A/N: I had way, way too much fun with this. Am still having too much fun with this, as a matter of fact. Someone really needs to stop me. This is a piece of complete and utter crack, brought to you by I don't even know what. AU, obviously, and there will be Ianto/Jack goodness because I have been going through a slash dry spell and I'm tired of it.

I am, quite unfortunately, an American, so any sort of local assistance- store names, general geography, anything you can think of- would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I'll have to rely on Google, and god only knows how that will turn out.

Enjoy.

The ringing of his phone drags him out of a blissful dream about absolutely nothing at all. Since he's too much a gentleman to say anything to the caller, Ianto Jones informs the phone itself of his extreme displeasure, using words that would have gotten him slapped had his mother been there to hear him. He gropes around over the edge of his bed, feeling around for yesterday's discarded pants, then leans over a bit too far and hits the ground hard. Then, and only then, does he finally go about the process of actually waking up.

He finds his pants, left puddled on the floor to be dealt with later, and fishes out his phone. The screen lights up with Tosh's name, and instantly all irritation- most irritation- dies.

"Yes, Tosh?" he greets her, inflection carefully controlled, as he eyes his bed in contemplation. If the world truly is a fair, just place- well, he would be out of a job, but still in bed, and right now he's considering it something of a fair trade.

"I'm sorry to wake you, Ianto," she says, her voice echoing oddly. "I know you only just got to bed, but I got a call from Andy again."

Ianto turns away from the bed's siren song and heads for the bathroom. There's a reason they're on a first-name basis with a good portion of the local law enforcement, a reason which has most likely been arrested once more for public intoxication and which will need fetching now that the police are done detaining him.

"Did you get your shipment?" he asks, since he's curious and she's said all she needs to. The light in the bathroom is harsh-bright and he squeezes his eyes shut against it.

"Yes, I did," Tosh answers crisply, sounding just a touch smug, and Ianto feels a smile cross his lips. Toshiko Sato is quiet and unassuming and unimpressive, and so many people believe they can walk all over her- and they can, to a point. It never fails to surprise people when they run headfirst into that point. Tosh fits nobody's mental image of a master hacker who has forgotten more about code and computers than Bill Gates would ever know.

He wonders what their newest suppliers had tried to pull, and how long they will last. It's getting to the point where only Ianto is allowed to speak to people, ever.

Tosh is going on, explaining the uses for the new gizmo she just got, and Ianto blinks at his reflection. The young man in the mirror looks tired, and pale, and perhaps a touch softer around the middle than he cared for. His eyes are old, though, old and sad. He reaches out and snaps the light off.

The call ends with Tosh hanging up quickly so she could go play with her new toy. Ianto debates for a while, then pulls on a battered old set of jeans-and-shirt rather than his normal suit. One last longing look at the bed, and he turns and heads out.

Two steps out the front door he walks literally right into a distraught-looking Rhys Williams. Almost before his brain can even identify this sudden roadblock, Rhys is speaking.

"I think Gwen is cheating on me."

Ianto and Rhys had met at a local pub some five months ago. They had bonded instantly over ale and rugby. Ianto tells Rhys was it was like to be a Cardiff boy living in London, and never mentions why he came home. Rhys tells Ianto what it's like to be engaged to a woman who once put herself in the hospital trying to cook spaghetti. They've both driven the other home after a bit of accidental overindulgence, and on one of those trips Ianto met Gwen, a gap-toothed, shoulder-high fireball of a woman. He hadn't immediately taken to her, but that could have been due to her understandably annoyed reaction at her fiancé throwing up on her feet.

Ianto offers to brew some tea, Rhys declines and requests brandy. Coffee is an accepted compromise. Ianto sets about making them some while Rhys collapses into a chair at the kitchen table.

"You hear about this all the time," Rhys tells the table desolately. Ianto moves around the kitchen as quietly as he can. "On the telly, and in the news. Famous people always breakin' up and all that. But not us. Not Gwen."

"What makes you think she's cheating on you?" Ianto asks, carefully, and sets a mug in front of his visitor. No cream or sugar, just a dash of brandy. Gwen is Rhys' whole world; under the circumstances, a little bit of liquid comfort wouldn't be amiss.

"She's staying out late," Rhys says, now talking to his coffee. "Can't give a good reason why. She forgot our anniversary. She's been getting new clothes, new makeup, prettying herself up. Which is good-" and here he's turning red, "that's great, but she's not- we're not- there's been no-"

Rhys had once given Ianto- and half the pub, probably - an alarmingly detailed account of the very first blowjob Gwen had ever given him. This sudden shyness is new.

