Mind Your Language (for lawsontl)
FESTIVE TITLE BITCHES YO: MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
RECIPIENT WHO HAD BETTER BE GRATEFUL BECAUSE I SPENT TIME THAT I COULD HAVE BEEN DRINKING WRITING THIS SHIT: lawsontl EXCEPT I WAS DRUNK WHEN I WROTE MOST OF IT ANYWAY.
SUMMARY: I HAD PROMPTS -- 1. Zombie Blowfish; 2. Coffee burns; 3. Aliens made them NOT do it; 4. Alien/tech leaves Jack unable to lie, and unable to speak in sentences that don't include "I love you"; 5. Ianto has to SAY "Wibble"; 6. Virtual cookies to anyone who could combine ALL of these prompts into a single fic (from Lioness) :)
BETA: JAWS. WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT.
RATING: WIBBLE
WARNING: IMMA REALLY CRAP WRITER AND YOU'RE ALL MUCH BETTER THAN ME
SPOILERS: JESUS PEOPLE IT'S JUST ABOUT THE TORCHWOOD TEAM DRINKING EGGNOG. ALSO THERE’S A BRIEF AND FORGETTABLE REFERENCE WITHIN THE FIRST 300 WORDS TO “THE SIN EATERS”.
DISCLAIMER: THEY'RE NOT MINE. EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE. IN MAH PANTS.
NOTE: OH FUCK YES I HAD BETTER GET MY COOKIES. ALSO I COPIED STRAIGHT FROM THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE ON ZOMBIES.
>:-3
It shambled down the length of the street, red-eyed and slackjawed, slime dripping from its chin and onto its shirt.
Barala ran.
This was ridiculous. It was moving about as quickly and elegantly as a drunken sluubath - listing from side to side, dropping waste where it went. But she was running full tilt and it kept after her, moving inexorably forwards. She was reminded of a logic puzzle from her childhood - an archer firing an arrow at a caalthu. The caalthu ran, and the arrow moved, and so the arrow should never catch the caalthu, right? With each tiny movement of the arrow, the animal moved. But invariably, the arrow won.
The zombie, against all odds, seemed to be winning.
Her wrist hurt, too.
She felt naked without her gun, but they’d taken it from her when they'd tied her up. She’d been so close to finding out where the kids had been vanishing to, and then she’d been stupid, and clumsy, and she’d let herself get kidnapped. The bite on her wrist throbbed where they’d rubbed something into it. There’d been chanting. There’d been others, shambling and groaning in the shadows, and the smell of rotting flesh had been overwhelming.
She could hear it behind her, and her fins slipped on the damp paving beneath her. She looked up, her heart thudding loud in her chest, her breathing starting to hurt. She could see a human, walking across the broad stretch of the Plass, silhouetted against the streetlamps.
“Help me!” she yelled. “Please!”
The man turned. He was carrying square cardboard boxes full of something, and he put them at his feet as she ran. She could hear it behind her now, speeding up, the shuddering slosh of its breath. She turned to try to see it and her feet went out from under her and she fell, hitting the man she’d been going for. He jumped back, maintaining his balance. She looked up at him; he wore a suit, was most likely a businessman. Dammit! Dammit, dammit, dammit! She’d probably condemned some innocent human to death by running to him. The sound of her pursuer was getting closer now, and the man went for his pocket.
“Help me,” she said, as the other blowfish closed in for the kill, snarling like something from beyond, and the man she’d run full-tilt into raised a gun and shot it.
>:-3
Gwen looked around, cautious, as the invisible lift descended. She didn’t want That Horrible Bloody Thing, (a.k.a. The latest addition to Ianto’s menagerie, a.k.a. Specimen 42) jumping on her new boots, or worse, trying to climb her leg. When it had hatched, Ianto had been charmed by the peculiar mix of scales and fur, and Jack had been entirely unwilling - or unable - to deny Ianto anything that he wanted. This, Gwen realised, was the reason why you didn’t work with people who were dating. They kept on letting each other do stupid things. She still hadn’t finished laughing about the SUV ending up in the bay, and that had been the best part of a month ago.
“Ianto?” she called, once the shadows were blessedly clear of unexpected alien furballs.
“Over here,” Ianto called, from the couch.
Ianto was feeding last night’s pizza scraps to the alien, which was siting on his knee, happily shedding white fur like lumps of cotton wool. Gwen could see a scaly muzzle and claws somewhere in the fur; the overall effect was of a pomeranian puppy colliding with a lizard.
“All gone,” he said to it, holding his palms open. “Nothing left. All done.”
The alien licked the grease off his fingers as Gwen watched.
“That’s…adorably disgusting,” she said. “What did you end up calling it?”
“Wibble.”
“That’s…” Gwen searched for a positive description, “…unusual.”
“Wibble, speak,” Ianto said. It sat up, looking at him with those mad beady eyes, before cocking its head. “It’s very smart. Learns quickly. Wibble, speak.”
“Wiiiiiiibbbbble,” chirped the creature, and then bit him.
“It…ah…” Ianto extricated his finger, “…it also likes to bite.”
He picked it up in one hand, and offered it to her. Gwen waved her hand.
“You keep it,” she said, as it wriggled enthusiastically. “I don’t want to test if I’m allergic. How’s our prisoners?”
“The zombie is in a holding cell,” Ianto said. “And the woman is in quarantine.”
“Otherwise known as another holding cell,” said Gwen.
“Jack’s with her,” Ianto said, letting the little alien snuffle against his suit-jacket. “And it’s quarantine, not prison.”
“Same difference,” Gwen said, darkly. She’d been in Torchwood quarantine before. Ianto patted the lounge beside him. “So what do we know?”
“She’s a cop,” Ianto said, as Wibble climbed up onto his shoulder and perched there, watching her. She half-expected it to jump off into her face. “She’s a cop, and she cited something called the Shadow Proclamation, that when I looked it up in the Archives was distressingly vague, but appears to be some sort of interplanetary police force.”
“And the zombie?”
“All brain activity ceased at 2300 hours last night,” said Ianto. “Re-started at 0300 this morning. Stopped at 6, started again at 8. Seems to be changing as the drugs get out of its system. It eats anything, too. Ate the blanket we gave it and tried to eat the bed.”
“Drugs?”
“Yeah, Jack did a tox scan,” Ianto said. “Computer reckons there’s opiates in its bloodstream, along with high levels of epinephrine…adrenaline.”
“Human hormones?” Gwen asked. “In a blowfish?”
“Yeah,” said Ianto. “I don’t know where a blowfish gets human hormones from, but…ow! Ow! Wibble!”
He extricated Wibble from his shoulder, where it had just bitten his ear.
“Shall I get the first aid kit?” Gwen asked, as Ianto held a handful of squirming fluff.
“I think I’ve got it,” he said, putting Wibble on the ground. Gwen pulled her feet up onto the lounge. “Ok. Gonna go make coffee and check the Rift.”
Gwen waited until the happy ball of fluff had trotted after Ianto, crashing into the back of his legs when he stopped, before she put her feet on the ground and went to work out where she’d find Jack. Jack was downstairs. He was watching one of the blowfish that they'd brought in last night. The blowfish was watching right back, sitting close to the glass and chatting to him.
“…yes, Rift crossings are illegal,” the blowfish was saying. “Doesn’t stop people trying.”
“How do you guarantee the transfer takes you where you wish to go?” Jack asked.
“Rift signatures. You pump a lot of power backwards through a Rift Machine and then lock on. This point is the biggest nexus closeby to us, and the Border Princes don’t patrol here.”
Jack looked tired. He sat back, catching Gwen’s eye. “Gwen! Come here and meet Barala.”
Barala the blowfish was slightly more delicate than the other blowfish that Gwen had seen in her career in Torchwood, and she realised with a start that this blowfish was a woman. She wore a uniform, and she sat the same way that Gwen had seen Ianto and Jack sit, with an air of total relaxation undercut by the dire certainty that she could jump up and fight at any second.
“Barala is here investigating the zombie blowfish problem,” said Jack, by way of introduction.
“Jack says that you’ve encountered eight or ten in the last few weeks,” said Barala. She was having trouble breathing, her gills bluish.
“They usually don’t last long,” said Gwen. “They’re… they do strange things. Like try to steal cars, but then they don’t know how to drive them. One tried to break into the nuclear plant, but it fell down the stairs.”
“They seem to lose all agency,” said Barala, breathless. “And the one in the cell beside me does not seem to wish to pursue humans. It only pursued me.”
Gwen leaned close to Jack.
“Don’t you think this is unfair?” Gwen asked, softly. “We let Wibble out loose in the Hub, but we lock up…”
“I asked for this,” said the blowfish. Gwen said a very filthy word in her mind; clearly they had very good hearing. “I asked because they captured me and I underwent the same treatment as our friend in the other cell did. So I’m expecting to turn into…into that.”
Obligingly, the blowfish in the other cage howled. Jack slammed his chair back. “Dammit.”
He got up, checking the monitors on his wriststrap as Gwen leaned forward. “They captured you?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said Barala. “I was careless. They captured me and they injected me with…with something.”
“Do you know why?”
“I was investigating them?” she said, wheezing a little. “I don’t know.”
She coughed, gasping for breath before pitching forward, twitching and shuddering.
“JACK?” Gwen called, as Barala convulsed.
Barala coughed, her brilliant red colour greying off to a sort of purple colour.
“Here,” said Jack, and he pressed the button to open the door. Barala gasped for breath, trying to scream. “Hey, hey, I’ve got you.”
“Quarantine?” Gwen asked, as the door shut.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t think it’s contagious. If she starts trying to kill me, shoot her.”
“Then why did you lock…” Gwen asked, as Jack held Barala down, his hands on her shoulders. “Oh, nevermind.”
“I’ve got you,” Jack was saying, “I’ve got you. Come on, let’s sit up.”
The blowfish was spluttering, shivering a little in Jack’s arms. He rubbed circles on her back.
“You shouldn’t have come in here,” she said, her breath rattling. “I…”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s not a contagion,” said Jack. “I want to put you in the Med Bay.”
“Please don’t. Please don’t,” she said. “I’ve sent a distress call. They’ll be here soon.”
She pulled off her wriststrap, fumbling with the clamps. Jack let her lean against his shoulder, and she closed her eyes.
“I can smell someone else on you,” she said. “It’s…good. Happy.”
“You’re okay,” Jack said. “Come on. Let’s get you onto the bed.”
He helped her up, settling her onto the bed in the cell. She grabbed his arm.
“They’ll know I’m gone,” she said, pressing the wrist strap into his hand. “If you’re wearing this…then they’ll know I gave it to you willingly.”
“And you?”
“It doesn’t matter what happens to me,” she replied, “just that we find out why so many of our kids are coming here to Earth and never coming back.”
“I will,” said Jack. “You rest. I’ll tell your people what they need to know.”
She closed her eyes, one final twitch of her gills as she quietened. Jack looked at her, sadly, and fastened the wrist strap onto his wrist, fumbling a little with the catches. He gasped as it visibly tightened.
“☞Damn that stings,☜” said Jack, and then paused in horror. “☞No. Oh no. No, no, no, no.☜”
“Jack?” Gwen asked. He shook his head. “Jack, what’s wrong?”
“☞I…☜” Jack said, and she could hear something different in his voice. “☞I’ll be back, okay?☜”
“O-kay,” Gwen said, as he ran upstairs in what seemed to be a grand panic. She turned to the blowfish. “You know…what just happened there?”
Barala didn’t say anything. She had passed out. Gwen looked at her, and then at the stairs, and got up and followed Jack.
>:-3
Jack paced, picking at the strap on his wrist as he watched Ianto calmly search through the Rift readings from the past month. Wibble, who had happily been running up and down the length of the gantries, froze when it spotted Jack, running to Ianto and sitting on his shoes.
“What?” Ianto asked. “Oh, Jack. Everything okay downstairs?”
Jack nodded, feeling the burn of the cuff into his arm.
“The computer has definitely identified that it’s a negative reaction to the drugs and the hormones…the zombie itself is suggestible, like a…” Ianto clicked his fingers, searching for the right word. “Like something, anyway.”
Jack looked over Ianto’s shoulder, and Wibble growled from its vantage point on top of Ianto’s feet.
“Shut up,” said Ianto, absently. “I’ve not got us any further than sightings around the docks, but if we can get your friend to tell us where she thinks that she was being held, then we could get a pinpoint on it. Just when you thought that blowfish couldn’t get any more aggravating…”
Jack nodded, resting his chin on Ianto’s shoulder and his hands on Ianto’s waist.
“…you are being suspiciously quiet,” Ianto continued. “You haven’t shot anything that you shouldn’t, have you?”
“☞♥No,♥☜” Jack said, as innocently as he could. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Ianto nodded.
“Jack?” Ianto asked. “What’re you doing?”
“☞♥Nothing,♥☜” Jack said, hastily. He withdrew, and Wibble growled at him from behind Ianto’s feet.
“You are! You’re making noises.”
It was hopeless. He’d have to come clean at some point ― mostly because he couldn’t lie with the wriststrap on. Last time I put on something without testing it first, Jack thought, knowing that was a lie as he thought it. He sighed.
“☞♥Side effect of this,♥☜” Jack said, holding up his wrist with the cuff firmly on it. “☞♥Reprogrammed me to be a polite and good citizen of the Empire.♥☜”
“And I’m assuming that you will explain that extremely vague remark,” Ianto said, examining the cuff. “Barala gave this to you?”
“☞♥Yeah,♥☜” Jack said. “☞♥She gave it to me so that I could prove that we’re co-operating.♥☜”
“And you put it on without thinking,” Ianto replied, raising an eyebrow. “That’s not the Jack I know.”
“☞♥It’s not…harmful,♥☜” said Jack. “☞♥Just inconvenient. If it annoys me too much, I’ll cut off my hand.♥☜”
“I am not even going to dignify that with a response,” Ianto replied, crossing his arms.
