m_findlow

Title: Hitting the books
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,734 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, going back to school" at fic_promptly
Summary: Ianto has a new job and a whole new language to learn

Ianto had really thought he'd put his school days behind him. Facing the mountain of books on his desk right now, it seemed that there was no escaping it.

What was it they said about old dogs and new tricks? Well, he wasn't old, not in the physical sense, though he had quite a few years under his belt these days. Being immortal had certainly changed both his outlook on life and how he chose to spend it. Studying though, hadn't factored into those original plans. He really had only himself to blame.

'Jack, we can't just spend eternity galavanting around the universe,' he had said one night when they were curled up in bed.

'Why not?'

'Because we'd get bored.'

'Ianto, I think you seriously underestimate just how much universe is out there,' Jack replied. 'There's a reason why it's called infinite.'

'You know what I mean. Besides, I don't care how much money you think you've saved up and invested. You're going to run out at some point if you just keep swanning around the galaxies enjoying yourself without a second thought.'

Jack looked worried for the first time since their conversation had started. 'What are you saying?'

'I'm saying that it wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of employment to fall back on.'

'Two hundred years of working for Torchwood, Ianto,' Jack said. 'I think that's more than enough, don't you?'

'Who said anything about Torchwood?'

'I thought you just did.' He frowned, confused. 'Why? What were you thinking?'

'Well,' he said, sitting up on his elbow so he could look properly at Jack, 'I thought maybe we could talk to some people we know at the Shadow Proclamation.'

'Law enforcement?'

'Not strictly. I was thinking more a liaison position. You know, negotiations, interplanetary relations, that sort of thing. It'd be ad hoc projects, and we'd still get to do plenty of travelling. With our experience and connections, I think they'd jump at the chance.'

'Sounds like you've be thinking about this for a while,' Jack said, leaning back and watching his lover carefully.

'I, um, may have already had some discussions,' he confessed. 'Completely preliminary,' he quickly added. 'Just to sound them out and see if they were interested.'

Jack shook his head and grinned. 'And?'

'We could start next month.'

'We?'

'Well, I mean, I just assumed that I was offering for us both. Of course you don't have to, if you don't want to. I could, um, just do it for me. I mean, for us. But you wouldn't have to work, is what I'm saying.'

Jack grinned salaciously. 'Ianto Jones, are you suggesting I'd be a kept man? Pining away at home on our little star cruiser waiting for you to come home at night? Would I be cooking your meals for you and fetching your slippers as well?'

Ianto scoffed. 'You'd never pine. Or fetch slippers.'

'Oh,' he said, wrapping his arms around Ianto's waist and pulling him back down on top of him. 'Wouldn't I?'

Ianto pulled himself away. 'If you think it's stupid, just say so.'

'I don't think it's stupid. Just a little surprised. I thought you and I would spend a lot more time doing and seeing what we wanted.'

'We still can. I just hate feeling useless, or that were not making a contribution.'

That was so Ianto, Jack thought. He couldn't stand being idle. It was one of the things he admired about him.

'Okay,' Jack agreed. 'We probably could do with a little bit of responsibility and structure. Forever is a long time, after all.'

'And it'd be totally freelance,' Ianto promised.

'I think I can agree to that. You and me, back in the workforce.'

Ianto chuckled. 'The universe won't know what hit it.'

Ianto groaned as he turned the page, trying to memorise how to conjugate the subjunctive verbs listed. It felt like his head might explode at any minute. Why had he not realised that in offering their services, he'd be required to be able to converse in over forty different languages? His Galactic Standard was almost flawless these days, and he had basic conversational skills in three of the next most common languages, but apparently, even though Galactic Standard was meant to be universal, it still only counted for about half the worlds within the Unified Conglomerate. He'd also taken for granted just how many languages Jack was fluent in. When had he had time to learn them all?

'Time Agency,' Jack replied when he'd broached the subject.

'But, you weren't immortal back then. Where did you find the time for it all?'

'You like to think that all we did was trek around the galaxies waving guns and enforcing the peace. I spent the first four years at the Academy with my head buried in books. Mind you, learning languages is a whole lot easier when you've got someone there who speaks it naturally. Learning by immersion is way quicker. You'd be amazed at how much you pick up just living in one place long enough.'

