50
Stan looked at the keys dangling from Ianto's hand with confusion.
"The green Austin Martin in the driveway. That's the one he will drive. Best you drive it to the field and then help him slide into the driver's seat and don't explain the controls until you are in the passenger seat or that maniacal daughter of mine will yell 'floor it' and he will run you over, believe me I have a dozen scenarios of what might happen today."
Stan laughed as he accepted the keys from his friend. His good friend, a wonderful one too.
They had arrived that morning and Greg had been pleased with the sofa bed in the main room, big enough for his parents and sleep with him, his sister and brother would take the other beds in the cool little tents in opposite corners of the room.
Owen and Tosh had a chalet as it was a quiet weekend and they were still getting used to the idea of becoming parents as the adoption became more real.
"What if he dings it?" Stan asked with horror as he looked at the expensive machine.
"Jack shot it" Ianto said as it that explained everything, "The engine block got a direct hit so it only has a few miles left, overheats. I am amazed it still goes at all. I can now say with all certainty I am not the only car killer now."
Ianto had told Stan of the previous car 'murders' and he knew Ianto was being silly as the machine looked pristine but also his son was listening and would not worry about damaging it now.
"Come on, you're like death warmed up" Babs chortled as she shoved past and Stan balked as his son roared and followed her unsteadily as he told her he would withhold the kissy lips now.
"Whistling in the graveyard" Ianto said softly, "The best way. Tell him it's OK, he's dying. So what, still has to mind his manners. It's a fact, why make it something other than just part of him now."
"It's getting easier" Stan admitted as Babs leaned over the bonnet of the car in starlet pose with Greg as the boys took shots, "I can look at him and not feel like screaming. I can see him again, not the disease."
"Cancer is an alien monster." Ianto said with that grim frown, "It's a big ugly beast of an arsehole thing and it is not your son, it is the thing in his shadow. Remember that. It is something he cannot escape but it does not define him."
"If it were not for you and your …"
"Hush. Don't start waxing lyrical and being all lovey-dovey. We have partners and I don't think they would understand our love affair" Ianto batted his eyelashes and sashayed away as Stan found himself laughing with uncontainable glee.
For a whole five or six seconds he forgot all together.
For a moment or two his son's cancer was not there in his mind.
Then he turned to look at his son as he struck a James Bond pose and it all flooded back.
He looked so damned handsome in the suit Ianto had miracled up claiming it was an old one of Walter's. The aviator sunglasses finished the look as his son shone like a diamond in the bright sunshine.
His sun.
Babs, the celestial being who filled his son with warmth.