“☞♥She’s an enforcement officer,♥☜” Jack said, with a few wafting gestures. “☞♥The idea of this is to keep an informant on the straight and narrow while backup arrives.♥☜”
“So it’s mind control,” Ianto said. “Making you act in keeping with their rules.”
“☞♥Not…quite,♥☜” Jack admitted. “☞♥That’d be too easy, wouldn’t it? It just makes you revert to your good behaviour setting. Back to basics, as it were.♥☜”
“So…this stuff you’re saying,” Ianto said. “This is part of your factory settings?”
Jack hesitated. On one hand, he could tell Ianto. On the other ― no. If he spoke, he’d have to tell the truth.
“☞♥When you’re being polite,♥☜” Jack said, very carefully, “☞♥I mean, where I come from. You address people in the polite form.♥☜”
“So you’re minding your ps and qs?” Ianto asked, amusement colouring his voice. “Have your bedroom manners improved then, Harkness?”
“☞♥See…♥☜” Jack said, helplessly. “☞♥I have to…have to…♥☜”
Ianto kissed him. Jack closed his eyes and tried to ignore the fact that Wibble was making a noise a bit like a boiling kettle.
“Oi, pack it in you two,” said Gwen, as she came upstairs. “Jack, I was worried ― then I get up here and you’ve got your tongue down Ianto’s throat.”
“It wasn’t down my throat. That would necessitate Jack having some intensely strange alien biology,” said Ianto, and then he seemed to zone out into his own little world for a few seconds. “Intensely...”
“I do not want to know, I do not want to know,” said Gwen, holding up her hands. “What’s that blip?”
The blip was blipping on the screen. Ianto swore.
“Another zombie,” he said. “Okay.”
“☞♥You run the Hub,♥☜” said Jack. “☞♥We’ll get the SUV. Send co-ordinates to the GPS when you have them.♥☜”
“I’ll come,” Ianto said.
“☞♥No you won’t,♥☜” said Jack, fumbling for his coat.
“Why the hell not?”
“☞♥Because Gwen handles a gun better than you,♥☜” said Jack. “☞♥Ianto…oh, hell…♥☜”
“You meant it,” said Ianto, tight-lipped. “I’ll run the Hub.”
It hadn’t been a lie. And that was the worse of it, he thought, and Ianto knew it. Jack was about to say something more when Wibble bit him, hard enough to draw blood.
“Jack, hurry up!” said Gwen, and Jack swore in Boe, glad that none of the others spoke the language and therefore didn’t know that he’d just said the equivalent of “Oh, fiddlesticks” as he shook Wibble off his leg and then ran after Gwen.
It was barely worth driving, in the end. An old shop around the corner with a sign in the window indicating that it was closed due to the FINACIAL CRISES was surrounded by fascinated onlookers as a blowfish staggered and slobbered. Evolution in action, thought Jack; people gathered close to the trainwreck, not expecting the fuel tankers in the back to explode and take them all out. The blowfish howled.
“Shit,” said Gwen. “It’s bloody rabid.”
“☞I don’t think so,☜” Jack replied, pulling out his revolver. “☞I think it’s just slobbering.☜”
“Since when do blowfish slobber?” Gwen asked, as they pushed through the crowd. “Sorry, Torchwood. Get out of the way.”
“☞Since they get turned into zombies,☜” said Jack, shoving into the clear area. “☞Okay. Easy there. Hi there, big fella.☜”
The blowfish looked at them, with dead eyes. Sirens were sounding in the distance and there were idiot people all around the place. Gwen pushed them back, scary in her leather jacket and shiny boots.
“No, sir, I think it’s probably someone having a laugh…” he heard her say, as the blowfish turned its dead eyes on Jack. More specifically, to the cuff that was cutting into his wrist. It knew what the cuff was, Jack realised, as it growled, launching itself at him.
There was a collective gasp from the crowd, a sort of movie-stupid gasp as Jack and the blowfish rolled, the thing’s teeth snapping sharply for his hand. He managed to shove it away, shifting clear, but it was suddenly focussed, animated ― nothing like the blowfish that they’d brought in the night before. It snarled, white flecks of foam on its jaws as it snapped again, teeth clicking in the empty air. This close, it stank of drains and rotten meat, and Jack could see down its throat ― what had seemed relatively normal from a distance reminded him now of the teeth of deep-sea creatures ― all razor edges and horror. It lunged forwards and caught him, hard, and Jack distantly heard the sound of gunshots through the roar of pain. He shoved it, feeling its teeth tear at his flesh.
Well, he thought. We’ll find out if it’s contagious now.
The blowfish snarled, arching back and up as bullets passed through its chest. The sound it made was unearthly, a howl to the heavens, and Jack couldn’t move, was frozen, catching his breath as it slumped across him. He met Gwen’s eyes over the corpse as she lowered her gun and the damp, slippery blowfish blood soaked into his trousers. The crowd had moved back, leaving them to face the music as the police arrived. Hell, they probably thought that Torchwood were the police. Jack shoved the corpse of the blowfish from his body, already calculating doses of retcon as he dragged himself to his feet. He turned on his phone.
“☞♥Ianto.♥☜”
“You okay?” said Ianto’s voice in his ear.
“☞♥I got bitten,♥☜” said Jack, and then wondered why he’d owned up to it so readily before realising ― of course. That damn cuff. “☞♥I think you’ll have to come down here and help. Need… about 20 tabs of retcon.♥☜”
He dusted himself down, meeting Gwen’s eyes as she bent to examine the corpse, feeling the presence of someone behind him before they spoke.
“Jack-bloody-Harkness.”
Jack didn’t need to turn to recognise Kathy Swanson’s voice. “☞Hi,☜” he said, slowly.
“I assume your lot is responsible for this?”
“☞No,☜” he said. “☞We’re responsible for cleaning it up.☜”
And he could have made a joke about not ordering sushi, or something worse, but instead he stood there, fish-guts seeping into the lining of his coat, and he felt like a murderer.
“☞♥Ianto,♥☜” said Jack, into his bluetooth. “☞♥There’s…it won’t take too long, but two will get it done faster than one.♥☜”
“Gwen might handle a gun better than me,” Ianto said, and Jack could hear a tinge of something in his voice, “but no-one can clean up a crimescene like I can.”
“☞♥You’re the best,♥☜” Jack agreed, gently. “☞♥The very best.♥☜”
“I’ll be there soon,” Ianto said. “Off comms.”
Swanson was still standing in front of him, demanding ― something ― Jack realised. His wrist hurt, but it was healing, already healing. He pulled Gwen aside, talking softly.
“☞Gwen. I’ll go and sort things out with the station,☜” Jack heard himself say. “☞Once you and Ianto have finished up here, you go home to Rhys.☜”
“You’re kidding me, aren’t you?” Gwen said, raising her eyebrows. “Last time I left you with Swanson you said you’d rather eat glass than spend more time with her.”
“☞I would,☜” Jack said, desperately. “☞But you need to go home to Rhys.☜”
“Are you being…helpful?” Gwen asked, suspicious.
“☞I’m not that bad, am I?☜”
“You’re lovely,” said Gwen, light, “but you tend to delegate the things you don’t want to do.”
He smiled. True enough. “☞Go, Gwen.☜”
She smiled back. “Thanks.”
It was midnight by the time Jack got back to the Hub and had a shower to get the fish blood off. He checked the monitors ― Barala was asleep; the other blowfish was comatose; and Ianto was curled up in the downstairs bunk. Jack touched the screen, running his fingers over the image of Ianto, and then immediately looked around to ensure that no-one had caught him being so soppy. Satisfied that all was well with the world, he clattered downstairs to join Ianto.
“☞♥You awake?♥☜” Jack asked, stroking a hand down Ianto’s spine. Ianto was silent. “☞♥C’mon. You’re not still mad at me?♥☜”
Ianto snored, loudly. As if obeying some well-rehearsed signal, Wibble sat up in his box and then bounded onto the bed, standing on the small of Ianto’s back and growling at Jack. Jack put his hands up.
“☞♥Woah, woah. I just want to kiss him.♥☜”
“Uh?” asked Ianto, blearily. “Oh. Wibble, gerroff.”
He rolled over, looking up at Jack, his expression still soft from sleep. Wibble rolled off onto the floor, making a discomfited squeak as it did so.
“What’s up?” asked Ianto, tracing Jack’s cheek with his fingertips. “You look…tired. And what happened to your hand?”
Jack leaned in and kissed Ianto, softly. Ianto ran his fingers through Jack’s hair. They parted, but Jack climbed onto the bed, straddling Ianto’s hips.
“☞♥I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine,♥☜” said Jack.
“So you can tell me why you’re making those noises now?” Ianto asked, amused.
Jack smiled. “☞♥I always could…I just…♥☜”
“Freaked out?”
“☞♥I can tell you,♥☜” Jack said, allowing the weight of his body to press Ianto into the bed, “☞♥I just…I don’t know if you’ll want to know.♥☜”
“Okay. Tomorrow. Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” Ianto said, their foreheads together, breathing each other’s air. “I’m just glad to…”
Jack felt something with nasty sharp little claws land on his back, crawling up his spine until it was breathing in his ear.
“Wiiiiiiiibbble.”
“Ignore it,” Ianto said. “It has to learn that it can’t have attention whenever it wants.”
“☞♥I would,♥☜” Jack replied, kissing Ianto. “☞♥But it’s digging its claws into my back.♥☜”
“Ignore it,” Ianto said, so close that Jack could feel the movement of Ianto’s lips against his own. They kissed, slow and soft.
There was a snuffling.
“Ignore it,” Ianto murmured, sliding his hands under Jack’s top, his palms warm, little feathery shocks of pleasure darting down Jack’s spine as Ianto brushed the ticklish spot on his waist.
“Whhhhhhhhhiiiiiiirrrrrr.”
Jack shifted his shoulderblades, trying to dislodge his furry passenger.
“Ignore,” Ianto nipped at Jack’s neck, “it.”
Ianto deftly pushed away Wibble’s snout as it tried to get in between them, and Wibble rolled off the side of the bed and onto the floor.
“☞♥Thank you,♥☜” Jack said, leaning up so that he could pull off Ianto’s shirt, run his hand over the smooth plane of Ianto’s chest, feel the steady beat of his heart.
Wibble jumped onto the bed again.
“One second,” Ianto said, wriggling out from under Jack. He picked up Wibble in one hand and put it out of the room, closing the door. Ianto turned back to Jack, fully awake now. Jack sat on the side of the bed, legs parted, and Ianto came and stood in front of him.
THUMP.
“☞♥Oh yeah,♥☜” said Jack, as Ianto cupped his face in both hands, drawing them together for a sweet kiss. Jack ran both hands up Ianto’s thighs, hooking his thumbs over the waistband of Ianto’s pyjamas and gently pulling them down, leaning in to press a kiss to Ianto’s chest, and then his stomach.
THUMP. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaugh.”
Ianto stepped out of his pyjamas, as Jack bent his head further, pressing his cheek to the warm skin of Ianto’s stomach, reaching to brush his fingers over Ianto’s cock before blowing over the tip of it, just gently. Ianto gasped, exhaling with a shudder.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMP SKREEEEEEETCH. SKREEEEETCH.
“Please,” Ianto managed, before there was an almighty crash from the doorway, and Wibble burst through it, spectacularly. Wood splintered off the doorframe, all over the carpet, and Ianto turned just in time to get an armful of fur that had thrown itself onto him.
“Wow,” said Ianto. “Clearly he wanted to be involved.”
“☞♥I am not having that anywhere near my crotch,♥☜” Jack said. “I think it’s got you under some sort of mind control.♥☜”
Ianto pulled his pyjamas back on with one hand, the other holding an enthusiastically squirming alien.
“☞♥I’d better clean this up before one of us gets a splinter in their foot,♥☜” Jack said, with a sigh.
“No,” Ianto said. “Oh no. No, no, no. You’ve not gone that polite and helpful. Not when we were about to fuck.”
Jack grinned. “☞♥Give that to me.♥☜”
Ianto handed over Wibble, who immediately wriggled and tried to get back to Ianto. Jack looked at it.
“☞You,☜” he said, looking at it. “☞GET IN YOUR BASKET AND STAY THERE.☜”
“Wuuuh?” it trilled, as Jack put it in the cardboard box. It tried to bounce out again immediately.
“☞STAY!☜”
It looked at him, reproachful, but curled up into a ball. Jack sighed, and Ianto shifted to stand behind him, slipping warm arms around his waist and pressing a kiss to Jack’s neck.
“Come on,” said Ianto. “Come on. I’m not getting cockblocked by a furball.”
“☞♥Yes sir,♥☜” said Jack, leaning back against Ianto and turning his head a little to deepen the kiss.
>:-3
Ianto had taken to simply keeping clothes at the Hub - it had felt a little like the walk of shame the first few times he’d stayed the night and shown up to work in the same suit the next day, Jack’s shirt on but baggy around the armpits. He realised that there were clumps of fur all over his jacket; was Wibble moulting? Did…whatever Wibble was…moult?
“I still think I should have gone with him,” said Gwen, nibbling on a biscuit. Some time, ages ago, Tosh had set up a “Jack-friendly” system in the computers, with lots of clear graphics and markings. Jack had made rumblings about the technology he was used to being user friendly, and now they were glad of his insistence about graphics - the computers were now also Ianto-and-Gwen friendly, too.
“No,” Ianto said, sipping his coffee. “It’s just a reconnaissance, and from the readings that came in last night, there’s something big coming through the Rift.”
“☞♥You know I love it when you talk about me,♥☜” said Jack, his voice warm, affectionate. “☞♥I think this is a bust. Going off phone for a while in case they’re tracking signals. Don’t come and get me until tomorrow, if things go wrong. I think they’re more active at night.♥☜”
“You honestly can’t expect us to stay here,” Gwen said.
“☞I can, and do,☜” Jack replied.
