Slashthedrabble Challenge 635 / 454 - Travelling light

[m_findlow]

Title: Travelling light
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 635 - Past Prompts revisited, using Challenge 454 - Broken Zipper at slashthedrabble
Summary: Jack won't let a little problem ruin their holiday.


'We're here!' Jack cried, feeling the engines of the large transport ship hum to a lower gear, signalling a stop.

'Finally,' Ianto replied. 'I thought traveling by spaceship was supposed to be fast.' After two weeks on board, it felt more like a cruise than a jet flight, only without all the twenty four hour buffet restaurants and live can-can dancers.

It was not the travelling in style Ianto imagined it would be. Their accommodations were spartan to say the least, though perhaps they were lucky it was a double bed and not some of those wall pods for one he'd seen on other parts of the ship. With their sliding privacy doors, Ianto didn't think even he and Jack could squeeze into one of them. And the food was cafeteria standard, served on metal trays not unlike those from his memories of high school.

'This was fast,' Jack replied, leading them down towards the luggage bay. 'We travelled fourteen parsecs. On a lesser ship, that's a whole year to get here. You'd need a holiday just to recover from the travel to and from your holiday.'

Ianto groaned. That he didn't need. The holiday however, he definitely did.

They entered the luggage hold and Jack quickly found his suitcase whilst Ianto pawed through the pile looking for his own. When he found it, he wished he hadn't. 'Oh, you've got to be joking!'

Jack turned around. 'What?'

'Look at it,' Ianto said, holding it up. It was easy enough to do since it weighed virtually nothing now that it was empty. 'The zipper has broken and someone has gone and taken everything out.' Or it had fallen out and someone simply claimed it. 'How am I supposed to go on vacation without any clothes? Or a toothbrush, comb, shoes, beach towel, swimming trunks…' All he had in his overnight bag was one set of dirty clothes from yesterday.

Jack slid his case neatly back onto the luggage rack. 'Well, I guess we won't be stopping and getting off here, then,' he said.

Ianto sighed. 'We came all this way for nothing then. Some vacation this turned out to be.'

'It's fine,' Jack assured him. 'We'll just hitch a ride to the next port.'

'Great.' He knew for a fact that ships like these didn't double back just because you needed to stop off and buy a spare pair of pants - or a few weeks worth. The longest long haul flight he'd ever been on and now they'd have to schlep back home in filthy clothes, unrested and thoroughly disappointed.

'Cheer up, Ianto. You make out like this was the only holiday destination on their route. The next stop along will be even better, and just perfect considering your situation.'

'What would that be, a planet full of department stores?'

Jack grinned. 'Nope. It's a nudist paradise. I was in two minds about asking if we could go there instead, but now that you haven't got anything to wear, well…'