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The tell-tale grind of metal that precluded the click of the lock broke through the silence that had fallen over the storage room, and Jack felt a wave of dread pass through his body.
He turned around to Gwen, who had stopped her search for the missing file on Aridians to look at the noise. Jack shot her a guilty, yet nervous look.
“Oops?” he offered, trying to placate Gwen despite the glare that was already forming on her face.
“Jack Harkness, what did you do?”
“I might have… forgotten that you need a passcode to leave certain archive storage rooms,” he admitted, ruffling his hair.
“And, as the leader of Torchwood Three, you know all the passwords, right?” Gwen asked, crossing her hands across her chest.
“Well…” Jack drawled, his eyes moving to the left.
Gwen sighed. “So we’re locked in, then?”
“Yeah,” Jack admitted. “I’m sorry; I forgot which levels of the archives did what.”
Gwen sat down, ignoring the dust that would no doubt mar her black jeans when she stood up. “I’m presuming Ianto knows the codes?”
“Mhm,” Jack agreed. Gwen gestured to his pocket with an obvious look, and Jack seemed to get the hint. “I’ll call him.” His eyes lit up slightly as he reached into his pocket for his phone.
With nothing to do but watch, Gwen waited patiently as Jack’s phone rang, once, twice, three times and connected to the answer machine.
Jack’s shoulders slumped.
“He’s headed home,” Jack remembered, ignoring the small fissure of joy that ran through him at the thought of home. Their new shared flat, the domestic dream he’d never dared to hope of having with Ianto. Well, actually, the domestic dream would be a little house in the countryside, a few dogs to run around the hills, no aliens to worry themselves over, only each other and -
“You’ve got that look on your face again,” Gwen interrupted, bringing his attention back to the present.
“What look?” Jack frowned, hackles raised.
“You know, the ‘oh my God, I love Ianto so much I can’t stop grinning’ look.”
Jack spluttered, and Gwen laughed.
“God, I hope I wasn’t this bad with Rhys,” she muttered.
“You were,” Jack said. “There were days where we couldn’t get any work out of you in the run up to your marriage. You’d just sit at your desk and grin prettily.”
Gwen laughed, thinking back to the fond memories of the excitement she’d felt at her engagement, so focused on her happiness that she hadn’t cared at the time how embarrassing her elation may have been. “I must’ve been dreadful . You all must’ve got so annoyed.”
Jack laughed. “Only a little bit. It was cute, really. Rhys is a good man.”
Gwen rolled her eyes at Jack’s slightly teasing tone. “As is Ianto,” she countered, and watched as the tips of Jack’s ears went slightly red.
“Yeah, he is,” he said, once again trailing off into thought, his forehead creasing slightly. “Except, you know what?”
Gwen looked at him as his tone changed. “What?”
“He can be right annoying sometimes,” Jack began, his face a mix of a frown and indulgent fondness. “Take today, for example. He had to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed or something, cause he’s already in a mood with me...”
“I was gonna ask why he’d gone back home already,” Gwen said, checking her watch. “We only got in half an hour ago.”
Jack nodded. “Well, according to him, I brought the wrong milk in with me today.”
“Milk?”
“Yeah,” Jack continued, starting to gesture animatedly as he did when he got invested in a story. “So he says to me this morning, ‘ oh, can you grab the semi-skimmed milk from the fridge? ’”
Gwen tried not to wince at Jack’s awful Welsh impression.
“So I grab the one at the front, which I assumed was the semi-skimmed,” Jack continued, unaware of Gwen’s amusement.
“Let me guess, not the semi-skimmed?”
“No, it was skimmed,” Jack lamented. “So I say to him, ‘what’s so wrong about having the skimmed milk in the Hub?’ And he says it’s to do with their expiration date! Apparently, he wanted the semi-skimmed at the Hub because it goes off sooner, and we’d use it up quicker here.”
Gwen nodded. “That makes sense.”
“It does ,” Jack admitted. “What doesn’t make sense is Ianto going back home in a mood to swap them. I mean, I offered to buy some more milk if it spoils, but he still sighed and went back home.”
