m_findlow

Title: A wealth of information
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,412 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for juliet316's prompt "Any, any, information station" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack is a bit wary of Ianto's latest initiative

Jack had watched the curious young man for days now. No matter what he did, he found himself constantly surprised, and that was saying something. After over a hundred years, he didn't think there was anyone left who could surprise him.

He'd pretty much given Ianto free reign to move about the hub wherever he wanted. It seemed wherever he went he found something that needed fixing, or tidying or somehow improving. At first Jack had taken offense. This was his hub, and as far as he could see, it was in pretty good shape. He'd had years to get it just how he liked it, like a favourite pair of sneakers, but the more Ianto pointed out minor flaws, the more Jack realised just how rose coloured his glasses really were.

He'd never had an eye, nor an interest, for that kind of detail anyway. To let Ianto go about that hub making himself a to do list was just fine by Jack. So long as he kept the immediate areas clean, his staff fed, and kept himself close by when they were out on a mission to provide support, Jack didn't much care how else he spent his time. Oh, that and make lots of that delicious coffee. Given Ianto's own love of the beverage, there was small chance that it would ever slip his mind to serve it to everyone else of on a regular basis. If Ianto wanted to kill his hours reshuffling paperwork and mopping halls, then so be it.

Today, Jack had gone looking for him. He couldn't exactly remember the reason why, or whether it was simply to have the opportunity to leer at that very nicely cut suit and the slim, presentable man living inside it. Perhaps he should come up with a reason to see him before he found him. It didn't pay to be too overt in these things. Ianto was happy to put up with a bit of Jack's shameless flirting, but he didn't want to scare off the young man.

After searching the halls, the cells, the archives and a half dozen other places, he was at a loss as to where he'd gotten to. Perhaps he'd gone out to pick up supplies, but then, wouldn't he have mentioned it first? He tapped his comms, before remembering Ianto wasn't required to wear one around the hub. He tried his phone instead.

'Afternoon sir, came the greeting. Can I help you?'

'Uh, just wondering where you'd gotten to.'

'Upstairs, sir.'

Oh, why hadn't he thought of that?

'Doing what?'

Jack could almost hear the coy little smile on Ianto's face. 'Why don't you come see?'

Jack made his way up the lift and down the long, dark hallway to the small office that was parked on the end of the quay. It was a ramshackle little thing that no one ever took any notice of. It made for a convenient entrance and exit to the hub and that was about it. Someone somewhere along the line - he couldn't remember who, exactly - had tried to make it look like a tourist bureau. It had been something of an inside joke, since they rarely locked the door, which meant the odd person here and there found their way inside. The idea was that it be ironically welcoming, when in fact the whole point of it was to deter whomever had walked inside in the first place. In the years since, it had become even more run down, its desk dusty and the boxes of rubbish and random stuff piling up in the corners and the tiny space behind the desk that counted for a miniature office.

Jack suddenly realised why Ianto might have made his way up there, his radar for cleanliness going off the scales at the accumulated mess. At least, Jack thought, this hadn't been the very first thing he'd seen when he'd arrived at Torchwood, Jack having brought him and their new pet dinosaur in through one of the underground entrances. He couldn't explain why, but he'd wanted to impress the man, and this certainly wouldn't have done it. He could almost picture the look of disgust on Ianto's face when he came in each morning, having to navigate his way through it all. Probably too late to apologise for the mess, as he hit the release button on the side of the door.

'Woah,' Jack said, when he slipped through the door. It wasn't just clean, it was spotless. And more than that, it actually looked like a tourist information office. Ianto was unpacking boxes of pamphlets and maps, setting them into spinning displays and lining them up along the front of the desk. He even had a small collection of snowglobes, pens and mugs in one corner with pictures of dragons and castles printed on them.

'Uh, what's all this?' Jack asked.

'Just putting things to rights, sir. You've really let this place go to pot.'

Jack shook his head, stunned by the transformation. Ianto never did anything by halves, it seemed. 'You realise that it's not actually meant to be a real tourist information office, don't you?' Jack said.

'And you realise that by having it so run down people are actually going to take more notice of it?' Ianto countered. 'If you want to hide something, do it in plain sight.'

He wanted to be impressed, but a little part of him wanted to remind Ianto that he still worked for Jack, and not the other way around. 'Ianto, the whole point of this entrance is to not attract people down here. You set up a fully working tourist information office and we'll have people in here all day, every day.'

Ianto gave him a look. Jack got the feeling he was about to be told off, or at least corrected.

'Please, there's a bureau right next to Mermaid Quay. They get ten thousand people walk through their doors every year. I checked. Your CCTV records show you've only had ten in the past month. The worst that happens is that you get the odd tourist who's taken a wrong turn. It's not exactly on a main thoroughfare, is it?'

'No, but,'

'And, you obviously haven't read any of the letters that have been shoved under the door from the Welsh Tourism Board, which had received several complaints from the public about the state of this place. You've been warned to shape up or they'll have the Minister for Tourism and the Arts down here personally for a full blown inspection. They take tourism as an economic industry very seriously these days.'

Jack just shrugged. 'So we retcon him. It's what we do.'

'Her,' Ianto corrected. 'And it would be a lot easier if you didn't have to retcon anyone.'

'I'm still not sure,' Jack said. It broke his heart after Ianto had gone to so much trouble, to shoot him down, but he really didn't need people nosing around at the entrance to a top secret organisation.

'Trust me,' Ianto said. 'People will come in, grab a few maps and leave. Have the place looking like a bomb has gone off and they're likely to start snooping. I can work up here when I'm not needed elsewhere, answer questions and the like. Someone before me clearly thought it was a worthwhile idea.'

'But people, coming in here...'

'It's not a hot chip shop. They won't be queuing out the door.'

Jack still wasn't sure, but he supposed Ianto did have a point. He didn't want anyone snooping around. Perhaps if it did look like just an innocent little tourist bureau, they wouldn't give it a second thought.

'What if I happen to walk in here with a bloody alien corpse whilst you're busy giving someone directions to the Norwegian Church?'

'Well, in that case, sir, I'd hope you'd phone ahead and let me know. That way I can make sure we have plastic sheeting laid down first.'

Jack tried to hide the amused smile at Ianto's dry sense of humor, having evaded his question and thrown in an insult along the way.

'Okay, trial period. But if we start turning a profit from selling souvenirs, I'll have the place converted into a coffin wholesaler. That ought to turn people off coming in.'

'It would save on the amount we spend on coffins though, sir, if we could get them at wholesale prices.'

'Very funny.'