Title: Friday the Thirteenth: Cardiff
By: amuly
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Word Count: 1,999
Rating: R
Summary: Ianto’s having a terrible Friday the 13th. But of course, he’s not superstitious. Should he be?
Warnings: none
A/N: Yes, I did totally rip this off from the Fairly Odd Parents and the DW episode “Turn Left”. Shut up. I’ve had this on my prompt list since March, and have waited all this time for the appropriate date. And yes, it is a completely unoriginal alien name. I was feeling unoriginal, okay?

            Ianto Jones wasn’t a superstitious man. At least, not in the traditional sense. No, he didn’t believe in lucky charms or broken mirrors or walking under ladders. Enough years at Torchwood had stamped out any superstition he might have held onto as a young man. He did, however, believe in ulterior explanations for things a less educated person might deem “good luck”. A pair of cricket socks that were actually an alien artifact that made sure the wearer’s team won every game. For example.

            Yet, with the day he was having, Ianto was almost ready to give in to superstition.

Ianto was having a terrible day. Simply awful. Maybe even the worst day of his life (Well, that might be hyperbole. Canary Warf and Lisa invading the Hub were probably his first and second worst days, followed closely by the day Ianto caught Jack in drag fucking himself with a tentacle. Cannibals probably ranked just below that. Still, all those aside, today was certainly on its way to making the list.).

It all started that morning with coffee.

“Oh, Ianto, you are my angel.” Jack took the coffee from Ianto with a beatific grin, staring down into the chocolate-colored depths.

Ianto nodded, keeping his expression carefully blank. “All in a day’s work, sir.”

Jack looked like he was about to say something cheeky in response to that, but as he went to lower the coffee mug from his mouth, his face twisted into an expression of disgust. He spit the coffee back into his mug making loud gagging noises. Both men had looks of equal horror on their faces.

“What’s wrong with your coffee?!”

“What’s wrong with my coffee?!”

Ianto grabbed the coffee mug from Jack, taking a large gulp from it. Never mind that Jack had spit back into it – it would be the least of bodily fluids they had exchanged that day. As soon as the coffee hit Ianto’s tongue, he spit it back in the mug, same as Jack. It was bitter, burnt, and impossibly strong. It tasted like espresso had stayed up on a caffeine bender, then fucked a venti and thrown up in the sidewalk. Then, the afterbirth from the espresso and venti’s baby had mixed with the vomit, copulated, and produced this.

“Jack, I’m so, so sorry.” Ianto scooped the mug up and practically sprinted through the Hub, grabbing everyone else’s coffee that he had already laid out. “I’ll stop by Starbucks for now, and recalibrate the machine later. Something must be off!”

And Ianto was right, as he slowly realized throughout the day. Something was off: just with him, not the machine.

**

            In apology for the atrocious coffee, Ianto brought a box of donuts back from the pastry shop along with the coffee. The team dug in eagerly, and Ianto snatched a cream-filled one for himself. He’d need the energy for his one-manned assault on the coffee machine, after all.

            Ianto stuck the pastry between his teeth as he walked over the machine, coffee in one hand and spanner in another. A bit of cream seeped out, and his tongue automatically darted forward to lap it up. A sour, curdled atrocity assailed his tongue, forcing him to drop the spanner and rip the donut out of his mouth.

            He stared at it, and sure enough, the cream inside had obviously turned. With bile churning in his stomach, Ianto hurriedly tossed the donut into the trash, then took a sip of his coffee – while it was still boiling hot.

            “Fuck!”

            The entire Hub went silent at the exclamation from Ianto. He glanced around, wide-eyed, before his gaze landed on a concerned Jack. He grinned weakly. “Coffee. Hot.”

            Owen laughed and spun away from him in his chair. “Good job, Yan. Next you’re going to be making the discovery that ice is cold.”

            Ianto decided to leave the coffee machine repairs for later. He was obviously in need of some filing. Nice, quite, mechanical filing. Nothing could go wrong.

**

            Papers went flying everywhere as Ianto tripped with an armful of carefully organized files. A sizable binder managed to clock him on the back of the head, and so he lay, in a snow bank of files, for a long minute. He just needed a moment to wallow in peace. “This cannot be happening to me.” Reaching a hand up, he pushed the binder off and examined the back of his head. No lumps, but it was tender to the touch. Fantastic. This day just kept getting better and better. Wincing as he sat up, Ianto looked around at the white covering that lay an inch thick in a two-meter radius around him. And he had just sorted them all, too.

            With a noise that most certainly wasn’t a dejected whimper, Ianto straightened himself out and started to sort the files again. Worst. Day. Ever.

**

            After a long, boiling hot shower to try and get Weevil vomit off of his skin (Weevil’s can vomit? Ianto didn’t even know that!), all Ianto wanted was to crawl home and collapse under his duvet. Preferably, he wouldn’t leave it until the universe announced that it was going to stop repeatedly fucking him up the arse. Unfortunately, he had a randy Captain to attend to who most decidedly wanted to have the same done to him.

            “Iaaantooo,” Jack cooed.

            Ianto sighed. Not that the sight of Jack Harkness naked, erect, bent over his desk, holding a bottle of lube and fingering himself wasn’t just lovely, but that was under normal circumstances. Today it was just another headache.

            “Jack, I don’t think I’m-”

            But Jack wasn’t hearing it. He snatched Ianto up into a breath-stealing kiss, until Ianto sighed and found himself nuzzling at Jack’s neck. “Alright,” he conceded. “But can we do this in your bunk?” Ianto figured if they were in a bed he could minimize the chance for injury. With the day he was having, he wasn’t going to chance some of the more aerobic and creative sex they normally had.

