Ficlet: Colourful Prose
Dec. 26th, 2025 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Colourful Prose
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 647
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Jack’s love of office supplies takes an unexpected turn.
Written For:
ravenlilyrose’s prompt ‘any, any, colored ink’, at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Ianto gave a resigned sigh and slowly shook his head as he started to go through Jack’s latest batch of reports. Now he knew why his lover had, for once, actually been eager to get on with his paperwork instead of leaving it until the last possible minute, or even later; perhaps never, if he could get away with it. Of everything Jack disliked about being in charge of Torchwood, paperwork was top of the list; whenever possible, he left it for Ianto to deal with, as if Ianto wasn’t already doing the work of four people.
The worst of it was that Ianto had known it was a mistake to let his lover visit the office supply warehouse without a chaperone, but he’d done it anyway, even though he’d provided Jack with an itemised shopping list, and instructions not to get carried away and buy a load of stuff they didn’t need. He’d had to trust that Jack would behave like an adult for once, however unlikely that seemed, since unfortunately, he himself hadn’t been able to go on this occasion.
Well, he supposed he could have, but it would have been a bit awkward since he was currently slightly indisposed thanks to an alien device giving him an extra pair of arms. Jack seemed to appreciate the additional limbs a whole lot more than Ianto did. He’d been forced to abandon his usual suits and improvise clothing since nothing he owned had four sleeves, and the extra limbs tended to become restless when trapped inside his shirt with nothing to do. Like restless leg syndrome, only worse.
He would have left the office shopping until his extra arms had been reabsorbed, but they’d been getting perilously low on printer paper, staples, toner for the photocopier, pencils, thanks to Owen’s habit of snapping them in half, and several other necessary items. He might have ordered online, but that would have meant waiting for delivery, which could take several days, and since no one else was volunteering, Ianto had bitten the bullet, ignored his own misgivings, and let Jack go.
Well, now Ianto was paying the price for not ordering the most urgent items online, even though that came with the risk that they might run out before their order arrived, because… While Jack had, remarkably, returned with everything on the list, he hadn’t been able to resist buying a few things for his own personal use, including, apparently, several sets of pens with different coloured inks, among them glitter gel pens in a range of pastels, darks, and neon bright shades, and several of those fat pens with a dozen different colours that could be selected, meaning that Jack’s reports now looked like a rainbow had melted on the page, the colour of the ink changing every few words in a way that was giving Ianto a headache just trying to read through them.
He wondered what it would take to persuade Jack to tone things down a bit, maybe change colours every paragraph instead of four times in a single sentence… perhaps he should at least confiscate the gel pens and the highlighters, as neither was really suitable for report writing. One shouldn’t need to squint at the page just to make out three or four words every few sentences.
Possibly the only good point in the whole sorry mess was that now the most urgently needed supplies had been restocked, whatever colours Jack chose to write in, Ianto could simply photocopy each page, so the writing came out looking more or less normal in black and shades of grey. It wasn’t ideal, and it meant more work for him, but at least it made the situation manageable while Ianto came up with a workable plan to separate Jack from his stash of coloured pens. Honestly, some days it was like working with a toddler!
The End
The worst of it was that Ianto had known it was a mistake to let his lover visit the office supply warehouse without a chaperone, but he’d done it anyway, even though he’d provided Jack with an itemised shopping list, and instructions not to get carried away and buy a load of stuff they didn’t need. He’d had to trust that Jack would behave like an adult for once, however unlikely that seemed, since unfortunately, he himself hadn’t been able to go on this occasion.
Well, he supposed he could have, but it would have been a bit awkward since he was currently slightly indisposed thanks to an alien device giving him an extra pair of arms. Jack seemed to appreciate the additional limbs a whole lot more than Ianto did. He’d been forced to abandon his usual suits and improvise clothing since nothing he owned had four sleeves, and the extra limbs tended to become restless when trapped inside his shirt with nothing to do. Like restless leg syndrome, only worse.
He would have left the office shopping until his extra arms had been reabsorbed, but they’d been getting perilously low on printer paper, staples, toner for the photocopier, pencils, thanks to Owen’s habit of snapping them in half, and several other necessary items. He might have ordered online, but that would have meant waiting for delivery, which could take several days, and since no one else was volunteering, Ianto had bitten the bullet, ignored his own misgivings, and let Jack go.
Well, now Ianto was paying the price for not ordering the most urgent items online, even though that came with the risk that they might run out before their order arrived, because… While Jack had, remarkably, returned with everything on the list, he hadn’t been able to resist buying a few things for his own personal use, including, apparently, several sets of pens with different coloured inks, among them glitter gel pens in a range of pastels, darks, and neon bright shades, and several of those fat pens with a dozen different colours that could be selected, meaning that Jack’s reports now looked like a rainbow had melted on the page, the colour of the ink changing every few words in a way that was giving Ianto a headache just trying to read through them.
He wondered what it would take to persuade Jack to tone things down a bit, maybe change colours every paragraph instead of four times in a single sentence… perhaps he should at least confiscate the gel pens and the highlighters, as neither was really suitable for report writing. One shouldn’t need to squint at the page just to make out three or four words every few sentences.
Possibly the only good point in the whole sorry mess was that now the most urgently needed supplies had been restocked, whatever colours Jack chose to write in, Ianto could simply photocopy each page, so the writing came out looking more or less normal in black and shades of grey. It wasn’t ideal, and it meant more work for him, but at least it made the situation manageable while Ianto came up with a workable plan to separate Jack from his stash of coloured pens. Honestly, some days it was like working with a toddler!
The End
(no subject)
Date: 2025-12-28 12:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-12-28 11:32 am (UTC)Thank you!