Holland. Ianto takes a step closer to John to look at the photograph John holds out towards him. Recognizing one of the other man besides John, having -- well, not met him exactly, but -- seen him in John's memories the first few days they'd come down onto the planet. As he had lay dying on the sand before them. It sets a little pang in his chest, the bright expression on Holland's face in the picture, the look on John's.
He gives himself a moment to study the easy camaraderie between the little group of men photographed, their surroundings, their attire, since John has given him the opportunity to do so. He wonders whether the moment should mean anything to John in any way, or significant if only because it captures this friendship between them, as he glances up at the other man's face and comments, "He seems like quite the character."
He was, and even now John still feels the pain of loss. It may be buried deep, but John still misses Holland.
"That's -- Mitch, and Dex," he carries on, pointing them out in the photo. "They were, uh, killed outside Khabour. Chopper took an RPG when it touched down for med-evac."
Which is... a pretty definitive way to go. There was barely anything left to bring back for a military funeral. It's been so long since he's seen their faces and that he doesn't know how to feel, only that it's strange. Almost like a photo from another life, something that no longer feels real. Holland he's been reminded of recently, if unwillingly. This is a different sort of pain, a confusing, detached one.
Ianto studies at the faces of the men in the photograph and tries to connect them all with the ends he knows they met out there, in that desert. How it must feel for John to look at something like this and know that he was the only one to make it out of there alive. What were the odds of something like that, he wonders? How many other friends had he lost out there besides?
"I'm sorry," he says, which is probably the wrong thing to say, but he feels as though he should anyway. It feels a bit heartless not to, though he does his best to continue on to ask, "Did you all work together?" They certainly all served together, that much is obvious from the matching fatigues. But then again, Holland and John hadn't been in the helicopter when it went down. Ianto doesn't know enough about how the service works to understand it all.
They worked together. Flew together. He takes a deep breath, tilts his head for them to keep moving and stares blandly at the photo as he begins to walk. Carefully separating them he moves shuffles out the one underneath, picks it up and vaguely holds it out toward Ianto.
"That's Elizabeth I'm standing with. She was our original expedition leader. She was -- good. Not military, she was a diplomat. Smart, way smarter than me. Spoke a ton of languages, always had a level head on her. She cared."
Which was important to John. Atlantis was always a little more lax and human with its military regulations under Elizabeth, and that's the way he liked it.
Ianto steps up to walk beside him, reaching out to take the photograph from him to study it closer as John holds it out to him in turn. Their poses are easy together. Relaxed. Not that John isn't always sort of relaxed in some way, but this is his boss in the picture with him. Another 'good' person, in John's description. It's obvious from his words that he'd admired her. He tries not to think about the way he's speaking about her in the past tense and what it might mean for this Elizabeth in turn.
"All the best leaders do," Ianto replies. "Make you feel like you're worth something. Even on the lowest rung of the ladder." He glances aside at John, gently holding the photograph back to him. "Did you get along well?" He can only imagine what it must have been like, trying to keep him in line.
"We did. Didn't see eye to eye on everything, but -- we had the same priorities."
Keeping people safe. He takes the photo back and slides it into the stack, wets his lips uneasily as he thinks.
"Maybe we should get that drink," he prompts finally, because all these photos -- they feel like they belong in the same drink-requiring-territory as... everything else on their minds. Everything else unspoken, temporarily boxed up until the right team to set it free.
"I would hardly say no," he replies, glancing at his watch. It's not that early anymore anyway. They'd been at the second ship for a while, and now with the new discovery of these photographs... He feels like they both really do need it, in one way or another. He'd certainly prefer it himself, to be able to sit down and share these stories over a pint rather than out here in the open as they make their way down the street.
"Tell you what," he says, after a moment, sensing that John probably would like the spotlight switched off of himself for a while yet again. "You buy me a drink and I can tell you about my old boss, yeah?" Another one of the photographs in his stack, but probably the least painful loss of all of them. They'd never really been what Ianto might have called close. Maybe some of the decisions she'd made might even horrify the other man. But it would give him the chance to catch a break, for a few minutes at least.
John squints at Ianto in thought a moment, then glances out into the snow as they walk -- tucking the photos back into his jacket again.
"Something we can take back?" he prompts, because he's... not really into the idea of having heavy conversations in public. Not after his more recent track record of handling things in public. Maybe that's weird, but he's given up worrying about if what he says is weird for now. "Can grab something to eat too."