“Oh, stop being noble,” Gwen said. “You know three of us are better than one.”
“☞That’s as may be, but…☜” Jack paused. “☞Hello. What…oh. Oh. Okay. I…☜” He screamed, suddenly, and the line went dead as the emergency beacons flared.
“What the…?” Ianto asked. “Jack!”
“There’s been a power failure…” Gwen said, as the lockdown flared.
“Whuh?”
Ianto looked around. “Oh shit.”
“Tell me that your pet alien hasn’t triggered a lockdown,” said Gwen. “Should we go after Jack?”
“Have to be able to get out of here, first; I…” Ianto said. A scaly little head popped up from behind the computer, fur standing on end like a halo.
“WIBBLE!”
Ianto closed his eyes. Jack. Jack was in trouble and they were locked in.
“Running a diagnostic,” said Gwen, tapping keys to look at the systems. “Well, there’s our problem. I think it’s chewed through the wiring going to the cells.”
“It what?” asked Ianto. Wibble whuffed at him, vanishing again. He thought that he could see it bounding off into the Hub at large.
“The cells. They’re open,” said Gwen. She met his eyes, her expression barely lit by the red safety lights.
“Barala is down there,” said Ianto. “I’ll…you stay here. I can navigate this place blindfolded.”
He ran downstairs before she could stop him, feeling for the stun gun. Gwen might be better at actual gunfire, Ianto thought grimly, but if you wanted to get through a darkened Hub, Ianto was your man. The red lights gave little illumination - Ianto had always wondered about that. Surely, surely, if one needed to secure the area, then more illumination was key, not less? He fumbled for his bluetooth, fitting it in as he slowed on the approach to the cells.
“Barala?” he asked, tentative. “Barala? It’s Ianto.”
“Here,” said Barala, weakly. “It’s not in here.”
He rounded the corner, hitting the connect on his earpiece. “Gwen, it’s in the Hub somewhere. Get out.”
“I’ve nearly managed to get the self-repair working,” Gwen replied, urgent. “I’m going to have to go into Jack’s office to complete it. Do you have any idea if he has a spare passkey?”
“Third drawer on the right,” Ianto replied. “Be careful.”
“Always,” Gwen said. He rounded the corner and opened the door to Barala’s cell.
“Barala,” Ianto said, and she raised her head. “You’ve not…you’re not a zombie.”
“I know. I think…” she said, her eyes bloodshot. “Maybe there needed to be more treatments. Or maybe it just hasn’t happened yet.”
“Did it come in here?” he asked.
“No. It roared at me through the glass, but it didn’t come near me. I don’t think it’s very bright,” she said. Ianto nodded. “Can you lock the door again?”
“I can’t until the lockdown is no longer in force,” Ianto replied. “I’m gonna check its cell.”
The cell was a mess. The blowfish had eaten everything that wasn’t ceramic or metal, and even then it looked like it had given the toilet a good go. Barala and Jack had been convinced that the process must be reversible, but if it had that much garbage in its innards, it’d better hope that it had a cast iron stomach.
Ianto stepped back out into the corridor. Barala had pushed the door to her cell shut, and he didn’t exactly blame her. He tapped on the glass.
“I’m going to go and stop it.”
“Shoot to wound,” she said. “Please.”
He held up the stun gun. “Not a problem.”
The trail was easy enough to find, even in this dim light. Slobber and bitemarks, discarded and broken furniture. Ianto breathed in slowly, listening for noises - snuffling, anything. No. It wasn’t still down here. He padded as quietly as he could along the corridor, checking out the rest of the cells, running his fingertips along the bricks to maintain his equilibrium in the dimness. From somewhere upstairs, Ianto heard an ear-splitting shriek; he flinched, the heat of adrenaline running down his back before he realised that it wasn’t Gwen, and it wasn’t guttural enough to be the blowfish. Ianto rolled his eyes - Wibble was clearly stuck in something. He’d told himself the night before that they’d get rid of it - send it back through the rift, or make pancakes out of it, or give it to a dog’s home or whatever one did with unwanted pets - and then he’d woken up this morning with it asleep against his chest, whirring happily. It had snuggled closer when he’d shifted, and he’d decided that as long as it behaved, then it could stay.
He wondered how far “not behaving” stretched in the grand scheme of things, and whether he could convince Jack that this lockdown wasn’t really Wibble’s fault.
The lights flickered back on, and one by one the cell doors swung shut. Ianto grinned, pacing back up towards the doorway, past Barala’s cell and the zombie’s vacated cell.
“Gwen, you’re gorgeous and I love you,” he said.
“I do my best,” she replied, quietly. “Ianto, it’s up in the main Hub.”
“Oh,” he said. “You armed?”
“My gun is sitting next to my computer,” said Gwen, “which is on the other side of this office door.”
“Oh,” Ianto said. “Jack doesn’t…well, as far as I know…keep one in his office.”
“I thought you might say that,” Gwen replied. “I’ll run interference and you shoot it?”
“Let me get up there,” Ianto said. “Then we’ll see.”
He met Barala’s eyes. She wasn’t an idiot - she knew that he was going upstairs and that he’d probably have to to kill the blowfish. She nodded.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
The journey back upstairs was comparatively easy, and Ianto drew the stungun as he walked, no, stalked through the corridor. He saw the blowfish, lining up to get close enough to stun it and then he noticed that the blowfish had something in its mouth. Something fluffy and scaly and…
“…Oh no,” Ianto said, stomach sinking. He’d heard Wibble wail. “Oi! Oi! You! Over here!”
He scanned around for a projectile weapon and came up empty except for the coffee pot. The coffee pot! Scalding hot coffee! He waited until the blowfish turned, and then threw the contents of the pot at it - and then the pot itself, for good measure. It howled, dropping what remained of its meal, and ran blindly for the cog door.
The cog clanged most satisfyingly when the blowfish hit it. Ianto ignored the blowfish twitching on the floor, and instead investigated the dropped dinner. It was indeed fluffy and scaly and a bit iridescent and very, very dismembered. Only part of a claw remained intact amongst the clumps of white fur. Ianto held the pathetic scrap, scaly skin translucent and soft where it had presumably been torn away.
“Wibble,” he said softly, and his throat felt tight. He clutched the claw. “Okay. Okay. That’s it.”
“Ianto, what’s going on?” Gwen said, through his headset.
“It’s eaten Wibble,” said Ianto, feeling anger coil in his gut and heat burn behind his eyes. “It’s eaten Wibble.”
“Oh sweetheart. I’m so sorry,” said Gwen, softly. “I’ll come down and help you to contain it?”
“Yeah,” said Ianto, standing up, stun-gun at the ready. “And then I don’t care what Jack said. I’m going to go and get him out.”
>:-3
Jack woke up through a haze of pain, realising as he did so that he was tied to a bed.
“☞I have got to stop waking up like this,☜” he said, and a fishy face loomed over him.
“Your head is harder than it looks,” said the blowfish. It was a rich colour, much brighter than Barala, who had looked washed out. So it wasn’t ill, Jack thought. It wasn’t a zombie. He could hear laboured breath, though, and the shadows were moving with hulking shapes.
“☞My head is very important to me,☜” Jack said. “☞I’d prefer to keep it intact.☜”
“Where did you get the bracelet from?”
“☞Which one of the four things around my wrist were you asking about?☜” Jack asked.
“You can’t lie to me, human,” said the blowfish. “I know what that is. It’s an enforcement cuff. You can’t lie to me, human. Can’t lie, can’t attack. Have to be polite.”
“☞I don’t have to tell you everything, though,☜” said Jack. “☞I can withhold information.☜”
Shit.
“And if I make you talk?” asked the blowfish, pressing on Jack’s abdomen. A flare of pain ran up from his side, like a knife slicing the flesh, and Jack gritted his teeth, only crying out when the pain became too much. “There. Now. Where did the enforcement cuff come from?”
“☞Blowfish cop,☜” said Jack, spitting and tasting iron.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” said the blowfish, and Jack laughed.
“☞I’m not stupid enough to tell you anything that you shouldn’t already know,☜” he said, and then he bit his tongue.
“Who do you work for?”
“☞I don’t want to tell you.☜”
“You can’t lie,” snapped the blowfish. “I know how these things work!”
“☞It isn’t a lie!” Jack replied. “☞I don’t want to tell you!”
Impasse. Jack looked up at it and knew that it was inexperienced; probably a spoilt young thing, found some power on Earth but didn’t quite know what to do with it.
“☞Why do you need to know?☜” Jack asked.
“I want to know who to kill once the project is stable. I can take you back, human, take you back through the Rift and farm you like the animal that you are.”
“☞Your project isn’t stable?☜” Jack asked. “☞This would be your zombies, wouldn’t it? What did you offer them? Drugs? Money? Fish food?☜”
That was a little impolite, he thought, as a dull headache reminded him that he still had the wriststrap on. Still. As the Doctor had once said to him: In an authoritarian society, people listen to the voice of authority - and Jack’s shiny new wriststrap was proof that these blowfish came from an authoritarian place.
“They wanted to get home,” said the blowfish. “I’m giving them a way to get back there.”
“☞And how are they getting back there? As mindless slaves?☜”
“It is for the good of the Empire!” snapped the blowfish - and then it shook its head and thumped Jack again.
“☞You know,☜” Jack said, spitting blood. “☞If I were my normal self, I’d be making a terrible joke about how I wish ♥Ianto♥ could witness this. He’s always wanted to be captured by someone who monologues their entire evil plot.☜”
He could feel the pain now, radiating through his stomach and out to the extremities of his body. He coughed, feeling something trickle down his side.
“☞I wouldn’t,☜” he said, quietly. “I wouldn’t wish that ♥he♥ could witness this. Not really.☜”
And he wished that he could take that back, because now the blowfish had something that it could use against him, something that he hadn’t intended to give.
“☞So,☜” Jack said, wondering if he could trust Ianto and Gwen to just wait for the cops that Barala had sworn were coming. Slim to none, he realised. He’d have to play for time, see if he could keep this idiot distracted. He smiled, tasting iron. “☞So. Tell me about the Empire.☜”
When he woke up, there was a zombie standing over him. He knew this, because there were fat, viscous drips of slobber falling and hitting his forehead, slipping down and into his hair. Jack tried to wipe his forehead clean on his upraised arms and realised that was a terrible idea when the pain in his gut flared hot and horrible. The zombie lumbered to the door as Jack raised his head a little to see tubing protruding from his stomach, blood leaking down his side. He closed his eyes, trying to remember his training. What was on that side? Liver? Appendix? Kidneys? He didn’t know.
“☞You don’t happen to have the time, do you?☜” he called. The blowfish was by the door, and it was significantly less -insane - than the one in Torchwood’s cells. It called down the corridor, and Jack felt a cold certainty that it was telling his captors that he was awake again. Yes, definitely more high-functioning. And it didn’t take a genius to work out what was going on here-one drug lord and his little army of zombies, on a little backwater planet during a little backwater time. Each zombie more refined, more pliable than the last. It was just - how were they doing it? Was it transmitted by bite? Why, then, the tubing in his stomach?
Jack didn’t believe in zombies. He didn’t want to believe in zombies. He much preferred a different explanation for this trickery, because otherwise what was he? What had Owen been? No. Better to believe that this was mind control; he tried to look for a wrist strap on the zombie but had little luck. There was a noise from down the corridor and then the first blowfish ran in.
“Secure the door!” it commanded. “All right, human. What is that weapon?”
“☞Huh?☜” Jack asked, as the zombie barred the door. “☞What weapon?☜”
“The electrical weapon that your mate carries.”
“☞Hmm?☜” Jack was pretty certain that he didn’t have a mate. At least, not in the blowfish sense. At least, not unless… ♥Ianto?♥
“Do not play the fool with me,” said the blowfish, grabbing Jack’s hair and pulling his head back. It was so close to him that he could feel its breath, all soursalt fish and coldness. “I can smell you on him, and he on you. You will tell me how to destroy the weapon or else he shall watch you die.”
“☞You know,☜” Jack said, closing his eyes. “☞I am really quite embarrassed to have been kidnapped by someone who is clearly as inexperienced as you are. I mean - really? Watch me die? Isn’t that a little over the top?☜”
The bloom of pain in his head was worth it - and nothing compared to the pinch in his side as the blowfish exacted revenge.
And then the door swung open.
Jack managed to look up, a little, to see Ianto in the doorway. He sighed a little, resting back. Ianto. For whatever reason, Ianto had come and Jack was…was…
♥…grateful.♥
“Get away from him!” Ianto was furious. “I’ve had just about enough of this, and you’re not doing anything for my mood.”
“Ha. I will make him suffer, if you get closer.”
“I will make you suffer anyway,” Ianto said. “Do you know what sort of day I’ve had?”
That seemed to throw the blowfish off. “What?”
“One of your…your…things ate my Wibble,” said Ianto, and he seemed not to realise the utter hilariousness of that statement until Jack started to laugh, weakly. “Jack, what’s wrong? Are you…”
“You hear that? It is his death throes!”
“☞♥It ate,♥☜” Jack said, blood bubbling in his throat. “☞♥It ate your Wibble.♥☜”
“It’s not funny!” Ianto said, hotly. “I was fond of Wibble.”
“You will lose a lot more than your…your Wibble…” The blowfish trailed off, when it presumably realised that Jack was shaking with laughter, not pain. The other blowfish was in the corner, panting and grunting like some sort of obscene animal. “Kill the suited human.”
The zombie roared, coming at Ianto with fins outstretched, and Jack tried to look up, tried to see what was happening. He’d have to break free. There was nothing for it. He’d have to dislocate his wrists and break free. And then Ianto sighed in a most put-upon manner, pressed the stun-gun to the zombie’s neck as it snapped at him, and hit the button. It howled, and then crumpled like a sack of potatoes.
“Remarkably effective against fish,” said Ianto, coldly, as Jack’s world started to fade a little. “Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. But you will get away from Jack before I am forced to prove its efficacy on you.”
