Torchwood University: Chapter One: Moving In
"Honey I'm home!" Jack Harkness slammed the front door open and strode into the kitchens where he swept Tosh off her feet and planted a gentle kiss on her lips.
He turned to do the same to Owen, but the Londoner moved away quickly, "Those lips aren't getting anywhere near me Harkness."
Jack pouted for a moment when a sudden noise at the door alerted them all to Ianto stumbling in with his and Jack's luggage. Jack grinned widely, showing every single one of his pearly teeth, "Even better. Ianto can have yours."
Ianto looked slightly wary as he set the bags down in the hall, "Have his what?"
Jack captured his lips in a bruising kiss that was only faintly reminiscent of the innocent peck he had given Tosh a moment before. Ianto made a brief sound of protest before opening his mouth slightly and allowing Jack to sweep his tongue over his bottom lip. Jack brought his hands up to cup Ianto's neck with his thumbs gently rubbing behind Ianto's earlobes and Ianto's hands came up to grasp at the lapels of Jack's woolen greatcoat. They were both panting slightly when Jack pulled away after pressing one last fleeting kiss to the left side of Ianto's mouth.
Tosh smiled brightly at them when they separated, "Have you two finally gotten together then?"
Ianto frowned slightly at her as he straightened his jacket and re-gathered his dropped luggage, "Of course not. Jack is just being a prat. He kissed my sister too. Remind me to punch him for that."
Her smile fell suddenly, "Oh, never mind then."
Jack was frowning as well when Tosh looked over at him, but he soon shook his head and smiled again, "Have we found someone to replace Suzie yet?"
"A girl Gwen called a few minutes ago. She's a transfer student and housing messed up her request," Tosh explained, "She's stopping by to check out the room."
Ianto had been sniffing the air while Tosh spoke and asked cautiously, "Is something burning?"
Tosh yelped and ran into the kitchen calling, "I tried to make supper."
"Tried being the operative word here," Owen snorted as Ianto hurried after her with a worried frown on his face. "Make me some coffee while you're in there tea boy."
Jack smacked Owen upside the head and collapsed gracefully across the battered couch in their sitting area, "Home sweet home. How was spending the summer here?"
"Dead boring," Owen groaned, "Just me and Tosh. Everyone but the townies all went home. What's with the outfit? Period military is not the dress of a straight man."
"Ianto likes having the braces to hold on to," Jack winked.
The doorbell sounded in a loud blaring noise that Tosh had rigged up at Jack's request to sound like the warning alert of a big science fiction super base. Owen groaned, "I hate that bloody buzzer."
Tosh called out to them, "That will be Gwen. Jack will you get it?"
Jack opened the door with a wide grin to reveal a doe-eyed soaking wet Gwen Cooper. Jack laughed and teased, "You must have the wrong door. I was expecting a potential roommate, not a drowned rat."
"Don't be rude Jack," Ianto told him reproachfully as he emerged from the kitchen along with an aromatic whiff of cooking chicken, holding a tray laden with steaming coffee cups. Ianto fixed Gwen with a level gaze and then said, "Milk and two sugars, yeah?"
Gwen nodded, her eyes widening further as she looked at him in surprise, "Exactly that."
Ianto handed Jack a blue and white stripped mug and told him firmly, "Make the introductions Jack while I fix Gwen's cup and make sure Tosh hasn't bollocksed supper up further."
Jack grinned, "Have I told you how good those jeans look on you?"
"Harassment," Ianto called back, "And Gwen, try not to drip on the carpet."
"Well come on in then," Jack gestured her to come inside. "Please keep your arms, legs, and sexual organs inside the vehicle at all times. I'll be your Captain for this leg of the tour. I'm Jack Harkness and this is Owen Harper, King of the Weevils."
"Weevils?" Gwen asked: feeling quite like she had entered another world where everyone was gorgeous looking and just a bit mad.
"You know…little maggots?" Jack replied, raising an eyebrow at her as if doubting her intelligence. "They infest food?"
"Oh right," Gwen nodded, pretending as if she had suddenly remembered that piece of information from a long ago history course.
"Owen left some food in his room for a few weeks and it grew mold. We decided it wouldn't be long before it became full of Weevils… hence the nickname."
At that moment, Tosh emerged from the kitchen looking slightly terrified and clutching two coffee mugs in her hands, she handed one to Gwen, "Ianto's kicked me out of the kitchen."
"I told you not to mess with his domain," Owen chuckled, but then bolted upright out of his lounging position, "Wait. Where's my coffee?"
Jack ignored Owen and continued his introductions, "This is Toshiko Sato: She's our resident computer genius and gorgeous to look at. Oh, and that there is Myfanwy."
Gwen looked to where he was pointing to see a goldfish swimming around in a bowl. There was a miniature replica of the statue outside the Millennium Center sticking up in the center of the bowl. Gwen took a sip of her coffee and moaned in pleasure, "This is gorgeous."
"Ianto Jones," Jack told her with a slight smile and a nod at the door leading to the kitchen, "He makes the coffee, keeps us all in line, and looks good in a suit."