Ianto raises his eyebrows at the suggestion slightly -- he hadn't initially assumed that they would be taking it back with them, no. But it's not like he's got a problem with that. And John's sure to have a reason for suggesting it. Perhaps it really does bother him, talking about these photographs. A part of him wants to point out that he doesn't have to. But if he'll be more comfortable back at their room, he'll hardly argue otherwise.
"Yeah, alright," he agrees. "It's been a while since that porridge anyway." He shuffles through his own set of photographs before tucking them away as well. "A warm sandwich sounds pretty good, now that you've got me thinking about it. Do you suppose they'll have anything recognizable?"
"Porridge was kind of recognisable, so I figure why not?"
He spends the rest of the trudge back idly speculating on what they might have. Fish, he thinks, ice fishing is a thing. Lots of preserved meat. Smoked things. The more he talks about it, the hungrier he gets -- so when they finally get back to Central John is glad of both the warmth once more and the food. He picks up a thick, salty soup he can carry in a cup and some bread -- swipes a few bottles of alcohol and takes it back toward their room. Shouldering his way in John sets the soup and bottles on a side table, drops the wrapped bread onto the bed and begins shrugging off his jacket. The photos splay across the bed beside it as he dumps them out-- John, Mitch, Dex and Holland in their desert gear, Elizabeth and John by the balcony, John standing with two different people on a different balcony, a more harried scene indoors, and a small gathering in some kind of cell with a creature dressed in a way that distantly evokes 90's goth.
John moves to hang up his jacket, then ducks into the bathroom to quickly wash his hands and face a little. To generally clean up and warm up.
"So," he begins idly, "when you say your boss, are we talking about that guy or before that?"
Ianto winds up with something that is essentially fried fish sandwich (he really had wanted that sandwich) and a cup of dense, creamy soup he suspects might be Nadril's equivalent to a chowder. He's seeing a lot of fish for them in their future here, but he doesn't really mind. So long as they're not serving him anything fermented. He's got a fairly adventurous palate, but he's not going to go that far.
Shrugging out of his jacket and boots, he untucks his own set of photographs and sets them down as well. Moving to sit cross-legged on the bed and playing with his sandwich as he tries not to let himself look over John's things without the other man in the room. 'That guy', John says, and Ianto can't help but feel a little amused to hear him refer to Jack in such a way as that.
"Before that," he replies, turning to glance at the bathroom door over his shoulder. "My boss at Torchwood London. Yvonne Hartman." He turns to glance down at his hands, moving to shuffle back to the photograph of the pair of them in her glass-walled office at the top of Torchwood tower. God, had she always really shown off quite that much cleavage?
Ducking out the bathroom again John scrubs his face with a towel, pauses by the bed to peer over Ianto's shoulder at the woman in the photo more closely before stepping away again.
London. That rings a bell. When Torchwood London fell, after the smoke cleared, it was like. They forgot about us. So she's probably not alive anymore either. So many photos of dead people.
"She looks fun," John offers, and sets his towel back with his things -- moves to sit on the edge of the bed and begin unlacing his shoes. "More fun than the last boss I had. Richard Woolsey. Liked to try and do everything by the book, but we wore him down."
Ianto glances up at John over his shoulder before back down at Yvonne in the photograph.
"She was a bit, I suppose," he replies, surprising himself. "I thought she was pretty brilliant at the time. She gave me a job. Promoted me up through the ranks to her personal assistant in only a few months' time. And she changed the whole atmosphere of Torchwood from how it used to be anyway."
"Queen Victoria didn't much care for the well-being of the nice aliens when she established the agency, you see. At least Yvonne..." Ianto makes something of a face, recalling all of the mishaps that had happened under the woman's command. How many people they'd lost. How it had all worked out, in the end. "At least she tried," he finishes, with a bit of a wince, before setting the photograph aside and reaching for his sandwich.
John sets aside his shoes and grabs his cup of soup -- takes a sip and turns sideways on the bed, one leg drawn up a little so he can study Ianto's expression more easily.
"Personal assistant, though? You know, that explains why you're so organised."
What with the fussing about cleaning things and cooking and laundry. He wonders, idly, if this means Ianto is more Moneypenny than a bond girl.
He flashes the other man the quirk of a smile, picking up his sandwich to take a bite of it before he replies.
