BTBD Challenge 58 - Sleeping rough

[m_findlow]

Title: Sleeping rough
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,237 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 58 - Temper at beattheblackdog
Summary: It wasn't quite the night they planned.

Jack felt mortified, giving Gwen a quick glance and seeing his own expression mirrored on her face. So much for getting out of here without making a scene, he thought.

It was unusual for Jack to be the one embarrassed by someone else, with him usually being the centre of attention, but as he stared across to the two men standing at the counter just a few yards away, he realised that there was nothing he could do to stop it now.

'I think we've created a monster,' he whispered to Gwen.

'No,' she sighed, looking equally humiliated, 'we made the mistake of marrying Welshmen.'

 

To say everything had been going smoothly was something of an overstatement. Things hadn't gone smoothly at any point in the last twenty four hours now, thus their current predicament.

After a mad chase across the Welsh countryside to snaffle their newest visitor, it ended up zipping through another slash in the rift, escaping them completely. During the breakneck pursuit, no one had noticed that the bumpy ride over hills and down dales had punished their SUV, cracking the underside of the fuel tank, leading to a slow leak which resulted in their breaking down, just as the sun was starting to go down, stranding them in the back end of nowhere.  

Faced with the prospect of having to wait until morning for someone to come and tow them back to Cardiff, they'd run a quick search and managed to find a small hotel just a few miles up the road from where they were.

The road was rocky and muddy, and the four of them, Rhys included, finally trudged up to the reception in the dark, tired and feeling filthy. They were all looking forward to putting their feet up and enjoying a little bit of luxury after what had been a trying day.

What none of them had realised was just how little the bit of luxury would be until they stepped inside.

Their so called room for four, the last one left so they'd been told, was hardly room enough for two. The bed was barely a double, narrow and threadbare, with a permanent dent in the middle that sent its occupants rolling back on top of one another. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished, a table with two chairs, and an equally narrow sofa.

'Cosy,' Jack smirked, eyeing off the bed.

'No way,' Rhys said. 'There's no way we're all sharing that,' he said, pointing and looking horrified.

'We'll take the sofa,' Ianto offered, already rifling through the wardrobe for spare blankets and pillows, but finding none.

'We will?' Jack said, sounding disappointed.

'I'm sure it won't be that bad,' he replied.

It was worse. It was a small sofa, and hardly big enough for one person to sleep comfortably on, let alone two six foot men. In the end they were half seated, half lying down, and half on top of one another, legs dangling off the side. It was lumpy and the springs and other bits of random metal frame poked out in odd places, jabbing them in the sides and the back. Just when one of them finally got comfortable, the other would squirm, waking both of them up. In the end, Ianto gave up altogether, taking the thin cushion with him and lying on the floor. Jack joined him there not long after, curling up under his coat.

Gwen and Rhys weren't having much better a time of it either. The bed squeaked loudly at the slightest movement, and it had a funny smell, kind of like someone had been murdered in it months ago and they'd not bothered to do more than put clean sheets on it. The blanket was thin, and did little to keep out the cold which seemed to seep through the walls themselves.

Come the morning, none of them had slept more than a few hours, and it showed in their dispositions. Jack saw his three grumpy cohorts and tried to cheer them up. A nice hot shower and something to eat would do them all wonders, he said.

The first sign that something was amiss was the scream from Gwen as she tried on the taps. There was nothing but ice cold water coming out of the pipes no matter how she tried, and not so much as a plug in kettle to warm some water to clean themselves with. Lacking any kind of shower, they trudged out to the restaurant for some sustenance.

Ianto complained that the cereal was stale, having taken one look at the eggs and given them a wide berth. Admittedly, the egg yolks had been more grey than yellow, but Jack was so starving that he didn't care. Beside, what was the worst that could happen? It wasn't as if he could die from food poisoning. Not permanently, anyway. Gwen nibbled unenthusiastically at some plain buttered toast and Rhys sniffed the tea suspiciously. On strict instruction from Ianto, no one touched the coffee, or the thing that was being passed off as coffee. Ianto was the only person Jack knew who could judge coffee from five yards away, and by smell alone.

