Author's Note: Whoops... I just lost the Game.

Love to all!

Ianto groaned and arched his back, smiling in satisfaction as his spine seemed to click into place. He rolled over and reached an arm across the bed, deflating a little when he found only Tybalt, who purred when Ianto's arm nudged him and was, as usual, happy for Ianto to scoop him up and curl around him. The kitten wasn't exactly a kitten anymore; he was six months old now, and – although he still thought he could fit into all his old hiding places – he now filled Ianto's in-tray and couldn't quite squeeze into the out-tray underneath it. Nevertheless, he was still, and probably always would be, Ianto's baby; Ianto was well aware of the fact that Tybalt would most likely outlive him by quite a lot. Sharp claws on his side were almost a welcome distraction, but not that welcome. "No no no! Stop, little kitten claws are not a good thing, go claw something else," Tybalt didn't, he seemed rather inclined to make Ianto's life a misery again, so Ianto dodged his claws and tickled his side until he gave up with the claws and let Ianto make a fuss of him.

Eventually hunger, and the careful application of Tybalt's claws to his chest again, drove him out of bed and into the shower. Half an hour later and he was dressed in a pair of ancient jeans, with a T shirt and jacket over the back of the sofa and Tybalt winding around his ankles as he wandered around the kitchen compiling a shopping list. "Cat," he snapped at last, pushing Tybalt away from the fridge with his foot and bending down to check the contents. "I've fed you already, it's in your bowl!"

Tybalt put a paw on his foot and looked up at him with his biggest, saddest eyes and Ianto relented, picking him up one-handed and carrying him through to the living room, where he could stroke him with one hand and balance his shopping list on his knee to write with the other. It was quiet and peaceful and ever so domesticated, so he wrote jelly down on the list and followed it with Angel Delight, then tore the next page of the notebook out and screwed it into a ball, dropping it on Tybalt's back in an attempt to get him to play with it. "I have turned into a middle aged spinster, Tybalt. This is a most heinous situation... so I am going to go to Tesco, get this stuff and then come back and watch bad movies until three in the morning. Are you with me Tybalt?"

No, Tybalt was chasing the ball of paper around the edge of the sofa, so Ianto left him to it.

They had moved the pasta again. They'd moved the pasta yet again. He sighed and straightened the trolley wheels again and headed up the next aisle, surrendering to the call of the picked onions. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he fumbled it out, clamping it between his shoulder and his ear again as he pulled the headphones out. "Jack, hey, hang on, just let me put the headphones in," a bit more fumbling and his phone was back in his pocket and he could walk properly and hear Jack laughing at him. "Stop it."

"Sorry, is this a bad time?" Jack didn't particularly sound like he'd care, or that he'd believe Ianto if he said he was busy.

"I'm in Tesco."

Jack hmmed in sympathy. "How's it going?"

"They've moved the pasta."

"Again?"

"You've never been to this Tesco," he pointed out. "How would you know?"

"Tesco always move the pasta," Jack stated simply. "Is it near the Indian stuff?"

Ianto had just turned the corner and found it. "Yes it is."

"Did they move that too?"

"They did."

"Halloween store shifting?" Jack guessed. "Or Easter.?

Ianto sniggered and went for the biggest bag of pasta they did. "I'm surrounded by rabbits."

"Really, already?" Jack sounded shocked and Ianto couldn't help laughing. "Oh, not really?"

"No, not really, reindeer."

"Reindeer burgers..." Jack told him, but didn't seem to want to finish the thought. Ianto carried on up the aisle, paying less attention to his list and more to his stomach.

"What you up to?" he asked eventually, deciding against the jalapenos.

"Paperwork," Jack sighed. "It's another quiet one, but Tosh thinks we're in for Hell this coming week, so I'm getting ahead. What's your week looking like?"

Ianto added a large amount of chocolate to his mental list and kicked the back wheel to turn the corner. "Meeting with Gordon Monday lunch, then we're off to Scotland for a by-election somewhere on Tuesday, the joys of Grimsby on Wednesday..."

"Fish and chips?"

"I will eat them and think of you," he confirmed. "And France Thursday and Friday."

"Ooo, gay Paris?" Jack asked.

"Mmm, trade meetings, I think."

"You think?"

"What, you think I still pay attention? It'll be on the internet somewhere anyway," he shrugged and found the jelly. "Oh, I think I'm doing a Bill and Ted marathon tonight, and how long is it since you wrote anything?"

