Torchwood: Fanfic: A night in lock-up

[m_findlow]

Title: A night in lock-up
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gwen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 888 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, You do the crime, you serve the time" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack is going to pay the price for his impetuous nature.

Ianto tapped the floor with his shoe, a sound that clicked the concrete, indicating his displeasure. Another night he wouldn't get more than four hours sleep, and another trip to the local police station. All of which could have been avoided.

'Indecent exposure again?' he asked, peering through the tiny hole in the door. The arresting officer wouldn't let him in the cell, able to communicate only through the flap. At least the police, though only at Ianto's request, were in the process of arranging some unattractive prison scrubs to wear so that Jack wouldn't be completely without clothes.

Jack shrugged. 'I didn't have time to bother getting dressed. You know how rift alerts are.'

Ianto let out a vexed breath. 'So, you thought you'd just get about in nothing?'

'Not nothing. I was wearing, erm... this,' he said, looking down at the tight grey Calvin Kleins and his most tatty bedsocks.

Ianto raised his eyebrows, though he doubted Jack could see them. 'And I'm supposed to be grateful?'

'I wasn't totally naked.'

'And yet you still thought it was okay to go outside like that?' Not to mention that it was damn cold outside. For someone who'd grown up on a hot, sandy beach, Jack showed remarkable resistance to the cold.

'The alert was only the next street across,' Jack argued. 'I figured I'd be there and back in no time. You were still at work. At midnight, I might add,' he said, trying to change the subject.

Ianto ignored the obvious tactic meant to draw him into explaining why he was putting in so much overtime. 'Except instead of being stealthy and incognito, you were prowling through someone's front garden.'

Ianto already had the incident report memorised. Jack was crawling through the begonias and then managed to time his moment to perfection, standing up right in front of the bedroom window as the lady of the house was returning from the kitchen, having fetched a glass of water. Seeing a man standing there in only his underpants was bound to give anyone a fright. Then she'd called the next door neighbour, who was an off duty police officer, which only expedited Jack's incarceration.

'I admit, it probably wasn't a good look.'

Ianto set us hands on his hips, wondering why life had lumped him with this indignity. 'Well, at least you didn't have your gun.'

'Uh, actually...' Jack confessed. 'But I wasn't holding it at the time.'

Ianto sighed, knowing there was only one other place for it. 'Front or back?'

'Does it matter?'

'Probably not.' Jokes about what Jack was packing down below suddenly weren't very funny. Ianto sighed at him. 'Why do you do this to me?'

'It's not intentional.'

'If it had been in our street you might have gotten away with it. Do it in the next street and people are going to have you down as some crazy serial killer.' The neighbours on their street at least all knew who they were. They'd come to expect odd behaviour. The local queer couple were queer in every sense of the word as far as they were concerned. Being gay was the least of their worries.

'I'm sorry, okay?'

'Right. Well, I've got a mountain of paperwork to sort out now. Stay here and try to keep what's left of your dignity on, yeah?'

As soon as he stepped out of the lock up and back out into the hall leading down to the admin desk he spotted a familiar face. 'Gwen? Way are you doing here?'

'Oh, um, Andy called me. Said he saw the arrest come up in his computer and thought he'd better let me know to come sort it out.'

'Brilliant. Is there anyone else we should tell? Let the whole world know my fiancé likes to romp around Cardiff in only his socks and jocks? Perhaps we should inform the Queen? It would make her rethink that OBE.'

Gwen tried to look apologetic. 'Sorry. I guess Andy assumed I was best to handle it.'

'Sparing me the embarrassment of coming down here and having to own up that he's mine, you mean?'

'He's okay, though isn't he?' she asked, showing concern that Jack didn't deserve.

'Fine. Jack doesn't know the meaning of the word contrite.' He clearly didn't know the meaning of cold either. It was single digits out there!

'Do you want me to go keep him company while you sort things out?'

Just the thought of Gwen seeing him like that made Ianto annoyed. They'd all seen Jack naked more times than they could count, but tonight he'd had a gut full. 'No. You know what? Let's go home.'

'What? You mean leave him here?'

'Why not? They can only legally hold him here for twenty four hours, unless of course we post his bail earlier. I think it's high time he learned that if you do the crime, you serve the time.'

Gwen studied Ianto. 'You're serious?'

'Absolutely. Maybe he'll learn, stuck in there with no one to keep him company. He certainly doesn't take notice of any of us.'

'That's cruel.'

'So is having to admit to police that you're with someone who gets about with no clothes on. I'm fairly sure I know which of us has suffered the greater indignity.'