FIC: And in Their Rucksacks Were Hobnobs (How Fucking Psyched Were They)
Title: And in Their Rucksacks Were Hobnobs (How Fucking Psyched Were They) -- scenes from an unfinished story
Author: blue_fjords
Rating: PG-13? PG? there was sex, but it may not have made the cut
Characters: Owen, Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Rhys, Janet
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: So. Back in August I started writing a space opera for amand_r's birthday. In October I lost half of it when I lost my USB stick. I don't think I'll ever be able to finish this. But I loved it so, so much. It's incredibly derivative and self-indulgent. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. Also an awful lot of fun to write, and really cracky. (Also heavy on the Jack/Ianto, and I'm not even posting a big chunk of that stuff.) But I just don't think I can recover from the missing parts. Who knows, though. Maybe someday. At any rate, I write in scene chunks, so this is not a flowing story -- it's a bunch of chunks of scenes. Unconnected scenes. Anyhow, I wanted to give amand_r at least a little taste of her birthday story. Love you, mandr. You make me happy.
“Pull it tighter!” Jack roared.
“If it goes any tighter, we’ll slice the wood clean off!” Owen roared back. “Shit, get down!”
Rhys let out a very undignified shriek as a fireball barreled straight towards them. Owen lunged and hugged him round the knees, and they went down in a tangle of limbs, hitting the deck hard. The fireball washed over the ship, breaking up into hundreds of little fire tornadoes, skirting the suddenly glowing shielding around their ship. Owen risked a glance over at Tosh, feet dangling from the quarterdeck as she gripped the remote for their flimsy excuse for a shield in her hands. He could just make out her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, and suddenly the heat from the fireball decreased significantly.
“Jack! Three more ships to the left of us! Port! Three to port!” Gwen called down from high up in the crows nest.
“Dammit! Are they schooners or galleons?” Jack yelled up to her.
“What’s the difference? They’re aiming right at us!”
Owen distinctly heard Jack mutter, “But the galleons look so much cooler,” before turning to Ianto. “How much time do we need before we can hop ahead?”
Ianto didn’t even look up from his half-crouch over the controls. “Ninety seconds,” he murmured.
“Okay gang, hang onto something!” Jack gripped the wheel in his hands and turned it sharply to the right. Starboard, Owen’s brain supplied, along with a Fuck, Jack, we weren’t ready, as he and Rhys went tumbling back up against the railing. From his perch upside down, head smooshed against Rhys’s ankle, Owen could see Gwen high above them, gripping the sides of the crow’s nest and craning her neck behind them.
“The little ship’s getting closer, Jack!”
“That would be the schooner, then,” Jack said triumphantly. “I will not get run down by a schooner! Ianto?”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Okay, Tosh, focus the shield above us.” Jack gripped the top of the wheel and pushed it forward, in a way a true wheel would never go. Owen cursed loudly as he and Rhys began to roll down the length of the ship to the forecastle as the ship suddenly dived. He could hear Gwen laughing with joy high above, and he spared a curse for her, too. He never heard Ianto’s quiet, “We’re ready,” but then they lurched forward into dark space, and stillness enveloped them once again.
Jack got them on an even keel and glanced around. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Next to Owen, Rhys let out a groan and vomited for the sixth time since they started this little adventure.
***
It started, as so many of these things do, with a case of mistaken identity, unrequited love and negligent prison policy. And a bottle of Pimms. Without the Pimms, perhaps Team Torchwood would not have gone haring off-world, or, more accurately, would not have been put into the situation where they needed to go haring off-world. But Pimms will do that to a weevil.
It’s a little known fact that weevils fancy themselves poets. No human being had ever understood this about them, until Owen was killed, brought back by a glove that was worshiped by weevils and suddenly started having black-eyed visions of weevils. And, more importantly, he suddenly started understanding them.
Janet the weevil had been living in the cells of Torchwood for almost two years (Owen was a little hazy on timelines) when he first heard her spouting poetry.
