Torchwood: Fanfic: Midnight snack

[m_findlow]

Title: Midnight snack
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Tosh, Owen, Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,380 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, something going bump in the night" at fic_promptly
Summary: There's something lurking in the darkness

The sound startled Tosh from sleep. Her eyes flicked open sharply and flooded with nothing but blackness until the pupils dilated, turning the blackness into vague shapes. The sound came again. She pulled out a warm arm from under the duvet, struggling slightly given how tightly wrapped it was around her body, before reaching across the narrow space and finding Owen's shoulder.

'Owen,' she said, giving it a gentle shake. There was another thump. 'Owen,' she said, slightly louder, being more forceful.

'Mphf,' he mumbled, squirming under the covers.

'Owen there's someone in the house!'

'Wha?'

'There's a noise down the hall. Didn't you hear it?'

'Go back to sleep, Tosh. It's nothing.'

It wasn't nothing, she was sure of it. The next time she heard it, it wasn't a thumping, but a cracking sound.

'Owen!' she hissed. She didn't know why she bothered. She was a trained field agent and more than capable of handling herself. It was just the principle of the matter that the man of the house should go investigate burglars in the house.

'Alright, alright, I'm getting up,' he groaned.

She reached under the bed and pulled out the cricket bat. She knew it was stupid, but she'd always kept one there when she'd been single, and having it still there now just made her feel better.

'I've got a gun, Tosh,' he said, waking up properly and whispering the words as he heard more snapping and cracking sounds. He was fairly certain the noise was coming from the spare room.

'You're not shooting anyone by accident,' she whispered back. 'Besides, what if they attack you? You could get shot.'

'Fine,' he said, taking the bat.

He slipped quietly out through the door and into the hall, ears open for more noises. As he stepped slowly down the hall and past the study, he confirmed it was definitely the spare room. Why would someone be in there? There wasn't anything to steal. He came to the doorway, finding it ajar and pausing. He hefted the bat up and prepared to slip inside, ready to hit the light and use the element of surprise.

In one quick movement, he was in, lights on and bat held aloft. 'Don't move!' he said, but the intruder ignored him completely.

'Sodding hell!' Owen yelled, and Tosh came running down the hall to meet him.

Poking her head around the doorway she saw what Owen had confronted. One jet black Labrador, curled up on the bed, eating the chicken she'd left on the end of the kitchen sink overnight to thaw out. It was meant to be lunch for tomorrow when the Jack and Ianto came around after their romantic weekend away.

'Buddy!' she cried, scolding the dog. At least when she yelled, the dog had the good sense to lift its head and look slightly contrite.

'Out!' she yelled, and the furry black beast slipped off the bed and snuck out between her legs and the door.

'Bloody dog!' Owen cried. 'We're never pet sitting for those two ever again. They can put their mutt in some stinking kennel hotel.'

Tosh sighed. 'Go back to bed, Owen. I'll sort this out.'

'Good, because the next time I see that dog, it's getting a one way trip to the lost dogs home,' he said, stomping past her.

She surveyed the scene. There were scraps of chicken and bits of bone all over the duvet cover, and it smelled atrocious, mixed in with dog hair and dog drool. She gathered up the whole thing and padded down the stairs to empty the remnants into the bin, before dumping the duvet into their washing machine, and letting it run on a silent wash cycle. There was no way she was going to let that sit and fester until morning.

When she returned to the kitchen, Buddy was lying on the floor, head down. She collected up the bin bag and tied it off. He looked up at her and wagged his tail in a way that begged to be left the scraps.

'Bad dog,' she said, and his tail stopped its hopeful wagging.

She dumped the bag out in the bin, cursing the freezing cold pavement on her bare feet, and jogged the whole way back, desperate to get out of the frosty night air.

'Come here, you,' she said, once she was back inside. She grabbed his collar and lead him back to the laundry.

'I don't know how you got out, but consider yourself lucky you're not spending the rest of the night out there.'

As she shut the door and placed a chair up against the handle for good measure, she heard the small pathetic whine on the other side. No, she wasn't going to fall for that, much as it broke her heart. Owen would send her to go sleep with the dog if she caved in. It was just for tonight. Tomorrow he'd go back to being someone else's problem.

When the doorbell rang, the black steak of fur nearly knocked Tosh over as it belted towards the door. Whether it did that all the time or there was some kind of ESP, she wasn't sure.

'Hey, Tosh,' Jack said when she opened the door. 'Did you miss me?'

'Were you gone long enough?' she joked, but already his attention was diverted to the dog that was jostling between their legs, vying for pats from anyone.

'Hey boy,' Jack said, ruffling his ears, happy tail thumping against Ianto's leg. 'You missed me, didn't you?'

'Thanks for taking care of him, Tosh,' Ianto said, reaching across and giving her a quick peck on the cheek. 'It's hard to have a quiet weekend for two when there's three of you.'

'No trouble at all,' Tosh lied. She didn't want to ruin the post-holiday buzz, especially since they never took any kind of holidays.

'Smells amazing in here,' Jack said, letting them all back inside out of the cold. 'Have you been cooking up a storm?'

'It's nothing, just a vegetable lasagna.'

'It would've been roast chicken,' Owen grumbled, appearing in the hallway, 'but someone's mangy pet stole it.'

'What?' Ianto said. 'How did that happen?'

'He did a Steve McQueen in the middle of the night. Busted his way out of the laundry, stole the chicken right off the counter, and then decided to take it upstairs and dismantle it on the spare bed.'

Ianto was horrified, apologising, but Jack just laughed, going over and inspecting the scene of the breakout.

'Ah, should've warned you,' he said.

'Warned us about what?'

'He's learned how to open doors all by himself. We had to have all the door handles in our house replaced from lever handles to turning knobs.'

'Typical,' Owen muttered. 'Only you would have a dog that knows how to open doors.'

'Nobody taught him. He learned that all on his own.' Jack leaned down and ruffled Buddy's head. 'Didn't you, my clever little puppy?'

Owen huffed. 'He could've at least taken it back to the laundry and eaten it there.'

'You put him in the laundry? That was your first mistake,' Ianto replied. 'He's a fussy thing. Doesn't like the cold, slippery feeling of the tiles. That's why he broke into your spare room. He was looking for somewhere carpeted and warm to sleep. Finding the chicken in the kitchen on his way through was probably just a bonus.'

'You let him sleep with you?' Tosh asked.

'He's meant to sleep on the floor beside the bed,' Ianto said, 'but someone keeps letting him up onto the bed.'

'Hey, how would you like it if you had to sleep on the floor? It's only fair.'

'I thought someone had broken into our house,' Tosh said. 'I completely forgot he was downstairs.'

They all looked down at their would be cat burglar who wagged his tail proudly as if he knew they were talking about him. He knew that if he played his cards right, half of Jack's lunch would find its way under the table, and when he got home, Ianto would have forgotten all about his little misdemeanor, pulling out the doggy treats. They'd missed him and he was planning on taking full advantage of it.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Buddy is a very naughty dog, and takes unfair advantage of eveyone!

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

He's learnt everything he knows from Jack, including how to get away with it. :)