FIC: Chase Down the Trash Day, Part 1/3
Sep. 7th, 2008 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waldos_writingsTitle: Chase Down the Trash Day
Written for:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
thestopwatch's Summer exchange, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
agentmonk
Summary: Jack manages to make camping romantic, but then it all goes downhill from there.
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 12,020 (total)
Author's Notes: These were turned back to us this morning. For those of you who had to hear me whine in mid-July about OMG!Must finish exchange thing while traveling!... This is that story. I worked in as many parts of Agentmonk's prompt as I could: camping, NC-17, Top Ianto and H/C and, as you might have guessed by the 12,000 words, something like a plot and not just a PWP. Title is a play on the West Wing episode “Take Out the Trash Day”. Like a dork, I referenced another one of my own stories in this one. Not the best idea ever in an anonymous exchange. Oops. But the reference to 'the last time they went camping' was to my story Rarely Pure and Never Simple.
PART I
Tosh’s glasses hit the cluttered workspace with a clack. Tosh scrubbed her eyes and hoped that when she opened them, what she saw on the screen would make more sense.
No such luck. She turned on another monitor and sent some of the data to that side and looked back and forth between the screens, hoping that bigger would equal more logical.
After another hour and a half of manipulating the information she was getting from the Rift detector it did. Mostly.
“Jack?” she hollered from her seat, too tired to actually get up and report to her boss.
Jack came loping out of his office, a piece of alien tech in his hands that was in several pieces. They had reduced the options of what it could be to either a piece of medical equipment that was broken or a child’s toy. “What’s up?”
Tosh sighed and angled one of the screens so it would be easier for him to see. “We have about thirty-six separate Rift signals.”
Suddenly Owen, Gwen and Ianto dashed over to her station. “Thirty-six?” Owen repeated. “We have thirty-six aliens descending on Cardiff right now?”
Tosh shook her head. “I’m not getting life signs. I am getting some technology signs. I’ve followed a few of them on CCTV and they don’t look like much.” A smaller window appeared on the screen under the map of Wales. “I know this sounds stupid, but my first reaction was that someone dumped their trash into the Rift.”
“Oh, lovely,” Owen opined. “We’re about to get two tons of space garbage dumped on us.”
“Not on us,” Tosh replied, her fingers dancing over the keys again. “When I first started here, a little over four years ago, most of the things that fell through the Rift ended up right here in the Plass. Then they started spreading out through Cardiff. Last year we started noticing a number of things popping up in Newport and Swansea and places like that.”
“There was that lovely little fuzzy bastard that turned up in Hay-on-Wye a few months ago,” Jack put in sourly.
“You’re still bitter because it bit you and you glowed for three days afterwards,” Ianto chided.
“You’re just gloating because you figured out that it was the color of the walls in the vaults that made it so violent. By the way, someone really needs to paint it back to something a little more neutral. I don’t imagine that the next Weevil we have to shove in there will like living in a lavender cell.” Jack crossed his arms and glared at Ianto. He still had no idea how Ianto had figured out the little critter’s problem and no amount of threatening or pleading had convinced him to tell.
“And now,” Tosh cut in abruptly, the Rift is really spreading out. And it’s split. About twenty of the pieces with enough Rift energy for me to track spread themselves out between Ffest… Ffesten…” Tosh tripped over the difficult Welsh name until Gwen took pity on her and gave her the pronunciation. “Fehst-in-ee-og,” Tosh repeated slowly. “Right, so, up between Ffestiniog and Bangor up in and near Snowdonia National Park and the others are between Bristol and Reading.”
“Nothing like making a needle-in-a-haystack hunt a little more difficult by making the haystack about twenty five miles long and about a hundred and fifty or so miles away.” Owen glared at the Rift generator in the middle of the Hub. “I tell you this Rift in time and space is really getting to be a right pain in the arse.”
“Any indication that anything out there is dangerous?” Jack asked.
“No, like I said, I think it’s trash, but who knows what they throw out on other worlds. What if someone threw out … a Blackberry phone today and it landed back in, oh, I don’t know, the year twelve hundred? It technically wouldn’t harm anyone, but it would freak them out pretty good.” Tosh picked her glasses back up and chewed on the earpiece.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Jack said as he leaned over Tosh’s shoulder and began sending data hither and yon. “How long do we have to track all this down before the Rift energy wears off?” he asked as he worked.
“A week, ten days on the outside,” Tosh said, trying to lean back in her chair to stay out of Jack’s way.
“Excellent. Tosh, you’ll stay here to coordinate. The rest of us will split up and chase down the Rift trash,” he finished typing with a flourish and stood back up.
Owen half raised a hand, as if trying to get Jack’s attention. “If it’s all the same to everyone,” he started with a glance around to see if anyone was going realize that he was claim-jumping and object. “I mean, if no one minds, might I be on the team going to Bristol and Reading?”
“Not fond of Welsh National Parks, Owen?” Jack teased.
