Slashthedrabble Challenge 457 - The scent of defeat

[m_findlow]

Title: The scent of defeat
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 457 - Bouquet at slashthedrabble
Summary: Jack never fails to surprise Ianto. Just not always in the right way.

When Gwen and Ianto entered the hub, they both came to a standstill.

'Do you?'

'Smell that?' Ianto said, finishing Gwen's question. 'Yeah.'

'God,' she said, holding her sleeve to her nose. 'It's awful. It's like a dead animal, or something.'

Ianto scrunched his own nose. 'I think that would be unfair on dead animals everywhere,' he said, aghast at how it seemed to pervade the air. How had his nice clean hub become so putrid smelling in the few hours since they'd left?

'Jack?' he called out. Jack had been out on his own errands, checking a minor rift alert whilst Gwen and Ianto assisted with an alien relocation.

'Ianto?' came the voice.

'Yeah. Can you-'

'I've got a present for you!' he said, cutting off Ianto's question and bounding from his office, hands behind his back.

'Phaw!' They both recoiled as Jack unveiled the thing he'd been holding behind his back. A bouquet of deep red flowers, that was very quickly identified as the source of their mystery smell.

'That's not even funny, Jack,' Ianto said, pulling a horrified face, whilst Gwen clamped her own hands tigher over her nose, gagging.

'What? I thought you'd like them.'

'You can't be serious.'

They looked nice enough. And if you could stop thinking about wanting to upend your stomach long enough, they were rather beautiful. The petals ran in thick concentric circles, frilled edges running from vermillion to a deep claret, and every shade of red in between, with dark green stems and glossy leaves in the same deep green.  

'They smell worse than a dead body, and believe me, I've smelled plenty of those.'

Jack frowned. 'Seriously?'

'Seriously,' Ianto confirmed. 'Why? What do they smell like to you?'

Jack inhaled deeply, filling his nostrils with the perfume, sighing pleasurably.

'Words simply can't describe it.'

'On that much we're agreed,' Ianto said, swallowing down the bile trying to rise up the back of his throat.

Jack huffed. 'Clearly your twenty-first century olfactory senses haven’t evolved sufficiently to appreciate their scent. People travel half the universe and spend an entire month's salary on these blooms for their best beloveds.'

'More fool them,' Ianto quipped.

'They really smell bad?' Jack asked, hardly able to fathom it. They were honestly the best thing he'd ever smelled. He couldn't believe his luck at finding them. They'd even come nicely wrapped in cellophane and ribbon. Someone on the other side of the universe would have been miffed to have lost those, a small fortune now wasted.

Ianto took them out of Jack's hands, holding them gingerly at as much of a distance as he could. Then he handed them back to Jack.

'On second thoughts, maybe you should dispose of them, since you can't smell them.'

'Far, far away,' Gwen requested. 'Swansea if possible.'

It was impossible for Jack to hide his look of disappointment. Ianto leaned across and gave him a placating kiss on the cheek.

'Next time maybe just stick to roses, yeah?'

Comments

[bk_forever]

Oh dear, poor Jack, what a let down! And poor Ianto being the recipient of such an unpleasantly pungeant gift. I suggest taking a few nice photos of the flowers then disposing of the, preferably by burning. At least the photos won't stink!