Fic: More Problems
Title: More Problems
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Tosh, Jack
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1351
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Ianto is not at all impressed by the Rift’s latest gift. It’s a headache he could well do without.
Written For: Prompt ‘Any, Any, bunnies,’ at spring_renewal.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
In theory, the Rift could drop anything on Cardiff, from the past, present, or future, and from any planet in any galaxy in the entire universe, including earth. Maybe even from alternative or parallel universes, although that had never been proven.
Strange though it might seem, relatively few of the items the Rift saw fit to deliver turned out to be of earth origin. Occasionally they’d get an antique or two, or something Jack claimed to be from a few millennia in earth’s future, and then there was the small plane, complete with pilot and passengers, that had flown in from the early fifties. There was an occasional prehistoric creature as well, although Myfanwy was the only one they’d kept, most of the others having been too large or too dangerous for them to accommodate. But beyond that, everything that came through the Rift generally seemed to be alien in nature.
Not today though.
Jack had sent Ianto and Tosh to investigate the latest Rift spike, since Owen was up to his elbows in a dead alien, and Gwen had taken the day off for wedding planning. On any other day Jack would have gone himself, with Ianto as his able assistant, but he was tied up with paperwork and facing serious consequences if he didn’t clear his backlog by the end of the day. Ianto could be a hard taskmaster, and the last thing Jack wanted was to incur his lover’s wrath. Turned out there were, in fact, far worse punishments than cold, cheap, instant decaf.
Tosh had traced the alert to an office building that was part of a new business park, the completed offices as yet untenanted, and the upper floors still under construction. It was fortunate that the office suite where the Rift event had occurred already had doors and windows fitted, although it had yet to be decorated. The walls were bare plaster, the floors still uncarpeted, and there was no furniture. It was not, however, unoccupied.
“Maybe we should call Jack and Owen for help,” Tosh said as she and Ianto stood in the doorway, taking in the scene.
“Not just yet.” Ianto nudged his friend into the room, following her and quickly shutting the door. “Are you sure this is what we’re looking for?”
Tosh checked her scanner again. “They must be. We’re in the right place, there’s nothing else here that I can see, and anyway, they’re soaked in Rift energy.”
“In that case, we’re going to need more containment boxes. And probably a van.” Ianto stared in horror. “Oh God, now what are they doing?”
“What comes naturally?” Tosh was blushing and grinning at the same time. “Bunnies are sort of known for it. We’d better hurry up and catch them before there’s a population explosion.”
“I don’t think it happens quite that fast, not even with bunnies. If we catch them and keep them separated, put all the females in together and each of the males in a cage by itself…” Ianto trailed off, frowning. “Only I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to sexing rabbits.”
“If it’s any help, the ones on top are probably boys.”
Ianto glanced at his friend. “Not necessarily; sometimes it’s a dominance thing. How many are there, anyway? I thought we were only supposed to be collecting one item!”
“I thought so too, going by the Rift data. Looks like we were wrong.”
As they watched, there was a brief Rift flare and another rabbit appeared, a pair of very human-looking hands briefly visible as the unfortunate creature was pushed through the portal.
“Now that’s just not fair. Oi!” Ianto strode across the room. “Stop that!” He crouched down and peered into a wavery patch of air. “We don’t want your surplus rabbits!” He grabbed the nearest rabbit and shoved it back through, but ten seconds later, it was back again. “Tosh, can you shut the portal down? They’re not supposed to stay open this long! At this rate, we’ll be overrun!”
“We already are.” Tosh pulled her laptop from its bag, set it on a windowsill, and typed in a few commands, connecting to the Hub’s systems before scrolling through the data that appeared on her screen. “I don’t think it’ll stay open much longer; it’s starting to lose cohesion. Whatever’s generating the portal must be running low on power.”