"Well, I think the fact that I'm organized is more what made me such a good PA," he points out. "Though I did learn a lot. It was a different sort of a job there, from Torchwood Three. I had..." He shrugs slightly, trying to put the idea to words before admitting, "More responsibility, I suppose? There were other teams to handle the worst of the crisis -- usually, anyway. Security, Acquisitions, Research, a proper HR department, you know? We had hundreds of employees, and she was their leader. And I was her right hand man."
He smiles at the sandwich in his hands before continuing, "Of course, then parts of the job were just like any sort of PA sort of affair. Making coffee for Yvonne, checking supplies, doing paperwork, seeing that there were enough biscuits for staff meetings, fielding her phone calls..." He huffs out a laugh, glancing aside at John as he says, "She used to have lunch with the Queen, you know. Liz, she called her. First name basis with the Queen." He shakes his head.
First name basis with the queen! That definitely... sounds impressive?
"Does that mean you've made coffee for the queen?" he prompts, before taking another sip of soup. The mental image of Ianto fussing over how good old Liz likes her coffee is an amusing one, although somehow he suspects she might pass on coffee made by the PA. Torchwood London sounds bigger than he thought, though. HR department, Research, Security? Was the one he worked in afterwards as big? Maybe just the London office. Or maybe after the London office was lost, everything shrank.
Ianto shakes his head again, though he offers the other man another smile. Grateful for the question and the -- interest? At least it makes him feel like John's interested and that he's not just spouting random facts about his former life at him like some sad sack. John knows that he lost it all after all, when Torchwood fell.
"I doubt it," he replies. "They were always offsite and Yvonne wasn't really the sort to pack a thermos." He takes another bite of his sandwich, glancing down at it in his hands, thinking back on his time there, all the people he'd worked with. Pippa, Tommy, Dan, Dean, Kieran. Lisa and Rachel. Some of them had lasted longer than others. Some of them hadn't even made it to the Battle, as they called it.
"Everyone else couldn't get enough, though," he continues, flicking the other man another smile. "Interrupting the actual work I was doing most of the time. I'd be in the middle of trying to negotiate a mass public Retcon situation in the center of London and up comes a member of the team, Ianto, be a dear..." Okay, so that line had mostly been Pippa's, but they each had their own version they used.
Mass public retcon. What's a retcon, when it's at home? His best guess would be some kind of clean up, like the IOA Field Operations Division, maybe trying to cover up evidence. Still.
"It didn't bother you?" he prompts, studying Ianto's expression thoughtfully. "Being the 'teaboy'?"
He remembers someone yelling that at him, months back in his memories. In the memory with the cyberwoman who wasn't a replicator, the one that neatly saved him having to think more about Holland or Atlantis. Maybe it's fitting the photographs are circling them all back through all of that again together.
"A little, I suppose," he answers honestly. "I did have a job, and it wasn't to make coffee. But I supposed it helped me get to know them all better. You know, the water cooler effect. People will say just about anything while they're standing about, waiting for you to serve them. I think that's why Yvonne hired me, really."
He glances up at John again, this time his smile a little self-deprecating as he continues, "I mean. No one would suspect that I worked for a top secret organization. Little Welsh valley's boy, so sweet, dressed in a nice suit, making the coffee. I think she enjoyed the way that they underestimated me. While everyone painted a target on her back they would leave me alone to find a way to dig her out again."
"I get the feeling that a Welsh Valley Boy is pretty different to an American Valley girl."
Stereotype-wise. John switches the cup of soup to his other hand so he can lean in closer, putting his weight on a hand just behind Ianto so their sides touch.
"Anyway, whoever mistook you for sweet?"
His lips twitch playfully, and John takes a nonchalant sip of his soup.
Ianto throws him a glance out of the corner of his eye and leans in to give him a playful shove with his shoulder. Not too hard though -- he wouldn't want him to spill his soup, this is his bed too after all.
"Excuse you, I can be sweet when I want to be," he replies, offering John a little mischievous smirk in turn. "All I need to do is just bat my eyes and offer them a pretty smile. 'Of course, ma'am. It's no trouble at all, sir. With pleasure.'"
He may not be a classically handsome man like Jack, but he knows how to flaunt the charms that he does have.
John drawls out the words deliberately, matching Ianto's smirk with an idly amused one of his own, then he turns to frown down at the pile of scattered photos he'd dropped onto the sheets. He picks one up, turns and holds it out to Ianto -- waiting for him to take it before gesturing with one finger.
"That's Ronon and Teyla -- and, uh," he frowns, sifts through the others to pick up another. "That's McKay there."