“No, I was just thinking. If you keep going up past Reading an hour or so you’re in London. I figured if nothing had to be rushed straight back here… hit a few clubs, maybe see if there’s a football match?” Owen had the grace to look sheepish, as if he knew he was angling for the posher assignment.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Fine. It makes sense given that you’re the closest we’re going to get to sending a local anyway. In that vein, I’ll take Ianto up to Snodonia with me. Which means: Gwen, you’re with Owen. Now, given that we’re the ones driving through the mountains and staying in the great back of beyond, we get the SUV. So sort out whose car the two of you are taking and have Ianto issue what ever kit you’re going to need.”
“Kit? I was thinking we’d stay in B and Bs or motels while we trace down a great pile of space rubbish. We’re going to be between Bristol and Reading not out in the middle of the fucking…” he trailed off before he found himself exactly where he didn’t want to be. “Wilderness,” he finished lamely.
Jack shook his head. “Keep receipts, and take the kit anyway, just in case.”
Owen gave Jack a mock salute before going off to pack up what he and Gwen would need for a few days scouring the countryside for intergalactic garbage.
Before Jack could turn around to tell Ianto what they needed, Ianto was gone. Jack supposed he really didn’t need to give him too many orders.
Jack went into his office and called up the data Tosh had been showing them and then superimposed the latest data over a map of the park. There was a cluster of blips pretty far away from any signs of major civilization. Jack blew up that quadrant of the map and grinned at what he saw. Oh, that would do perfectly. He grabbed his mobile and made a reservation.
The next morning they left at seven a.m. Jack drove as far as Llanidloes, where they stopped to get lunch and coffees for the road; Ianto took over driving from there. Just before they reached Ffestiniog Jack pointed to the little grocery he spotted on the roadside. “We may as well get a few provisions.”
Ianto obediently pulled into the dusty carpark. “I thought you said you’d made a reservation at a B and B? Surely they’ll have food.”
Jack rolled his head. “I said I made a reservation. I never said anything about B and B’s. Please tell me you aren’t confusing me with Owen.”
Ianto got out of the car. “Not likely. Please tell me we aren’t sleeping in the bloody tent tonight.” He had no idea he could be that whiney and winced at his own tone.
“We’re not sleeping in the ‘bloody tent’ either. I had a brainstorm,” Jack said proudly.
“This ought to be hysterical,” Ianto mumbled under his breath.
“And I think you’ll like it,” Jack continued as if Ianto hadn’t spoken. “Come on, we need food.” Jack wrapped an arm around Ianto’s waist and led him into the market.
Ianto suppressed the urge to badger Jack’s plan out of him. They got some canned stew and bread. Ianto grabbed some rice in a boil-in bag and Jack grabbed two bags of biscuits and a bag of crisps. Ianto grabbed milk and cereal for the morning – assuring Jack that he’d packed good coffee and the camp pot, so they wouldn’t have to resort to instant – and Jack grabbed some soda and a container of strawberries. Before they could get to the counter they had each grabbed half a dozen other things that looked interesting.
“How many days are we planning to be out here?” Ianto asked as they unloaded their armfuls onto the counter.
“Tosh said we’ve got two major clusters to cover. One has a center about six miles from here and a radius of about two and a half miles. The other is about fifteen miles further north and has a four mile radius.” Jack paid the elderly lady behind the counter as Ianto put their things into a sack. “I’m hoping three days here and two or three further up. Tosh says we’ll lose the signal if it takes too much longer than that.
Ianto nodded as he stowed the provisions in the back seat.
“Toss me the keys,” Jack hollered from where he stood on the driver’s side.
Ianto did. After all, Jack was the one who seemed to have this fabulous plan, and the reservation, for where they’d stay that night.
Ten minutes later Jack pulled off the motorway and onto a gravel and dirt road. He followed that road for another ten minutes before going through a gate and stopping before a small wooden building that reminded Ianto a little of the tourist shop in Cardiff. Small, wooden, nondescript with a sign that simply said “office”. Ianto wondered if they were a front for something bigger too. He then wondered if Torchwood made everyone that paranoid.
Jack parked the SUV in front of the building and told Ianto to wait there while he ducked inside. It was starting to get dark, and while he knew Jack had said they wouldn’t need to be setting up the tent that night, he didn’t see much in the way of a motel or hotel anywhere near them. In fact, all he saw were rather a lot of trees and three forks in the road they were currently parked on.
Jack came back out and tossed a crudely drawn map on the dashboard. On the left most fork there was a square drawn almost all the way down with “A12” written in it.
“All set,” Jack said restarting the motor and pulling out. As Jack headed down the road, Ianto began to see a few people walking down the road and he was starting to think he smelled smoke. That’s when he sorted it out. “A caravan?” he asked.
“This park is the closest we’re going to get to the center of our little mop up detail out here. And I knew you didn’t really want to try real camping again anytime soon. It seemed like the perfect solution.” Jack watched him out of the corner of his eye, gauging whether or not he’d made a huge error.
