Author : Mirumo, but everyone outside Fanfiction calls me Claire because, well ... this is my real name.
Title : Colleagues night
Summary : Gwen always has great subjects to talk about ... Set before 1x12, but not so sure when after. After 1x06, at least, I think. I'll explain why later.
Rating : As always in everything I write, there is in principle nothing shocking, but if you are reticent to read anything about homosexual relations, just go away.
Themes : Sex, friendship, romance, anchovies
Pairing : Jack/Ianto, and mention of everyone with other characters : Gwen/OC, Ianto/OC, Owen/OC, Tosh/OC, Tosh/Mary, Jack/OC, a bit of Gwen/Owen bashing ...
Disclaimer : Nope, still isn't mine, sadly. In a more formal way : I don't own Torchwood and its characters, Russell T Davies and the BBC just lent them to me. But I invented other characters to fit with the story.
A few words from the author : An idea for an OS that came out of the blue in my mind. The argument is pretty thin : it's a mix between Gwen's game « Who was the last person you snogged ? » in « Countryside », and an episode from the first season of Friends, « The One with the blackout », where they're talking about the weirdest place where they had sex, while there isn't any electricity.
Please comment. There is no pretention in this, I just wanted to write a fun Friends-like scene between the team that could possibly take place in the show.
It had been an exhausting week : Weevils coming out of nowhere, the police getting in the way of an inquiry, the more unstable than ever Rift drifiting soporific alien purposes in the streets of Cardiff, and Jubilee Pizza was closed for 14 days, forcing Torchwood to find another fast-food provider. As Rhys was off to see his college friends a few towns away, Gwen didn't have a lot to do on Friday after work and had suggested that they could all stay at the Hub for a « colleagues night ». No one had seemed very enthusiastic at the idea, but the young woman had also brought sandwiches, two pizzas and beers she had bought in a bar on the corner of the street : food was a decisive argument. Thus, they were all sitten around the low table next to the stairs leading to the autopsy bay. Jack and Tosh had took place in the couch, under the « Torchwood » sign, while Owen, Gwen and Ianto had brought desk chairs. A few half-full cup of coffees layed around between the empty bottles of beer. Sandwiches were quite good, which was a relief as pizzas happened to be garnished with anchovies, and only Ianto and Jack liked it. The two men therefore shared the pizzas on the corner of the table, while the rest of the team had taken over the sandwiches, and Jack's comment « Why would anyone dislike anchovies ? », emphazised by Ianto's approving nod, had lead to forty-five minute debate.
However, conversations around sea-food had dried up, and Gwen had found a better subject :
« Oh come on, it's fun !
- Childish, Gwen I think the word you're looking for is « childish ». » answered wearily Owen while opening another beer and putting his feets on the table, regardless to Ianto cleaning it up not two hours ago. Nevertheless, the young man's mockery didn't dissuade Gwen, and she said joyfully :
« OK, I'll start ! I was ... fifteen years old, he was my boyfriend. His name was -
- Let me guess. Rhys ?
- Yeah, very funny, Owen. No, it was Andrew. He was very cute, we did it at his home when his parents weren't here. We stayed together for a few more months after, and then he went to another highschool. My first love ... » she added in a melodramatic tone. « Right, I did it ! It's sombody else's turn ! »
Regarding Tosh and Ianto's shifty eyes, Jack's looking into space gaze and Owen's sarcastic expression, nobody was eager to tell the others the story of their first sexual experience. But nothing seemed to stop Gwen.
« Perfect, I'll pick one !
- How are you even going to do that ?
- Just tell me a number, I'll count you and see who will be the last one.
- Great, it's primary school all over again ... » sighed Owen, but he grumbled after a few seconds of silence : « Fourteen ... »
The young woman started to whisper numbers, pointing in succession at her co-workers, and stopped with a broad smile :
« Fourteen ! Ianto ?
- God ... »
There was a clear exasperated rolling of eyes from the Coffee boy, and he wondered how he could get out of that one, but the keen glances of the others were staring at him. He briefly noticed that not one of them had surely been this eager to know something about him in the nearly year he had been here. However, he resigned himself, and sighed :
« My girlfriend Emily, I was sixteen.
- And where was that ? » asked playfully Jack. Ianto seemed really reluctant to answered that, and Gwen encouraged him by saying :
« Anyway, it can't be worse than going for the first time to third base in the toilets of a gas station, you know.
- Seriously ? » asked Toshiko with an expression of revulsion, while the men burst out laughing.
« Yeah ... »
It appeared to have cheered up Ianto, who conceded :
« Not so far from it, actually : the locker room.