Ianto rolled his eyes at Jack. 'Yes, I can just imagine how you would have immersed yourself. I don't think learning how to say "fancy a shag?" is going to aid in negotiations, though.'

'Oh, you'd be surprised.'

He didn't doubt the technique worked. They'd spent months on some worlds travelling about, and Ianto had picked up the local lingo fairy easily by the time they were ready to move on. It didn't seem at all like hard work when you were so busy having fun.

School had never interested him much in his teenage years. It wasn't until the arrest, and the bollocking he'd gotten from his dad afterwards, that he'd really stopped to evaluate what he was doing with his life. His dad seemed to expect that he'd be a disappointment despite all the love and energy his parents had put in. Before he'd gotten the chance to prove his dad wrong, he'd gotten sick and died. Moving to London had been the kickstart he needed to refocus. He was going to do this, and he was going to do it without help.

Even in London, study hadn't been appealing. It was necessary, but he didn't enjoy it. He wasn't going to end up a department store clerk for the rest of his life. When it came to getting a real job afterwards, it turned out that it wasn't the study and the application that he disliked, it was merely the subject matter. Given something that interested him personally, he devoured it. Old Torchwood records became an escape from the real world. Moving back to Cardiff and being in charge of them was something he could really get stuck into.

Hitting the books again now, at what he still considered age forty despite not looking a day over thirty, brought back all those hazy memories of cramming for exams.There were no classrooms, no teachers, and no audio tapes that could help him, only what was printed in front of him. The phonetics were enough to drive him mad, assuming you could tell what each letter actually was. He couldn't break old habits of pronouncing dd as th, y as i, and f as v. His Welshness was as ingrained in him as anything. Different languages called for different methods of pronunciation.

This time though there were no exams to prepare for, only the knowledge that the assignment was his responsibility to fulfill regardless of whether he could converse properly or not. Perhaps he'd oversold his qualifications in putting up his hand for the job. What if his lack of language skills created a bigger rift between the two negotiating planets? He didn't think they'd see the funny side of things if he accidentally told them his hovercraft was full of eels. Where was a babel fish when you needed one?

'Ianto, are you still studying in there?' Jack yelled out through the door. 'You've been in there for three days straight. I have body parts at risk of falling off if they don't get used. We'll be in Taluvia in three days, and they're way too frigid for my liking. I'm going to need you to wear out my libido before we get there.'

Ianto leaned forward and smacked his head on the book several times. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He was never going to get the hang of this.

'Ianto, come out of there right now.'

'I can't.'

'Yes, you can.'

'In three days I have to negotiate an asylum policy.'

'If you don't come out of there, in three days you'll have to negotiate your own asylum when I divorce you and kick you off the ship.'

Ianto growled. 'What do you want me to do?'

'Come out here for a start.' Ianto growled again and pushed the chair away from the desk, finally throwing the door open.

'Good,' Jack said. 'Now, remember what I said about the immersion technique?'

Ianto rolled his eyes in annoyance. 'So?'

'So, I propose that you and I speak in nothing but Taluvian for the next three days.'

'And how does that help?'

'Well, for starters, you can persuade me to the bedroom, then you can put forth all the arguments as to why I should let you sleep with me, we can work through an agenda for taking all my clothes off one by one, and than after that, perhaps we can negotiate terms on who gets to go top first. I'm going to have to insist that you enunciate all of those things very clearly.'

'That's a whole bunch of vocabulary I haven't learned yet,' Ianto teased. Had there ever been a negotiation in the known history of the universe that began with the demand "pants off, now"? In Jack's opinion, that was probably as good a way as any to begin a peace treaty.

'I'm a very good teacher,' Jack promised. 'And listening to those Welsh vowels wrap around alien verbs is a real turn on.'

Ianto sighed, letting Jack take him by the hand and drag him from his books. So long as he knew the Taluvian for the words "don't", "stop", and "more", he doubted he'd need much more vocabulary than that. His immersion technique probably did need more work, though. If Jack was up for it, he was prepared to try anything.