Ianto shook his head. “I’ve never been in caravan before. I suppose if no one out here tries to eat me it will definitely be better the first time you tried to take me camping.” He noticed the little wooden signs on posts driven into the ground every twenty-five feet or so, labeling the little gravel patches for each unit. “This is A6, so we should be just up the road,” he told Jack.
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “They keep the rental caravans at the end of each road. And, you know, given that it’s April, there aren’t a lot of people around here. We shouldn’t be bothered.”
The way Jack’s eyebrows bounced prompted Ianto to say, “I suspect the bigger concern might be us bothering others.”
“Well, if you weren’t such a screamer,” Jack said as he pulled the SUV up next to a reasonably new-looking trailer.
Ianto just rolled his eyes. They both knew who was the noisy one in bed.
They climbed out of the SUV and Ianto grabbed the groceries and his overnight bag. Jack had a key in one hand and grabbed his bag in the other. “Our home away from home for the next few nights,” Jack said with a flourish as he put the key in the lock and fumbled for a few second until he sorted it and flung open the flimsy door.
“You have done this before, haven’t you?” Ianto asked from a few feet back.
“Not for about twenty years, but yeah, I have.” Jack finally remembered to kick down the step tucked underneath and he pulled himself up into the caravan. He took a step in before dropping his bag and reaching up along the ceiling to find the switch attached to the overhead light. “There we go, much better,” he said as a dull white light filled the small space.
Ianto followed him up a little more cautiously. “Cosy,” he said as he took in the small space. “I think my first flat was about this size.” He waited for Jack to move a little further in and then set the groceries on the table and his bag on the bench.
He’d been joking about the flat, of course. But really, it was amazing that there really was a whole flat’s worth of accommodations in a space about sixteen long feet by seven or eight feet across. The whole area to the left of the door was taken up by a table with a bench on either side. Ianto figured four people could probably sit comfortably at any one time. Across from the door was a small cookstove with three small burners and a cabinet beneath. Next to the burners was a countertop with a small refrigerator under that. From the counter to the far wall was a double bed comfortably made up with a duvet and half a dozen pillows.
Boxing the bed in was a wall that stretched half the length of the bed. Ianto could see a plastic loo through the open door and a showerhead hanging over the toilet. Upon closer examination of the floor, he could see a small rise where the door would close and form a waterproof barrier and there was a drain in the floor. “The whole bathroom becomes the shower?” he asked as he peered past Jack.
“Yep. The sink is out here so you can use it for cooking too.” Jack pointed to the small basin across from the foot end of the bed. He then moved to the two-foot, by two-foot closet between the sink and the door and hung up his greatcoat. “What do you think?” Jack asked at last.
“I think we’re going to be tripping over each other an awful lot,” he said as he tried to squeeze past Jack to get back to the door to finish retrieving their gear.
Jack deliberately stood in the small walkway until Ianto was in his personal space. He grabbed him by the hips and kissed him. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
“We’re supposed to be out here working,” Ianto said, but his tone clearly said that it was a token protest.
“It’s going to be full dark very, very soon,” Jack told him. “And we have become glorified park rangers, sent out to pick up space trash. It’ll keep until morning.” He kissed Ianto again, sliding one hand down from the small of his back and into the back pocket of Ianto’s jeans.
Ianto pressed himself closer against Jack. “Well, if you’re sure it can wait.”
“It can,” Jack said, his lips brushing against Ianto’s as he spoke. After a minute he took a deep breath and collected himself, taking a half step back and taking his hand off Ianto’s arse. “Why don’t you go get the laptop and whatever else we don’t want to leave out in the SUV overnight and I’ll start dinner.”
Ianto coughed and shook his head to clear it. “Of course.” He stepped out into the night, the light from inside the caravan spilling out just enough to light the few steps to the SUV. He sorted through the camping kit he sorely hoped they wouldn’t need further up north, and found the bag with the laptop and the handheld they’d use to track the trash. He then found the bag with the campfire coffeepot and the bag of coffee and filters and the other things he’d brought along. Nothing else seemed pressing, so he made sure everything else was locked up safe and the alarm was set.
Jack had managed to locate the churchkey and a pot and had several cans of stew heating on one burner and Ianto’s rice on another. He was at the counter slicing the bread and there was butter sitting out by the pot to soften.
What amazed Ianto, almost as much as Jack cooking, was that on the table were two camp mugs, and between them an open bottle of really good wine.
Jack left the cooking for a minute and came up behind Ianto, wrapping his arms around his waist and hooking his chin over Ianto’s shoulder. “I couldn’t find a good way to sneak in good wine glasses, so we’ll have to make do with those.”
Ianto turned in Jack’s arms and kissed him. “It’s fine. Brilliant. I’d begin to be suspicious that you had set this all up just for us if you hadn’t sent Owen and Gwen half-way across England to chase more trash.”