“No,” said the blowfish, and Jack wanted to call out, He’s inexperienced, he won’t give in because he doesn’t understand that sometimes you need to, just let me die…but then there was a sharp pain as something twisted and the world went black a for a few seconds as the blowfish above him convulsed under the pulse of the stun-gun. It slumped across him, a heavy weight that was removed almost immediately, Jack’s swimming view of the pitted and cracked ceiling suddenly replaced with Ianto’s concerned face looking down at him.
“Jack,” Ianto said, soft. “Jack, it’s me. It’s me, Jack.”
Jack opened his eyes a little wider and forced a smile. “♥♥Ianto,♥♥” he said, his accent broad, slurring Ianto’s name.
“I’m here,” Ianto said, brushing Jack’s cheek with the back of his fingers. “I’ve got you now.”
“♥♥Can take care of myself.♥♥”
“Clearly.”
“♥♥♥Ianto,♥♥♥” Jack repeated, closing his eyes. “♥♥Just gonna…rest…a minute.♥♥”
Ianto nodded, bending to press a kiss to Jack’s lips. “I’ll be here.”
The door opened, and several blowfish guards came in. “Sir! Perimeter is secured, sir!”
“Sssh,” Ianto said, and Jack wanted to say something, but everything was dark and getting quieter.
“Sir,” said the head blowfish, softly. “The other human - were we not in time to save him?”
“It looks like they were harvesting something from him,” Ianto said, stroking Jack’s hair back. Jack let the darkness take him, focussing instead on the steady, soothing touch of Ianto’s hand.
When he gasped awake, he was in Ianto’s arms, the bloody tubing from his gut coiled on the gurney beside him, and he rested against Ianto’s shoulder, catching his breath as Ianto held him tightly, and the blowfish around them took a step back in shock.
>:-3
Gwen knew that she shouldn’t use Wikipedia for primary research; especially after she and Tosh had spent a quiet afternoon on rift duty creating a page for Owen “King of the Weevils” Harper. But, sometimes, it was useful - and with Ianto off the grid and Jack God knew where, someone had to run the Hub. The rift was crackling in and out like a half-heard radio station, but up until now, she couldn’t tell if it had or if it hadn’t spat anything out. Gwen was going with not. 9.9 times out of 10, it was not.
There was, however, the matter of the blip. The blip was cycling in and out, and she chewed on her nails and watched it in one window and looked up zombies on Wikipedia in the other window and kept her phone so close that she was sure it was probably irradiating her.
She scrolled past Romero and other movie zombies, looked at pictures of zombie walks and briefly speculated as to whether she could see Jack in the back of one of them. And then she started looking at scientific origins - mostly discredited - but slightly more fruitful.
Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound).
Barala. Barala had a wound on her arm, and the other zombie had been covered in scratches and grazes. Gwen bit her lip. Scratches and grazes and opiates, she thought, as the blip on the other screen blipped, and her mobile stayed sullenly silent. She read on.
The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), the poison found in the pufferfish. The second powder consists of dissociative drugs such as datura. Together, these powders were said to induce a death-like state in which the victim's will would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor.
Pufferfish. Humans could become zombies with pufferfish venom and drugs. So what if blowfish could become zombies with…? Gwen sucked in a breath.
“Adrenaline. That blowfish was full of adrenaline,” she said, quietly.
THUMP.
She looked around, the noise clanging around the Hub.
“Oh bloody hell,” she whispered, getting out her gun. They’d secured it, she knew that they’d secured it. It had taken Ianto shooting it with the stun gun to disable it enough to move it, and then they’d dragged it back to the cells.
THUMPTHUMP.
It was coming from the gantry above her. She whirled around, pointing her gun up, pulling off the safety. The noise was moving, and Gwen felt an icy thrill run down her spine. It wasn’t her imagination - something was out there. Something that didn’t care enough to be quiet.
SCRITCHTHUMPTHUMP.
Her heart was pounding, but she steeled herself. If it was the blowfish, then she’d just shoot it. Yes. Right? She’d just shoot it.
“Whiiiiiiirrrrrr.”
“Wibble?” Gwen asked, tension that she hadn’t know that she was holding melting from her.
“Wibble!” The little alien scuttered down the gantry and climbed up her leg. It was dropping something from its body; huge chunks of fur and scales. Underneath, it was a little sticky, like a freshly-hatched chick. It whirred as it snuggled against her chest.
“Did you get scared?” she asked, as a lump of fur fell off and attached itself to her jacket. “Did you…drop your pelt when you got scared?”
“Wuuuh?” it chirped, sniffing the air. It bounced out of her arms, and scuttled to the cog, jumping up and down and up and down and scratching at the cog. It looked back at her, expectantly. Gwen looked at the computer, and the blip on it, and then picked up her phone and portable tracker, and hit the button for the door, following Wibble out into the night.
It was quick, much quicker than Gwen in these boots. She followed the trail of clattering and “whhhhuhuuuuuurrr!” noises, catching up to where it was bouncing in the doorway of a shop, and then it sped off again.
“Wibble!” she called out. Ianto would kill her if she found Wibble again and then lost it. “Shit.”
Her PDA vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out to check it and… the static had cleared, and the blip was now no longer a blip. It was a fully-fledged Rift event, and it was, conveniently, in the same direction that Wibble was headed. So. This had been the 0.1th bloody time, then. Swearing that she’d get her boots re-heeled later, Gwen ran.
She rounded the corner and her heart sank when she saw the blowfish. There was one in charge, she thought, and uniforms and…oh! This must be the rescue squad that Barala had been talking about! Wibble vanished into the throng, and Gwen drew her gun, shouldering her way into the group.
“And where are you going, human?”
“I need to see your commander,” said Gwen, as the blowfish worked to knock down the door. “Torchwood. I’m from Torchwood.”
“Kenio! Torchwood!” said the one she’d run into, and Gwen found herself able to move through the crowd to the most decorated of the fish. She shook Gwen’s hand.
“Torchwood,” said the Blowfish, as they got the door down and suddenly there were more zombies.
“Enforcers?” Gwen hazarded, as more blowfish gathered.
“Shit!” said the head Blowfish. “There’s…it’s a whole nest of zombies. Quick, up here!”
She held out a fin to Gwen and pulled her up onto the bonnet of a parked car. Gwen found her footing and her gun.
“Shoot to wound,” she said. “Barala thinks that it might be reversible.”
“Sergeant Barala is…” the Blowfish said, with a grin. “Oh, human, you just made my day. SHOOT TO WOUND!”
The tactics changed, and Gwen realised that there were not as many on either side as she’d first thought. Troops were swarming in the door as she and the commander spotted zombies.
“There’s a human in there!” called one of the Blowfish, as they fought their way hand-to-hand through the throng. “Looks like… he’s got the perps on the back foot.”
“Ianto!” Gwen said, as Wibble bounded up onto the car. She picked off another zombie, sending it flying with a carefully aimed shot to the kneecap.
“Is that a tame caalthu?”
“I have no idea,” said Gwen, as Wibble whuffed and clambered up to her shoulder. It yammered at her. “Yes, I know he’s in there, but we have to get rid of the zombies first.”
>:-3
Ianto was tired. They’d been cleaning up for hours, and unlike Jack, who’d spent most of that time snuggled on the couch at the Hub, Ianto had been on the scene. It was…almost a relief to let someone else take over. There’d been plenty of awkward conversations in the meantime; blowfish wanting to know if Ianto had really honestly taken out most of the zombies on his own, and if Jack really had been dead, and if Ianto was a shaman. He didn’t feel like a shaman. He felt like a workhorse, making enough coffee to go round the team as they prepared to turn the Plass and the fountain into a mass transportation device. He’d used the spare coffeepot - the other one had a nasty dent in the side from where it had struck the zombie.
Jack, trust him, had managed to stagger up to the lift, despite the massive internal injuries that the attempt to use him as an adrenaline farm had inflicted on him. At least Barala had removed the cuff, so Jack wasn’t making funny noises anymore. The blowfish looked at them both in suspicion when they appeared from nowhere by the fountain, Ianto with a tray of coffees, Jack leaning against him. Jack sat, gracefully, while Ianto passed around the drinks.
“Looks like it’s cleaned up over there,” said a blowfish. “The other human will be across soon.”
Can we trust them? Ianto had asked. Jack had waved a hand, muttering something about the “Shadow Proclamation” sorting it out. Ianto pressed a coffee into the outstretched fin of another blowfish, one tending the now-incapacitated zombies.
“I think they’ll make a full recovery,” she said. “It’s a good thing no-one got killed.”
“It is,” Ianto agreed, feeling the sting of losing Wibble. He’d got used to the excited chirping and whuffing, used to the warm fur that curled up against him when he was working on the computer late at night. He sighed.
“Did you…” The blowfish was looking at Ianto, strangely. “Did you really take out these guys on your own?”
“Mmm,” Ianto said. “I did.”
“Good Gods. And…and your mate. He was dead…”
“No he wasn’t,” Ianto said, as someone called out.
“Here they come!”
It was Gwen. Gwen and another blowfish. Ianto grinned, relief battling exhaustion for dominance.
“Ianto!” said Gwen, as she caught sight of him. She held out her arms for a hug, and he hugged her tightly, feeling something wriggle between them.
“Ianto,” said Gwen. “For god’s sake, will you take this bloody thing?”
Wibble launched itself at Ianto, licking his face, crawling up his jacket and pulling threads with its claws. Ianto felt the grin on his face stretch broad as he pulled the excited, wriggling alien from his chest and held it.
“He’s alive!” Ianto said, realising as he said it that it was redundant to say so, but uncaring as Wibble made wibbling noises and snorted its happiness.
“It must have shed its skin when it got frightened,” said Gwen, as Ianto cradled Wibble in his hands. It bit him, hard, and then gave his palm a loving lick. “It’s been dropping clumps all the way here. I reckon what you found was discarded skin.”
“Wibble,” Ianto said, and dammit if he wasn’t getting soppy about something scaly and bitey that smelled a little bit like his sock drawer. It chewed thoughtfully on the heel of his hand, just enough to hurt but not quite enough to break the skin, and then it stretched up and rubbed its nose against his without biting, and Ianto couldn’t help his huge grin.
“That’s…that’s a caalthu…”
“A what?” Ianto asked, as Wibble snuggled, clambering up onto his shoulder to whirr and purr in Ianto’s ear, rubbing its face against his cheek.
“A caalthu. And it’s bonded to you,” said the Blowfish he’d been talking to. “You’re…you’re the shaman for your group of humans, aren’t you? Only a shaman can tame a caalthu.”
“That’s an old wives’ tale,” snapped another Blowfish.
“He defeated the zombies alone,” said a third.
“And his mate was dead and then he brought him back to life!” said a fourth.
“Please tell me that they mean “mate” in the friendly sense,” Ianto said, mostly to himself. Wibble whuffed and licked his face. There was a light in the sky - the start of the rift transfer - and the blowfish all began to move. Ianto had never been more grateful to see rift activity in his life - especially as people clapped him on the shoulder and congratulated him in his role as shaman. Jack came to join him, leaning surreptitiously and heavily on his Wibble-free shoulder. Finally, he got to blowfish that he vaguely recognised, and eventually to Barala. She leaned up to hug Ianto.
“Caalthu bond to whomever they see when they first hatch,” she whispered. “It’s an old shaman trick - tame the untameable creature by making sure you’re the first thing it sees.”
“You know I’m not all that, then,” Ianto replied.
“Oh, you are all that,” said Barala. “If I had a guy like your Jack in love with me, I think I’d singlehandedly destroy a nest of zombies to get him out, too.”
“They’re…astonishingly susceptible to stun-gunning,” said Ianto, blushing. Jack was right there - tact clearly wasn’t in the blowfish arsenal. “And it’s not…like that.”
“You’re kidding me. He’s been declaring his love for you since I put the wriststrap on him,” she said, and Ianto heard Jack exhale sharply, and so he knew it was true.
“What?”
“It’s…” Jack said, looking guilty. “It’s part of the formal mode of address. When my reset switch flicked…”
“He was addressing you in the lover’s mode. You’re not also from the Boe System?” she asked, and in his peripheral vision Ianto saw Jack adjust his cuffs - a tiny tell, to those in the know.
“How do you know about places that don’t exist yet?” Jack asked.
“You think that this is the only Rift?” she asked. “We police the Rift wherever we’re needed, Captain.”
“Then I wish you well,” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. She joined the other blowfish, and in a burning flash of light they were gone, gone through the Rift and home. Ianto leaned in, resting his temple against Jack’s.
“The lover’s mode?” Ianto asked, with a little grin.
“I hate you,” Jack replied, but kissed Ianto anyway. “It’s…polite.”
Ianto sighed, and snuggled a bit. Wibble was curled up on Ianto’s shoulder, snoring gently, soft and warm.
“☞♥Ianto?♥☜”
Ianto looked up. “I thought you were cured of that?” he asked, stroking his fingertips along Jack’s jawline. Wibble grunted protest as Ianto shifted.
“I am,” Jack replied.
“Mmm,” Ianto replied, displacing Wibble onto the ground. Ianto shuffled so that he was face to face with Jack. “And there’ll be no more Rift activity this evening, so we can spend what remains of it downstairs in the Hub?”
“Oh yeah,” Jack replied, before drawing Ianto into another kiss.
“Oh, get off each other,” Gwen said, throwing her empty paper cup at them, and then squealing as they chased her down in mock-outrage.
“Go home,” said Jack, once they caught her. “Have an evening off. Call it a gift.”
“Some gift,” Gwen replied, but she got her bag and kissed them both goodnight as Wibble bounced in his basket, fresh fur all fluffy and bright, as Ianto made himself and Jack a late night coffee. The cog door clanged closed after Gwen, none the worse for its adventures.
“☞♥Jack?♥☜” Ianto’s pronunciation was terrible, but it was obvious what he meant. Jack turned, and his grin was bright enough to light Cardiff for a month.