Gwen couldn’t help but laugh as she finally realised why she’d seen Ianto storming out of the Hub, muttering under his breath.
“It’s not funny!” Jack insisted. “He’s pissed at me, and because of it, we’re stuck in here without him to save us.”
“Every couple has their rough patches,” Gwen teased, and Jack pouted in response.
“It’s not a rough patch,” he said, then broke off as a thought popped into his head. “Hey, do you think he’ll be mad enough to warrant some angry make-up sex?”
Gwen’s cackle echoed around the room. “So long as it’s not in the Hub, sure. I don’t need any more mental scars from you two.”
Jack smirked playfully, about to open his mouth and reply with some kind innuendo, when his phone started to buzz.
When Gwen looked towards the sound, she saw a picture light up the screen. It took her a second to realise it was Ianto, his hair tousled and his eyes sleepy, clearly not fully awake when the photo had been taken. For once, he looked younger than he really was, free from the suits and maturity that aged him at Torchwood. Ianto’s middle finger was raised at the camera - no doubt pointing towards Jack taking the photo, and Gwen had to stifle a laugh.
“Ianto!” Jack said cheerfully as he answered the phone, unable to hide the grin and obvious affection from his voice. “Are you home yet?”
There was a short pause, but despite the quietness in the room, the volume wasn’t loud enough for Gwen to hear Ianto’s reply.
“A walk?” Jack said, suddenly frowning. “Why would you - no, I know, you’re allowed to - yes , I know it’s my fault, and I’m really sorry and everything, but -” Jack cut off and listened to his phone, his eyes raising upwards. “I know,” he repeated. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
Gwen watched as Jack grinned deeply at something Ianto said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. Before the call could get too out of hand, Gwen raised her hand and started waving it, pointing towards the locked door.
“Ah. Gwen’s just reminded me why I called,” Jack started, and paused. “Well, I always want to talk to you, you know that.”
Once more, Jack was getting distracted, and his eyes widened. “Ianto, you can’t say things like that, especially not when you’re out of breath on a walk…”
Gwen gave up and snatched the phone out of Jack’s hands.
“Hello, Ianto!” she quickly said, cutting into his words, which she tried very hard not to listen to. She turned the volume up so that Jack could hear too. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’re in a bit of a situation.”
“Oh?” Ianto’s voice replied, slightly out of breath like Jack had pointed out. “How so? Do I need to run back?”
“No, no,” Gwen insisted. “It can wait. Jack’s just managed to get us locked downstairs in the archives.”
Gwen could practically hear Ianto’s eye roll through the phone. “Of course he has. Did he forget the keycode?”
“Yeah,” Gwen replied. “Would you mind telling us what it is?”
“Which floor are you on?”
“Uh,” Gwen said, looking round. “Floor two.”
“Okay,” Ianto said, his voice carefully calm. “And I take it Jack hasn’t tried to put any code in, right? Because he knows that on floor two, a wrong passcode triggers the internal lock, doesn’t he? And that the only way to get out of there is for someone else to manually override it from the outside?”
Gwen turned to Jack, who was looking even guiltier if possible. “I think we might need you here, Ianto.”
Ianto sighed over the phone. “Right. Of course. Well, I’m sorry Gwen, but it’s his own bloody fault. First the milk, now the code. You’re going to have to survive until I return.”
“Can’t you come back first?” Jack whined.
“Even if I wasn’t already closer to home than the Hub, I would still be going home first. You can last half an hour, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, we can do that, Ianto,” Gwen reassured, shooting Jack a glare.
“Good. Sorry again, Gwen.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Mhm,” Ianto agreed, the noise of a busy road picking up over the call. “I’ll be as quick as I can. See you in a bit.”
“See you, Ianto,” Gwen finished, pulling the phone back to end the call. She pushed it back to Jack.
“Well, guess we’ve got some time to kill now,” Jack said, leaning back against the door with a sigh.
“And whose fault is that?”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, sounding more annoyed than apologetic. “Ianto’s gonna give me enough shit about this as it is.”
They broke off into silence, awkward and quiet.
“So,” Gwen offered after a few minutes. “Moving in together is going well, then?”
