Ianto strode stiffly back into the Hub following a Rift retrieval, looking seriously displeased, among other things. Gwen came scuttling along behind him with an expression on her face that suggested she would have been wringing her hands if she wasn’t carrying a containment unit.

Emerging from his office, Jack stared at his lover in confusion and mounting disbelief. “Ianto, what happened? You’re all…”

“Don’t say it, Jack, not one word!” Ianto snapped, glaring at the other man with such barely suppressed fury that Jack’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click of teeth.

Owen, on the other hand, clearly didn’t get the message, because he burst out laughing. “You’re bright pink! You look like a gay version of a Ken doll!”

Ianto slowly turned to glare at his colleague, stalking towards the medic with a face like thunder, looming menacingly over the seated man, and Owen shrank back in his chair, suddenly looking nervous. Satisfied for the moment, Ianto whirled on Gwen, who gave an alarmed squeak and took a hasty step backwards, but all Ianto did was snatch the box from her hands.

“Next time I tell you not to touch something, DON’T TOUCH IT!” he roared. “Just because I’m not Jack doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about!”

“I’m sorry, Ianto!” Now Gwen WAS wringing her hands. “I didn’t mean for that to happen!”

“You never do, and that’s the problem. You act without thinking, you ignore direct orders, and then you fall all over yourself trying to apologise for things that wouldn’t have happened in the first place if you just LISTENED!” Spinning on his heel, Ianto set the box on Tosh’s workstation and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.

Tosh just gave her friend a sympathetic smile as he stood there in his head-to-toe pinkness. “Am I right in assuming you know what this device is?”

Ianto returned her smile with a somewhat strained one of his own. “Up to a point. It’s similar to something we had at One, a piece of tech Yvonne considered useless because it couldn’t be used as a weapon. All it did was change the colours of natural fibres; it didn’t work on synthetic materials, just cotton, wool, or silk. This one’s broken though, three of the buttons are jammed and one seems to be missing, so for safety’s sake I wanted to scoop it up without touching it, but Gwen picked it up while I was getting the lid off the containment box.”

“I was only trying to help!” Gwen protested.

“After I already told you not to touch it because it might be unstable. But no, you just had to grab it and point it at me, and now I’m…”

“Pink,” Jack cut in, saving Ianto the trouble of saying it. “I like you in pink; next to red it’s my favourite colour on you.”

“You like me in a pink shirt, Jack. Not a pink shirt, a pink suit, pink leather shoes, pink socks, pink hair, pink eyes, hot pink skin…” Ianto trailed off, shaking his head. “Even my teeth are pink, and then it rained on the way back to the SUV, and I was wet and STILL PINK! As much as I don’t mind wearing pink, I don’t want to BE pink, not this shade! If it doesn’t come off with water, I could be stuck like this permanently! I look like a bloody flamingo!”

“No you don’t, you’re a much prettier colour,” Jack assured him.

“Surprisingly enough, that doesn’t make me feel any better. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snapped, whirling on Owen, who’d crept up behind him.

“My job.” Owen held up the scanner. “Just checking the pigmentation isn’t doing you any harm. No need to thank me.” He finished the scan and checked the results.

“Well?”

Owen smirked. “Looks like you’re in the pink of health.”

Ianto actually growled.

“Lighten up, Teaboy! That was funny!”

Ianto reached for the containment box. “Let’s see how YOU like being shocking pink all over, shall we?”

“It was a joke! Where’s your sense of humour?”

“I left it in my other suit. The one that’s NOT PINK!”

Jack decided it was time to step in, before the situation turned violent.

“Owen, shut up, go and do something useful preferably somewhere else. Gwen, re-read the manual on safety protocols. There’ll be a test later, so you’d better know it by heart. Tosh…”

“Wait,” Gwen interrupted. “There’s a manual?”

Ianto turned to Jack. “I told you she never read the bloody thing! Probably shoved it in her desk and forgot about it! I put a lot of effort into creating that!”

“Gwen, find your copy of the manual and READ IT, cover to cover! If you can’t find, borrow someone else’s!”

“Yes, Jack,” Gwen said, meek as a church mouse, before scuttling over to her workstation and beginning to dig through her drawers.

Jack turned back to Tosh, smiling. “See what you can do about unpinking Ianto, would you?”

“Already working on it,” Tosh assured her boss.

“Good. Thank you. Ianto?”

Ianto regarded Jack with a king of weary resignation. “Coffee?”

“I wouldn’t say no,” Jack admitted, “although I think you need it more than me right now.”

“Coffee isn’t going to change the fact that I’m bright pink,” Ianto pointed out.

“No, but caffeine withdrawal will just leave you with a headache on top of everything else. I recommend coffee, and something chocolate-y. I have Jaffa Cakes in my office.” Jack smiled hopefully.

“That does sound rather good…”

“Better for you than hiding in the archives.”

“That’s debatable, all that sugar and preservatives. And I wasn’t going to hide anyway, I was going to see if I could find a similar piece of tech that isn’t broken, so Tosh can get a better idea of how it’s supposed to work.”

“You can check through the archive database on my computer while you have your coffee and cake.”

“Fine. I’ll make coffee, but you’d better not eat all the Jaffa Cakes before I get there.”

“I won’t even open the packet. And Ianto?”

“Jack?”

“Look on the bright side. At least Gwen didn’t turn you fluorescent lime green.”

Ianto shuddered. “You’re right, that would’ve been infinitely worse. I suppose I can live with being pink for a bit longer. I’m still serving Gwen and Owen instant decaf though.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Jack could be staunchly supportive of Ianto’s favourite punishment, as long as he wasn’t the one on the receiving end. “They deserve it.”

Mollified, as much as was possible in his current state, Ianto took his pinkness into the kitchenette to brew coffee. He just hoped Tosh could turn everything back to its regular colour. He liked the cut of this suit, it fit perfectly, and he looked good in it. Bright pink suits, with all-pink accessories, were never going to catch on.


The End