Discovery: Chapter 36 - Order & Chaos
Nov. 4th, 2009 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aviv_b_artworkAUTHOR: Aviv_b
RATING: Chapter 36 - PG-13 for language and sexual references
CHARACTERS: Ianto, Owen, Jack, Tosh
DISCLAIMER: Not mine; Aunty B's and RTD's
WORDS: ~ 2840
SUMMARY: Ianto finds the Torchwood archives in complete chaos, tries to impose some order on his relationship with Jack and returns to London for a New Years celebration.
The title is from the following: We adore chaos because we love to produce order. M. C. Escher
Owen and Ianto had wanted to get an early start for the drive back to London. Ianto hated the fact that Owen was going to have to drive there and back in a single day, but since the trains weren’t running, there weren’t any other choices. Unfortunately they were thwarted in their plans as Jack’s car repair shop wouldn’t return Owen’s car to the Hub until 10 AM.
While they waited, Ianto wandered through the rooms that constituted Torchwood Three’s archives. As he looked in the file drawers he realized that everything was even in more disarray than he thought.
Someone had started keeping a computerized log of items that came through the rift several years prior, but in addition to the unknown items being filed under ‘Alien Artifacts” even the known items were catalogued in a random manner. Some items were filed by the culture they came from, some by the date the item was thought to be from, and some were filed by the name of the item. Nothing was cross-indexed properly and there was no sort capacity of the computerized logs. And the physical items themselves weren’t labeled so one had to rely on the logs which often said things like, ‘large green item that looks like a toaster on the third shelf from the top in the cabinet next to the water pipe.’
Ianto shook his head in disbelief. He didn’t even want to think about the boxes from Torchwood One. He could only hope that there might be related items in a single box. He was pretty sure that he would be able to remember the basics about anything from their archives, but not the carefully cross-referenced details.
Tosh demonstrated the Unit software for him and as she stated it was workable but not terribly user friendly.
‘This is what Unit uses to record their reports? Unbelievable,’ he stated while looking at Tosh.
She nodded in agreement. “You’d think that an organization like that would have software that was better designed and easier to use.”
‘I wonder if we could access what they used at Torchwood London. Especially if I have to start from scratch, it would make sense to use report and archival systems that work well together.”
Tosh cautiously reminded Ianto that Jack had forbidden them to use any of Torchwood One’s systems. ‘Well, he wasn’t going to hire me either and here I am. I’ll go talk to him about it.’
“Well if anyone can convince him, it will be you.”
Jack was in his office and looked a little confused when Ianto entered.
‘Sir, do you have a moment?”
“I forgot you and Owen were stopping by for his car. What time is it? And what’s with the ‘Sir’?”
‘The car’s not being delivered until ten. It’s 9:15 now. And I thought it best if we maintain a professional relationship at work.’
“Oh you did, did you? You didn’t ask if that was OK with me, did you?”
Ianto couldn’t understand why Jack was being so cold until he caught the twinkle in Jack’s eye.
“Well come over here and give me a kiss,” Jack laughed. “You’re not on the payroll yet, so we’ll have to take advantage of this time.”
Ianto walked over to Jack’s desk and bent down to kiss him. Jack pulled him down into his lap and gave him a long deep kiss. As much as Ianto hated to stop, his anxiety over the state of the archives even managed to surpass his desire to just sit on Jack’s lap and snog him until ten o’clock.
‘I really want to talk to you before I have to leave,’ Ianto told Jack as he slipped out of his grip. ‘You don’t have any proper software for organizing the archives and the program that UNIT sent you for logging reports is poorly done and won’t be able to interface with any archival programs we use.”
Ianto took a deep breath as he typed. ‘I’d like to suggest that we avail ourselves of the programs used by Torchwood London. I know how you feel about using their technology, but if we can somehow retrieve their software that will give us a big head start. I’m familiar with it, at least the archival programs, and I’ve used the report programs for cross-referencing. Not to mention that you’ve got, what, a couple hundred boxes from them that are also going to need to be sorted. We might even be able to retrieve London’s archival records which would really help with their boxes.’
Jack studied Ianto closely. ‘He’s really taking all of this seriously, which I have to admit I really wasn’t when I offered him the job. But with London gone, I suppose we are now the main repository of all of London’s leftovers. But I’m loath to use their systems; everything from them just reeks of corruption, ok everything but Ianto.’
He avoided answering Ianto’s request directly. “What does Torchwood Two use and why wouldn’t that work for us? After all, they archive all the really large items that come through the rift.’
‘Their systems would be fine as well,’ Ianto replied, trying to hide the smile that had been forming as Jack spoke.
