Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 2,281 words

Content notes: None

Author notes: Written for Challenge 273 -Amnesty and Challenge 13 - Breakfast

Summary: Ianto's eating habits have left Jack feeling confused.

'I don't know about you,' Ianto began, 'but I'm looking forward to today being over.'

'No argument from me,' Gwen replied, stifling a yawn in the back seat of the car. 'Does anyone happen to know what time it actually is? I've been awake so long I'm not even sure what day it is anymore.'

'Seven forty two,' Jack replied, reading the digital clock on the dashboard. 'PM,' he added, stretching the muscles in his back as he gripped the wheel and focused on the road ahead. 'As for the day, I'd say judging by the length of that line of valley girls queuing outside the clubs, it's probably Saturday.'

'Brilliant, so that's all of Friday disappeared without us noticing,' Ianto observed. 'Could be rift related, but I suspect only insofar as it's kept us busy enough to not notice whole days drifting by as we clean up after it.'

'Well, the cleaning up part is done,' Jack declared. 'All that remains is to lock this baby away in the secure archives and everybody gets Sunday off.'

'Hooray,' Ianto replied, sounding less than enthusiastic at the prospect of the associated paperwork. 'Another hour of work before we can clock off.'

'Leave it with me,' Jack said, glancing at both of his weary companions. 'I'll drop you both off at home then take it back to the hub and deal with it.'

'Thanks,' Gwen said, yawning again. 'I might even get to see Rhys for a bit before I crash into bed.'

'A hot shower and some food,' Ianto added. 'Can't remember when we last stopped to eat.'

'Alright, you two,' Jack said, unable to suppress the grin form his face. 'I get it. I'm a terrible boss that works you to the bone.'

'How come you're not tired?' Gwen asked. 'You're never tired.'

'It's that immortality thing,' Ianto replied. 'It's like those old people that stay up late then get up at five and claim they've had enough sleep. You live long enough and sleep seems to become overrated.'

'Hey! I'm not old,' Jack protested. 'I'm from 5094. I'm new and improved.'

'Well, Mister New and Improved had better take the next left or he's going to drive straight past Gwen's,' Ianto replied, giving him the slightest smirk.

Jack made the turn, albeit very last minute, and dropped Gwen off before doing the same for Ianto, then turning around and headed back to the hub. With any luck, he could have the item dealt with quickly, check the computers for any signs of predicted rift activity in the next thirty six hours and hopefully enjoy the rest of the weekend off as well. Much as he was loathe to admit it, he was looking forward to bed just as much as the rest of them.



The hub was quiet. Only a single squawk from their resident pterodactyl confirmed that he wasn't alone but that she also wasn't making any demands for food. He went and checked anyway, knowing that by tomorrow morning she'd probably be cranky if there wasn't enough to keep her going. Jack planned on not being here if he could help it, which meant making sure she'd be okay until Monday. Now that she went out at night and pilfered fish from local fishermen's catches left on the dockside for the morning markets, she wasn't as reliant on them. She'd become their resident teenager, using the hub as a place to sleep and have the occasional meal and that was about it. He added an extra bucket of water and was rewarded with a nudge which seemed to say "and where have you been?". He returned it with a gentle neck rub which was meant to translate as "everyone's okay". Who needed a dog when you had such an emotionally intelligent dinosaur?

He headed back down to his office and began the process of logging their afternoon's retrieval, preparing it for a long life inside the secure archives. It wasn't dangerous per se - a defrabricator was hardly going to end the world - but this model Jack had identified as one of the very early prototypes of what was now in the fifty-first century at least, as mundane and everyday as owning a toaster. Modern defrabricators however had a lot of safeties embedded in them that prevented you from defrabricating anything by accident, or the wrong thing altogether. This particular model had none of that. Like nineteenth century medical equipment, it was brutal and rather wayward in its efficacy. One wrong move and you could defrabricate a limb, or wipe a whole person from existence. They'd been a harsh reminder of the grandfather principle when they'd first been commercialised, resulting in many high profile incidents.

He kept his notes brief: Object: Defrabricator, circa 29th century (early prototype); Hazard level: Five. Temperamental and unreliable in use. Condition: Fair (internal damage from impact landing unknown). Location found: Loading dock behind a shoe repair shop (254 St Mary Street, Cardiff). He signed off on the dossier and slid both it and the item into a small crate, padlocking it and sealing it inside the wall safe.

'Done and done,' he said, dusting off his hands and walking over to his computer to check on their rift analysis program. There'd been a few little twitches here and there but nothing sufficient enough to cause a spike, indicating something had passed through. The rest were likely very lucky to have just brushed up against the rift without it managing to suck them into its depths, hurtling them all around time and space and then dumping them here in Cardiff from wherever and whenever they'd been plucked.

He grinned at the analysis, showing a low probability of anything in the next two days. Perhaps the rift was making up for the previous two days in which they'd been run ragged. He grabbed his car keys off the desk and flicked the switch, shutting down the hub for the night. There was a Sunday morning lie in with a certain Welshman waiting for him.



Jack checked his watch as he pulled up outside the understated two storey terrace. Nine fifteen. Not bad considering, he decided, seeing a muted glow emanating from a few of the windows. Ianto was still up. He slipped his key in the lock and turned it, letting himself in. Knocking felt too polite and Ianto had given him the key, after all.

'Ianto, it's me,' Jack called out in a low voice, hanging his coat on the hook by the door. He toed off his boots and padded down the hallway. Off in the distance he could hear the slosh and rumble of laundry appliances. Only Ianto would be organised enough to have his washing machine and tumble dryer working overnight whilst he slept through.