"Hey, I'm multitasking actually. Not very well, I just spelt report with two 'p's, but I'm doing my best."

Ianto laughed and leaned on the trolley. "You can do that when you're concentrating though."

"No, I do that when I'm pretending to concentrate but actually thinking about you, what are you wearing?"

He choked on a laugh and smiled apologetically at the lady who wanted to get at the shelf behind him, moving out of the way. "I'm in Tesco."

"Yes, we established that," Jack was smirking, he could tell. "I assume you're wearing clothes."

"Yeah," he confirmed (relented – lost?). "I'm wearing jeans."

"Just jeans?"

"And a T-shirt. And my leather jacket."

"Which jeans?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "People are staring at me, Jack."

"Well put them on then, then they can tell me which jeans you're wearing."

He picked up two boxes of cereal and examined their sugar content, then settled for both whilst he waited for the young mother with the baby to get out of earshot. "The darkest ones."

"The ones that do really nice things to your arse?" Jack checked.

"I wouldn't know," he pointed out, "I'm not the one who spends all day staring at it."

"Want to know what I'm wearing?" Jack asked seductively.

He snorted a laugh. "Blue shirt, red braces, white..."

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Jack sighed. "Spoil my fun, why don't you?"

"Alright then, I will," he grinned. "I'm not having phone sex with you in Tesco."

"You're no fun at all," Jack chided him. "No phone sex on a recorded line, no phone sex in Tesco, and then you fell asleep on me last night!"

"You didn't put up much of a fight," he pointed out.

"I was trying out the 'concerned partner' role for a while, see how it suited me."

"And did it?"

"Nah, I prefer lecherous old sod, thanks Jacs."

Ianto nearly dropped the jar he was holding. "What..."

"Ianto?"

"How much of that conversation did Jacqui hear?" he asked as calmly as he could.

"She just walked in when I said it, why?"

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, shall I leave you to it then?"

Jack groaned in disappointment but agreed, "yeah, I'd better get on with this. Call me later?"

"Of course. If you've got time, we could do synched movie night?" he suggested.

"I'll try and fit you into my schedule, Mr Jones. Love you."

"Love you too," he told him. "Talk to you later," he fished his phone out of his pocket again to disconnect the headphones and ran his thumb over the screen, tapping it twice before he put it back in his pocket and carried on with his shopping.

Ianto brought the last of his bags into the kitchen and dumped them with the rest, then crouched to stroke Tybalt and feed him again. "Hello monster," he trailed his fingers down Tybalt's back and stood up again, picking up the first bag and emptying the contents onto the counter. He gave the uninterested cat a running dialogue of what he'd bought as he put it away; "Fruit in the bowl, jelly we'll leave out and I'll make that, that's a good idea. Actually, probably a bad idea, but who cares, really?" Tybalt continued to ignore him. "Chocolate too, I'll shove a bar in my drawer in the living room, and I need to send some to Jack, he prefers the almond one. What do you think Tyb? Should I have the Korma or make a lasagna tonight?"

Tybalt seemed to realise that he was being spoken to, because he looked up at Ianto with wide, innocent eyes that said quite clearly 'plonker'. Ianto nudged him aside and put the cereal in the right cupboard, sulking slightly. He needed the mindless chatter to distract him from the fact that he wasn't going to be accosted and hugged from behind. "I saw him yesterday, Tybalt. It's to be expected, of course I'm not used to not having him around. Despite the fact that a week is the longest I've spent with him in six months, it's rational... It's not rational at all, is it?"

Now it should be noted that cats are extremely intelligent animals. They are experts in human psychology and training in particular, and Tybalt could have told Ianto that it was quite normal to be missing Jack like he was, because he was quite clearly in love and he and Jack had developed a high level of interreliance within their relationship. Unfortunately, cats have never managed a means of communication which humans can understand on anything more than a basic level, even the extremely intelligent ones, so the only response that Ianto got was a repeat of the 'plonker' eyes, which didn't have quite the right meaning for the situation

With the shopping put away, and his washing powder stocks replenished, Ianto decided to start in the bedroom and work through the flat's four rooms, cleaning and collecting his washing together. As he'd tidied before he left the week before, there wasn't really much to do apart from dusting (which he loathed) and putting a couple of loads of washing on, because he'd run out of washing powder before. The dishes on the drainer were completely dry, and the only things he had to wash were the few items he'd used after getting in the night before. By four o'clock he was settled in front of Top Gear with his feet up on the far arm of the sofa, his earpiece in and Tybalt curled on his chest.

