Torchwood: Fanfic: Blown out of proportion

[m_findlow]

Title: Blown out of proportion
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,413 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for juliet316's prompt "Torchwood, Ianto/Jack, Jack's been turned into a blow up doll" at fic_promptly
Summary: It wasn't quite as sexy as Jack planned.

Ianto knew something was up the moment he rolled over in bed, wrapping his arms around his lover and snuggling close. Nope, that didn't feel like Jack. Where there should have been a solid mass of warm muscles and soft skin, there was only the cool feel of plastic.

'What the?' he muttered, giving it a bit of a squeeze, trying to figure out what it was. It wasn't heavy at all, but it felt strange and too smooth.

He reached back over and flipped on the lamp, squinting at the sudden assault on his eyes. He raised a hand up until he could adjust to the light, before turning back over to get a good look at what he'd grabbed. He let out a vexed breath as he pulled the blanket back and got his first proper look. It was a blow up doll, dressed in Jack's own grey t-shirt and dark blue boxers.

'Very funny, Jack!' he yelled out, sure that Jack was watching him from some hiding spot, either behind the ensuite door, or in their wardrobe. He'd be sniggering by now, thinking how clever he was, doing the switch whilst Ianto was asleep.

'What did you think would happen, Jack?' he asked, when Jack refused to come out of hiding. 'That I'd just snuggle up to it and keep sleeping, or that I'd decide it was good enough to shag?' Honestly, that boyfriend of his was so juvenile sometimes, and a terrible practical joker. This wasn't even a good joke by his standards.

'Yeah, alright. Your fun's over now, Jack. Either come out from wherever you are, or you can spend the rest of the night on the sofa. You won't be coming back to bed, that's for sure.'

When Jack didn't reply or reveal his whereabouts, Ianto began to get concerned. He opened the bathroom door and checked but it was empty. He did the same to the wardrobe, sliding it across, before checking under the bed. He then padded down the hall and searched the rest of the house, but Jack was nowhere to be found. When he returned upstairs and stood in the doorway of their bedroom, he looked at the blow up doll again. 'Oh, you didn't,' he said, the thought suddenly hitting him like a tonne of bricks.

He sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed the doll by the shoulders. It was only now that he noticed just how striking the resemblance to his real lover. 'No, please tell me you're not. Jack?' he said, shaking it. The doll just lay there prostrate, blue eyes open wide, as was the mouth.

Ianto ran a tired hand across his face, trying not to think about that open mouth and what it was designed for. 'Bollocks,' he muttered, reaching over for his phone and hitting the speed dial for Owen. 'Yeah, it's me. I need you here right now. What's the problem? Er, I think Jack has become an inflatable doll.' Ianto cringed. 'Yes, like those kind.' He suffered through a few moments of laughter on the other end of the phone. 'Fine. I'll bring him to the hub, then.'

'Just be glad I didn't get pulled over by the police,' Ianto said, walking out of the lift with Jack under his arm. 'They'd either think I was a pervert, or trying to get around the transit lane minimum passenger laws.' He couldn't bring himself to shove the doll in the boot of the car, or the back seat, rather strapping it into the passenger seat next to him. He gently set Jack upright next to him.

'And you're sure that's Jack?' Owen said in greeting, coming over to meet him.

'I'm sure.'

'How do you know?'

'How do I know?' Ianto sputtered. 'Because he's nowhere to be found and this thing was in our bed just lying there full of air with his mouth open.'

'And that's different to normal, how?' Owen asked.

'He's plastic, latex, whatever. He goes all squidgy when I touch him.'

'Well, now I know you're serious,' Owen retorted. 'There's only one reaction from Jack when you touch him, and squidgy isn't it.'

Ianto pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling weary. 'Can we please stop joking about this? It's very serious.' He was standing there helplessly hugging the inflatable doll that looked so much like Jack. Owen couldn't help but think how wrong it looked.

Owen sighed. 'Alright. Put him downstairs on the table and we'll take a look.'

'Just you keep your sharp objects away from him,' Ianto warned.

