tampered | Log: Ongoing

Log: Ongoing

When; Monday afternoon
Rating; PG-13 (Language maybe?)
Characters; Anthony Rutherford

coffeenspeed and Captain Jack Harkness

handsomejack
Summary; Poor Anthony
Log;

As promised, Jack was waiting at the cafe for Anthony to arrive. He'd already set them up with a table and was eying the menu himself, feeling a bit peckish.

He'd been sure that something had been wrong with the younger man for a couple of weeks now but there was little chance that Jack could have ever guessed just what was preying on Anthony's mind. In fact the Captain was preparing himself for concerns ranging from Anthony wanting to go to the Underground, to maybe some girl trouble, as Anthony was of the age.

The actual truth? That was not even something Jack considered.

It should make for an interesting lunch!

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He did not want to do it. But his current problem was eating at him and he was a bit lost. Worst of all everybody, including his mother, insisted that he should talk to Jack. He didn't want to. He had no idea how to do it. Talking to people was not his strongest skill. He might've managed to make friends and talk to complete strangers over the Network, but other than that... Not so much.

He was late. Obviously. The Captain said thirty minutes, it took Anthony a bit more than that to get to the cafe. He didn't exactly hurry there. But when he finally arrived, he immediately noticed the Captain. He winced mentally, regretting the fact that it wasn't a table in the back, his favorite type of tables really.

He took a deep breath and walked up to the Captain and waved with resignation. "Hi," he greeted the other man and stood there awkwardly for a second or two. Realizing he looks like an idiot, he sat down. Shoot him now. Please.

"Hi, Anthony." Jack said with a friendly smile.

He was starting to look concerned when the younger man hesitated and an eyebrow arched upwards when Anthony eventually took his seat.

"Thank you for joining me, are you hungry?"

Jack waved over the waitress he'd been flirting with while waiting for Anthony to arrive. She brought over the coffee pot and a pretty smile.

Anthony shrugged. "Not really," he answered truthfully. He wasn't hungry for the last two weeks or so and he knew that if he started to lie right away, he wouldn't get to the part where... he couldn't even think it without mentally wincing. Shoot him? No takers? None? Well, shit.

"I'll have toasts, though," he said.

The coffee arrived, he didn't really notice the waitress, which made him relax a little and even smile. Coffee, coffee was good.

An 18 year old male who wasn't hungry.

...

This, definitely was not normal.

Smiling to the waitress, Jack nodded for her to take down Anthony's order and then got a jerk chicken sandwich for himself, extra fries. Once she was on her way with their order, Jack reached for his coffee and sat back, long legs sprawled off to the side.

"Okay, seriously, Anthony. Nothing is that bad that you can't tell me what's wrong. I promise."

Any 18 year old male could be not hungry. Honestly. And without something being wrong. The fact that this 18 year old male happened to be barely sleeping because he's afraid the Captain he's come to like and respect is going to hate him, or not take him seriously, was completely beside the point. Excuse him if he's not in the mood to devour a burger. Okay? Okay.

"I've got issues, okay?" he admitted, slightly embarassed, because having issues and talking about them was two different things. He wasn't used to voicing what was bugging him. Usually he didn't have to, because not much mattered to him outside of his little world.

Please 18 year old males were hungry 12 hours of the day. The other 10 they spent in various stages of sleep and the remaining 2 were dedicated to sex.

Those last two might need to be switched around. Anyway.

"You get someone pregnant?"

Jack was just taking a stab here.

"What?" He frowned, convinced he heard wrong. "No! No. No. God no."

That would be a no, if someone missed the message. Though in case it still wasn't clear, Anthony was shaking his head firmly, because no.

He sighed heavily and hid his face in his hands. Maybe Thomas was right. Maybe he should just rip the bandaid...

"Look. I have this friend." He said and immediately felt like an idiot. The friend tactic. Really, Anthony? It was the most stupid tactic in the entire world. The universe probably. So of course he went for it. He was pathetic, afterall.

Jack really didn't think that was it, Anthony was smarter than that but it had been a little fun to watch the other man flail.

Now he was watching him closely as he started off with the 'I have a friend'.

"Uh huh, okay. Got a friend."

Jack was willing to humor him for a little bit here, by all means, continue please.

Edited 2009-07-06 19:31 (UTC)

Making fun of the poor boy? Yes, very mature. Anthony will remember never to share serious dillemmas with Captain Harkness.

