Title: Five go to the country
By: BellaGwen
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its characters belong to the BBC, not me. I'm just having some not-for-profit fun.
Note: This is a HappyJackIanto fic that was written when I was challenged to give them a happy fic after writing nothing but angst for them both up to now!
Summary: Captain Jack takes his crew on a survival course, post-Countrycide. It's a total disaster, well, unless you count for flirting.

***

Jack Harkness decided that his crew need some survival training. If they ever went out into the country again he knew they needed to be better prepared than the last time.

When he announced he had booked them all on a survival weekend, and it was not optional, there had been complaints. Not surprisingly from Owen ("Oh for heaven's sake, did we do not enough damage the last time?"). Toshiko had tried to be her usual enthusiastic self but he thought he heard her muttering with Gwen about 'mud getting everywhere.'

But it had bothered him that Ianto had accepted the news so quietly. With a shrug of his shoulders he did as he was told when jack sent him home for his best sweatsuit. ("I think you mean 'tracksuit.' Sir")

Jack had a faint feeling that as the boss he should have taken Ianto aside before now and had a 'clear the air chat' after the whole 'Lisa' fiasco but he didn't know what to say and he wasn't really the touchy feely type.

**********

The training course turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. On the first night Gwen and Owen went missing as soon as they arrived at the camp only to turn up at 1 a.m. giggling and telling each other very loudly to be quiet.

One look at their pale faces when they were called at 6am the next morning by a burly ex-marine and Jack decided that just getting through the day would be punishment enough for them. Still… there was another 'quiet word' he would have to have. Not that he minded the two of them getting it on but there was probably something a boss should say, keep it professional, yadda yadda.

Tosh really wasn't built for extreme survival, Jack thought as he watched her dangling ten feet above the ground on a pulley that should have swung her across the small river but had stopped half way across.

He tried not to laugh at her squeaks for help and he suspected she was quite enjoying being 'rescued' by the sexy female drill sergeant that Owen had observed earlier he wouldn't say no to a bit of 'extreme survival' with.

Gwen had elbowed him in the ribs for that.

Jack was rather enjoying their 'subtle' relationship. Maybe he'd say nothing. They brightened up the Hub.

Jack was brought back from his reverie by the sound of retching behind a nearby tree. He swore under his breath and pulled back a branch to investigate. "Gwen, get back to the camp," he ordered when he saw her doubled over, wiping her mouth.

"I'm fine, really I just need some water…."

"Go," he insisted, annoyed.

She meekly walked off through the trees.

"This is just great," Jack though watching as the drill sergeant finally paid Owen some attention on the other side of the river. She looked annoyed and was pointing on the direction of the camp, as he had been seconds before.

Not even half way through the morning and they were two 'men' down already. He was definitely going to say something when they got home to Cardiff.

It was worse by lunchtime. After getting stuck half way across the river three time Toshiko had finally given up and refused to do anything but sit in the jeep back at camp and beg Jack to let her go to a hotel.

**********

So it was that at lunch time an exasperated Jack and a surprisingly smart and unmuddy Ianto were the only two who sat down in the mess tent with their sandwiches.

Ianto was the first to speak.

"Not one of your better ideas, sir."

Jack opened his mouth to bark back an answer but stopped when he saw the bemused expression on Ianto's face.

"Are you laughing at me?"

Ianto's lips were pressed together as he tried not to smile.

"Well I'm glad one of you is enjoying this," Jack said bitterly.

Ianto finally broke into a wide smile. "Best fun I've had in ages, sir."

Jack couldn't help smiling back, even feel a little bit relieved. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen Ianto smile.

Maybe it was the sudden lightening of his mood, or maybe he was light-headed from the abseiling before lunch (yes he liked heights but falling from them… no) but Jack felt a sudden rush of affection for Ianto.

"Look," he nodded towards the door of the small canteen where he had spotted the drill sergeant from that morning with two lunch trays. Ianto raised an eyebrow and he watched out the window and saw her got to their jeep where a sulking Toshiko was still barricaded.

"Looks like someone made a friend, sir."

Jack actually barked out a laugh at Ianto's comment.

"Tell me, Ianto, how are you so bloody clean when the rest of us look like this?" he motioned to his muddy boots and splattered jeans.

'I know what I'm doing, sir."

Jack couldn't tell if Ianto was trying to be funny again until the Welshman smiled.

"Well you are full of surprises, Ianto," Jack said with a question in his voice.

"You never asked, sir."

"So tell me." Jack's face had his familiar eager expression.

