Fic: Weird Creatures - Part 2-5
Title: Weird Creatures - Part 2-5
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Tosh, Owen, Gwen, and Whooping Snakes.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The final member of the Torchwood Team meets the new residents.
Word Count: 2027
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. I don’t own Whooping Snakes either, sadly.
Previous Part
As Ianto exited the medical bay, the cog door sirens started to blare and the strobing light flashed, announcing Gwen’s arrival. She was later than usual since it had been her scheduled morning off.
“Hi, guys,” she called out cheerily to her colleagues. “What’s occurrin’? Did I miss anything important?”
“Ah, Gwen, perfect timing.” Ianto made his way towards Gwen’s workstation, arriving there just ahead of her. “I know you only just got here, but would you mind nipping out again to pick up lunch for everyone?”
“No problem, Ianto. Pizza okay?”
“Ah, no; we’ll be having Chinese for a change. You’ll have to ask the others what they want, but I’ll have the sweet and sour pork, an extra serving of noodles, special fried rice, and a triple order of pork dumplings.”
Gwen paused, giving Ianto an uncertain look. “A triple order? Are you sure? I mean, isn’t that rather a lot for one person?”
“Oh, no, the dumplings aren’t for me; they’re for the Whooping Snakes.”
“The what now?”
“Whooping Snakes.” Ianto held out the box to show Gwen and the snakes obligingly whooped, popping up one or two at a time, but with such speed and frequency that it looked like there were a lot more than there really were. He smiled at them indulgently. “Contrary to how it looks, there are only three.”
“Oh.” Gwen had taken a couple of steps back when the whooping had started. “I’m not too fond of snakes.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Ianto assured her. “They’re completely harmless. They whoop when they get excited, and at other times, but aside from that they’re really no trouble at all.” Perhaps he was being a bit optimistic since the snakes had only been found a couple of hours ago, but so far, aside from the exuberant whooping, they’d been remarkably well-behaved. Ianto suspected they could even be sentient, to a certain extent. Not at the human level, obviously, but still reasonably intelligent. He found them rather charming. “Ask Jack for some money from petty cash. I should get these guys settled somewhere quiet; they’ve had quite an eventful morning.”
Carrying the box into the kitchen area, Ianto set it down near the radiator, hoping the snakes would be warm enough there for the time being, then went to make coffee for the team. Warming some water while the coffee was brewing, he half-filled a dish and put it in with the snakes, who sipped at it appreciatively. If only some members of the team were as well-mannered!
When the coffee was ready Ianto distributed the drinks to his teammates, except for Gwen, who was already on her way out again to pick up their lunch orders. Their favoured Chinese takeaway wasn’t much more than a five-minute walk from the Hub so there was no point paying for delivery. Satisfied that everyone present was provided for, Ianto took his mug with him and went in search of the heat lamp.
Locating the piece of alien-enhanced tech took longer than it should have. Owen had been the last to use it, for an ailing alien that had sadly not survived, and he hadn’t put it back in its usual place. Naturally, when asked, the medic couldn’t remember where he’d left it after he’d finished with it. It took Ianto nearly fifteen minutes of searching through the room where they stored various pieces of equipment that occasionally came in handy before he found it, tucked out of sight behind an alien thermal imager and a box of spare parts.
Unearthing the lamp, Ianto dusted it off, checked that it was working properly, then took it and his empty coffee mug back up to the kitchen, where he found only two snakes in the box by the radiator. Looking at them, he realised they were the two Jack had coaxed out from under the bushes. Clearly they were the stay-at-home kind while their companion was of a more adventurous nature. Ianto looked around, wondering where the missing snake had slithered off to, but he couldn’t see it. Still, it couldn’t have gone far so he busied himself getting the lamp set up, to a chorus of whoops from the remaining pair.
“There, how’s that? Warm enough for you? Good. Now I suppose I’d better go find your friend before it gets itself into trouble,” he told the two snakes. They blinked mildly at him, seeming unconcerned, but they were new to the Hub so what did they know? There were all kinds of dangers in Torchwood’s underground base that could befall an unwary snake.
Just as Ianto was beginning his search for the wandering snake, the cog door opened once more, accompanied by its usual cacophony of alarms and flashing lights as Gwen returned with lunch.
