The Adventure of Tea Bull and Honey Thorn (Ianto, team; PG-13)
Title: The Adventure of Tea Bull and Honey Thorn
Author: etharei
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: ambiguous
Spoilers: none
Summary: Cows are placid creatures, or so humans who seldom see cows outside of nursery books or by the rare roadside conspire to tell themselves. And under clear weather, a golden sun, and fresh green grass, they may be right. But this says nothing about bulls.
Author's Notes: This didn't actually turn out as cracky as I expected.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all the characters and situations featured therein are the property of Russell T. Davies, the BBC and their affiliates. I’m only borrowing them for purely non-profit, recreational purposes.
Written for: horizonssing, Day #21.
The Adventure of Tea Bull and Honey Thorn
Honey Thorn was watching him again.
It was not a name, in the way that certain hairless bipedal apes thought of names, but rather a set of... impressions. Scents, mostly, since the eyes painted the world as a disjointed brown-greyish blur. Through his nose, he could tell the female’s age, regular diet, current mood - and her sudden, keen interest in him.
He bent his head to feed, still undecided if the attention was worth returning. The female did smell very appealing, only... an instinct niggled at him to wait. After all, feeding was very pleasant also, though he felt summarily dissatisfied with the present arrangement of putting food in his mouth that had touched the... material that had come out of his other end. He ambled to another patch of grass, a little further away from the others.
Noise. His ears twitched up, nervously, but he was confident enough in his own formidable and dominant nature to not be unduly fearful.
“The signals are coming from somewhere around here,” said the wind.
He turned his head, searching, and picked up the scent of the hairless biped- humans. And the one who just spoke was... female.
“Jack!” This one was male. He huffed slightly, abandoning his feeding to wander a bit closer. “Their earpieces are over here. And their clothes, clean and neatly folded. What sort of sick bastards are we dealing with, here?”
“Ah.” The wind changed, a light breeze drifting in from a different direction, and he found the third human with his nose long before his eyes were even pointing in the right direction. He inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. “Guys, it’s all right. I think I have a pretty good idea of who took Ianto and Gwen.”
“Yeah? What are we waiting for, then? Let’s go get ‘em back.”
Another shift, and the third man’s scent was practically shooting straight into his nostrils. Honey Thorn all but forgotten, he moved closer.
Cows are placid creatures, or so humans who seldom see cows outside of nursery books or by the rare roadside conspire to tell themselves. And under clear weather, a golden sun, and fresh green grass, they may be right. But this says nothing about bulls.
“We don’t need to go anywhere. Tosh, can you go get the extra blankets out of the SUV? Owen, pick up their clothing before too much grass and manure gets on them, or Ianto’s going to have our ears off.”
His walk quickens to a semi-trot, aided by the gentle slope between him and his target.
“Won’t be the worst thing he’s ever got on his clothes. What? Just because I don’t dress as smart as you two doesn’t mean I don’t notice when he changes into a different shirt of the same color after lunch.”
The smell was not that of a cow, but it’s… good. Potent. And a great deal more attractive than Honey Thorn and grass.
Cows were overrated, anyway.
“Er, Jack. I don’t want to worry you, but there is a great big bull charging at you.”
“Shit! Run!”
The man was running away. That was fine by him, since he felt very full of energy and the ground was pleasant to run on. There was a sharp noise, a crack, and a bit of ground and grass bounced off his haunch...
“DON’T SHOOT HIM, THAT’S IANTO! Yeah, you heard me, now put the damn gun away!”
He decided he didn’t like the other man at all, so he abandoned the nice-smelling one and turned to charge at him instead, bellowing. That is, until he sensed another set of hooves behind him. It was Honey Thorn, and she was going after the- Jack.
Huffing, he shook his head, feeling a little... confused. As if he was in two places at once, or two people at once, and that was not a situation nature had provided a bull the faculties to deal with.
But Honey Thorn was after his Jack, the cow, and both of him were decidedly opposed to this.
He charged.
Owen wouldn’t stop laughing even after they all traipsed into the Hub, Gwen and Ianto disheveled in the previous night’s clothing, Jack and Tosh looking tired and dirt-stained. “So let me get this straight - Ianto and Gwen were abducted by the intergalactic equivalent of frat boys on a prank, who temporarily turned them into cows and left them in the field?”
“Rich intergalactic frat boys; you don’t get that kind of technology cheap,” said Jack, attempting to look sober in front of Ianto despite the twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Eyrassolien students, a long way from home.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t the first time this has happened, then?” asked Gwen, patting her neck and jaw as if to make sure that they’re real.
“We get a ship every couple of years or so. Torchwood captured a couple of them, once. Killed them.” Jack’s expression darkened briefly. “So they stopped leaving their ships. But they’re pretty harmless. I actually find the whole thing quite funny.”
“You would,” snapped Gwen, which only caused Jack to grin openly.
Owen cocked his head. “Notice that Ianto and Gwen were the ones abducted, when Jack and Tosh were out scouring for that piece of tech as well? Which, by the way, we found, no thanks to you two. I think there’s a joke about the Welsh in there somewhere...” the sound of Gwen checking her gun and holstering it filled the space “...but damn if I can find it.”
