m_findlow

Title: All in a day's work
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 757 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Torchwood, any, coffee, pants, dinosaur" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack needs to come up with a job title suitable for Ianto.

'What job description am I supposed to put on your file?' Jack asked as Ianto sat down opposite him, cradling the last coffee of the day, and feeling as if today he'd well and truly earnt it.

'I'm not sure what you mean, sir,' Ianto replied.

'Well, technically you're past your probationary period, so I need to put something on your file. I can't exactly put you down as a full field agent, since you're not, but there must be a term for what you do. What did you go by in London?'

Ianto shrugged. 'I was just a clerk.'

'Huh,' Jack said. 'That's sounds really boring.'

'It was. I mean, I didn't mind the work, but it's not quite the same as here.'

'Is this better?' Jack sounded like he really hoped it was.

'Definitely.'

'Well, we don't have clerks here,' Jack said. 'We'll have to think of a better word that describes your duties.'

Coffee, pants, dinosaur, Ianto felt like saying. That pretty much seemed to cover his key responsibilities and not much more. He did plenty of things around here, but really there were only three that were really critical to each day.

Coffee. The lifeblood that made this place tick these days. Not just Jack, but the whole team. They'd all very quickly become utterly dependent on the caffienated beverage, and some of them were downright foul without it. Jack most definitely needed one first thing in the morning before he was intelligible. Ianto admitted he himself wasn't much good before his first coffee, but at least he could manage to dress himself sans coffee.

That brought him to the second duty. Pants. Not what he would have expected to be on his list of responsibilities, but this was no ordinary workplace, and Jack was no ordinary boss. Unfortunately, Jack seemed to possess no shame whatsoever in going around the hub in little or no clothes, and it wasn't even restricted to the hub if all reports were to be relied upon. Making sure Jack was at least wearing pants was a big step forward in ensuring no one was about to be arrested for indecent exposure. Sad how that was actually a thing he'd had to deal with, provisioning in their latest budget for bail money.

He'd thought Suzie might be joking when she'd said it. 'Oh, no. He gets arrested for stuff like that all the time. All he has to do is give them his Torchwood authorisation code and they have to let him go, but sometimes he just likes to be obnoxious to piss them off.' It was also to spare some of Ianto's own blushes, having come in early on a couple of occasions, to be confronted by a practically or totally naked Jack. The man was just a little too handsome, and the lack of clothing only made Ianto's brain turn to mush.

'I don't have any clean pants, Ianto,' Jack would argue, to which Ianto would sigh and point to the pile of fresh dry cleaning he'd returned the day before, still hanging on the back of the door. 'Oh, oops.'

Once that was done and dealt with, all that really remained was to make sure Myfanwy was looked after. Since he'd been the one to find her, she'd taken a shining to him, and he to her. It was kind of like the world's most bizarre pet, but since no one else wanted to make sure she was fed, her nest cleaned and her overall needs met, it fell to him. Not that he minded. It was actually pretty cool. How many people could say they had a pterodactyl?

After that, it was simply more rounds of coffee, making sure he ransacked Jack's sleeping quarters for dirty clothes, especially pants, sending them off for dry cleaning and repairs. Then once all that was done, it was time to feed Myf once more, play with her, and settle her in for the night. Then one final round of coffee, just for him and Jack as they settled down to consolidate their own day.

Yep, coffee, pants, dinosaur, that was pretty much it. Perhaps he should be their CPD officer. That was as good a title an any.

'General support,' he said.

'Huh?'

'You wanted a title for me. How about general support?'

'Sounds good to me. Perhaps general support officer, though. Sounds more official. Like you're properly one of the team.'

He supposed he was in a way. Who else was going to take care of those three things?