Another rabbit was shoved unceremoniously through, followed almost immediately by two more. One final rabbit emerged, looking ruffled and a bit put out having been practically thrown through, then the portal flickered, fizzled, and collapsed, blinking out with a faint pop as if it had never been there. It was so abrupt that Ianto fell backwards onto his arse. He just hoped he wasn’t sitting in anything rabbit-related.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, looking over at Tosh. While he was distracted, he felt a rabbit hop onto his lap, and he glared down at it, the glare that usually had Jack grovelling for forgiveness. The rabbit was clearly made of sterner stuff since it merely twitched its nose at him.
“I’m not sure,” Tosh replied, her back to him so she hadn’t noticed his predicament. “Someone must have found a way to open a portal, perhaps with a piece of alien technology.”
“And they randomly decided to use it to deal with their rabbit problem?” Ianto looked around the room, counted ears, and divided by two. “What are we supposed to do with seventeen rabbits?” Some days it seemed that he had a permanent headache.
“Catch them?” Tosh shut down her laptop and put it away, leaving her bag out of reach on the windowsill.
Ianto rolled his eyes. “Thanks for your oh so helpful suggestion.”
“You asked.” Tosh gave him her most innocent look, but Ianto wasn’t buying it; he knew her too well.
“You think this is funny, don’t you?”
“Just a bit. You do have a rabbit sitting on you.”
“Yes, I had actually noticed that.” Ianto buried his head in his hands and groaned. “The Rift hates me.”
“It can’t hate you, Ianto; it’s not sentient.”
“So Jack keeps telling me, but I’m not convinced.” Ianto huffed out an exasperated breath. Obviously he and Tosh couldn’t deal with this by themselves; they didn’t have enough hands, or half the equipment they were going to need. Giving in to the inevitable, he dug his phone out of his pocket and called Jack.
“Ianto! Is everything alright?”
“No, it’s not. You and Owen need to leave whatever you’re doing and come out to the new business park. Bring the wire cages from storage room nine, and you’ll need a van to put them in.”
“But what about my paperwork?”
“Screw your paperwork! You’ll have to finish it tomorrow.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind? I mean, this morning you were telling me I had to get it done by tonight or there’d be Consequences. I’m not quite sure what you meant by that, but it didn’t sound like something I’d…”
Ianto cut him off with a bellow of “JACK!”
“Yes, Ianto?”
“Forget what I said this morning! We’ve got a situation here and we need your help, so get your arse in gear!”
“Okay, calm down, we’re on our way. How many of the cages should we bring?”
“All of them. As it is, there won’t be enough, we’ll have to put two in some of them, which is far from ideal, and may end up making our problem worse.” Ianto sighed and rubbed his eyes. The rabbit in his lap started to chew the edge of his jacket, so he quickly pushed it onto the floor and stood up. Unconcerned, the rabbit sat down and nonchalantly scratched its ear.
“What exactly are we dealing with?”
“Huh?” Ianto blinked; he’d forgotten he was talking to Jack. “Oh. Rabbits.”
“Rabbits? Are you sure?”
“Yes, Jack, I know a rabbit when I see one! Or in this case, seventeen.”
Tosh was scanning a small grey and white one. “Ordinary earth-type rabbits,” she agreed. “Nothing alien about them.”
“Tosh says…” Ianto started, but Jack cut him off.
“I heard. Fine, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Just one thing; what’re we gonna do with them?”
“Take them to a vet, for starters. Get them sexed then neutered or whatever, then I suppose we’ll have to find homes for them. Preferably before we end up with even more, although it might already be too late for that. If there’s one thing rabbits are known for, it’s being prolific breeders.”
Jack laughed. “You mean they’re shagging like bunnies?”
“In a word, yes. Now hurry up!”
“Yes, Sir!” Jack hung up.
Putting his phone away, Ianto gave another long-suffering sigh, then bent down to detach a rabbit’s teeth from his trouser leg. “Why did it have to be rabbits? Why couldn’t it have been something nice and simple like a Weevil?”
