Fffc March Special Bingo - Play time

[m_findlow]

Title: Play time
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,649 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for fffc March Special Bingo Card - Prompt 7 - Toys
Summary: Owen's experiments are sometimes unconventional.

Jack looked strangely at Ianto as he entered the hub, laden with shopping bags. Usually it would have had Jack all excited, wondering what goodies Ianto might have bought him, but instead he could see very clearly from the items almost spilling out of the top of the bags that these were most likely not for him. 

'Isn’t it a little bit early for Christmas?' he asked, dipping a hand into the top of one of the bags and pulling out a very cute teddy bear. 

'Very early,' Ianto agreed. 'But these aren’t for Christmas. They’re for Owen.'

'I didn’t realise we were running a creche,' Jack mused. 'He looked like an adult to me last time I checked. He hasn’t been futzing with something alien again has he? 'That was all Jack needed, a version of Owen that had aged regressively. Dealing with the adult version was hard enough most days.

'I can assure you that Owen is both physically and mentally exactly the age he should be,' Ianto replied. 

'So ten, we’re saying,' Jack joked. 

'Precisely.'

'So, that still doesn’t answer my question.'

'Which one was that?'

He turned the teddy bear around in his hands and faced it towards his lover. 'What’s with all the toys?'

'Owen asked for them. Something about some experiments he wanted to conduct with the weevils.'

'I’m worried he’s spending too much time with them. He’s thinking they might actually have human emotions. Now he's buying them toys?'

'Well, he might not be wrong about that. We already know they have a far more complex social structure than we originally thought, and that they have the capacity to mourn. Is it not really a stretch to think that they might have other emotional levels?'

'Well, I’ve yet to see one feel guilty about trying to take a chunk outta me.'

'Give them a bit of credit, Jack. We’re usually the ones coming after them.'

'Hmph,' he muttered, still unconvinced. He didn't think Ianto would be quite so liberal and open minded the next time one was trying to claw his face off.

'Let’s let Owen run his experiments,' Ianto said. 'He'll either be wrong or right. Plus it keeps him out of everyone else’s hair and you know what a nuisance he is when he’s got nothing better to do.'

On that, Jack had to agree.

 

Ianto grabbed the bags and proceeded downstairs to meet Owen. He was there just as expected, making notes of some kind on a tablet as he watched the weevil through the clear cell door.

'You got what I asked for?' Owen said as greeting.

'I think so.' Owen's instructions had been relatively vague. Toys they can interact with. That pretty much covered anything and everything. Once he'd arrived at the department store, he'd ended up in the baby and toddler section. Anything with small parts was liable to be eaten by a weevil and choked on, so he selected things that were large or in one piece, stuffed toys without plastic eyes, large wooden building blocks, things that squeaked if you squished them, balls, dolls and large plastic trucks. Ironic that he was doing this now for weevils when he'd never even done it for his own niece and nephew.

Owen pawed through the bags, inspecting them and giving little grunts of approval. 'Thanks.'

'Anything else you need? Sand pit? Bouncy castle?' Jack would love that more than any weevil he was sure, though it would have been amusing to watch a weevil bouncing around.

'Get out of here and let me get on with it,' Owen griped, dismissing him and his warped sense of humor.

 

Idiots, the whole lot of them, Owen thought, as he set about organising his experiments. Jack thought he was mad, and as for the rest of them, well, they'd be laughing on the other sides of their faces soon enough.

He wasn't a weevil lover by any stretch of the imagination, but that didn't mean they weren't worth understanding better. Who knew. Perhaps something he learned would help them make it easier to control weevils. Lord knew if he didn't have to tackle them with weevil spray and handclamps, life would be a whole lot less dangerous.

There were four weevils currently in the cells: two they'd picked up in the last few weeks, the most recent just a few days ago, and the last was their weevil in residence, Janet.

He grabbed a handful of toys and set them in an empty cell, then did the same with the next three along the row, leaving the doors open. Then he left the corridor and shut the door at the end.

