TW Fic: Wasting Time

[waldos_writings]

Title: Wasting Time
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1182
Spoilers/Warnings: Post- "A Day in the Death"
Summary:  Ianto's had worse afternoons, Jack is incorrigible and Owen is all wet.
Author's Notes:   Written for the horizonssing Day Four Challenge.  The challenge was Otis Redding's "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay".  See the lyrics at the challenge post.
So far I've been keeping up on horizonssing : Day One | Day Two | Day Three

“You have the stopwatch?” Owen asked as he shucked his shirt and let it fall next to his feet.

“I have the stopwatch,” Ianto said, not even feigning patience with this insanity.

“Because, really, I only want to do this once,” Owen told him as he dropped his pants and let them join his shirt.

“I still don’t understand why you’re insisting on doing it at all,” Jack put in from behind Ianto.

“Because I need to know,” Owen said before strapping the diving belt around his waist over the elastic to his boxers.

Jack and Ianto shook their heads at him, but didn’t try to talk him out of it again as he walked to the edge of the dock – the same dock he’d jumped off of a week ago in utter despair over his not-really-living-but-yet-not-dead state – and pinched his nose before cannonballing into the water.

Ianto hit the button on the stopwatch.

“What do you think will happen?” Ianto asked Jack as the bubbles in the water slowed, got smaller and stopped rising altogether.

Jack spread his greatcoat on the planks, sat on it and leaned back on a strut. He rolled up his sleeves and untied his boots before kicking them off. “I’m actually hoping I’m wrong and he won’t swell up like the bodies we’ve dredged out of the bay in the past, because seeing that walking around really will creep the hell out of the tourists.”

Ianto hung up his jacket on a post and loosened his tie before joining Jack on his coat.

“And he needed to jump into Cardiff Bay to prove…?”

Jack shrugged. “I guess that he really doesn’t – and doesn’t need to - breathe. If there’s air around I think he feels that that maybe he’s breathing without registering it.”

“He can talk,” Ianto put in as he stretched his legs out and turned his face up to the sunlight. “He has to move air to talk.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. But that’s conscious. I think he wants to prove to himself that you know, other than for talking, he doesn’t need air. Of course, for all I know he just wants to get up close and personal with the fish. Who the hell knows what’s going on with him since that lab?” Jack reached down and rolled up his pants before stuffing his socks into his abandoned boots.

Ianto picked up the stopwatch and checked it. “Four minutes, sixteen seconds. How long are you going to let him stew?”

Jack shrugged. “I’m guessing he’ll either panic and surface on his own or get bored before too long.” Jack put an arm around Ianto’s shoulders.

“He could get eaten by something,” Ianto said perfectly straight-faced.

Jack scowled at the water. “You think? I can see explaining that to the girls. Sorry girls, but our undead doctor just got eaten by a mackerel. Are there mackerel in Cardiff Bay? What do you think he might get eaten by?”

“I have no idea. And in the mean time? What do we do while he doesn’t drown?” Ianto asked as he shifted enough to lean on Jack’s side, his head resting against Jack’s shoulder.

“We have some time to kill on a quiet dock on Cardiff Bay,” Jack said simply. He nudged Ianto’s foot with his own bare one. “Take off your shoes. Get comfortable.”

Ianto gave him a brief smile, “I’m comfortable now.”

“Oh, please,” Jack complained before reaching up and taking Ianto’s tie off for him, confident that suggesting it would be met with as much compliance as the shoes. He shrugged as he folded up the tie and set it on the edge of his coat. “Well, it’s a start.”

Jack pointed to the horizon, “I used to sail on a boat like that one,” he said.

“I got seasick in a canoe once,” Ianto offered lamely.

Jack laughed. “So, renting a boat and packing a picnic wouldn’t be a great way to seduce you?”

Ianto shook his head. “Not unless you have some bizarre fetish for people who are green and heaving their guts out over the edge.”

“No, that’s… no.” Jack said, making a face.

Ianto checked the stopwatch again. “Eight minutes, four.”

A long silence descended after that. They watched the birds and the boats and the tourists and kids further down the coast on what passed for a beach in Wales.

“I should have brought a book,” Jack complained when the watch reached just over thirty-eight minutes.

“I never would have thought to hear myself say this, but it’s kind of nice just to sit and do nothing.” He finally gave into the uncharacteristic warmth of the day and pulled off his shoes and socks and wiggled his toes in the breeze and sunlight.

Jack pulled him in and kissed the side of his head. “It’s certainly nice to be able to sit down for a bit and not worry about Weevils or Nostravites or whatever.”

“Just Owen being undead at the bottom of the bay,” Ianto reminded him.

“Yeah, that’s a little unusual,” Jack agreed. “But mostly harmless.”

At one hour seven minutes and eighteen seconds Jack got bored and started poking Ianto in the ribs to get a reaction out of him.

By one hour eight minutes and eleven seconds, Ianto had Jack pinned to the boards and was sitting on his hips and telling him to behave.

Ten seconds after that, they were making out like teenagers on school holiday.

At one hour nine minutes and twenty-two seconds Owen was pulling himself up onto the dock and complaining, “Oi, you two! I didn’t ask you to come out here with me to shag yourselves silly on the pier. You were supposed to be keeping an eye on me.”

Ianto scrambled up and pulled on his socks and shoes before running back to the SUV for a towel for Owen.

Jack just calmly pulled himself to his feet and stared Owen down. “What? You worried something out there was going to kill you? Again?”

Owen made a face. “I was being nibbled on by bottom-feeders. Scavengers were trying to eat my toes, Jack.”

Ianto handed over the large white towel. “We were wondering what would finally bring you to the top. Jack figured you’d just get bored eventually.”

“Go figure. Ianto actually called it. He said you’d get eaten by something.” Jack reached over and grabbed his boots and socks.

“By the looks of things, I wasn’t the only one in danger of being eaten,” Owen said with an arched eyebrow.

Jack sighed. “You couldn’t have stayed down for another fifteen minutes?”

Owen scrubbed the towel through his hair. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Yes, he is,” Ianto said as he too began to redress.

Owen shook his head. “This whole thing was a complete waste of time,” he muttered as he pulled his clothes on over his wet shorts and trudged back to the SUV.

Jack pulled Ianto in as soon as they had Owen’s back. “But it was a fun waste of time.”

Ianto grinned. “I’ve had worse afternoons.”

Comments

[invisible-lift.livejournal.com]

Classic method for making something happen: do something else. You're sure to be interrupted.

And I love the bit about the canoe. I'm glad I didn't have a beverage.

[thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com]

So incredibly true! I've been testing that lately by sitting at a bus stop for a few minutes - especially waiting for the 151. The slowest bus in Chicago. As *soon* as I take out my Crackberry or crochet... a bus shows up. Every time. Which is fine, because then, you know, I have my bus. :)

And I'm glad you weren't drinking too... poor Ianto. He'd be the sort who would go gamely into something like that and then be all "WHAT was I thinking?" and then make no bones about never doing it again. :)