Jack smiled. “I can’t take the blame for the Rift refuse, but I can say that I’m perfectly willing to take shameless advantage of the situation.” They kissed again, only stopping when a soft ‘plop’ from the stove reminded them that the stew needed stirring. Jack pulled back slowly. “You want to pour the wine while I get this stuff?”
Ianto set the computer bag in the closet and then turned to do exactly that. He felt ridiculously giddy over the whole situation. He and Jack had had their one Very Serious Date after Jack had returned from his time with the Doctor. And they’d gone out for dinner or an afternoon movie on occasion since then, but this was a whole different thing. This was like being on holiday together if he could forget that tomorrow they’d be out scavenging. But he pushed that far to the back of his mind as he poured the wine and sat down on the bench where he could watch Jack being as domestic as Ianto had ever seen him.
A few minutes later Jack came to the table with two plates of stew and rice and flatware for them both. “Is the wine any good?” he asked as he served them both and sat on the opposite side of the table.
“I was waiting for you,” Ianto told him as he put his napkin on his lap and poked at the stew with his fork as if he wasn’t sure what he’d find buried in it.
“Ah, well, here I am,” Jack said as he raised his own glass.
“There you are,” Ianto echoed, knowing that this conversation had the potential to go very silly very quickly when Jack was in a mood like he was. And truth be told, Ianto didn’t mind so much this time.
Ianto took a sip of the wine and found it to be very good indeed. He knew that with Jack he really shouldn’t have expected otherwise. Although how Jack managed to find a wine that went well with canned stew would probably remain a mystery for the ages.
As canned dinners went, it wasn’t bad. Or maybe it was that Ianto wasn’t really paying attention to what he was eating because for the first time in ages Jack was in a mood to talk. He was telling stories of the war and of how they survived on C-rations and K-rations and whatever they could scrounge for weeks on end. It made canned stew and boil-in-bag rice a five star dinner according to Jack. Of course, he’d had his share of those too and the stories took a turn for the more romantic. Men and women he’d romanced and been romanced by. Dinners on the canals of Venice and in places that booked up months in advance on the Seine.
Between them they finished the wine. Ianto wasn’t sure, but he had a suspicion that he’d had more than Jack. Once they’d drunk what Ianto had poured, Jack had taken control of the bottle, filling their glasses as needed. Ianto got the impression that Jack thought his needed it more often than Jack’s own.
Once they were done eating they’d pushed their dishes to the end of the table and stretched out along the benches, Jack still regaling Ianto with his tales; Ianto leaning on one fist in rapt attention. It took a lot to get Jack to talk this much. He wondered what had prompted it this time, but didn’t risk ruining the atmosphere by asking.
As the night chill began to creep in, Jack put on a teakettle and then proceeded to do the washing up. Ianto found himself feeling ridiculously pampered by the whole event. Jack cooking and entertaining and then clearing up after them. He needed to do something helpful, so he grabbed the teatowel on a hook over the sink and dried as Jack washed.
When the kettle began to steam, Jack turned it down but not off.
“You know, I don’t think we actually brought any tea,” Ianto told him as he put the last plate away.
“It’s not actually for tea,” Jack told him as he pulled him down on to the bed. “The steam and the burner will help warm up the caravan a little. There’s a little furnace we can kick in if it gets too bad, but once we’re in bed, I think it’ll be fine.
Ianto laughed. “Is that a hint?”
Jack scooted behind Ianto and wrapped his arms around his waist and kissed his ear. “Only if you want it to be,” he said knowing full well his actions contradicted his words.
“I suppose you’ve come equipped for any and all occasions?” Ianto asked, because really, when packing for a week in the woods, the one thing he hadn’t counted on was needing lube. But of course, he was going into the woods for a week with Captain Jack Harkness. Really, he should have figured.
But, as usual, Jack was prepared. He grabbed his duffle and riffled around until he came up with a new tube. “You mean this?”
Ianto laughed. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was getting at.” He shook his head and glanced around the caravan. All said it was a bit more comfortable than the last time they’d had sex in the woods. That had consisted of a drunken truth or dare game turning into Jack giving him a blow job against a tree and then very, very thoroughly fucking him in the tent. And he had no complaints on either score, but the bed and the pillows and the duvet of the caravan really did seem a bit more inviting than either tree bark on his back or the camp mats with two sleeping bags zipped together on them.
And anything short of actually dying was better than the trip out of the city before that.
Jack stretched forward and turned off the burner, letting the kettle steam away under its own power for a few more minutes. Ianto wasn’t sure, but either the kettle or Jack pressed against his back really did make the little camper feel warmer.
Jack scooted back against the pillows and opened his legs. “Come ‘ere,” he said and crooked a finger.
Ianto kicked off his shoes and slid up to sit sideways to Jack, his legs over one of Jack’s, his arm around Jack’s side. “Like this?” Ianto asked, attempting to be coy.
“Something like,” Jack answered, wrapping one arm around Ianto’s shoulders and pulling him in for a long, deep kiss with the other.
