Title: Thirst for life
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,097 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 460 - Thirst
Summary: Jack has acquired an unusual thirst.



It had become part and parcel of the job to be constantly on the lookout for strange behaviour from anyone in the team. No one could ever know for certain when dealing with alien objects that there wasn't the possibility of something going wrong, or some untoward menace lurking within something seemingly innocent. Of course, it didn't help that everyone in the team had their own quirks and that what might be considered strange to the everyday person was actually normal behaviour for them. That's just how things worked around here.

Jack was easily the strangest of all of them, if only because he had lived and experienced so much of the variety of the universe that no one was entirely sure what counted as regular for Jack. He’d done his best to adapt to twenty-first century Earth, but there were still some things that were undeniably Jack on account of his fifty-first century upbringing.

Today was one of those terribly borderline cases, as far as Ianto was concerned. He was used to making multiple rounds of coffee throughout the day but it felt like he'd done nothing but today for some reason.
Working through the rest of his duties, he stepped into Jack's office, making his way over to the hatch in the floor. How many employees collected their boss's laundry, he wondered. Probably only the ones that were sleeping with the boss, he decided. And Jack was hopeless when it came to domestic stuff like that. Ianto wanted to make sure that his captain was appropriately dressed and looked the part; not dishevelled or sporting a shirt that was still crumpled from where it had been earlier folded inside a fresh packet.

‘Ianto, think you could get us a refill?’ Jack asked, holding up his mug.

Ianto paused at the threshold of the bunker entrance and looked at him. ‘You've already had four,’ he replied, not sure when he'd started keeping count.

‘Your point?’ Coffee was the lifeblood of the hub. No one got much done without it these days. Ianto had certainly not done himself out of sustainable employ.

‘It's only eleven,’ Ianto replied. Four cups of coffee before lunch was a bit much, even for Jack.

‘Can’t a guy be thirsty? You've got me doing all these reports…’

Ianto didn’t let Jack’s comments bait him. ‘Well maybe if you'd done them when they were supposed to be done rather than letting them accumulate…’ Jack did his best to keep up but there was a certain amount of procrastination mixed in, resulting in sometimes almost insurmountable backlogs. ‘Other beverages are available,’ he said. Not that he didn't appreciate everyone's faith in how to produce the best drink there was.

Jack raised a curious eyebrow at him, Expressing his surprise at the moderate defiance. ‘Is that a no?’

Ianto considered how far he might push his resistance. ‘For now, perhaps.’

Jack huffed a sigh. ‘Fine. Water it is then,’ he said, standing and moving out of his office towards the kitchen to retrieve a bottle from the fridge. He lofted it up as Ianto returned from the bunker, laundry in arm. ‘Happy now?’

‘Happiness is a relative concept.’

Jack growled. ‘Go. Before I decide to be bossy.’

‘Yes sir.’



Ianto felt sorry for being somewhat rude earlier in the day, fixing up a fresh round of coffee as soon as lunch was over and making sure Jack was the first person to be served. Not that he wasn't almost always the first person to be served.

When he came into the office though he could see several empty water bottles littering Jack's desk. ‘Is there a cash for recycling promotion going on?’ he asked.

‘Huh?’ Ianto pointed at the bottles. ‘Oh, those. I dunno. Just really thirsty today.’

‘More than thirsty,’ Ianto commented, frowning. ‘Are you feeling okay?’

‘Of course.’ Not that Jack ever admitted when he wasn't. ‘So what if I'm a little bit parched? It's only because you've got me working overtime on these reports.’

‘I've got you working overtime?’ What was a bit rich. Jack was the one giving borders around here, not him. He considered the pile of bottles, wondering if that was all of them or if there were more hiding in the bin under Jack’s desk, now so full that it couldn't take any more additions. ‘Perhaps Owen should fix you up a glass of something with some electrolytes in it,’ he suggested. ‘Being thirsty might not be the real problem. I've probably got a few spare packets in my drawer actually.’

Jack took the suggestion in typical fashion, clenching his jaw in a way that spoke to the impatience of being fussed over unnecessarily. ‘If I say yes will you stop fussing and let me have that coffee?’ Jack asked, pointing to the mug still clutched in Ianto's hands.

‘Orange flavour or blackcurrant?’

‘Got any in coffee flavour?’

Ianto set down the mug. ‘Very funny. Remind me to book you a slot at the Comedian’s Lounge.’



Jack wasn’t having a pleasant day locked up with his paperwork, however Ianto made good on his promise, bringing Jack a tall glass with bright orange fluid in it. Rather than resist, Jack simply gulped it down, chasing it with his coffee. Even after that he scarcely felt any more sated than before. He dry-swallowed a few times before getting up, carrying his glass back to the kitchen and refilling it with more water, downing a whole glass before refilling it a second time, determined to take this one back with him.

‘Oi!’ came a shout from behind him. Jack froze at the sound of a disgruntled Owen. ‘What's all this about you being ridiculously thirsty?’

Vexatious thoughts entered Jack’s mind as he considered a suitable punishment for his overzealous lover. ‘It's nothing,’ Jack replied, draining it in one go and leaning over the sink, it again. ‘Just a bit dehydrated.’

Owen reached across and grabbed Jack's arm, pinching the skin hard.

‘Ow!” Jack complained, pulling his arm free and nursing the stinging spot where Owen’s bedside manner had attacked him. ‘What was that for?’

‘Get your arse down there,’ Owen said, pointing down towards his little domain at the bottom of the steps.

