A/N: First want to thank my beta Brownbug for her wonderful work.
I know is a bit late for Christmas stories now, but I didn't have time to write it at that time, so you will have an extra Christmas threats. It's going to be over in other 2 or 3 chapters anyway. Thanks to all who reviewed the first chapter.
Of course, simply walking back to the Hub would've been too easy. When he put the collar of his coat up and started to walk away, Jack shouted after him that they should wait for the AA. Ianto was really tempted to leave Jack there to wait and go to work as much on time as he was going to make it. The only problem was that he didn't trust Jack with his car ever since the incident last Christmas.
And that's how they ended up waiting for the emergency road services tow truck to come and pick Ianto's Peugeot up. They weren't kidding when they said half an hour - it seemed as if they were waiting until exactly the last second before arriving, just to be punctual. Usually, Ianto didn't have any problems with being punctual, but right now he was an hour late for work and he still had to walk more than twenty minutes in the rain. The bloody rain, that was soaking through to his bones, despite the heavy coat he had on him. It felt like everything inside him was chilled and he thought that he would never feel warm again. Jack, of course, had to be totally insufferable and chipper despite the cold. Well, it would be just Ianto's luck that being immortal meant that the Captain was unaffected by the extreme temperatures and felt perfectly all right, while Ianto himself was freezing his ass off. His suit was absolutely ruined now, and he cursed the time he spent in grooming himself for work. As if anyone would notice the trouble he had taken now that his clothes were dripping water and clinging to his figure, which was far from the perfect with all these take aways they were eating. Jack called them love handles, but Ianto knew that it was just fat accumulating around his waist and ass. Not really flattering, having his trousers clinging to them. His hair was plastered to his head and he was sure that the gel there was starting to form foam.
His key wasn't even in the pad of the Tourist Information door when a lady approached him. Ianto growled low into his throat - that was all he needed right now, an actual tourist asking for the Cardiff Museum or Cardiff Castle or some other stupid destination.
"Excuse me!" the lady shouted after him, while he tried to enter the office and slam the door before she reached him. Jack wasn't any help at all, chuckling and making his way down to the Hub to change into dry clothes, leaving Ianto to deal with the tourist while dripping all over the place and looking like a drowned animal.
Of course, it would be too much to ask that it would be a normal tourist – nope, it had to be a purple-skinned, six foot Melarian who didn't want to listen to Ianto's explanation that Earth was still only in the early twenty first century. The alien insisted on directions to the best tour route for Cardiff Castle and Flat Holm Island. As if Ianto could actually allow her to go to Flat Holm. The usual tourists were a big enough nightmare, as a rule, if they managed to catch the Information Centre open, demanding that he gave them all the information he had. And if the Centre wasn't open when they wanted it, they usually managed to come back later, just to give him hell for not doing his job. Of course none of them realised that he was off saving their asses so they could live another day to go and pester someone for information and pictures. But, as annoying as they were, they weren't the biggest problem. No, the biggest problem were aliens like the Melarian, demanding that they should be allowed to visit the city, despite the fact that Earth had not officially had her first alien contact yet. Their usual argument was that postponing their tour would mess with their holiday schedule… Well, weren't all the tourists the same, no matter where they came from? Sometimes the American and Japanese tourists were no less alien than the Melarian.
Fortunately for everyone in these situations, Ianto always managed to be perfectly polite, smiling at the tourists and being incredibly helpful, even while he mentally calculated what his chances of justifying shooting them were. And the best part, of course, is that the tourists never knew it.
After a few frustrating attempts at understanding each other and mistranslating, the purple creature agreed to meet with Jack and talk to him. Ianto sighed with relief at the prospect of going to dry himself off before doing anything else. He ushered the Melarian towards the Information Office door. But his relief was short lived because, before the creature had the time to duck inside, he could see a group of grannies approaching. If there were worse tourists than the aliens, it would have to be the grannies. They wasted as much of his time as the aliens sometimes, but at least it was his job to take care of the aliens. Of course, the grannies were the inevitable danger of having the Tourist Office as a cover. They were even worse than the American tourists or the English students.
Ianto had lost count how many of them tried to play matchmaker and give him their granddaughter's or niece's numbers - it depended on how old the granny was. He had collected enough phone numbers to create a Cardiff and Newport's Single Women Committee Yellow Pages. For some reason, probably because these days it was so unusual for a man of his age to dress in a suit while running a simple shop, they seemed to find him old-fashioned enough to want to marry him themselves, if it wasn't inappropriate to propose such a thing. Jack had saved him from a few by kissing him in front of them while they were looking for a place to write down the phone number. Of course, it wasn't out of jealousy - it was more for fun, and Ianto was immensely grateful. God only knew what they were doing here at Christmas here. They'd probably been saving their whole life, just so they could go and make the lives of tourist agents miserable, now that they had retired, Ianto's life included.
He stood in front of the Melarian to block it from the grannies' curious eyes.
"Sorry, we're closed," he hastily informed the group, and tried to push them back through sheer will power so he could close the door.
