Anythingdrabble Challenge 80 - A little something extra

[m_findlow]

Title: A little something extra
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Jack, Ianto, Myfanwy
Word Count: 500 words
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for Challenge 80 - Sauce at anythingdrabble
Summary: Jack knows how to get Myf eating her dinner.

'You look like someone ran over your dog, Ianto,' Jack observed, finding his young recruit sitting on one of the high metal gangways that curled around the hub's upper levels.

'Not my dog, my dinosaur,' he replied.

'Your dinosaur?' Jack teased. She'd only been here three weeks but already Jack could tell that Ianto had taking a liking to their adopted refugee, and she to him. She liked Jack less so, but then again, he'd been the one to stick her with a giant needle. You could be forgiven for disliking a person for that.

'Is there something wrong with her?' Jack said, coming to sit down next to him.

'She won't eat,' he replied plaintively. 'Not unless I'm literally standing there holding it out for her. I leave it in the same spot every day, just outside that nest we built her, but she won't touch it. Not until I go in there and hand it out to her. I can't spend all day feeding her. Do you think she's sick, or something?'

'She still eats when you give it to her?'

Ianto nodded.

'So, maybe she just doesn't know it's hers.'

'You think I should stick up a sign?' he quipped.

'Not exactly,' Jack replied. 'Come on. I've got an idea.'

 

'That's smells disgusting,' Ianto said, pinching his face together as Jack lifted the lid off the blender. 'I'm never using that for smoothies ever again.'

Jack got a little too close to his own concoction and jerked away as the aroma hit his nostrils. Eau de rotten fish guts was not the next fragrance from Chanel.

'Are you sure this is going to work?' Ianto asked.

'I know a thing of two about prehistoric times.' He gave Ianto a look that challenged him to ask how, but the young man was too polite to press him for details. Nobody would believe Jack, anyway. He still couldn't quite believe he'd survived the asteroid crash himself.

'Pterodactyls don't have much of a sense of smell,' Jack lectured. 'They're certainly not going to be able to sniff out all that fresh fish, fruit and vegetables you give her. We need something a little more potent to get her attention.' He poured the contents into a squeeze bottle and held it out. 'Captain Jack's Special Sauce. One squeeze of that over anything should bring her out of hiding.'

'It'll bring out something,' Ianto replied, tentatively taking the bottle.

 

Despite his reservations, Jack's solution did the trick. One squirt in the bucket of food just moments before leaving it had their pterodactyl already poking her nose around, looking for the source of the smell. She no longer cared if Ianto was there at mealtimes.

'At least I don't have to worry about you accidentally biting off a few of my fingers, now,' Ianto noted as she tucked in to the bucket of fruit and fish. 'As much as I love spending time together, I love having full use of my hands more.'