Since they're doing the sharing thing, and he figures he should keep it even.
He raises an eyebrow at the other man because, well, he had used the words on purpose. Pleased that John rises to the occasion to poke at them as well.
He reaches out to take the photograph from the other man, leaning over to watch as he gestures at the people in it. Quietly committing their faces to memory as he does. Something he's always been good at, remembering, memorization. Ronon, Teyla, and Rodney McKay in the second photograph as well. He's heard something about them all, and seen Teyla floating in her stasis pod when they'd first met (he remembers where that is too), but seeing them like this is something else entirely.
The attitude of the second photograph gives him a moment of pause and he turns it to face the other man with a questioning look. "You're all looking rather harried here," he comments, mildly.
"Yeah, that's kinda a Thursday sort of situation. Though in that specific one I think our drive had just burned out mid flight which was a little inconvenient."
You know. Since they hadn't made it to their final destination yet. In their flying city-ship. It's generally preferable to have your drive working all the way, not to end up stranded and anxious as you wonder how long you can continue floating in the middle of nowhere.
"McKay always looks a little stressed, though."
Probably because he's always in the company of your resident suicidal maniac, John Sheppard and his brilliant plans.
Ianto winces, turning the photograph back towards himself to study the scene again. The drive had just burned out mid flight. He can only imagine how stressed he might look in such a situation himself.
"Not the best of days, then," he comments. Studying the more harried scene with McKay, before switching back to the other photograph of John and Ronon and Teyla again. He has to wonder what it is that John is talking about, but knowing John it could be pretty much anything.
"You're all pretty close, then?" he asks. As nonchalant as he can. Refusing to use the past tense -- they're not dead, they're only in the stasis pods after all. There's every chance they'll wake up here sooner or later.
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He gives himself a moment to study the easy camaraderie between the little group of men photographed, their surroundings, their attire, since John has given him the opportunity to do so. He wonders whether the moment should mean anything to John in any way, or significant if only because it captures this friendship between them, as he glances up at the other man's face and comments, "He seems like quite the character."
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He was, and even now John still feels the pain of loss. It may be buried deep, but John still misses Holland.
"That's -- Mitch, and Dex," he carries on, pointing them out in the photo. "They were, uh, killed outside Khabour. Chopper took an RPG when it touched down for med-evac."
Which is... a pretty definitive way to go. There was barely anything left to bring back for a military funeral. It's been so long since he's seen their faces and that he doesn't know how to feel, only that it's strange. Almost like a photo from another life, something that no longer feels real. Holland he's been reminded of recently, if unwillingly. This is a different sort of pain, a confusing, detached one.
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"I'm sorry," he says, which is probably the wrong thing to say, but he feels as though he should anyway. It feels a bit heartless not to, though he does his best to continue on to ask, "Did you all work together?" They certainly all served together, that much is obvious from the matching fatigues. But then again, Holland and John hadn't been in the helicopter when it went down. Ianto doesn't know enough about how the service works to understand it all.
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They worked together. Flew together. He takes a deep breath, tilts his head for them to keep moving and stares blandly at the photo as he begins to walk. Carefully separating them he moves shuffles out the one underneath, picks it up and vaguely holds it out toward Ianto.
"That's Elizabeth I'm standing with. She was our original expedition leader. She was -- good. Not military, she was a diplomat. Smart, way smarter than me. Spoke a ton of languages, always had a level head on her. She cared."
Which was important to John. Atlantis was always a little more lax and human with its military regulations under Elizabeth, and that's the way he liked it.
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"All the best leaders do," Ianto replies. "Make you feel like you're worth something. Even on the lowest rung of the ladder." He glances aside at John, gently holding the photograph back to him. "Did you get along well?" He can only imagine what it must have been like, trying to keep him in line.
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Keeping people safe. He takes the photo back and slides it into the stack, wets his lips uneasily as he thinks.
"Maybe we should get that drink," he prompts finally, because all these photos -- they feel like they belong in the same drink-requiring-territory as... everything else on their minds. Everything else unspoken, temporarily boxed up until the right team to set it free.
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"Tell you what," he says, after a moment, sensing that John probably would like the spotlight switched off of himself for a while yet again. "You buy me a drink and I can tell you about my old boss, yeah?" Another one of the photographs in his stack, but probably the least painful loss of all of them. They'd never really been what Ianto might have called close. Maybe some of the decisions she'd made might even horrify the other man. But it would give him the chance to catch a break, for a few minutes at least.