His appendages are lengthy
His orbs are blue
He’s super pretty
And kills little animals to feed my ravenous hunger.
Owen almost fell over in shock. Janet was creating poetry about … Ianto? It seemed impossible, but this was Cardiff in the 21st century, and nothing was impossible.
Every morning he slides me a tray
The roasted rats are chosen with exquisite precision
And though he smells like the fucker who caught me
I know his heart is truly mine.
Owen stood stock-still outside Janet’s cell and stared in at her. She was shifting from foot to foot in the back corner, idly picking at her fetching coverall and ignoring the undead King of the Weevils on the other side of the reinforced plexiglass.
“Oi, Janet!” he hissed.
She ignored him, and started humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover” as performed by the world-renowned songstress Sophie B. Hawkins.
“Janet! Come here!” Owen commanded. He took a step back, and let his eyes cloud with black mist. “Come here!” he commanded again, and this time his voice sounded like no human voice should. Janet came obediently to the glass.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Wallowing in the eternal pain of one who is denied the consummation of true love,” she answered. “Why do you deign to show any concern for my well-being? Lord King?”
Owen blinked. “Um … sorry about that pain. Not much I can do on that account. What do you see in Ianto, anyhow?”
“Ianto,” she said, sighing. “His beauteous name is like an atlatl to my heart.”
Owen raised his eyebrows. “I see,” he said, though he didn’t, not really. He had no fucking clue what an atlatl was.
“Do you not notice how he concocts my favorite dishes for me each evening?” Janet continued. “The culinary arts are the only way he can express his love for me. All species know that roasted rat is an unequivocal sex invite.”
“Erm,” Owen began, then stopped. What could he possibly say to that? Janet looked at him expectantly. “Look, Janet,” he tried again. “Though I’m sure Ianto would be very flattered by your attentions …” not bloody likely “… I think it may be possible that you, ah, might have misinterpreted the significance of the rat …” Rat? Ianto is feeding her rats? Bastard. “… because I think Ianto is already filled up - um, occupied, fuck it, Ianto’s seeing someone else!”
Janet scratched her head. “What do you mean by that? Of course he’s seeing someone else. He is not in my eyesight. When he is in my eyesight, he looks only at me. And he smiles!”
Oh I am not going to let him forget that! “I was perhaps being too literal. Janet,” he pressed his forehead to the plexiglass, “Ianto is not in love with you. I’m sorry, mate.”
Janet titled her head and looked him in the eye. Then she threw her head back and screamed bloody murder. “ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
[Um. Background. So the rats were from Myfanwy, but when she discovers that Janet is "in love" w/ Ianto, she is distraught and flies away, getting sucked into the Rift. Everyone (TW, Rhys, Janet), uh, boards a pirate ship to chase after her. This made sense in the story. I hate losing plot backbones.]
Owen pressed his ear to the wood. He could hear voices murmuring on the other side, and slowly they formed into Gwen and Tosh.
“Really, your PDA can pick up on that?”
“I’ve been modifying it for years; this is version 47 and here, let me show you -”
“Oi! Owen! What’s up, mate?” Rhys came bounding round the corner and skidded to a halt beside him.
Owen pulled back from the wall. “My science experiment walked out on me,” he replied, giving a shit-eating grin and hoping that Rhys would find the situation funny, instead of mockable.
Rhys’s eyes lit up. “Really? Do you want help catching it? How big is it?”
Owen held out his hands a few centimeters apart. “Not big. It’s a slippery little sucker, though. Green goop.”
Rhys frowned. “Okay. Is it on the other side of this wall then?” he asked, laying a hand on the wall Owen had been leaning on.
“Nah, that’s just Gwen and Tosh talking.”
“Oh ho ho! Talking about one of us, are they?” he gave Owen a conspiratorial wink and they both pressed an ear up to the wood.
”And then I crossed a copper wire with one of these cables here, see -”
“Looks rather intricate -”
“Oh, it wasn’t that difficult, really, you just need to apply the proper principles -”
Owen straightened. “You know, Rhys, it would appear that they are not talking about any men at all.”