The End
Sequel: ' Bunny Trouble'
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Tosh, Jack
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1351
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Ianto is not at all impressed by the Rift’s latest gift. It’s a headache he could well do without.
Written For: Prompt ‘Any, Any, bunnies,’ at spring_renewal.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
In theory, the Rift could drop anything on Cardiff, from the past, present, or future, and from any planet in any galaxy in the entire universe, including earth. Maybe even from alternative or parallel universes, although that had never been proven.
Strange though it might seem, relatively few of the items the Rift saw fit to deliver turned out to be of earth origin. Occasionally they’d get an antique or two, or something Jack claimed to be from a few millennia in earth’s future, and then there was the small plane, complete with pilot and passengers, that had flown in from the early fifties. There was an occasional prehistoric creature as well, although Myfanwy was the only one they’d kept, most of the others having been too large or too dangerous for them to accommodate. But beyond that, everything that came through the Rift generally seemed to be alien in nature.
Not today though.
Jack had sent Ianto and Tosh to investigate the latest Rift spike, since Owen was up to his elbows in a dead alien, and Gwen had taken the day off for wedding planning. On any other day Jack would have gone himself, with Ianto as his able assistant, but he was tied up with paperwork and facing serious consequences if he didn’t clear his backlog by the end of the day. Ianto could be a hard taskmaster, and the last thing Jack wanted was to incur his lover’s wrath. Turned out there were, in fact, far worse punishments than cold, cheap, instant decaf.
Tosh had traced the alert to an office building that was part of a new business park, the completed offices as yet untenanted, and the upper floors still under construction. It was fortunate that the office suite where the Rift event had occurred already had doors and windows fitted, although it had yet to be decorated. The walls were bare plaster, the floors still uncarpeted, and there was no furniture. It was not, however, unoccupied.
“Maybe we should call Jack and Owen for help,” Tosh said as she and Ianto stood in the doorway, taking in the scene.
“Not just yet.” Ianto nudged his friend into the room, following her and quickly shutting the door. “Are you sure this is what we’re looking for?”
Tosh checked her scanner again. “They must be. We’re in the right place, there’s nothing else here that I can see, and anyway, they’re soaked in Rift energy.”
“In that case, we’re going to need more containment boxes. And probably a van.” Ianto stared in horror. “Oh God, now what are they doing?”
“What comes naturally?” Tosh was blushing and grinning at the same time. “Bunnies are sort of known for it. We’d better hurry up and catch them before there’s a population explosion.”
“I don’t think it happens quite that fast, not even with bunnies. If we catch them and keep them separated, put all the females in together and each of the males in a cage by itself…” Ianto trailed off, frowning. “Only I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to sexing rabbits.”
“If it’s any help, the ones on top are probably boys.”
Ianto glanced at his friend. “Not necessarily; sometimes it’s a dominance thing. How many are there, anyway? I thought we were only supposed to be collecting one item!”
“I thought so too, going by the Rift data. Looks like we were wrong.”
As they watched, there was a brief Rift flare and another rabbit appeared, a pair of very human-looking hands briefly visible as the unfortunate creature was pushed through the portal.
“Now that’s just not fair. Oi!” Ianto strode across the room. “Stop that!” He crouched down and peered into a wavery patch of air. “We don’t want your surplus rabbits!” He grabbed the nearest rabbit and shoved it back through, but ten seconds later, it was back again. “Tosh, can you shut the portal down? They’re not supposed to stay open this long! At this rate, we’ll be overrun!”
“We already are.” Tosh pulled her laptop from its bag, set it on a windowsill, and typed in a few commands, connecting to the Hub’s systems before scrolling through the data that appeared on her screen. “I don’t think it’ll stay open much longer; it’s starting to lose cohesion. Whatever’s generating the portal must be running low on power.”