“Food’s here, come and get it while it’s hot!” she called out.
‘WHOOOOOP!’
Gwen gave a shriek and jumped back, juggling the bags of takeaway food, and only just managing not to drop them as a snake popped up just a few feet away from her, only to vanish again.
“Ianto!” she yelled. “One of your bloody snakes got loose!”
“I know, I was just about to look for it,” Ianto said, making his way towards where the snake had been only seconds before. It wasn’t there, which he probably should have expected, but…
“WHOOP!’ came from nearby, and turning, Ianto caught a brief glimpse of it before it was gone again.
“Right, well, lunchtime, I think.” Straightening up, Ianto stuck his hands in his trouser pockets, doing his best to act nonchalant and ignoring several more whoops.
“But what about your snake?” Gwen asked, still clutching the takeaway bags to her like a comfort blanket.
Ianto smirked. “You got the pork dumplings, didn’t you?”
“Of course. They’re here.” Rummaging through her bags, Gwen found the right one and held it out to Ianto. “Are you sure it’s a good idea feeding Chinese takeaway to aliens? I mean, it’s not exactly a natural diet, is it? You don’t find pork dumplings growing on bushes. Anyway, I always thought snakes ate mice and rats, things like that.”
Pulling his hands from his pockets, Ianto accepted the bag, smiling. “I don’t know what they’d eat in the wild, but according to Owen’s devices, Chinese takeaway, and pork dumplings in particular, will supply all their nutritional requirements, so who am I to argue? You may have noticed they’re not exactly your average snakes.”
Several more whoops echoed from various parts of the Hub as the snake continued exploring its fascinating new environment.
Gwen glanced around nervously at every whoop, as if expecting the snake to jump out and attack her at any moment. “Shouldn’t you be trying to catch it?”
Ianto shrugged. “Why bother? If it’s hungry it’ll come to where the food is, especially if its friends are getting fed. It won’t want to be left out.”
“But you’ll catch it when it comes to eat, right?”
“I don’t know. I could put it back in the box with the others, after it’s fed it might go to sleep for a bit, but short of putting a lid on the box, which really isn’t an option, I can’t see any way of making it stay there if it doesn’t want to.”
“Can’t you just shut them all in one of the cells?”
Ianto shook his head. “Definitely not, it’s much too chilly down in the vaults for cold-blooded reptiles, and there aren’t any power outlets where I could plug in their heat lamp. There might not be any way of containing them until I build a snake enclosure. I’ll do my best of course, I wouldn’t want anything bad happening to any of the snakes, but that one seems the curious sort. It likes exploring and investigating things.”
As if in agreement, there was a loud ‘WHOOOOOP!’ from near the workstations. Tosh giggled as the snake popped up, looking about with interest, only to disappear and pop up again moments later halfway to the other side of the Hub.
“Something tells me that one’s the kind of snake who won’t be tied down,” Tosh called to Ianto. “Reminds me of the one in the movie.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Ianto agreed, heading for the kitchen with his bag of takeaway cartons. The snakes whooped eagerly from inside their box; perhaps they could smell the pork dumplings and understood that dinner was about to be served.
Setting his bag on the worktop, Ianto opened one of the cartons. Using chopsticks, he plucked out two steaming dumplings, depositing them on a small plate he’d fetched from the crockery cupboard.
“Owen,” he shouted across to the medic’s domain.
“What?”
“Do you think I should let the dumplings cool before giving them to the snakes?”
“How should I know?” came the answering yell.
“Well, didn’t it say anything on that scanner of yours?”
Owen popped up from the medical bay, a bit like a Whooping Snake himself. “Nope. Looks like you’ll have to figure it out for yourself. Have fun!”
“Right. Thanks for nothing.” Ianto carried the plate over to the snakes. “Careful, they’re hot,” he warned as he set the food down between the two stay-at-homes.
‘WHOOOPWHOOP!’
It was curious the way these snakes, unlike any others Ianto had ever seen or heard of, could purse their lips. They blew carefully on their dumplings, occasionally testing the surface temperature with a brief lick, then they each just opened their mouths wide and sucked a dumpling up. It was quite a sight, the resulting bulge in each narrow throat gradually making its way down towards each snake’s midsection. The two snakes looked up at him, blinking hopefully.
