Title: C is for Coffee
By: stellaluna_
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jack is suffering through a hangover.

***

"Coffee, sir?"

The files that Martha sent over appear to have gotten stuck to his face somehow. Jack peels them off his skin and then peers blearily around the stack. He can't seem to see too well, but he thinks he can see Ianto standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest and looking down at him with what Jack would swear was blatant disapproval.

"Excuse me?" he says.

"Coffee," Ianto repeats. "I thought you could use some."

"I thought you Brits were all about the tea." Jack tries to sit up and then changes his mind. The couch isn't the most comfortable thing he's ever fallen asleep on -- it has springs that have a way of poking him in several highly delicate areas, and really, he needs to get a new one of these days; surely the Institute can spring for that much -- but it'll do for now. It's safer.

"We are," Ianto says, "when it's appropriate. Right now I'd suggest coffee."

"Why?"

"Would you like to try sitting up again?"

"No," Jack says, in a tone he hopes will cut off any further discussion.

"And why is that?" Ianto says. If only, Jack thinks, he had enough energy to throw something at him right now.

"Because," he says, and this time, he hopes Ianto will interrupt. When he doesn't after a few seconds, Jack goes on. "Because when I do, the room starts to spin. I think it might be possessed. Or maybe it's been taken over by fairies."

"There are no fairies," Ianto says. "And no demons, no aliens, and none of the gravity reducers or motion inducers have gotten loose and taken over. You might want to think about what you were doing last night."

"Oh, God." A brief impression of bright lights and a lot of screaming flashes through his mind. "I don't know," he says, after trying and failing to come up with any more concrete details. "I think someone must have given me retcon."

Ianto makes a strange sound that, if Jack didn't know better, he would swear was a snicker. "Try three boilermakers, one Guinness, and half of Gwen's margarita," he says. He crosses the room and leans over the end of the couch. "Which is why you need to get up and have some coffee."

Jack tries to give him a winning smile. "Are you sure I can't just stay here? You could stay with me, you know."

"Absolutely not, sir," Ianto says, and starts to drag him into a sitting position. "It would be too easy to take advantage of you right now, and there's no fun in that."

"Good man," Jack mutters, and then the room does something very bad and so does his head, and he shuts his eyes.

***