The Art of the Chocolatier
Written for the Easter countdown over at
tw_calender!
The Art of the Chocolatier
Toshiko was doing all she could not to whimper. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists as her tormentor held her torment closer, closer, closer.
"Owen!" She shrieked, unable to keep her anger and eyelids down for a second longer, "Get that chocolate away from me!"
Owen grinned maliciously and squeezed the square of Thorntons dark chocolate between his forefinger and thumb, waving it in front of his colleague's face one final time before shrugging his shoulders, saying casually,
"With pleasure!", and throwing the food into his mouth. He let it melt slowly on his tongue, murmuring, "Mmm..." exaggeratedly. Owen had recently received a new lease of life, quite literally, and was doing everything he could in order to tease his Lent-abding team the way he had been teased whilst unable to eat, drink, sleep, shag and, overall, live.
Tosh turned away, keying something into her computer, her fingers stabbing at the keys unnecessarily aggressively.
"Oh Tosh, this chocolate's gorgeous," Owen smirked, slipping another square out of the golden foil wrapper and into the palm of his (now healing) hand.
"I don't care!" Tosh snapped spitefully, removing and replacing her glasses distractedly, then glancing down at her keyboard, her mouth tight, "Besides, it isn't me who looks like they've put on a few pounds since coming back to life!"
Owen laughed.
"Is that the best you can do?" He laughed. Tosh spun around and made an odd noise, somewhere between a hiss and a wail, sounding a bit like a drunken cat. "Jesus," Owen frowned, "Chill, Tosh, it's only chocolate."
"And I've only got two days left to go, and if you make me mess up, Owen, I swear-"
"Alright, I'm gone!" Owen held up his hands in surrender, stuffing the chocolate into his back pocket and walking away.
"Where are you going?" Tosh asked agitatedly, staring at Owen's backside (only because of the chocolate, of course). He looked back and shrugged.
"Might go and hold a cup of coffee under Ianto's nose. Or offer Gwen some alcohol. Same old, same old."
"You're such a dick head," Tosh muttered, returning her gaze to the monitor. Owen grinned, and blew Tosh a kiss before disappearing up the stairs. She rolled her eyes and added the final full stop to her monthly rift behavior analysis, saving her progress and then running over to the sofa by the wall, kicking off her heels and groaning. She had been up all night searching all around Cardiff for a still unfound alien, and it didn't help that she had been wearing her highest kicks, poised for a date with the man who she currently considered the biggest dick head this side of the rift. She pulled one leg up and massaged her own foot, shuddering with the relief and pleasure of being shoeless.
Suddenly, she felt a surge of heat beside her. She looked down at the seat next to her, where she saw a box of chocolates, a black ribbon tied around the slightly-off lid.
"OWEN!" She roared, screwing up her face and reaching down in order to push the box away. She thrust her hand at it- and hit nothing. She blinked, and stared at the spot where the box had been. There was now nothing, only a tingling around her fingers, like static electricity. She looked up, confused and startled, as Owen and Jack skidded into view.
"What is it?" Owen asked crossly, a sense of urgency in his voice, looking around. Both he and Jack were holding their guns.
"Ch-chocolate..!" Tosh stuttered, pointing shakily at the sofa, "There was a box of chocolates there, and now they're gone."
The two men lowered their weapons.
"We thought something was wrong," Jack said exasperatedly, throwing Tosh a look of annoyance.
Tosh gestured wildly at where the small cardboard box had been.
"And there's nothing wrong with confectionary appearing from nowhere and then instantly vanishing?!" She demanded, her words riding on an unintentional sob. Jack tucked his gun into his belt and crossed over to Toshiko, putting his hand on her forehead.
"Are you feeling alright, Tosh? Sounds like you're having pretty major withdrawal symptoms."
"No!" Tosh insisted, pulling herself away from Jack, "There was like this feeling, this heat- LOOK, THERE!" She screamed, pointing over to under her computer desk. The doctor and the captain moved reluctantly to see, disbelieving.
"You know what," Owen muttered, sounding puzzled "I can see a box of chocolates. Oh, wait, no I can't. They're... gone." Ianto ran into the room, looking thin, ill and tired.
"Er, Jack," He said, his eyes quickly darting over to the nearby coffee machine and back again, "This might sound odd, but I just saw a box of chocolates-"
"Appear from nowhere and then disappear again. Yeah, I know. Tosh, rift activity?"
"Why can't you do it?!" Tosh choked, ridiculously overwhelmed, "Why is it always me having to do all this?!" Ianto looked unblinkingly at the other two, the dark bags under his eyes making his stare frightening.