‘WhooooP?’ they chorused.
“Still hungry?”
‘WHOOPWHOOP!’
“Well, okay.” Crouching down, Ianto put a couple more dumplings on the plate and watched the two snakes once again cool them before swallowing them whole, the second lump sliding down their long throats to join the first. It took a third dumpling each before the snakes finally seemed satisfied and settled to digest their meal, blinking sleepily.
Meanwhile, Ianto was aware that he wasn’t alone. It would have been impossible not to notice.
‘WhoooooooP?’ from near the armoury, then ‘WHOOP’ from under the spiral staircase, and finally, ‘WHOOOP!’ from right beside him.
He turned to look at the snake. “Ah, there you are. What kept you? Your friends have already eaten.”
‘WHOOOOOP!’
“Alright! Into your box and I’ll feed you.”
Approximately three and a half feet of yellow snake hurriedly slithered over the side of the box and coiled itself neatly between the other snakes. Ianto popped three steaming dumplings onto the plate and watched as the snake gulped them down, hardly pausing to cool them, then whooped for more.
“Hm, I suppose all the exploring you’ve been doing has given you a big appetite.” Ianto looked in the carton, which held one more dumpling. “Fine, here you are, but this is the last one.” He set it in front of the snake, who wolfed it down. Ianto still had two more cartons of dumplings, but he was hoping they’d last the three snakes for a day or two. “If you’re still hungry after that, I might be persuaded to share my noodles with you, but only if you’re good.”
The snake licked its lips, then burped.
Ianto smirked at it. “That’s what you get for bolting your food.”
Straightening up, he put the empty carton on the counter to be thrown away with the rest of the rubbish once everyone had eaten their fill, then put the other two cartons of dumplings in the fridge, figuring he could re-heat them in the microwave when they were needed. How many times a day did snakes need to be fed? That was something he needed to figure out sooner rather than later; they were relying on him to take care of them. Looked like he’d have to do some research, and maybe see what else Owen could find out with his devices, but that could wait until after he ate. He needed to keep his own strength up too.
TBC in Part Three
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Tosh, Owen, Gwen, and Whooping Snakes.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The final member of the Torchwood Team meets the new residents.
Word Count: 2027
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. I don’t own Whooping Snakes either, sadly.
Previous Part
As Ianto exited the medical bay, the cog door sirens started to blare and the strobing light flashed, announcing Gwen’s arrival. She was later than usual since it had been her scheduled morning off.
“Hi, guys,” she called out cheerily to her colleagues. “What’s occurrin’? Did I miss anything important?”
“Ah, Gwen, perfect timing.” Ianto made his way towards Gwen’s workstation, arriving there just ahead of her. “I know you only just got here, but would you mind nipping out again to pick up lunch for everyone?”
“No problem, Ianto. Pizza okay?”
“Ah, no; we’ll be having Chinese for a change. You’ll have to ask the others what they want, but I’ll have the sweet and sour pork, an extra serving of noodles, special fried rice, and a triple order of pork dumplings.”
Gwen paused, giving Ianto an uncertain look. “A triple order? Are you sure? I mean, isn’t that rather a lot for one person?”
“Oh, no, the dumplings aren’t for me; they’re for the Whooping Snakes.”
“The what now?”
“Whooping Snakes.” Ianto held out the box to show Gwen and the snakes obligingly whooped, popping up one or two at a time, but with such speed and frequency that it looked like there were a lot more than there really were. He smiled at them indulgently. “Contrary to how it looks, there are only three.”
“Oh.” Gwen had taken a couple of steps back when the whooping had started. “I’m not too fond of snakes.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Ianto assured her. “They’re completely harmless. They whoop when they get excited, and at other times, but aside from that they’re really no trouble at all.” Perhaps he was being a bit optimistic since the snakes had only been found a couple of hours ago, but so far, aside from the exuberant whooping, they’d been remarkably well-behaved. Ianto suspected they could even be sentient, to a certain extent. Not at the human level, obviously, but still reasonably intelligent. He found them rather charming. “Ask Jack for some money from petty cash. I should get these guys settled somewhere quiet; they’ve had quite an eventful morning.”
