Ficlet: Rammed

Oct 10, 2019 17:45

Title: Rammed
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: There’s a dent in the SUV that Ianto is certain wasn’t there before. What did Jack do this time?
Word Count: 500
Written For: Prompt 109: Dent at anythingdrabble.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.

Ianto sluiced water over the SUV, washing the worst of the muck from the team’s latest trip into the country down the drains in the garage floor. If he didn’t keep the black beast sparkling clean nobody else would think to do it. Made him wonder sometimes who’d been in charge of vehicle maintenance before he came along. Probably Jack had just left it out in the rain whenever it looked dirty, or condescended to drive through a car wash if he happened to pass one when he wasn’t in a mad rush to be someplace else.

Shaking his head in resignation, Ianto turned off the hose and set to work with rags and car shampoo, making sure to get every bit of mud off the sleek black bodywork, including inside the wheel arches. He even scrubbed down the tyres and hubcaps. There was no point only doing half the job.

He’d already thoroughly cleaned the vehicle’s interior, getting mud and muck off the floors, the foot pedals, and the leather upholstery since none of his colleagues ever thought of covering the seats when they got back to the car smeared in filth. All he’d need to do once he’d rinsed the suds off would be to wax, and polish the modified Range Rover and she’d be good as new.

On went the hose again, chasing clumps of white bubbles off the roof and the bonnet, down the sides, and onto the concrete floor. Although Ianto often wished someone else would take their turn keeping the SUV clean, there was a pleasing sense of satisfaction in restoring the muddy lump Jack had driven into the garage to its former glory.

He worked busily, spreading a high-quality car wax over the entire vehicle, then set about polishing it to a bright shine, and that was when something he’d half noticed in passing became impossible to ignore; the driver’s side door had a large dent in it. Ianto frowned at it; that hadn’t been there the last time he’d buffed up the paintwork.

Stalking into the main Hub, Ianto marched straight up to Jack’s office to confront the likely culprit.

“Jack, what did you do to the SUV?”

“What do you mean?” Jack looked up from his paperwork with an air of innocence.

“I mean, there’s a bloody great dent in the driver’s side door, and I know for a fact you were the one driving!”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that!”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice; it didn’t look all that bad to me.”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

“It wasn’t me, I swear!”

“Then who was it? Gwen? Owen? Tosh? An alien? A gremlin? A gate post that jumped out at you?” Ianto had heard all the excuses before.

“A sheep.”

“What?”

“Or more precisely, a ram. I guess it saw its reflection, decided it was a rival, and just… charged. Must be why they’re called rams. Maybe you shouldn’t make the SUV quite so shiny in future.”

Ianto slumped in defeat.

The End

anythingdrabble, fic, jack/ianto, jack harkness, ianto jones, torchwood fic, fic: one-shot, ficlet, fic: pg

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