Disclaimer: Whatever it is, don't own it (Torchwood, etc.)
As usual, thank you for reading/reviewing/alerting/faving.
This is officially the longest chapter in the whole fic, because let's face it, the characters deserved it ^^ The last count is ten chapters, not counting the short prologue (I haven't finished the last one, but the ideas are in my head, waiting to be poured on paper... or rather... the keyboard?
May you enjoy your reading...
"Think he'll be fine?" Jack Harkness asked while gazing down at the fully-clothed figure slumped on his boyfriend's large sofa.
"Eventually… After all, he's not the first and definitely won't be the last to go through such events. He'll recover. He'll have to." Ianto walked by the American and approached the sleeping man in order to cover him with a blue duvet.
"Thank you, Ianto." Jack stopped the Welshman from walking away and gazed into his baby blue eyes.
"Hey, wasn't it you who said that I provide some exceptional services for my customers?" he teased with a tired, but sincere smile that made Jack want to melt. It had been a long day for both of them, meeting early in the morning in order to accompany the groom to the church, not killing the rest of the Torchwood R&D team and watching Owen's world collapse.
Following Diane's departure, Ianto had grabbed the medic and led him to the closest pub, where, under Jack's supervision, he had proceeded with getting the man drunk. For the rest of the day, they had both listened to his life story, told through hiccups, pints of lager and even occasional tears. And when the words had finally ceased, they had each grabbed a shoulder of the slumbering man and brought him to Ianto's flat, above the tailor shop.
"Won't we be intruding? And besides, I've got my set of keys to his flat. I can manage him tonight." Jack had argued half-heartedly.
"Not if he decides to so something stupid. Here he won't succeed because doesn't know the house and he'll be confused before anything else. That and, in the morning, we'll all need a strong cup of coffee." Ianto had replied while fishing out his keys and unlocking the front door.
"What about Tosh?" The tailor had checked the time.
"It's after 2 in the morning, so she's probably out cold. She never wakes up before ten or eleven, so we should be ok." He had explained and ushered them inside his flat.
Now, as they both stood in the middle of the living room, Jack couldn't help but fidget. He liked this man more than he could describe in words and he felt mortified over the events that had involved them during past two weeks. No man or woman he'd ever dated had met his friends and co-workers during the first months of their relationship… and since most of his relationships never lasted longer than a month or two, such embarrassing introductions had never really been necessary. Until he had met Ianto Jones, with his exquisite suits, orgasmic coffee and black furry pets. How he had managed to embarrass himself so often in such a short time, he'd never be able to tell.
Jack stole a peek at the man next to him: so prim and proper… a true professional at his work and a model citizen outside it… He had just taken one look at his mismatched group of friends and declared that he liked them. But then again, this was also the man who had unwillingly made Jack Harkness wish for a real relationship and a life in Cardiff.
"My tailor extraordinaire…" the pilot sighed out loud and spoke with a caring smile, his eyes gazing lovingly at the younger man. Ianto glanced at him and turned crimson at his words. "You've seen me at my worst and yet you still agreed to date me." He grabbed onto one of his hands and caressed it gently with warm fingers.
"I can't quite explain my decision either." He confessed.
"I should have really come to Cardiff years ago. Now I'm just feeling as if we've lost time and that makes me want to sulk." Jack spoke and made his boyfriend chuckle.
"It's odd, isn't it? Ever since you walked into my shop…"
"Less than one hour after touching Welsh ground for the first time in my life, no less."
"And started flirting with me shamelessly, we've both been acting as if we knew that we were going to end up together one way or another."
"Why fight against destiny?" Jack solemnly asked.
"You believe in destiny?" Ianto found that impossibly hard to comprehend.
"How can I not? Here I am, Jack Harkness, notorious philanderer, tamed after a mere couple of weeks spent in Cardiff, Wales. And then, there are the signs: I love coffee, you make the best coffee in the world; you're a tailor, I practically look like a model. We're a match made in Heaven." He whispered in front of Ianto's lips and grinned madly.
"If you say so." The young man sounded uncertain, but smiled back. "So, now that Sleeping Beauty is tucked in, shall we get some rest as well?" he asked after a ferocious yawn.