"Can you not do that clenchy-unclenchy thing with your fists?" Jack requested of his lover frustratedly, "It really freaks me out."
"Sorry," The younger man apologised sadly, "I just... need coffee..."
"Look what Lent has done to us all," Owen scowled, crossing over to the computer, "I can't even find Gwen. Reckon she's at the bottom of a bottle in her flat?"
"I'm here," Gwen croaked from somewhere. The others looked around in surprise and saw her slumped underneath her work station.
"How long have you been there?" Tosh asked weakly.
"Since three a.m.," Came the slow reply, "Rhys was drinking at home and I was so pissed off that I nearly considered RetConning him into last year, so I thought it'd be safer to come and spend the night here."
"We have beds in the medical bay, you could've kipped there," Owen pointed out, trying not to laugh.
"Rift activity!" Ianto said firmly, no one having noticed that he was now at the computer himself and checking the rift's statistics, "Yep, look at this. Tiny little spikes. Not very powerful, but increasing in frequency in the last three minutes, and," He scrolled down, his tongue sticking out in the great concentration needed to read whilst free of caffeine, "...all over in a few seconds. Oh!" He exclaimed as the screen changed, "Big one, just then."
"I think that might be why," Owen said drily, looking interestedly at where Jack was now lay on the floor, someone sat astride his chest. Ianto, inspired by a exhaustion-induced bout of envy, reached down and dragged the thing off Jack, who was half laughing, half panting, winded. The thing was humanoid- well, it had two arms, two legs and a head at least- and was dressed in a long dark red coat, purple trousers and a top hat. The only thing that made it seem Alien was its turquoise skin. Owen spluttered.
"It looks like Willy Wo-"
"Salut, je m'appelle Willy Wonka!" It exclaimed happily, "Je suis le meilleur chocolatier de Nouvelle-France. Avez-vous vu mes chocolats?"
"Translation?" Owen asked Ianto feebly.
"Hello, my name is Willy Wonka..." Ianto supplied, raising his eyebrows, "I'm the best chocolatier in New France, have you seen my chocolates?" Then he addressed the alien, "Bonjour, je m'appelle Ianto Jones. Nous n'avons pas vu vos chocolats."
Gwen laughed lightly from beneath her desk, professing,
"This is a really weird dream!"
"Hold on, how can it be called Willy Wonka?" Owen gagged, "Is this some kind of joke?" Jack was snorting with laughter now.
"Wild guess," He said, "But I'm guessing that we will write a report on this, and that report will accidentally get lost back in time, and a certain Mr. Dahl will find it, and expound on it..." He paused and frowned, adding, "He wasn't really a nice person. God, he was so into your stupid little categories! It took a lot of persuasion to get him to-"
"ANYWAY," Ianto interrupted, as the thing looked around interestedly, and began to poke around the computers, fascinated, "What are we going to do about Gene Wilder here?"
"Actually, I think he looks more like the Johnny Depp one," Owen decided. Tosh rolled her eyes.
"I bet you haven't ever read the book!"
"Ooh," Gwen giggled, drunk with fatigue, "I can feel something over here... like a nice warmth." She snuggled nearer to the wall. The whole team froze.
"GWEN, GET OUT FROM UNDER THERE!" Jack commanded, lurching forward and doing it himself when she refrained from doing so. Seconds after she was clear, a tiny, bright orange vortex appeared where she had been crouched.
"Allez la-dessous, s'il vous plait." Ianto told the Alien, pointing. It folded its arms.
"Non! Pourquoi devrais-je?" It argued. Ianto, his emotions in override, was fuming now.
"PARCE QUE JE SUIS GALLOIS!" He barked, and the thing instantly retreated into the Vortex, clearly scared.
All the members of the team who weren't already down there sunk to the floor, worn out by the sheer randomness of the event. Owen broke up his chocolate bar and handed it around. Toshiko was already sucking on her third piece before she realised.
"Shit!" She yelped, leaping up and spitting it out, "I've just eaten chocolate!"
Jack roared with laughter, causing the sleeping Gwen to stir. Ianto just moaned, obviously craving the chance to "forget" about his coffee abstinence. Jack murmured,
"Aaaw," and pulled Ianto into a sympathetic hug, then a kiss. Ianto pulled back, disgruntled, tears in his tired eyes.
"YOU TASTE LIKE COFFEE!" He wept, running his hands through his hair.
"By the way, what the Hell does "Je suis galli-thingy" mean?" Owen asked. Ianto looked at him wearily.
"It means: I am Welsh."
Comments really are appreciated, loved, and fed and mucked out regularly apart from those days when I forget :]