Ianto was panting when they broke away and he realized then and there that they wouldn’t need that little furnace that night. They were clearly quite capable of making their own heat.
Written for:
thestopwatch's Summer exchange, for agentmonk Summary: Jack manages to make camping romantic, but then it all goes downhill from there.
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 12,020 (total)
Author's Notes: These were turned back to us this morning. For those of you who had to hear me whine in mid-July about OMG!Must finish exchange thing while traveling!... This is that story. I worked in as many parts of Agentmonk's prompt as I could: camping, NC-17, Top Ianto and H/C and, as you might have guessed by the 12,000 words, something like a plot and not just a PWP. Title is a play on the West Wing episode “Take Out the Trash Day”. Like a dork, I referenced another one of my own stories in this one. Not the best idea ever in an anonymous exchange. Oops. But the reference to 'the last time they went camping' was to my story Rarely Pure and Never Simple.
PART I
Tosh’s glasses hit the cluttered workspace with a clack. Tosh scrubbed her eyes and hoped that when she opened them, what she saw on the screen would make more sense.
No such luck. She turned on another monitor and sent some of the data to that side and looked back and forth between the screens, hoping that bigger would equal more logical.
After another hour and a half of manipulating the information she was getting from the Rift detector it did. Mostly.
“Jack?” she hollered from her seat, too tired to actually get up and report to her boss.
Jack came loping out of his office, a piece of alien tech in his hands that was in several pieces. They had reduced the options of what it could be to either a piece of medical equipment that was broken or a child’s toy. “What’s up?”
Tosh sighed and angled one of the screens so it would be easier for him to see. “We have about thirty-six separate Rift signals.”
Suddenly Owen, Gwen and Ianto dashed over to her station. “Thirty-six?” Owen repeated. “We have thirty-six aliens descending on Cardiff right now?”
Tosh shook her head. “I’m not getting life signs. I am getting some technology signs. I’ve followed a few of them on CCTV and they don’t look like much.” A smaller window appeared on the screen under the map of Wales. “I know this sounds stupid, but my first reaction was that someone dumped their trash into the Rift.”
“Oh, lovely,” Owen opined. “We’re about to get two tons of space garbage dumped on us.”
“Not on us,” Tosh replied, her fingers dancing over the keys again. “When I first started here, a little over four years ago, most of the things that fell through the Rift ended up right here in the Plass. Then they started spreading out through Cardiff. Last year we started noticing a number of things popping up in Newport and Swansea and places like that.”
“There was that lovely little fuzzy bastard that turned up in Hay-on-Wye a few months ago,” Jack put in sourly.
“You’re still bitter because it bit you and you glowed for three days afterwards,” Ianto chided.
“You’re just gloating because you figured out that it was the color of the walls in the vaults that made it so violent. By the way, someone really needs to paint it back to something a little more neutral. I don’t imagine that the next Weevil we have to shove in there will like living in a lavender cell.” Jack crossed his arms and glared at Ianto. He still had no idea how Ianto had figured out the little critter’s problem and no amount of threatening or pleading had convinced him to tell.
“And now,” Tosh cut in abruptly, the Rift is really spreading out. And it’s split. About twenty of the pieces with enough Rift energy for me to track spread themselves out between Ffest… Ffesten…” Tosh tripped over the difficult Welsh name until Gwen took pity on her and gave her the pronunciation. “Fehst-in-ee-og,” Tosh repeated slowly. “Right, so, up between Ffestiniog and Bangor up in and near Snowdonia National Park and the others are between Bristol and Reading.”
“Nothing like making a needle-in-a-haystack hunt a little more difficult by making the haystack about twenty five miles long and about a hundred and fifty or so miles away.” Owen glared at the Rift generator in the middle of the Hub. “I tell you this Rift in time and space is really getting to be a right pain in the arse.”
“Any indication that anything out there is dangerous?” Jack asked.
“No, like I said, I think it’s trash, but who knows what they throw out on other worlds. What if someone threw out … a Blackberry phone today and it landed back in, oh, I don’t know, the year twelve hundred? It technically wouldn’t harm anyone, but it would freak them out pretty good.” Tosh picked her glasses back up and chewed on the earpiece.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Jack said as he leaned over Tosh’s shoulder and began sending data hither and yon. “How long do we have to track all this down before the Rift energy wears off?” he asked as he worked.
“A week, ten days on the outside,” Tosh said, trying to lean back in her chair to stay out of Jack’s way.
“Excellent. Tosh, you’ll stay here to coordinate. The rest of us will split up and chase down the Rift trash,” he finished typing with a flourish and stood back up.
Owen half raised a hand, as if trying to get Jack’s attention. “If it’s all the same to everyone,” he started with a glance around to see if anyone was going realize that he was claim-jumping and object. “I mean, if no one minds, might I be on the team going to Bristol and Reading?”
“Not fond of Welsh National Parks, Owen?” Jack teased.
