Torchwood: Fanfic: Lost and found

[m_findlow]

Title: Lost and found
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto 
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 929 words 
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "any, any, Why is it when you drop something, it rolls out of reach under the nearest piece of furniture?" at fic_promptly 
Summary: Jack is about to uncover more than he expected

Get up,' Ianto ordered. 

'Mfph,' Jack grumbled into Ianto's shoulder. 

'No seriously, get up.' Ianto poked him in the back for good measure. 'The others will be here in half an hour.' 

Jack groaned at the obvious instruction. When did they ever get a sleep in? Everyone else did. 

Jack turned over and blinked in the semi darkness. 'Where are my pants?' 

'On the floor, where you left them last night.'

'Shirt?'

'Also on the floor. Don't pretend you're surprised by that fact.'

'Ah,' Jack said, reaching over to the bedside table, 'at least I know where my cufflinks are. Oops.' 

'What's oops?' he asked, having heard the small clattering sound, trying not to sigh and roll his eyes. 

'Argh. Why is it when you drop something, it always rolls out of reach under the nearest piece of furniture?' 

Ianto didn't bother to respond. The question seemed rhetorical at best. Butterfingers. 

'Right, well we'll never be seeing those again,' Ianto remarked, knowing that anything that got wedged in the narrow six inch space under Jack's bed was ultimately done for. There could be a black hole under there for all they knew, and for all intents and purposes might as well be. 

'Lucky all your cufflinks match.' 

'Only because you keep by buying me the same ones.'

'Problem with that?'

'No, wait, I think I can almost,' Jack's voice strained. Ianto instinctively grabbed Jack around his middle. 

'What are you doing?' Jack asked. 

'Preventing you from falling out of bed in this mad quest. We fall out often enough as it is without tempting fate further. Don't worry about it. I've got fourteen more of those in a box somewhere.'

'Hey, this is good,' Jack said, dangling almost upside down at this angle. 'I can actually kinda reach under here now.' He sat back up for a second. 'Pass me that torch. I wanna see what else is under there.' 

Ianto obliged him and he leant back over the edge of the bed, Ianto clasping his arms around his waist again. 

'Don't get any funny ideas,' Jack warned, as they were pressed hip to hip. 'I'm in a very vulnerable position right now and I wouldn't want you to take advantage of me.' 

Ianto smirked, even though Jack couldn't see it. 'Wouldn't dream of it, but if you keep wriggling your arse like that, I may not be able to control myself.'

'Very funny, I'll try to keep my arse movements to a minimum. For now anyway.'

Jack leaned all the way over the edge and poked his head in between the floor and the bed, shining the tiny flashlight into the dark narrow space. 

'Aha, found it!' he declared thrusting his arm upward and showing off the tiny silver aeroplane. 

'Well done,' Ianto congratulated him drily. 

'Hey, there's a whole bunch of stuff under here. When was the last time you cleaned?'

'I'm not the only one responsible for cleaning around here, you know. And it is your bed.'

Jack leaned back over and plunged his hand under the bed again, determined to retrieve whatever else was down there, like it was buried treasure. With any luck, it just might be, he thought to himself. 

'A sock!' Jack said, flinging it on top of his pile of clothes already on the floor. 'Not sure whose.' 

'We don't have any orphaned socks, so not much point in washing it. Besides, God knows how long it's been down there. The bin would probably be a better place for it.'

'What else have we got here? Oh, half used tube of something naughty.' That earned him a gentle tug backwards. 'Twenty quid. That'll buy a few donuts for breakfast. Hmm,' he paused. 

'What is it?'

'That's one, two, three, four access cards. How the heck did they all get there?'

'Better give those to me. I'll get Tosh to reactivate them and lock them away. If I have to go to her to cancel any more cards, she's going to wonder what I'm doing with them all. Or more to the point, what you're doing with them all.'

'Better you than me. Um, let's see,' he said reaching in further. All the blood was starting to rush to his head, and his free hand slipped from where it was holding him in place, whilst his other arm explored. Ianto had to pull back hard before Jack toppled them both out of the bed in his excitement. 

'Careful!'

'Hey, isn't this your pen?' he said, brandishing a very fine silver ballpoint. It kind of went without saying, since it had his name very elegantly engraved on it. 

'Hey, I've been looking for that everywhere!'

'I didn't know you'd lost it.'

'Er, well, I wasn't going to tell you.' 

The pen had been a very expensive gift from Jack last Christmas. He hadn't had the heart to admit that he'd lost it, hoping that it would eventually turn up in a box of archiving or similar. 

'I wouldn't have been mad. I lose stuff all the time.'

'I know,' he replied. 'That'll learn me to let you undress me in such a hurry. No doubt that's how it ended up there.' 

'It really is the evil bed that eats stuff.'

'Is that everything now?'

'No, there's something else, can't quite, reach, ah, got it.'

'What is it?'

'Oh, ew, it's a rotten banana peel,' he said, flicking it away quickly. 

'Banana peel? But when would we have had ba-, No wait, don't answer that.' Ianto cringed. 

'Oh, ho! Now that was a good night!'

Comments

[jo02]

Haha - I thought the next thing found under the bed after the banana peel was going to be the Doctor :)

[bk_forever]

You really never know what you'll find lurking under the furniture, do you? I'm surprised Jack didn't find more of his lost cufflinks,. Maybe they're hiding behind the dust bunnies ;)

Thanks for the fill!

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Now Ianto's going to feel obligated to pull the whole bed at out from the wall and clean under there, just in case there's more rotting objects.

[bk_forever]

That was probably Jack's plan all along.