Torchwood-fest - Knitted up

[m_findlow]

Title: Knitted up
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,204 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for torchwood_fest 2015 Prompt #26 - Jack has been busy in secret, knitting Christmas sweaters/hats/scarves, for the team, including Myf and Janet (requested by badly_knitted)
Summary: Jack is going with a handmade theme for Christmas.

'Pizza's here!’ Owen yelled as the team began to assemble around the sofa, organising paper plates and napkins. ‘Hurry up, Harkness or we'll eat it all without you!’

‘I'm coming! Just give me a minute!’

‘He's been up to something,’ Ianto stated, furrowing his brow at Jack as he came in with his bags laden full of gifts.

‘How can you tell?’ Gwen asked, lifting up a slice of pizza and setting it on her plate.

‘He's got that look in his eye, like he's been naughty and we just don't know it yet. It's textbook, or would be if anyone had ever bothered to write one.’

‘It's Christmas, Ianto. It's the one time of the year when naughty is one thing I'm not.’

‘That's debatable.’ He only had to cast his mind back to two nights ago to know that Jack had a definition of naughty that excluded anything that happened in the bedroom. If that qualified, Jack would get nothing but coal for Christmas. As would he, Ianto realised. On the whole, probably worth it, though. No one did naughty like Jack. It was a whole lot more enjoyable than a few pairs of new socks.

‘Be quiet and sit there and take your presents,’ Jack said, thrusting bags in four different directions. ‘None of that saving them for Christmas day by sticking them under tree nonsense. I want you to open them now.’

‘It's only the 20th,’ Tosh said. ‘We're not due to do our Kris Kringle until the 23rd. I haven't even gone out to buy it yet.’

‘Me either,’ Gwen agreed. ‘The last minute Christmas sales are the best.’

‘Yeah, but I want to make sure you get plenty of wear out of them before then,’ Jack

replied.

Owen raised a skeptical eyebrow. ‘Wear? What the bloody hell did you get us, Harkness?’

Jack grinned. ‘You'll see. Now open them.’

Reluctantly the four of them set aside lunch and pulled wrapped items from out of the gift bags. They weren't overly heavy but the up had the squidginess of some kind of clothing. Paper was torn and tape prised from the ends and sides as the gifts were finally traveled.

‘Oh…’

‘…my…’

‘…God.’

Owen finished off the exclamations of his coworkers by adding ‘Seriously?’ He tugged the knitted sweater out from between the folds of Christmas wrapping, seeing it in its entirety for the first time. It was a charcoal grey with an image of a stethoscope knitted into the weave so that it looked like he was wearing one. The elbows had crisscrossed sticking plasters and the back read “Trust me, I'm a doctor”. ‘Where on earth did you buy such a ridiculous piece of tat?’

‘I made it myself.’ Jack beamed with pride, brushing off any of Owen's reservations about its quality.

‘You knit?’

That boyish grin returned. ‘I do many things.’

Tosh held her own jumper up. It was a bright royal blue, with ones and zeroes scrolling across it in dizzying rows. Her expression gave away the fact that she thought it was brilliant in its humour. How often had she saved Jack's computer from that awful crashing fate where the screen went berserk as it tried to process too many things at once.

Gwen's toothy grin poked out through the top of her jumper as she pulled it over her head, revealing the tongue in cheek statement “My husband works for Torchwood” emblazoned over the large T-shaped Torchwood symbol. ‘Rhys will hate it, which makes it brilliant.’ She could already hear his voice in her head saying “No, I bloody do not! And you can tell Jack he can stick his job right up his…”

‘I thought that might wind him up,’ Jack said, pleased that Gwen saw the funny side of it.

‘Ianto?’ Jack gave his lover a nudge. ‘What do you think?’

Ianto's hand brushed over the alternating rows of steaming coffee cups, with one row’s handles facing left, and the next row facing right. Every now and then it was interrupted by a stopwatch and said “coffee time” ‘I'm thinking when on earth did you have time to knit all of these? I can't even get you to finish up your reports on time.’

‘They must have taken you ages with all these details,’ Tosh agreed, slipping her own jacket off and trading it for the bright knit. ‘It's so lovely and warm!’

Jack shrugged. ‘I don't sleep much, you know that.’

Ianto gave him a look. ‘Pretty sure I'd know if you were getting up every night to go off and knit an entire wardrobe of Christmas presents.’

‘Who said I got up? After the first night you slept through my needles clicking, I didn't bother leaving bed. Knitting and gorgeous sleeping Welshmen. Two of my favourite things.’

‘Lucky you didn't poke me in the eye with one of them.’

‘No, but you did snuggle the sleeve of Owen's jumper most nights. If there's a patch of drool, it's Ianto's.’

‘Gee, thanks,’ Owen griped. ‘Couldn't have washed it first, could you? Now I've got Teaboy drool all over it.’

‘I could think of worse things,’ Ianto quipped, trying to avoid the embarrassing mental picture of snuggling Owen's jumper. He couldn't believe he'd slept through all of that every night.

‘And now it's definitely going straight in the wash,’ Owen declared. ‘Gross.’

Tosh reached over and gave Jack a hug. ‘Thank you so much. I will absolutely treasure this. And all the hours it must have taken to make it.’ Gwen added her own hug and a kiss on the cheek as thanks. 'I think I should text Rhys a selfie of it right now.' She wrapped an arm around Jack and they made pouty faces whilst she snapped a photo and sent it.

‘Don't think I'm giving you a kiss,’ Owen said. ‘But yeah, I'll give it a crack around the hub where no one else will see it. Just remember, this statement applies all year round he said pointing at the word. Hopefully I don't have to wear this to remind you lot.’

Jack grinned. ‘I made ones for Janet and Myfanwy too, although Myf’s is more like a vest. Trying to get her wing measurements was something I really needed a master tailor to help me with, he said, winking at Ianto ‘but that would have spoiled the surprise.’

Owen snorted at Jack's insanity. ‘Let me guess, Janet's is boiler suit blue?’

'With lots of little hand clamps and “Not your average weevil”.’

‘Jesus,’ Owen said, rolling his eyes. ‘You really have lost it. Yours should have sleeves that can be wrapped around like a straight jacket.’

‘Do not open til Xmas,’ Gwen teased.

‘I was thinking more never,’ Owen replied.

‘I hope you'll wear yours when we visit your sister on Christmas day,’ Jack said, giving Ianto a hopeful look. He was never quite sure what was going on in that head and that unreadable expression.

There was a gentle hand on his knee, as much a gesture of romantic intent as Ianto would offer in view of everyone else. ‘Of course. Just so long as I don't have to explain the significance of the stopwatch.’