RECIPIENT WHO HAD BETTER BE GRATEFUL BECAUSE I SPENT TIME THAT I COULD HAVE BEEN DRINKING WRITING THIS SHIT: lawsontl EXCEPT I WAS DRUNK WHEN I WROTE MOST OF IT ANYWAY.
SUMMARY: I HAD PROMPTS -- 1. Zombie Blowfish; 2. Coffee burns; 3. Aliens made them NOT do it; 4. Alien/tech leaves Jack unable to lie, and unable to speak in sentences that don't include "I love you"; 5. Ianto has to SAY "Wibble"; 6. Virtual cookies to anyone who could combine ALL of these prompts into a single fic (from Lioness) :)
BETA: JAWS. WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT.
RATING: WIBBLE
WARNING: IMMA REALLY CRAP WRITER AND YOU'RE ALL MUCH BETTER THAN ME
SPOILERS: JESUS PEOPLE IT'S JUST ABOUT THE TORCHWOOD TEAM DRINKING EGGNOG. ALSO THERE’S A BRIEF AND FORGETTABLE REFERENCE WITHIN THE FIRST 300 WORDS TO “THE SIN EATERS”.
DISCLAIMER: THEY'RE NOT MINE. EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE. IN MAH PANTS.
NOTE: OH FUCK YES I HAD BETTER GET MY COOKIES. ALSO I COPIED STRAIGHT FROM THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE ON ZOMBIES.
>:-3
It shambled down the length of the street, red-eyed and slackjawed, slime dripping from its chin and onto its shirt.
Barala ran.
This was ridiculous. It was moving about as quickly and elegantly as a drunken sluubath - listing from side to side, dropping waste where it went. But she was running full tilt and it kept after her, moving inexorably forwards. She was reminded of a logic puzzle from her childhood - an archer firing an arrow at a caalthu. The caalthu ran, and the arrow moved, and so the arrow should never catch the caalthu, right? With each tiny movement of the arrow, the animal moved. But invariably, the arrow won.
The zombie, against all odds, seemed to be winning.
Her wrist hurt, too.
She felt naked without her gun, but they’d taken it from her when they'd tied her up. She’d been so close to finding out where the kids had been vanishing to, and then she’d been stupid, and clumsy, and she’d let herself get kidnapped. The bite on her wrist throbbed where they’d rubbed something into it. There’d been chanting. There’d been others, shambling and groaning in the shadows, and the smell of rotting flesh had been overwhelming.
She could hear it behind her, and her fins slipped on the damp paving beneath her. She looked up, her heart thudding loud in her chest, her breathing starting to hurt. She could see a human, walking across the broad stretch of the Plass, silhouetted against the streetlamps.
“Help me!” she yelled. “Please!”
The man turned. He was carrying square cardboard boxes full of something, and he put them at his feet as she ran. She could hear it behind her now, speeding up, the shuddering slosh of its breath. She turned to try to see it and her feet went out from under her and she fell, hitting the man she’d been going for. He jumped back, maintaining his balance. She looked up at him; he wore a suit, was most likely a businessman. Dammit! Dammit, dammit, dammit! She’d probably condemned some innocent human to death by running to him. The sound of her pursuer was getting closer now, and the man went for his pocket.
“Help me,” she said, as the other blowfish closed in for the kill, snarling like something from beyond, and the man she’d run full-tilt into raised a gun and shot it.
>:-3
Gwen looked around, cautious, as the invisible lift descended. She didn’t want That Horrible Bloody Thing, (a.k.a. The latest addition to Ianto’s menagerie, a.k.a. Specimen 42) jumping on her new boots, or worse, trying to climb her leg. When it had hatched, Ianto had been charmed by the peculiar mix of scales and fur, and Jack had been entirely unwilling - or unable - to deny Ianto anything that he wanted. This, Gwen realised, was the reason why you didn’t work with people who were dating. They kept on letting each other do stupid things. She still hadn’t finished laughing about the SUV ending up in the bay, and that had been the best part of a month ago.
“Ianto?” she called, once the shadows were blessedly clear of unexpected alien furballs.
“Over here,” Ianto called, from the couch.
Ianto was feeding last night’s pizza scraps to the alien, which was siting on his knee, happily shedding white fur like lumps of cotton wool. Gwen could see a scaly muzzle and claws somewhere in the fur; the overall effect was of a pomeranian puppy colliding with a lizard.
“All gone,” he said to it, holding his palms open. “Nothing left. All done.”
The alien licked the grease off his fingers as Gwen watched.
“That’s…adorably disgusting,” she said. “What did you end up calling it?”
“Wibble.”
“That’s…” Gwen searched for a positive description, “…unusual.”
“Wibble, speak,” Ianto said. It sat up, looking at him with those mad beady eyes, before cocking its head. “It’s very smart. Learns quickly. Wibble, speak.”
“Wiiiiiiibbbbble,” chirped the creature, and then bit him.
“It…ah…” Ianto extricated his finger, “…it also likes to bite.”
He picked it up in one hand, and offered it to her. Gwen waved her hand.
“You keep it,” she said, as it wriggled enthusiastically. “I don’t want to test if I’m allergic. How’s our prisoners?”
“The zombie is in a holding cell,” Ianto said. “And the woman is in quarantine.”
“Otherwise known as another holding cell,” said Gwen.
“Jack’s with her,” Ianto said, letting the little alien snuffle against his suit-jacket. “And it’s quarantine, not prison.”
“Same difference,” Gwen said, darkly. She’d been in Torchwood quarantine before. Ianto patted the lounge beside him. “So what do we know?”
“She’s a cop,” Ianto said, as Wibble climbed up onto his shoulder and perched there, watching her. She half-expected it to jump off into her face. “She’s a cop, and she cited something called the Shadow Proclamation, that when I looked it up in the Archives was distressingly vague, but appears to be some sort of interplanetary police force.”
“And the zombie?”
“All brain activity ceased at 2300 hours last night,” said Ianto. “Re-started at 0300 this morning. Stopped at 6, started again at 8. Seems to be changing as the drugs get out of its system. It eats anything, too. Ate the blanket we gave it and tried to eat the bed.”
“Drugs?”
“Yeah, Jack did a tox scan,” Ianto said. “Computer reckons there’s opiates in its bloodstream, along with high levels of epinephrine…adrenaline.”
“Human hormones?” Gwen asked. “In a blowfish?”
“Yeah,” said Ianto. “I don’t know where a blowfish gets human hormones from, but…ow! Ow! Wibble!”
He extricated Wibble from his shoulder, where it had just bitten his ear.
“Shall I get the first aid kit?” Gwen asked, as Ianto held a handful of squirming fluff.
“I think I’ve got it,” he said, putting Wibble on the ground. Gwen pulled her feet up onto the lounge. “Ok. Gonna go make coffee and check the Rift.”
Gwen waited until the happy ball of fluff had trotted after Ianto, crashing into the back of his legs when he stopped, before she put her feet on the ground and went to work out where she’d find Jack. Jack was downstairs. He was watching one of the blowfish that they'd brought in last night. The blowfish was watching right back, sitting close to the glass and chatting to him.
“…yes, Rift crossings are illegal,” the blowfish was saying. “Doesn’t stop people trying.”
“How do you guarantee the transfer takes you where you wish to go?” Jack asked.
“Rift signatures. You pump a lot of power backwards through a Rift Machine and then lock on. This point is the biggest nexus closeby to us, and the Border Princes don’t patrol here.”
Jack looked tired. He sat back, catching Gwen’s eye. “Gwen! Come here and meet Barala.”
Barala the blowfish was slightly more delicate than the other blowfish that Gwen had seen in her career in Torchwood, and she realised with a start that this blowfish was a woman. She wore a uniform, and she sat the same way that Gwen had seen Ianto and Jack sit, with an air of total relaxation undercut by the dire certainty that she could jump up and fight at any second.
“Barala is here investigating the zombie blowfish problem,” said Jack, by way of introduction.
“Jack says that you’ve encountered eight or ten in the last few weeks,” said Barala. She was having trouble breathing, her gills bluish.
“They usually don’t last long,” said Gwen. “They’re… they do strange things. Like try to steal cars, but then they don’t know how to drive them. One tried to break into the nuclear plant, but it fell down the stairs.”
“They seem to lose all agency,” said Barala, breathless. “And the one in the cell beside me does not seem to wish to pursue humans. It only pursued me.”
Gwen leaned close to Jack.
“Don’t you think this is unfair?” Gwen asked, softly. “We let Wibble out loose in the Hub, but we lock up…”
“I asked for this,” said the blowfish. Gwen said a very filthy word in her mind; clearly they had very good hearing. “I asked because they captured me and I underwent the same treatment as our friend in the other cell did. So I’m expecting to turn into…into that.”
Obligingly, the blowfish in the other cage howled. Jack slammed his chair back. “Dammit.”
He got up, checking the monitors on his wriststrap as Gwen leaned forward. “They captured you?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said Barala. “I was careless. They captured me and they injected me with…with something.”
“Do you know why?”
“I was investigating them?” she said, wheezing a little. “I don’t know.”
She coughed, gasping for breath before pitching forward, twitching and shuddering.
“JACK?” Gwen called, as Barala convulsed.
Barala coughed, her brilliant red colour greying off to a sort of purple colour.
“Here,” said Jack, and he pressed the button to open the door. Barala gasped for breath, trying to scream. “Hey, hey, I’ve got you.”
“Quarantine?” Gwen asked, as the door shut.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t think it’s contagious. If she starts trying to kill me, shoot her.”
“Then why did you lock…” Gwen asked, as Jack held Barala down, his hands on her shoulders. “Oh, nevermind.”
“I’ve got you,” Jack was saying, “I’ve got you. Come on, let’s sit up.”
The blowfish was spluttering, shivering a little in Jack’s arms. He rubbed circles on her back.
“You shouldn’t have come in here,” she said, her breath rattling. “I…”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s not a contagion,” said Jack. “I want to put you in the Med Bay.”
“Please don’t. Please don’t,” she said. “I’ve sent a distress call. They’ll be here soon.”
She pulled off her wriststrap, fumbling with the clamps. Jack let her lean against his shoulder, and she closed her eyes.
“I can smell someone else on you,” she said. “It’s…good. Happy.”
“You’re okay,” Jack said. “Come on. Let’s get you onto the bed.”
He helped her up, settling her onto the bed in the cell. She grabbed his arm.
“They’ll know I’m gone,” she said, pressing the wrist strap into his hand. “If you’re wearing this…then they’ll know I gave it to you willingly.”
“And you?”
“It doesn’t matter what happens to me,” she replied, “just that we find out why so many of our kids are coming here to Earth and never coming back.”
“I will,” said Jack. “You rest. I’ll tell your people what they need to know.”
She closed her eyes, one final twitch of her gills as she quietened. Jack looked at her, sadly, and fastened the wrist strap onto his wrist, fumbling a little with the catches. He gasped as it visibly tightened.
“☞Damn that stings,☜” said Jack, and then paused in horror. “☞No. Oh no. No, no, no, no.☜”
“Jack?” Gwen asked. He shook his head. “Jack, what’s wrong?”
“☞I…☜” Jack said, and she could hear something different in his voice. “☞I’ll be back, okay?☜”
“O-kay,” Gwen said, as he ran upstairs in what seemed to be a grand panic. She turned to the blowfish. “You know…what just happened there?”
Barala didn’t say anything. She had passed out. Gwen looked at her, and then at the stairs, and got up and followed Jack.
>:-3
Jack paced, picking at the strap on his wrist as he watched Ianto calmly search through the Rift readings from the past month. Wibble, who had happily been running up and down the length of the gantries, froze when it spotted Jack, running to Ianto and sitting on his shoes.
“What?” Ianto asked. “Oh, Jack. Everything okay downstairs?”
Jack nodded, feeling the burn of the cuff into his arm.
“The computer has definitely identified that it’s a negative reaction to the drugs and the hormones…the zombie itself is suggestible, like a…” Ianto clicked his fingers, searching for the right word. “Like something, anyway.”
Jack looked over Ianto’s shoulder, and Wibble growled from its vantage point on top of Ianto’s feet.
“Shut up,” said Ianto, absently. “I’ve not got us any further than sightings around the docks, but if we can get your friend to tell us where she thinks that she was being held, then we could get a pinpoint on it. Just when you thought that blowfish couldn’t get any more aggravating…”
Jack nodded, resting his chin on Ianto’s shoulder and his hands on Ianto’s waist.
“…you are being suspiciously quiet,” Ianto continued. “You haven’t shot anything that you shouldn’t, have you?”
“☞♥No,♥☜” Jack said, as innocently as he could. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Ianto nodded.
“Jack?” Ianto asked. “What’re you doing?”
“☞♥Nothing,♥☜” Jack said, hastily. He withdrew, and Wibble growled at him from behind Ianto’s feet.
“You are! You’re making noises.”
It was hopeless. He’d have to come clean at some point ― mostly because he couldn’t lie with the wriststrap on. Last time I put on something without testing it first, Jack thought, knowing that was a lie as he thought it. He sighed.
“☞♥Side effect of this,♥☜” Jack said, holding up his wrist with the cuff firmly on it. “☞♥Reprogrammed me to be a polite and good citizen of the Empire.♥☜”
“And I’m assuming that you will explain that extremely vague remark,” Ianto said, examining the cuff. “Barala gave this to you?”
“☞♥Yeah,♥☜” Jack said. “☞♥She gave it to me so that I could prove that we’re co-operating.♥☜”
“And you put it on without thinking,” Ianto replied, raising an eyebrow. “That’s not the Jack I know.”
“☞♥It’s not…harmful,♥☜” said Jack. “☞♥Just inconvenient. If it annoys me too much, I’ll cut off my hand.♥☜”
“I am not even going to dignify that with a response,” Ianto replied, crossing his arms.
