Torchwood: "The Secret to Ianto Jones's Secret Coffee"

[mclachland]

"The Secret to Ianto Jones's Secret Coffee"
Gen, implied Jack/Ianto




"You're putting too much water in, you nit," Gwen exclaimed, smacking Owen in the shoulder, rolling her eyes at his plaintive whine. "Oh, shut up, would you? It's not like you even felt that."

Owen grumbled and dumped out the water from the coffee maker, slamming the appliance back onto the counter when it was finally empty and gestured for Gwen to give it a go. "Because I'm sure you can do so much better."

Gwen sniffed daintily. "I can, because I'm a lady." And then pushed him out of the way of the coffee maker in a way that was distinctly un-ladylike.

Heels clacking, Tosh walked up behind them, peering over Owen's shoulder at the machine like it was a relic from a former era. "What does being a woman have anything to do with it?"

"Because it's a food-related thing and women belong in the kitchen?" Owen suggested, as if he'd forgotten Tosh was brain-damaged. Gasping in shock, Gwen grabbed the nearest object -- a spoon -- and winged it at him, growling as he ducked, laughing and dancing away.

Tosh rolled her eyes and left Gwen to doctoricide, too focused in getting the machine to do something. With every moment that caffeine wasn't running through her system, her IQ dropped five points. Frowning, her lashes fluttering, her body demanding another twelve hours of sleep, she stroked a hand down the side of it. She'd seen Ianto caressing it many times before, as if the machine were an angry cat needing to be tamed.

"When in the bloody fuck are they coming back?" Owen finally demanded, his voice shrill and ringing through Tosh's coffee-deprived head. "I can't function."

"It can't be that hard!" Gwen shouted, stamping her foot and crossing her arms, her thick lips pushing out in a pout. "I mean, we've seen Ianto do this a million times before!"

"Making coffee is an art form where Ianto's concerned," Tosh muttered, putting a new filter in. Maybe that would work. "He's the Picasso of coffee-making."

Owen snorted. "Picasso sucked."

"Fine. He's Salvador Dali, then!"

"He was fucking weird! Can't he be, like, Monet?"

Gwen blinked, a slow grin breaking over her face like a wave. "Got a thing for lilies, then, Owen?"

"Oi, shut up!" He rocked on the balls of his feet for a moment, studying the coffee-maker as if it were a patient, a very stubborn and metal patient that had suffered acute myocardial infarction and was dying on the table. Normally such a case wouldn't be worth his time, especially since there were more interesting things to be done at Torchwood, but this… this called for drastic measures. "Who would mind me taking it to autopsy?"

"Owen!" Tosh snapped, and at the sight of her blood-shot eyes and snarl he quickly shut his mouth. They had all witnessed Toshiko Sato, resident genius and soft-spoken mouse, become angry only once before, and the experience was so terrifying that measures had been taken to ensure the beast would stay dormant, up to and including gagging Owen when he gave her a hard time. Usually Ianto would step in, heading back to the kitchen, and would put in the effort to whack him with an empty tea tray and a stern, "Stop rattling the cage."

"Maybe his coffee is so good because he's been sleeping with Jack."

Both Tosh and Owen turned to stare at Gwen, who held up her hands and shrugged.

"So, you're telling us that you theorize that Jack has magic coffee-mojo powers that he grants Ianto after every shag?" Owen opened his mouth, then shut it, mulling that over. "Actually, I don't have a problem with that."

"That's a hypothesis," Tosh reminded him, "not a theory. Evidence to back that claim up? No. So it's not even a good hypothesis."

Gwen huffed. "I never said I was making a hypothesis! It was just a possibility!"

"Besides," Tosh continued, tapping the coffee-maker once with a fingernail, "Ianto made excellent coffee before he got together with Jack."

Rolling his eyes, Owen stepped up, gently nudging Tosh to the side, somehow making the innocuous action condescending, and said, "'s not like they're really together."

A frighteningly loud laugh exploded from Tosh and Gwen fought the urge to pull her gun. It was just like last time, except Jack had stepped in before the Creature could take shape and kill them all with a keyboard. As soon as the air started to fill with ozone, all bets would be off.

Gwen still kept a hand on her weapon, anyway. Just in case.

"You still think it's just random shagging?" Tosh asked, quietly, and Owen relaxed. "After all this time?"

Owen smirked. "Tosh, I don't think I've ever heard you say the word 'shagged'. Wasn't quite certain it was even in your voca--"

"Keep talking, Owen," Tosh warned quietly, and Gwen sniffed the air, eyes going wide with abject fear. "I haven't had coffee and I know where you live."

"OWEN!" All heads turned to look at Gwen. "Don't you have something to do? Away?"

"No." He sniffed the air. "Yes."

While Owen retreated to the safety of the autopsy room, claiming that there were many beautiful bodies that needed eviscerating, Tosh went back to studying the coffee maker, wondering if there were directions and just how old they were if they still existed.