Turning into the living room he found Ianto sitting there cross-legged on the sofa in his pajamas with a hoodie over the top for warmth, and a bowl in his lap.

Jack looked hopefully into the bowl, his own stomach growing and reminding him of his hunger. 'What are you eating?'

Ianto set the spoon down in the bowl. 'Cereal.'

'Cereal?' Jack frowned. 'But it's not breakfast time.'

Ianto shrugged and kept eating as if it were of no consequence. For someone who was so ridiculously fastidious about everything being done properly and in its right place, the response threw him for a loop.

'You can't have breakfast food for dinner.' Jack nearly checked himself for saying it, knowing it was just the sort of thing Ianto would say to him and wondering if they hadn't started rubbing off on each other - him making Ianto more laissez faire and Ianto making him more obsessively compulsive.

Ianto scooped another spoonful and paused before putting it in his mouth. 'It was what was in the pantry.'

Jack sat on the end of the sofa and folded his arms as he studied his lover. 'What happened to Mister good at shopping lists?'

'I shop. I just stick to stuff that's going to keep long-term and not go mouldy in the fridge. There's some bread in the freezer if you want toast.'

'That still sounds like breakfast. Surely you had something else?' Far be it from Jack to cast aspersions on Ianto's pantry. It wasn't his house. He didn't make the rules, but neither did he have to do grocery shopping. He'd just always assumed that Ianto's own kitchen would be as well stocked and organised as the one at the hub. They always had exactly what they needed and here was Ianto sitting on his own sofa eating cereal at nine o'clock at night.

Ianto sighed and set the bowl down. 'It required the least amount of effort. You know, pour cereal, pour milk. Done. Stop overthinking this. Besides, I can hardly tell up from down, or night from day anymore. As if I'm going to worry about having cereal at the wrong time of day. If I don't know what time it is, I don't think my stomach is going to kick up a fuss.'

Jack was still dissatisfied with Ianto's answers. 'Well, I'm going to raid your kitchen and make us something proper to eat. Goddesses know you don't eat enough.'

Ianto smirked. 'Good luck trying to find a vegetable that doesn't come in a can.'

Jack stubbornly took Ianto's challenge to heart, heading for the kitchen to prove him wrong. He couldn't have his maybe something more serious than boyfriend living off rice puffs and cornflakes. He checked the fridge first, clocking the long life milk, orange juice, and margarine. There were a few bottles of beer tucked away at the bottom, and half a carton of eggs of dubious freshness. Apart from that there was nothing. There wasn't even a block of cheese to be found. The freezer as promised contained half a loaf of sliced white bread, a tray of ice cubes and a lonely bag of frozen peas that was probably there for medicinal purposes rather than nutritional ones.

The pantry was in a much better state, full of tinned and dry goods rice, pasta, soups, sauces, more cartons of long life milk. It seemed strange that Ianto would also have everything essential for baking - flour, sugar, bicarb soda, cocoa, custard powder - but not enough time to cook a proper meal, let alone baked goods. Everything Jack tried to come up with for a meal for two was missing one vital ingredient, mostly meat or vegetables. Dialing out for takeaway was starting to look like the only way to source any kind of animal, vegetable or mineral.

Unwilling to be defeated he studied his options again, his eyes lingering on the baking supplies. Pancakes weren't exactly breakfast food, strictly speaking. They could be dessert as well, and crepes were French and they ate them any time of day. Ianto had jam and honey for spreading on top, until further searching right in the back corner of the pantry Jack found a can of tinned pears and some cinnamon spice. Even if he was missing the clotted cream, some pancakes with warm pear and cinnamon would definitely hit the spot. It had to be better than cereal at least. After two days of non-stop rift alerts and chasing up various investigations, the least they could do was have a hot meal. He could probably convince Ianto to whip up some coffee to go with them.

Jack set to work, finding a bowl and a pan, quickly throwing together the right proportion of flour and sugar to milk and baking soda, stirring it into a thick batter and then pouring it but by bit into a hot pan. He watched the bubbles form and then flipped them without so much as a spatula - which was lucky since he couldn't find one - and quietly pleased with his own kitchen prowess.

Within fifteen minutes he had an impressive pile of light fluffy pancakes on a plate. He finished off by draining the can of pears and setting them in the pan for a minute or two adding butter and the cinnamon, before piling them on top of the pancakes. The smell alone was making his mouth water. 'See, that didn't take long at all,' Jack said, mostly to himself as he carried the plate out to the living room. He'd come back for extra plates and some cutlery, or maybe they could just share from the one plate - adding a little romance and deducting a little washing up for later.

'Dinner is serv-' he stopped abruptly, find Ianto curled asleep on the sofa, half eaten cereal abandoned on the coffee table in favour of the cushion tucked under his head.

Jack sighed, his gaze alternating between his sleeping lover and the plate of delectable smelling pancakes. He set them down and gave Ianto's shoulder a gentle shake. 'Ianto,' he said, as two eyes cracked open at him. 'I made pancakes.'

Ianto yawned. 'That's nice. Can we go to bed now?'

Jack gave his pancakes one last sad look and then nodded. Oh well, maybe he could be the old man Ianto claimed he was and get up early tomorrow, nipping down to the shops for some fresh eggs and bacon before Ianto woke up. Maybe even some spinach, tomato and mushrooms, oh, and some of those potato hashbrowns. Then they really could have a proper breakfast and finish it by heading straight back to bed afterwards. If breakfast for dinner was acceptable, surely staying in bed during the day was equally okay. They'd need a big breakfast for the kind of day in bed Jack had planned for them.