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madbottomsTitle: Opportunities/One door closes...and a window opens (8?)
Rating: PG – I think. There is talk of sex and some ‘adult’ moments but nothing explicit.
Genre: AU! No aliens but some familiar names may still be used
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Estelle
Summary: The holiday season is coming up and Ianto Jones is stuck without a job, with very little money and not too many prospects. So when he is offered a job for two weeks, he readily accepts. But this new job may become complicated when he realises that the man who broke his heart years before is the grandson of his new employer.
A/N: More verbal sparring of words between the boys and a very small glimpse into the past again—but don’t get too excited, it really is very brief.
*~*
Chapter 8
It had taken Ianto most of the afternoon to feel truly warm again after being out in the brisk wind so much of the morning. Shopping for the Christmas tree, wandering through the car yard’s assortment of SUVs, and then standing in the car park discussing both purchases with Jack had left him chilled to the bone.
So he wasn’t surprised when Jack came into the living room late in the afternoon without a word and went straight to the fireplace to hold out his hands over the warm flames. He’d been outside in the car park without even a coat and he’d still been perspiring from his stunt on the climbing wall. It would be no wonder if he was feeling the after-effects.
The room felt different to Ianto the moment he walked in—though it wasn’t so much the gust of cold air he brought with him as something far less tangible. He watched Jack out of the corner of his eye as he sat cross-legged on the floor. The air seemed to crackle with the power of Jack’s presence.
He’d changed out of those stretchy, close-fitting climbing gear he’d been wearing at the Hub earlier and into a jumper and wool trousers. Ianto preferred him in casual clothes, he decided, because the hardness and strength of his body weren’t quite so obvious. That didn’t mean that he was easy to ignore, of course—the man still moved like a well-oiled machine. But at least every muscle wasn’t obvious, as it had been this morning, reminding Ianto with every twitch that once—just once, so long ago—he had stroked those muscles and enjoyed the warmth and power of his body...
It was a one night stand, Ianto reminded himself. A bad soap opera, not classic literature. Get Over it.
‘Have a cup of tea,’ Ianto suggested to Jack. ‘It’s a fresh pot.’
Jack turned his back to the fire, as if to baste his spine in warmth. ‘I’d rather have a whiskey.’
Ianto shook his head. ‘Alcohol doesn’t warm you up, it only fools you into thinking you’re comfortable.’ He reached for another box—this one simply marked Xmas decorations—and wondered what was likely to be in it. He’d already unearthed a papier-maché nativity set, a collection of angels, and an assortment of Santa statues which could outfit a gift shop in the North Pole.
‘I’m more interested in the pain-killing properties. The fire’s taking the edge off the cold, but it would help my attitude immensely if you weren’t playing ‘Let it Snow’ in the background.’
Ianto snickered and considered turning up the volume. Instead, he got up and poured Jack a cup from the still-steaming teapot. ‘Here. At least drink this first. It’ll warm you up and improve your mood—if anything can.’
‘Watch out, Ianto. Someone might think you’re concerned about me.’
He settled down beside the stack of boxes once more. ‘I’ve had pneumonia, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Of course, you deserve to get a least a good old-fashioned cold. Standing in the car park like that today after you stunt on that wall thing—’
‘That wall thing is the most popular feature of my Hubs.’
‘Popular, maybe. Profitable, no way. It can’t possibly be, after you pay the insurance costs.’
‘I have a perfectly good team of accountants, Ianto, so anytime you’re finished imitating a professional you can stop criticising my business. Now if you know anything about IT, I might be interested in hearing what you have to say about it.’
Alright, he may had been showing off a little, making it clear that he knew a few things about profits and losses.
‘The wall draws people in to watch or climb,’ Jack pointed out. ‘And once they’re in the Hub—the store or gym—they will usually book, buy or join.’
‘Of course I know profit isn’t the only motive for offering a service. But—never mind.’ Ianto took a deep breath and shifted a particularly heavy box, deliberately turning his back on Jack.
‘I see you got the tree in without my help.’
Ianto didn’t even look back at him. ‘I managed most of it myself and the handyman was here to finish clearing the snow off the walks, so Estelle enlisted him.’ He took another deep breath, the pine scent helping to relax him.