"And this friend tries to be as unjudgemental as possible, right?" yes Anthony, stick to the friend thing. You already made an idiot out of yourself, yu might as well use it to get the point across. "But I... He has issues, because of his family background and history, and well... Let's just say there are issues."

Anthony felt like he made little sense. But he really wasn't good at that.

"And this friend, he has a friend. This really cool friend he thought was awesome and really nice, but some time ago, he stumbled upon an information that made him change his opinion about that friend. Because suddenly all things pointed towards the fact that the friend he thought was awesome was in fact a lying liar who lied and was in fact a cheating bastard, just like my... friend's... well let's just say the issues came into play and..."

Anthony closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"And there's this other friend. Who's equally awesome, maybe even more so, and he's in a relationship with that friend of a friend and," Anthony hid his face in his hands, wishing for the earth to open up and swallow him. "Iantoscheatingonyouokay?" he mumbled and once again wished for someone, anyone, to shoot him. Being dead had to be better than this.

Well, a couple of things happened while Anthony talked.

First, their food came and Jack dove into the hot fries with the relish of a man who enjoys a good crisp chip. Second, his expression softened as he could see how hard Anthony was struggling with this and he genuinely felt bad for teasing the lad. Third, well third Jack had started to look vaguely confused as he attempted to keep up with what Anthony was saying. It was a bit convoluted.

Eventually after that last smushed together bit of wording, Jack just sat there with a french fry hanging dumbly out from between his lips.

Blink.

Anthony really wasn't very good at this talking about your issues thing, okay? In fact, he sucked at it. He looked at the Captain, to see his reaction, and the confused expression proved exactly how much he sucked at talking about his issues.

He closed his eyes again and once again wished for death. A rogue assassin, was it really to much to wish for City?

"This was such a bad idea..." He muttered to himself and sat there.

Awkward.

Jack could and this was often the case, be a right bastard when he had an opportunity but not to Anthony.

Finishing off his french fry, Jack linked his hands together around his plate and gave the other man a gentle smile.

"By any chance is the person Ianto is having an affair with, named Kyle Brooks?"

It was Anthony's turn to be confused.

Wait, what???

"You... You knew?" he asked, not really sure what to make of it. "I've been wondering for weeks how to tell you and not let my issues to cloud my judgement and... You knew?"

How? Most importantly, why wasn't he angry or disappointed? Huh?

This was going to take some delicate handling, especially given Anthony's history with the break up of his parents' marriage.

"Yes, I know," he began with a gentle smile. "Actually the three of us have a menois a trios relationship that came about from a friendship that morhphed into a friends with benefits sort of thing and in the past ... oh, it must be almost 10 months now, grew into a menois a trios."

Jack smiled affectionately, lovingly as he spoke of his relationship with Ianto and Kyle but then he sobered and continued carefully. Hoping to be able to put things in a way Anthony would be willing to understand.

"Ianto and I, come from the same universe. We've been together as lovers for oh a little over 4 years now and believe when I say initially we were both in it for individually exclusive reasons. He needed to hide his partially converted girlfriend in my basement and I liked shagging a hot young man."

Oh boy, this was going to get complicated, Jack could just tell and he reached for his coffee.

"It's a lot of history between Ianto and I but of more immediate concerns, until just this past month, Kyle was here all alone. In his universe, there is man named Warren who Kyle loves very much and who loves Kyle. Even though for Warren, it's as if Kyle isn't gone at all, for Kyle, he's trapped here and this place can be very lonely."

Lonely, Anthony could understand. He was here all alone afterall and even though he managed to make friends, he still felt like he didn't belong. So lonely, he understood.

It was the rest that he had slight problems comprehending.

Blink. Blink.

"Wait... What?" The confusion, it didn't want to go away.

The relationship between the three of them, that would take some time to get. He had difficulty wrapping his brain around it, but there was also this huge news that there no longer was an issue. He didn't have to hate Ianto if he wanted to stay loyal to Jack. It felt like this huge rock was lifted from his shoulders.

Then it hit him. There was no cheating. There was a relationship.

He hid his head between his shoulders. "Oh God, I'm such an idiot..."

Chuckling softly, Jack reached over to give Anthony's arm a gentle squeeze.