“☞♥She’s an enforcement officer,♥☜” Jack said, with a few wafting gestures. “☞♥The idea of this is to keep an informant on the straight and narrow while backup arrives.♥☜”
“So it’s mind control,” Ianto said. “Making you act in keeping with their rules.”
“☞♥Not…quite,♥☜” Jack admitted. “☞♥That’d be too easy, wouldn’t it? It just makes you revert to your good behaviour setting. Back to basics, as it were.♥☜”
“So…this stuff you’re saying,” Ianto said. “This is part of your factory settings?”
Jack hesitated. On one hand, he could tell Ianto. On the other ― no. If he spoke, he’d have to tell the truth.
“☞♥When you’re being polite,♥☜” Jack said, very carefully, “☞♥I mean, where I come from. You address people in the polite form.♥☜”
“So you’re minding your ps and qs?” Ianto asked, amusement colouring his voice. “Have your bedroom manners improved then, Harkness?”
“☞♥See…♥☜” Jack said, helplessly. “☞♥I have to…have to…♥☜”
Ianto kissed him. Jack closed his eyes and tried to ignore the fact that Wibble was making a noise a bit like a boiling kettle.
“Oi, pack it in you two,” said Gwen, as she came upstairs. “Jack, I was worried ― then I get up here and you’ve got your tongue down Ianto’s throat.”
“It wasn’t down my throat. That would necessitate Jack having some intensely strange alien biology,” said Ianto, and then he seemed to zone out into his own little world for a few seconds. “Intensely...”
“I do not want to know, I do not want to know,” said Gwen, holding up her hands. “What’s that blip?”
The blip was blipping on the screen. Ianto swore.
“Another zombie,” he said. “Okay.”
“☞♥You run the Hub,♥☜” said Jack. “☞♥We’ll get the SUV. Send co-ordinates to the GPS when you have them.♥☜”
“I’ll come,” Ianto said.
“☞♥No you won’t,♥☜” said Jack, fumbling for his coat.
“Why the hell not?”
“☞♥Because Gwen handles a gun better than you,♥☜” said Jack. “☞♥Ianto…oh, hell…♥☜”
“You meant it,” said Ianto, tight-lipped. “I’ll run the Hub.”
It hadn’t been a lie. And that was the worse of it, he thought, and Ianto knew it. Jack was about to say something more when Wibble bit him, hard enough to draw blood.
“Jack, hurry up!” said Gwen, and Jack swore in Boe, glad that none of the others spoke the language and therefore didn’t know that he’d just said the equivalent of “Oh, fiddlesticks” as he shook Wibble off his leg and then ran after Gwen.
It was barely worth driving, in the end. An old shop around the corner with a sign in the window indicating that it was closed due to the FINACIAL CRISES was surrounded by fascinated onlookers as a blowfish staggered and slobbered. Evolution in action, thought Jack; people gathered close to the trainwreck, not expecting the fuel tankers in the back to explode and take them all out. The blowfish howled.
“Shit,” said Gwen. “It’s bloody rabid.”
“☞I don’t think so,☜” Jack replied, pulling out his revolver. “☞I think it’s just slobbering.☜”
“Since when do blowfish slobber?” Gwen asked, as they pushed through the crowd. “Sorry, Torchwood. Get out of the way.”
“☞Since they get turned into zombies,☜” said Jack, shoving into the clear area. “☞Okay. Easy there. Hi there, big fella.☜”
The blowfish looked at them, with dead eyes. Sirens were sounding in the distance and there were idiot people all around the place. Gwen pushed them back, scary in her leather jacket and shiny boots.
“No, sir, I think it’s probably someone having a laugh…” he heard her say, as the blowfish turned its dead eyes on Jack. More specifically, to the cuff that was cutting into his wrist. It knew what the cuff was, Jack realised, as it growled, launching itself at him.
There was a collective gasp from the crowd, a sort of movie-stupid gasp as Jack and the blowfish rolled, the thing’s teeth snapping sharply for his hand. He managed to shove it away, shifting clear, but it was suddenly focussed, animated ― nothing like the blowfish that they’d brought in the night before. It snarled, white flecks of foam on its jaws as it snapped again, teeth clicking in the empty air. This close, it stank of drains and rotten meat, and Jack could see down its throat ― what had seemed relatively normal from a distance reminded him now of the teeth of deep-sea creatures ― all razor edges and horror. It lunged forwards and caught him, hard, and Jack distantly heard the sound of gunshots through the roar of pain. He shoved it, feeling its teeth tear at his flesh.
Well, he thought. We’ll find out if it’s contagious now.
The blowfish snarled, arching back and up as bullets passed through its chest. The sound it made was unearthly, a howl to the heavens, and Jack couldn’t move, was frozen, catching his breath as it slumped across him. He met Gwen’s eyes over the corpse as she lowered her gun and the damp, slippery blowfish blood soaked into his trousers. The crowd had moved back, leaving them to face the music as the police arrived. Hell, they probably thought that Torchwood were the police. Jack shoved the corpse of the blowfish from his body, already calculating doses of retcon as he dragged himself to his feet. He turned on his phone.
“☞♥Ianto.♥☜”
“You okay?” said Ianto’s voice in his ear.
“☞♥I got bitten,♥☜” said Jack, and then wondered why he’d owned up to it so readily before realising ― of course. That damn cuff. “☞♥I think you’ll have to come down here and help. Need… about 20 tabs of retcon.♥☜”
He dusted himself down, meeting Gwen’s eyes as she bent to examine the corpse, feeling the presence of someone behind him before they spoke.
“Jack-bloody-Harkness.”
Jack didn’t need to turn to recognise Kathy Swanson’s voice. “☞Hi,☜” he said, slowly.
“I assume your lot is responsible for this?”
“☞No,☜” he said. “☞We’re responsible for cleaning it up.☜”
And he could have made a joke about not ordering sushi, or something worse, but instead he stood there, fish-guts seeping into the lining of his coat, and he felt like a murderer.
“☞♥Ianto,♥☜” said Jack, into his bluetooth. “☞♥There’s…it won’t take too long, but two will get it done faster than one.♥☜”
“Gwen might handle a gun better than me,” Ianto said, and Jack could hear a tinge of something in his voice, “but no-one can clean up a crimescene like I can.”
“☞♥You’re the best,♥☜” Jack agreed, gently. “☞♥The very best.♥☜”
“I’ll be there soon,” Ianto said. “Off comms.”
Swanson was still standing in front of him, demanding ― something ― Jack realised. His wrist hurt, but it was healing, already healing. He pulled Gwen aside, talking softly.
“☞Gwen. I’ll go and sort things out with the station,☜” Jack heard himself say. “☞Once you and Ianto have finished up here, you go home to Rhys.☜”
“You’re kidding me, aren’t you?” Gwen said, raising her eyebrows. “Last time I left you with Swanson you said you’d rather eat glass than spend more time with her.”
“☞I would,☜” Jack said, desperately. “☞But you need to go home to Rhys.☜”
“Are you being…helpful?” Gwen asked, suspicious.
“☞I’m not that bad, am I?☜”
“You’re lovely,” said Gwen, light, “but you tend to delegate the things you don’t want to do.”
He smiled. True enough. “☞Go, Gwen.☜”
She smiled back. “Thanks.”
It was midnight by the time Jack got back to the Hub and had a shower to get the fish blood off. He checked the monitors ― Barala was asleep; the other blowfish was comatose; and Ianto was curled up in the downstairs bunk. Jack touched the screen, running his fingers over the image of Ianto, and then immediately looked around to ensure that no-one had caught him being so soppy. Satisfied that all was well with the world, he clattered downstairs to join Ianto.
“☞♥You awake?♥☜” Jack asked, stroking a hand down Ianto’s spine. Ianto was silent. “☞♥C’mon. You’re not still mad at me?♥☜”
Ianto snored, loudly. As if obeying some well-rehearsed signal, Wibble sat up in his box and then bounded onto the bed, standing on the small of Ianto’s back and growling at Jack. Jack put his hands up.
“☞♥Woah, woah. I just want to kiss him.♥☜”
“Uh?” asked Ianto, blearily. “Oh. Wibble, gerroff.”
He rolled over, looking up at Jack, his expression still soft from sleep. Wibble rolled off onto the floor, making a discomfited squeak as it did so.
“What’s up?” asked Ianto, tracing Jack’s cheek with his fingertips. “You look…tired. And what happened to your hand?”
Jack leaned in and kissed Ianto, softly. Ianto ran his fingers through Jack’s hair. They parted, but Jack climbed onto the bed, straddling Ianto’s hips.
“☞♥I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine,♥☜” said Jack.
“So you can tell me why you’re making those noises now?” Ianto asked, amused.
Jack smiled. “☞♥I always could…I just…♥☜”
“Freaked out?”
“☞♥I can tell you,♥☜” Jack said, allowing the weight of his body to press Ianto into the bed, “☞♥I just…I don’t know if you’ll want to know.♥☜”
“Okay. Tomorrow. Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” Ianto said, their foreheads together, breathing each other’s air. “I’m just glad to…”
Jack felt something with nasty sharp little claws land on his back, crawling up his spine until it was breathing in his ear.
“Wiiiiiiiibbble.”
“Ignore it,” Ianto said. “It has to learn that it can’t have attention whenever it wants.”
“☞♥I would,♥☜” Jack replied, kissing Ianto. “☞♥But it’s digging its claws into my back.♥☜”
“Ignore it,” Ianto said, so close that Jack could feel the movement of Ianto’s lips against his own. They kissed, slow and soft.
There was a snuffling.
“Ignore it,” Ianto murmured, sliding his hands under Jack’s top, his palms warm, little feathery shocks of pleasure darting down Jack’s spine as Ianto brushed the ticklish spot on his waist.
“Whhhhhhhhhiiiiiiirrrrrr.”
Jack shifted his shoulderblades, trying to dislodge his furry passenger.
“Ignore,” Ianto nipped at Jack’s neck, “it.”
Ianto deftly pushed away Wibble’s snout as it tried to get in between them, and Wibble rolled off the side of the bed and onto the floor.
“☞♥Thank you,♥☜” Jack said, leaning up so that he could pull off Ianto’s shirt, run his hand over the smooth plane of Ianto’s chest, feel the steady beat of his heart.
Wibble jumped onto the bed again.
“One second,” Ianto said, wriggling out from under Jack. He picked up Wibble in one hand and put it out of the room, closing the door. Ianto turned back to Jack, fully awake now. Jack sat on the side of the bed, legs parted, and Ianto came and stood in front of him.
THUMP.
“☞♥Oh yeah,♥☜” said Jack, as Ianto cupped his face in both hands, drawing them together for a sweet kiss. Jack ran both hands up Ianto’s thighs, hooking his thumbs over the waistband of Ianto’s pyjamas and gently pulling them down, leaning in to press a kiss to Ianto’s chest, and then his stomach.
THUMP. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaugh.”
Ianto stepped out of his pyjamas, as Jack bent his head further, pressing his cheek to the warm skin of Ianto’s stomach, reaching to brush his fingers over Ianto’s cock before blowing over the tip of it, just gently. Ianto gasped, exhaling with a shudder.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMP SKREEEEEEETCH. SKREEEEETCH.
“Please,” Ianto managed, before there was an almighty crash from the doorway, and Wibble burst through it, spectacularly. Wood splintered off the doorframe, all over the carpet, and Ianto turned just in time to get an armful of fur that had thrown itself onto him.
“Wow,” said Ianto. “Clearly he wanted to be involved.”
“☞♥I am not having that anywhere near my crotch,♥☜” Jack said. “I think it’s got you under some sort of mind control.♥☜”
Ianto pulled his pyjamas back on with one hand, the other holding an enthusiastically squirming alien.
“☞♥I’d better clean this up before one of us gets a splinter in their foot,♥☜” Jack said, with a sigh.
“No,” Ianto said. “Oh no. No, no, no. You’ve not gone that polite and helpful. Not when we were about to fuck.”
Jack grinned. “☞♥Give that to me.♥☜”
Ianto handed over Wibble, who immediately wriggled and tried to get back to Ianto. Jack looked at it.
“☞You,☜” he said, looking at it. “☞GET IN YOUR BASKET AND STAY THERE.☜”
“Wuuuh?” it trilled, as Jack put it in the cardboard box. It tried to bounce out again immediately.
“☞STAY!☜”
It looked at him, reproachful, but curled up into a ball. Jack sighed, and Ianto shifted to stand behind him, slipping warm arms around his waist and pressing a kiss to Jack’s neck.
“Come on,” said Ianto. “Come on. I’m not getting cockblocked by a furball.”
“☞♥Yes sir,♥☜” said Jack, leaning back against Ianto and turning his head a little to deepen the kiss.
>:-3
Ianto had taken to simply keeping clothes at the Hub - it had felt a little like the walk of shame the first few times he’d stayed the night and shown up to work in the same suit the next day, Jack’s shirt on but baggy around the armpits. He realised that there were clumps of fur all over his jacket; was Wibble moulting? Did…whatever Wibble was…moult?
“I still think I should have gone with him,” said Gwen, nibbling on a biscuit. Some time, ages ago, Tosh had set up a “Jack-friendly” system in the computers, with lots of clear graphics and markings. Jack had made rumblings about the technology he was used to being user friendly, and now they were glad of his insistence about graphics - the computers were now also Ianto-and-Gwen friendly, too.
“No,” Ianto said, sipping his coffee. “It’s just a reconnaissance, and from the readings that came in last night, there’s something big coming through the Rift.”
“☞♥You know I love it when you talk about me,♥☜” said Jack, his voice warm, affectionate. “☞♥I think this is a bust. Going off phone for a while in case they’re tracking signals. Don’t come and get me until tomorrow, if things go wrong. I think they’re more active at night.♥☜”
“You honestly can’t expect us to stay here,” Gwen said.
“☞I can, and do,☜” Jack replied.
“Oh, stop being noble,” Gwen said. “You know three of us are better than one.”