“No, I was just thinking. If you keep going up past Reading an hour or so you’re in London. I figured if nothing had to be rushed straight back here… hit a few clubs, maybe see if there’s a football match?” Owen had the grace to look sheepish, as if he knew he was angling for the posher assignment.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Fine. It makes sense given that you’re the closest we’re going to get to sending a local anyway. In that vein, I’ll take Ianto up to Snodonia with me. Which means: Gwen, you’re with Owen. Now, given that we’re the ones driving through the mountains and staying in the great back of beyond, we get the SUV. So sort out whose car the two of you are taking and have Ianto issue what ever kit you’re going to need.”
“Kit? I was thinking we’d stay in B and Bs or motels while we trace down a great pile of space rubbish. We’re going to be between Bristol and Reading not out in the middle of the fucking…” he trailed off before he found himself exactly where he didn’t want to be. “Wilderness,” he finished lamely.
Jack shook his head. “Keep receipts, and take the kit anyway, just in case.”
Owen gave Jack a mock salute before going off to pack up what he and Gwen would need for a few days scouring the countryside for intergalactic garbage.
Before Jack could turn around to tell Ianto what they needed, Ianto was gone. Jack supposed he really didn’t need to give him too many orders.
Jack went into his office and called up the data Tosh had been showing them and then superimposed the latest data over a map of the park. There was a cluster of blips pretty far away from any signs of major civilization. Jack blew up that quadrant of the map and grinned at what he saw. Oh, that would do perfectly. He grabbed his mobile and made a reservation.
The next morning they left at seven a.m. Jack drove as far as Llanidloes, where they stopped to get lunch and coffees for the road; Ianto took over driving from there. Just before they reached Ffestiniog Jack pointed to the little grocery he spotted on the roadside. “We may as well get a few provisions.”
Ianto obediently pulled into the dusty carpark. “I thought you said you’d made a reservation at a B and B? Surely they’ll have food.”
Jack rolled his head. “I said I made a reservation. I never said anything about B and B’s. Please tell me you aren’t confusing me with Owen.”
Ianto got out of the car. “Not likely. Please tell me we aren’t sleeping in the bloody tent tonight.” He had no idea he could be that whiney and winced at his own tone.
“We’re not sleeping in the ‘bloody tent’ either. I had a brainstorm,” Jack said proudly.
“This ought to be hysterical,” Ianto mumbled under his breath.
“And I think you’ll like it,” Jack continued as if Ianto hadn’t spoken. “Come on, we need food.” Jack wrapped an arm around Ianto’s waist and led him into the market.
Ianto suppressed the urge to badger Jack’s plan out of him. They got some canned stew and bread. Ianto grabbed some rice in a boil-in bag and Jack grabbed two bags of biscuits and a bag of crisps. Ianto grabbed milk and cereal for the morning – assuring Jack that he’d packed good coffee and the camp pot, so they wouldn’t have to resort to instant – and Jack grabbed some soda and a container of strawberries. Before they could get to the counter they had each grabbed half a dozen other things that looked interesting.
“How many days are we planning to be out here?” Ianto asked as they unloaded their armfuls onto the counter.
“Tosh said we’ve got two major clusters to cover. One has a center about six miles from here and a radius of about two and a half miles. The other is about fifteen miles further north and has a four mile radius.” Jack paid the elderly lady behind the counter as Ianto put their things into a sack. “I’m hoping three days here and two or three further up. Tosh says we’ll lose the signal if it takes too much longer than that.
Ianto nodded as he stowed the provisions in the back seat.
“Toss me the keys,” Jack hollered from where he stood on the driver’s side.
Ianto did. After all, Jack was the one who seemed to have this fabulous plan, and the reservation, for where they’d stay that night.
Ten minutes later Jack pulled off the motorway and onto a gravel and dirt road. He followed that road for another ten minutes before going through a gate and stopping before a small wooden building that reminded Ianto a little of the tourist shop in Cardiff. Small, wooden, nondescript with a sign that simply said “office”. Ianto wondered if they were a front for something bigger too. He then wondered if Torchwood made everyone that paranoid.
Jack parked the SUV in front of the building and told Ianto to wait there while he ducked inside. It was starting to get dark, and while he knew Jack had said they wouldn’t need to be setting up the tent that night, he didn’t see much in the way of a motel or hotel anywhere near them. In fact, all he saw were rather a lot of trees and three forks in the road they were currently parked on.
Jack came back out and tossed a crudely drawn map on the dashboard. On the left most fork there was a square drawn almost all the way down with “A12” written in it.
“All set,” Jack said restarting the motor and pulling out. As Jack headed down the road, Ianto began to see a few people walking down the road and he was starting to think he smelled smoke. That’s when he sorted it out. “A caravan?” he asked.
“This park is the closest we’re going to get to the center of our little mop up detail out here. And I knew you didn’t really want to try real camping again anytime soon. It seemed like the perfect solution.” Jack watched him out of the corner of his eye, gauging whether or not he’d made a huge error.