- Really ? » Jack had a mischievous look in his eyes, to which the Welshman answered with a skilful raise of eyebrows and a half smile.
Gwen however broke the penetrating and flirty glance they were casting at each other with a joyful clap of hands.
« So, Owen, what about you ? Think you can beat me on this one ?
- OK ... », answered the doctor, as he was stretching with tiredness, « as much as it pains me to admit it, I'll have to say that I'm like Ianto. Same age.
- Sixteen, really ? » teased him impishly Gwen.
« Yeah, well, you have breasts, don't you ? It's easier for you.
- They certainly work on you ...
- Only because you're throwing them at me and it would be rude not to notice all your efforts, Cooper. Anyway, it was with some girl, French, I think. Pauline, or Paula, maybe. Summer holidays, we'd had sangria. Did it on the beach. » he concluded, like the narration of an exploit.
« That's quite a romantic place. » commented Toshiko with a thin smile.
« Nah, not so much : fucking sand scratches ... »
Jack giggled. « So, you got hammered, shagged a girl you don't remember and all you got was itching. Classy. Tosh, I hope you did better than that ? »
The Asian girl blushed, looking steadily at the bottle of beer she was holding.
« I don't ... really want to.
- Oh come on, Tosh. » urged on Owen. « How bad can it be ? Unless ... you've done it, right ? »
Toshiko threw him an exasperated look, and answered with hesitation :
« I was ... nineteen, it was my first year of university. »
Her co-workers looked at her in astonishment. Finally, Jack asked softly :
« Only nineteen years-old ? I mean ... it's not a competition or anything, and I might understand if you looked like a Weevil, but ...
- Hell, Gwen put out at fifteen ! » approved Owen.
« Well, where I grew up, there wasn't a lot to do. » coped Gwen.
Jack smiled at her comment, then turned back to Tosh :
« So ... first boyfriend, or ?
- No, no, not the first. He wasn't exactly my boyfriend, actually. Just ... a friend. A close friend. We were in my student room, and it just ... happened. »
Looking at the still puzzled and somehow suspicious glances of the others, she added :
« I happened to not wanting to, before ! And it was nice. And we stayed friends afterwards.
- Surely the healthiest experience of us all, in fact. » infered Jack.
The captain saw his co-workers simultaneously turning to him with a witty expression.
« What ?
- Well, captain, » began Gwen with a bantering smile, « there is one person who didn't share with us all his experience, and I think it might be you.
- Really ? » he grinned.
« Oh come on, Jack, » lost patience Owen, « Gwen only suggested this infantile game so she could hear your shagging stories, don't disappoint her ! »
Jack ignored the murdering stare and the insults the young woman was beginning to adress to Owen, and said, mimicking an intense meditation :
« I'll be glad to, but what sort of partner are we talking about ? Male or female ? Human or ... non-human ?
- Wait ... What gender was your very first partner ? »
Jack smiled at Tosh, gave her a little wink and answered wickedly :
« Both. »
Toshiko let out a little gasp and put her hand on her mouth to hide her confusion, Gwen started to giggle frankly, Ianto bit his lower lip with a grin, and Owen exclaimed with fierce hostility and disgust :
« What ? No ! No ! I don't even want to know what that means, Harkness, but there is no way you're telling us anything more ! For a second, I forgot how sleaze and creepy you were ...
- Oh really, Owen ? Then what don't you tell us how was your first time with a man ?
- What ? » he answered, offended. « I've never had sex with a guy !
- Right. Cause twenty-something lads living in the city and going out in bars every night never drink and never wake up in stranger's beds. »
Jack's snooty and mocker stare apparently got on Owen's nerves, who gave in after several dozens of seconds.
« OK, OK ! I might have ... had threesomes ... from time to time. So what ? » he added, vainly defending himelf. « There was a girl, everytime.
- Everytime, surely, but all the time? » inquired the boss with the smile of the one who knows the answer.
The doctor's sudden blush and devious glance set going a hysterical laugh between the girls, something he obviously rather disliked. He asked Gwen with an aggressive tone :
« So, and you, Gwen ? Any lesbian experience ?
- What ? No, not really. Just ... made out with friends in highschool, for fun. Oh, and that girl possessed by an alien, on my first day here. Nothing wild. Toshiko, however ... »
Tosh had a content, and maybe a little nostalgic smile on her face.
« It was Mary.
- Now wait ! » barged in again Owen. « She was an alien !
- Well ... Her body was human, and on the contrary of that girl Gwen snogged, she knew what she was doing. And she wanted it. » she noticed casually, perfectly knowing that the thought of it would put Owen in a half ecstatic daydream. And it did.