Jack let out what could only be described as a snort. “Yeah, it’s going great,” he said. At Gwen’s narrowed eyes, he continued, much more genuinely. “Really! It is.”
Gwen stared at him for another second, and his eyes shifted slightly to the right. “Well. I mean, it’s good, don’t get me wrong. Love having a shared bedroom, not having to cook all the time, y’know, just being a lot closer to each other. But…”
“There are small little things, that you never noticed before, which suddenly now get on your nerves?” Gwen supplied.
Jack visibly exhaled, a relieved smile in place. “ Yeah. It’s exactly that. You know, like last night. We closed up early, headed back home, he ran out to the little bookshop on the corner seeing as we were back before it shut for once, so I thought I’d actually make something nice for dinner, for once.”
“Domestic,” Gwen jibed teasingly.
“Fuck off,” Jack said. “I knew he was gonna be gone awhile - he always is with bookshops. I don’t have the attention span for it, personally. So I got on making us something to eat. I found some salmon in the freezer, put a nice Chinese spice mix on it, let it cook in the oven, and cooked some rice to go with it. You know what he said when he came home?”
“He didn’t complain about it, did he?” Gwen asked, already guessing where this was going. Ianto was notorious for being a picky eater; Rhys had found out on the occasions when Gwen had invited her friend over for dinner.
“He told me he could taste mushroom in the fried rice,” Jack said, giving Gwen a would-you-believe-it stare.
“Oh God, you didn’t try to hide the veg in the rest of the meal, did you?” Gwen admonished Jack. “He hates vegetables.”
“I didn’t know he had super senses for tasting veg, no matter how small I cut it!” Jack exclaimed.
“It’s like trying to feed a toddler,” Gwen agreed, pausing to look at Jack’s face. A second passed, and they burst out laughing.
“Did he pull the face?” Gwen asked in between laughter. “You know, the disappointed pout, like you’d told him to eat mud?”
“Yes!” Jack said, eyes shining. “I know what you mean - this face!”
He rearranged his face into a bad impression of Ianto’s pout, but Gwen recognised it nonetheless. It spurred on another bout of laughter, and soon the pout was replaced with a wide smile.
“I made him eat it, of course, stubborn though he is, but the worst part?” Jack continued. “When he walked into the kitchen afterwards, he complained about the mess! I’d slaved away for a whole hour preparing this meal, and all he could do was moan about it!”
“But I bet he was the one who ended up washing everything up,” Gwen said, and Jack’s expression froze.
“Well…”
“Rhys didn’t know what to do with himself when he did that round ours. It’s not often that a guest comes into the kitchen and helps themselves to washing up,” Gwen said, remembering her husband’s shocked expression at Ianto standing by the sink, suit jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, yellow rubber gloves on.
“Right?” Jack agreed. “He does it all the time. Sure, he moans at me for using so many glasses during the day, but he’s the one who washes them up when I’ve purposefully left it out for later.”
“You’ve only lived together for a month, Jack. He can’t be driving you that crazy yet, surely?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Jack said warningly. “He’s endearing in other things, but the small details sometimes do make me mad! Like… Like eggs! He keeps them in the cupboards, right? Which is weird, because they should be in the fridge, but then he complains when I leave the bread out! Why would he want eggs in the cupboards but bread in the fridge?”
“I put bread in the freezer,” Gwen added, unhelpfully.
Jack stared at her for two seconds in shock and confusion.
“What?” Gwen defended. “We never get through a whole loaf before it grows mould, so we keep it in the freezer and defrost pieces when we need them.”
“That,” Jack began, his voice slow, “is worse than anything Ianto does in the kitchen.”
“So, go on then. Get it all out while we’re at it. What else do Jack and Ianto have domestic arguments about?” Gwen prompted, far too invested in her friends’ home lives.
“Cereal. Ianto thinks that Sainsbury’s own brand of bran flakes are good enough to eat.”
“And let me guess, you like the sweetest branded cereal.”
“You can’t beat coco-pops,” Jack said, looking very serious. “And Ianto claims to hate them.”
