m_findlow | Torchwood: Fanfic: Sunday clothes

Title: Sunday clothes
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Janet the Weevil, Ianto, Owen, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,648 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Torchwood, Janet the Weevil, new clothes" at fic_promptly
Summary: Janet is due for some new clothes

It was one of the things that had always perplexed Ianto, and just about everyone else who'd ever worked at Torchwood. Weevils were one of Cardiff's great mysteries. They fell through the rift at an extraordinary rate, more than all the other alien species combined, and because of that, had become considered to be just part of the local population, inhabiting the dark depths of the underground sewer network.

They were dangerous if you got too close, or happened to bump into one on its nightly wanderings, but left alone, they generally didn't like going about killing people, preferring to keep to themselves where possible. Only every so often did one decide to go rogue, perhaps having been exiled from the underground community, lost and without purpose, or had perhaps been the unfortunate victim of chemicals or drugs which sometimes found their way into the local waterways with the rest of the litter that washed down the gutters and into the overflow drains. It was only at that point that Torchwood would be forced to intervene, capturing weevils who strayed into populated areas, and occasionally forced to kill the most violent ones.

Whatever the reason for their being here, that wasn't the most perplexing part. The more they studied the weevils they captured, the more they began to realise the complicated nature of their species. Despite their natural aggressiveness, they seemed to be a communal species, often huddling together in packs. Several that they'd captured and released had been given implanted trackers, so that they could keep better tabs on them, understanding where they liked to congregate, and moving on weevils that travelled out of their designated safe areas. It was as good a warning system as they could have for known weevil colonies, spotting several trackers often clustered together. They'd also registered several different calls, and some kind of low level empathic network running between colonies that allowed them to sense one another.

They also seemed to be quite family oriented, though no one had ever recorded a sighting of weevil young. Whatever they were, fiercely protective was high on the list, keeping their young well out of sight. Their whole reproductive cycle was a complete unknown.

The thing that had always struck Ianto as odd was the presence of clothing. Every weevil had that same plain blue boiler suit. They weren't civilized enough for creating or procuring clothes for themselves, though there had been that one particularly humorous instance where three of them had broken into a costume hire shop one night and had donned a variety of pieces, including one very scary looking Shirley Bassey. No, the clothes must have come from somewhere else. It was only a theory that wherever weevils originated from, it was a place that they shared with other more intelligent life forms. Perhaps their neighbours donated the clothing, or perhaps the weevils were captured and forced to wear them, or perhaps even be subjected to slavery of some kind. No one knew for sure, and no one it seemed, had ever fallen through the rift from the same place to confirm what the truth might actually be.

That wasn't to say that weevils weren't intelligent. Everything they'd witnessed so far had suggested that were much more clever than anyone had suspected. Janet was a prime example, having become accustomed to being a permanent resident at the hub, recognising the team by sight, and whilst no one was about to share a cell with her for the night, she was far less aggressive than most, allowing them to deliver food and clean out her cell with minimum fuss. It seemed she'd decided that they didn't mean her any harm and was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, rather than attack at the first opportunity.

Clothing was one of the many unsolved mysteries. Most weevils were about the same size, so the standard issue boiler suit was fine, but some were particularly tall or broad, and the suits fit rather more tightly. Given their propensity for aggression, sometimes directed at each other, it was a curiosity as to how they always appeared to be in reasonable condition. It was widely accepted that the weevils were capable of washing their clothes in the waters than ran beneath the city, but it had never been observed. Several times they'd left a large shallow tub of water in Janet's cell, hoping to witness the event in action, but had been disappointed, watching hours of CCTV footage only to find that nothing exciting had happened. If she was washing her clothes as they suspected, she was waiting until they weren't watching.

Even so, there was only so much washing and wear that one pair of coveralls could withstand, before they were beyond rescue. For Janet, that day was today.

