Torchwood: Fanfic: At war
Jul. 28th, 2017 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
m_findlowTitle: At war
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, mentions team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 692 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Torchwood, Jack/Ianto, the war of no coffee, no sex" at fic_promptly
Summary: The battle lines have been drawn, but who will win?
There's only one thing worse than the world ending, the team have come to realise, and that's when Jack and Ianto are having a row. Not just any kind of row, though. Most are fiery and have a half life of less than a day, culminating in the make up sex which is often loudly advertised, or if not advertised, simply loudly heard by all and sundry. Then everything reverts back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened.
No, this is the kind of row that is far more understated. It's less of a row and more a battle of minds, or let's face it, a war of attrition. It's the age old battle of who will win out, when they both deny one another the thing they do best. Neither will concede the point, instead choosing to withhold vital necessities until the other caves in, admitting fault.
For Ianto, the choice is obvious. Jack without coffee is not a pretty picture, and when that happens, everybody suffers. Jack needs his caffeine fix like a fish needs water to breathe, and not getting it makes him grumpy and irritable. It only incenses Ianto more when Jack finally breaks, leaving to buy coffee from a nearby cafe, but Ianto is always the victorious one, watching with a satisfying grin as Jack takes that first tentative sip, knowing how awful it's going to taste, after years of being spoilt by the finest coffee money can buy. He drinks it anyway, if not for the taste, then at least for the caffeine hit, and the rest of the team breathe a sigh of relief that Jack will at least be approximately human for the next few hours. It doesn't do anything for his mood towards Ianto though, looking at him and tasting that acrid bitterness in his mouth that only store bought coffee can produce. He'll get Ianto back though. He has his own secret weapon.
If the team think that the best way to upset Ianto is to mess up his archives, drink bad coffee in front of him, or leave rubbish all over the place, then they don't know him as well as Jack does. If Ianto will deny Jack the life blood that is his coffee, then Jack will deny him the one thing even more fulfilling: sex.
Ianto laughed the first time Jack threatened him. Jack withhold sex? You must be joking. Jack wouldn't last five minutes without it. This was more like a double punishment for himself. Oh, how wrong he'd been. He'd come to depend of Jack's physical touch to sustain his body just as much as he needed coffee to sustain his mind. When had he become this physically codependent? His body ached for Jack's touch and Jack knew it. Worse was that Jack knew two could play at this game, and he took pleasure in teasing Ianto mercilessly, upping his innuendo laced commentary, running his finger up and down the side of his mug in a seductive way, expertly undressing Ianto with his eyes in meetings, leaving Ianto flustered and hot under the collar.
Jack did all of those things normally, and the solution was always a quick ten minutes tucked away somewhere, where they could both get what they needed, but when Jack was holding out on him, Ianto felt like tearing the skin from his bones to get at the ache inside him. Instead, Jack kept Ianto as busy as possible, dreaming up endless lists of errands for him to run, none of which left time him in his sexually frustrated state to sort himself out. Jack it seemed, was far better at this than he was, able to tease and taunt without feeling any need to sate his own desires. It left Ianto tetchy and short-tempered with the rest of the team; his usually calm facade abruptly shattered for all to see.
It's a vicious and dirty battle, more like a war, that rages on for days, and the victor uncertain always until the very last moment. The only thing that is certain is that there are always more casualties than there are combatants.
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Date: 2017-08-10 10:12 pm (UTC)