A horrified expression appeared on Gwen’s face. “Has anybody ever... you know, got mistaken for a real cow and taken to a slaughterhouse-“
“No,” Jack assured her. “The transformation doesn't last even half a day, as you saw. And they’ve never taken children or the elderly or the disabled. The people they take just wake up in a nearby field the next day wondering what they had to drink the night before. Very considerate, as far as aliens we’ve encountered go.”
“Right.” All four heads whip around to look at Ianto, who’d discreetly slipped away to the coffee machine and now returned with a tray of hot coffee. “Anything else for anybody? I don’t think I can eat right now, but...”
The other four indicated that they could survive without take-out for a while yet. “I don’t think I can eat any time soon,” moaned Gwen. “I keep wanting to bring the food in my stomach back up so I can chew it again.”
Owen gave her a look of disgust. “Way too TMI, Gwen.”
Ianto pivoted around on one foot and walked stiffly away. Jack, clearly not in the least bit put off by Ianto’s ill temper, asked, “Where are you going?”
“To shower.”
“Gwen,” Tosh spoke up, sipping slowly at her coffee. “We should probably scan you both, in case there are any side-effects or lingering traces of the technology they used.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t want to be turning back into a cow at an inopportune moment,” added Owen. “Though maybe Rhys won’t notice.’
The loud smack of Gwen’s hand hitting Owen on the arm was not noticed by Jack, whose gaze was fixed in the direction Ianto had gone. He quickly drained his coffee. “I’ll, er, just go and help Ianto with his shower,” he mumbled distractedly before setting his empty cup down and following after the younger man.
“Yeah, I can just imagine Jack standing outside the stall holding the soap and shampoo,” said Owen, rolling his eyes.
“It’s probably a good idea, in my opinion.” Tosh blinked at the two set of eyes suddenly staring at her. “What? Ianto is- was a very… virile bull. He’s been as tense as coiled spring ever since he and Gwen turned human again. It’d do him good to work it off.”
Owen blinked at her, and shook his head. Gwen glanced down the way the two men had gone. “He was a very... attractive bull.” Her eyes widened. “Oh God, what if we-?”
Tosh and Owen shared a look. “It’s perfectly possible, since you guys had been missing for seven hours when we got to the field. But personally I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s not something you and Ianto would normally do, right? And while your bodies were having a holiday in Bovineville, I reckon a part of you was still in there, aware of everything. After all, you did both run after Jack.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Tosh added when Gwen didn’t look convinced. “I doubt Rhys will hold it against you.”
Author: etharei
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: ambiguous
Spoilers: none
Summary: Cows are placid creatures, or so humans who seldom see cows outside of nursery books or by the rare roadside conspire to tell themselves. And under clear weather, a golden sun, and fresh green grass, they may be right. But this says nothing about bulls.
Author's Notes: This didn't actually turn out as cracky as I expected.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all the characters and situations featured therein are the property of Russell T. Davies, the BBC and their affiliates. I’m only borrowing them for purely non-profit, recreational purposes.
Written for: horizonssing, Day #21.
The Adventure of Tea Bull and Honey Thorn
Honey Thorn was watching him again.
It was not a name, in the way that certain hairless bipedal apes thought of names, but rather a set of... impressions. Scents, mostly, since the eyes painted the world as a disjointed brown-greyish blur. Through his nose, he could tell the female’s age, regular diet, current mood - and her sudden, keen interest in him.
He bent his head to feed, still undecided if the attention was worth returning. The female did smell very appealing, only... an instinct niggled at him to wait. After all, feeding was very pleasant also, though he felt summarily dissatisfied with the present arrangement of putting food in his mouth that had touched the... material that had come out of his other end. He ambled to another patch of grass, a little further away from the others.
Noise. His ears twitched up, nervously, but he was confident enough in his own formidable and dominant nature to not be unduly fearful.
“The signals are coming from somewhere around here,” said the wind.
He turned his head, searching, and picked up the scent of the hairless biped- humans. And the one who just spoke was... female.
“Jack!” This one was male. He huffed slightly, abandoning his feeding to wander a bit closer. “Their earpieces are over here. And their clothes, clean and neatly folded. What sort of sick bastards are we dealing with, here?”
“Ah.” The wind changed, a light breeze drifting in from a different direction, and he found the third human with his nose long before his eyes were even pointing in the right direction. He inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. “Guys, it’s all right. I think I have a pretty good idea of who took Ianto and Gwen.”
“Yeah? What are we waiting for, then? Let’s go get ‘em back.”
Another shift, and the third man’s scent was practically shooting straight into his nostrils. Honey Thorn all but forgotten, he moved closer.
Cows are placid creatures, or so humans who seldom see cows outside of nursery books or by the rare roadside conspire to tell themselves. And under clear weather, a golden sun, and fresh green grass, they may be right. But this says nothing about bulls.
“We don’t need to go anywhere. Tosh, can you go get the extra blankets out of the SUV? Owen, pick up their clothing before too much grass and manure gets on them, or Ianto’s going to have our ears off.”
