(Someone on Dreamwidth! Hi! This is totally unedited and rough, but it made me laugh to write. I hope you like it!)
Really, it should have been a matter of time. He lived in Cardiff, he'd seen Flat Holm and Torchwood agents spent an inordinate amount of time running around in high-rift-energy zones. He certainly wasn't the first agent to take one step in Cardiff and the next somewhere unfamiliar and alien.
Of course, none of them had returned. They had just left behind files stamped "RIFT INCIDENT" scattered through the personnel section of the archives.
In the time it took him to process that thought, Ianto realized his feet were no longer on the floor. He had a moment of blind panic before he realized that he was floating. Ianto scrambled for a hand-hold on the wall, snagging a nearby handle and clinging to it frantically.
Alarms started going off before he could re-establish his equilibrium. A light flashed red and sounds screeched in his ears.
There was a thump behind him and Ianto turned awkwardly around his handle to see two men come towards him in a white jumpsuit. They were clearly more comfortable in the weightless atmosphere, using the handholds to scramble towards him.
Ianto had nowhere to hide and he was pretty sure he couldn't outrace the two men so he held on and tried to pull his legs in from where they were drifting.
"Who are you?" the first man snapped and Ianto opened his mouth to reply automatically when he saw the second man.
"Jack?"
Jack showed no recognition, but the first man replied with, "your name is Jack?"
"What? No!"
The man tried to loom threateningly on one side, an effect mildly ruined as he was holding his own handle. "Then what is your name?"
"Ianto Jones!" Ianto blurted. "Um, I think I'm lost."
The first man looked extremely frustrated. "Did the Russians plant you? Is this supposed to happen?"
"What?"
"The Ruskies! The Soviets!"
Ianto was totally bewildered. "Huh?"
"Collins, take this Jack-Ianto-Jones into custody."
Jack tilted his head. "Um, we don't have anywhere for custody, Neil."
"Tie him up! Somewhere!"
Now utterly baffled, Ianto let himself be sort of ushered along by Jack.
"Um, hi." he tried, trying to get a good look at Jack while making sure that at least one hand was gripping sometime at all times. He only threatened to drift away once and Jack hauled him back. His face was young and boyish, his hair cropped short. He didn't recognize Ianto and he looked younger than the CCTV of that time he travelled with the Doctor, so Ianto was going to assume he was mortal unless proved otherwise.
"Hi," Jack said, cheerily. At least he wasn't angry.
"Um, I'm not Russian." Ianto said, "I am really lost."
"It's a pretty good trick, getting lost on a spaceship flying through Earth local space." Jack said. He seemed pretty calm and unworried, but utterly disbelieving.
"Um," Ianto said helpfully. Well, he was near Earth. That was...something.
Jack wasn't wearing his wriststap, but he had come from a time when time travel happened. So Ianto thought it wouldn't be too surprising if he tried to explain what happened.
But instead he had to ask the first question any time traveller asked in the films.
"What year is it?"
"Well that's the question, isn't it? Most historians argue for 1972, but I've always been fond of the 1968 theorists. One of them was a Time Agent, and they should know."
Ianto was now completely lost. He was in the past with a pre-immortal Jack? They didn't know what year it was? What?
Completely mystified, Ianto was ushered into an empty space with straps on the walls. Ianto realized what was going to happen and panicked.
"I think I fell through time!" he blurted, eying the straps warily. "Accidentally. Through a rift."
Jack started. "Really? That's-wow, that's rare."
"I worked near a rift. Um, back home."
Jack looked distracted and wildly interested. "Oooh, where do you work? And when? Wait, did you grow up speaking Old English?"
Ianto hadn't even thought about the fact that they were speaking English familiar enough to communicate. Oh, god, what if he had ended up in Chaucer?
"Wales, early 21st century." Ianto said. He was too lost to try and hide the truth from this young Jack. He had no way to assess the situation.
Jack's eyebrows shot up. "Really? That's so rad!"
Rad?
Jack leaned forward, almost whispering in excitement. "So what year did humanity first get to the moon?"
Even lost, bewildered and confused, Ianto could still call up facts. "1969, Apollo 11 from America."
Jack gave a low whistle. "Well, damn." He looked pensive for a second, then brightened. "But Apollo 11, that's us!
Ianto didn't even say anything. He must have looked confused enough that Jack took pity on him.
"I'm not supposed to break character," Jack said in an explanatory tone. "But we're having a historical re-enactment of the Space Race as part of the celebration of humanity's latest military victory out in the peninsulas."
Ianto's mind parsed that sentence slowly. "Wait, we're in a re-enactment? Space ships don't look like this?"
Jack looked around and laughed. "No way! I had to do a month of zero-g training just to qualify for this position! Every ship has artificial gravity now."
This was like those history nutters who trooped out into forests and lived without proper toilets to fake battles at each other. Except it was also young Jack whose obsession with early 20th century was starting to make a lot more sense. No wonder he slept with all sorts of famous people. He probably had a list in his head as soon as he realized he was trapped on Earth.