Jack grumbled the entire way, and continued grumbling through Owen's barked instructions for him to park himself on the metal table whilst he poked and prodded, and attracting the attention of the man who'd dobbed him into their medic in the first place. Jack offered a glare in Ianto's direction as he came to lean over the railing. ‘Sell out,’ Jack pouted.

Ianto, as always, appeared nonplussed by the defection. ‘You don't think your sudden penchant from drinks is a little unusual? Even for you?’

‘Oh, so when Owen has eight pints on a Friday night, that's okay, but I have a few glasses of water and suddenly it's panic stations? Ow!’ He cried again as a sharp needle scratched the crook of his elbow, which was gripped in Owen’s gloved hand in the moment of being distracted by Ianto.

‘Hold still,’ Owen said. ‘Can't even get the sodding needle in the vein, that's how dehydrated you are. What's wrong with you?’ He cast a look upwards. ‘Ianto, what's he been playing with that he shouldn’t have been?’

‘Nothing that I'm aware of.’

Owen fixed his gaze on Jack as he poked the needle again, getting under Jack's skin this time in the place he wanted it and hanging up a bag of fluids on a wheeled stand. ‘Sit there until that's empty,’ he ordered. ‘You must have meddled with something.’

‘I haven't, I swear.’ Why did everyone always assume he meddled with things? He knew more about alien technology than the rest of them combined and was always careful. ‘I haven't been anywhere, done anything or eaten anything that everyone else hasn't. I had Ianto supervising me all yesterday,’ he added, trying to redirect some of Owen’s bad temper.

Owen barely even bothered to roll his eyes. ‘That's what you're calling it, is it? Didn't see my invite to the club yesterday. How come you get to go out and booze on the job?’

‘It was a two man job.’ Jack replied. ‘We didn't even stop for a dance,’ he said, recalling their venture into Cardiff party district the night before, tracking down an alien that had gone rogue and broken his travel restriction orders. Some aliens just couldn’t be allowed to mix with the general public, but that hadn't stopped it from wanting to enjoy the night life that the city had to offer.

‘Didn't stop Mister Sparkles,’ Ianto muttered.

‘Eh?’

Jack rolled his eyes, moving into a more comfortable position and hearing the IV trolley squeal in protest as his arm yanked it sideways. ‘I got caught by a guy in the club when I was trying to move through the crowd on the dancefloor. He offered me a little bit of face on face action as I was passing by.’

Ianto looked murderous. ‘It didn't mean you had to snog him back!’

Jack shrugged. ‘When in Rome… He wasn't a patch on your kissing, just so you know.’ He was pretty sure he’d said so at the time.

Ianto huffed and folded his arms, torn between storming off in a rut and sticking around to make sure Jack would be okay.

‘Why “Mister Sparkles?” Owen asked, looking at Ianto for an explanation.

‘Had his face all painted up in weird sparkly glitter stuff. Looked like he'd stepped out of a Mardi Gras parade.’

‘Sparkly like painted on shimmer?’

‘Yeah. All over his face. Looked like one of those blue things from Avatar. He spared a withering glance at Jack. ‘And I thought red was your colour.’

‘I told you, he snogged me! You know you’ll always be my number one.’

Ianto wasn’t having any of it. ‘Doesn’t stop others from being numbers two through ten thousand though, does it?’

Owen shook his head. ‘Party drugs.’

Ianto did a double take. ‘What?’

‘Mixed into a paste and spread on the skin to look like shimmer or make up. Ingested when you lick it off. Best way to smuggle in drugs without the bouncers or the coppers knowing. Also works its way into the pores of the wearer making sure they have a good night as well. My guess is that your boyfriend got more than his fair share of party drugs last night when he snogged Old Bluey. What did he do, eat his face off?’

Ianto folded his arms, looking salty. ‘More or less. And that’s just the part I saw.

‘Twenty seconds, tops,’ Jack assured him. ‘And I didn't get any high.’ Not that most conventional Earth drugs did much. They weren’t a patch on the kinds of things you could pick up in the Vegas Galaxy. Now those would make your head spin and leave you waking up three days later without any clue what you’d done. Unfortunately Jack could remember every single page of painful budget reports and Home Office briefings he’d slogged his way through, more’s pity.

‘With your physiology, who the hell knows what effects it has,’ Owen said, snapping off his gloves now that his diagnosis was complete. ‘One thing we know about party drugs though is that they can have serious effects on the body that are unintended. That's what you get crushing up proper pills with other crap. Could be paint solvents, plaster dust, fertilisers… anything that replicates the high without the price tag of the real deal.’

Jack slumped slightly. Immortal or not, the twenty-first century was still a dangerous place to live. ‘I’ve been so ridiculously thirsty,’ he confessed.

‘It’s a wonder you don’t slosh like a waterbed when you move,’ Ianto added.

‘Yep, that’ll be the drugs alright,’ Owen said. ‘Used to see it all the time in A and E on a Sunday. Boozers drying themselves out and party poppers doing the opposite.’

‘So, he’ll be okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Owen pushed to check the progress of the IV bag, hanging up a second one ready to go when the first was empty. ‘Give him some extra fluids and let him ride out the worst of it, which is probably more than halfway done already.’

‘Maybe next time you’ll think twice before snogging someone you don’t know,’ Ianto said, having to have the final word on the matter.

Jack lay back on the uncomfortable metal gurney and closed his eyes, ignoring his lover’s judgements. And take all the fun out of living? No chance.