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Title: Service proposal 
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Gwen, Rhys, Ianto, Jack 
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none 
Author notes: Written for Bingo Card Prompt 99 - Truck at [livejournal.com profile] fffc
Summary: Rhys loves showing off his one area of expertise. 

Gwen nudged her husband as if to say he shouldn't act so smug. If he took any notice of her he made no indication of it. She sighed. Boys and their toys… Part of her wished she didn't have to be here for this meeting of sorts but then another part of her knew it was always a mistake to put Rhys and Jack in the same room together unsupervised. Rhys and Ianto? No problem at all. Ianto was far too polite to ever get into a barney with her husband, even if he disagreed with Rhys' view of the world. Besides which, Ianto was Welsh, which gave him an immediate understanding of how Rhys thought, what he genuinely meant and what was just typical Welsh bluster. Jack on the other hand… A hundred years and he still hadn't quite gotten the hang of it. And, you know, it was Jack. He and Rhys had been butting heads since the first day they'd met. Never mind that Gwen had married her hero. Jack always had to try and impress, and Rhys always took it as intentionally trying to get up Rhys' nose. 

'So,' Jack said, thrusting his hands deep inside his pockets, 'this is the full range?' 

'Near as you can get,' Rhys replied. He had his thumbs tucked into his jeans which Gwen took as a sign he was trying to show off. All it was really showing off was that fact that Ruth was feeding him far too many biscuits with his cups of tea. 'Unusual to have this many vans not on the road, but what with all the flooding we've been having lately, it's put a right old dent in any schedules, let me tell you. Absolute chaos out there on the roads. Bit of water falls from the sky and suddenly everybody forgets how to drive.' 

'You should see how Jack drives on a wet day,' Ianto said. 'I'd feel safer in a nascar not wearing a seatbelt.' 

'Oh, and you can talk, Grandma,' Jack teased. 

'We get there safely, don't we?' 

'Would that be before or after the world has ended?' 

Gwen cleared her throat loudly, trying to get them back on topic. 

Jack grinned at her and affectionately patted the side of a large truck. 'Tell me about this one.' 

Rhys began rattling off a range of details that Gwen could have cared less about. Jack nodded quietly and she wasn't sure if he was listening or just letting Rhys have the floor. Only Ianto had his little notepad out, making notes about towing loads and dimensions. 

'How many square feet of storage?' Jack asked. Perhaps he had been listening after all. 

'Three hundred and sixty two.' 

'How many weevils is that?' Jack asked, directing his question at Ianto who briefly looked up from his notes. 

'Thirty five to forty,' he replied, doing the math in his head at a rate that boggled Gwen's mind. She'd have needed a calculator and three pencils. 'Sedated, of course,' he qualified. 'Unless you're thinking of hosting fight club.' 

'And I don't think we're ever going to need to transport forty weevils,' Gwen added. 'Can we be a bit more practical than that?' Jack merely shrugged at her as if he'd spent his entire life measuring things in weevils. 

'You know,' Ianto began, 'we didn't have to come down here. Rhys could have emailed me the specs for the fleet and loaded it into our database.' 

'Nonsense,' Jack said. 'A man needs to see what he's getting into before parting with his hard-earned. Gwen, tell me, if I say to Rhys I need a truck big enough to carry a Fracknee, is he going to know?' 

'What's a Fracknee?' Rhys asked. 

'See?' 

Gwen rolled her eyes. How many other haulage companies did Jack plan on "interviewing" for the job of regular Torchwood logistics? Harwood's won it purely on discretion because Gwen could call Rhys at any hour of the day and Rhys would fudge the paperwork. And her Mam had always said Rhys had a job that wouldn't take him anywhere. 

Jack swanned past her, pulling open the door and climbing up into the cabin. He poked the fluffy dice dangling from the rear vision mirror. 'Do I need a trucking license to drive one of these?' 

'Oh, no,' Rhys said, shaking his head emphatically. 'No way am I letting you behind the wheel. You can hire them for whatever you bloody want, but I'm driving.' Gwen braced herself for the ensuing argument. As much as she wanted Rhys as far away from danger as possible, he knew how to drive anything, safely, and how to secure its load. She pictured Jack as more the "sitting on his suitcase to get it all in" type. 

'All vehicles over 7,370 kilograms require a full Category C or Class 2 licence to drive,' Ianto said, as if he'd been studying the details in preparation for their visit. Gwen wouldn't have put it past him. 'And yes, this particular vehicle would require one, and no, you will not be applying for one.' 

Jack pouted. 'Spoilsport.' 

'And what is the cleaning charge?' Ianto enquired. 

Rhys shook his head. 'Don't have one. You hire it, you clean it. And with what you lot get up to, I don't think there's a charge anywhere that would cover it.' 

Ianto noted it down and Gwen heard him quietly mutter "bollocks". Nice try, she thought. 

'They'd never meet your exacting standards, anyway, Ianto Jones,' Jack told him, missing the point completely. 'So…' Jack jumped back down from the cabin, his hands finding his pockets once more. 'I think we can come to some kind of long term mutually beneficial arrangement. You be on call twenty fours hours a day and we'll give you all the business you can take, at three times the going rate. That ought to cover it.' 

Rhys beamed and held out his hand. 'Harwood's is pleased to do business with you.' 

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