| Date: 11 December 2007
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones Location: hotel dining room Link to IJ: thread #1992 |
 He'd found a room to spend the night in, but between worry about his own world and his conversation with Owen, he didn't sleep much or well. That wasn't a problem under ordinary circumstances, but he wasn't bouncing back quickly after his near death by rift-monster. When morning rolled around he still felt like road-kill.
He took a shower, used the complimentary toiletries, brushed his teeth and headed back downstairs to see if he could find a cup of coffee and something to eat. He'd just walked into the dinning room when he spotted a familiar back and suit. "Ianto," he said, very cautiously. |
 Ianto stiffened for a moment before turning and relaxing slightly, "Good morning, Captain." |
| He nodded slightly, without taking his eyes off Ianto, even while he ordered his coffee. "Been here long?" |
| "Since last night," he nodded, inclining his head a bit, "Yourself? Are the others here or is someone back at the hub trying not to make a mess of it?" |
| "I've seen Owen, but I don't think he and I are from the same reality. That makes it difficult to judge what may be going on anywhere." |
| "The same re-" Ianto cut himself off then, "Right. Are we? What's the date, sir?" |
| Jack shook his head. "I'm not answering that question first," he said, very flatly. |
| "It's November 2, 2007." he said calmly, raising an eyebrow. |
| "I'm ahead of you by a bit," he said, steadily. He took his coffee with a murmur of thanks and without looking away from Ianto. "Does Masterworks mean anything to you?" |
| "That's a cd company, isn't it?" he asked a little confused, "Why?" |
| He relaxed -a little - and took a sip of his coffee. "Has the idea of me dead turned you on." He paused. "Recently?" |
| Ianto blinked, too confused to even be grossed out. "It's never turned me on." |
| He stared for a little longer, then nodded. "Suzie died again, recently?" |
| "Today in fact," he answered by rote, still staring, "Turned me on?" |
| "Good." He took another drink of coffee. "Apparently in Owen's universe, Gwen walked in and found me dead and you jerking off onto my bloody corpse." |
| Ianto paled, "I object to that on multiple levels." |
| "So do I!" |
| "But Owen thought it was normal?" |
| "Apparently, for this Owen, you being batshit is normal." |
| "Owen's hardly a picture of mental health." |
| "None of you have any room to criticize the mental health of much of anyone." |
| "None of us. Sir." Ianto corrected. |
| "I'm almost sure I'm better off than any of you lot, but your point is taken, Ianto." He paused. "Have we had sex yet?" |
| "Define sex," Ianto said, sipping his coffee. |
| "Mutual orgasam." |
| "Then yes. Why?" |
| "I'm trying to make sure I don't do anything particularly stupid." |
| "And finding out if we've been achieving orgasms together is relative to that?" |
| "It save me getting slapped for being overly familiar." |
| "If you want to get over familiar after hearing that from Owen the only slapping will involve temperature taking, sir." |
| "What Owen told me is irrelevant to my interaction with you," he said, blandly. Because he still didn't trust Owen, or Ianto. Come to think of it he didn't much trust Tosh or Gwen, either. |
| "That's why you looked at me like that when I came in then." |
| "It's irrelevant now that I've figured out you aren't Owen's Ianto." |
| Ianto rubbed his forehead, "Drink your coffee, Jack, you're giving me a headache." |
| He put his coffee down, a little harder than was strictly necessary. "Find a table, take a seat and I will be with you shortly." |
| "Your temper's better after you have your first coffee." Ianto said, not moving, "I wasn't demanding either your time or your attention. I'll report back to you when I know something about where we are. Captain." |
| "My temper's better when I haven't nearly died, in an attempt to save the world from my team's fuck-ups," he said, precisely. "I know you weren't making a demand, but I am. " |
| "What happened?" he frowned, putting his own coffee down and reaching for Jack's elbow. |
| "It's still in your future, Ianto. Go sit down while I get food. I'll be right there." |
| Ianto picked up his coffee, found a table by the window and sat. |
| Lacking patience Jack got the 'continental breakfast' option, and ended up back at the table with a whole lot of cold cereal, fruit, yogurt, milk, his coffee, and patries. He put all three plates down on the table, grabbed a donut and sat down across from Ianto.