Jack continued "I'm Michael Collins, and you already met Neil Artmstrong. Buzz is steering. We were winning last I checked, but I'm supposed to be helping on calculations."
"Winning?"
"Yeah! But the cosmonaut team is really good."
Ianto's brain clicked around frantically. "The...space race?"
Jack beamed. "Yeah! The Russians launched first for historical accuracy, but if the original team could get to the moon first than so can we!"
Ianto's brain twisted itself in a pretzel trying to make that work. Clearly by the time Jack was born the whole story had been mixed and embellished with time. But wow.
Ianto whispered, because Jack did when he broke character. "So what year is it really?"
"5049," Jack replied promptly.
Ianto nodded. "Okay. Well, if I promise not to move, can I just stay here?"
Jack frowned. "I think I have to listen to the commander on this one."
Instead of tying him down with all the various strapped as Ianto feared, Jack just tied down his wrist. This was their sleeping room, and the straps were designed to hold sleeping bags and weren't close enough to actually wrap around him.
Ianto waited for a while, staring at the wall. Well, Jack had established Time Agents as existing, so maybe he could hitch a ride with one of them.
It couldn't have been more than a few hours later when Jack burst in, lips red and hair in disarray. "We're landing! We're early! We're won!"
He untied Ianto and snogged him in victory.
Startled, Ianto had to cling to Jack to not drift away. "How long did that even take?"
"Almost two solar days. Crazy, right? But they couldn't figure out how to stay historically accurate and go faster."
Ianto's mind boggled a bit more. Only two days from from the Earth to the moon?
Jack settled them on the floor properly so they didn't fall as the moon's gravity set in. Ianto, still unbalanced, kept one hand on Jack, who was chattering about natural lunar gravity in the landing field.
Ianto was dragged quietly through the landing ceremony, which wasn't in English or Russian and was totally incomprehensible. Ianto would have panicked at losing Jack, but he was frankly too overwhelmed. He wondered if it was shock. He wondered if time-shock was a thing in The Future.
Eventually Jack came back, all flailing hands and familiar English.
"The Time Agency representative said she might be able to take you back! We're going with her now, come on!"
Ianto stumbled after Jack-no-longer-Michael-Collins, who told him about some of the amazing tech at the Agency. "My application is still being processed, you know, but accurate participation in historic re-enaactments will definitely get me points. Make sure you mention how good my Old English is, will you?"
Jack was certainly more talkative when he was younger, but there was something comforting in being bewildered by a man who frequently made no sense in Ianto's own time.
Although Ianto's Jack had been truthful about one thing. He wasn't the only one who smelled amazing.
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branchandroot
Re: Prompt:)
Date: Nov. 5th, 2012 06:42 (UTC)Really, it should have been a matter of time. He lived in Cardiff, he'd seen Flat Holm and Torchwood agents spent an inordinate amount of time running around in high-rift-energy zones. He certainly wasn't the first agent to take one step in Cardiff and the next somewhere unfamiliar and alien.
Of course, none of them had returned. They had just left behind files stamped "RIFT INCIDENT" scattered through the personnel section of the archives.
In the time it took him to process that thought, Ianto realized his feet were no longer on the floor. He had a moment of blind panic before he realized that he was floating. Ianto scrambled for a hand-hold on the wall, snagging a nearby handle and clinging to it frantically.
Alarms started going off before he could re-establish his equilibrium. A light flashed red and sounds screeched in his ears.
There was a thump behind him and Ianto turned awkwardly around his handle to see two men come towards him in a white jumpsuit. They were clearly more comfortable in the weightless atmosphere, using the handholds to scramble towards him.
Ianto had nowhere to hide and he was pretty sure he couldn't outrace the two men so he held on and tried to pull his legs in from where they were drifting.
"Who are you?" the first man snapped and Ianto opened his mouth to reply automatically when he saw the second man.
"Jack?"
Jack showed no recognition, but the first man replied with, "your name is Jack?"
"What? No!"
The man tried to loom threateningly on one side, an effect mildly ruined as he was holding his own handle. "Then what is your name?"
"Ianto Jones!" Ianto blurted. "Um, I think I'm lost."
The first man looked extremely frustrated. "Did the Russians plant you? Is this supposed to happen?"
"What?"
"The Ruskies! The Soviets!"
Ianto was totally bewildered. "Huh?"
"Collins, take this Jack-Ianto-Jones into custody."
Jack tilted his head. "Um, we don't have anywhere for custody, Neil."
"Tie him up! Somewhere!"
Now utterly baffled, Ianto let himself be sort of ushered along by Jack.
"Um, hi." he tried, trying to get a good look at Jack while making sure that at least one hand was gripping sometime at all times. He only threatened to drift away once and Jack hauled him back. His face was young and boyish, his hair cropped short. He didn't recognize Ianto and he looked younger than the CCTV of that time he travelled with the Doctor, so Ianto was going to assume he was mortal unless proved otherwise.
"Hi," Jack said, cheerily. At least he wasn't angry.
"Um, I'm not Russian." Ianto said, "I am really lost."
