fandomweekly | [#187] A Very Bad Idea (Torchwood)

Theme Prompt: #187 – Bad Judgment
Title: A Very Bad Idea
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: People aren’t infallible, Ianto knows that better than most, but even so, Jack sometimes astounds him.

No one is one hundred percent perfect at all times. Everyone makes errors in judgment, either because they’re not thinking clearly, or they think they are but don’t have all the facts. Sometimes, people do the worst thing they can possibly do out of sheer desperation because they simply can’t see any other way out of the situation they’re in. Sometimes, it even works out, because the universe is a fickle place, and fate can at times display an unexpected sense of whimsy.

On most occasions though, bad judgement results in disaster, like trying to save your half-converted cyberman girlfriend and almost destroying the world in the process. Ianto still winces when he thinks of what could have resulted from his misguided attempt to restore Lisa to the way she’d been before the battle of Canary Wharf. If she’d managed to escape the Hub, everyone on earth would have been doomed.

Jack and the rest on the team made sure that didn’t happen by executing the monster Lisa had become, and though Ianto hadn’t exactly appreciated it at the time, in hindsight he’d been able to accept that they’d done the right thing.

Truthfully, it had been a relief to have someone else take charge of sorting out the mess he’d made, because even after he’d started to realise that Lisa was too far gone to save, he could never have killed her. He owed Jack and the others for doing what he couldn’t. While he was on suspension he’d even admitted as much to Jack, thanking him for doing the right thing.

Of course, just because Jack was right on that occasion doesn’t mean his judgment is always sound. He may be immortal and, at this point, several hundred years old, if you don’t count the two thousand years he spent buried alive beneath Cardiff, but that doesn’t make him infallible. He’s still only human, and just as likely to screw up as anyone else. If that wasn’t the case, then he wouldn’t get himself killed anywhere near as often as he does.

“What were you thinking?” Ianto snaps at his lover. “Or were you even thinking at all? Anyone with half a brain could have told you that was a bad idea!”

“I thought it would work!”

Rolling his eyes so hard it hurts, Ianto shakes his head in despair. “I can only assume your encounter with that parrot the other day addled your brains.”

“Hey!” Jack pouts, hurt by the insinuation. “That wasn’t my fault, I had right of way, and the parrot should’ve been watching where it was flying. I got whiplash!”

“How d’you figure out right of way in an alley?” Ianto knows he shouldn’t let himself get sidetracked from the issue at hand, but he can’t help himself; there’s a weird fascination to Jack’s skewed logic that he finds hard to resist. Then again, he finds everything about Jack irresistible. That failing will probably be his downfall someday.

“My alley was the widest; the parrot came out of a side-turning, and it didn’t even stop after it hit me, just kept right on going.”

“It was a bird, Jack! You probably scared it half to death suddenly running out in front of it. What did you expect it to do, land and exchange insurance details?”

If anything, Jack’s pout gets poutier. “It hurt! Parrots have a lot of sharp bits on them.”

“Be that as it may, I think we’re getting a bit off track here.”

“Don’t blame me; you’re the one who started talking about parrots.”

Which is, unfortunately, true. Ianto scrambles to get back on topic. “And you’re the one who claimed to know how to deal with those aliens… what did you call them?”

“Frimbles. They’re totally harmless.”

Ianto pointedly looks down at his tattered suit, and then at Jack, who’s even more battered and bloodstained. “Harmless? They killed you. Twice. It’s a miracle I got out of there in one piece. What on earth possessed you to feed them chocolate?”

“How was I supposed to know they’d react like that? It worked for you when we were trying to catch Myfanwy.”

“Myf is a prehistoric pterosaur, not an alien from another planet, and it was blind luck that she was able to eat chocolate without it causing her any problems. The Frimbles are another matter entirely.”

Faced with trying to round up approximately two dozen of the furry, six-legged, corgi-sized alien creatures that the Rift had dumped in the car park below the Millennium Centre, Jack had decided their best bet would be to lure them into Torchwood’s underground garage using a tempting bait. He’d claimed to know just the thing, and nipping out to a nearby convenience store, had returned having bought their entire stock of chocolate buttons.

The bait had worked, after a fashion. Having tasted the sweet treat, the Frimbles had been more than willing to follow the trail Jack laid down, eagerly gobbling up the chocolate buttons and surging through the doorway into Torchwood’s garage like a green and black furry tide.

Unfortunately, the chocolate had affected the Frimbles in unexpected ways, turning what Jack claimed were usually timid, shy creatures into psychotic monsters that had swarmed over him, seeking more chocolate, savaging him in their search. He’d suffocated the first time, bled to death the second as the Frimbles’ sharp teeth had torn into him. Ianto had been savaged while he’d been trying to rescue his lover.

Now, with the aliens locked in the garage, still rampaging thanks either to a massive sugar rush or a bizarre chocolate allergy, all the team can do is wait for them to calm down enough to be captured, if they ever do. Ianto isn’t feeling too optimistic, and Owen is reluctant to flood the garage with sedative gas in case that makes the situation worse.

Ianto sighs. “In future, let’s all agree not to feed anything to new arrivals until we’ve checked whether it’s compatible with their physiology.”

The End

[#187] A Very Bad Idea (Torchwood)

no subject

no subject