“Well, that’s no fun.” Rhys scuffed his shoes. “Right. I guess we should find your goop, then?”
Owen gripped the wheel in his hands, though he really didn’t need help from him to stay on target. Still, it was a bit of a boyish dream to pilot a pirate ship, after all. Tosh had set up the shield before she’d retired for what passed for the night. If Owen craned his neck, he could make out the navigation panels Ianto had been using. They were heading for someplace called Bumtuck. Owen had seen it grow bigger and bigger throughout the night, a glowy, sand-colored planet they were approaching at a southeasterly tack. Owen frowned. Maybe it was the opposite. At any rate, he’d been watching it from the corner of his eye, and the light from the planet was starting to gild their ship. He was Peter fucking Pan, flying a golden pirate ship through the night.
Underneath his feet, the door to the cabins opened, and Jack’s clunky boots sounded up to him, accompanied by Ianto’s more measured tread. Owen leaned down to make the obligatory joke about a planet named Bumtuck, but held his tongue. They were having a Moment, and he knew some tact.
“Thought the two of you were still dependent on air,” he remarked to the ship at large. Okay a very small amount of tact.
They kissed with a wet smack of lips, just to spite him, he was sure, before climbing the stairs to the forecastle. Jack grinned at him. “It’s a lot of fun to hold the wheel, isn’t it?”
Owen couldn’t help grinning back. “Yeah. I feel like Peter Pan without the tights.”
“Captain Ahab without the whale.”
“Captain Jack Sparrow without the eyeliner.”
“Nah, I get to be him. You can be Captain Jack Aubrey without the Australian actor.”
Ianto looked up from his navigational charts. “You’re both closer to being Captain Ron, full stop. Now, Jack,” he continued, ignoring their outraged expressions, “you’re sure we’ll be able to procure fresh water on … Bumtuck.”
“That’s not all we’ll be able to do there,” he replied, with an exaggerated wink.
Owen rolled his eyes, but Ianto assessed him quietly for a moment. “No, it’s too easy,” he said finally. “I’m going to go start breakfast.”
Jack watched him leave, then turned to Owen. “He’s so cute when he’s flustered.”
Owen snorted. “That wasn’t flustered, Jack. That was ‘my partner’s lame.’”
“Huh.” Jack leaned on the railing by the wheel and looked out at the growing Bumtuck. “You think that’s what he thought?”
“Well, come on, the name is fucking Bumtuck; everyone’s going to be making that joke.”
Jack looked down at his hands, frowning slightly. “That’s not what I meant. I meant -”
Owen rolled his eyes again. Hard. “Jesus, Jack, if I wasn’t already dead, I would kill myself before volunteering to listen to your relationship woes. I don’t care what the fuck you call each other. I just know you fuck and think in sync - and don’t start singing! - and I really don’t want to know any more. I could do with less proof of the fucking, actually,” he finished, sotto voce.
“You’re a charmer, Owen Harper.” Jack pushed off from the railing. “See what I did there? That kind of rhymed.”
“No more rhymes now, I mean it,” Owen supplied.
“Anybody got a peanut?” Jack clapped him on the back. “I’m going to go eat Ianto’s … breakfast, then I’ll come relieve you.”
“Yeah, yeah, take your time.” Bumtuck now filled his entire vision, looking out from the direction of the prow of the ship. Jack was completely golden as he hopped down the stairs and disappeared back into the cabins. They were now close enough that Owen could squint and see what looked like surface eruptions on Bumtuck, some a fiery red, and others more of its generic bright sand color. The sandy eruptions rippled out from peaks, and it dawned on Owen that those eruptions must be water. It’s not going to be easy getting that water, he thought. But at least they’re not the fiery hemorrhoids.
He was still snickering at his own cleverness when the others emerged from the cabins. Well, sans Janet. Jack and Ianto were carrying what looked like suction pump jet packs.
