Torchwood: Fanfic: Retail therapy

[m_findlow]

Title: Retail therapy
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,633 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "any, any, trouble in store" at fic_promptly
Summary: Forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it's Torchwood Tuesday.

They ducked as another lampshade came flying overhead, it's razor sharp teeth determined to take a bite out of anything that got in its way.

Jack pulled Ianto down just in time to avoid a second wave, and the pair of them huddled behind an upturned mahogany table.

'A nice quiet afternoon or furniture shopping, you said. We couldn't have just gone to Ikea?'

The whole shop floor seemed to have taken on a malevolent demeanor. Furniture pieces everywhere had suddenly become animated and vicious like wild animals, terrorising customers.

They both leaned back against the underside of the table, catching their breath.

'Uh, Jack. You don't suppose this table might,'

He didn't get a chance to finish the thought as the legs of the table wrapped around each of them, holding them in place and then beginning to squeeze.

They both struggled in vain, but the table had an almighty grip. That was the price you paid for quality furniture.

'Didn't expect it to end like this,' Ianto gasped. 'Strangled to death by an arbor constrictor.'

'Shut up and keep trying!' Jack choked out, both his hands desperately trying the pull the leg away from his throat.

Just as he was beginning to see stars, the loud noise of a gunshot rang out. The leg wrapped around Jack's neck fell away. The table quivered and its remaining legs came loose from around them.

'Only you two,' Owen griped, holstering his gun.

'It wasn't us,' heaved Jack, helping Ianto up. 'How'd you find us?'

'We didn't. Police chatter went off the scale. Flying furniture and haunted home wares. Figured it was worth a look.'

'Where's Tosh and Gwen?'

'Last I saw, battling a sofa that was trying to eat someone.'

A few minutes later, after being nearly trampled by a herd of stampeding footstools, they caught up with Gwen and Tosh.

'What do we know?' Jack asked.

'Strange signal seems to be coming from the floor above us,' Tosh confirmed.

'Oh God,' Ianto said, turning to Jack.

'What?' Owen asked.

'Appliances,' they both said.

'And I thought killer cabinets was bad,' he grumbled.

If the furniture department was chaos, it couldn't compare to the anarchy on the fourth floor.

Irons were racing around the floor, like overgrown vermin, setting fire to small patches of carpet as they whizzed around. Kettles and toasters hopping about, tying to eject their contents if they'd had any. Microwaves were taking pot shots at anyone who came within fifteen feet, blasting them with red hot lasers.

In one corner a woman was screaming, her arm caught in a sandwich press that was burning the skin off. A cluster of steam mops were gathering in another spot, generating an impenetrable cloud of vapour.

'Well, this looks like fun,' Jack observed flatly.

'I'm more worried about rogue electric beaters and blenders. If the lamps have teeth, I hate to think what something that already has blades is like,' Ianto replied.

Out of nowhere a vacuum cleaner snaked its way around Gwen's leg, and she let out a yelp as it dragged her to the ground, and away towards a chest freezer that seemed to have struck an alliance, its large lid opening hungrily for the promised meal.

A wayward electric bread knife came hurtling at Jack's head. He swiftly took hold of it and lunged at the vacuum hose, sawing it in half. It slunk away with a wheeze, wounded.

'Aha! Take that! Not a gun, but it'll do the job.'

Tosh was madly tapping at her PDA. 'It's coming from over there,' she pointed.

'Returns and laybys. Should've known. Split up,' Jack ordered. 'Help whoever you can. I'm going in.'

He didn't wait for them to agree.

Gwen and Ianto paired off. They made their way across the floor, in pursuit of a refrigerator that was gobbling up people.

'I'll grab the door, you pull them out,' Ianto instructed.

He hauled the handle backwards as Gwen went to grab the hand of the first person. She could see three of them in there. The door fought against him, hard. It took all of his strength just to keep it open as it threatened to snap back shut, taking Gwen with it.

'I hate to think what the energy efficiency rating on this is!' he joked.

'Keep pulling!'

'I'm trying!'

Gwen got the third person out and then saw the freezer cabinet at the bottom. My God, was that another person squeezed in there?

'Ianto! The bottom door!'

'If I let go of the top one, it'll try and take you.'

'Just do it!'

He let go and quickly hauled opened the lower door. As soon as Gwen had a hold of the last person, he let go and grabbed her hand, pulling all of them away from the snapping whitegood. They landed in an awkward heap on the floor, Gwen and her new companion collapsing heavily on top of him.

'Good work,' she puffed.

'Thanks. Anytime.'

Owen and Tosh were trying to get closer to a group of terrified shop employees, hunkering down behind a sales point.

A minefield of microwaves and electric fry pans stood in their way.