His walk quickens to a semi-trot, aided by the gentle slope between him and his target.
“Won’t be the worst thing he’s ever got on his clothes. What? Just because I don’t dress as smart as you two doesn’t mean I don’t notice when he changes into a different shirt of the same color after lunch.”
The smell was not that of a cow, but it’s… good. Potent. And a great deal more attractive than Honey Thorn and grass.
Cows were overrated, anyway.
“Er, Jack. I don’t want to worry you, but there is a great big bull charging at you.”
“Shit! Run!”
The man was running away. That was fine by him, since he felt very full of energy and the ground was pleasant to run on. There was a sharp noise, a crack, and a bit of ground and grass bounced off his haunch...
“DON’T SHOOT HIM, THAT’S IANTO! Yeah, you heard me, now put the damn gun away!”
He decided he didn’t like the other man at all, so he abandoned the nice-smelling one and turned to charge at him instead, bellowing. That is, until he sensed another set of hooves behind him. It was Honey Thorn, and she was going after the- Jack.
Huffing, he shook his head, feeling a little... confused. As if he was in two places at once, or two people at once, and that was not a situation nature had provided a bull the faculties to deal with.
But Honey Thorn was after his Jack, the cow, and both of him were decidedly opposed to this.
He charged.
Owen wouldn’t stop laughing even after they all traipsed into the Hub, Gwen and Ianto disheveled in the previous night’s clothing, Jack and Tosh looking tired and dirt-stained. “So let me get this straight - Ianto and Gwen were abducted by the intergalactic equivalent of frat boys on a prank, who temporarily turned them into cows and left them in the field?”
“Rich intergalactic frat boys; you don’t get that kind of technology cheap,” said Jack, attempting to look sober in front of Ianto despite the twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Eyrassolien students, a long way from home.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t the first time this has happened, then?” asked Gwen, patting her neck and jaw as if to make sure that they’re real.
“We get a ship every couple of years or so. Torchwood captured a couple of them, once. Killed them.” Jack’s expression darkened briefly. “So they stopped leaving their ships. But they’re pretty harmless. I actually find the whole thing quite funny.”
“You would,” snapped Gwen, which only caused Jack to grin openly.
Owen cocked his head. “Notice that Ianto and Gwen were the ones abducted, when Jack and Tosh were out scouring for that piece of tech as well? Which, by the way, we found, no thanks to you two. I think there’s a joke about the Welsh in there somewhere...” the sound of Gwen checking her gun and holstering it filled the space “...but damn if I can find it.”
A horrified expression appeared on Gwen’s face. “Has anybody ever... you know, got mistaken for a real cow and taken to a slaughterhouse-“
“No,” Jack assured her. “The transformation doesn't last even half a day, as you saw. And they’ve never taken children or the elderly or the disabled. The people they take just wake up in a nearby field the next day wondering what they had to drink the night before. Very considerate, as far as aliens we’ve encountered go.”
“Right.” All four heads whip around to look at Ianto, who’d discreetly slipped away to the coffee machine and now returned with a tray of hot coffee. “Anything else for anybody? I don’t think I can eat right now, but...”
The other four indicated that they could survive without take-out for a while yet. “I don’t think I can eat any time soon,” moaned Gwen. “I keep wanting to bring the food in my stomach back up so I can chew it again.”
Owen gave her a look of disgust. “Way too TMI, Gwen.”
Ianto pivoted around on one foot and walked stiffly away. Jack, clearly not in the least bit put off by Ianto’s ill temper, asked, “Where are you going?”
“To shower.”
“Gwen,” Tosh spoke up, sipping slowly at her coffee. “We should probably scan you both, in case there are any side-effects or lingering traces of the technology they used.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t want to be turning back into a cow at an inopportune moment,” added Owen. “Though maybe Rhys won’t notice.’
The loud smack of Gwen’s hand hitting Owen on the arm was not noticed by Jack, whose gaze was fixed in the direction Ianto had gone. He quickly drained his coffee. “I’ll, er, just go and help Ianto with his shower,” he mumbled distractedly before setting his empty cup down and following after the younger man.
“Yeah, I can just imagine Jack standing outside the stall holding the soap and shampoo,” said Owen, rolling his eyes.
“It’s probably a good idea, in my opinion.” Tosh blinked at the two set of eyes suddenly staring at her. “What? Ianto is- was a very… virile bull. He’s been as tense as coiled spring ever since he and Gwen turned human again. It’d do him good to work it off.”
Owen blinked at her, and shook his head. Gwen glanced down the way the two men had gone. “He was a very... attractive bull.” Her eyes widened. “Oh God, what if we-?”
Tosh and Owen shared a look. “It’s perfectly possible, since you guys had been missing for seven hours when we got to the field. But personally I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s not something you and Ianto would normally do, right? And while your bodies were having a holiday in Bovineville, I reckon a part of you was still in there, aware of everything. After all, you did both run after Jack.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Tosh added when Gwen didn’t look convinced. “I doubt Rhys will hold it against you.”