Torchwood-fest - The gift of giving

[m_findlow]

Title: The gift of giving
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length:1,279 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Prompt - Blanket at torchwood_fest
Summary: Ianto is prepared to put their own Christmas plans on hold to help out someone else.

Ianto had been in high spirits as the SUV slid smoothly along the inner city streets. He loved Christmas Eve, and getting to spend it with the one person he adored the most in the whole world, without any fear of the world deciding to end tonight, was just the icing on the cake. It was only as Jack slowed to avoid a parked car and a car coming from the other direction that something caught Ianto's eye and made his cheery mood evaporate in an instant.

'Pull over,' Ianto instructed.

'Huh?' Jack said, not slowing down for a moment now that they were clear.

'I said, pull over.'

'Why?'

Ianto bit back on the huffy sound about to escape his lips. 'Do you have to question everything I ask you to do?'

'No need to get snippy,' Jack said, throwing on the left hand indicator and slowing down along the curb before coming to a complete stop. He gripped the wheel one-handed and turned to face Ianto. 'Now, what are we stopped for? I thought you were looking forward to our date plans?'

'I am, but... Just give me a minute,' he said, getting out of the car without further explanation. He didn't want to delay their plans to spend the night on one of Cardiff's tallest rooftops, admiring the Christmas lights across the city. Most people drove around the local streets taking in the lights but not too many could say they got to enjoy all of them at once. There was even the hint of snow in the air, just a light fall to add that magical Christmassy feel to the best night of the year. It was hard not to love Christmas Eve, especially when Jack got so excited about celebrating even the most trite and silly of its customs.

Only one thing threatened to ruin that magical feel, and he'd just spotted it as the SUV went sailing past the inner city streets. Had they been going just a tad faster, Ianto wouldn't have spotted it at all, and might have spent his night in blissful ignorance. He had however, and now he knew he couldn't just ignore it.

The pile of blue tarpaulin tucked away down the narrow side street looked ratty and not at all warm. On a night like tonight there was no way on earth that was going to keep anybody warm, much less someone who probably hadn't had a decent meal in days and was stuffing their clothes full of old newspaper just to keep warm.

Cardiff's homeless population were the hidden cost of the city becoming more prosperous. Once upon a time the poor folk simply congregated in the housing estates at the edge of the city outskirts, but now even they'd grow too expensive for the city's poorest, forcing them onto the streets and the benches in public parks, in the underpasses and alongside the banks of the river and in the abandoned or run down warehouses of the old dock yards. It was a blight on the city he felt should be doing more to stem the tide of the down and out, putting more money into services to support them. Ianto supposed that on Christmas Eve even those services they did have were stretched to their limits.

'Is it a weevil?' Jack whispered in his ear, having snuck up quietly behind him as he moved down towards the end of the alleyway.

'Not unless weevils have taken to sleeping on the streets under tarpaulins,' he replied acerbicly. 'Hello?' Ianto called out quietly. There was no answer from under the lump of blue plastic. 'Hello,' Ianto repeated, steeping closer.

'Don't get too close,' Jack warned him, resting a guarded hand on his elbow. 'They could be spaced out on drugs and grab you thinking you're there to attack them.'

Ianto didn't reply, moving away from Jack's protective touch. He'd done his first aid training. He knew all about that kind of thing, stepping just close enough that he could use the toe of his shoe to gently jostle the leg sticking out from underneath. 'Hello? Are you okay?'

'What d'you want?' came the grumbled reply, pulling the tarp away to reveal the unshaven man in his sixties curled up on a flattened cardboard box.

'Just came to see if you're okay,' Ianto replied, keeping his tone conversational.

'Well, I am.'

Ianto didn't let the abrupt response discourage him. 'When did you last have something to eat?'

'None of your damn business.' He shivered notably as the breeze rippled through the narrow passage, bringing with it a little flurry of snowflakes.

'Jack, go get the blanket out of the car,' Ianto commanded him. 'And the thermos. Oh, and bring that bag of sugar cookies, too.'

Jack gave him a silent look that said, "But those were for us". Ianto gave him a look back that said he'd better go get all of those things right now or he wasn't going to get anything but a lump of coal for Christmas.

Jack returned quickly with the thick woolen blanket tucked under his arm, the thermos and cookies in his other hand.

'Here,' Ianto said, slowly passing the blanket across. 'It's awfully cold tonight. This should help keep you a bit warmer. And these were freshly baked today,' he added, handing over the cookies.

The man took both but he eyed the thermos warily. 'What's in that?'

'Coffee,' Ianto replied. 'Really good coffee, actually. I made it myself. The beans are some of the most expensive in the world. There's these cats that live in the forests of Asia that eat the fruit from the coffee plants and pass the beans out in their fecal matter. Their stomach acid breaks down the outer casing of the beans and gives them their unique flavour.'

'You drink cat poop coffee?'

Ianto suppressed a smile at the description, which wasn't altogether dissimilar to the one Jack had given him when he'd said the same thing to him. 'Only on special occasions like tonight.'

The man looked sceptically at him. Ianto held the thermos out again. 'Trust me, Jack will be really put out I'm giving you this. Even if you don't want it, you can at least keep the thermos. It'll keep soups nice and warm for ages. There's a shelter just a few blocks away that usually has a free meal or a drink to warm you up.'

'Thanks,' he said, cupping the thermos to warm his hands, the blanket already wrapped around his shoulders. 'Is that all?'

'Yep. Just that and have a Merry Christmas.'

The man grumbled. 'Whatever.'

Ianto gave him a smile and turned back for the car, letting Jack trail after him.

'Huh. Not exactly what you'd call grateful, was he?' Jack said, hopping back into the blessed warmth of the car. 'I thought people were supposed to be appreciative on Christmas.'

Ianto settled into the seat next to him, clipping his seat belt back in place. 'Can you blame him? If you'd been forced to live on the streets, you might be suspicious of anyone claiming to offer you a kindness, too.'

Jack sighed. 'And now we have no coffee, no cookies and no way to stay warm on top of a snowy building.'

'But we did something nice for someone who might have ended up with hypothermia sleeping out here like that. At least now hopefully he'll make it through the night and get a proper meal at the shelter tomorrow. Everyone should get something for Christmas, however trivial.'

Jack just shook his head. 'Do you ever stop looking after everybody?'

Ianto smiled back. 'Nope.'