"Mr. Jones, I do believe you're trying to compromise my virtue." Jack tried to sound outraged but failed by a mile. In response, the tailor just glued his lips to the pilot's for a minute, then disappeared into his bedroom, leaving the door wide open. For a minute, the American felt almost star-struck. Then, recomposing himself, he calmly followed the Welshman and promptly shut the door for the rest of the night.
The first thing that Owen Harper, MD for Torchwood's R&D division, felt after a whole night spent in drunker stupor, was a warm weight placed over his chest, that kept tickling his skin for some reason, with each breath he took. Although he had awoken, he did not dare open his eyes yet, as he felt the distant signs of a massive hangover approach him, slow but steady. Still, after a few minutes of not being able to breathe normally, he did manage to crack one eye open and let out a mighty swear, as his head started thudding painfully and the light, peeking through the windows above the sofa he was currently sprawled over, hurt his eyes.
When he did managed to focus properly, he met a sight that truly made him cry out and crawl to the far end of the sofa: a large black feline was sitting on his chest, examining him with cold green eyes, as if it was ready to take a chunk out of his face. Still, he escaped unmarred, as his frantic movements brought additional pain in his head, but forced the black devil off him and onto the cream carpet covering the floor. Once below, the feline merely shrugged and turned around, disappearing somewhere at a royal pace, that also included its large fluffy tail moving about from one side to the other.
In perfect silence, Owen watched the almighty cat disappear and desperately tried to remember the past day. Where was he? How had he got there? These were just two of the questions that filled his mind while he took in the clean and neat flat. This couldn't be his… and it couldn't be a hotel either, as it screamed of personal touches one would never encounter in a hotel, no matter how pricey.
Eventually, while experiencing drumming hammers in his temples, the medic managed to get up from the warm couch and roam around for a bit, trying to find someone… or rather, someone human, who could at least point him to the nearest bathroom. Instead, all he got were the huge open-space living room and a hallway with several closed doors he did not dare open. After a few minutes of confusion, he did manage to find the front door though, which he unlocked and opened. This task proved pointless as well, as he took in the stairway of a completely unfamiliar building: a duplex maybe? Perhaps owned by someone he might have hooked up with last night?
No, he did remember Jack being there, along with someone else. And Jack never let him go home with unknown people, especially while intoxicated at that level. And besides, if he had hooked up with someone, wasn't he supposed to have woken up in a bed, next to them? Questions upon questions.
Suddenly, a faint noise coming from the next floor drew his attention.
"Hello?" he called out as loud as he could without hurting his head even more, then proceeded with carefully climbing up the stairs, holding tightly onto the railing. As he got closer, two more noises came out of the flat above, followed by what could have been a grumble… and a human one at that. "Is anyone there?" he inquired again, having noticed the door open and entering the flat carefully.
The first thing that hit him was the huge difference between this flat and the one below it. Although the same general architecture was maintained, this apartment was drowned in clutter, resembling a warehouse for various computer parts with a very bad archiving system, rather than a human home: there were wires and bleeping lights and monitors everywhere he looked. He did trip once or twice over the multitude of wires, but managed to keep his body intact, even with his reflexes still drowsy from the amount of alcohol still present in his system.
Finally, just as he was about to give up, he saw a silhouette crouched next to some main units, bustling about apparently in search for something, and walked up behind it.
"Excuse me." He spoke as quietly as he could, but was rewarded with a mother of all shrieks that made his head explode in pain and forced him to almost double over. The silhouette had jumped up and turned around in a flash, small slender hands holding onto a plastic keyboard as if it were a life thread. Looking up, Owen Harper met the sight of a small and slender dark-haired woman with Asian features, that had obviously just crawled out of bed, if he were to judge by the messy short plait poking out from around her neck, her blood-shot eyes that kept narrowing as if she was trying to get a focus on his face, her pink pajamas and the fluffy bunny sleepers she wore.
"Who are you?" she demanded, voice coming out a bit raspy, but fierce enough for his thudding temples nonetheless. "And I'm warning you, I've got a keyboard and I'm not afraid to use it!" she warned dangerously and produced her "weapon" of choice. Had he not been in such pain, Owen would've already died from laughter by now.