Ianto seemed to consider the request. "I've done this before with… with some friends."

Jack was immediately sorry he'd asked when he saw the expression on Ianto's face. And they'd almost been having a good time.

Jack didn't have to think about it for long because the drill sergeant was back calling them onto the course.

There was still no sign of Owen or Gwen.

"What say we make this interesting, sir?"

Jack was surprised by Ianto. He'd lost count that had happened today.

"Not brave enough," Ianto grinned, interpreting Jack's silence as hesitation.

"Not at all, you're on," Jack grinned back.

Ianto laughed and for the first time Jack realised that he'd known the other man for years now but he'd never realised just how cute he really was when he smiled.

He put a hand on Ianto's arm to stop him walking. "OK. I finish this course first and you buy me dinner."

Ianto looked surprised but nodded. "Alright, sir. And if I finish first you have to make the coffee for a week."

"You call that winning?" Jack laughed, "Have you tasted my coffee?"


**********


"You bastard, you cheated," Jack protested, out of breath and covered in mud, as he fell over the finish line, long after Ianto.

He was met with Ianto's hand helping him up off the ground and a wide grin. "I didn't get lost, sir," Ianto teased.

Jack couldn't help admiring Ianto's arse in his jeans, as he walked off.

**********

And so it was that after only one day of their 'survival' course having proved that none of them, apart from Ianto, could actually survive an assault course, Jack took an executive decision and moved his battered and bruised crew to a hotel.

Tosh had almost cried with happiness; Owen had been even more colourful with his language than when he was told he had to go on the course and threatened to kiss Jack; Gwen was asleep in the back of the range rover and didn't know anything about the new plan until they pulled up at the hotel.

Only Ianto seemed disappointed. "I was enjoying myself with you, sir, I mean, our competition," he'd said grumpily when Jack told him.

The comment had left Jack staring after him in shock. Was Ianto 'flirting' with him?

**********

"OK. You were right. Not one of my better ideas," Jack admitted later as Ianto opened his hotel room door to him, that night.

Jack raised his eyebrows at the sight that greeted him. Ianto was standing there, fresh from the shower, his hair dripping and a small, white towel wrapped around his waist.

"I was going to suggest you take this, to settle out bet, for the sake of the other's," Jack waved a bottle of his favourite American bourbon. "But maybe I picked a bad time……" he glanced down at Ianto's towel and raised an eyebrow with a small smile.

Ianto stood back to let Jack into the room. "Perfect timing, sir," he gave Jack a funny look that the Captain couldn't quite interpret.

"I think you'll find I'm right about most things, sir," Jack heard Ianto say as the door closed behind them.

"Is that so?" Jack questioned back, bemused.

"Yes. It is. You should listen to me more often."

Right, Ianto was definitely flirting with him now, Jack decided. He caught himself smiling as he said: "If you appeared in my office looking like that," another glance at the towel, "I'd listen to anything you had to say."

He couldn't help admire the solid lines of Ianto legs, the hard stomach. He watched as a drop of water ran down Ianto's chest and disappeared behind the towel and he imagined his tongue tracing the same route.

"I'll bear that in mind, sir, next time the coffee machine breaks down and you want me to go out for your fix."

Jack laughed, but this time it was deeper, his seductive laugh. "Because that is exactly what we would be talking about if you were standing half naked in front of me."

"We are now," Ianto grinned. He was enjoying this.

Jack put the bourbon bottle, that was still in his hand, down on the room's writing desk. He realised he was staring at Ianto's body. "You're beautiful, you know that," he said softly, not joking now and wanting Ianto to know he meant what he was saying.

"Thank you, sir."

"Stop calling me sir."

"Jack."

He liked the way Ianto's soft accent said his name.

Jack wasn't even sure how but the two of them had moved closer as they'd been teasing. Now he was only inches from Ianto. He reached out his hand and traced a lined from his collarbone, stopping and resting on the knot of the soft towel.

"Uh-uh," Ianto scolded softly, taking Jack's hand in his own. " That would give you a distinct advantage," he pressed the hand to his lips, and smiled as Jack sucked in a breath at the touch.

Jack felt a shiver of arousal run down his spine.

"If I didn't know better, Jack, I'd say you only brought us away on this trip so you could have your wicked way with me," Ianto grinned, grazing his lips on the other man's ear, pressing them to his neck. His hands moved to the buttons on Jack's shirt.

"One of my better ideas then, after all?" a smiling Jack said as his shirt fell to the floor.

"No, one of my better ideas, sir," Ianto muttered as he kissed him.

***