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Title: Packing light
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 981 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 162 - Suitcase
Summary: Travelling with The Doctor means packing light

'I still can't believe you talked The Doctor into letting us take a holiday with him,' Ianto said, standing in their bedroom, surveying the contents of their wardrobe.

'Of course he said yes. He hates being alone because there's no one to impress with his amazing, er, whatever it is,' Jack finished, waving his hand uselessly about in the air.

'And you're sure that he can get us back here on time?' Ianto asked, fixing Jack with a firm questioning gaze.

'Five minutes after we've left,' Jack replied, holding his hand up on boy scout's honour. 'The others won't even known we've been gone.'

'I believe that's what you said after you got back from the year that never was,' he replied, turning and kneeling beside the bed, pulling out a worn suitcase from underneath it, and putting it on top of the crease-free duvet. 'Four months you were gone,' he said, chastising Jack yet again for having unknowingly abandoned them.

'Okay, so it's not perfect,' Jack admitted. 'That's why I've left a note for the team saying we're taking a break, but that we should be back before tea time.'

'We hope,' Ianto added, unzipping the case. 'How long will we be gone? In our time line, that is,' he clarified.

Jack thrust his hands in his pockets, leaning against the doorway, and staring hopefully at his young lover. 'As long as you want.'

'That sounds dangerous.' He pulled open the top drawer and began lifting out socks and small clothes. 'I could be an old man before I decide I've had enough of you.'

Jack grinned, still casually sidled against the door jamb, arms folded as he watched Ianto's deliberate movements, as he so often did, completely lost in just watching him. 'What are you doing?'

'What does it look like I'm doing?' Ianto cried, exasperated. 'I'm packing for our trip, of course!'

'We don't need to pack,' Jack replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

'But what if we end up somewhere sunny by the water? We'll need bathers.'

'The TARDIS will have some,' Jack reassured him.  

'Okay, that's fine. I don't mind borrowing some swimming trunks, but what about the rest of our stuff? I assume the TARDIS has a laundry of some sort?'

'I'm telling you we don't need clothes.'

He stopped in his tracks. 'It's not going to be one of those sorts of holidays, is it?' Ianto asked worriedly, thinking that Jack had booked them for three weeks away on some intergalactic nudist colony.

'There's a wardrobe on the TARDIS,' Jack explained. 'We can wear whatever we like.'

'Whose clothes are they? The Doctor's?'

'No, they're just there for anyone who needs them.'

'But what if I don't like them?' he said, pulling a shirt from the wardrobe and slipping it off the hanger, possessively holding it close.

'The TARDIS has more clothes that you've ever seen in your entire lifetime. Surely there'll be something there that you'll approve of. Besides, wouldn't you like to try out something new? I think a pair of tight leather pants would look just delicious.'

Ianto felt distracted. Putting aside his own feelings about leather, all he could now envisage was Jack's shapely legs ensconced tightly in black leather, and how much more he would prefer to remove said pants, slowly and with purpose. No, he told himself, trying to focus on folding the shirt in his hand rather than caressing it as if it were something else entirely, before thrusting it determinedly into the suitcase. It wouldn't feel like theirs. And Jack had a look to maintain. One that he personally cherished. He just couldn't imagine Jack getting around in anything else.

He reached into the cupboard and slid a tie off a rack containing a dozen, holding it up, before putting it back and selecting another. He was slowly rolling it up, headed back towards the bed, when two large hands enveloped his own.

'Ianto, stop.' He looked up at Jack and met his gaze.

'But this one's your favourite,' he tried to explain, realising how semi ridiculous and childish he sounded saying it. Jack pulled it from his grip, letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor.

'It's only my favourite because you're wearing it. On anyone else, it's just another tie.'

Ianto looked forlornly down at the tie, shriveled up in a sad little pile on the floor.

'I promise you, there'll be so many suits and ties to choose from, it'll take you all day just to decide what to wear. Black suits, grey suits, suits with sexy red stripes. I might even be able to find my old zoot suit.'

'You had a zoot suit?'

'Oh yeah, bright yellow with orange check stripes. I was the coolest cat going around.'

Ianto just rolled his eyes and shook his head in despair. Whatever would he do with Jack?

'So what do you say? Let's leave the suitcase here and just go.'

'Okay,' Ianto agreed.

'Excellent. I'll let the Doctor know he can pick us up.'

Ten minutes later, the familiar whirring, wheezing sound of the TARDIS could be heard as it began pulsing into view in the middle of their living room.

'Allo! Come to join us for some fun?' The Doctor asked, poking his head out of the door.

Jack grinned and grabbed Ianto's hand, pulling him eagerly toward the doorway, before he felt a resistance.

'Jack, we don't have toothbrushes.'

'We don't need them. Come on,' he replied, tugging on his hand.

'What about razors?'

'Covered.'

'A comb?'

'Dozens of them.'

'Shampoo? What about shampoo? Do they have shampoo in space?'

'Ianto!'

Ianto felt himself being physically hauled over the threshold, casting one last look at their suitcase, still parked on the bed, open and half packed, hoping that they wouldn't live to regret leaving it behind.