milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The Bar has an uncanny ability to sense when Ianto comes into Milliways to brood: she always asks him to bartend on those days. He supposes this is a good thing: it keeps him from dwelling too much in his own head.

There's nothing wrong with playing to his own strengths, too.

TODAY'S SPECIALS
COFFEE
Vermont Coffee
Gunline Coffee
Newfoundland Coffee

He takes off his jacket and tie, and rolls up his sleeves.

Ninja!barista!teaboy on duty.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah." The part of the bar that he's been polishing is getting quite a buffing.

"I mean, with a man like Jack, it's silly to get jealous and it's silly to want him to get jealous. It's like a tiger changing its stripes."

"Easy," Lorne says, reaching out a hand to stop Ianto's buffing. "You'll give her rug burn like that."

He frowns. "Look, I don't know Jack, but...it seems to me like asking yourself not to get jealous or not to want him to be jealous is doing just the same thing but worse. It's changing yourself to try and be the sort of person who could work for Jack."

Ianto stops his hand and sighs. "I just want to be with him. I don't want it to be . . . complicated."

[ooc: Sorry for the delay: neighbor came over.]

Lorne laughs sympathetically. "Hate to break it to you, man, but it's complicated already."

[ooc: No worries.]

Ianto rolls his eyes but mutters, "Yeah. I know."

"Goes along with being human, I figure. Relationships are messy, complicated. The real question is, is it worth it?"

Ianto blushes and nods. "Oh, yes."

Lorne smiles gently. "Well, then...I guess you just have to deal with the complications, or find ways around them."

"Yeah." Ianto's quiet a moment. "And if you want to know the truth, I think he's trying to be, you know, a one-man guy. I don't ask, but he says stuff sometimes that make me think, maybe."

"Good," Lorne says, nodding. "Then it sounds like you two are moving toward something that will work for both of you."

"I hope so," Ianto says quietly.

Lorne hesitates. "You know," he says carefully, "sooner or later you're going to have to trust someone not to hurt you. Intentionally or not."

Ianto smiles tightly. "I'm working on it. Honest."

"Harder than it sounds, I know."

"I don't know if Jack's that person," Ianto says quietly. "But I hope he is."

Lorne smiles and pats his hand. "Yeah, me too."

"Thanks," Ianto says quietly, and he does look a bit happier than average.

"Anytime," Lorne says with a quiet smile.

"So, that's my troubles, how are you?" Ianto says after a moment.

"Oh, you know," Lorne says, shrugging. "Just slogging along. We got a new commander in the city, so that's been...interesting."

"A tight-knit place like Atlantis, I imagine it would be."

"Yeah, he's gonna take a little getting used to. Kind of a bureaucrat, which isn't what any of us are used to."

"Not military? Pshaw," he says, or the nearest Welsh equivalent. "Sounds horrible."

"We've had civilian leaders before," Lorne says. "But this guy's got a stick up his ass like I have never seen, and in the military, that's saying something."

"Military's not like bureaucracy, though. It's not the same . . . kind of stick up the ass."