Slashthedrabble Challenge 459 - Love don't cost a thing

[m_findlow]

Title: Love don't cost a thing
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 459 - Cheap date at slashthedrabble
Summary: Jack doesn't need a fancy restaurant for the perfect date night

Another date ruined, Ianto thought glumly. Why did this always happen to him? Rogue weevils and crashed alien spaceships never interfered with Gwen and Rhys' date night, and Owen and Tosh had never faced more than a bit of earth junk having fallen through the rift on their special nights together. Why then did the world always want to end on the one night he and Jack were meant to be enjoying some tiny slice of that precious normality they spent the rest of their time protecting?

Worse still was that it had been his turn again to make date night arrangements. The making of arrangements wasn't the hard part, it was the keeping them. Lately it seemed like it was always his turn at date night that got ruined. How many restaurant and hotel managers had blacklisted him from making a reservation, insisting on the best table they had, or the executive suite, only for him to cancel. Well, cancel was a strong word for it, he admitted. It was usually hours after they hadn't turned up, busy preventing the bay from being invaded by large orange furry octopi, or zombies trawling the streets, that he'd call to apologise for their absence. He didn't know why he bothered sometimes. All he got was a disgruntled or abusive response.

Jack was lying back on the sofa, still dressed in his usual garb, ignoring the patches of black and grey grease that covered his shirt and pants. Possessed motor vehicle workshop. That was a new one for the scrapbook, Ianto thought. He was still indignant at the mechanical car jack that had tried to crush his lover to death.

He slumped onto the sofa next to him. Jack wrapped a lazy arm around his shoulder, looking weary from their night's adventures.

'I'm sorry,' Ianto apologised.

'What for?'

'Tonight was supposed to be just for us. To make up for the last date I ruined. And the one before that, and the one before that,' he said, adding them up in his head as he went. 'Probably one more before that, but I'm not sure anymore.'

'Doesn't matter. We're here now. And you didn't ruin it,' Jack insisted.

Ianto curled over wrapping his arms around Jack's torso, nestling his head in the space between his chin and his shoulder. He could feel the reassuring beat of Jack's heart against his ear. 'It's one am,' he replied, stifling a yawn.  

'And right now, nobody needs us.'

'Not much of a date though, is it?'

Jack hugged him closer. 'I've got you all to myself. What more could I want?'

Ianto chuckled. 'World's cheapest date, you are.'

'That's me,' Jack agreed. 'I don't need fancy restaurants or nice hotels. I just need you.'

Ianto just lay there a while, staring blankly at the darkened hub as it hummed, feeling Jack's chest rise and fall against his body. Jack had a point. This was the best part of date night, and it didn't cost anything.