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.
"Yeah, I mean they were all on my team but we also -- you know, hung out when we weren't on a mission too. We all lived in Atlantis, so... I mean it was a job but it was also home."
He's pretty sure it was home for all of them, not just him. Atlantis was special like that. It had a sense of peace, something that made the wide mix of people who worked and lived there all come together and fight for it. It's the first place John ever felt like he belonged. Maybe the last place he ever will fill like he belongs.
He watches the other man during the explanation. They all lived on Atlantis. It was their home, and they were his team, but it was more than that.
"They're your family," he hazards aloud. His found family. He remembers thinking it before, but the more he learns about John the more he sees it. It's part of the reason why John's so protective of even just the basest of facts about them. Ianto's grateful that he is sharing though. That he's been allowed a view into John's private world, as it were.
Ianto takes this photo in turn, regarding the figures captured in the image. Sam. John hasn't mentioned Sam before, he wonders whether that's significant or whether that's just John being John again.
"Do they have a name?" he asks, glancing up to raise an eyebrow at the other man as he does. "I mean. You don't always call them 'goth buddies', do you?" That is, he's pretty sure he can envision John referring to them like that, but he's fairly certain that his team might have a more official way of referring to them than that.
"They're known as 'The Wraith', for... I think pretty self-explanatory reasons. Do a creepy thing where they can get in your head and mess with you too, and they have... hand things."
He gestures vaguely with one, drawing a line down the middle of it.
"Don't shake hands with them if they try. Anyway, that one's Todd. Reminded me of a guy I knew in high school, very pale."
John takes another sip of his soup, then sets it aside and begins rummaging for the bottle of alcohol he picked up.
"Todd," Ianto echoes, glancing down at the creature in the photograph again. "Todd the Wraith." He's not going to ask about the 'hand things', he just shakes his head and sets the photograph down next to the rest of the pile before picking up his sandwich to take another bite.
"Todd the Wraith and Janet the Weevil," he muses aloud. "You and Jack both, naming the aliens." He flicks a rueful smile at the stack of photographs, before plucking his last two out as well, setting them on the bed before him.
"You know the team," he says, indicating their camping photograph. "Gwen, Toshiko, and Owen." He gestures to the other photograph. "And Jack." And Suzie, he supposes, but he's not certain that he really wants to go over that just now. Her betrayal. Putting her in cold storage. How they'll all end up there, eventually. That's how it was supposed to work, anyway, before this place had happened.
"Yeah," John says, eyes skimming across the two photos. It's difficult to get a sense of dynamic from them, other than Ianto and Jack seeming to be more casually comfortable with each other in the second than... Well, than they had been when the guy held a gun on Ianto.
"That a work trip or a team holiday?" he prompts, gesturing to the camping photo. He takes a swig from the bottle now he's opened it and holds it out to Ianto questioningly. It has the air of something strong that isn't designed to be drunk straight from the bottle unless you're drowning a problem.
Ianto quirks his eyebrows slightly at the other man's offer, before taking the bottle from him and knocking back a swig of his own. It's definitely. Strong, he'll say that much. But Ianto's a grown man. It's not the first time he's drank such an alcohol straight from the bottle either.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before resting the bottle on his knee. "I think it was supposed to be a bit of both," he admits. "My first field mission with the team. My first real mission at all since Lisa. And then of course I was kidnapped by cannibals." On second thought, he takes another swig from the bottle before holding it back out towards the other man.
Right. There he was assuming it was a better photo to ask about than the one with a dead body in it. That'll show him. He winces sympathetically and takes the bottle back. Cannibals. John has seen a lot of weird things but the idea of cannibals still makes his skin crawl a little.
"But you made it out," he prompts as he takes the bottle, "and -- I mean the initial camping bit looks fun?"
Was it fun? Has he just stepped on another landmine? He takes a sip of the alcohol to brace himself just in case.
"I made it out," Ianto confirms. He'd been rescued, he doesn't specify, because that makes it sound a bit sad, but he'd definitely made it out. A little the worse for wear, since they'd tenderized him a bit first (their words, not his), but he'd certainly made it out.
"And the camping was..." He moves to pick at his sandwich for a moment, wincing a little himself. "I mean, it was alright. They were enjoying themselves. In a fashion." He flicks a smile at the other man." You think I complain, Owen couldn't even figure out how to put his tent together, and he -- apparently hates the smell of grass. Tosh was convinced we were going to catch hepatitis from the place we stopped to eat." His smile turns a little bitter as he looks down at his sandwich. "And Gwen thought it would be fun to play 'Who's the last person you snogged', to lighten the mood..."
Ah. His first mission since Lisa and they played 'who's the last person you snogged'? It all sounds painfully awkward.
"Sounds like some of my reconnaissance missions. McKay likes to keep a running tally of his lifetime radiation exposure and tell us all about it."
Which makes for cheerful commentary. John has found, though, that McKay's background chatter is a good sign. It's bad when he goes quiet. Ianto seems to be similar in that.
Ianto shakes his head at the thought of it. "Sounds like delightful company," he replies.
He picks at his sandwich a bit more. He's not sure that he really wants to talk about being miserable about Lisa with John either, even if it's true that he was, at the time. That he does miss her and mourns her loss. But he knows she's gone now, and he knows that he lost her at Canary Wharf, not in the basement of the Torchwood Hub. He's pretty certain he'd always known that, it'd just taken him time to recognize it at last.
"It was a while before they let me out on field duty again after that," he continues instead. "I get the feeling that Jack felt a bit responsible for what had happened, how it all turned out. And I did have a concussion to get over too, I suppose."
