Title: A trail of hearts
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,001 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 441 - Amnesty, using Challenge 22 - Cliché and Challenge 421 - Trail, and the fic_promptly prompt Any, Any, Candy hearts
Summary: Ianto is used to picking up after his teammates, but sometimes they leave behind strange things.


Ianto was accustomed to picking up after the team. No matter how much he tried to train good habits into them, or at least punish them for persistent bad behaviour, there were just some things that couldn’t be undone after years of being allowed to get away with it. Honestly, it was a wonder they hadn’t been buried alive under their own detritus in the years preceding his joining Torchwood Cardiff. There must have been weeks and months of nothing, followed by a singular clean-up event to prevent the loss or death of a co-worker from occurring. One of these days he was going to ask Jack how it was that they’d survived without him. Needless to say, they survived now because they had someone to do it all for them, even if that someone was now as senior as they were, and had all his own field agent duties, projects and assignments, notwithstanding the requirement to still carry on as if his only job was that of administration and general tidying up, He sighed. Some things just never changed.

Picking up mess was just part of the job, but today he found himself slightly perplexed by the unusual nature of the task. It had started with a pile of pale coloured items on the floor, having spilled from a small plastic bucket. He lowered himself to his haunches to inspect the strange spillage to discover a pile of candy hearts. ‘A little unusual,’ he muttered to himself, but then this whole job was rather unusual on even a good day.

He carefully scooped them back into the little bucket and stood up, but not before spotting one that had rolled away further than all of its counterparts. He took a few steps and bent down to pick it up, noting the ironic word “giggle” stamped on the front of it. ‘Yes, very funny, making me pick you up and put you back where you belong.’ He didn’t have to guess who they might belong to, but why they were abandoned spilled all over the floor near his office was anyone's guess. He only hoped that if Jack had meant to leave them on his desk that something hadn’t happened to him to make him drop them. The hub was meant to be a safe place, with highly advanced shielding technology that was designed to prevent anyone from using teleportation or similar technologies from getting in or out of the hub, not to mention the rift dampeners that were intended to prevent rift spikes from occurring within Torchwood itself. That didn't mean however that the place was foolproof in its security.

On his guard, Ianto slowly took a few steps down the corridor, alert to anything that might be amiss. Instead of some alien threat, he found another candy heart saying “flirt”, and then another a few feet further along reading “cutie”. Concerns for Jack’s welfare disappeared as the trail of candy hearts carried on every few feet like clockwork. Jack was playing Hansel and Gretel with him, leaving him a trail of sugary sweets to be followed. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but Ianto played along, just to see where this particular game might lead.

Ianto reached down and picked up one that said “date night” and rolled his eyes, wondering if the next one might say “rooftop” or “photocopier”. He was disappointed, but amused when neither word eventuated but were instead replaced by one that said “naughty, but nice”. Yeah, okay, so maybe Jack had picked that one out intentionally, knowing just how dirty minded Ianto could be. It was followed by another that said “ooh, la la!” That made him smirk. He’d never given a thought as to who came up with the words and how x-rated, or not, they were allowed to be. Given Jack’s own propensity towards the flagrante delicto, he suspected he was about to find out.

He ate a couple along the way, picking up more and more, pausing to read each one, certain that Jack had picked them out on purpose: be mine, kiss me, crush on u, ur cute, xoxo, heartthrob, crazy 4 u, hold hands. On and on they went until he’d managed to find himself standing outside Jack’s office, the man himself lingering in the doorway, hands in his pockets and a silly grin all over his face as he watched Ianto standing there with a bucket full of candy. ‘You missed one,’ Jack said, nodding down between them where one last pale blue heart lay on the floor. It read “my hero” which only made Ianto feel his cheeks grow hot and feel suddenly embarrassed. Jack had uttered those words to him a few weeks ago and he hadn't been able to think about that moment since without feeling a fluttering in his chest. He was nobody's hero. The dashing, heroic stuff was all Jack, and Jack didn’t need a hero.

‘Are they all for me?’ Jack teased.

Ianto rolled his eyes again, fully aware he’d been set up. ‘A bit cliché, don’t you think? Leaving a trail of lonely hearts in your wake?’

‘I wouldn’t have called them lonely,’ Jack replied. ‘And it worked didn’t it? I got you right where I wanted you,’ he said, closing the gap between them and relieving Ianto of his bucket, setting it on the desk behind him so that he could free both hands to snake around his hips.

‘You could have just called me, you know,’ Ianto said.

‘I know,’ Jack conceded. ‘But where’s the fun in that?’

It was true that Jack was never good at saying how he felt, and it had not gone unnoticed that the one candy heart saying that was the most popular had been missing. There was no “I love you”, but then again, saying it was just words, and words were nothing more than something you could print on candies. It was actions that spoke, and Jack’s arms around him spoke louder than anything.