Everyday Holiday
Sep. 22nd, 2010 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aviv_b_artworkAuthor: Aviv_b
Fandom: Torchwood
Schmoop: Holiday
Title: Everyday Holiday
Words: 1630
Rating: G/PG
Characters: Jack/Ianto, Team
Disclaimer: Not mine; Aunty B's and RTD's
Summary: There are so many holidays, and now that Jack is back, Ianto is going to make sure they celebrate as many as possible.
A/N: Inspired by BeesandBrews story “Better Late Than Never” http://beesandbrews.livejournal.com/176519.html which was written for the schmoop bingo prompt ‘Holiday’. Jack returns from the TYTNW and tries to make up for holidays he missed with Ianto. Ianto realizes that Jack needs reasons to celebrate and decides to find lots of holidays so they can. With her kind permission, I continue the idea.
Jack woke up alone in his bed in the Hub. Ianto wasn’t there, but Jack could hear the sounds of movement overhead as Ianto walked around his office.
Ianto moved to stand where Jack could see him from the bed. “Time to get up. I thought we could have a few quiet moments for ourselves before everyone else arrives.”
Jack breathed deeply enjoying the smell of Ianto’s fresh brewed coffee, special blend of course, as well as the lovely scent of freshly scrubbed Ianto. Could there be a better way to start the day? He quickly showered and dressed and climbed up the ladder to his office. He was startled to see that Ianto had cleared off his desk, put a table cloth over it and had a full breakfast spread out on it. Apparently Ianto had risen early, gone to his flat, made breakfast and brought it back for them to enjoy.
“Ok, it’s not my birthday, and its not Christmas, so what’s the occasion?” Jack asked.
“Why, I’m surprised at you, Jack. Today is a very important celebration.”
Jack looked at the table and noticed that there were three place settings. Was the prime minister or the head of UNIT visiting? No that couldn’t be right.
“Who’s our visitor?”
“I almost forgot…hang on a minute,” Ianto said as he climbed down the ladder into Jack’s room. Jack shrugged and spooned some scrambled eggs onto his plate along with a scone and some orange marmalade. He almost choked as Ianto placed a pink teddy bear with a heart on it in the third chair.
Jack smiled. “Oh it’s International Teddy Bear Day.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Jack, that’s on September 9th. Today is January 18th which means its Winnie the Pooh Day. Well actually, it’s the birthday of A.A. Milne, but it’s celebrated as Winnie’s special day.”
“And Mr. Bear…”
“Well we don’t have a Winnie the Pooh Bear, so Mr. Bear is standing in for the roll.”
“Lovely of him,” Jack snarked as he stuffed more eggs in his mouth.
“And I thought perhaps I would read a bit of prose in honor of this special day.”
Jack rolled his eyes as Ianto sat down picked up a piece of toast in one hand and a book in the other. Ianto began to read. "Once upon a time, a very long time ago, Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest…"
Ianto read for about twenty minutes taking bites of his breakfast between sentences. Jack suddenly noticed the time. “Tosh will be here any minute. Unless you want to share the party with her, we better get this cleaned up.”
Too late. The alarm sounded and the cog door opened. Tosh came in and looked around for Ianto. Hearing voices from Jack’s office she bounded up the stairs with the bag of bagels and cream cheese she had purchased on her way in.
Opening the door, she found a very embarrassed looking Jack and Ianto and…Mr. Bear and breakfast. “Oh I thought I was interrupting something…well I guess I am…but not what I thought…”
“We’re having a nice breakfast in celebration of Winnie-the-Pooh Day,” Ianto said with a twinkle in his eye.
Tosh giggled. “It’s a good thing I brought bagels because you couldn’t possibly have a proper celebration without them.” Tosh picked up Mr. Bear and sat down in his chair. “I’ll just hold him on my lap here, I don’t think he’ll mind.”
“Any chance Papa Bear could get a chance to sit there next?” Jack said waggling his eyebrows at her.
“Oi, what’s going on here,” Owen said barging into the office.
“Sit down we’re having a party,” Ianto said putting a couple more chairs around the desk.
Owen was practically drooling as he snagged a scone and slathered it with orange marmalade. He couldn’t have cared less what they were celebrating as long as food was involved.
