Torchwood: Fanfic: Radio silence

[m_findlow]

Title: Radio silence
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 675 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for samuraiter's prompt "any, any, leaving the microphone on at an inopportune moment" at fic_promptly
Summary: Someone hasn't read the instruction manual

It was another late night stakeout for the team. Owen and Gwen were parked in a car across the street. Tosh was in the SUV a few blocks away, monitoring the house and the weird signals they were getting, and Ianto was back at the hub, providing support, whilst Jack was in the house itself, checking things out.

Jack had insisted on radio silence, but having said that, had quickly gotten bored and decided to veto his own instruction, switching it back on so that he could chat with Ianto.

The headsets were new, and much improved on the old ones, easily concealed and lightweight. They also allowed the wearers to activate them via voice alone, handy for when you were tied up or busy pointing a gun at something. They also allowed you to control what could be sent and received. The old ones were a basic everyone hears everything. The new ones meant a lot less distraction when the team were split up, not having to hear everyone's chatter at once. It was just taking a bit of time to get used to them.

'This place is huge,' Jack said, 'and very tastefully furnished. You'd approve.'

'Mmm,' Ianto agreed, not being able to see what Jack was seeing, but assuming the statement to be correct. 'Probably takes ages to keep it clean though,' he noted.

'Speaking of clean, there's a very nice bathtub in here. One of those big ones with the lion feet.'

'Mmm hmm,' Ianto hummed distractedly, clicking out of various programs he no longer needed on his computer.

'Do you remember that bathtub we had when we stayed the weekend at St David's a few months ago?'

It wasn't until Ianto closed one of the application windows down on his second screen that he noticed the comms software sitting there in the background.

It had panels for each of their units, indicating which were active. Then it caught his eye. All of Jack's receive channels were lit green, meaning that he could receive chatter from anyone else, but all of the send channels should have been orange, meaning they were open but not active. Orange was for standby, meaning others could converse outside of the loop. The only send channel that should have been green was his.

He couldn't control the channels from the software, all he could do was see which were online. He flicked his own receive channels on and heard the sound he'd been dreading. Gwen and Owen and Tosh all giggling madly.

Dear God. It was a disaster.

In hindsight, he should have gone with the direct approach, and just told Jack his comms were open to all and sundry. In hindsight, it probably wouldn't have stopped him anyway.

Oh God, where was Jack going with this? He satrted to get nervous about the direction of the conversation.

'It was very nice,' Ianto said quickly, 'but who's got room for one? They're not practical,' he said, trying to end the topic.

'I know, but you can easily fit two people in it.'

Ianto coughed loudly on the other end.

'And that thing you did with your-,'

Cough, cough, cough.

Ianto loudly overrode whatever Jack was trying to say, so that the others couldn't discern the particulars.

'I've never seen anything like it,' Jack finished.

Cough! Cough!

'You really don't sound well. Maybe I should get Owen to check you over when he gets back.'

'Maybe you should,' Ianto agreed. He'll need to be there to write "death by embarrassment" on my death certificate, he thought. Being buried right now would have been a really good outcome.

'Anyway,' Jack continued, 'I've known contortionists who couldn’t do what we did. I think I'm going to have to book us another weekend there.'

'Stop!' Ianto yelled.

'What?' Jack exclaimed, uncomprehending.

'Everyone can hear you,' came the tiny, high-pitched, very embarrassed voice.

All the comms at Ianto's end went silent at the admission, as if guiltily caught out in the act of eavesdropping.

'It's still a nice bathtub,' said Jack.

Comments

[bk_forever]

*giggles* Poor Ianto! Trust Jack to broadcast to everybody. I'm sure it really was a nice bathtub though ;)