"All right," he mumbled, as he bit into the thing. "We need to see if there's a way to get out of here, first and foremost. Where here is is secondary, but it would be good to know. We also need to find out what knowledge we'll take back with us, and potential side effects of paradoxes occuring here are." He managed to, more or less, wolf down half his coffee and all the donut through that speech. |
| "The door I came through doesn't lead back to the hub; it's just a storage closet," Ianto sipped his coffee, watching Jack eat with something like awe. "Doesn't the rift correct paradoxes naturally?" |
| "Only if it's something that's come through the rift itself. There have been incidents of paradoxes creating tears in the universe that allow some really nasty things through. We don't want that." He finished his coffee, and ate another donut. |
| "Like Owen's Ianto." He was so never getting over that. "You said you nearly died. You don't eat. Quite this much even when you do." |
| "I died once, came back without being completely healed then lost a lot of energy. Frankly, I don't know what it's going to take to make up for it, but I'm hoping that a lot of sugar and caffeine make a difference." That was the answer to the question, that was one. "I hope like hell Owen's Ianto doesn't end up here, but I'd prefer it to back in our timeline." |
| "Some sleep too, when you can," he agreed, watching Jack the Devourer. "We're either from different timelines or we don't retain the memories of this place." |
| "If you think I'm sleeping after my conversation with Owen, you don't know me as well as you think you do." He flashed a quick, warm grin at that, though. "You're right. You that's with me would remember it. That's good." |
| "I said when you can," Ianto reminded him, leaning back in his chair, "So we can either find differences in our timelines or assume that what happens here does not affect our own timelines." |
| "I don't think this is something it's safe to assume. Gwen and Owen are sleeping together, Tosh slept with an alien who gave her jewelry, you hid Lisa in the basement?" |
| "We're not supposed to know that, she bounced back pretty well, yes, Estelle Cole died, Suzie was killing people?" |
| "You're not supposed to know that Gwen and Owen are sleeping together?" he asked, then moved on. "Estelle died in a fairy attack, Suzie was arranging murders to get us to bring her back, she was linked to Gwen through the glove, we broke the link, she's dead again." |
| "We just finished putting her in the vault, we were going to play chess." |
| He shook his head. "That wasn't chess." |
| "I make no promises how it turns out sir," Ianto said calmly, "I hadn't gotten back to your office yet. What was it?" |
| Jack lifted both his eyebrows. "The desk moved, the watch broke, and I slept." |
| "How long have we been having sex?" Ianto frowned. |
| "At the point we're discussing, or for me?" |
| "The former's the only one I can compare to, sir." |
| "Not all that long." |
| "No," he shook his head, "It's different then." |
| "Nothing before Lisa counts," he said, fairly coldly. |
| "Then we never have," he said cooly calm. |
| "You *are* my Ianto." |
| "That at least is somewhat reassuring." |
| "Mostly for me, I'm sure," he said wryly, and put together cereal and kept eating. |
| Ianto got up and came back with two fresh cups of coffee and a muffin. He handed one of the cups of coffee to Jack and kept the other and the muffin, sitting back in his chair and studying Jack. |
| "Thank you," he told Ianto, and took another drink of his coffee, only briefly breaking his food. "What are you thinking?" |
| "That I'm worried about you." |
| "Worried about me in what way?" |
| "I can't imagine hearing that about...the other Ianto was comfortable." |
| "It wasn't," he admitted, willingly and not at all like it was actually an admission. "But it sounds like I don't stay dead over there, anyway, so for all I know I got off on it, too." |
| "I don't think you get off on anything while actually dead." |
| "Maybe I got off on dying," he shrugged. |
| "Maybe we all just have the same names." |
| "That's roughly the conclusion I've been forced to reach. There are too many fundamental differences in the universe itself for there not to be a similar effect on the people." |
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