Putting aside the uncomfortable accommodations, the lack of running water and the questionable food, they were happy to grab the bill and get out of there, knowing they had a long walk back to the car to wait out the roadside service. That's when it all went wrong.

Ianto was pulling out his credit card whilst Rhys was standing at the counter, viewing their itemised bill.

'Four hundred quid?' he exclaimed, which garnered Ianto's attention, quickly tugging the page across to see for himself. Rhys was correct. Their one night sojourn had indeed cost the four hundred pounds. Then Rhys lost it.

'Executive suite for four?' he said, reading off the description. 'You must be joking. Did you accidentally add a few too may zeros on the end of this?'

The clerk rechecked her computer screen and nodded. 'Everything is in order, sir,' she confirmed. 'One night for four people in our executive suite.'  

Rhys scoffed loudly. 'It barely slept two, let alone four! Not so much as a camp bed! What part was executive apart from the price tag?'

'It was fully equipped with the latest WiFi, and a smart TV, sir,' the clerk explained.

'Oh yes, that was going to help us sleep loads better. Did I miss the part where I was meant to plug myself in to recharge overnight? Or maybe we were just supposed to download ourselves some beds?'

'And there was no hot water,' Ianto added. 'And we slept on the floor, because it was a damn  sight more comfortable than that wretched sofa.'

'I've got an ache in my shoulders that's going to take days to sort out,' Rhys said, 'I can only imagine how you must feel, mate.'

'Not as bad as the sofa that tried to stab me in the night. That thing had springs in places it shouldn't, and none where it should. I'm not even convinced it was a sofa.'

'I'm very sorry, sirs,' the clerk went on. 'I could reverse the charge for breakfast if you like. Complimentary for your troubles.'

'You call that breakfast?' Ianto said, incredulous. 'It wasn't even edible, and don't get me started on the coffee. No, scratch that. Calling it coffee would be an insult to even the worst coffee ever made. God, I feel sick, just thinking about it.'

'Listen love,' Rhys said, leaning over the counter, 'why don't you go and fetch that manager of yours and we can have a chat about this, because I can tell you, we won't be paying it.'

'I'm afraid the manager is not available,' she apologised.

'Probably suffering for food poisoning,' Ianto muttered. 'If I'd known it was going to be this bad I'd have stayed the night in the car. Wouldn't be the first time.'

'Eh, look at this,' Rhys said, tapping out something on his phone and showing them the results. 'TripAdvisor says it gets five stars. What's that, one for every flea that's stayed here? I've been in caravan parks in Porthcawl with better accommodations than this.' He paused for a moment, before he face reached a new shade of livid. 'Hang on, are you putting up fake reviews?'

'I don't know what you're talking about, sir,' she replied, sounding slightly miffed. 'Now, I've discounted the room by five percent and given you complimentary breakfast. If you'd kindly finalise payment of the bill,'

Ianto decided he'd had enough. He was tired, dirty and hungry, knowing they still had another five mile walk ahead of them, and now he could see it was about to start raining outside. Under no circumstances did he want to spend another night here, or even another five minutes, and he was most certainly not going to get into a negotiation over the bill for the worst hotel he'd ever stayed in. He pulled out his own phone and began tapping away.

'Make sure you give them zero,' Rhys instructed, 'and warn off anyone from every staying here ever again.'

Ianto planned on doing one better than that.

The clerk yelped as her computer screen flickered off before rebooting.

'What did you just do?'

'Oh, that? I just hacked your booking system. Every booking for this hotel has just been diverted to the Best Western ten miles further down the road. All the traffic for your website has also been re-directed, and your TripAdvisor account had been shut down.'

The clerk stood up, indignant.

'You can't do that!' she yelled.