Jack caught Ianto’s smile. “Don’t tell me,” he sighed. “They use the same software as One.” Ianto nodded. “Ok, I’ll have Tosh contact Archie and get copies of the software for you. And I’ll have her see if she can retrieve any of London’s archival files.”
‘Thanks Sir.’
“Don’t know if I’m going to get used to this Sir thing. Everyone else here calls me Jack, so I really think it would be OK to use my name. And if you don’t want to fool around during work hours, I’ll do the best I can to restrain myself. Which means, I won’t put my hands all over you when the others are around. But if they’re not, I make no promises.”
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” Jack continued. “You had mentioned you want to set some guideline for our being together. I guess no snogging at work is one of them. I’m pretty amenable to almost anything you ask with one exception.”
Jack thought, ‘I hope this isn’t a deal killer, but Owen’s right, he deserves the truth.’
He explained to Ianto that he couldn’t commit to pure monogamy. “I promise that anything else I do will be discreet and I will never bring anyone to the Hub or your flat or around the team without your OK. But I have needs that a 21st century human cannot satisfy, even if you’re into some pretty rough and kinky stuff. That also means that you are free to do likewise under the same terms of discretion concerning the Hub and the team.”
Ianto couldn’t hide his disappointment. He had hoped that this would be a committed relationship but reminded himself that even when he thought he and Lisa were a couple, she didn’t seem to feel the same. And at least Jack was being upfront about it.
‘I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed, but not really surprised. I wish I could be everything that you need, but…’ his voice trailed off as he couldn’t think what to say. He couldn’t make eye contact with Jack, not now, so he focused on the floor instead.
‘But that brings up another point. If you’re going to be with others then we’ll have to use protection. I’m not immortal and I can’t chance getting HIV or anything like that.’
Jack wasn’t terribly happy with Ianto’s proposal. But he knew Ianto was right. He got up and walked to over to where Ianto was sitting. He leaned over and kissed the top of his head. “Ianto, look at me. I’m not going to go out and shag others every other night, but sometimes, knowing that I’m going to live forever, I need to feel some pain and humiliation to remind myself that I’m still human. And I don’t want to ask that of you. I want our relationship to be about pleasure, not about hurting each other. And I promise that I’ll use protection with anyone else I see. That way we won’t have to. Does that make sense to you?”
Ianto nodded. He still really didn’t understand why Jack needed people to hurt him, but knew he couldn’t bring himself to do anything like that to Jack.
Jack was relieved with Ianto’s acceptance. ‘I’ll just have to be very discreet. Won’t do to have him hearing that I was out with some gorgeous lady for dinner even if she’s going to torture me to death afterwards. What he doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt him. And I think I’ll just skip telling him about The Doctor for now. Wait until he’s more at ease with me; I don’t want to scare him off.’
Jack motioned to Ianto to stand up. Ianto did so, his eyes again on the floor. Jack gently tipped Ianto’s head up and kissed him gently on the cheek. He took Ianto in his arms and held him tightly. “Don’t be upset, Ianto. As long as I’m on this planet, you’re the one I want to be with. I just want to make sure that we’re open and honest with each other.”
He kissed Ianto on his other cheek. “We’re going to have such a great time when you get back. There are places I want to take you and things I want to do with you that I know you’ve never experienced. And being with you it will be new again for me to see them through your eyes.” Jack tilted Ianto head back a bit and gave him a last long, luscious snog. “Enjoy your last few weeks in London, go out and see others if you want to, I really won’t mind, because I know when you come back here you won’t have time for anyone else but me.”
Ianto looked at Jack wanly. ‘Does this mean I’m going to be exhausted all the time once I’m back in Cardiff?’
“Well I certainly hope so. Look it’s almost ten, let’s go down into the Hub; you don’t want to keep Owen waiting. With the late start and the traffic, he’s bound to be pretty cranky.”
They went into the main area of the Hub. “Where’s Owen?” Jack queried.
‘He’s waiting outside for the car to be delivered. He’s already pretty cranky. This should be a fun drive back to London.’ Ianto rolled his eyes. ‘We should probably go wait in the tourist office for him. My duffle’s already up there.’
Less than five minutes later, Owen came into the tourist office announcing that the car was ready to go. Jack walked out with Ianto and inspected the work. To his eye the car looked perfect, but he wasn’t going to say anything that might set Owen off on a rant. To his surprise, Owen mentioned what a nice job Jack’s body shop had done. “Oh, and they’ll be sending the bill directly to Torchwood. Said it wasn’t the first time they’ve had to fix a car for the Captain on short notice.”
“Yeah, there was one year before you joined when we managed to roll an SUV and a car in the same week. Never a dull moment.”
“Come here you,” Jack said to Ianto. He gave him one last hug and kiss while Owen got into the car. Owen drove off the second Ianto had shut the door.