"Hey, so, why don't we go to Starbucks?" Gwen suggested brightly, and Tosh shook her head.

"The closest one closed down last week for renovations, and that barista up the street keeps putting dishwater into her concoctions." Standing back, Tosh's mouth opened in a jaw-cracking yawn. "I know that we used to have coffee before Ianto. Terrible coffee, but it had caffeine in it so it didn't matter. He spoils us."

"What did you do before Ianto?" Gwen put in, nodding thoughtfully, Tosh's yawn setting her off.

"Fumbled around, knee-deep in garbage and old files and dead bodies and bad coffee, if my memory serves." Long-fingered hands felt around the back for a switch. "Jack didn't smile nearly as often, either."

A hush fell over them, straining like a rubber band that is stretched too thin and pinned down by a feather, and Gwen cleared her throat until it must have been red and raw. "So… you think they're…"

Tosh smiled. "Yeah, I think they're…"

"Is this, uh, a new thing? I mean, I know they were, you know, before Jack left, but I didn't know they'd started again…" Gwen stumbled, her words tripping over themselves, tied together with shoe laces and old chewing gum, her pin-up posters of Jack Harkness falling from her adolescent walls.

Tosh shook her head. "No, it's always been there. Things are starting to fall into place for them now. Haven't you noticed that Jack is, oh, I don't know, lighter these days? Whenever Ianto walks into the room, it's like the sun coming out on a rainy day. I think it's wonderful."

Slowly, Gwen released her fantasies and smiled. "Yeah. 'bout time someone tamed that man."

"Do we have coffee yet?!" Owen shouted from below, his voice carrying through the Hub, startling Myfanwy from her nest and into a fit. Tosh moaned and banged her fist against the coffee maker.

"Work, damn you!"

"Owen tried that earlier," Gwen said, whimpering a little. "Many times."

"Sixty-third time's the charm," Tosh snarled, and Gwen backed away as the smell of ozone grew stronger. Little hands meant for taking apart alien devices wrapped around the back of a chair and lifted it into the air as if it weighed no more than a coffee mug.

"Tosh! What the hell --"

"Drastic times, Gwen! I need caffeine or I will do something that I'll probably regret."

"I love to see my children playing together so nicely."

Gwen turned, as did Tosh (makeshift weapon still raised above her head), to find Jack standing in the kitchen doorway, cheerful smile spread across his face like butter. Ianto stood a few inches in front of him, eyes wide at the tableau before him. Ianto slowly let his head turn until he met Gwen's eyes, trying not to make any sudden movements.

"I take it that this is somehow Owen's fault."

"How is it my fault!" Came wafting up from below.

"I don't know, but it probably won't take me long to find a reason!" Ianto shouted, slamming his foot into the floor once for emphasis. Owen shut up.

The chair in Tosh's grasp lost a bit of its height as her death grip loosened. "Er, no, but he didn't help matters much."

Jack just looked amused. "So, we all having a good morning?"

Gwen opened her mouth, and even the gap between her teeth looked scandalized. "What happened with the --"

"False alarm!" Chirped their captain, stretching languorously. "Turned out to be an actual weather balloon that the government was testing this time. Can you imagine?" He turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen, his voice trailing like mocha behind him. "Ianto, my office? I have a few things I need to go over on you -- with you. I meant with you."

Rolling his eyes, Ianto made to follow but was stopped by a hand on his arm. Gwen bit her lip. Tosh put down the chair.

"You have to fix it. Or just tell me. Tell me and I promise I won't tell another living soul. What is it, Ianto? What's the secret to your coffee?" Gwen moaned piteously, pointing to the coffee maker with a shaking finger. Ianto peered down the digit and frowned.

"I usually start by putting the grounds in."

A pin could have dropped and set off a car alarm in the silence that followed. Ianto's lip curled in adorable confusion before he shook his head and started for the coffee maker, muttering something about there being truth to the whole 'earth is the insane asylum of the universe' thing. Gwen watched him, tears in her eyes, and sniffled.

Tosh threw up her hands and stalked toward the doorway. "I'm going for a walk. A long, long, long walk. If the world is ending, tell it to wait twenty minutes until I come the hell back. If I come back!"

"Tosh."

She spun around as Ianto held up a steaming mug.

"Coffee?"

"I hate you. I hate you, and your sunshine, and Jack, and coffee, and OWEN!" With that, she stormed out. A moment passed in silence, and then the blast door rolled to let her through. Somehow, she managed to slam it.

Ianto exhaled and held the mug out for Gwen, who snatched it and downed it in a single go, ignoring the layers of skin she was taking off her throat. He poured himself a cup and, as he stirred in two teaspoons of sugar, settled back against the counter.

"So. Armageddon due to your inability to make coffee."

"Sounds about right."

Ianto hummed and sipped at his drink. He sniffed the air and frowned. "So, who rattled the cage?"