Owen did his best to stay serious, but it was bloody hard. He didn't really want to remove its clothes and find out just how realistic it was underneath, nor what alterations had been made that better suited what was essentially a sex doll.

'And you say you just woke up and found him like this?'

'Yes.'

'Well, I don't know how to say this, Ianto, but I can't find anything. I mean, there's no pulse, no breathing, no neural activity. He's literally just an inflatable bit of latex and nothing else.'

Ianto frowned at him. 'So, what are you saying? He's not alive?' If this really was Jack, what did that even mean? Assuming they could figure out to what had done this and how to fix it, if that were indeed possible, could he come back from that?

'I don't know,' Owen replied. 'Just try to relax.'

'Relax?' Ianto cried. 'One minute I had a perfectly good flesh and blood boyfriend, and now I've got this,' he said pointing at the object on Owen's autopsy table.

'Look, it's altogether possible he's still in there somewhere. Stranger things have happened. He may, and I stress, may, be able to still see and hear everything. Very small possibility, but why don't we all keep our heads and try not to say anything that might freak him out any more than he already is.'

Ianto took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. 'Okay. You're right. Let's not write him off yet. This is Jack. If anyone can come back from anything, it's him.'

Owen nodded. 'That's right. Now, why don't you go grab a couple of hours sleep to clear your head. We'll try and approach this from a different angle in the morning.'

'Please tell me that wasn't intended as a joke,' Ianto said.

'Sorry. Poor choice of words.'

Ianto looked down at Jack, just lying there unmoving, semi-comical with his fixed expression and gaping mouth. 'Do you need to run more tests tonight?' he asked.

'No. Why?'

'I'll take him with me if it's all the same to you.'

'You're not concerned whatever it is might be contagious?'

'I'm not if you're not. If it's gotten to Jack, surely it would have infected me by now, wouldn't it?'

'In all likelihood,' Owen agreed.

'Good. I'd rather he wasn't left on his own. Okay, so we'll see you in a few hours.'

He picked up Jack and carried him all the way to his bunker, pulling him down the hole and settling them into bed. Perhaps it was stupid, but he remembered what Owen said. Jack could still be in there, cognizant if nothing else. He pulled the blanket up and wrapped an arm around the doll. 'It'll be okay,' he promised. 'We'll fix this.'

The next morning Ianto awoke, hoping that when he did, Jack would be back to normal. Sadly though, the only thing occupying the bed with him was the large latex doll. He showered and dressed, before doing the same to Jack the doll, all except the showering part. It just didn't feel right leaving him there in his pajamas. It wasn't exactly warm and he didn't have a bed to stay snuggled in. As carefully as he could, he pushed Jack back up the ladder and onto the floor of his office above, before wrapping an arm around his waist and carrying him out. With a lack of movable limbs, he settled Jack against the wall so that he was upright but able to see what was going on around him.

'So, what now?' Ianto asked, passing Owen a mug of coffee, having spent the remainder of the night on the sofa.

'Well, it's kind of hard to take samples, for obvious reasons. I can do some swabs, but that's about it. Unless you let me take a sample of the air inside.'

It sounded crazy, but Ianto relented, letting Owen search the doll for its nozzle, before pulling it open and taking a small amount of air.

'At least we won't ever have to worry about fitting the five of us in the SUV again,' Owen said, shoving his samples into the mass spectrometer. 'You can just deflate him, fold him up and stick him in the glovebox. Plus, not having to listen to him yak all the time is nice.'

'I hate you,' Ianto said, sounding very upset. 'Just fix this.'

It was difficult to explain the situation to the girls when they arrived at the hub, but thankfully they were largely supportive and echoed Ianto's own hopes that this was just temporary and fixable.

Owen's investigations were interrupted by a rift alert, which forced the entire team to abandon everything to go and deal with it. Embarrassing as it was, Ianto pecked plastic Jack on the cheek before leaving, promising they'd be back as soon as they could.

