Ficlet: With The Fishes
Title: With The Fishes
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Rating: G
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: It was an accident, but Ianto’s not in a very forgiving mood.
Word Count: 507
Written For: My own prompt ‘Any, any, Accidentally driving into a body of water,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
“I said ‘brake’ not ‘shove your foot down on the accelerator as hard as you can’!”
Jack risked a glance at Ianto, who was looking as angry as he sounded. Which, under current circumstances, was understandable. Not that it had been intentional on Jack’s part.
“Oops? Look, Ianto, I’m sorry. It’s not as if I meant for this to happen. I didn’t suddenly think, ‘Oh, it’s a lovely day, let’s go for a swim.’ Although, now I think about it, it really is a lovely day and…” He trailed off when he caught the expression on Ianto’s face where he sat beside Jack in the front seat of the SUV, up to his chest in water. It was probably a good thing that the recent heat wave meant the river was shallow for once. “My foot slipped, okay? I must have missed some of the slime when I was cleaning it off, got some on the foot pedals. Look on the bright side, at least we’re not in danger of drowning.”
Ianto didn’t reply, just unclipped his seat belt and opened the passenger side door.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
That got Ianto’s attention and earned Jack a withering glare. “To dry land of course. Feel free to stay here in the middle of the river if you want, but I prefer to be somewhere that doesn’t mean I have fish swimming around me.”
“Ooh, what kind?” Jack looked down at the water sloshing around him. “Maybe we can catch something for dinner!”
“I don’t know what kind, Jack! I’m not an ichthyologist! Anyway, I don’t care, we’re not catching anything, we don’t have a fishing licence and I wouldn’t eat anything caught here anyway.” Ianto floundered his way out of the car and waded ashore, pulling out his phone and shaking it disconsolately. Naturally it was full of water, having been in his trouser pocket.
Jack made a mental note to ask Tosh about the possibility of waterproofing the team’s phones. It might be a good idea. With a sigh, he turned off the SUV’s engine, which had already stopped due to being flooded, and climbed out, locking the vehicle, just in case anyone should try to steal it. Not that it seemed very likely, but you could never be sure. The fish might try to make off with it for all he knew.
“What do we do now?” Jack asked once he’d joined Ianto on the riverbank.
“We passed a village a few miles back. Even if they don’t have a garage we should still be able to phone for a tow truck.” Ianto set off back along the road and Jack fell into step beside him.
“At least it’s a nice day for a walk. We should dry out pretty quickly.” There was already steam rising from both of them in the warm sunshine.
“Humpf.”
Jack winced; he really was in the doghouse, no doubt he’d be drinking decaf for the foreseeable future. Looked like it was going to be a very long walk.
The End