Gwen let out a pretend shocked gasp. “How dare he?”
“I know!” Jack continued, oblivious to Gwen’s sarcasm. “And don’t even get me started on rugby matches. Whenever Wales play, I could be straight up naked, and he wouldn’t even glance my way. In fact, there was that time when I lay on the coffee table and did that thing he likes with my hand on my -”
“Stop right there, mister,” Gwen warned. “You tried to distract Ianto from rugby? With sex ?”
“Not that it worked ,” Jack grumbled.
“I’m sorry, but I’m with Ianto on that one. You’re totally in the wrong there.”
Jack gave Gwen a pout that was similar enough to the one they were mocking Ianto for that it was almost creepy, and she shook her head.
“Ianto also complains about me walking around naked.”
Gwen spluttered. “I think he has a right to do that.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have to strip off if he didn’t keep the thermostat so high!” Jack pointed out.
“Oh, no, this isn’t about the time you answered the door to the postman with only your boxers on, is it? Ianto told me about that. He said he was mortified for days. Can’t look the postman in the eye anymore.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack replied, his smirk growing as he got lost in the memory. “That was a fun one.”
“Didn’t sound like it for Ianto.”
“It was when he got mad at me afterwards. That Welsh temper…” Jack trailed off.
“Oi!” Gwen said, poking Jack in the arm.
“I bet he’s fun in the morning, though,” Gwen said, thinking fondly of how zombie-like Ianto had been the morning after she’d stayed round his place a few months ago. It might have been to do with his less than perfect quality of sleep from the sofa, but he’d barely even spoken a word until he’d downed two cups of coffee.
“For sure,” Jack grinned. “He’s useless when he wakes up. All soft and grumpy.”
Gwen laughed. “That’s where the picture of his came from, then?” She nodded at Jack’s phone.
“Yup. That was before I realised the trick to getting him up at the weekend.”
“What’s the trick?” Gwen asked, narrowing her eyes as she considered whether or not she wanted to hear the answer.
“I get him to make three coffees the night before - one for each of us and one for the next morning. When I wake up, I go downstairs, reheat it, and bring it to him in bed. The smell alone usually wakes him up.”
Gwen tried to keep her reaction quiet, but something must’ve escaped her, because Jack frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Well. It’s just, that’s so domestic. Really sweet of you.”
Jack laughed, likely trying to hide his embarrassment. “Hey, don’t think I can’t be a wonderful partner. It’s not just the sex that keeps him with me.”
Gwen thought about the quiet excitement that Ianto had tried to hide as he’d told her (in hushed tones) about how Jack had suggested moving in together. She thought of his fond eye rolls, his plain happiness , and she agreed. It was certainly a lot more than sex that kept Ianto at Jack’s side.
“Oh, I forgot. Ianto’s also so particular about furniture. I once moved the couch so I could see the TV better, and when he came home, he wouldn’t even walk into the living room until I’d changed it back. I mean, he -”
Jack was interrupted by a beep that rang out into the room, muffled by the steel door that had trapped them in. With a flourish, the door pulled backwards to reveal Ianto himself, standing with a trademark raised eyebrow.
“Are you complaining about me?”
“I... no, I wasn’t. We were just telling stories -” Jack spluttered, but Gwen cut him off.
“ So many stories,” she winked, seeing the telltale twinkle in Ianto’s eye that hinted at amusement rather than anger. “He was telling me about dinner last night, about bread in the fridge…”
“Oh, you were, were you?” Ianto challenged, turning his gaze to Jack. “First the milk, then locking yourself in the archives, and now I find out you’ve been gossiping about me? My, my, what am I going to do with you?”
Jack gulped, more for show than anything else. Gwen could tell that he too had realised that Ianto wasn’t being serious.
“I’m… sorry?” he offered, smiling carefully.
“You better be,” Ianto grumbled but turned to leave, holding the door open. “Oh, and I bought some pastries in - if anybody’s hungry.”
“Depends whether or not Jack’s had his coco-pops this morning,” Gwen replied, enjoying the confused frown Ianto sent her way as she caught up with him, linking their arms together as they left the archives.