Ianto continued to read from the book until at last Gwen came in. She looked around the Hub, surprised that no one was there. As she went to check the rift predictor to see if a spike had called everyone away, Owen opened the door to Jack’s office yelling “Get up here before breakfast is all gone.”
Gwen ran up the stairs and entered Jack’s office. “OK whose birthday is it?”
“A.A. Milne’s actually,” Ianto told her.
She looked puzzled for a moment and then smiled. “Oh you mean as in, “They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace -Christopher Robin went down with Alice…”
The others joined in. “A face looked out, but it wasn't the King's. He's much too busy a-signing things," Says Alice.”
They all laughed and chatted about their favorite characters from the books they had all read in their childhoods. Tosh’s favorites were Kanga and Roo. Gwen had great affection for Winnie. Ianto had loved Eeyore. After some prodding Owen admitted to having an affinity for…
“Piglet, you’re piglet,” Gwen shouted with glee.
“I beg your pardon,” Owen said in mock horror.
“OK kids, this has been a lovely breakfast, but it’s almost 9:30, time to get to work.”
“But Jack,” Tosh said, “you haven’t told us who your favorite character is.”
Jack winced inside. Everyone had picked characters that reflected something important about their lives, Tosh had picked the mother-child pair, Gwen had picked the most optimistic character, Ianto the most pessimistic character and Owen, well that really needed no explanation at all.
Jack smiled brightly, but Ianto noticed that the smile never reached Jack’s eyes. “Alice,” he said.
“Figures he picked the girl who is in love with the soldier,” Gwen teased.
“Well you know me, I just can’t resist a pretty girl with a thing for a man in uniform.”
Only Ianto noticed that Jack’s eyes had lost their customary glow.
***
There were no rift spikes so they spent the day catching up on paperwork. At 4 PM, Jack sent everyone home. “I have big news, Ianto has informed me that January 27th is Chocolate Cake Day, so let’s plan on having a special tea that day.”
Gwen and Tosh left talking excitedly about what they would bring for the next celebration.
“I’ve got a recipe for chocolate lava cake with coffee cream ganache,” Gwen said as they walked out.
“So that means that Rhys is going to have a very busy evening making it isn’t he,” Tosh teased.
“You think?” Gwen said laughing.
Owen turned to Jack and Ianto. “Isn’t that what bakeries are for? I’ll be bringing a German Chocolate cake.” As Owen walked toward the Hub he turned back for a moment. “I’ve been wracking my brain all day trying to think of how you two could make Winnie-the Pooh into an erotic experience. But I just can’t figure it out. And no, I don’t want to know. Have a good evening…don’t do anything Pooh wouldn’t approve of.”
After everyone had left, Jack asked Ianto to come back to his office. Once there, Jack opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a small metal strongbox. “I think its time I told you about Alice.”
They talked for several hours about Alice and Stephen and Alice’s mother. Jack broke down as he finished his story telling Ianto that he hardly ever got to see his grandson, not even on Christmas or his birthday. Ianto came around the desk pulling Jack into his arms. “Its OK, I’ve got you. And I’m not going to leave you.”
“That’s just it, everybody I love leaves me or dies or ends up hating me.”
“I am never going to leave you Jack, and I will never hate you. I will die some day, but I’m not planning on doing so for a long time.”
Jack was exhausted. He didn’t want dinner, so Ianto took him down into his bunker, undressed him and put him in bed. “I’ll be along in a bit, I just want to tidy up a little,” Ianto told Jack as he headed back up the ladder. Ianto cleaned up the kitchen and then sat in Jack’s office and read for a while.
When he finally went down into Jack’s bunker, Jack was mumbling in a restless sleep. He got into bed and pulled Jack into his arms. Gradually he could feel Jack relax a bit, and he was able to fall asleep as well.
The next morning Jack awoke once again to find Ianto’s side of the bed empty. Mr. Bear was on Ianto’s pillow holding a book. Curious, Jack took the book and noticed that some pages had little flags stuck on them. He opened to the first flagged page of ‘Quotes from Winnie-the-Pooh'.
“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together… there is something you must always remember… you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think…but the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I’ll always be with you.”