“Okay, gang.” Jack set a couple packs on the deck and gave them his best ‘fearless leader’ pose. “Who wants to volunteer to go down to the planet and gather water with me and Ianto?”
Rhys and Gwen’s hands both shot up simultaneously.
“We only have three packs,” Ianto said. “But I don’t really need to -”
“We’ll rock-paper-scissors it, mate, no problem!” Rhys said excitedly. He and Gwen turned towards each other, and after one kick in the shin (Gwen to Rhys on account of “cheating”), three rounds (plus two additional bonus rounds), and six muttered “fuck”s, Rhys limped forward to collect a pack. Gwen recovered enough of her good grace to take a few pics of Rhys suiting up, and Jack tightening the parachute pack around Ianto’s chest, before the three of them gathered around the gangplank.
“Tosh, how close are we to the surface? Can we jump yet?” Jack called.
“Almost there!” Tosh yelled back, surveying Ianto’s charts and her shield control. “Owen, you want to angle us down another ten degrees or so?” she asked him quietly.
Owen pushed down on the wheel, and the ship dipped, closer and closer to Bumtuck, easing through their atmosphere. He grinned to himself. There really was nothing quite like flying.
“Everyone brace yourselves! I’m releasing the air shield!” Tosh yelled. Sudden air washed over them, tugging at their clothes, rippling their sails, and bringing with it -
“What is that smell?!” Gwen exclaimed, as everyone else gagged. “It’s like, it’s like -”
“Wet dog,” Ianto supplied.
Jack took a big whiff. “The air is sweet! Owen,” he shouted over the wind, “a little bit closer to this mountain, if you will!”
Owen steered the ship closer to a large sandy outcropping, not much like mountains on Earth, and Jack, Ianto and Rhys jumped off the gangplank. Gwen rushed forward to snap a couple of pictures. Tosh grabbed at her shirt in alarm. “There’s a perfectly good zoom on that thing, Gwen.”
[And here's where we lose about 5,000 words, plus some shit I wrote that, eh, not that awesome. I'll spare you. I have a feeling it would have gone through some massive edits. But here, this was to be the final line:]
“Well, really … who says we have to go back just now? I’d like to stay and play.”
Author: blue_fjords
Rating: PG-13? PG? there was sex, but it may not have made the cut
Characters: Owen, Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Rhys, Janet
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: So. Back in August I started writing a space opera for amand_r's birthday. In October I lost half of it when I lost my USB stick. I don't think I'll ever be able to finish this. But I loved it so, so much. It's incredibly derivative and self-indulgent. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. Also an awful lot of fun to write, and really cracky. (Also heavy on the Jack/Ianto, and I'm not even posting a big chunk of that stuff.) But I just don't think I can recover from the missing parts. Who knows, though. Maybe someday. At any rate, I write in scene chunks, so this is not a flowing story -- it's a bunch of chunks of scenes. Unconnected scenes. Anyhow, I wanted to give amand_r at least a little taste of her birthday story. Love you, mandr. You make me happy.
“Pull it tighter!” Jack roared.
“If it goes any tighter, we’ll slice the wood clean off!” Owen roared back. “Shit, get down!”
Rhys let out a very undignified shriek as a fireball barreled straight towards them. Owen lunged and hugged him round the knees, and they went down in a tangle of limbs, hitting the deck hard. The fireball washed over the ship, breaking up into hundreds of little fire tornadoes, skirting the suddenly glowing shielding around their ship. Owen risked a glance over at Tosh, feet dangling from the quarterdeck as she gripped the remote for their flimsy excuse for a shield in her hands. He could just make out her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, and suddenly the heat from the fireball decreased significantly.
“Jack! Three more ships to the left of us! Port! Three to port!” Gwen called down from high up in the crows nest.
“Dammit! Are they schooners or galleons?” Jack yelled up to her.
“What’s the difference? They’re aiming right at us!”
Owen distinctly heard Jack mutter, “But the galleons look so much cooler,” before turning to Ianto. “How much time do we need before we can hop ahead?”