"Anything else?" he asks, before Rhys hurts himself with his verbal flailing. Rhys finally looks at him.

"She mentioned this bloke a few nights ago," he says grimly. "Got real-" he widens his eyes, presumably in imitation of his fiancée's doe-eyed countenance, and waves his hands a bit. Ianto has absolutely no idea what it's supposed to mean, although he can guess due to context.

"Name?" Ianto asks, all business now. Rhys sits up straight and sets his shoulders back, happy to be doing something, even if that something will likely end in screaming and flying kitchen appliances.

"Jack."

Ianto pauses for a moment, waits. Nothing else is forthcoming, it seems. "Last name?"

"She never said," Rhys answers.

Ianto is apparently being extra-thick this morning, for he only just now realizes why Rhys is even here to begin with.

"But that's what you do, isn't it?" he continues, unknowingly confirming Ianto's sudden suspicions. "Find people. Right?"

Ianto pours himself another cup of coffee and adds a nip of brandy as an afterthought. He really should have seen this coming- you don't track down your pub-buddy at home to whine about a cheating fiancée. Not unless said pub-buddy works for a private investigator.

"More or less, yes," he says warily. Actually, the other two find the people. Ianto just acts as the buffer that keeps his two teammates- volatile and temperamental, as genius so often is- from having to deal directly with the rest of humanity.

We don't do domestics, he ought to be saying. Looking at Rhys' hopeful, determined face, however, he finds he can't. Instead he pulls his mobile out of his pocket and dials a number by memory.

"Did you drive here, or walk?" he asks.

"Drove." Rhys finishes off his coffee in one big gulp. From the face he pulls, he evidently found the brandy. Ianto holds out his hand, and after a moment the keys land in his palm. At the same time, the ringing over the phone ends.

"Sorry to interrupt playtime," Ianto says. "But I have a favor to ask."

"Pleasure to meet you," is the first thing Tosh says to Rhys. The second is, "We don't do domestics."

She gives Ianto an unusually venomous look as she says this. It makes sense- the rule is as much Ianto's as it is the other two. The one time they repealed it and gave domestics a trial run, the couple had had a screaming match in the office that ended with the death of a marriage, a printer, Ianto's favorite coffee mug, three chairs, and Ianto's own personal record for number of stitches gotten in one go.

They'd met at Roald Dahl Plass, not too terribly far a walk from either Ianto's flat or the office. That Tosh had even bothered coming out here was more an indication of her affection for Ianto than anything else.

"Have you considered just talking to her?" she adds, and they both look at her a bit blankly. She looks from one to the other, then sighs in that exasperated way women do when they find themselves running headfirst into the brick wall of male stupidity.

"I just want to know who he is," Rhys says steadily.

"Why?" Tosh demands, then does the sigh again. Ianto imagines she's feeling very disappointed by the Y chromosome right now.

"Maybe, if I could talk to him-"

"Right. Talk." She laughs a little, somewhat bitterly. After Ianto fled London with his tail set firmly between his legs, he's never been one to ask about past relationships. Still, it's painfully obvious someone burned Tosh, and badly.

"Please." Rhys can, apparently, be startlingly vulnerable when he wants to. Right now he's looking at Tosh like she's got his life in her hands- or his heart, which is rather closer to the truth. Tosh makes the mistake of meeting his gaze, and Ianto can see the moment she capitulates.

"I still think it's a bad idea," she mutters, but something in her tone betrays her, and Rhys sweeps her into a brief, tight hug. Ianto puts some distance between them, just in case.

Twenty minutes later, Rhys is driving away and Tosh is flipping through her PDA, looking over the information Rhys gave them on Gwen.

"I should make you lead on this," she says to Ianto, half-serious. Ianto shrugs, looks out over the bay. It's high summer right now, and Cardiff is absolutely gorgeous. For a moment, Ianto feels a rush of affection for his city, so strong he can almost taste it, and it surprises him. In London, he hadn't really missed Cardiff, hadn't gotten homesick.

But you came back, a voice whispers in the back of his mind. First second it started getting ugly in London, you came running back to Cardiff. Maybe you never got homesick cause you knew you wouldn't be gone long enough for it to be worth the bother.

"I'm just the teaboy," he says to Tosh, who smiles a little. Then her face sharpens and she looks up at him over her glasses.

"By the way, where's Owen?"

"…ah," Ianto replies, after almost a solid minute, as he remembers the phone call that first started this day. "Knew I was forgetting something."