Fffc Bingo Card - Things that go bump

[m_findlow]

Title: Things that go bump 
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none 
Author notes: Written for Bingo Card Prompt 46 - Light at fffc
Summary: Jack's bunker could do with some occupational health and safety measures. 

Jack had only just managed to finally reset his concentration levels on the task in front of him when that concentration was suddenly broken by the heavy thud and the sound of something crashing. 

He looked around behind him, through the window that gave him a full view of the hub beyond, but he couldn't see any crisis occurring. In fact, everything looked totally in order and peaceful. Then Jack remembered that his team weren't even in the hub. They'd gone out for breakfast over an hour ago after an early morning rift alert. Jack would have happily joined them partaking in greasy bacon, salty buttered toast and a mountain of baked beans but for the fact that he knew if he didn't finish this report for the Home Office he was going to be on the receiving end of a series of very nasty phone calls, each one escalating hourly until he was staring down the barrel of someone from Buckingham Palace itself. Those were the kinds of people he really didn't want breathing down his neck. A cooked breakfast was a small sacrifice to make in the grand scheme of things. 

Jack stood up from his desk, taking a better look around the corner from his office doorway. Perhaps Myfanwy had sent something clattering from up on high. It was an occupational hazard, having a prehistoric creature living up in your rafters in an underground base full of very breakable items. It was quite possibly only good luck that no one had been clubbed to death by a falling object yet. 

There was no sign of their resident pterodactyl, nor anything that appeared out of place, until there was a groan that seemed to come from behind Jack. He spun on his heel and looked straight at the only place from whence a noise like that could possibly have emanated: his bunker. 

Jack took two steps toward the open man hole and peered over its rounded edge. 'Ianto?' he called out, only just remembering now that the efficient young man had slipped past his peripheral vision not ten minutes ago, heading down there to collect his laundry. Unlike the rest of the team, he hadn't been called in to assist with the rift alert. There wasn't much he could do apart from sit around the hub on the rare chance they needed something. Unlike the team, he was afforded reasonably consistent hours, however that also meant that they often neglected to include him, even in simple things such as a trip out for breakfast. Not that he ever mentioned it or made a fuss. Ianto just wasn't that kind of guy. He'd rather lie and say he'd already had breakfast before leaving home rather than admit he'd been left behind. 

Jack felt his own twinge of guilt at having almost let him pass by unnoticed. He did so many things without Jack really observing them, and picking up his dirty clothes had just become a normal part of that routine. 'You okay?' Jack asked when he didn't get an immediate response, already climbing down the ladder to make sure his youngest teammate was indeed okay. 

'I'm fine,' came the latent reply as Jack's boots echoed on the metal rungs, preceding his arrival. 'Just introducing my head to one of your steamer trunks. We're getting on famously now.' 

Jack could just make out Ianto standing a few feet away next to a trunk which was obviously the one he'd collided with. 

'Any reason why you're making friends?' Jack asked. 'I know Owen can be a prat sometimes, but if you're down to conversing with the inanimate objects around the hub…' 

'I've spent the last few weeks memorising a safe path through the clutter down here but it turns out my muscle memory failed me. That, or this trunk has moved since last Wednesday.' 

Jack cringed guiltily. 'I may have been looking for something.' 

'Ah, so not me, then. You know, it wouldn't kill you to invest in some lights down here,' Ianto suggested. 'Then you wouldn't have to navigate in the dark, and I wouldn't have to pick apart your dirty shirts from your clean ones by smell alone. Although, you leaving them crumpled in a pile on the floor does help. It's a wonder you can find anything you're looking for down here. Not without a torch, several flares and a seeing eye dog.' 

Jack was continually amazed at how someone could chastise him so thoroughly over so trivial a thing as laundry and his general state of housekeeping. There was hardly anything down here. What Ianto described as clutter was a handful of trunks, most of which doubled as furniture, a bed so narrow Jack could hardly stretch out on it, and a tall cupboard set against the wall that housed his standard day-to-day wardrobe. That he had an ensuite with a pokey little toilet, shower and basin with hot and cold running water, seemed an almost extravagant luxury. 

'I only sleep down here,' Jack replied. 'I don't need a lot of light.' What trickled through the hole overhead was usually more than adequate. That or he'd simply learned to adjust to it. 

Ianto took a couple of tentative steps forward into the shaft of light from Jack's office. Jack could see the hint of a bruise forming just near his hairline. 'Sorry,' Jack apologised, reaching out to run a thumb over the lump. Gratefully, Ianto didn't flinch back at the touch, instead letting Jack inspect the wound. At least it wasn't bleeding. 'I suppose I should invest in a few extra bulbs.' 

'Or at least some of those stick on LED lights people put in their garden sheds and towel cupboards.' 

'What about that seeing eye dog you mentioned? I love dogs. We could get a dog, couldn't we?' 

'We?' 

'Well, you'll need it to see down here. I can just borrow it for cuddles.' 

'If I find one at the hardware store, I'll buy it.'