Ianto didn’t even look up from his half-crouch over the controls. “Ninety seconds,” he murmured.
“Okay gang, hang onto something!” Jack gripped the wheel in his hands and turned it sharply to the right. Starboard, Owen’s brain supplied, along with a Fuck, Jack, we weren’t ready, as he and Rhys went tumbling back up against the railing. From his perch upside down, head smooshed against Rhys’s ankle, Owen could see Gwen high above them, gripping the sides of the crow’s nest and craning her neck behind them.
“The little ship’s getting closer, Jack!”
“That would be the schooner, then,” Jack said triumphantly. “I will not get run down by a schooner! Ianto?”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Okay, Tosh, focus the shield above us.” Jack gripped the top of the wheel and pushed it forward, in a way a true wheel would never go. Owen cursed loudly as he and Rhys began to roll down the length of the ship to the forecastle as the ship suddenly dived. He could hear Gwen laughing with joy high above, and he spared a curse for her, too. He never heard Ianto’s quiet, “We’re ready,” but then they lurched forward into dark space, and stillness enveloped them once again.
Jack got them on an even keel and glanced around. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Next to Owen, Rhys let out a groan and vomited for the sixth time since they started this little adventure.
***
It started, as so many of these things do, with a case of mistaken identity, unrequited love and negligent prison policy. And a bottle of Pimms. Without the Pimms, perhaps Team Torchwood would not have gone haring off-world, or, more accurately, would not have been put into the situation where they needed to go haring off-world. But Pimms will do that to a weevil.
It’s a little known fact that weevils fancy themselves poets. No human being had ever understood this about them, until Owen was killed, brought back by a glove that was worshiped by weevils and suddenly started having black-eyed visions of weevils. And, more importantly, he suddenly started understanding them.
Janet the weevil had been living in the cells of Torchwood for almost two years (Owen was a little hazy on timelines) when he first heard her spouting poetry.
His appendages are lengthy
His orbs are blue
He’s super pretty
And kills little animals to feed my ravenous hunger.
Owen almost fell over in shock. Janet was creating poetry about … Ianto? It seemed impossible, but this was Cardiff in the 21st century, and nothing was impossible.
Every morning he slides me a tray
The roasted rats are chosen with exquisite precision
And though he smells like the fucker who caught me
I know his heart is truly mine.
Owen stood stock-still outside Janet’s cell and stared in at her. She was shifting from foot to foot in the back corner, idly picking at her fetching coverall and ignoring the undead King of the Weevils on the other side of the reinforced plexiglass.
“Oi, Janet!” he hissed.
She ignored him, and started humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover” as performed by the world-renowned songstress Sophie B. Hawkins.
“Janet! Come here!” Owen commanded. He took a step back, and let his eyes cloud with black mist. “Come here!” he commanded again, and this time his voice sounded like no human voice should. Janet came obediently to the glass.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Wallowing in the eternal pain of one who is denied the consummation of true love,” she answered. “Why do you deign to show any concern for my well-being? Lord King?”
Owen blinked. “Um … sorry about that pain. Not much I can do on that account. What do you see in Ianto, anyhow?”
“Ianto,” she said, sighing. “His beauteous name is like an atlatl to my heart.”
Owen raised his eyebrows. “I see,” he said, though he didn’t, not really. He had no fucking clue what an atlatl was.
“Do you not notice how he concocts my favorite dishes for me each evening?” Janet continued. “The culinary arts are the only way he can express his love for me. All species know that roasted rat is an unequivocal sex invite.”
“Erm,” Owen began, then stopped. What could he possibly say to that? Janet looked at him expectantly. “Look, Janet,” he tried again. “Though I’m sure Ianto would be very flattered by your attentions …” not bloody likely “… I think it may be possible that you, ah, might have misinterpreted the significance of the rat …” Rat? Ianto is feeding her rats? Bastard. “… because I think Ianto is already filled up - um, occupied, fuck it, Ianto’s seeing someone else!”
