m_findlow

Title: Not so strange
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Ianto
Word Count: 500 words
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for Challenge 168 - Custom at anythingdrabble
Summary: Earth's traditions seem strange to an alien.

The alien gazed slowly around the hub, taking it all in. ‘Do your people have a fear of the dark, Ianto?’

Ianto jammed his hands in his pockets and smiled to overcompensate for his nervousness at being left alone to give their guest the grand tour. ‘Oh, no. We just put the lights up for Christmas,’ he said, referring to the strings of twinkling lights which snaked all over the hub.

‘Christmas,’ the alien burbled. It had no tongue of any lips to speak of which made the word extremely difficult to enunciate. Still, Ianto was impressed that it was conversing in English at all. He wouldn't have been able speak their native language even with lips and a tongue. ‘What is Christmas?’

‘It's a local celebration.’

‘Are the lights significant?’

‘Um… They've sort of evolved as part of it over time.’ With some difficulty Ianto attempted to explain the religious basis of the holiday, the evolution of the cultural acceptance of Santa Claus as a man who brings gifts and how Victorian royalty had turned it into a gathering of family.

‘It all sounds very complicated. Especially this part about keeping secret from your younglings that this Santa fellow has long since passed.’

Ianto shrugged at the fair assessment. ‘I suppose it is a bit of a strange custom.’ Personally, Christmas was a bit of a pain, putting up with his nosy family, even if the spread of food was pretty good. It was certainly better than what he'd cook up for himself. He wasn't that fussed about the gift giving or going to church. Even the tree and the lights were an effort he couldn't quite justify but Jack loved Christmas and so he humoured his lover the novelty of celebrating it however he wanted.

‘Do you have customs on your planet that are celebrated like this?’

‘Oh yes,’ the alien burbled, breaking into what Ianto assumed must be a smile. That or it was just finding earth's thicker atmosphere a little hard to breathe. ‘We have a public gathering once every third moon cycle where everyone takes turns to excrete their ecto fluid onto a stone offering tablet.’

Ianto's eyebrows raised in a curious expression. ‘Ecto fluid?’ The alien twisted its body and showed him how it went about wringing the fluid out of its spongy blubber type skin. It was all he could do not to look sickened, pursing his lips tightly so that he didn't end up excreting anything himself - like his afternoon coffee and the egg salad sandwich he'd had for lunch.

‘Don't you sort of need that to stay, uh… supple?’

‘It is quite an honour to be awarded the title of largest ecto offerer. I've offered up to ten pints some years but that doesn't even get close to the most. Still, it's not the amount but the offering that counts.’

‘So true,’ Ianto agreed. He was never going to turn his nose down at a bad Kris Kringle gift ever again.