On a panel beside the wall he hit a button, releasing one of the doors from the weevil cells, which sat directly opposite the toy-filled cells. As expected, the weevil soon left its own cell and wandered out into the corridor, before spotting the toys located in the cell opposite and wandering right on inside. Works every time, Owen thought. Usually it was food left in there, set to lure them either by hunger, instinct, or in this case, just plain curiosity. It was how they moved weevils from one cell to another to clean them out. Once the first weevil was in its new cell, he pressed another button, locking it inside. He then did the same with the other three, leaving Janet for last. She knew the drill better than any. He was almost convinced she didn't need the food as incentive, knowing that she'd be getting a clean cell as reward.

He wanted to stay and watch what they'd do, suddenly left alone with all these new things. He hoped that they'd show some signs that they were intelligent enough to amuse themselves. Instead Jack's voice barked over his comms, demanding that he meet the rest of them upstairs to head out to a rift alert in Radyr. He was annoyed, but he'd still have all the CCTV footage to review later.

'Play nice, guys,' he said, before making his leave.

 

The retrieval had taken a lot longer than any of them planned. It didn't help that Jack had managed to blow off half his leg, standing on an unexploded device. It'd heal in time, but it hadn't made his screams of pain any less, nor Ianto any more obnoxious in trying to help Owen, but being more of a hindrance as he nagged Owen to do more to ease Jack's suffering. If anything, Owen was glad to be coming back to a bunch of deadly carnivorous weevils. At least they wouldn't give him a hard time.

Once they'd finally cleared the immediate threat to the area, made easier by the fact that Jack had rather fortuitously eliminated it by setting it off, they only thing left to do was get Jack home and patched up. Owen had left him resting comfortably in one of their medical suites, knocked out on painkillers whilst his body did the rest. Twenty four hours and he'd be good as new. As much of a mockery as it made of Owen's medical skills, he was glad that at least one of their team was never out of action for more than a day or two on account of serious injuries. Given how often it happened, it was probably a blessing in disguise.

As he headed back downstairs, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see who it was.

'Thought you'd be staying with the boss,' he said, finding Ianto approaching.

'He's out like a light. Those must have been some very decent painkillers. Didn't think he'd notice I wasn't there. Just wanted to apologise if I was a bit... um...'

'Schitzo boyfriend?' Owen suggested.

Ianto blushed. 'Yeah. That.' He was usually pretty calm all things considered, but today had really tested him.  

'S'alright,' Owen said. 'S'pose I'd be a bit freaked if it happened to someone I cared about.' Admittedly it was one of Jack's more gruesome and stomach turning injuries. 'Mind you, at least it'll grow back.'

'There's that,' Ianto replied. 'I was quite attached to the original, though.'

'You'll get over it,' Owen said, walking away.

'Where are you off?'

'Checking on my weevils and their play date.' Without asking, Ianto followed him. 'Alright, let's see what we've got.'

Owen paused. He heard it before he saw it, finding the weevils in the first two cells taking turns at throwing building blocks and anything else at the clear perspex door, making a racket. In the third cell, there was nothing left to throw, all the toys in smashed little pieces, and toy stuffing littered everywhere. A doll had been utterly dismembered.

'Maybe they're more monopoly fans,' Ianto said. Owen gave him a death glare. 'And that's my cue to leave.'

'Wait,' Owen said, stopping in front of Janet's door. He was transfixed by the sight. In one corner, the building blocks had been arranged into a sort of rectangular shape, and a doll was lying inside. On the low concrete shelf on the other side, Janet was sat, cradling a teddy bear in her arms and making low growling noises at it. He couldn't be sure, but it sounding like she was trying to soothe it.

'I never thought I'd say this, but that's kind of cute in a slightly viscerally disturbing way,' Ianto said, watching over his shoulder.  

'Yeah,' Owen agreed.

'Smarter than the average weevil,' Ianto mused. 'Or maybe it's just a female thing. Maternal instincts.'

'No idea,' Owen said. 'Might need to bring in more females to test the theory.'

'I'll stock up on cabbage patch dolls, then,' Ianto replied, before leaving.

Owen leaned closer to the glass. Janet looked up at him and gave a low growl before returning to rock the teddy a bit more.

'Thanks for not making me look like a complete dickhead.'

Comments

[bk_forever]

Janet is a Weevil apart. I always thought there was something special about the old girl.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

She's definitely smarter than the average weevil, and now she's saved Owen from looking like a complete twat. He'd never have lived that down otherwise.
Next she'll be wanting a tea set so dolly, teddy and her can have tea together. :)