bk_forever | Ficlet: Pipe Dream

Title: Pipe Dream
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Out of Time.
Summary: Ianto likes the car he’s got, but it isn’t his dream car.
Word Count: 429
Written For: My own prompt ‘Torchwood, Ianto, He would have liked to get an Aston Martin, but they're a bit beyond his price range,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.

Ianto liked his Audi; it was a classy car, basic black, sleek without being overly flashy, and reasonably economical to run. That wasn’t to say it was cheap, but on his Torchwood salary, it was well within affordable limits. It wasn’t the one he originally bought for himself though; that one never stopped smelling of exhaust fumes after John Ellis ended his life in it, so after a few weeks Jack had replaced it with an identical model. Said it was his way of apologising, and he hoped Ianto would accept the replacement, as if he was ever likely to refuse.

Driving a car someone died in was just plain creepy. Ianto kept feeling as if John was somehow still there, watching him with subtle disapproval. An oppressive sense of gloom seemed to hang over the interior, robbing him of the pleasure he used to get from driving it. The new car might have looked exactly the same as the old one, but it felt completely different, untainted by the tragic events the other had been a party to. Because of that, driving became a joy for him once more.

Still, as much as he liked the Audi, it wasn’t his dream car. Yes, he knew it was a Bond fan cliché, but ever since he’d been a kid, watching the movies for the first time, he’d had a hankering for an Aston Martin. The Audi was classy, but a DB5 was class personified. Unfortunately, owning one was a pipe dream. He’d looked into prices once, only to find the car of his dreams would set him back anywhere between £340k and £930k, depending on model, year, and condition. Torchwood paid well, but not that well.

So, no Aston Martin for Jones, Ianto Jones then. A pity; he could really see himself behind the wheel, reclining in the real leather seats, cruising down the motorway between Cardiff and London on his way to yet another tedious UNIT conference. Driving a car like that would make even the most boring meeting worth attending.

He hadn’t completely given up hope of owning an Aston Martin though, no matter how unlikely his chances were. After all, he lived on a Rift through Time and Space, and you never knew what it might pluck from the past to dump in present day Cardiff. Maybe, if he asked it really nicely, it might some day snatch one off the assembly lines of the early sixties and deliver it to him, factory fresh and gleaming, making his long-held dream come true.

Stranger things had happened.

The End