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"Something we can take back?" he prompts, because he's... not really into the idea of having heavy conversations in public. Not after his more recent track record of handling things in public. Maybe that's weird, but he's given up worrying about if what he says is weird for now. "Can grab something to eat too."
You know. To help soak up the alcohol.
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"Yeah, alright," he agrees. "It's been a while since that porridge anyway." He shuffles through his own set of photographs before tucking them away as well. "A warm sandwich sounds pretty good, now that you've got me thinking about it. Do you suppose they'll have anything recognizable?"
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He spends the rest of the trudge back idly speculating on what they might have. Fish, he thinks, ice fishing is a thing. Lots of preserved meat. Smoked things. The more he talks about it, the hungrier he gets -- so when they finally get back to Central John is glad of both the warmth once more and the food. He picks up a thick, salty soup he can carry in a cup and some bread -- swipes a few bottles of alcohol and takes it back toward their room. Shouldering his way in John sets the soup and bottles on a side table, drops the wrapped bread onto the bed and begins shrugging off his jacket. The photos splay across the bed beside it as he dumps them out-- John, Mitch, Dex and Holland in their desert gear, Elizabeth and John by the balcony, John standing with two different people on a different balcony, a more harried scene indoors, and a small gathering in some kind of cell with a creature dressed in a way that distantly evokes 90's goth.
John moves to hang up his jacket, then ducks into the bathroom to quickly wash his hands and face a little. To generally clean up and warm up.
"So," he begins idly, "when you say your boss, are we talking about that guy or before that?"
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Shrugging out of his jacket and boots, he untucks his own set of photographs and sets them down as well. Moving to sit cross-legged on the bed and playing with his sandwich as he tries not to let himself look over John's things without the other man in the room. 'That guy', John says, and Ianto can't help but feel a little amused to hear him refer to Jack in such a way as that.
"Before that," he replies, turning to glance at the bathroom door over his shoulder. "My boss at Torchwood London. Yvonne Hartman." He turns to glance down at his hands, moving to shuffle back to the photograph of the pair of them in her glass-walled office at the top of Torchwood tower. God, had she always really shown off quite that much cleavage?
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London. That rings a bell. When Torchwood London fell, after the smoke cleared, it was like. They forgot about us. So she's probably not alive anymore either. So many photos of dead people.
"She looks fun," John offers, and sets his towel back with his things -- moves to sit on the edge of the bed and begin unlacing his shoes. "More fun than the last boss I had. Richard Woolsey. Liked to try and do everything by the book, but we wore him down."
Or maybe Atlantis as a whole just wore him down.
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"She was a bit, I suppose," he replies, surprising himself. "I thought she was pretty brilliant at the time. She gave me a job. Promoted me up through the ranks to her personal assistant in only a few months' time. And she changed the whole atmosphere of Torchwood from how it used to be anyway."
"Queen Victoria didn't much care for the well-being of the nice aliens when she established the agency, you see. At least Yvonne..." Ianto makes something of a face, recalling all of the mishaps that had happened under the woman's command. How many people they'd lost. How it had all worked out, in the end. "At least she tried," he finishes, with a bit of a wince, before setting the photograph aside and reaching for his sandwich.
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John sets aside his shoes and grabs his cup of soup -- takes a sip and turns sideways on the bed, one leg drawn up a little so he can study Ianto's expression more easily.
"Personal assistant, though? You know, that explains why you're so organised."
What with the fussing about cleaning things and cooking and laundry. He wonders, idly, if this means Ianto is more Moneypenny than a bond girl.
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"Well, I think the fact that I'm organized is more what made me such a good PA," he points out. "Though I did learn a lot. It was a different sort of a job there, from Torchwood Three. I had..." He shrugs slightly, trying to put the idea to words before admitting, "More responsibility, I suppose? There were other teams to handle the worst of the crisis -- usually, anyway. Security, Acquisitions, Research, a proper HR department, you know? We had hundreds of employees, and she was their leader. And I was her right hand man."
He smiles at the sandwich in his hands before continuing, "Of course, then parts of the job were just like any sort of PA sort of affair. Making coffee for Yvonne, checking supplies, doing paperwork, seeing that there were enough biscuits for staff meetings, fielding her phone calls..." He huffs out a laugh, glancing aside at John as he says, "She used to have lunch with the Queen, you know. Liz, she called her. First name basis with the Queen." He shakes his head.