"It's a pretty good trick, getting lost on a spaceship flying through Earth local space." Jack said. He seemed pretty calm and unworried, but utterly disbelieving.
"Um," Ianto said helpfully. Well, he was near Earth. That was...something.
Jack wasn't wearing his wriststap, but he had come from a time when time travel happened. So Ianto thought it wouldn't be too surprising if he tried to explain what happened.
But instead he had to ask the first question any time traveller asked in the films.
"What year is it?"
"Well that's the question, isn't it? Most historians argue for 1972, but I've always been fond of the 1968 theorists. One of them was a Time Agent, and they should know."
Ianto was now completely lost. He was in the past with a pre-immortal Jack? They didn't know what year it was? What?
Completely mystified, Ianto was ushered into an empty space with straps on the walls. Ianto realized what was going to happen and panicked.
"I think I fell through time!" he blurted, eying the straps warily. "Accidentally. Through a rift."
Jack started. "Really? That's-wow, that's rare."
"I worked near a rift. Um, back home."
Jack looked distracted and wildly interested. "Oooh, where do you work? And when? Wait, did you grow up speaking Old English?"
Ianto hadn't even thought about the fact that they were speaking English familiar enough to communicate. Oh, god, what if he had ended up in Chaucer?
"Wales, early 21st century." Ianto said. He was too lost to try and hide the truth from this young Jack. He had no way to assess the situation.
Jack's eyebrows shot up. "Really? That's so rad!"
Rad?
Jack leaned forward, almost whispering in excitement. "So what year did humanity first get to the moon?"
Even lost, bewildered and confused, Ianto could still call up facts. "1969, Apollo 11 from America."
Jack gave a low whistle. "Well, damn." He looked pensive for a second, then brightened. "But Apollo 11, that's us!
Ianto didn't even say anything. He must have looked confused enough that Jack took pity on him.
"I'm not supposed to break character," Jack said in an explanatory tone. "But we're having a historical re-enactment of the Space Race as part of the celebration of humanity's latest military victory out in the peninsulas."
Ianto's mind parsed that sentence slowly. "Wait, we're in a re-enactment? Space ships don't look like this?"
Jack looked around and laughed. "No way! I had to do a month of zero-g training just to qualify for this position! Every ship has artificial gravity now."
This was like those history nutters who trooped out into forests and lived without proper toilets to fake battles at each other. Except it was also young Jack whose obsession with early 20th century was starting to make a lot more sense. No wonder he slept with all sorts of famous people. He probably had a list in his head as soon as he realized he was trapped on Earth.
Jack continued "I'm Michael Collins, and you already met Neil Artmstrong. Buzz is steering. We were winning last I checked, but I'm supposed to be helping on calculations."
"Winning?"
"Yeah! But the cosmonaut team is really good."
Ianto's brain clicked around frantically. "The...space race?"
Jack beamed. "Yeah! The Russians launched first for historical accuracy, but if the original team could get to the moon first than so can we!"
Ianto's brain twisted itself in a pretzel trying to make that work. Clearly by the time Jack was born the whole story had been mixed and embellished with time. But wow.
Ianto whispered, because Jack did when he broke character. "So what year is it really?"
"5049," Jack replied promptly.
Ianto nodded. "Okay. Well, if I promise not to move, can I just stay here?"
Jack frowned. "I think I have to listen to the commander on this one."
Instead of tying him down with all the various strapped as Ianto feared, Jack just tied down his wrist. This was their sleeping room, and the straps were designed to hold sleeping bags and weren't close enough to actually wrap around him.
Ianto waited for a while, staring at the wall. Well, Jack had established Time Agents as existing, so maybe he could hitch a ride with one of them.
It couldn't have been more than a few hours later when Jack burst in, lips red and hair in disarray. "We're landing! We're early! We're won!"
He untied Ianto and snogged him in victory.
Startled, Ianto had to cling to Jack to not drift away. "How long did that even take?"
"Almost two solar days. Crazy, right? But they couldn't figure out how to stay historically accurate and go faster."
Ianto's mind boggled a bit more. Only two days from from the Earth to the moon?
Jack settled them on the floor properly so they didn't fall as the moon's gravity set in. Ianto, still unbalanced, kept one hand on Jack, who was chattering about natural lunar gravity in the landing field.
Ianto was dragged quietly through the landing ceremony, which wasn't in English or Russian and was totally incomprehensible. Ianto would have panicked at losing Jack, but he was frankly too overwhelmed. He wondered if it was shock. He wondered if time-shock was a thing in The Future.
Eventually Jack came back, all flailing hands and familiar English.
"The Time Agency representative said she might be able to take you back! We're going with her now, come on!"
Ianto stumbled after Jack-no-longer-Michael-Collins, who told him about some of the amazing tech at the Agency. "My application is still being processed, you know, but accurate participation in historic re-enaactments will definitely get me points. Make sure you mention how good my Old English is, will you?"
Jack was certainly more talkative when he was younger, but there was something comforting in being bewildered by a man who frequently made no sense in Ianto's own time.
Although Ianto's Jack had been truthful about one thing. He wasn't the only one who smelled amazing.