'I just did!' he yelled back. 'Did I also mention that I marked our bill as being paid?' he grinned.

'Oh, nice one,' Rhys said, grinning back.

'Next time maybe you'll think twice before taking advantage of people. All we wanted was a bed and a hot shower.'

'Yeah, and not the flaming house of horrors,' Rhys added.

'Oh, no,' Ianto said. 'Jack and I have already been there, and even that wasn't nearly as bad. At least they had a good excuse for why the place was so crummy.'

The clerk frantically clicked the programs on her computer, trying to regain control of them, but the bookings were all gone, and everyone who was still staying here had their accounts marked as fully paid. Not only that, every booking for the two months prior had their bills mysteriously refunded. She was horrified.

'I... You...' She was flabbergasted. 'You can't do this. I'm calling the police,' she said, reaching for the phone.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' Ianto threatened, looking as thunderous as the clouds looming outside.

'Yeah, he's got a gun,' Rhys added.

The clerk looked slightly terrified at the mention of guns, and that was when Jack finally stepped in, braving the wrath of his two companions.

'Okay guys, I think you've made your point. Sarah,' he said, looking at the name on the badge,  and giving her one of his winning smiles, 'we'll be on our way now. Thank you so much for all your assistance.'

He grabbed Ianto by the arms and lead him away, whilst Gwen did the same with Rhys, whilst he was heard muttering 'no such thing as service anymore.'. Gwen gave a nervous, sympathetic smile to the clerk before shoving Rhys out of the door way.

'I don't know why I put up with you, Rhys Williams,' she said, just as soon as the clerk was out of earshot. 'No wonder we call you Rhys the Rant. We could have just paid the bill and been done with it, but no, you had to go and get all fired up about it.'

'It was a bloody swindle, Gwen. No way we were paying for that!'

'Yeah,' Jack agreed, 'Ianto what was all that about? When did you become so short-fused? We've slept rough plenty of times before.'

Ianto growled. He was tired and grumpy, wasn't that enough? 'A man can only take so much. I'm not twenty anymore. I need my creature comforts. Blessed with the promise of a five star hotel after a crappy day, anyone who gets between me and a hot bath is going to suffer.'

'Well, just so long as getting in the hot bath with you is still okay, then I think we'll be just fine in a few hours. How about a night at St David's to make it up to you, my shout. Same goes for you two.'

Ianto knew Jack was trying to cheer him up, but the rain was coming down now and they didn't have an umbrella between them. It was going to be a long five miles, but he supposed at least he'd get his shower. It could be any colder than the one back at their hotel. Only now he'd also have to clean the inside of the SUV, and his shoes would be soaked through and would probably be destined for the bin.

'If it's all the same to you, a night in our own bed would be better than any hotel room.'

'Consider it done,' Jack said, squeezing his tempestuous lover close to to him. 'Offer still stands for you guys.'

'I think we've had quite enough of hotels as well,' Gwen replied, 'haven't we, Rhys?'

'Too bloody right,' he replied.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Bravo Ianto! I hope he reported that hellhole to Trading Standards while he was at it - that's the worst excuse for a hotel I've ever heard of!

(Also, one should always trust Ianto on all things coffee-related. That cute little button nose of his is as discerning as any bloodhound's!)

[jo02]

This is the dream scenario of everyone who has been through an appalling hotel experience. Where was Ianto 7 years ago when the husband and I had a truly horrific encounter with the Canberra Rydges Hotel. Thinking about it STILL makes me see red.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Man, I'm so glad you said that. I was meant to go on a conference there last month but they picked someone else. Think I'll count my blessings now!

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

Satisfaction. Yes. Wish I had Ianto's powers. :) And then there's Gwen, giving a sympathetic smile to the person screwing them over. No, Gwen. Just no.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Well, probably not her fault she works for a crooked hotelier, but I bet she gets that a lot. Probably time she changed jobs! Maybe Ianto should have done that while he was at it ;)

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

LOL