Slashthedrabble Challenge 498 - Submerged

[m_findlow]

Title: Submerged
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto/Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 498 - Under water at slashthedrabble
Summary: Ianto has made a terrible blunder in his excitement at being behind the wheel.

Ianto should have been pleased to be taken on a drive down the coast in Jack's TARDIS blue convertible. It was like one of those ads, with the top down, wind in their hair, not a care in the world, and then up pops the name of the fragrance. Only he had plenty of cares and this was no mens fragrance ad. The only reason Jack had pulled out the convertible from the underground garage, where it lived only to be polished weekly, was because they couldn't use the SUV. They couldn't use the SUV because that's where they were headed now, to pick it up, although drag it out was probably the more correct term.

The beach just before sunset would have been a romantic vista but for the square black object poking out a foot from the waterline. Good grief, he thought. The tide had come in and made it even worse.

'I'd like to say something chastising,' Jack began, 'but I think perhaps the view is punishment enough, don't you?'

Ianto nodded silently. He was beyond mortified, watching their beloved car being subsumed by the sea. He wanted to be mad at Jack. Had the specs for the SUV not detailed all of the submersible features that had been installed but never used, he never would have attempted it. Even less so if Jack had told him they'd been tested and didn't work.

He'd just been so excited at the prospect. The two of them, out on Torchwood business, the SUV their equivalent of a car designed by Q, and Ianto at the wheel like James Bond. Cool gadgets were just begging to be given their moment to shine as he'd ploughed across the beach at a breakneck speed that would have impressed even Jack, flipping switches and pressing buttons to activate "submersible mode" and driving straight into the ocean before Jack could stop him.

Only the wheels didn't retract, fins didn't deploy, and the whole hulking weight of the car sank into the wet sand, water trickling through the doors, the engine and the air vents. It was slow at first, and then there was two feet of water in the footwell. More by the time Jack had rolled the windows down before the electrical systems cut out, leaving them trapped inside, and still more as it flooded in through said windows as they clambered onto the roof, before being forced to swim back to shore, leaving the alien to make a clean getaway, probably halfway to Guernsey by now.

'So, what have we learned?' Jack asked.

Ianto hazarded an educated guess. 'Don't press buttons in the SUV?'

'Uh huh,' Jack agreed, popping the boot and pulling out a thick towing cable. 'Now, guess who gets to swim out there and hook this up to the bumper bar?'

Ianto took the cable without argument. If he hurried, he might be able to get out there before the SUV was completely under water and out of sight.

Comments

[bk_forever]

I hope that convertible comes with a power winch because the SUV would be heavy even without being full of water and bogged down in wet sand.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Yet more indignity as Ianto had to go find one in the archives to install on Jack's convertible. It's not a pretty sight having a nice car like that with a great hulking, ugly winch tacked onto it. :(

[bk_forever]

I'll bet it isn't! But as long as it gets the SUV out of the sea, that's all that matters.