Jack was starting to have a hard time focusing on Tosh's report and was considering asking her to resubmit it with 60% less techno-babble. That couldn't be right, though. Jack had no trouble following tech-talk, never had. He'd been a 51st century Time Agent, for crying out loud.
Checking his watch, Jack realized what it was – 3:00 had come and gone, but no coffee had appeared on his desk. Jack frowned. That wasn't supposed to happen. And where was Ianto's delicious smile (and delicious bottom) to go with the coffee? It just wouldn't do.
Jack pushed away from his desk and headed up to the tourist office where Ianto had been since morning. He couldn't help shaking his head and Gwen's off-key singing along to Christmas songs. It certainly filled the Hub with holiday spirit, along with those fairy lights and tinsel strung up around the place.
"Hey, gorgeous," Jack said, attempting not to get himself caught in those awful beads Ianto still had in that doorway.
"Good afternoon," Ianto replied automatically, not taking his eyes from the computer monitor, or his hands from under his arms.
Jack gave him a look for a minute. "Uh… ya know… a nice, hot cup of coffee does wonders when you're cold."
Ianto stubbornly shook his head.
Ok, that wasn't good. A coffee strike was bad. Especially in winter, in the afternoon. Really bad. An invasion of Sontarans wouldn't be as bad a winter afternoon coffee strike. Jack wondered who'd brought this on them – Owen, most likely. Or himself, but he couldn't think of anything he'd done, or not done, to merit no coffee for the whole team. Either way, there was only one way out of it.
Jack cranked the charm up to 11 and slipped around Ianto's desk to slide in behind him with kisses to the back of his neck and arms around his waist.
"Stop that," Ianto said flatly. "It won't get me to go down there and anyone could walk in here."
Jack grinned. "Ok, then how about if I'm the one going down?"
"Stop it. No."
"Ok. I didn't want to resort to this…." Jack knelt beside Ianto and looked up with his best pleading-puppy face. "Please? I'm dying down there without coffee. Don't leave me like this. Please? I'll do anything you want."
"Not going, Jack. Not unless it's gone."
"Unless what's gone?" Could there be a loose Weevil Ianto was avoiding? No, of course not….
"The music, Jack. It's been three days of it and if I go down there and hear that bloody awful 'Winter Wonderland' one more time, I'll go fucking spare. I can't even work in the archives because I swear I can even hear it down there. She must be piping through the bloody intercom."
"Ah," Jack said, judiciously not laughing as he stood up again. "So, if I make the music stop, we can have coffee again?"
"Yes."
"Consider it done. Come on," he said, practically pulling Ianto along with him.
The music had only got louder by the time they got back down to the Hub and Jack was starting to see Ianto's point. Christmas music really was never good music. Jack was about to announce a moratorium on music in the Hub, for the good of the order, when the lyrics of the melodic offering of the moment struck him.
"OK, what? Seriously? What kind of idiot…. No. Just no." Jack flipped open his wrist strap and killed the sound system. "They are not pets! And, really, after the last few Christmases, who would even begin to think that was funny?"
Gwen sat there looking incredulous while Ianto stood beside Jack with his best "I fully support our Captain, and, by the way, I told you so," demeanour.
"That is a valid point," Tosh said, secretly thrilled to have the music silenced so she could concentrate on the equation she's been working at all day.
"I don't know what you're all complaining about," Owen muttered, coming through the Hub with greenish goo up to his elbows. "We all get aliens for Christmas regardless of whether we want them or not!"
