m_findlow

Title: Spoilt for choice
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Characters: Jack, Ianto, The Doctor (twelve)
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,303 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for samuraiter's prompt "Any, any, a shelf full of different flavors of tea" at fic_promptly
Summary: The TARDIS has pulled out all stops to welcome aboard its latest guests.

Jack stepped into the TARDIS and immediately felt it inside his mind, flooding him with that familiar presence. He could tell from the surprised expression on Ianto's face that she'd gotten inside his mind too, and was giving him her warm welcome. In less than a nanosecond, she'd have read from Jack's mind just how much Ianto meant to him, and had rolled out the red carpet for him. Oh yes, they were going to have a ball travelling with the Doctor.

'I'd say make yourselves at home,' the Doctor began, 'but, well, it's you, Jack. You've never needed an engraved invitation.'

Jack smiled at that. He might be older and gruffer - that salt and pepper hair and deep Scottish accent - but underneath it all he was still the same old Doctor.

Jack took Ianto by the hand. 'Come on, I'll take you to my room and you can dump your stuff in there.'

'Your room?' Ianto queried.

'Well, our room now, I guess. My old room. Only if I know the old girl, she'll have done it up for us.'

'Well, that's good, because the last thing I want to be faced with is your old bachelor pad, complete with dirty socks that have been shoved under the bed for the last fifteen years.'

'So long as she hasn't thrown out my old pair of leather pants.' He gave Ianto a wink. 'They're worth keeping.'

The Doctor groaned. 'Let's hope she archived them along with your old room, though I can't imagine why she'd bother.'

Jack quirked an eye at the Doctor and smirked. 'Have you seen how good my arse looks in those?'

'Unfortunately. Regeneration doesn't remove painful memories.'

Jack laughed. 'You and Ianto are going to get on just fine, I can tell. Same warped sense of humor.'

The Doctor exchanged glances with Ianto, both giving a tired eye roll, each suggesting that they wondered why they both put up with Jack.

'Alright, let's go,' Jack said. 'Meet you in the kitchen in ten, Doc? I wanna run you through a list of places I'd love to take Ianto to see.'

'I'll break out the biscuits,' he replied. 'And I'm not your Uber driver!'

Jack laughed again, tugging Ianto through the inner door and down the hall towards what he hoped would be the honeymoon suite.

Once they were settled in with their meager luggage, Jack lead them through a labyrinth of corridors towards the kitchen so that they could get together and plan out where they might go.

'How do you not get lost in a place like this?' Ianto asked. Even with his photographic memory, he'd lost track of how many turns they'd taken down identical looking passages.

Jack shrugged. 'I just do. You will too in time. All part of the magic of the TARDIS. I'm guessing she just doesn't want to overwhelm your mind with too much at once.'

Yes, he'd already gotten the feeling that there was something there in the back of his consciousness, feeding him an innate sense about the place. It wasn't intrusive or unwelcome. Rather it was a pleasant feeling, like he was being welcomed home rather than invited in.

'Here we are,' Jack announced. 'A bit bigger than our kitchen in Cardiff, wouldn't you say?'

Ianto stood there in awe. It was less of a kitchen than it was a restaurant combined with a living room. The dining table was a sort of blob shape rather than a rectangle or an oval, and the seats were more like plush stools you might rest your feet on. As for the kitchen itself, it was gleaming. There were pots and pans hanging from an installation overhead, and every cupboard was neatly arranged with crockery, mixing bowls, and every kind of kitchen gadget imaginable.

'A bit different to when I was here last,' Jack said. 'Technically, we could dispense with all of this. There's a fabricator that can whip up anything you can imagine, but it looks like the Doc prefers cooking the old fashioned way these days.'

'Works for me,' Ianto replied. He was all for modern technology, but cooking was one of those things that needed love and attention. Food out of a box, or served at a restaurant, just didn't feel the same as plating up something you'd made from scratch.

'Oh, Ianto, come take a look at this,' Jack called out, standing in a doorway of some kind.

He came over and was confronted by the view that had left Jack in awe. 'Now, that's what I call a pantry,' he said, though a supermarket would have been more accurate. There were shelves that reached ten feet high, packed to the brim with food.

'Ah, good. You're here,' the Doctor said, entering the kitchen. 'I'll pop the kettle on. Two rows down and three rows left you should find what you're after.'

Jack took Ianto by the hand. He didn't want to lose him inside the pantry, which seemed a perfectly likely outcome. Following the Doctor's instructions, they came to stand in front of the long row of colorful tins.

'What's mallon fruit, or gelderberry?' Ianto asked, reading off the labels. 'Zing tang? I think maybe we took a wrong turn somewhere.'

Jack pulled one of the tins from the shelf and popped open the lid to look inside. Inside were tiny black leaves, but it was the scent that hit his nose, sweet and tangy. He took a deep breath in, savoring the smell. 'It's tea,' he said, holding out the tin so Ianto could take a smell.

'Well, that's does make more sense,' he admitted, sniffing the potent leaves. 'D'you think they're all tea?' There were so many tins, he didn't think it possible there could be that many kinds of tea.

'It's the TARDIS,' Jack reminded him, 'and the Doc does like his tea.'

'No coffee?' Ianto asked.

'If there isn't, we'll soon rectify that,' Jack promised him.

They took turns perusing the shelves, opening tins and smelling the leaves inside, since the labels told them very little about what to expect. Some were spicy, others fruity. Some left a relaxed feeling washing over them and some left their heads spinning in giddy circles.

'Imagine what it might do if you drank it,' Ianto said, clipping the lid back on the tin before he got woozy. Tripping out on psychedelic tea was something for another day.

'Hurry up, you two!' came the yell from the Doctor as he approached. 'I've had to boil the kettle three times because it's gone cold whilst I've been waiting.'

Ianto checked his watch. 'Jack! We've been in here for two hours!'

Jack looked startled. 'Not possible. Twenty minutes at most.' Ianto showed him his watch. Maybe they had tripped out on some of these tea leaves and lost track of time after all.

'You don't have any English breakfast, do you, Doc?' Jack asked.

The Doctor groaned. 'That's so boring. A whole universe of teas and you want that? I thought you wanted an adventure?'

'We do,' Jack replied, but there are some times where you like to know what you're getting. If I've learned one thing, it's that sometimes it nice to have a little peace and quiet between adventures.'

He sighed, reaching for a plain green tin. 'It's Aleutian Oolong. Not quite the same, but close.'

'And coffee?' Ianto asked. 'Is there a different section for that?'

The Doctor pulled a face. 'I don't drink coffee.'

'Oh, but you've never had Ianto's coffee,' Jack countered. 'Trust me when I say that once you've tasted that, you'll forget all about your fancy teas.'

The Doctor snorted, walking away from the pair of them with his tin. 'Not in this regeneration, Jack.'

Jack grinned and looked at his lover. 'Challenge accepted.'