“☞That’s as may be, but…☜” Jack paused. “☞Hello. What…oh. Oh. Okay. I…☜” He screamed, suddenly, and the line went dead as the emergency beacons flared.
“What the…?” Ianto asked. “Jack!”
“There’s been a power failure…” Gwen said, as the lockdown flared.
“Whuh?”
Ianto looked around. “Oh shit.”
“Tell me that your pet alien hasn’t triggered a lockdown,” said Gwen. “Should we go after Jack?”
“Have to be able to get out of here, first; I…” Ianto said. A scaly little head popped up from behind the computer, fur standing on end like a halo.
“WIBBLE!”
Ianto closed his eyes. Jack. Jack was in trouble and they were locked in.
“Running a diagnostic,” said Gwen, tapping keys to look at the systems. “Well, there’s our problem. I think it’s chewed through the wiring going to the cells.”
“It what?” asked Ianto. Wibble whuffed at him, vanishing again. He thought that he could see it bounding off into the Hub at large.
“The cells. They’re open,” said Gwen. She met his eyes, her expression barely lit by the red safety lights.
“Barala is down there,” said Ianto. “I’ll…you stay here. I can navigate this place blindfolded.”
He ran downstairs before she could stop him, feeling for the stun gun. Gwen might be better at actual gunfire, Ianto thought grimly, but if you wanted to get through a darkened Hub, Ianto was your man. The red lights gave little illumination - Ianto had always wondered about that. Surely, surely, if one needed to secure the area, then more illumination was key, not less? He fumbled for his bluetooth, fitting it in as he slowed on the approach to the cells.
“Barala?” he asked, tentative. “Barala? It’s Ianto.”
“Here,” said Barala, weakly. “It’s not in here.”
He rounded the corner, hitting the connect on his earpiece. “Gwen, it’s in the Hub somewhere. Get out.”
“I’ve nearly managed to get the self-repair working,” Gwen replied, urgent. “I’m going to have to go into Jack’s office to complete it. Do you have any idea if he has a spare passkey?”
“Third drawer on the right,” Ianto replied. “Be careful.”
“Always,” Gwen said. He rounded the corner and opened the door to Barala’s cell.
“Barala,” Ianto said, and she raised her head. “You’ve not…you’re not a zombie.”
“I know. I think…” she said, her eyes bloodshot. “Maybe there needed to be more treatments. Or maybe it just hasn’t happened yet.”
“Did it come in here?” he asked.
“No. It roared at me through the glass, but it didn’t come near me. I don’t think it’s very bright,” she said. Ianto nodded. “Can you lock the door again?”
“I can’t until the lockdown is no longer in force,” Ianto replied. “I’m gonna check its cell.”
The cell was a mess. The blowfish had eaten everything that wasn’t ceramic or metal, and even then it looked like it had given the toilet a good go. Barala and Jack had been convinced that the process must be reversible, but if it had that much garbage in its innards, it’d better hope that it had a cast iron stomach.
Ianto stepped back out into the corridor. Barala had pushed the door to her cell shut, and he didn’t exactly blame her. He tapped on the glass.
“I’m going to go and stop it.”
“Shoot to wound,” she said. “Please.”
He held up the stun gun. “Not a problem.”
The trail was easy enough to find, even in this dim light. Slobber and bitemarks, discarded and broken furniture. Ianto breathed in slowly, listening for noises - snuffling, anything. No. It wasn’t still down here. He padded as quietly as he could along the corridor, checking out the rest of the cells, running his fingertips along the bricks to maintain his equilibrium in the dimness. From somewhere upstairs, Ianto heard an ear-splitting shriek; he flinched, the heat of adrenaline running down his back before he realised that it wasn’t Gwen, and it wasn’t guttural enough to be the blowfish. Ianto rolled his eyes - Wibble was clearly stuck in something. He’d told himself the night before that they’d get rid of it - send it back through the rift, or make pancakes out of it, or give it to a dog’s home or whatever one did with unwanted pets - and then he’d woken up this morning with it asleep against his chest, whirring happily. It had snuggled closer when he’d shifted, and he’d decided that as long as it behaved, then it could stay.
He wondered how far “not behaving” stretched in the grand scheme of things, and whether he could convince Jack that this lockdown wasn’t really Wibble’s fault.
The lights flickered back on, and one by one the cell doors swung shut. Ianto grinned, pacing back up towards the doorway, past Barala’s cell and the zombie’s vacated cell.
“Gwen, you’re gorgeous and I love you,” he said.
“I do my best,” she replied, quietly. “Ianto, it’s up in the main Hub.”
“Oh,” he said. “You armed?”
“My gun is sitting next to my computer,” said Gwen, “which is on the other side of this office door.”
“Oh,” Ianto said. “Jack doesn’t…well, as far as I know…keep one in his office.”
“I thought you might say that,” Gwen replied. “I’ll run interference and you shoot it?”
“Let me get up there,” Ianto said. “Then we’ll see.”
He met Barala’s eyes. She wasn’t an idiot - she knew that he was going upstairs and that he’d probably have to to kill the blowfish. She nodded.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
The journey back upstairs was comparatively easy, and Ianto drew the stungun as he walked, no, stalked through the corridor. He saw the blowfish, lining up to get close enough to stun it and then he noticed that the blowfish had something in its mouth. Something fluffy and scaly and…
“…Oh no,” Ianto said, stomach sinking. He’d heard Wibble wail. “Oi! Oi! You! Over here!”
He scanned around for a projectile weapon and came up empty except for the coffee pot. The coffee pot! Scalding hot coffee! He waited until the blowfish turned, and then threw the contents of the pot at it - and then the pot itself, for good measure. It howled, dropping what remained of its meal, and ran blindly for the cog door.
The cog clanged most satisfyingly when the blowfish hit it. Ianto ignored the blowfish twitching on the floor, and instead investigated the dropped dinner. It was indeed fluffy and scaly and a bit iridescent and very, very dismembered. Only part of a claw remained intact amongst the clumps of white fur. Ianto held the pathetic scrap, scaly skin translucent and soft where it had presumably been torn away.
“Wibble,” he said softly, and his throat felt tight. He clutched the claw. “Okay. Okay. That’s it.”
“Ianto, what’s going on?” Gwen said, through his headset.
“It’s eaten Wibble,” said Ianto, feeling anger coil in his gut and heat burn behind his eyes. “It’s eaten Wibble.”
“Oh sweetheart. I’m so sorry,” said Gwen, softly. “I’ll come down and help you to contain it?”
“Yeah,” said Ianto, standing up, stun-gun at the ready. “And then I don’t care what Jack said. I’m going to go and get him out.”
>:-3
Jack woke up through a haze of pain, realising as he did so that he was tied to a bed.
“☞I have got to stop waking up like this,☜” he said, and a fishy face loomed over him.
“Your head is harder than it looks,” said the blowfish. It was a rich colour, much brighter than Barala, who had looked washed out. So it wasn’t ill, Jack thought. It wasn’t a zombie. He could hear laboured breath, though, and the shadows were moving with hulking shapes.
“☞My head is very important to me,☜” Jack said. “☞I’d prefer to keep it intact.☜”
“Where did you get the bracelet from?”
“☞Which one of the four things around my wrist were you asking about?☜” Jack asked.
“You can’t lie to me, human,” said the blowfish. “I know what that is. It’s an enforcement cuff. You can’t lie to me, human. Can’t lie, can’t attack. Have to be polite.”
“☞I don’t have to tell you everything, though,☜” said Jack. “☞I can withhold information.☜”
Shit.
“And if I make you talk?” asked the blowfish, pressing on Jack’s abdomen. A flare of pain ran up from his side, like a knife slicing the flesh, and Jack gritted his teeth, only crying out when the pain became too much. “There. Now. Where did the enforcement cuff come from?”
“☞Blowfish cop,☜” said Jack, spitting and tasting iron.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” said the blowfish, and Jack laughed.
“☞I’m not stupid enough to tell you anything that you shouldn’t already know,☜” he said, and then he bit his tongue.
“Who do you work for?”
“☞I don’t want to tell you.☜”
“You can’t lie,” snapped the blowfish. “I know how these things work!”
“☞It isn’t a lie!” Jack replied. “☞I don’t want to tell you!”
Impasse. Jack looked up at it and knew that it was inexperienced; probably a spoilt young thing, found some power on Earth but didn’t quite know what to do with it.
“☞Why do you need to know?☜” Jack asked.
“I want to know who to kill once the project is stable. I can take you back, human, take you back through the Rift and farm you like the animal that you are.”
“☞Your project isn’t stable?☜” Jack asked. “☞This would be your zombies, wouldn’t it? What did you offer them? Drugs? Money? Fish food?☜”
That was a little impolite, he thought, as a dull headache reminded him that he still had the wriststrap on. Still. As the Doctor had once said to him: In an authoritarian society, people listen to the voice of authority - and Jack’s shiny new wriststrap was proof that these blowfish came from an authoritarian place.
“They wanted to get home,” said the blowfish. “I’m giving them a way to get back there.”
“☞And how are they getting back there? As mindless slaves?☜”
“It is for the good of the Empire!” snapped the blowfish - and then it shook its head and thumped Jack again.
“☞You know,☜” Jack said, spitting blood. “☞If I were my normal self, I’d be making a terrible joke about how I wish ♥Ianto♥ could witness this. He’s always wanted to be captured by someone who monologues their entire evil plot.☜”
He could feel the pain now, radiating through his stomach and out to the extremities of his body. He coughed, feeling something trickle down his side.
“☞I wouldn’t,☜” he said, quietly. “I wouldn’t wish that ♥he♥ could witness this. Not really.☜”
And he wished that he could take that back, because now the blowfish had something that it could use against him, something that he hadn’t intended to give.
“☞So,☜” Jack said, wondering if he could trust Ianto and Gwen to just wait for the cops that Barala had sworn were coming. Slim to none, he realised. He’d have to play for time, see if he could keep this idiot distracted. He smiled, tasting iron. “☞So. Tell me about the Empire.☜”
When he woke up, there was a zombie standing over him. He knew this, because there were fat, viscous drips of slobber falling and hitting his forehead, slipping down and into his hair. Jack tried to wipe his forehead clean on his upraised arms and realised that was a terrible idea when the pain in his gut flared hot and horrible. The zombie lumbered to the door as Jack raised his head a little to see tubing protruding from his stomach, blood leaking down his side. He closed his eyes, trying to remember his training. What was on that side? Liver? Appendix? Kidneys? He didn’t know.
“☞You don’t happen to have the time, do you?☜” he called. The blowfish was by the door, and it was significantly less -insane - than the one in Torchwood’s cells. It called down the corridor, and Jack felt a cold certainty that it was telling his captors that he was awake again. Yes, definitely more high-functioning. And it didn’t take a genius to work out what was going on here-one drug lord and his little army of zombies, on a little backwater planet during a little backwater time. Each zombie more refined, more pliable than the last. It was just - how were they doing it? Was it transmitted by bite? Why, then, the tubing in his stomach?
Jack didn’t believe in zombies. He didn’t want to believe in zombies. He much preferred a different explanation for this trickery, because otherwise what was he? What had Owen been? No. Better to believe that this was mind control; he tried to look for a wrist strap on the zombie but had little luck. There was a noise from down the corridor and then the first blowfish ran in.
“Secure the door!” it commanded. “All right, human. What is that weapon?”
“☞Huh?☜” Jack asked, as the zombie barred the door. “☞What weapon?☜”
“The electrical weapon that your mate carries.”
“☞Hmm?☜” Jack was pretty certain that he didn’t have a mate. At least, not in the blowfish sense. At least, not unless… ♥Ianto?♥
“Do not play the fool with me,” said the blowfish, grabbing Jack’s hair and pulling his head back. It was so close to him that he could feel its breath, all soursalt fish and coldness. “I can smell you on him, and he on you. You will tell me how to destroy the weapon or else he shall watch you die.”
“☞You know,☜” Jack said, closing his eyes. “☞I am really quite embarrassed to have been kidnapped by someone who is clearly as inexperienced as you are. I mean - really? Watch me die? Isn’t that a little over the top?☜”
The bloom of pain in his head was worth it - and nothing compared to the pinch in his side as the blowfish exacted revenge.
And then the door swung open.
Jack managed to look up, a little, to see Ianto in the doorway. He sighed a little, resting back. Ianto. For whatever reason, Ianto had come and Jack was…was…
♥…grateful.♥
“Get away from him!” Ianto was furious. “I’ve had just about enough of this, and you’re not doing anything for my mood.”
“Ha. I will make him suffer, if you get closer.”
“I will make you suffer anyway,” Ianto said. “Do you know what sort of day I’ve had?”
That seemed to throw the blowfish off. “What?”
“One of your…your…things ate my Wibble,” said Ianto, and he seemed not to realise the utter hilariousness of that statement until Jack started to laugh, weakly. “Jack, what’s wrong? Are you…”
“You hear that? It is his death throes!”
“☞♥It ate,♥☜” Jack said, blood bubbling in his throat. “☞♥It ate your Wibble.♥☜”
“It’s not funny!” Ianto said, hotly. “I was fond of Wibble.”
“You will lose a lot more than your…your Wibble…” The blowfish trailed off, when it presumably realised that Jack was shaking with laughter, not pain. The other blowfish was in the corner, panting and grunting like some sort of obscene animal. “Kill the suited human.”
The zombie roared, coming at Ianto with fins outstretched, and Jack tried to look up, tried to see what was happening. He’d have to break free. There was nothing for it. He’d have to dislocate his wrists and break free. And then Ianto sighed in a most put-upon manner, pressed the stun-gun to the zombie’s neck as it snapped at him, and hit the button. It howled, and then crumpled like a sack of potatoes.
“Remarkably effective against fish,” said Ianto, coldly, as Jack’s world started to fade a little. “Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. But you will get away from Jack before I am forced to prove its efficacy on you.”