‘That was the biggest one the two of you could possibly find, right?’
‘It’s a little larger than I thought it was,’ Ianto admitted. The spread of the tree’s lowest limb took up almost half the width of the room.
Jack drained the teacup and went to pour himself a drink from the cabinet in the dining room. ‘Want a beer or a whisky or something?’
Ianto shook his head. ‘Sorting out these boxes is making me dizzy enough, thanks.’
‘Where’s Gran, by the way? I thought decorating the tree was her project?’
‘Well, she’s pretty good at delegating the parts she doesn’t want to do. I don’t suppose you’d want to work on untangling the string of lights?’
‘Good guess.’
‘Estelle would like the lights to be on so she can start decorating after her nap.’
‘Then you have your job cut out for you. She’s taking another nap?’
‘What’s wrong with a nap every afternoon? She’s had a busy day. When we were looking for just the right tree she was inexhaustible—but an eighty-year-old woman can’t keep up that pace forever.’
‘And then there was the SUV to buy,’ Jack said. ‘Why did you let her do that, anyway?’
‘Let her?’ Ianto said incredulously. ‘I’d have liked to see you stop her, once she got the notion in her head.’
Jack went straight on without apology. ‘That the big question, you know. Just how did she get that idea in her head?’
‘All I told her was that you wanted her to have new, safe tyres, and you’d make it part of her Christmas gift. In fact, I asked her if she wanted me to take care of it so she wouldn’t have to bother. She said no, she’d talk to her favourite mechanic to get some advice about what was best for her. Of course, as soon as she set foot in the dealership—’
‘The salespeople were on her like vultures, I suppose.’
‘They didn’t exactly take advantage of her,’ Ianto said reluctantly. ‘All the salespeople were so busy, in fact—so she wandered around, looking at the tyres in the showroom. Then her feet started to hurt and she decided to sit down inside an SUV, and when she spotted the friendly little running board sliding out to help her climb in she fell in love.’
Jack groaned.
‘Then it was just a matter of which colour she wanted. We had to look at every one that had in stock so she could decide. I didn’t realise there were so many colours. If you’re worried about the money—’
‘I’m not.’ His voice was clipped.
‘Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you were,’ Ianto said with mock sympathy. ‘It can’t be cheap to start up yet another brand new outlet, and when you’ve got a whole chain in expansion mode—’
‘I’m not in any financial difficulty, but thanks for the concern.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it. Anyway, what I was just going to tell you is that Estelle was only joking about you paying for the new car.’
‘And I suppose that’s why you handed me the bill?’
‘Obviously you still haven’t looked at those papers. If you had just listened to me this morning instead of shoving everything in your pocket and walking away—’
‘Are you nuts? If I hadn’t walked away I’d still be standing there. Only by now I’d be imitating an ice sculpture.’
‘It would be a perfect job for you,’ Ianto muttered. ‘If you’d stuck around for thirty seconds longer I would have told you that she paid it for it by bank transfer.’
‘She paid the entire amount?’
‘All except the tyres. She seemed to think that was a really good joke.’ Ianto lifted the lid off the heavy box and peered in side. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know why Estelle would have spray painted a bunch of bricks red and packed them up in the Christmas stuff, would you?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Not a clue.’
Ianto stacked the bricks neatly to one side, set the box into the pile of empties, and dragged the next carton in front of him. ‘And that’s another subject, you know. Keeping that sort of money lying around in an ordinary savings account makes no sense whatsoever when she would be better earning interest on it.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. An everyday saver seems a whole lot smarter than say keeping cash in an envelope in a boarding house.’
‘I’ll do my best to remember that next time I have small fortune to invest. My point is she could be earning a lot more in a money market fund or something similar.
‘Now that it’s spent,’ Jack said, ‘it doesn’t seem to matter where she had it stashed. In an envelope, under her mattress, at the bank—what’s the difference? What’s she going to do with a vehicle like that in the retirement village?’
‘Take her friends out for joyrides?’
‘Who’s going to drive? Are you planning to extend your two weeks into permanent employment?’
