Slashthedrabble Challenge 546 - Gone to pieces

[m_findlow]

Title: Gone to pieces
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 546 - Puzzle at slashthedrabble
Summary: The rift has left the boys a puzzle to sort out.

'I think I found it,' Ianto called out to Jack who was now a good thirty feet away, having wandered off in search of their latest present from the rift.

'Sure?' Jack called back.

'Pretty sure,' he replied, watching as Jack walked back towards him and the spot his flashlight made on the dewy grass.

'Yep, that'd be it,' Jack confirmed for him, adding his own flashlight to the mess of bits on the ground.

'What was it? Do you know?'

Jack sighed. 'It was a very valuable piece of technology. Now it's practically just a million broken bits.' He sighed again. 'We really could have used some thing like that. Trust the rift to manhandle it and ruin it. I swear it has something against us.'

Ianto knelt down and pawed through the pieces on the ground. 'It doesn't exactly look broken so much as just scattered into pieces. Maybe it was already like this before the rift took it.'

'True enough,' Jack admitted. Now that he looked at it more closely, Ianto was right. It was more like it had been dismantled.

'So, we could probably put it back together,' Ianto suggested. 'That is, if you can tell me which bits are supposed to go where.'

'Pack it up and let's take it back to the hub.'

 

When Ianto tipped the box out onto the workbench and spread out all the pieces Jack cringed. 'Oh boy,' he said.

'Just think of it like a puzzle,' Ianto insisted. 'It all goes back together.'

'I hate puzzles,' Jack moaned, slumping down into the chair. 'I don't have the patience for them.'

Ianto quirked at eye at him before beginning to sort pieces into piles he assumed went together. 'I wouldn't say that.'

Jack snorted. 'You wouldn't? That'd be a first.'

'Well, you did wait over a hundred years for your doctor. You spent a whole year chained up on the Valiant. And you did put up with Torchwood for decades, even when they hated you and did all kinds of things that you wouldn't stand for now. And of course, you put up with me, even though I'm sure I must drive you mad all the time with my fussing and nagging.'

Jack gave him a sympathetic smile. 'I can think of worse things to have to put up with than your eccentricities. I suppose you're right, though. I guess maybe I'm not quite as impatient as I thought.'

'I'm always right,' Ianto said. 'Now, tell me this much. Do these bits all go together like this?' he asked, showing Jack the bits he'd screwed back together.

Jack chuckled, holding up the monstrosity Ianto had created. 'Not even close, I'm afraid. Guess you're not right all the time.'

'I aways find puzzles easier when you have edge bits to start with,' Ianto said. 'And usually there's a picture on the box to go by.'

Jack grinned. Ianto was definitely an edges first guy, but also Jack's favourite kind of puzzle.

Comments

[bk_forever]

This is cute . I wonder if they'll succeed in putting it back together...