Ianto shook his head. “I’ve never been in caravan before. I suppose if no one out here tries to eat me it will definitely be better the first time you tried to take me camping.” He noticed the little wooden signs on posts driven into the ground every twenty-five feet or so, labeling the little gravel patches for each unit. “This is A6, so we should be just up the road,” he told Jack.
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “They keep the rental caravans at the end of each road. And, you know, given that it’s April, there aren’t a lot of people around here. We shouldn’t be bothered.”
The way Jack’s eyebrows bounced prompted Ianto to say, “I suspect the bigger concern might be us bothering others.”
“Well, if you weren’t such a screamer,” Jack said as he pulled the SUV up next to a reasonably new-looking trailer.
Ianto just rolled his eyes. They both knew who was the noisy one in bed.
They climbed out of the SUV and Ianto grabbed the groceries and his overnight bag. Jack had a key in one hand and grabbed his bag in the other. “Our home away from home for the next few nights,” Jack said with a flourish as he put the key in the lock and fumbled for a few second until he sorted it and flung open the flimsy door.
“You have done this before, haven’t you?” Ianto asked from a few feet back.
“Not for about twenty years, but yeah, I have.” Jack finally remembered to kick down the step tucked underneath and he pulled himself up into the caravan. He took a step in before dropping his bag and reaching up along the ceiling to find the switch attached to the overhead light. “There we go, much better,” he said as a dull white light filled the small space.
Ianto followed him up a little more cautiously. “Cosy,” he said as he took in the small space. “I think my first flat was about this size.” He waited for Jack to move a little further in and then set the groceries on the table and his bag on the bench.
He’d been joking about the flat, of course. But really, it was amazing that there really was a whole flat’s worth of accommodations in a space about sixteen long feet by seven or eight feet across. The whole area to the left of the door was taken up by a table with a bench on either side. Ianto figured four people could probably sit comfortably at any one time. Across from the door was a small cookstove with three small burners and a cabinet beneath. Next to the burners was a countertop with a small refrigerator under that. From the counter to the far wall was a double bed comfortably made up with a duvet and half a dozen pillows.
Boxing the bed in was a wall that stretched half the length of the bed. Ianto could see a plastic loo through the open door and a showerhead hanging over the toilet. Upon closer examination of the floor, he could see a small rise where the door would close and form a waterproof barrier and there was a drain in the floor. “The whole bathroom becomes the shower?” he asked as he peered past Jack.
“Yep. The sink is out here so you can use it for cooking too.” Jack pointed to the small basin across from the foot end of the bed. He then moved to the two-foot, by two-foot closet between the sink and the door and hung up his greatcoat. “What do you think?” Jack asked at last.
“I think we’re going to be tripping over each other an awful lot,” he said as he tried to squeeze past Jack to get back to the door to finish retrieving their gear.
Jack deliberately stood in the small walkway until Ianto was in his personal space. He grabbed him by the hips and kissed him. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
“We’re supposed to be out here working,” Ianto said, but his tone clearly said that it was a token protest.
“It’s going to be full dark very, very soon,” Jack told him. “And we have become glorified park rangers, sent out to pick up space trash. It’ll keep until morning.” He kissed Ianto again, sliding one hand down from the small of his back and into the back pocket of Ianto’s jeans.
Ianto pressed himself closer against Jack. “Well, if you’re sure it can wait.”
“It can,” Jack said, his lips brushing against Ianto’s as he spoke. After a minute he took a deep breath and collected himself, taking a half step back and taking his hand off Ianto’s arse. “Why don’t you go get the laptop and whatever else we don’t want to leave out in the SUV overnight and I’ll start dinner.”
Ianto coughed and shook his head to clear it. “Of course.” He stepped out into the night, the light from inside the caravan spilling out just enough to light the few steps to the SUV. He sorted through the camping kit he sorely hoped they wouldn’t need further up north, and found the bag with the laptop and the handheld they’d use to track the trash. He then found the bag with the campfire coffeepot and the bag of coffee and filters and the other things he’d brought along. Nothing else seemed pressing, so he made sure everything else was locked up safe and the alarm was set.
Jack had managed to locate the churchkey and a pot and had several cans of stew heating on one burner and Ianto’s rice on another. He was at the counter slicing the bread and there was butter sitting out by the pot to soften.
What amazed Ianto, almost as much as Jack cooking, was that on the table were two camp mugs, and between them an open bottle of really good wine.
Jack left the cooking for a minute and came up behind Ianto, wrapping his arms around his waist and hooking his chin over Ianto’s shoulder. “I couldn’t find a good way to sneak in good wine glasses, so we’ll have to make do with those.”
Ianto turned in Jack’s arms and kissed him. “It’s fine. Brilliant. I’d begin to be suspicious that you had set this all up just for us if you hadn’t sent Owen and Gwen half-way across England to chase more trash.”
Jack smiled. “I can’t take the blame for the Rift refuse, but I can say that I’m perfectly willing to take shameless advantage of the situation.” They kissed again, only stopping when a soft ‘plop’ from the stove reminded them that the stew needed stirring. Jack pulled back slowly. “You want to pour the wine while I get this stuff?”