The team had managed to salvage a few spare pairs of suits from weevils that had been killed or injured on the streets, beyond their aid. Perhaps that was how the others kept their suits in such good condition, perhaps they merely stole them from the dead and the infirm. Even at best count though, that didn't seem to equate to the right amount of supply required, given what they knew about the quantum of the population living in the city. It wasn't as if they could nip down to Primark and buy them in bulk, and yet no one had ever seen them making do with whatever clothes they could bring to hand. Perhaps the boiler suits were falling through the rift as well. Stranger things had happened.

Ianto made his way down the several flights of stairs to the lower levels of the hub, which had become Janet's permanent home. She could hear his polished footsteps approaching and growled out something akin to a greeting, knowing them each by sight, sound and smell.

'Morning,' he greeted. 'How are we today?'

He couldn't say for sure why he bothered trying to have a conversation with the local inhabitants, it just seemed rude not to, and half the time the residents were more sociable than the rest of the team, or at least less rude, and often more grateful, he thought ruefully.

She looked at him thought the clear perspex door, seeing the bundle of blue fabric in his arms, slightly disappointed that it wasn't food. Perhaps that would come later.

'I brought you some new glad rags,' he said, holding them up for her to see. She growled again and cocked her head at them. Ianto disappeared from sight for a moment, ducking out the doorway at the end of the hall, and into the corridor that ran along the other side of the cells, where the thick metal doors lined each prison cell. Those doors had small flaps at the bottom that allowed for the delivery of food and water, and that was what Ianto knelt down to unlatch now. Janet could hear the pins and bolts being released, and yet stayed away from the gap, knowing that she could neither escape through it, nor wished to cause any harm to the hands that would be just on the other side. Those hands brought food and clean water, and meant her no ill will.

The dark blue package was pushed through the hole and the bolts on the hatch reset. A minute later Ianto returned to the other side.

'Those are for you,' he said, pointing at the blue pile. 'Hope you like them. Wasn't sure if blue was your colour.'

She growled again in response, watching as he tapped his ear, seeming to talk to someone else.

'Yep, have you got the recorder running?' he said. 'Okay, I'll be back in ten.'

'See you later,' he said to Janet, before disappearing.

Back up in the main part of the hub, Owen was working away at his desk, one screen locked on the view from the cell containing Janet.

'Big day,' Ianto said when he sidled up to stand beside Owen, watching the live feed.

'Yep. Another step forward in the name of weevil research.'

They stood there and waited for Janet to go over and examine the pile of clothing, but she disappointed them by ignoring them completely.

'She knows what they are,' Owen said.

They stood there watching for a half hour with no result.

'Come on, what's taking so long?' Owen complained.

'I'm going to have to get on with the rest of my day,' Ianto said, about to leave Owen to his weevil cam, when the lights in the hub suddenly went out, throwing them into pitch blackness.

'What the hell?' Owen said. Ianto was already pulling his phone out of his pocket, shedding some light on their position in the dark.

'It's okay!' Jack yelled out, coming to meet them. 'That was me.'

'What did you do?' Ianto asked.

'I may have, uh, accidentally overloaded the local power grid. I was testing out this new power generator, only I think I underestimated its power output.'

'So what do we do now?'

'Oh, the grid should be able to reboot itself in about twenty minutes or so.'

As promised, the hub whirred back into life twenty five minutes later, and the lights and computers all flickered back on.

Owen consulted his screens before letting out a string of colorful expletives.

'What? What's is it?' Jack came over, looking worried that he'd inadvertently caused damage

'Oh,' Ianto said, seeing what Owen was seeing.

In the corner of Janet's cell was a pile of crumpled blue clothing, and she was wandering around the cell in her fresh new blue boiler suit.

'How does she do that?' Ianto mused. 'There was no way of knowing we'd lose power to the CCTV, and yet she waited until the very moment we weren't watching.'

'That weevil is bloody clever,' Owen grumbled. 'Too bloody clever.'

Torchwood: Fanfic: Sunday clothes

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