Slashthedrabble Challenge 642 - Puppy love

[m_findlow]

Title: Puppy love
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 642 - Abandoned at slashthedrabble
Summary: Ianto isn't ready to adopt, but Jack has other ideas.


Ianto stared down at the dog curled up next to Jack's feet, looking right at home in his office and wary of Ianto's intrusion on their collective space. 'Well, I suppose I'd better take him to the animal shelter,' he said, looking around and wondering where the leash had gotten to. It had been here last time he'd checked.

'What? No!' Jack cried. 'You can't take Buddy there! He's been abandoned!'

'Precisely. He's not microchipped so we can't return him to anyone, assuming they're looking for him at all.'

Jack reached down and clutched at the dog, covering his floppy black ears. 'But don't you know what happens in those places to guys like him?'

Ianto nodded. 'Yep. They get adopted by loving families who give them a second chance at a happy life.'

'Not them!' Jack cried. 'The other ones!'

Ianto rolled his eyes at Jack's histrionics. 'He's a purebred labrador on the right side of five years old, and with a reasonable temperament' - if Ianto excluded how he was personally treated. Buddy got along just fine with everybody else. He put it down to the fact that the dog didn't like sharing Jack with anyone else, even if Ianto had gotten there first. 'I very much doubt he wouldn't get snapped up in a heartbeat.'

'But we're already here,' Jack argued.

Ianto rolled his eyes again. He'd just known Jack would get attached. That's how he was with anything cute and furry, and sometimes not even cute, just furry. There didn't seem to be any way to let him down gently when he was being irrational like this.
'We can't adopt him, Jack. Think about it in practical terms. Where would he live?' Certainly not at the hub. There was enough of a menagerie here already.

'At your place', Jack replied. He said it like it was the most obvious answer.

'My-?' Ianto bit back on the rest of his response. 'No. Just no.'

'But we spent two weeks in each other's bodies. He's like family.'

'I can only just cope with you most days.' He definitely hadn't coped with the whole body swap thing; Jack's body being totally impossible with the brain of a dog, and Jack being totally impossible being stuck as a dog. Having them both back where they belonged was such a relief.

'Have a heart, Ianto,' Jack pleaded. 'Could you really say no to this face?' he asked, cuddling it's head in his hands and adding his own puppy dog pout for good measure. Jack knew just how to press all of Ianto's emotional blackmail buttons.

Ianto sighed, looking down at the pair of them and wondering when he'd stop being able to distinguish one from the other in terms of which he was meant to treat like his boyfriend. 'Fine. But you move in permanently as well. No just visiting when you feel like it and leaving me to look after him.'

Jack grinned. 'You're the best.'

'And don't you forget it.'