"For Heaven's sake woman, can you please stop screaming?" he asked as if in agony, rubbing his temples like mad.
"Who are you?" Obviously she didn't obey him, since he WAS a complete stranger who might have, for all his knowledge, just broken into her house.
"Owen Harper… now, could you please not speak so loud?" he begged with a groan.
"What are you doing here?" the woman went on, obviously still distressed over finding a strange man in her flat. This time, she accompanied her words with a few steps in his direction, while waving menacingly the blasted keyboard. The medic had no choice but to step back, away from the strange, and obviously a little mental, woman and into a door… probably the front door, which was now miraculously shut, instead of wide open, as he had left it. Maybe there was someone else in the flat, besides them.
"Look, I can't remember how I got here, but please, trust me, I'm not here to hurt you." He tried desperately to plead with her, while attempting to unblock the door's handle.
"Right, since all strange men, that barge into other people's houses, do so without any malicious intent whatsoever." She growled, now obviously fully awaken.
"I'm not lying to you." Owen stared right into her eyes, his left hand, hidden behind his body, still trying to work out the handle… A moment later, he managed. "I'm sorry for having troubled you, pardon my intrusion." He spoke hurriedly, twisted the handle roughly, turned around, opened the door… and walked right into a broom closet now used for storing various objects… that literally fell on him the moment he bumped into the numerous shelves.
"Oh my God!" he heard the woman squeak right before a quite heavy unknown object collided with his head.
Meanwhile, as the good Dr. Harper was trying to find some help as silently as possible and was gloriously failing to do so, some NC-17 happenings occurred in Ianto Jones' bedroom. Having woken up the first, with his arms full of sleeping Welshman, Jack Harkness decided to wake up his boyfriend in a most devilish manner possible.
"Stop that!" the young man had barely managed to gasp out, as his consciousness quickly turned awake under the talented pilot's ministrations. The American suddenly sat up in bed, duvet caught over his shoulders, towering over his lover and staring down with hungry eyes at the feast laying before him. Slowly, he lowered his body over Ianto and trailed his lips over his chest, along his neck and up to the plump cherry lips he didn't think he could live without anymore.
"Oh, I don't think you want that, Mr. Jones." He lowered his mouth and proceeded with ravishing his lover and turning him into a quivering mass. A long while later, he broke away from the kiss and started teasing the young man.
"Don't do that…" Ianto almost whined through deep breaths of much needed air, while feeling clever fingers naughtily play over his sensitive skin. A tickle here, a kiss there and he was ready to explode. "Jack… Ah!" his eyes opened widely, staring at the ceiling above them, but not really seeing anything, as Jack began exploring new territory.
"Ah, indeed." The pilot's chuckle was heard from somewhere above Ianto's stomach. The tailor, lowered his big, almost scared, blue eyes and watched his lover's head disappear beneath the duvet. A moment later, his head rolled back into the fluffy pillows as his body nearly arched off the bed, hands clawing at the sheets beneath.
"Oh God!"
"Oh God!" the woman exclaimed once the medic was safely buried at the bottom of a rather impressive-looking pile of… well, stuff. "Hang on!" she started digging through the pile, throwing things off him. "Are you alright?" she looked down in genuine concern, even though she had been threatening him with a keyboard, just moments before.
"Owwwwww!" Owen groaned loudly and rubbed a free hand over the bumped place, grimacing when he noticed blood staining his fingers. "What the hell was that anyway?" he complained and sat up in the sea of things, fishing out a quite heavy black kettle, obviously of Asian origin and obviously made of iron. "Why would you have something like this in a closet?" he turned to the woman kneeling next to him and pointed accusingly at the vile object.
"It was a gift from my mother!" she huffed out in outrage and stood up. "And why should you care? It was you who walked into my closet like a madman and destroyed the shelves!" she retorted loudly and pointed at the mess behind the opened door. Owen flinched.
"I thought it was the front door! Why didn't you warn me?"