Carrying the box into the kitchen area, Ianto set it down near the radiator, hoping the snakes would be warm enough there for the time being, then went to make coffee for the team. Warming some water while the coffee was brewing, he half-filled a dish and put it in with the snakes, who sipped at it appreciatively. If only some members of the team were as well-mannered!
When the coffee was ready Ianto distributed the drinks to his teammates, except for Gwen, who was already on her way out again to pick up their lunch orders. Their favoured Chinese takeaway wasn’t much more than a five-minute walk from the Hub so there was no point paying for delivery. Satisfied that everyone present was provided for, Ianto took his mug with him and went in search of the heat lamp.
Locating the piece of alien-enhanced tech took longer than it should have. Owen had been the last to use it, for an ailing alien that had sadly not survived, and he hadn’t put it back in its usual place. Naturally, when asked, the medic couldn’t remember where he’d left it after he’d finished with it. It took Ianto nearly fifteen minutes of searching through the room where they stored various pieces of equipment that occasionally came in handy before he found it, tucked out of sight behind an alien thermal imager and a box of spare parts.
Unearthing the lamp, Ianto dusted it off, checked that it was working properly, then took it and his empty coffee mug back up to the kitchen, where he found only two snakes in the box by the radiator. Looking at them, he realised they were the two Jack had coaxed out from under the bushes. Clearly they were the stay-at-home kind while their companion was of a more adventurous nature. Ianto looked around, wondering where the missing snake had slithered off to, but he couldn’t see it. Still, it couldn’t have gone far so he busied himself getting the lamp set up, to a chorus of whoops from the remaining pair.
“There, how’s that? Warm enough for you? Good. Now I suppose I’d better go find your friend before it gets itself into trouble,” he told the two snakes. They blinked mildly at him, seeming unconcerned, but they were new to the Hub so what did they know? There were all kinds of dangers in Torchwood’s underground base that could befall an unwary snake.
Just as Ianto was beginning his search for the wandering snake, the cog door opened once more, accompanied by its usual cacophony of alarms and flashing lights as Gwen returned with lunch.
“Food’s here, come and get it while it’s hot!” she called out.
‘WHOOOOOP!’
Gwen gave a shriek and jumped back, juggling the bags of takeaway food, and only just managing not to drop them as a snake popped up just a few feet away from her, only to vanish again.
“Ianto!” she yelled. “One of your bloody snakes got loose!”
“I know, I was just about to look for it,” Ianto said, making his way towards where the snake had been only seconds before. It wasn’t there, which he probably should have expected, but…
“WHOOP!’ came from nearby, and turning, Ianto caught a brief glimpse of it before it was gone again.
“Right, well, lunchtime, I think.” Straightening up, Ianto stuck his hands in his trouser pockets, doing his best to act nonchalant and ignoring several more whoops.
“But what about your snake?” Gwen asked, still clutching the takeaway bags to her like a comfort blanket.
Ianto smirked. “You got the pork dumplings, didn’t you?”
“Of course. They’re here.” Rummaging through her bags, Gwen found the right one and held it out to Ianto. “Are you sure it’s a good idea feeding Chinese takeaway to aliens? I mean, it’s not exactly a natural diet, is it? You don’t find pork dumplings growing on bushes. Anyway, I always thought snakes ate mice and rats, things like that.”
Pulling his hands from his pockets, Ianto accepted the bag, smiling. “I don’t know what they’d eat in the wild, but according to Owen’s devices, Chinese takeaway, and pork dumplings in particular, will supply all their nutritional requirements, so who am I to argue? You may have noticed they’re not exactly your average snakes.”
Several more whoops echoed from various parts of the Hub as the snake continued exploring its fascinating new environment.
Gwen glanced around nervously at every whoop, as if expecting the snake to jump out and attack her at any moment. “Shouldn’t you be trying to catch it?”
Ianto shrugged. “Why bother? If it’s hungry it’ll come to where the food is, especially if its friends are getting fed. It won’t want to be left out.”
“But you’ll catch it when it comes to eat, right?”
“I don’t know. I could put it back in the box with the others, after it’s fed it might go to sleep for a bit, but short of putting a lid on the box, which really isn’t an option, I can’t see any way of making it stay there if it doesn’t want to.”