Their rift retrieval was a unpleasant one, revealing yet another victim of a negative rift spike. Despite protests from Gwen and Owen, Ianto insisted on seeing it through, taking them out to Flat Holm himself. It's what Jack would have wanted, he thought. The residents always got upset when they saw strange faces around the facility. Ianto was a familiar face however, and it would make the whole thing easier. Easier for the victims, in any case. For Ianto it was a lonely trip that sucked out whatever positivity he had. Now he knew why Jack hated coming here alone. With two, at least you had each other.

It was late by the time the trawler ship dropped him off back in Penarth, and later still by the time he'd driven back to the hub. He searched for Jack, who wasn't where he'd left him, but unable to find him anywhere. It wasn't until he was almost at his wits end, he saw the note left for him on his desk.

"We tucked him up and put him to bed. See you in the morning. Love, Tosh."

Bless you, he thought.

Sure enough, when he climbed down into Jack's bunker, there he was tucked up in bed. Ianto frowned for a moment. That didn't look like a doll's head poking out from under the covers. That looked like hair. He rushed over and tore the duvet off, revealing Jack, very much himself again, albeit asleep. He shook him hard. 'Jack?'

Jack eyes flew open at the sudden disturbance. 'Hey! I'm me again!'

Ianto resisted the urge to make a quip that Jack was always Jack.

'Woah,' Jack said. 'That was kinda weird,' he said, rubbing his arms up and down, getting movement back into them.

'Do you know what happened to you?' Ianto asked.

'It must have been that latex cream.'

Ianto narrowed his eyes at Jack. 'What latex cream?'

'Just a little something I ordered from a passing cargo cruiser. It was marketed as something that hardens into a latex coating and spreads over your body. I was thinking a little latex S and M?'

Ianto folded his arms, annoyed. 'You put an alien cream all over you and thought that was safe?'

'Hey, give me some credit. I only did a test patch, right here on the inside of my arm. Just in case I had an allergy to it.' He showed Ianto the spot where he'd rubbed it in, now just his normal caramel coloured skin. 'How was I to know it would cover me completely with just that small an amount?'

'It didn't just cover you, though,' Ianto replied. 'It transformed you. You were just latex and air.'

'Kinky, huh? I've heard of playing sub, but that takes it to a whole other level.'

Ianto rolled his eyes. Only Jack could play down the whole being turned into an inflatable doll, and even have the gumption to think it was kinky. 'So, do you, um, remember anything?'

'All of it,' Jack confirmed. 'Thanks for the cuddles last night, by the way.'

Ianto punched him in the arm, which received an indignant cry of pain. 'Come, on, Ianto. I was fine.'

'And how were we supposed to know that?' he huffed. The important thing was that Jack was okay, and that he'd reverted back to normal on what might be considered a permanent basis. 'I'd better call Owen and let him know you're okay.'

Jack just shrugged. 'He can wait til morning. What's he going to do, lose sleep over it? I heard what he said about shoving me in the glovebox.'

'Believe it or not, we do actually worry about you.'

'And I appreciate it, believe me. Gwen and Tosh tucking me into bed was very thoughtful.'

Ianto sighed and hugged him, enjoying the feel of real Jack, warm and solid. Even better was the feeling of being hugged back by those strong, comforting arms.

'You sure you don't wanna give it a go?' Jack asked. 'It wasn't so bad really. I mean, once you know what's actually happened to you. We could try it again. It looks like it has a half life of about forty-eight hours. We could take the weekend off and-'

'No.' Ianto couldn't have made the response any clearer.

'Just a suggestion. You know, I'm a little disappointed that you didn't try to take advantage of the situation,' Jack said. 'All those of orifices just waiting to be explored.'

'I'd never take advantage of you, you know that,' Ianto said. 'Even if you were stuck like that for a very long time. I have too much respect for you.'

'Huh. Well, since we're being honest with one another, I should probably tell you that I don't think I'd show the same reserve.'

Ianto rolled his eyes. 'Of course you wouldn't.'

'But... If I knew you could still see and hear and feel everything, I'd make sure it was pleasurable for both of us.'

Ianto gave him a shove. 'You're all heart, Jack.'