Turning to the next flagged page Jack read:
“If there ever comes a day when we can't be together keep me in your heart, I'll stay there forever.”
And at the final marked page, it read:
“Piglet: "Pooh, how do you spell love?" Pooh: "You don't spell it, you feel it."”
Jack thought that truer words had never been spoken by a pig to a bear.
He smiled as he got up to start another day. He felt much better for having unburdened himself to Ianto. And he’d be able to return the kindness three days hence on the 21st when it was National Hugging Day, (in the U.S. anyway). And considering that it was also Squirrel Appreciation Day on the 21st, he had a few things planned for them on that day involving hugs not to mention someone's nuts. Oh yeah, good times.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2010-09-23 01:20 am (UTC)And I want to play! Can I play? Perhaps the muse will enjoy a bit of holiday fun (and return from her own vacation)!
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Date: 2010-09-23 01:24 am (UTC)The minute I saw Winnie the Pooh Day - the story almost wrote itself!
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Date: 2010-09-23 10:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-09-23 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-23 03:02 am (UTC)As for the end - hey its Jack - and I just couldn't resist when I saw that both those celebrations are on the same day. You couldn't make this stuff up.
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Date: 2010-09-23 11:26 am (UTC)I'm amazed at the quality of the stories from this challenge, they all seem to say something amazing.
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Date: 2010-09-23 01:58 pm (UTC)I started one story for 'walk on the beach' but my characters kept getting eaten by sharks, stung by jellyfish, pulled out by rip currents...I just can't seem to keep my characters looking deeply into each other's eyes for 1000 words.
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Date: 2010-09-23 02:05 pm (UTC)Had to snicker when Gwen called Owen out for favouring Piglet though. I've now got to back-track and read beesandbrews' story. Great way to start my mid-semester break :)
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Date: 2010-09-23 07:04 pm (UTC)beautiful story! <3
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Date: 2010-09-23 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-23 07:38 pm (UTC)“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together… there is something you must always remember… you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think…but the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I’ll always be with you.”
“If there ever comes a day when we can't be together keep me in your heart, I'll stay there forever.”
Those two paragraphs brought a tear to my eye.
Beautifull mix of fluffyness and angst.
Great story.
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Date: 2010-09-23 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-24 06:39 am (UTC)But the quotes absolutely just so fit in with everything Jack and Ianto are. And the quote about love being felt and not spelt - I'd forgotten about it but it is just as beautiful as when I first read it all those years ago. And it being applied to Janto is so very perfect.
Thank you so very much for sharing this <3
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Date: 2010-09-24 01:07 pm (UTC)justa kid's writer. He really understands the nature of friendship and how friends are what keep you going through tough times. I don't know if you've read the other comments but the quote that always gets to me (and I used in Ianto's Journey, so i didn't want to use it here, was, "Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave" which applies so well to Janto.Thanks for reading!
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Date: 2010-09-24 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-09-24 09:58 pm (UTC)A lovely story, very moving quotes and it's nice seeing everyone being happy together!
Squirrel appreciation day? What do people do for that? o_O
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Date: 2010-09-24 10:56 pm (UTC)Squirrel Appreciation Day is an opportunity to enjoy and appreciate your tree climbing, nut gathering neighborhood squirrels. It's held in mid-winter when food sources are scarce for squirrels and other wildlife. So, give them an extra special treat today to supplement their winter diets.
Origin of Squirrel Appreciation Day:
Christy Hargrove from Asheville, North Carolina started Squirrel Appreciation Day on January 21, 2001. Christy is a wildlife rehabilitator in North Carolina, and is is affiliated with the Western North Carolina Nature Center.
Yeah gotta love those little rodents, falling down the chimney, eating the geraniums, running across the roof.
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Date: 2010-09-26 06:01 pm (UTC)I always felt sorry for Eeyore. I thought, how could anyone be that sad with so many friends? I got my Mom to buy me one so I could hug him everyday so he wouldn't be sad anymore.
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Date: 2011-01-22 12:32 am (UTC)Excellent story, PLUS illustration! I love how my newer iPod came -pre-loaded with the book. :)
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Date: 2011-01-22 04:55 am (UTC)