“Can’t you just shut them all in one of the cells?”
Ianto shook his head. “Definitely not, it’s much too chilly down in the vaults for cold-blooded reptiles, and there aren’t any power outlets where I could plug in their heat lamp. There might not be any way of containing them until I build a snake enclosure. I’ll do my best of course, I wouldn’t want anything bad happening to any of the snakes, but that one seems the curious sort. It likes exploring and investigating things.”
As if in agreement, there was a loud ‘WHOOOOOP!’ from near the workstations. Tosh giggled as the snake popped up, looking about with interest, only to disappear and pop up again moments later halfway to the other side of the Hub.
“Something tells me that one’s the kind of snake who won’t be tied down,” Tosh called to Ianto. “Reminds me of the one in the movie.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Ianto agreed, heading for the kitchen with his bag of takeaway cartons. The snakes whooped eagerly from inside their box; perhaps they could smell the pork dumplings and understood that dinner was about to be served.
Setting his bag on the worktop, Ianto opened one of the cartons. Using chopsticks, he plucked out two steaming dumplings, depositing them on a small plate he’d fetched from the crockery cupboard.
“Owen,” he shouted across to the medic’s domain.
“What?”
“Do you think I should let the dumplings cool before giving them to the snakes?”
“How should I know?” came the answering yell.
“Well, didn’t it say anything on that scanner of yours?”
Owen popped up from the medical bay, a bit like a Whooping Snake himself. “Nope. Looks like you’ll have to figure it out for yourself. Have fun!”
“Right. Thanks for nothing.” Ianto carried the plate over to the snakes. “Careful, they’re hot,” he warned as he set the food down between the two stay-at-homes.
‘WHOOOPWHOOP!’
It was curious the way these snakes, unlike any others Ianto had ever seen or heard of, could purse their lips. They blew carefully on their dumplings, occasionally testing the surface temperature with a brief lick, then they each just opened their mouths wide and sucked a dumpling up. It was quite a sight, the resulting bulge in each narrow throat gradually making its way down towards each snake’s midsection. The two snakes looked up at him, blinking hopefully.
‘WhooooP?’ they chorused.
“Still hungry?”
‘WHOOPWHOOP!’
“Well, okay.” Crouching down, Ianto put a couple more dumplings on the plate and watched the two snakes once again cool them before swallowing them whole, the second lump sliding down their long throats to join the first. It took a third dumpling each before the snakes finally seemed satisfied and settled to digest their meal, blinking sleepily.
Meanwhile, Ianto was aware that he wasn’t alone. It would have been impossible not to notice.
‘WhoooooooP?’ from near the armoury, then ‘WHOOP’ from under the spiral staircase, and finally, ‘WHOOOP!’ from right beside him.
He turned to look at the snake. “Ah, there you are. What kept you? Your friends have already eaten.”
‘WHOOOOOP!’
“Alright! Into your box and I’ll feed you.”
Approximately three and a half feet of yellow snake hurriedly slithered over the side of the box and coiled itself neatly between the other snakes. Ianto popped three steaming dumplings onto the plate and watched as the snake gulped them down, hardly pausing to cool them, then whooped for more.
“Hm, I suppose all the exploring you’ve been doing has given you a big appetite.” Ianto looked in the carton, which held one more dumpling. “Fine, here you are, but this is the last one.” He set it in front of the snake, who wolfed it down. Ianto still had two more cartons of dumplings, but he was hoping they’d last the three snakes for a day or two. “If you’re still hungry after that, I might be persuaded to share my noodles with you, but only if you’re good.”
The snake licked its lips, then burped.
Ianto smirked at it. “That’s what you get for bolting your food.”
Straightening up, he put the empty carton on the counter to be thrown away with the rest of the rubbish once everyone had eaten their fill, then put the other two cartons of dumplings in the fridge, figuring he could re-heat them in the microwave when they were needed. How many times a day did snakes need to be fed? That was something he needed to figure out sooner rather than later; they were relying on him to take care of them. Looked like he’d have to do some research, and maybe see what else Owen could find out with his devices, but that could wait until after he ate. He needed to keep his own strength up too.
TBC in Part Three