Ianto set the computer bag in the closet and then turned to do exactly that. He felt ridiculously giddy over the whole situation. He and Jack had had their one Very Serious Date after Jack had returned from his time with the Doctor. And they’d gone out for dinner or an afternoon movie on occasion since then, but this was a whole different thing. This was like being on holiday together if he could forget that tomorrow they’d be out scavenging. But he pushed that far to the back of his mind as he poured the wine and sat down on the bench where he could watch Jack being as domestic as Ianto had ever seen him.
A few minutes later Jack came to the table with two plates of stew and rice and flatware for them both. “Is the wine any good?” he asked as he served them both and sat on the opposite side of the table.
“I was waiting for you,” Ianto told him as he put his napkin on his lap and poked at the stew with his fork as if he wasn’t sure what he’d find buried in it.
“Ah, well, here I am,” Jack said as he raised his own glass.
“There you are,” Ianto echoed, knowing that this conversation had the potential to go very silly very quickly when Jack was in a mood like he was. And truth be told, Ianto didn’t mind so much this time.
Ianto took a sip of the wine and found it to be very good indeed. He knew that with Jack he really shouldn’t have expected otherwise. Although how Jack managed to find a wine that went well with canned stew would probably remain a mystery for the ages.
As canned dinners went, it wasn’t bad. Or maybe it was that Ianto wasn’t really paying attention to what he was eating because for the first time in ages Jack was in a mood to talk. He was telling stories of the war and of how they survived on C-rations and K-rations and whatever they could scrounge for weeks on end. It made canned stew and boil-in-bag rice a five star dinner according to Jack. Of course, he’d had his share of those too and the stories took a turn for the more romantic. Men and women he’d romanced and been romanced by. Dinners on the canals of Venice and in places that booked up months in advance on the Seine.
Between them they finished the wine. Ianto wasn’t sure, but he had a suspicion that he’d had more than Jack. Once they’d drunk what Ianto had poured, Jack had taken control of the bottle, filling their glasses as needed. Ianto got the impression that Jack thought his needed it more often than Jack’s own.
Once they were done eating they’d pushed their dishes to the end of the table and stretched out along the benches, Jack still regaling Ianto with his tales; Ianto leaning on one fist in rapt attention. It took a lot to get Jack to talk this much. He wondered what had prompted it this time, but didn’t risk ruining the atmosphere by asking.
As the night chill began to creep in, Jack put on a teakettle and then proceeded to do the washing up. Ianto found himself feeling ridiculously pampered by the whole event. Jack cooking and entertaining and then clearing up after them. He needed to do something helpful, so he grabbed the teatowel on a hook over the sink and dried as Jack washed.
When the kettle began to steam, Jack turned it down but not off.
“You know, I don’t think we actually brought any tea,” Ianto told him as he put the last plate away.
“It’s not actually for tea,” Jack told him as he pulled him down on to the bed. “The steam and the burner will help warm up the caravan a little. There’s a little furnace we can kick in if it gets too bad, but once we’re in bed, I think it’ll be fine.
Ianto laughed. “Is that a hint?”
Jack scooted behind Ianto and wrapped his arms around his waist and kissed his ear. “Only if you want it to be,” he said knowing full well his actions contradicted his words.
“I suppose you’ve come equipped for any and all occasions?” Ianto asked, because really, when packing for a week in the woods, the one thing he hadn’t counted on was needing lube. But of course, he was going into the woods for a week with Captain Jack Harkness. Really, he should have figured.
But, as usual, Jack was prepared. He grabbed his duffle and riffled around until he came up with a new tube. “You mean this?”
Ianto laughed. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was getting at.” He shook his head and glanced around the caravan. All said it was a bit more comfortable than the last time they’d had sex in the woods. That had consisted of a drunken truth or dare game turning into Jack giving him a blow job against a tree and then very, very thoroughly fucking him in the tent. And he had no complaints on either score, but the bed and the pillows and the duvet of the caravan really did seem a bit more inviting than either tree bark on his back or the camp mats with two sleeping bags zipped together on them.
And anything short of actually dying was better than the trip out of the city before that.
Jack stretched forward and turned off the burner, letting the kettle steam away under its own power for a few more minutes. Ianto wasn’t sure, but either the kettle or Jack pressed against his back really did make the little camper feel warmer.
Jack scooted back against the pillows and opened his legs. “Come ‘ere,” he said and crooked a finger.
Ianto kicked off his shoes and slid up to sit sideways to Jack, his legs over one of Jack’s, his arm around Jack’s side. “Like this?” Ianto asked, attempting to be coy.
“Something like,” Jack answered, wrapping one arm around Ianto’s shoulders and pulling him in for a long, deep kiss with the other.
Ianto was panting when they broke away and he realized then and there that they wouldn’t need that little furnace that night. They were clearly quite capable of making their own heat.