Fic: The Honey Monster - A Nosy Ficlet
Title: The Honey Monster
Author: badly_knitted
Characters/Pairings: Ianto/Jack, Tosh, Nosy, mentions Owen
Word Count: 701
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Summary: Nosy sticks its nose where it shouldn’t. Again.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or any of the characters except Nosy.
A/N: Happy Birthday, cjharknessgirl
“Yuk! Nosy!” Ianto cried out as Nosy slithered up and prodded his bare arm with its nose in greeting. He’d just come into the Hub from the garage, where he’d been cleaning the SUV, so instead of his usual smart suit he was wearing jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt - which was probably a good thing under the circumstances!
“What on earth have you been up to?” He checked Nosy’s snout, which was covered in a sticky substance.
Nosy just looked at him innocently.
“Jack…” he called up to Jack’s office.
“What?”
“What the hell have you been feeding Nosy?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“It's disconcertingly sticky,” Ianto grumbled, trying to fend off Nosy's very sticky snout.
“Sorry, Ianto, it's my fault,” Tosh admitted, hurrying over with a damp cloth. “I was making myself some sweet tea, I just turned away for a second and when I turned back, Nosy had its nose in the honey jar. I had to prise it off.”
“Hummm,” agreed Nosy, trying to lick the sweet stickiness off its snout, but not getting far because its tongue was too short to reach.
“I was hoping I could clean Nosy up before anyone noticed,” she added, attempting to wipe the honey off and quickly realising it wasn’t working. There was a lot of honey and the short fur of Nosy’s snout was sticking together in spiky little clumps. “I think I’m going to need soap.”
“Baby shampoo might be better,” Ianto suggested, “then it won’t hurt if any gets in Nosy’s eyes. There’s some under the kitchen sink, Owen uses it on his rats. Come on, you,” he added to Nosy, “let’s get you cleaned up.”
Nosy slunk along with them to the kitchen, carefully keeping its head off the ground so it didn’t leave a sticky residue on anything.
Tosh fetched towels while Ianto filled a bowl with warm water and set it on the floor, kneeling down beside it. Tosh sat on the other side with Nosy between them. Jack had come down from his office and now leant on the wall to watch.
“Right,” Ianto said jokingly to Nosy, “stick your nose in that,” and he pointed at the bowl of water. Nosy slunk forward a few inches and obligingly did so, much to Ianto’s surprise and Jack’s amusement.
“Got it well trained, haven’t you!”
“Not well enough to keep it from sticking its nose in open jars, apparently,” Ianto replied ruefully.
“Good thing it wasn’t Owen’s jar of mustard!” laughed Jack.
Tosh carefully splashed water over Nosy’s snout to get it thoroughly wet and Ianto rubbed shampoo all over the sticky areas, working up a nice lather. Nosy snorted as some of the lather went in its nostrils, sending a few soapy bubbles floating up into the air where they burst, but other than that it stayed quite still and let them get it clean.
A quick rinse, a second lot of shampoo and a much more thorough rinsing later Nosy was no longer sticky, just a bit soggy, which was easily fixed. Tosh set about drying it with a towel while Ianto cleared up.
“I think in future I’ll buy my honey in those squeezy tubes, they’ll probably be safer with Nosy around.”
Jack perked up at that. “I know a lot of uses for honey in tubes,” he smirked.
Ianto rolled his eyes. “I’d stay with jars if I were you,” he told Tosh. “If you buy tubes, Jack will just steal them.”
“Spoilsport,” Jack grumbled, pouting.
Tosh finished drying Nosy and set the towel aside. “There, all done. Just keep your nose out of open jars in future.”
Nosy hummed apologetically and slithered away. ‘Probably off to find something else to stick its nose in,’ Ianto thought wryly. “We can’t blame Nosy for being curious,” he sighed. “We’ll just have to be more careful about what we leave lying around in future. First Mickey’s coffee, now your honey… Who knows what it’ll get into next?”
Jack straightened up, looking worried.
“Now what?” Ianto asked.
“I think I left my biscuit tin open,” Jack replied, and he dashed away towards his office, desperate to protect his chocolate Hob Nobs from the thieving alien fluff.
The End