Another rabbit was shoved unceremoniously through, followed almost immediately by two more. One final rabbit emerged, looking ruffled and a bit put out having been practically thrown through, then the portal flickered, fizzled, and collapsed, blinking out with a faint pop as if it had never been there. It was so abrupt that Ianto fell backwards onto his arse. He just hoped he wasn’t sitting in anything rabbit-related.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, looking over at Tosh. While he was distracted, he felt a rabbit hop onto his lap, and he glared down at it, the glare that usually had Jack grovelling for forgiveness. The rabbit was clearly made of sterner stuff since it merely twitched its nose at him.
“I’m not sure,” Tosh replied, her back to him so she hadn’t noticed his predicament. “Someone must have found a way to open a portal, perhaps with a piece of alien technology.”
“And they randomly decided to use it to deal with their rabbit problem?” Ianto looked around the room, counted ears, and divided by two. “What are we supposed to do with seventeen rabbits?” Some days it seemed that he had a permanent headache.
“Catch them?” Tosh shut down her laptop and put it away, leaving her bag out of reach on the windowsill.
Ianto rolled his eyes. “Thanks for your oh so helpful suggestion.”
“You asked.” Tosh gave him her most innocent look, but Ianto wasn’t buying it; he knew her too well.
“You think this is funny, don’t you?”
“Just a bit. You do have a rabbit sitting on you.”
“Yes, I had actually noticed that.” Ianto buried his head in his hands and groaned. “The Rift hates me.”
“It can’t hate you, Ianto; it’s not sentient.”
“So Jack keeps telling me, but I’m not convinced.” Ianto huffed out an exasperated breath. Obviously he and Tosh couldn’t deal with this by themselves; they didn’t have enough hands, or half the equipment they were going to need. Giving in to the inevitable, he dug his phone out of his pocket and called Jack.
“Ianto! Is everything alright?”
“No, it’s not. You and Owen need to leave whatever you’re doing and come out to the new business park. Bring the wire cages from storage room nine, and you’ll need a van to put them in.”
“But what about my paperwork?”
“Screw your paperwork! You’ll have to finish it tomorrow.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind? I mean, this morning you were telling me I had to get it done by tonight or there’d be Consequences. I’m not quite sure what you meant by that, but it didn’t sound like something I’d…”
Ianto cut him off with a bellow of “JACK!”
“Yes, Ianto?”
“Forget what I said this morning! We’ve got a situation here and we need your help, so get your arse in gear!”
“Okay, calm down, we’re on our way. How many of the cages should we bring?”
“All of them. As it is, there won’t be enough, we’ll have to put two in some of them, which is far from ideal, and may end up making our problem worse.” Ianto sighed and rubbed his eyes. The rabbit in his lap started to chew the edge of his jacket, so he quickly pushed it onto the floor and stood up. Unconcerned, the rabbit sat down and nonchalantly scratched its ear.
“What exactly are we dealing with?”
“Huh?” Ianto blinked; he’d forgotten he was talking to Jack. “Oh. Rabbits.”
“Rabbits? Are you sure?”
“Yes, Jack, I know a rabbit when I see one! Or in this case, seventeen.”
Tosh was scanning a small grey and white one. “Ordinary earth-type rabbits,” she agreed. “Nothing alien about them.”
“Tosh says…” Ianto started, but Jack cut him off.
“I heard. Fine, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Just one thing; what’re we gonna do with them?”
“Take them to a vet, for starters. Get them sexed then neutered or whatever, then I suppose we’ll have to find homes for them. Preferably before we end up with even more, although it might already be too late for that. If there’s one thing rabbits are known for, it’s being prolific breeders.”
Jack laughed. “You mean they’re shagging like bunnies?”
“In a word, yes. Now hurry up!”
“Yes, Sir!” Jack hung up.
Putting his phone away, Ianto gave another long-suffering sigh, then bent down to detach a rabbit’s teeth from his trouser leg. “Why did it have to be rabbits? Why couldn’t it have been something nice and simple like a Weevil?”
The End
Sequel: ' Bunny Trouble'