'It's no use. There's no way we can get past all that,' Owen moaned.

Tosh was pulling something out of her pocket. It was a compact mirror.

'What are you doing?'

'Levelling the playing field.'

She crawled across the floor, keeping low and out of range until she was sat underneath a shelf where one of the microwaves was perched on display. She carefully reached up with the mirror, and as it shot out, she angled the beam away in the opposite direction.

'Yeah, that's good, but what about the rest?'

'Hang on, I just need to tweak the angle a bit.'

She twisted her wrist slightly, and with the next shot, the beam bounced away and struck one of the other microwaves, exploding it in a shower of plastic and metal.

'Now that's what I'm talking about,' cheered Owen.

Several more well aimed shots later, she'd taken out all of the microwaves except the one above her.

'Allow me,' said Owen, rising and putting several bullets in it.

'Come on you lot,' Owen yelled at the staff, 'time to get out of here!'

Jack was in a world of pain. He'd lost the bread knife long ago in a battle against a food processor that was determined to take his hand off, one finger at a time, until he'd jammed the knife between its blades.

His coat had several severe singe marks from being chased by a radiator whilst grappling with an army of curling irons, intent on much the same.

Now though, he was just yards from the layby counter. All that stood between him and his target now were the coffee machines. What else? He thought ironically.

Unlike most of the other appliances, these ones were armed. They'd idled through this section a few hours ago, watching as the man was demonstrating all the various makes and models, and offering free samples of the brews he was blending. The machines interested Ianto, the offer of free coffee, not so much.

'He's doing it wrong,' he muttered as they wandered away.

Now Jack was regretting offending them earlier, as they dangerously spat boiling milk and steam in every which direction. Some of the fancier machines, the ones that ground their own beans, were now shooting them at colossal speeds, like miniature bullets, and peppering Jack as he crawled and clambered past them.

'I swear I'll never drink instant again, I promise! Not even when Ianto's away sick and I'm desperate!'

Finally he made it to the counter and hauled himself over the top, falling ungraciously onto the floor behind it.

He grunted with relief.

Now, what was causing all of this? He looked around, searching for something obvious in the clutter of tagged bags and boxes.

Ice-cream maker, no. Hairdryer, no. Penguin shaped waffle maker, oh, Ianto was so getting one of those for Christmas! Toaster, no. Wait, that's not a toaster, he thought, pulling it back out for closer inspection.

Huh, a sentience re-animator. That would do it, he thought. He quickly deactivated it and heard the raucous clatter of appliances dropping to the ground, ceasing and desisting.

He tucked the device under his arm and went to find the others. The shop floor was an absolute mess.

'Hey kids. Having fun?' he said as he approached, watching them detangling themselves from several yards of formerly murderous fairy lights.

'Did you find it?' Gwen asked.

'Yup,' he said, patting the device under his arm.

'A toaster?' Owen said, raising an eyebrow.

'Not a toaster. A sentience re-animator. Used on transport ships when people are frozen in stasis for long haul trips. I'm guessing this one must've come from a prison transport, judging by the personalities.'

'So a whole bunch of murderers and ex cons got downloaded into the stock?' Ianto queried.

'Yup. But now they've been re-uploaded. Should be the last we see of them. After this goes into secure archives, of course.'

'Of course,' Ianto concurred.

'So someone thought it was a toaster?'

'Probably. Took it home and when it didn't work they returned it. Some poor staff member was probably trying to figure out why it wasn't working when they activated it by accident.'

'I'm sticking to cereal from now on,' Owen declared. 'A lot safer than my telly coming to life and trying to zap me into the next dimension.'

'Probably a good idea,' Jack agreed.

As they made their way out of the department store, Jack stopped for a moment.

'What is it?' Ianto asked.

'You don't suppose we could go back and put a deposit down on that leather sofa do you?'

Comments

[jo02]

Well that's going to make me rethink going out to the post-Christmas sales unarmed :)

It had a touch of Fantasia about it but your inanimate objects were much more vicious!

[bk_forever]

LMAO! Well, I'll certainly be looking at my furniture differently. think I'll stick with what I've got rather than buying anything new. it may be old but it's never tried to kill me.

The fact that everything was being animated by the consciousnesses of murderes and the like explains why Ianto couldn't just stride in and save Jack from the coffee machines. If they'd simply become animated, I think they would have been worshipping at the feet of the Coffee God!

Love this, thanks for writing it!

Did they get the sofa?

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

They finally managed to agree on something, but Ianto is having second thoughts now. Assuming it survived the battle, having a formerly criminal couch is a little disturbing.

[bk_forever]

Yeah, they don't want it getting ideas or falling back into bad habits ;)