Ianto felt a stab of regret. Two weeks—and one of his precious fourteen days of freedom was already nearly gone. ‘Of course not. By then she’ll have seen a doctor, and maybe with an adjustment to her medication she’ll be able to drive again.
‘Oh that will be a relief,’ Jack said dryly. ‘Gran at the wheel of a sports utility vehicle—’
‘Well you have to admit she’ll be safer in the SUV than in the tin can, no matter who’s behind the wheel.’
‘That’s true,’ he conceded. ‘Though, I’m not convinced there’s a bit of difference between the two of you when it comes to driving skills.’
Ianto shot a narrow look over the box he’d just opened, which seemed to be full of garishly coloured stockings.
‘Retirement villages provide transportation,’ Jack said. ‘Buses and vans and wheelchair lifts and all that stuff. The residents don’t have to drive at all.
‘Maybe, but I can’t quite see Estelle scheduling her massage times to fit the bus driver’s schedule. Maybe she really bought the SUV because she’s planning to have you take her mountain climbing? There’s plenty of room for the gear in the back, plus four-wheel drive so you can go off-road and rough it,’ Ianto dead-panned.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Ianto shook out a ruffled lace tree skirt which had been crushed under the needlepoint stockings and pretended not to look at Jack. ‘You didn’t seem to want her to move into a retirement village anyway. What’s your plan? That she moves in with you instead?’
Ianto was a little surprised that he didn’t react to the bait. Instead he planted one hip against the arm of the sofa, right above where Ianto was working, and meditatively swirled his drink.
‘You’re looking a little flushed,’ he said. ‘Are you feeling alright? Because you can really—’
‘You can stop trying to convince me you were sick, Ianto.’
‘What? Why would I lie to you about—?’
‘I’m convinced. Your background check said it was quite bad. You were out of action for a while. You had a bit of a stay in the hospital it seems. I am sorry to hear that. Then you seemed to have just disappeared for a while before showing back up at university.’
Ianto gritted his teeth. ‘You checked up on me?’
‘Sure.’ Jack’s tone was casual. ‘I do it with all employees—of course I’d want to know that my grandmother’s personal assistant wasn’t a felon on the run. Why does it bother you that I looked into your past, anyway?’
Ianto swallowed hard. ‘It doesn’t bother me, exactly. It just took me by surprise.’
‘Sure it did. You know, Ianto, it makes me wonder—if there is something you want to hide, what might it be? You were so eager to me why you had to drop out—your father leaving, your mother having...problems. I couldn’t help but wonder if the real story was just a little more.’
‘Like my dad pissing off and mum in Providence Park,’ Ianto said quietly. ‘So what were you expecting to find? Did you think that maybe I was a little crazy myself?’
Jack rattled the ice in his glass and said, very clearly, ‘Maybe.’
Ianto dropped the silver ball he had been holding. ‘You thought I might have been committed or something like my mother?’
‘The possibility occurred to me. The way you just dropped off the face of the Earth and I heard talk from the people who’d seen you around the university—’
‘You had your friends spying on me, I suppose?’
‘It’s not a huge campus, Ianto. But they thought you looked miserable and were acting a little stranger than usual—according to them. Apparently you also got into a few fights. Quite a mean right hook, too, as I heard.’
Ianto couldn’t believe Jack thought he had mental problems. Yes, his mother had retreated from the world after his father left but she wasn’t crazy, and Ianto certainly wasn’t either. He had gone through a rough time after his illness and he may have retreated a little from the world himself six years ago. But then he couldn’t blame Jack for being cautious. He always had been. Ianto learned that a long time ago.
Ianto looked straight at him. ‘I may have been a loner and dropped out, but I was genuinely sick. Whether you choose to believe that or not is up to you. I am not going to defend myself because you may have other ideas about my absence from university.’
‘Well, you can’t blame me for wanting to be careful.’
‘No, I can’t. I’d want to protect my family, too. But I’m not crazy. I’m not going to suddenly murder you all in your beds.’
Jack balked for a second but then smirked. ‘Okay, you had it hard and got sick.’
‘Exactly what I told you.’
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on 2012-02-22 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-22 08:21 pm (UTC)