Ficlet: It's A Flat Bat Life - Sequel to ‘Bait And Trap’
Title: It's A Flat Bat Life - Sequel to ‘ Bait And Trap’
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Flat Bats.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The Flat Bats are doing well in their new home.
Word Count: 500
Written For: Prompt 160: Flat at anythingdrabble.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
The Flat Bats were settling in nicely. Ianto was housing them in one of the empty cells in the lower levels at present, while he created a habitat for them that would hopefully suit them better. They didn’t seem to mind their surroundings, flittering about at random and splatting themselves like colourful decals on the cell walls and the Perspex barrier to rest, and presumably sleep.
Ianto wondered if they dreamed, and if so, what about. Their home world perhaps? Did they miss it or was earth better than the world they’d known, a paradise where food was plentiful? In the few days since they’d been sucked through the Rift they already looked bigger, still flat but wider, and slightly thicker in the middle, filling out nicely.
As soon as he’d installed them in their temporary accommodations Ianto had supplied them with various kinds of rusted equipment for sustenance, leading to happy, well-fed aliens and bright, shiny metal implements. There was no shortage of rusted metal down in the archives; a lot of junk fell through the Rift and while it was easy enough to pass along any common earth metals and alloys, such as iron, aluminium, lead, copper, and brass, to the local scrap merchants, the same couldn’t be done with alien metals and alloys. That would lead to too many questions, and potentially disrupt timelines.
The Flat Bats didn’t care about what kind of metal they were given as long as it was rusty, because to them rust was gourmet dining. It was fascinating to watch them flutter over to the latest rusted lump of junk, settle onto it, and fly away again a few minutes later leaving behind a gleaming, rust-free patch. Jack was right; they could prove tremendously useful, and not merely to Torchwood, although for obvious reasons, Torchwood should get the benefit of their rust-removal abilities first.
With that in mind, Ianto was also busily constructing a movable pen, which could be set up around rusty sections of the catwalks and railings that could do with a good clean, and folded flat when not in use. Jack had been all for simply letting the Flat Bats loose in the Hub, but Ianto had worried they might either escape through the invisible lift, develop an appetite for something other than rust, such as wiring or the water tower’s mirror-bright cladding, or get themselves eaten if Myfanwy was feeling a bit peckish. All in all, it just seemed safer to restrict the little creatures to small areas, where the team could keep an eye on them and ensure their safety. Weird though they were, Ianto was already quite fond of them. They were pretty colours, and the soft rustling sounds they made as they flew were oddly soothing.
Forty-seven Flat Bats, flittering around, doing what Mother Nature on some distant alien world designed them to do. It just went to show that not everything the Rift dumped on Cardiff was rubbish. Alien creatures could be rather wonderful!
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Flat Bats.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The Flat Bats are doing well in their new home.
Word Count: 500
Written For: Prompt 160: Flat at anythingdrabble.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
The Flat Bats were settling in nicely. Ianto was housing them in one of the empty cells in the lower levels at present, while he created a habitat for them that would hopefully suit them better. They didn’t seem to mind their surroundings, flittering about at random and splatting themselves like colourful decals on the cell walls and the Perspex barrier to rest, and presumably sleep.
Ianto wondered if they dreamed, and if so, what about. Their home world perhaps? Did they miss it or was earth better than the world they’d known, a paradise where food was plentiful? In the few days since they’d been sucked through the Rift they already looked bigger, still flat but wider, and slightly thicker in the middle, filling out nicely.
As soon as he’d installed them in their temporary accommodations Ianto had supplied them with various kinds of rusted equipment for sustenance, leading to happy, well-fed aliens and bright, shiny metal implements. There was no shortage of rusted metal down in the archives; a lot of junk fell through the Rift and while it was easy enough to pass along any common earth metals and alloys, such as iron, aluminium, lead, copper, and brass, to the local scrap merchants, the same couldn’t be done with alien metals and alloys. That would lead to too many questions, and potentially disrupt timelines.
The Flat Bats didn’t care about what kind of metal they were given as long as it was rusty, because to them rust was gourmet dining. It was fascinating to watch them flutter over to the latest rusted lump of junk, settle onto it, and fly away again a few minutes later leaving behind a gleaming, rust-free patch. Jack was right; they could prove tremendously useful, and not merely to Torchwood, although for obvious reasons, Torchwood should get the benefit of their rust-removal abilities first.
With that in mind, Ianto was also busily constructing a movable pen, which could be set up around rusty sections of the catwalks and railings that could do with a good clean, and folded flat when not in use. Jack had been all for simply letting the Flat Bats loose in the Hub, but Ianto had worried they might either escape through the invisible lift, develop an appetite for something other than rust, such as wiring or the water tower’s mirror-bright cladding, or get themselves eaten if Myfanwy was feeling a bit peckish. All in all, it just seemed safer to restrict the little creatures to small areas, where the team could keep an eye on them and ensure their safety. Weird though they were, Ianto was already quite fond of them. They were pretty colours, and the soft rustling sounds they made as they flew were oddly soothing.
Forty-seven Flat Bats, flittering around, doing what Mother Nature on some distant alien world designed them to do. It just went to show that not everything the Rift dumped on Cardiff was rubbish. Alien creatures could be rather wonderful!
The End