“No,” said the blowfish, and Jack wanted to call out, He’s inexperienced, he won’t give in because he doesn’t understand that sometimes you need to, just let me die…but then there was a sharp pain as something twisted and the world went black a for a few seconds as the blowfish above him convulsed under the pulse of the stun-gun. It slumped across him, a heavy weight that was removed almost immediately, Jack’s swimming view of the pitted and cracked ceiling suddenly replaced with Ianto’s concerned face looking down at him.
“Jack,” Ianto said, soft. “Jack, it’s me. It’s me, Jack.”
Jack opened his eyes a little wider and forced a smile. “♥♥Ianto,♥♥” he said, his accent broad, slurring Ianto’s name.
“I’m here,” Ianto said, brushing Jack’s cheek with the back of his fingers. “I’ve got you now.”
“♥♥Can take care of myself.♥♥”
“Clearly.”
“♥♥♥Ianto,♥♥♥” Jack repeated, closing his eyes. “♥♥Just gonna…rest…a minute.♥♥”
Ianto nodded, bending to press a kiss to Jack’s lips. “I’ll be here.”
The door opened, and several blowfish guards came in. “Sir! Perimeter is secured, sir!”
“Sssh,” Ianto said, and Jack wanted to say something, but everything was dark and getting quieter.
“Sir,” said the head blowfish, softly. “The other human - were we not in time to save him?”
“It looks like they were harvesting something from him,” Ianto said, stroking Jack’s hair back. Jack let the darkness take him, focussing instead on the steady, soothing touch of Ianto’s hand.
When he gasped awake, he was in Ianto’s arms, the bloody tubing from his gut coiled on the gurney beside him, and he rested against Ianto’s shoulder, catching his breath as Ianto held him tightly, and the blowfish around them took a step back in shock.
>:-3
Gwen knew that she shouldn’t use Wikipedia for primary research; especially after she and Tosh had spent a quiet afternoon on rift duty creating a page for Owen “King of the Weevils” Harper. But, sometimes, it was useful - and with Ianto off the grid and Jack God knew where, someone had to run the Hub. The rift was crackling in and out like a half-heard radio station, but up until now, she couldn’t tell if it had or if it hadn’t spat anything out. Gwen was going with not. 9.9 times out of 10, it was not.
There was, however, the matter of the blip. The blip was cycling in and out, and she chewed on her nails and watched it in one window and looked up zombies on Wikipedia in the other window and kept her phone so close that she was sure it was probably irradiating her.
She scrolled past Romero and other movie zombies, looked at pictures of zombie walks and briefly speculated as to whether she could see Jack in the back of one of them. And then she started looking at scientific origins - mostly discredited - but slightly more fruitful.
Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound).
Barala. Barala had a wound on her arm, and the other zombie had been covered in scratches and grazes. Gwen bit her lip. Scratches and grazes and opiates, she thought, as the blip on the other screen blipped, and her mobile stayed sullenly silent. She read on.
The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), the poison found in the pufferfish. The second powder consists of dissociative drugs such as datura. Together, these powders were said to induce a death-like state in which the victim's will would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor.
Pufferfish. Humans could become zombies with pufferfish venom and drugs. So what if blowfish could become zombies with…? Gwen sucked in a breath.
“Adrenaline. That blowfish was full of adrenaline,” she said, quietly.
THUMP.
She looked around, the noise clanging around the Hub.
“Oh bloody hell,” she whispered, getting out her gun. They’d secured it, she knew that they’d secured it. It had taken Ianto shooting it with the stun gun to disable it enough to move it, and then they’d dragged it back to the cells.
THUMPTHUMP.
It was coming from the gantry above her. She whirled around, pointing her gun up, pulling off the safety. The noise was moving, and Gwen felt an icy thrill run down her spine. It wasn’t her imagination - something was out there. Something that didn’t care enough to be quiet.
SCRITCHTHUMPTHUMP.
Her heart was pounding, but she steeled herself. If it was the blowfish, then she’d just shoot it. Yes. Right? She’d just shoot it.
“Whiiiiiiirrrrrr.”
“Wibble?” Gwen asked, tension that she hadn’t know that she was holding melting from her.
“Wibble!” The little alien scuttered down the gantry and climbed up her leg. It was dropping something from its body; huge chunks of fur and scales. Underneath, it was a little sticky, like a freshly-hatched chick. It whirred as it snuggled against her chest.
“Did you get scared?” she asked, as a lump of fur fell off and attached itself to her jacket. “Did you…drop your pelt when you got scared?”
“Wuuuh?” it chirped, sniffing the air. It bounced out of her arms, and scuttled to the cog, jumping up and down and up and down and scratching at the cog. It looked back at her, expectantly. Gwen looked at the computer, and the blip on it, and then picked up her phone and portable tracker, and hit the button for the door, following Wibble out into the night.
It was quick, much quicker than Gwen in these boots. She followed the trail of clattering and “whhhhuhuuuuuurrr!” noises, catching up to where it was bouncing in the doorway of a shop, and then it sped off again.
“Wibble!” she called out. Ianto would kill her if she found Wibble again and then lost it. “Shit.”
Her PDA vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out to check it and… the static had cleared, and the blip was now no longer a blip. It was a fully-fledged Rift event, and it was, conveniently, in the same direction that Wibble was headed. So. This had been the 0.1th bloody time, then. Swearing that she’d get her boots re-heeled later, Gwen ran.
She rounded the corner and her heart sank when she saw the blowfish. There was one in charge, she thought, and uniforms and…oh! This must be the rescue squad that Barala had been talking about! Wibble vanished into the throng, and Gwen drew her gun, shouldering her way into the group.
“And where are you going, human?”
“I need to see your commander,” said Gwen, as the blowfish worked to knock down the door. “Torchwood. I’m from Torchwood.”
“Kenio! Torchwood!” said the one she’d run into, and Gwen found herself able to move through the crowd to the most decorated of the fish. She shook Gwen’s hand.
“Torchwood,” said the Blowfish, as they got the door down and suddenly there were more zombies.
“Enforcers?” Gwen hazarded, as more blowfish gathered.
“Shit!” said the head Blowfish. “There’s…it’s a whole nest of zombies. Quick, up here!”
She held out a fin to Gwen and pulled her up onto the bonnet of a parked car. Gwen found her footing and her gun.
“Shoot to wound,” she said. “Barala thinks that it might be reversible.”
“Sergeant Barala is…” the Blowfish said, with a grin. “Oh, human, you just made my day. SHOOT TO WOUND!”
The tactics changed, and Gwen realised that there were not as many on either side as she’d first thought. Troops were swarming in the door as she and the commander spotted zombies.
“There’s a human in there!” called one of the Blowfish, as they fought their way hand-to-hand through the throng. “Looks like… he’s got the perps on the back foot.”
“Ianto!” Gwen said, as Wibble bounded up onto the car. She picked off another zombie, sending it flying with a carefully aimed shot to the kneecap.
“Is that a tame caalthu?”
“I have no idea,” said Gwen, as Wibble whuffed and clambered up to her shoulder. It yammered at her. “Yes, I know he’s in there, but we have to get rid of the zombies first.”
>:-3
Ianto was tired. They’d been cleaning up for hours, and unlike Jack, who’d spent most of that time snuggled on the couch at the Hub, Ianto had been on the scene. It was…almost a relief to let someone else take over. There’d been plenty of awkward conversations in the meantime; blowfish wanting to know if Ianto had really honestly taken out most of the zombies on his own, and if Jack really had been dead, and if Ianto was a shaman. He didn’t feel like a shaman. He felt like a workhorse, making enough coffee to go round the team as they prepared to turn the Plass and the fountain into a mass transportation device. He’d used the spare coffeepot - the other one had a nasty dent in the side from where it had struck the zombie.
Jack, trust him, had managed to stagger up to the lift, despite the massive internal injuries that the attempt to use him as an adrenaline farm had inflicted on him. At least Barala had removed the cuff, so Jack wasn’t making funny noises anymore. The blowfish looked at them both in suspicion when they appeared from nowhere by the fountain, Ianto with a tray of coffees, Jack leaning against him. Jack sat, gracefully, while Ianto passed around the drinks.
“Looks like it’s cleaned up over there,” said a blowfish. “The other human will be across soon.”
Can we trust them? Ianto had asked. Jack had waved a hand, muttering something about the “Shadow Proclamation” sorting it out. Ianto pressed a coffee into the outstretched fin of another blowfish, one tending the now-incapacitated zombies.
“I think they’ll make a full recovery,” she said. “It’s a good thing no-one got killed.”
“It is,” Ianto agreed, feeling the sting of losing Wibble. He’d got used to the excited chirping and whuffing, used to the warm fur that curled up against him when he was working on the computer late at night. He sighed.
“Did you…” The blowfish was looking at Ianto, strangely. “Did you really take out these guys on your own?”
“Mmm,” Ianto said. “I did.”
“Good Gods. And…and your mate. He was dead…”
“No he wasn’t,” Ianto said, as someone called out.
“Here they come!”
It was Gwen. Gwen and another blowfish. Ianto grinned, relief battling exhaustion for dominance.
“Ianto!” said Gwen, as she caught sight of him. She held out her arms for a hug, and he hugged her tightly, feeling something wriggle between them.
“Ianto,” said Gwen. “For god’s sake, will you take this bloody thing?”
Wibble launched itself at Ianto, licking his face, crawling up his jacket and pulling threads with its claws. Ianto felt the grin on his face stretch broad as he pulled the excited, wriggling alien from his chest and held it.
“He’s alive!” Ianto said, realising as he said it that it was redundant to say so, but uncaring as Wibble made wibbling noises and snorted its happiness.
“It must have shed its skin when it got frightened,” said Gwen, as Ianto cradled Wibble in his hands. It bit him, hard, and then gave his palm a loving lick. “It’s been dropping clumps all the way here. I reckon what you found was discarded skin.”
“Wibble,” Ianto said, and dammit if he wasn’t getting soppy about something scaly and bitey that smelled a little bit like his sock drawer. It chewed thoughtfully on the heel of his hand, just enough to hurt but not quite enough to break the skin, and then it stretched up and rubbed its nose against his without biting, and Ianto couldn’t help his huge grin.
“That’s…that’s a caalthu…”
“A what?” Ianto asked, as Wibble snuggled, clambering up onto his shoulder to whirr and purr in Ianto’s ear, rubbing its face against his cheek.
“A caalthu. And it’s bonded to you,” said the Blowfish he’d been talking to. “You’re…you’re the shaman for your group of humans, aren’t you? Only a shaman can tame a caalthu.”
“That’s an old wives’ tale,” snapped another Blowfish.
“He defeated the zombies alone,” said a third.
“And his mate was dead and then he brought him back to life!” said a fourth.
“Please tell me that they mean “mate” in the friendly sense,” Ianto said, mostly to himself. Wibble whuffed and licked his face. There was a light in the sky - the start of the rift transfer - and the blowfish all began to move. Ianto had never been more grateful to see rift activity in his life - especially as people clapped him on the shoulder and congratulated him in his role as shaman. Jack came to join him, leaning surreptitiously and heavily on his Wibble-free shoulder. Finally, he got to blowfish that he vaguely recognised, and eventually to Barala. She leaned up to hug Ianto.
“Caalthu bond to whomever they see when they first hatch,” she whispered. “It’s an old shaman trick - tame the untameable creature by making sure you’re the first thing it sees.”
“You know I’m not all that, then,” Ianto replied.
“Oh, you are all that,” said Barala. “If I had a guy like your Jack in love with me, I think I’d singlehandedly destroy a nest of zombies to get him out, too.”
“They’re…astonishingly susceptible to stun-gunning,” said Ianto, blushing. Jack was right there - tact clearly wasn’t in the blowfish arsenal. “And it’s not…like that.”
“You’re kidding me. He’s been declaring his love for you since I put the wriststrap on him,” she said, and Ianto heard Jack exhale sharply, and so he knew it was true.
“What?”
“It’s…” Jack said, looking guilty. “It’s part of the formal mode of address. When my reset switch flicked…”
“He was addressing you in the lover’s mode. You’re not also from the Boe System?” she asked, and in his peripheral vision Ianto saw Jack adjust his cuffs - a tiny tell, to those in the know.
“How do you know about places that don’t exist yet?” Jack asked.
“You think that this is the only Rift?” she asked. “We police the Rift wherever we’re needed, Captain.”
“Then I wish you well,” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. She joined the other blowfish, and in a burning flash of light they were gone, gone through the Rift and home. Ianto leaned in, resting his temple against Jack’s.
“The lover’s mode?” Ianto asked, with a little grin.
“I hate you,” Jack replied, but kissed Ianto anyway. “It’s…polite.”
Ianto sighed, and snuggled a bit. Wibble was curled up on Ianto’s shoulder, snoring gently, soft and warm.
“☞♥Ianto?♥☜”
Ianto looked up. “I thought you were cured of that?” he asked, stroking his fingertips along Jack’s jawline. Wibble grunted protest as Ianto shifted.
“I am,” Jack replied.
“Mmm,” Ianto replied, displacing Wibble onto the ground. Ianto shuffled so that he was face to face with Jack. “And there’ll be no more Rift activity this evening, so we can spend what remains of it downstairs in the Hub?”
“Oh yeah,” Jack replied, before drawing Ianto into another kiss.
“Oh, get off each other,” Gwen said, throwing her empty paper cup at them, and then squealing as they chased her down in mock-outrage.
“Go home,” said Jack, once they caught her. “Have an evening off. Call it a gift.”
“Some gift,” Gwen replied, but she got her bag and kissed them both goodnight as Wibble bounced in his basket, fresh fur all fluffy and bright, as Ianto made himself and Jack a late night coffee. The cog door clanged closed after Gwen, none the worse for its adventures.
“☞♥Jack?♥☜” Ianto’s pronunciation was terrible, but it was obvious what he meant. Jack turned, and his grin was bright enough to light Cardiff for a month.