He takes another sip from the bottle before holding it out to Ianto, waiting for him to take it before reaching to rub the back of the other man's neck slowly. A gentle reassurance that he's there, that he understands these aren't pleasant memories.
John doesn’t even know the half of it. Doesn’t understand how far Ianto had fallen after that, and Ianto’s not really keen on telling him that part either. Not unless it becomes relevant in some way. But he does appreciate the support John offers, even so. Even without knowing the rest.
“Yeah,” he says, taking the bottle from the other man and knocking back another healthy swig, leaning into the touch of John’s hand a little after he does. “They beat me over the head with a baseball bat,” he offers, with a wince of memory. “Well, they beat me in general with the bat, but it was hitting me in the head that did me in.” He glances aside at the other man, flicking him the hint of a smile. “I headbutted him in the face so that Toshiko could escape to get help. I don’t think he quite approved...”
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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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He's pretty sure it was home for all of them, not just him. Atlantis was special like that. It had a sense of peace, something that made the wide mix of people who worked and lived there all come together and fight for it. It's the first place John ever felt like he belonged. Maybe the last place he ever will fill like he belongs.
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"They're your family," he hazards aloud. His found family. He remembers thinking it before, but the more he learns about John the more he sees it. It's part of the reason why John's so protective of even just the basest of facts about them. Ianto's grateful that he is sharing though. That he's been allowed a view into John's private world, as it were.
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Are. Were. He presses his lips together unhappily, then grabs up the other photo to hold out to Ianto.
"That's Sam," he says, pointing out the blond woman standing beside him. "And one of our pale goth buddies."
Who evokes the kind of person you might see at a concert, if concerts invited people with strange, shiny face prosthetics on the norm. Or aliens.
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"Do they have a name?" he asks, glancing up to raise an eyebrow at the other man as he does. "I mean. You don't always call them 'goth buddies', do you?" That is, he's pretty sure he can envision John referring to them like that, but he's fairly certain that his team might have a more official way of referring to them than that.
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He gestures vaguely with one, drawing a line down the middle of it.
"Don't shake hands with them if they try. Anyway, that one's Todd. Reminded me of a guy I knew in high school, very pale."
John takes another sip of his soup, then sets it aside and begins rummaging for the bottle of alcohol he picked up.
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"Todd the Wraith and Janet the Weevil," he muses aloud. "You and Jack both, naming the aliens." He flicks a rueful smile at the stack of photographs, before plucking his last two out as well, setting them on the bed before him.
"You know the team," he says, indicating their camping photograph. "Gwen, Toshiko, and Owen." He gestures to the other photograph. "And Jack." And Suzie, he supposes, but he's not certain that he really wants to go over that just now. Her betrayal. Putting her in cold storage. How they'll all end up there, eventually. That's how it was supposed to work, anyway, before this place had happened.
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"That a work trip or a team holiday?" he prompts, gesturing to the camping photo. He takes a swig from the bottle now he's opened it and holds it out to Ianto questioningly. It has the air of something strong that isn't designed to be drunk straight from the bottle unless you're drowning a problem.
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He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before resting the bottle on his knee. "I think it was supposed to be a bit of both," he admits. "My first field mission with the team. My first real mission at all since Lisa. And then of course I was kidnapped by cannibals." On second thought, he takes another swig from the bottle before holding it back out towards the other man.
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"But you made it out," he prompts as he takes the bottle, "and -- I mean the initial camping bit looks fun?"
Was it fun? Has he just stepped on another landmine? He takes a sip of the alcohol to brace himself just in case.
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"And the camping was..." He moves to pick at his sandwich for a moment, wincing a little himself. "I mean, it was alright. They were enjoying themselves. In a fashion." He flicks a smile at the other man." You think I complain, Owen couldn't even figure out how to put his tent together, and he -- apparently hates the smell of grass. Tosh was convinced we were going to catch hepatitis from the place we stopped to eat." His smile turns a little bitter as he looks down at his sandwich. "And Gwen thought it would be fun to play 'Who's the last person you snogged', to lighten the mood..."
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"Sounds like some of my reconnaissance missions. McKay likes to keep a running tally of his lifetime radiation exposure and tell us all about it."
Which makes for cheerful commentary. John has found, though, that McKay's background chatter is a good sign. It's bad when he goes quiet. Ianto seems to be similar in that.
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He picks at his sandwich a bit more. He's not sure that he really wants to talk about being miserable about Lisa with John either, even if it's true that he was, at the time. That he does miss her and mourns her loss. But he knows she's gone now, and he knows that he lost her at Canary Wharf, not in the basement of the Torchwood Hub. He's pretty certain he'd always known that, it'd just taken him time to recognize it at last.
"It was a while before they let me out on field duty again after that," he continues instead. "I get the feeling that Jack felt a bit responsible for what had happened, how it all turned out. And I did have a concussion to get over too, I suppose."
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He takes another sip from the bottle before holding it out to Ianto, waiting for him to take it before reaching to rub the back of the other man's neck slowly. A gentle reassurance that he's there, that he understands these aren't pleasant memories.
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“Yeah,” he says, taking the bottle from the other man and knocking back another healthy swig, leaning into the touch of John’s hand a little after he does. “They beat me over the head with a baseball bat,” he offers, with a wince of memory. “Well, they beat me in general with the bat, but it was hitting me in the head that did me in.” He glances aside at the other man, flicking him the hint of a smile. “I headbutted him in the face so that Toshiko could escape to get help. I don’t think he quite approved...”
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