"I had no idea what you were trying to do! And besides, why would I graciously offer assistance to a strange man who barges into my house like a thief?" At this, Owen swallowed whatever rude retort would've generally come out his mouth and looked away guiltily.
"I told you, I have no idea where I am." He answered quietly and crossed his arms over his scrawny chest, while still sitting on the floor. "Why would a thief, any thief… ugh, rob a house he doesn't remember seeing in his entire life, while experiencing the mother of all hangovers?" the woman rolled her eyes at this, but did seem to calm down.
"Here." She reached out to him and carefully helped him up, after what seemed quite a long deliberation. Surprisingly, instead of shoving him out the door and slamming it in his face, she led him through the labyrinth of wires and computer parts, to a ragged armchair, that turned out surprisingly sturdy and comfortable. Thankfully, the medic drowned in its pillows and allowed himself to close his eyes for a bit, after watching the dark-haired woman disappear from his view. A minute later, the smell of alcohol woke him up: his "host" was now sitting on a central unit next to him, a first-aid kit opened in her lap.
"Don't scream." She warned with a surprisingly gentle voice and started cleaning his forehead with alcohol wipes. Curiously enough, instead of complaining and insisting on cleaning his own scrape, as he usually did, especially when at Torchwood, Owen relaxed and allowed the woman's steady feminine hands carefully treat his forehead. "Sorry, but cartoons are all I have." She quietly apologized as she stuck a band-aid to his forehead… a yellow band-aid that featured Buggs Bunny. "Now, are you ready to have a normal conversation, or do I have to wake Ianto up?" she spoke as if he was a preschooler and that irked him just a bit.
"Wait… Ianto… as in Ianto Jones?" A light bulb finally lit. She nodded. "Blue eyes, dark hair… tailor?"
"You know Ianto?"
"Yeah… he made my wedding suit." He explained while trying to focus on the fuzzy memories that seemed to resurface from some hidden corner in his subconscious. "And the suit for my best man too…" he stopped short the moment he recalled his almost-wedding… Diane… the church… Jack… Ianto… and an evening filled with alcohol… the imbibing kind.
"Jack's suit!" the woman spoke and a smile blossomed on her lips. "You're Jack's best friend! The one marrying the shrew!" she concluded, then slammed a hand over her mouth, mortified of what she had just said, cheeks turning red. Owen took a good look at her… then smiled too, the skin around the corners of his eyes and mouth wrinkling.
"Don't do that… You're right… Jack's right… Everyone is right… Diane is a shrew!" he sighed. "One that I didn't marry."
"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that."
"Don't be. Looking back, it's definitely for the best. Now, at least, I can stop trying to pretend and get on with my life. Say, do you have any coffee?" he glanced at the woman who was now listening quietly.
"Sorry. My coffee is rubbish. But Ianto's is to die for." She pointed at the floor below their feet.
"I know. I've had the pleasure." He nodded. "Sadly though, Ianto wasn't anywhere in sight when I woke up. Hence, my search party up here." He waved a hand to point at the entire flat. Then, taking a closer look at the mess around him, he couldn't help but ask. "Sorry, but what did happen around here?" The woman blushed.
"It's my annual." She said, as if that explained everything.
"Your annual what?"
"Oh, right, you're a doctor. Every six months or so, new components and configurations become available on the market. Sadly, I don't yet have enough resources to change my computers every six months, but I buy what I can and need every year. And when I get the new parts I bring everything out from storage, change and reconfigure what I can salvage, send to recycling what I can't. Yesterday, while Ianto was out, my spare parts arrived and the mess that you now see is the product of a sleepless night. I should be done by the end of next week, when this will resemble a home again." She shrugged. "You know what? Today's Sunday. Which means that Rhiannon is already downstairs, serving coffee. And while she may not be as good as her brother, she does come quite close in second. Let me treat you to a cup after I get changed. You can wait at the cafe. You just have to climb down the stairs and go right, through the curtains. I think you can manage it from the tailor shop, but if you can't, just shout." She smiled and disappeared for the second time that morning, leaving Owen in a daze.
"Wait! What's you name?" he shouted before she could get too far. Her messy black hair popped from around a corner.
"Toshiko Sato."