Janet scratched her head. “What do you mean by that? Of course he’s seeing someone else. He is not in my eyesight. When he is in my eyesight, he looks only at me. And he smiles!”
Oh I am not going to let him forget that! “I was perhaps being too literal. Janet,” he pressed his forehead to the plexiglass, “Ianto is not in love with you. I’m sorry, mate.”
Janet titled her head and looked him in the eye. Then she threw her head back and screamed bloody murder. “ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
[Um. Background. So the rats were from Myfanwy, but when she discovers that Janet is "in love" w/ Ianto, she is distraught and flies away, getting sucked into the Rift. Everyone (TW, Rhys, Janet), uh, boards a pirate ship to chase after her. This made sense in the story. I hate losing plot backbones.]
Owen pressed his ear to the wood. He could hear voices murmuring on the other side, and slowly they formed into Gwen and Tosh.
“Really, your PDA can pick up on that?”
“I’ve been modifying it for years; this is version 47 and here, let me show you -”
“Oi! Owen! What’s up, mate?” Rhys came bounding round the corner and skidded to a halt beside him.
Owen pulled back from the wall. “My science experiment walked out on me,” he replied, giving a shit-eating grin and hoping that Rhys would find the situation funny, instead of mockable.
Rhys’s eyes lit up. “Really? Do you want help catching it? How big is it?”
Owen held out his hands a few centimeters apart. “Not big. It’s a slippery little sucker, though. Green goop.”
Rhys frowned. “Okay. Is it on the other side of this wall then?” he asked, laying a hand on the wall Owen had been leaning on.
“Nah, that’s just Gwen and Tosh talking.”
“Oh ho ho! Talking about one of us, are they?” he gave Owen a conspiratorial wink and they both pressed an ear up to the wood.
”And then I crossed a copper wire with one of these cables here, see -”
“Looks rather intricate -”
“Oh, it wasn’t that difficult, really, you just need to apply the proper principles -”
Owen straightened. “You know, Rhys, it would appear that they are not talking about any men at all.”
“Well, that’s no fun.” Rhys scuffed his shoes. “Right. I guess we should find your goop, then?”
Owen gripped the wheel in his hands, though he really didn’t need help from him to stay on target. Still, it was a bit of a boyish dream to pilot a pirate ship, after all. Tosh had set up the shield before she’d retired for what passed for the night. If Owen craned his neck, he could make out the navigation panels Ianto had been using. They were heading for someplace called Bumtuck. Owen had seen it grow bigger and bigger throughout the night, a glowy, sand-colored planet they were approaching at a southeasterly tack. Owen frowned. Maybe it was the opposite. At any rate, he’d been watching it from the corner of his eye, and the light from the planet was starting to gild their ship. He was Peter fucking Pan, flying a golden pirate ship through the night.
Underneath his feet, the door to the cabins opened, and Jack’s clunky boots sounded up to him, accompanied by Ianto’s more measured tread. Owen leaned down to make the obligatory joke about a planet named Bumtuck, but held his tongue. They were having a Moment, and he knew some tact.
“Thought the two of you were still dependent on air,” he remarked to the ship at large. Okay a very small amount of tact.
They kissed with a wet smack of lips, just to spite him, he was sure, before climbing the stairs to the forecastle. Jack grinned at him. “It’s a lot of fun to hold the wheel, isn’t it?”
Owen couldn’t help grinning back. “Yeah. I feel like Peter Pan without the tights.”
“Captain Ahab without the whale.”
“Captain Jack Sparrow without the eyeliner.”
“Nah, I get to be him. You can be Captain Jack Aubrey without the Australian actor.”
Ianto looked up from his navigational charts. “You’re both closer to being Captain Ron, full stop. Now, Jack,” he continued, ignoring their outraged expressions, “you’re sure we’ll be able to procure fresh water on … Bumtuck.”
“That’s not all we’ll be able to do there,” he replied, with an exaggerated wink.
Owen rolled his eyes, but Ianto assessed him quietly for a moment. “No, it’s too easy,” he said finally. “I’m going to go start breakfast.”