"No, I saw you just opening the door and talking to that tall woman. That poor lamb was going purple from the cold," one of the grannies insisted and tried to get around him to enter the shop, probably in an attempt to escape the rain, against which even her umbrella wasn't helping much. "Where did she go? Did you send the poor thing off as well?"
Ianto fought the urge to snort at the granny's conclusion that the woman had gone purple with cold. It was amazing what weird things the people of Cardiff were ready to put up with and ignore. They even made logical conclusions like this one just to explain away the weird, and not to have to think about it too much. Well, logical if you didn't pay attention to the fact that the Melarian was a bit too dark purple even for someone who is too cold, and it was a bit too tall for an average woman.
"She's here for a job interview," Ianto tried the first excuse that he could think of, still trying to fend off the horde of angry grannies. What joy his job was! Big scary aliens, bent on conquering the Earth, easy - give them to him any day! But this constant stream of tourists… When Tosh and Owen were still around it had been easier. Back then, he didn't have too much else to do but to keep the Hub going and the front covered. Now, however, with only the three of them, he thought that they should abandon the cover altogether. There was no time for this. He was starting to shiver in his wet clothes and cursed the grannies, who cared about the girl being cold, but didn't mind holding him up while he was wet and cold.
"No, you see it says here that you are open from 10am to 7pm," the granny with the colourful umbrella and even more colourful scarf and coat pointed at the opening hours listed on the door. She had a distinctive Scottish accent and, under her scarf, her hair was dyed bright red. "And it's only 10:30."
"Yes, and it's also Christmas Day, ma'am," Ianto said, as politely as he could, barely managing to hold his temper. He started to wonder if he could make up an excuse strong enough to convince Jack that the grannies were some kind of wicked witch aliens and shoot them. Probably not, but it was worth considering. By the time the granny had huffed with disapproval and had finished talking, he was so drenched that he figured he could stay out in the rain for the entire day now without getting any wetter. Finally the granny grunted at him in displeasure, flicked her bag over her shoulder and pivoted around on her heel, dragging her companions with her, muttering something rude, probably directed at Ianto's heritage.
The grannies out of the way, and the alien tourist safely down the Hub with Jack on the case, Ianto was ready to close the door and go dry himself and change his clothes. At that moment, Gwen entered, looking only a bit damp, probably from having to run from Rhys' car to the door. She looked warm, content and cheerful.
"Happy Christmas, Ianto," she shouted joyfully, even before she had managed to enter the Tourist Office.
When she came inside, however, she looked shocked at Ianto's condition and opened her mouth, probably wanting to ask him what had happened to him. He lifted a hand to stop her and cut her short before she had started talking.
"Don't ask, if you don't want me to shoot you!" Ianto warned her angrily. She must have seen it in his face, because she didn't ask. She probably thought that he wasn't serious and wouldn't really shoot her. But then again, Owen thought the same just before Ianto did shoot him.
"I'm going down to Jack then, no need to stay up here and sulk just because you got a bit wet," Gwen told him before the secret door opened to let her to the lift. "No need to be rude. It's not in your character anyway!" she chastised him. Ianto gave her the finger over his shoulder and hoped that he could get hold of the CCTV later to see her face. It was going to be worth his shitty day just to see her face at that moment. Unfortunately, with his back currently facing her, he'd just have to imagine it for the time being.
He wished that Owen was still alive and would piss Jack off, so that the Captain could send him up here as a punishment to mind the Tourist Office. On second thought, though, maybe it wasn't a good idea. Owen hated it, but that wasn't the problem - it wouldn't be so much fun if Owen didn't hate it. The problem was that every time Jack had sent Owen out here in the past, the next day the community centre was bombarded by customer complaint letters, calls and e-mails. It turned out that Owen didn't even try to help anyone but actually just told them to piss off while he was watching porn. One of the families bought the special edition of Welsh tour DVDs for their child, and they were shocked to discover the little girl watching porn. It was lucky for them that Jack could pull rank and the family didn't sue Owen. One can only imagine the horror Ianto experienced when they confiscated the DVD and he discovered that it was CCTV footage of him and Jack that someone had forgotten to delete.
His hopes for the world ending were in vain, as it seemed that even the Weevils didn't want to show up on the surface during the foul weather. Once he managed to make it inside the Hub and saw the enthusiastic decorations that Gwen had put up, and the grin that Jack had sprouted, Ianto was sure that he would prefer to brave the pissing rain outside. He was glad that Gwen wasn't stupid enough to put some Christmas Carols on, but she sang them while typing, and he was sure that if he heard "All I Want for Christmas is You" one more time he would end up spending the night in the Police station charged with assault.
In the end, he left for Rhiannon's house earlier, just to make sure that he wasn't going to go on a killing spree around the Torchwood Hub. Jack had already survived one of those at the beginning of the century. He didn't need to go through another one, just because Ianto was in a bad mood. Of course, now maybe he would have to go on a killing spree around his sister's house, but that was personal and was none of Jack's business.