Ways to get the Job You Want - Take 5
A Torchwood fanfiction; Ianto's PoV on his 'Fragments'-story
Confrontation time! Ianto steps into ongoing traffic.
_____________________


Okay, confrontation time!

I’m not really sure what it is about suits that makes me so comfortable wearing them.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that I was surrounded by suits when I was a kid, or with the way they can suit you with this certain bit of elegance or maybe it is the air of authority they convey…

Whatever it is, they are my armour of choice as I mentioned before and I would need an armour if I wanted to face Jack again. Let’s just say our last encounter within the scope of Plan D went kind of…bad.
I mean, okay, I probably shouldn’t have been so aggressive when it came down to following him and waiting for him in front of his favourite coffee shop was definitely one of my less brilliant ideas.

Never disturb a decaffeinated Jack
… or an over-caffeinated one.
Believe me; I made unpleasant experiences with him in both states… well, okay, not necessarily bad. Straining more like…but…that doesn’t belong here.

I got almost afraid that he would shove the cup into some part of my anatomy that never saw a coffee cup before and for which I intended it to stay like this in the foreseeable future… I’ll better just stick with: the look in his eyes made me wish to have brought a box of doughnuts, brownies or anything else containing tons of sugar. Geesh, why didn’t I think of that before?
…I got lost again, didn’t I?

Anyway, confrontation time!
This meant out of the shower and into my best – and in this case only – suit. Thankfully I thought of bringing it with me from London. Dressed and carefully rehydrated and recarb’d – because I wasn’t going to go through all this trouble on an empty stomach again – I only had to push one little button on one of my other gizmos. Being a junior researcher in Torchwood London was straining and life consuming at times but I can’t say that it didn’t teach me a few good things.

Like how to deposit and use an almost untraceable micro transmitter at the rear of his car.
…Maybe I do have a minor Bond-complex…tiny…
I mean I didn’t have tranquilizer darts in my cuff-links – which would have been handy – or knives hidden in my shoes – which would have been, let’s admit it, pretty pointless – but I had my suit and my natural assets to count on and so I set out… hoping that this would be enough.

Judging from his route and his insane driving speed it wasn’t this hard to estimate his arriving time at the intersection where I was waiting for him. And there he came, dashing hero in a black SUV and the Torchwood logo written all over it… seriously, not really secretive, is it?
I stepped onto the street.

I STEPPED onto the street.

Suicidal?
Not really.

Masochistic?
Maybe a little.

Completely bonkers?
Oh you can bet on it.

As soon as I stood there, wondering whether Jack would be so nice to hit the brakes instead of the accelerator – I left him in quite a furious state this morning… okay, he left me and stormed off into the wild… Or probably into the next coffee shop. – I felt this familiar pang of ridiculousness beating down on me. And for a few seconds my fear of being run over by a homicidal live action man on caffeine withdrawal symptoms in a black and shiny SUV overweighed my desire to get this job.
I know… Chicken.

The only thing that kept me from hopping back onto the pavement and screeching like a little girl was what I like to call the Bambi-effect. ‘Cause that’s how I felt. Tiny, helpless and completely immobilized while two big halos approached me with a ridiculous speed.
I tried desperately not to stare into the light. Didn’t work.

At this point I should probably mention that this stunt should be under no circumstances copied by amateurs or people who like the fact that they’re moving or glad to be alive in general. Just don’t. It does help to remember the name of your first love’s baby kitten in primary school though… not that this would improve the fact that I was going to be run over by a driving advert for a highly supposed secret organization beyond probably everything than the Queen..

I’m not sure what the fact that this was my second slow motion moment overall and in this week says about me before Torchwood 3 or Jack.
But it seems to be something tying in with the job too 'cause as I mentioned before these were just the first in a long row of slow-mo experiences for me.

Three excruciating seconds full of anxiousness and incredibly complex thoughts like: ‘OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!’ and ‘Hey, at least I’ll go perfectly attired and in one of Tad’s suits instead of a rent boy outfit, that’s an improvement’ passed before I finally heard the brakes or rather the tyres screeching.

Obviously I failed completely at trying not to stare into the lights.
For a few seconds I feared I might have gone blind and lots of colourful dots before my eyes…
And out of the dots stormed Jack

BANG

But not without displaying a fair share of annoyance with me.

"Okay, this has to stop."
"No. Listen to me..."
"I don't have time for this."

I really should have known better than to interrupt Jack in full barking mode.
Oh well, I was young and inexperienced and I hadn’t learned the secret of how to make Jack Harkness listen to me yet…

Pointy finger, menacing stare…I got the whole package… from what I could see through all the colourful spots.

"Look, I don't care what your problem is...I want you OUT of this city by sunrise. There is no place for you here..."

On the other hand… nobody brings cuffs, ropes and a chair to a job interview

"...GO back to London, find yourself another life!"

Easily said for someone whose girlfriend’s survival didn’t depend on.

"Keep stalking me, I'll WIPE your memory!"

Okay, like I said, following him to his favourite coffee shops probably wasn’t one of my wisest ideas. But just because I followed him nonstop and showed up when he least expected me doesn’t mean I…
Oh my God, I did stalk him.

"No but the thing is..."

Still no reason to be so harsh, especially to somebody who wanted to tell him something.

"Look, any conversation between us, no matter what the subject, is over! FINISHED! DONE! FOREVER!!!

I have to admit that the sight of Jack between all these colours was some kind of a flashy sixties-experience for me.
Really pretty but also kind of distracting. Especially when this unnervingly pretty sight looks as if it's going to strangle you with your neck-tie any second.

"I'm getting back behind the wheel of that car, if you're still standing in the road, I'm gonna drive through you!

He turned abruptly and looked every bit intending to follow his threat through.
Again a situation which could have been vastly improved by a box of doughnuts.
I do actually care a lot of things in my pockets to compensate for the fact that you simply can’t always be prepared for everything, a box of doughnuts unfortunately wasn’t amongst them. But seriously, who carries a box of doughnuts in his suit pockets? I could have offered him the chocolate though… But no, I couldn’t give him the chocolate; it was a crucial part of Plan E after all. What brings me back to…

"So you're not going to help me catch this pterodactyl, then?"

Now that got me his attention back. His plan to drive through me was almost forgotten and together we headed off back to the warehouse. The place when the real action took place.
Everything went according to plan…until it came to the actual ‘catching’.

Never try to catch a pterodactyl when Jack is around.


TBC