The Boxing Day traffic was terrible. Owen grumbled all the way to Clifton’s. Ianto went in and quickly picked up his suit, shirts and ties. It was Noon by the time they got onto the M4 headed to London. The traffic thinned out on the road and Owen began to enjoy the drive. He asked Ianto how he was feeling but Ianto was staring out the window lost in thought. ‘Wonder what that’s about. Hope Jack didn’t upset him.’ A little while later Owen looked over to see that Ianto was asleep.
Owen let Ianto sleep for an hour and then turned the volume up on the CD that was playing. Ianto stirred and Owen quickly turned the volume back down.
Ianto yawned. ‘Shit I’m tired. That was a lot more exciting Christmas than I was expecting.’ Whatever had been bothering Ianto had apparently been resolved in Ianto’s mind.
“That was pretty crazy with the strip Trivial Pursuit and the weevil and the fire. You know, Ianto, you really ought to have a little chat with Stephen about those brownies. That could have turned out quite differently if you hadn’t taken his warning seriously and your niece and nephew had eaten them or someone had a reaction to the hashish.”
‘I know; I’m furious with him! But since I’m staying with him until the end of January I’m going to have to be nicer about it than I really want to. I should have known better with him. He’s a great guy to bar hop with, but he just doesn’t think about consequences. His brother Bryan is almost as bad. I kind of feel sorry for The Brigadier; they must drive him crazy.’
“Well, don’t go blaming yourself. How could you know he was into drugs?”
Ianto sighed. ‘I don’t want to lie to you Owen. I did know. We smoked some joints together a couple of times. And I know he does some club drugs on occasion. I just never imagined that he’d send me hash brownies, through the mail yet. Shit, what if they had been found by drug sniffing dogs? We could have both ended up in big trouble.’
Owen hadn’t considered that possibility. “Good point. Don’t worry Ianto, I’m going to kill him myself when I meet him at the New Year’s party. Stupid git! And frankly, you shouldn’t be doing any drugs, even marijuana with all the medications that you’re on.”
‘Actually Owen, it gave me better pain relief than some of the medications they had me on.’
“Just remember, you don’t know if it’s pure or laced with PCP or meth or something else. So be careful.”
‘I think my drug days are over. Guess I’ll just have to resort to getting drunk.’
“Now there’s a plan.”
* * * *
They stopped for a quick bite to eat just before they got London since they reckoned the London traffic would be a nightmare. They were right. With everyone out shopping the roads were clogged and it was 5 PM before Owen dropped Ianto off at Stephen’s flat.
“Oi, give Stephen a smack on the head from me, OK?”
‘I think he’s gone until Saturday; at least that’s what he texted me a couple nights ago. Maybe I’ll just trash his flat and tell him it was a reaction to the half dozen brownies I ate when I got back.’
Ianto got out of the car while Owen got his duffle out of the boot. “Did you open your present from Jack, or is that none of my business?”
Ianto hadn’t opened the present since Jack had asked him not to open it until he was back in London. ‘I could open it now…it feels like it’s a paperweight or something heavy.’
“Your call.”
Ianto smiled and ripped off the wrapping paper. He opened the small white box and gasped. Inside was his pocket watch. Ianto had written it off as lost months ago. Jack had included a small note explaining that it had been found during the clean up at Canary Wharf and he had had it repaired for Ianto. The crystal had obviously been replaced as it didn’t have the few scratches on it that it had before and it had been shined up nicely. The note finished by saying, “I took the liberty of having something engraved on it. Hope that’s OK.”
Ianto turned the watch over. He looked surprised and confused as he read the inscription.
Owen read the inscription and snorted. “Who would have thought that Jack Harkness was such a romantic? So what do you think?”
‘I think my grandfather would be appalled to see what Jack did to his watch, but it’s nice, really. I’m just surprised that Jack took the chance of having this done before we met. Things could have worked out quite differently.’
“That’s Jack for you,” Owen snorted, “he certainly doesn’t suffer from any lack of confidence in his own prowess.”
Ianto didn’t say anything else but continued to look at the watch with confusion on his face. Owen thought it was best to leave well enough alone and not question Ianto about his rather tepid reaction to the watch.
“Hey, I’d better get back on the road, still got a long drive back. I’ll be back in London Saturday evening so I’ll give you a call then. See what you’re up to. Maybe I can meet the illustrious Stephen on Sunday. Slap him around then rather than at the Brigadier’s. If that doesn’t work out then I’ll see you Monday night at the Brigadier’s. Alright?”
‘Do me one favor will you? Call me when you get to Cardiff so I know you’re OK.’
“Hey, who do think you are, my Tad?” Owen teased. He gave Ianto a hug and got back into his Miata, waved farewell and drove off headed back to Cardiff.
Chapter 37 here: http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/13862.html