Jack watched him leave, then turned to Owen. “He’s so cute when he’s flustered.”
Owen snorted. “That wasn’t flustered, Jack. That was ‘my partner’s lame.’”
“Huh.” Jack leaned on the railing by the wheel and looked out at the growing Bumtuck. “You think that’s what he thought?”
“Well, come on, the name is fucking Bumtuck; everyone’s going to be making that joke.”
Jack looked down at his hands, frowning slightly. “That’s not what I meant. I meant -”
Owen rolled his eyes again. Hard. “Jesus, Jack, if I wasn’t already dead, I would kill myself before volunteering to listen to your relationship woes. I don’t care what the fuck you call each other. I just know you fuck and think in sync - and don’t start singing! - and I really don’t want to know any more. I could do with less proof of the fucking, actually,” he finished, sotto voce.
“You’re a charmer, Owen Harper.” Jack pushed off from the railing. “See what I did there? That kind of rhymed.”
“No more rhymes now, I mean it,” Owen supplied.
“Anybody got a peanut?” Jack clapped him on the back. “I’m going to go eat Ianto’s … breakfast, then I’ll come relieve you.”
“Yeah, yeah, take your time.” Bumtuck now filled his entire vision, looking out from the direction of the prow of the ship. Jack was completely golden as he hopped down the stairs and disappeared back into the cabins. They were now close enough that Owen could squint and see what looked like surface eruptions on Bumtuck, some a fiery red, and others more of its generic bright sand color. The sandy eruptions rippled out from peaks, and it dawned on Owen that those eruptions must be water. It’s not going to be easy getting that water, he thought. But at least they’re not the fiery hemorrhoids.
He was still snickering at his own cleverness when the others emerged from the cabins. Well, sans Janet. Jack and Ianto were carrying what looked like suction pump jet packs.
“Okay, gang.” Jack set a couple packs on the deck and gave them his best ‘fearless leader’ pose. “Who wants to volunteer to go down to the planet and gather water with me and Ianto?”
Rhys and Gwen’s hands both shot up simultaneously.
“We only have three packs,” Ianto said. “But I don’t really need to -”
“We’ll rock-paper-scissors it, mate, no problem!” Rhys said excitedly. He and Gwen turned towards each other, and after one kick in the shin (Gwen to Rhys on account of “cheating”), three rounds (plus two additional bonus rounds), and six muttered “fuck”s, Rhys limped forward to collect a pack. Gwen recovered enough of her good grace to take a few pics of Rhys suiting up, and Jack tightening the parachute pack around Ianto’s chest, before the three of them gathered around the gangplank.
“Tosh, how close are we to the surface? Can we jump yet?” Jack called.
“Almost there!” Tosh yelled back, surveying Ianto’s charts and her shield control. “Owen, you want to angle us down another ten degrees or so?” she asked him quietly.
Owen pushed down on the wheel, and the ship dipped, closer and closer to Bumtuck, easing through their atmosphere. He grinned to himself. There really was nothing quite like flying.
“Everyone brace yourselves! I’m releasing the air shield!” Tosh yelled. Sudden air washed over them, tugging at their clothes, rippling their sails, and bringing with it -
“What is that smell?!” Gwen exclaimed, as everyone else gagged. “It’s like, it’s like -”
“Wet dog,” Ianto supplied.
Jack took a big whiff. “The air is sweet! Owen,” he shouted over the wind, “a little bit closer to this mountain, if you will!”
Owen steered the ship closer to a large sandy outcropping, not much like mountains on Earth, and Jack, Ianto and Rhys jumped off the gangplank. Gwen rushed forward to snap a couple of pictures. Tosh grabbed at her shirt in alarm. “There’s a perfectly good zoom on that thing, Gwen.”
[And here's where we lose about 5,000 words, plus some shit I wrote that, eh, not that awesome. I'll spare you. I have a feeling it would have gone through some massive edits. But here, this was to be the final line:]
“Well, really … who says we have to go back just now? I’d like to stay and play.”