"Harassment," Ianto's voice sounded from the kitchen.
Jack called roguishly, "I could listen to those beautiful Welsh vowels all night Ianto."
"Will you just show her the room already?" Ianto's voice was exasperated, "And the lavatory. She should probably share the one with Tosh not Owen. Are you staying for dinner?"
There was a long pause before Owen nudged Gwen pointedly, "He's talking to you."
"Oh, yes I would like that," Gwen replied.
"This is my bedroom," Jack told her with a wink, "For future reference. Make sure you knock first though because Ianto might have beaten you to it."
"Are you two together then?" Gwen asked, her voice suggesting disappointment.
"He's just teasing," Tosh told her as she showed her the empty bedroom and the lavatory she would share with Tosh, "He'll flirt with anything if it's gorgeous enough."
"And I'm much too smart to try and have a relationship with Jack," Ianto deadpanned as he appeared out of nowhere.
"You're breaking my heart Ianto," Jack clutched a hand to his chest in a fake swoon of dismay.
"I wasn't aware you had one, Captain." Ianto replied and went back into the kitchen, "Supper in ten. Jack, take Owen with you to go get Gwen's bags out of the boot of her car."
Gwen followed him and asked in surprise, "How did you know I was going to stay?"
Ianto looked pointedly at the already empty cup in her hand and then at Jack's retreating back as he wandered outside to fetch Gwen's things. He grinned wryly: "What more temptation could you possibly need?"
Gwen laughed, albeit a bit anxiously, and as the others returned to the kitchen she asked, "So what are all of you studying?"
"Medical Sciences," Owen managed to mumble through a bite of something he had stolen off the stove much to Ianto's disparagement.
As they were shuffled towards the dining table by Ianto, Tosh told her, "I'm in Computer Science and Theoretical Physics."
Gwen looked up at Jack as he passed her a plate full of food, "How about you Jack?"
"And ruin my mysterious allure?" He winked at her with a cheeky grin, "No thank you."
Ianto tucked a large linen napkin into his collar and took a seat next to Jack, "I think it's going to be you farting as you walk down the hallway in the mornings that will ruin your mysterious allure: not telling her that you're a Political Science student."
Beer was snorted out of Owen's nose at this and he told Ianto through another bite of food, "You know, sometimes I forget why I keep you around Ianto. Then you make us something delicious and snark at Jack and it all comes flooding back."
Ianto wrinkled his nose at the bits of chicken that sprayed out of Owen's mouth and onto the tablecloth he had set out not ten minutes before it was defiled by fowl, "All my dreams…"
It is always difficult for a stranger to integrate oneself into a group of friends, but Gwen was never one to give up so easily and she chewed thoughtfully, swallowed, and said, "So obviously you all aren't Welsh. How did you end up at Torchwood?"
"Oi," Ianto interrupted, "Go look at the flag hanging above my bed. It isn't a bloody Union Jack."
Gwen smiled apologetically, and Ianto was willing to forgive her at the sight of her gap-toothed grin alone, and said, "Excepting you of course."
Jack set his cup down heavily, "Shall we start with the most obvious then."
"That's an American accent right?" She asked, turning her full attention to Jack as if it hadn't already been focused on him. Tosh took the moment to roll her eyes dramatically at Ianto who grinned into his beer.
"It's a sort of complicated story, but I'll summarize. I was born in London, but my parents split when I was three and my mom and I moved to America where she remarried and had my brother Gray. Then when I was seventeen I had a falling out with my mom and ended up moving to Cardiff with my Father and his then girlfriend, now fiancée, Rose." Jack turned and pressed a gentle kiss to a startled Ianto's forehead, "Which is where I met Mr. Jones."
Ianto's eye-rolling escalated, "By meet me he means he slept with my friend and his sister, and I was there when they found out."
"I had almost turned it into a threesome when they suddenly realized that would be incest," Jack grinned, "And Ianto stepped in just in time to save me from a severe beating."
"He then proceeded to try and sleep with me as well despite having met my girlfriend earlier in the evening," Ianto was smiling despite the disapproving tone in his voice.
"Oh," Gwen turned to look at Ianto in surprise, "You have a girlfriend."
"She died," Ianto told her, his mouth tightening imperceptibly. He then turned to Tosh with a grin and said, "Tosh why don't you tell your story. It's the best."
Her cheeks reddened at the attention, "It's not that good of a story."
"Are you kidding Tosh?" Owen laughed through his food, "My story is I had no money and they offered me a complete scholarship, including books, room, and board. Yours is epic."
Tosh smiled widely at the near-compliment from Owen, "I just hacked into a few classified Government files and after I got caught I was then politely asked by the Home Office to attend University in Wales where they could keep an eye on me for the duration of my studies."
"What she isn't saying is that she spent two months in a UNIT containment cell before the Doc found out about it and got her out," Jack grinned.
Gwen's doe-eyes expanded to twice their already enormous size, "UNIT? The Doc?"