            “Whatever you want, sexy.”

            Ianto snorted, but nodded toward the ladder and followed Jack down. As Jack kissed and undressed him, Ianto allowed himself to relax in increments. This was much better. This was exactly what he needed to pull him out of this rut he was in: Jack’s hands and mouth, roaming his body, melting the hardships of the day away.

            Ianto let Jack pull him on top of him on the bed. “I’m ready,” Jack murmured into Ianto’s lips, grinding his hips up against him. Ianto hummed, reaching one hand down to align himself with Jack’s entrance as they kissed.

            As Ianto started to push forward, his erection pressed against...not Jack’s anus. He broke the kiss, making a little frustrated noise and groping around blindly. It was his perineum. Okay, he just needed to aim a bit lower. Ianto pulled Jack’s legs up onto his shoulders, giving him unfettered access to that gorgeous hole. They kissed deeply, Jack surging up as his hips undulated down, silently begging Ianto to enter him. So he pushed forward again...and his cock just slid along the crack of Jack’s arse.

            Jack chortled against Ianto’s lips. “Need some help?”

            Ianto groaned and shoved Jack away, starting to gather up his clothes. Nothing could go right this day, absolutely nothing. Not even sex with Jack, which was usually so easy, so effortless, so right. “I’m going home,” Ianto announced, back to Jack as he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his trousers.

            “Hey, hey, wait.” Jack’s arm circled round Ianto’s waist, tugging him around. With a sigh, Ianto turned and looked at Jack, who was staring up at with a small frown on his face. “What’s wrong?”

            Ianto gave him the look, the, I-can’t-believe-you-just-asked-that look. “What’s wrong, Jack? What’s wrong?!” Ianto ran a hand through his hair, eyes desperately darting around the room. “Well, let’s see, aside from being incapable of finding your arsehole in the middle of sex, there was the Weevil vomit, the pile of papers crashing down on my head, the curdled cream pastries, and the coffee that I wouldn’t even serve to a Londoner. I’m completely useless today: that’s what’s wrong, Jack.”

            Jack’s warm hand rubbed up and down Ianto’s lower back, and he sighed, relaxing just a single degree under the touch.

            “I’m sorry. I can’t do anything right today. I’m going to go.”

            “What day is it?” Jack asked suddenly, sitting up straight.

            “August thirteenth. Friday. Twenty-ten, if you needed that bit, too.” Ianto looked back and frowned at Jack as he spoke.

            “Aha!” Jack grabbed Ianto’s face in both hands, kissing him on the forehead. “Friday the thirteenth! Of course!”

            Ianto watched as Jack leapt up from the bed and scrambled to pull on his trousers. “Oh, come on now, Jack. You don’t honestly believe in that superstition, do you?”

            Jack grinned. “Nope! Come on!”

            Grudgingly, Ianto allowed Jack to drag him, the both of them only half-dressed, up the ladder and into the medical bay. Jack rummaged through Owen’s medical equipment for a moment before pulling out a funny-looking scanner triumphantly. “I do, however,” Jack started to wave the device over Ianto’s body, and Ianto forced himself to stand perfectly still. Wouldn’t do to be caught flinching. “I do believe in Malworms!”

            With a flourish, Jack spun the scanner around. It showed a fat, leech-like thing sticking out of Ianto’s back. A shudder went through Ianto’s body, but years of Torchwood experience had taught him to remain perfectly still in these sorts of scenarios. “Jack,” he gritted out, “Please, please get that thing off my back.”

            Jack waved a hand nonchalantly, then snatched Ianto’s hand. “Come on. I’ve got just the thing in my office.”

            Ianto didn’t even want to move with that thing protruding from his back, but he still followed Jack. “Jack,” he gritted out again as they started toward his office. “What is it?”

            “Oh, just a Malworm. They’re these invisible leech-worm things. They kind of latch on to people. Like a parasite!” Ianto wanted to punch Jack, hard, for managing to make the word “parasite” sound so cheery. “Normally they don’t do anything to the host. But, their planet and Earth have this weird little synchronized orbit with each other, that makes it so that they get some extra nutrients from their home world when the two line up. And just guess when they line up!”

            Ianto was standing very, very, very patiently in front of Jack’s desk as the man rummaged through his drawers, chattering away excitedly. “I would assume it’s every Friday the thirteenth.”

            “Exactly!” Jack pulled his fist out of a drawer, hand closed tightly around something. He sauntered over to Ianto, a glint in his eyes. “And, when that happens, they end up giving their hosts some bad luck!”

            “Fascinating.” Ianto was doing his best, his absolute best, to neither run around screaming and trying to rip the invisible leech from his back, nor punch Jack in the face. He only had so much self-control – one of those things was going to happen shortly. “Get rid of it?” he managed to ask through clenched teeth.

            With a wink, Jack opened his hand, to reveal a clover held tight between his thumb and forefinger. “Doesn’t have to be four-leaf, thank goodness,” he said. With a quick wave of the clover over Ianto’s back, Jack nodded. “There. Your little friend is gone.”

            Ianto sighed, sagging into Jack. “Bad luck over?”

            Jack wrapped his arms around Ianto and kissed him on the top of his head. “Bad luck over.” There was a pause, and then Jack was pulling away from Ianto, smiling down at him. “Care to try again? Third time’s the charm.”

            It was only Ianto’s gratitude for Jack removing the Malworm from his back that kept him from hitting him. Then he was following Jack down the ladder to his bunk, for a completely different reason than gratitude.