The phone ringing right in his ear eventually woke him, and he pressed the button to answer it with his eyes still shut. "Jack?"

"Close, but no cigar."

He grinned and dropped his head to the side, trying to find Tybalt, who had abandoned him. "Heya Ally, to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Just thought I'd call, see if you're doing anything..." she trailed off.

He rubbed at his eyes and sat up, blinking at the clock and confirming that it was late enough to cook dinner. "Curry and a movie with Jack, I hope."

"Oh, is he there?"

"No, we're doing it over the phone, synched watching, you know. Best we can do," he told her. "What about you?"

"Do you really think I'd call you if I had anything better to do?"

He clutched his chest in mock hurt and stabbed at the film over the curry. "I am deeply wounded, Ally. That sound is my heart bursting."

"What sound?" she asked. "All I can hear is you talking."

"Okay, well I was piercing the film on the curry, imagine the noise."

She giggled at him and made sympathetic noises. "I'm sorry, Ianto, I promise I won't do it again."

"What won't you do again?"

"Um..." he could hear thunks in the background whilst she thought. "Oh! I won't insinuate that I'm only calling you because I'm bored, even if I am."

"Good," he got the curry out of the oven gingerly and turned it over onto a plate. Whilst he tried to remember what she was talking about, his phone beeped to tell him he had another call coming in. "Oh, Ally, I gotta go, I think that's Jack trying to call me."

"Okay, have fun tonight."

"Will do, see you tomorrow," when they'd hung up, Jack had already rung off, so he called him back quickly. "Jack, hey."

"Hi, you busy?"

"No," Ianto smiled and took his dinner to the table. "Was waiting until a reasonable time to call you, having dinner and talking to Ally whilst I waited."

"You've eaten then?" Jack asked.

"Eating," Ianto shovelled a forkful of rice and Korma and hovered with it. "Curry."

"I see, I can call back if you like?"

"No," he assured him around a mouthful. "Just keep talking and I'll listen."

Jack laughed. "Okay, what should I talk about/? And you've got your mouth full, haven't you?"

"Mmm-hm."

"I crave a curry now, I might have to have one tomorrow. I crave something hot and slightly fruity... maybe strawberries and cream, with you, in..."

"Jack," Ianto finally finished his mouthful. "You pick your moments, don't you? No phone sex in Tesco, at work or whilst I'm eating."

"Later?" Jack asked hopefully.

He swallowed slowly. "Maybe."

"Am I going to get a better answer than that? Sorry, fewer questions, I'll let you eat," he thought for a while. "Why can't I think of anything that isn't a question? I know, I don't know if you've seen that advert for the Microsoft phone thing, but every time I hear the song I think of you. And there's a new Compare the Meerkat advert, and Stephen Fry's done another with Paul Merton, I thought he hated him... Do you think Torchwood should get Twitter? Not a good idea, I suppose, for a top secret organisation."

Ianto choked on the final mouthful of curry and pushed the plate away as tears poured down his cheeks, trying to get his breath back. "I'm fine," he reassured a virtually frantic Jack. "Just, no, no Twitter," he coughed again and leaned back. "I haven't laughed so hard in ages."

"Well I'm glad," Jack chuckled. "As long as I'm not going to kill you."

"No, I'm finished."

"Was it good?"

"Passable," he shrugged and stood up. "What have you got planned for this evening?"

"Well, someone suggested a movie," Jack told him. "I quite liked the idea."

"I'm glad," he agreed, lifting Tybalt off his laptop and sitting down on the sofa so that he could arrange both on his lap. "Because I have an idea."

"Oh yes?"

"Yeah, well, if I put the DVD in, and you take remote control of my computer..."

"We can watch it simultaneously," Jack realised. "That's brilliant."

"Thank you, I know," he grinned. "Movie night then?"

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "A quiet night in, just you, me, a movie, the cat, and a couple of hundred miles separating us."

Ianto sighed and snuggled back against the arm of the sofa, cuddling Tybalt to his chest. "Yeah, I preferred just you and me."

"And the cat."

"And the cat. And the Wyld Stallyns," he managed a smile as Jack took control of his cursor and started the film.