"Unified Intelligence Taskforce: It used to be United Nation's Intelligence Taskforce until there was a separation a few decades back. They deal with…exotic problems." Ianto told her. She looked at him in surprise and he shrugged slightly, "I know everything."
"Who's the Doc then?" She asked.
"My father," Jack told her with a laugh, "Doctor John Smith. He's a sort of an advisor for UNIT. I call him Doctor because well… UNIT deals with exotic problems: The Doctor makes them better."
Gwen snorted in disbelief, but Owen ruffled her hair as he stood and told her, "Don't laugh. These are official state secrets we're sharing with you."
Owen washed his dish quickly and sped out of the kitchen while the rest of them were still collecting their dishes. Gwen smiled at Jack as they stood, "Do you want to help me unpack?"
"Would I get to open that box I saw marked 'undergarments'?" He asked, raising one eyebrow.
Gwen rolled her eyes at him, but he was looking over at Ianto with pleading eyes. Ianto sighed and shrugged, "Go ahead. It's not going to kill me to wash and dry one time."
Jack planted a kiss firmly on his lips and tore out of the room, dragging Gwen behind him. Tosh came up next to Ianto and grabbed a dishrag so she could assist him, "You shouldn't have to cook and do the dishes."
Ianto smiled at her, "I don't mind. Things get so busy during the year that it's nice to have some set aside time to take a break."
"A break with Jack," Tosh added innocently.
Ianto splashed some soapy water at her, "He's my best friend. Therefore, I like spending time with him. That's all. And you're one to talk: How was spending the summer with Owen?"
A wet towel hit Ianto directly in the face and he looked at Tosh reproachfully, "Are you trying to start something Miss Sato?"
She blinked at him from behind her glasses, her eyes sparkling in anticipation of a water fight, "I believe you're the one who started something Mister Jones."
Jack and Gwen looked up from their boxes at the sounds of shrieking and giggling coming from the kitchen. Jack frowned as he attempted to peer out the opened door to see what was happening when suddenly he was hit in the face with a pillow. Gwen smiled at him, "I found the bedding."
Jack attempted one last glance out the door before turning to her with a pout, "I had hoped you wouldn't be able to find it and you would have to share a bed with me tonight."
She winked at him, glad that she had made a friend out of one of her roommates even if he was a lecherous flirt. Brash flirting she could understand, having grown up as a decently attractive woman in a not so wealthy part of Cardiff, and so it was a natural instinct to reply, "Maybe if you play your cards right I'll end up there anyway."
Another loud shriek sounded and prevented Jack from making the cheeky reply that had been forming in his brain. He hadn't perfected it yet, but was confident that upon the execution of the statement he would have finished it. Instead his head darted back towards the door, "What do you think they're doing out there?"
Gwen shrugged, "Sounds like more than just the dishes."
Jack looked startled and almost toppled over in his attempt to view the kitchen through the open door, "Really?"
"I highly doubt it Jack," She gestured for him to come help her move a bookshelf over to south facing wall, "This is heavy."
"I know it is," He climbed to his feet to help her, "I carried it in."
The bookshelf would have been easier to move if Gwen hadn't loaded it up before deciding she didn't like its location. However, as it was they managed to slide it over with only a bit of grunting and straining. Gwen smiled at him, "So what's there to do around here?"
"You mean other than me?" He asked with a grin that could, once again, only be described as lecherous.
Gwen groaned, "I set myself up for that one."
"You did," He shrugged and joined her leaning against the bookshelf, "Same as any University: nothing. There are some half decent parties, a cinema, a few good pubs, and that's about it."
"Do you have parties here?" Gwen asked, feeling rather as if she should have asked if the group spends their time drinking and on drugs before she agreed to move in with them, but it really hadn't seemed relevant at the time.
"Not open house parties and only on the weekends. Tosh almost murdered Owen when he tried to have one on a Thursday night when she had an exam on nanotechnology the next day." Jack grinned ruefully, "The things Ianto and I had to do to avoid them the next couple of weeks…"
"Are you spreading salacious rumors about the tea-boy again?" Owen asked as he poked his head into the room, "He's not going to get any action this year if you keep metaphorically pissing on him in front of everyone."
Jack glared at him as he entered the room entirely but said cheekily, "Ianto is fully capable of getting laid despite whatever metaphorical bodily fluids I may be expelling."
"I'm sure that statement was completely relevant to your discussion," Ianto's Welsh-accented voice inserted lightly from the doorway, "but I would rather not be aware of why you were all conversing about my sex life in conjunction with Jack's bodily fluids."
Jack, Owen, and Gwen all turned to look at Ianto guiltily. Tosh popped up next to him and told them, looking hopefully at Owen, "Ianto and I are going to get some coffee and pastries if any of you would like to come with."
Owen nodded immediately, "Just let me grab my jacket."
"Jack?"
"Yeah," He lifted lithely off the bookcase and slung an arm around Ianto's shoulder, pulling him from the room with a kiss to his cheek. Gwen felt effectively ignored and abandoned by Jack, so when Tosh asked if she was coming too she made excuses about how she had to finish setting up her room, but would join them another time.