"No, Anthony you're not an idiot," he said firmly but kindly. "What Ianto, Kyle and I have it's very rare and unusual, well it is for the time that the three of you come from, not so much the 51st Century but that's an entirely different matter."

And would really make the poor young man's head explode.

"Hey," he said softly. "Was this what was bothering you so badly recently?"

The Captain could say he wasn't an idiot, but Anthony knew better. He was. A complete idiot. An idiot who would be forced to kill Thomas for forcing him to humiliate himself, therefore getting rid of one of the very few friends, but some things just had to be done.

At the question, he looked away, embarassed. Now that everything was out in the open, it felt riddiculous and much like overreacting...

He shrugged, trying to be casual about it, but clearly failing. "I told you I have issues. I didn't know what to do. I... I didn't want to choose sides."

"That's understandable, given your history," Jack said, trying to be genuinely reassuring.

"Here, all kidgloving aside and no that's not a euphemism. The only way in which you might have been just a smidge idiotic was in not talking to me when this was so obviously bothering you. I promise, Anthony I'm very hard to break and I just wish I could have set your mind at ease earlier."

Had the younger man really been wrestling with this for a few weeks? Jack looked sincerely concerned that Anthony had been so stressed by something Jack thought was fairly common knowledge around the City.

He shrugged. "So, I suppose, I shouldn't kill Thomas for forcing me to talk with you... I'd probably just keep it inside if he didn't make me..." he shook his head. "Nevermind. Sorry for the trouble," he smiled apologetically.

And really, how was he supposed to know all that? If it wasn't for a casual slip, he would have no idea Jack and Ianto was an item and he wouldn't know about Kyle and Ianto... He made it a point not to read other people's conversations on the Network, he didn't eavesdrop and he kept to himself. How was he supposed to know?

He rubbed his neck.

"I'll just not think about anything from now on. It's very bad for me, apparently."

Jack, on the other hand, was a nosey busy body who cheerfully poked into conversations that had nothing to do with or about him just because they were open to the network! One of the side effects of working for Torchwood for so long.

"It's no trouble to me," Jack said with a smile. "I'm just really very sorry that it upset you, Anthony. I guess that after 10 months, well I mean even before then, it's not really a conversation starter."

Pausing Jack got that playful gleam in his eyes, really trying to get Anthony to want to smile at least.

"'Hello, I'm Jack Harkness, oh before we go any further let me explain that I'm happily sleeping with two really gorgeous men.'"

Pausing, Jack smiled and tried to get Anthony's attention again.

"Seriously, Anthony. Please, next time you have a problem or a question about anything, I want you to come to me, okay?"

Edited 2009-07-06 21:17 (UTC)

Alright, that was not a snort, okay? There might've been a small smile there, the introduction line was a bit hilarious. Even if it made Anthony blush a little.

"Only if you promise not to mock me for acting like... For acting like a not entirely smart person..." Then something occured to him and his eyes went wide. "Oh God. Tell me you won't say a word to Ianto... I... I wouldn't be able to look him in the eye..."

Jack resembled a thwarted puppy.

"I'll make an effort," he said, hoping that would suffice."

[ooc: Translation ... of course he's going to tell Ianto! ;D]

That face Jack just made? Anthony could bet it was the same face the Captain had when he poured that oil on Anthony's head. Not good.

"Come on, Captain, promise me. Ianto can't know."

"I'll make an effort," Jack reiterated. "I promise but, Ianto is a clever man and he can figure stuff out pretty quick."

Especially if Jack opened his fat mouth and spilled the beans. Speaking of which, half the sandwich disappeared in one bite!

[ooc: Oh but of course! :)]

Well that posed a certain problem and there was a chance that once Ianto figures things out on his own, that's right on his own, Anthony didn't even consider Jack could just spill everything after he promised not to; there would be mocking. It was Ianto they talked about. He would definitely mock him.

Anthony supposed that he deserved it in a way, that knowledge didn't make it any easier...

"I suppose you're right," he said with a resigned expression. Hopefully he'd have enough time to brace himself... "But if he mocks me, I'll be blaming you, Captain," he told the older man firmly.

"Ianto only mocks those he loves," Jack said solemnly.

It was mostly true after all!

Anthony looked at the Captain with doubt written all over his face. Those he loved, hm? Right.

"Right," he said, his tone matching his look.

To distract himself, he concentrated on his toasts. He was a bit hungry now.

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Log: Ongoing

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