keyboards, the Authors/Authoresses, showered it with fluff, having commandeered the controls from the corrupt RTD who had wanted to ruin it all.
MEMO_
AN: I couldn't resist, I was on an anti-Gwen binge. And this was a thank-you also to the amazing authors "thesilversun" and "Inexplicably Kyprioth" for introducing me to my new OTP for John! We are three of the four supporters originally mentioned.
And Yes! The Johndy pairing did go up! Thank you to the two newly-converted fans, "Taamar" and "sd4ianto", who reviewed my first posting of this.