With their doctor shutting up, the silence in the Hub was finally enjoyable. Grumbles of Weevils echoed from the underground, the piercing screams of Myfanwy split regularly their ears, and the working sounds of the Hub made them feel like they were in an old carcass of metal, but without Owen's snarky comments, everything seemed quiet. Gwen took the last sip of beer of her bottle, and handed it to Ianto who had rose to clean up a bit.
« What about you, Ianto ? »
The Welshman stopped in his action, as Owen suddenly woke up from his semi-trance and huffed surprisingly :
« Teaboy ?
- Why not ? So, Ianto, anything we should know ? »
His legendary self-control and stoicism might had been helpful in the past to Ianto Jones, but this time, it didn't do any good to him, as he completely forgot to put on his poker face. Instead, he cast an impulsive and accidental glance to Jack, as Jack had raised his head at Gwen's question and adressed him exactly the same look. Something between amusement, remembrance of raunching nights, the pledge that there would be other ones, and, maybe, a tiny bit of embarrassement.
Looking at Jack and Ianto spoke for itself.
Tosh coughed with embarrassement, blushing brighter than she had done when she had walked in on Jack « taking care » of a « friend ». Because this time, it was her friend, and imagining Ianto doing anything non-professionnal with Jack was like incest. No matter how weirdly stirring it looked in her head.
Gwen started to chuckle to hide her own confusion. Apart from a little voice in her head screaming her jealousy, she had to admit that the idea of the two men was ... well, very hot, and kind of a turn-on. Good God, she really needed to be examinated.
Owen rolled his eyes with the disgusted and terrorised expression of the one who just saw the devil, and rose on his feet immediatly : « Great, now I'm scarred for life. If you'll excuse me, I'll be down at the bar boozing myself to death to forget the image you guys put in my head ». He would never have mentionned that the image didn't look so bad ...
As he stood on the lift, ready to leave, the doctor added : « And the Hub is not a ... game place ! If I ever walk in on you two, you'll be dead before you know it ! »
Funnily enough, their reactions were quite similar to the ones they had when, a while later, in the tourist office, they found the two men in a compromising situation.
Post-OS comments :
So, here comes my explanation of « When does this fic take place in the first season ? », a question I'm not really sure to know how to answer.
First of all, it sets of course after the first episode, as Gwen is already here. She also is quite comfortable with the team, at least enough to talk about sex with them, so I wouldn't say that it's in the very first ones. Moreover, I don't think Ianto would be like this in my text if he was still in his Lisa's issue, so it must be after the fourth episode. Above all, as Gwen had her « Who did you last snog ? » game in the sixth episode, it would be logical if this took place after it, like if she remembered it and wanted to ... sex it up.
However, my theory is that Ianto and Jack have been sleeping together more than once before the eighth episode, though I know that quite a lot of people think that this one is the beginning of them shagging : Ianto wouldn't be this comfortable when he deals with all the innuendos (most of them coming from him !) if he had never had sex with Jack before, it seems coherent. I actually think that they already slept together before the beginning of the serie itself, even if it was just one time : considering how hot Ianto is + how hot Jack is + Ianto's need of comfort + Jack's hormones (the ones that attract people and the ones that made him shag half of the population in every planet) + the clear sexual tension between them from the moment they met (2x12, « Fragments »), I'm having troubles believing that those two men spent more than a year without doing anything more than random flirting. So I wouldn't narrow it down and say that this couldn't have happened before « They keep killing Suzie » and the mythic stopwatch exchange.
However again, I also added some Gwen/Owen bashing those conversations where they were teasing each other through constant altercations about sex. And this only happened in the first four episodes of the season, so ... I'm lost.
Finally, it nevertheless has to take place before the twelfth episode, « Captain Jack Harkness », when Jack and Tosh are blocked in 1941, because there is this altercation between Ianto and Owen :
« [...] You're just a teaboy.
- I'm much more than that. Jack needs me.
- In your dreams, Ianto. In your sad wet dreams where you're his part-time shag, maybe. »
I'm not sure he would have made this comment if he hadn't knew that Jack and Ianto had slept together at least once, and his reaction in my fic wouldn't be logical if he thought that Ianto was (at least) fantasizing about Jack. Plus, the team wouldn't be taking quietly a beer and talking about sex a Friday night if the Rift was open, as it is between the twelfth and thirteenth episode.
So there it is : this takes logically place between the sixth and twelfth episodes. It took me more time to write this than the fic itself, and it was totally useless, but great to share with you guys.
Lots of virtual kisses, C.