Torchwood: Fanfic: Loose ends

[m_findlow]

Title: Loose ends
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, mentions team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 920 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, Hanging by a thead" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack has a slight wardrobe malfunction, but only one person seems to have noticed.

'Okay people, let's get this briefing underway,' Jack announced, streaming in through the doorway and into the boardroom, taking his appointed set at the head of the table. He reached across and picked up his blue and white striped mug, taking a long slurping sip as Tosh stood up and began making her presentation.

The sound Jack made momentarily distracted Ianto from Tosh's explanation of some newly identified rift readings anomalies. Jack often made noises over Ianto's coffee - moans and groans and other sounds that verged on the obscene and sexually explicit - but this was just bad mannered slurping. He meant to give Jack the eye, just as soon as he could catch it, but before he did, he gaze drifted slightly lower to Jack's torso where it became completely fixated.

There, right in the middle of the neat row of buttons on Jack's shirt was one hanging loose. Two down from the top one and two up from his belt, but plain for all to see. It dangled uselessly from about about an inch of tattered white cotton thread, no longer sitting proudly in place where it should have been.

The sight of it horrified Ianto. If anyone saw it, they'd know exactly what had happened to make it come loose like that. It didn't matter that perhaps the team knew, or had at least come to expect, that two people in love who worked in close proximity to one another all day long, might occasionally find themselves needing a little alone time. Especially when one of them was Jack Harkness.

They team knew that Ianto had been down in the archives all morning, and that Jack had similarly made an exit from the hub at some point during the morning. Naturally, he'd marched down to the archives and done everything in his power to distract Ianto from what he'd been doing.

'We've got an hour to kill,' Jack told him. 'Filing artifacts that have been hanging around here for the better part of a hundred years can wait another day.'

'We've got half an hour,' Ianto corrected him, remembering that they had a briefing upstairs at half midday, followed by lunch. Jack of course wasted no time after been given his deadline. His tongue was down the back of Ianto's throat before he could even ask what Jack wanted.

He knew they'd been hurried, trying to pack as much passion into the narrow window of time as possible, but Ianto didn't think he'd been so careless as to have ripped Jack's shirt open. A speedy fumble of buttons certainly, but not enough to cause one to be pulled almost completely off. He quickly diverted his gaze down at his own shirt, making sure everything was in order. Jack could undress him in seconds, but unlike Ianto, didn't have the same level of care. To Jack, things like buttons and zippers were just obstacles standing in between him and what he wanted. Thankfully, his own attire gave nothing away, just as neat and proper as it had been when he'd first donned it this morning.

How can you not have noticed? He almost said the words out loud. Surely when they'd redressed, Jack would have seen it, as he did the buttons up one by one. If he had said something, Ianto might have been able to stitch it back in place, or at least pull the thread tight to get it to sit back in place until he could fix it properly. At worst, it would have given Jack a chance to duck upstairs and put on a fresh shirt. Sometimes there really was a benefit to having Jack almost always dress in the same colour shirt. Plus, it was amazing what you could achieve in the five minutes before a meeting when you really had to.

As the briefing carried on, Jack seemingly oblivious to his wardrobe mishap, Ianto kept his eyes on his teammates, watching them each in turn to see if they'd noticed. He avoided looking at Jack completely lest his own line of sight be traced back to the offensive button. One thing everyone knew was that unlike Jack, Ianto could stay completely focused. Catching him staring at Jack was bound to raise suspicion.

'Okay, thanks Tosh,' Jack said at the conclusion of the briefing. 'That's some good analysis. We need to keep an eye on future rift readings, look for these anomalies and try and figure out why they're happening, what's connecting them etcetera.' He clapped his hands together. 'Now, lunchtime. Grab your coats and be ready in two minutes. Cafe De Jour. My treat.'

The others filtered out of the room one by one until Ianto was the only one left with their illustrious leader.

'I don't know about you, but I've worked up quite an appetite,' Jack said, grinning lasciviously. 'You know, busy morning and all.' He twitched his eyebrows suggestively at Ianto.

'You might want a change of clothes first,' Ianto suggested. 'Unless of course you want to flaunt our little dalliance from earlier.' He frowned and reached out to finger the button, afraid it might come off altogether.

'Oh, that?' Jack said, staring down at the loose button. 'Not your fault,' he said. 'I caught it on my vortex manipulator when I was jogging up the stairs to the briefing. I was hoping you wouldn't notice. Then again, if this afternoon stays quiet, maybe you can loosen a few more for me? You know, as in, all at once?'

Comments

[mscatmoon.livejournal.com]

Ianto needs to relax and not fixate on those things. I'm sure he's the only one who even noticed, and as Jack proved there's lots of ways to rip a button. But I know he's just being Ianto, and he hates to be embarrassed.

[bk_forever]

Trust Jack to know he'd pulled the button loose and not care. But then, trust Ianto to assume it had happened during their pleasurable interlude...