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"Does that mean you've made coffee for the queen?" he prompts, before taking another sip of soup. The mental image of Ianto fussing over how good old Liz likes her coffee is an amusing one, although somehow he suspects she might pass on coffee made by the PA. Torchwood London sounds bigger than he thought, though. HR department, Research, Security? Was the one he worked in afterwards as big? Maybe just the London office. Or maybe after the London office was lost, everything shrank.
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"I doubt it," he replies. "They were always offsite and Yvonne wasn't really the sort to pack a thermos." He takes another bite of his sandwich, glancing down at it in his hands, thinking back on his time there, all the people he'd worked with. Pippa, Tommy, Dan, Dean, Kieran. Lisa and Rachel. Some of them had lasted longer than others. Some of them hadn't even made it to the Battle, as they called it.
"Everyone else couldn't get enough, though," he continues, flicking the other man another smile. "Interrupting the actual work I was doing most of the time. I'd be in the middle of trying to negotiate a mass public Retcon situation in the center of London and up comes a member of the team, Ianto, be a dear..." Okay, so that line had mostly been Pippa's, but they each had their own version they used.
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"It didn't bother you?" he prompts, studying Ianto's expression thoughtfully. "Being the 'teaboy'?"
He remembers someone yelling that at him, months back in his memories. In the memory with the cyberwoman who wasn't a replicator, the one that neatly saved him having to think more about Holland or Atlantis. Maybe it's fitting the photographs are circling them all back through all of that again together.
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"A little, I suppose," he answers honestly. "I did have a job, and it wasn't to make coffee. But I supposed it helped me get to know them all better. You know, the water cooler effect. People will say just about anything while they're standing about, waiting for you to serve them. I think that's why Yvonne hired me, really."
He glances up at John again, this time his smile a little self-deprecating as he continues, "I mean. No one would suspect that I worked for a top secret organization. Little Welsh valley's boy, so sweet, dressed in a nice suit, making the coffee. I think she enjoyed the way that they underestimated me. While everyone painted a target on her back they would leave me alone to find a way to dig her out again."
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"I get the feeling that a Welsh Valley Boy is pretty different to an American Valley girl."
Stereotype-wise. John switches the cup of soup to his other hand so he can lean in closer, putting his weight on a hand just behind Ianto so their sides touch.
"Anyway, whoever mistook you for sweet?"
His lips twitch playfully, and John takes a nonchalant sip of his soup.
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"Excuse you, I can be sweet when I want to be," he replies, offering John a little mischievous smirk in turn. "All I need to do is just bat my eyes and offer them a pretty smile. 'Of course, ma'am. It's no trouble at all, sir. With pleasure.'"
He may not be a classically handsome man like Jack, but he knows how to flaunt the charms that he does have.
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John drawls out the words deliberately, matching Ianto's smirk with an idly amused one of his own, then he turns to frown down at the pile of scattered photos he'd dropped onto the sheets. He picks one up, turns and holds it out to Ianto -- waiting for him to take it before gesturing with one finger.
"That's Ronon and Teyla -- and, uh," he frowns, sifts through the others to pick up another. "That's McKay there."
Since they're doing the sharing thing, and he figures he should keep it even.
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He reaches out to take the photograph from the other man, leaning over to watch as he gestures at the people in it. Quietly committing their faces to memory as he does. Something he's always been good at, remembering, memorization. Ronon, Teyla, and Rodney McKay in the second photograph as well. He's heard something about them all, and seen Teyla floating in her stasis pod when they'd first met (he remembers where that is too), but seeing them like this is something else entirely.
The attitude of the second photograph gives him a moment of pause and he turns it to face the other man with a questioning look. "You're all looking rather harried here," he comments, mildly.
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You know. Since they hadn't made it to their final destination yet. In their flying city-ship. It's generally preferable to have your drive working all the way, not to end up stranded and anxious as you wonder how long you can continue floating in the middle of nowhere.
"McKay always looks a little stressed, though."
Probably because he's always in the company of your resident suicidal maniac, John Sheppard and his brilliant plans.
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"Not the best of days, then," he comments. Studying the more harried scene with McKay, before switching back to the other photograph of John and Ronon and Teyla again. He has to wonder what it is that John is talking about, but knowing John it could be pretty much anything.
"You're all pretty close, then?" he asks. As nonchalant as he can. Refusing to use the past tense -- they're not dead, they're only in the stasis pods after all. There's every chance they'll wake up here sooner or later.
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