Meanwhile, as Owen Harper was busy with being confused over a certain dark-haired computer genius, hell was about to break loose in front of Ianto's tailor shop.
"Where the hell are they? Doesn't this house have a doorbell or something?" Gwen Cooper tried the tailor shop's door again, frantically pulling back and forth at the handle, in the hope that something might have changed, in the past half hour she had spent in front of the building made of red brick, and the door would open.
"What this? Trying to break into a mere tailor shop? Why, Miss Cooper, I imagined you would go for a bank or something similar, but never a tailor shop." An annoyingly familiar voice made her freeze in the middle of her efforts and slowly turn around in order to meet the smug ginger-head that she knew would have a grin spread over his lips. And how right she was!
"What are you going to do? Arrest me again?" she dared him loudly and fumed as he started laughing.
"Miss Cooper, if only all criminals were as bad at breaking the law as you are… Then Earth would be a safe planet." He sighed mockingly and smiled at her dangerous growl.
"I'm only trying to break the law because someone I know is missing and might be inside." She explained with wide gestures and pointed at the building behind her. He just stared at her as if she had grown a second head, then burst out laughing again.
"Neither Ianto nor Tosh are capable of holding anyone hostage. I've known them for years and they wouldn't hurt a fly."
"I'm not talking about a hostage situation, you…"
"Careful!" he stopped her before she could swear. "Even though my cells have grown quite accustomed to your presence there, I have a feeling you wouldn't appreciate yet another trip to the station."
"I didn't appreciate the first two trips either!" she almost shrieked.
"True… but those times either you or your friends were acting as threats for those around you. That's public disorder and we can't have any of it." He admonished.
"The hell you don't! Just wait for the next rugby match in the championship and I'll show you public disorder!"
"What's going on here?" a dark-haired woman wearing a long green apron suddenly appeared from behind the corner and asked with an irritated tone. "Oh, Rhys! What are you doing there, you daft man? Come here and get your caffeine fix!" she called out to the ginger-head, who just smiled and waved back at her.
"Hello, Rhia!"
"She called you daft! How come she can say that and get away with it and I can't?" Gwen demanded.
"Jealous, are we?" he leered down at her, then grabbed her left arm and proceeded with pulling her down the street. "Come on then. Instead of destroying private property, I'll treat you to a cup of coffee and we can ask about your "hostage situation"." He walked around the corner, where the woman from earlier was serving two people sitting at one of the small tables neatly placed about the street, in front of a well-hidden café.
"Rhia." He greeted her the moment she turned around.
"Rhys." She greeted back.
"Owen!" Gwen exclaimed when, looking at the two customers, she recognized one of them as her team's medic.
"Gwen." The man just nodded at her and took a sip of his coffee, eyes returning to his companion, a dark-eyed young Asian woman.
"Tosh!" a cheerful voice called out from inside the café and, a moment later, Jack Harkness appeared.
"Jack." She smiled up at him.
"Owen." Jack exclaimed, surprise written all over his face. "Gwen." He looked up and acknowledged his boss. "DCI Williams." He also nodded at the new arrival and promptly sat down, next to Tosh. "Ah, Rhia, you're an angel." He unleashed the full power of his dimples the moment a cup of heavenly smelling coffee made its way in front of him.
"Morning." Ianto also appeared from the café, surprisingly only wearing a t-shirt and jeans, an outfit that brought out his true age. "What?" he looked warily at the faces surrounding him, a frown bringing his eyebrows together. Then, six people suddenly burst out laughing and the Welshman felt his cheeks burning. He glanced down with an inquiring raised eyebrow at his lover, who just wiped tears of mirth from his eyes and pulled the Welshman down in the seat next to his. "What?" he demanded again, as three more chairs were squeezed in at their table, to be occupied by Jack's boss, The DCI and his sister.
"Nothing, nothing. Just a short unusual exchange of names, that's all." Rhia smiled at him and pulled him into a sisterly hug. "Isn't he the cutest when he's confused?"
Next two chapters will practically be two epilogues, which, if my muses and internet connection stay with me, should be up tomorrow evening and Sunday evening (please consider that my time is EET - Eastern Europe Time).
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