Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Gwen, Jack, Ianto

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 4,019 words

Content notes: none

Author notes: Written for Challenge 294 - Paint

Summary: Someone is leaving crazy art all over the city.


Gwen could hear Jack enter the hub long before she saw him. That heavy thump of boots on the concrete steps rang out loudly, and when there was no telltale chuckle or boastful laugh that accompanied it, she braced herself for Jack's mood to settle across the hub, rather like a storm system. That she had beaten Jack in for the morning told her there'd been a late night, and a review of the rift monitor this morning confirmed that an alert had sent at least one of her two colleagues out last night to investigate. Whatever had happened had put Jack in a foul mood

'Morning,' she said, removing the "good" part of her greeting. Sometimes it paid to be cheery, but not too cheery.

Jack almost swept past her completely without even acknowledging her, before remembering very suddenly turned on his heel and faced her. 'You still working up that graffiti case for your pals at the police department?'

Gwen wasn't sure how to answer the question, and Ianto was still behind her and out of her line of sight, so she couldn't very well turn to see his expression, which might give her some hint about the correct answer. Jack generally wasn't that keen on them getting involved in anytung from the police when else's it was very clearly alien and out of their depth. A bunch of random graffiti turning up all over the city was looking less and less likely to have alien involvement, so she took her chances. 'I put it aside for a bit.'

'Well, I want you to pick it right back up and have a report for me within the hour. Everything we know, including any suspects. I wanna know who we can cuff and feed to a weevil, today.' His tone left no mistaking that he'd prefer to know in the next five minutes, before he continued to stalk off to his office, unusually slamming the door shut.

Gwen finally spun in her chair to face Ianto, whose expression was unreadable. 'Have I missed something?' she asked. 'What did you find last night?'

Ianto held up a large blue soft toy that had been clutched in his right hand by his side, setting it on her desk. It was quite obviously alien, as it resembled nothing on this earth, and would probably terrify rather than calm a child. All things considered, it was in pretty good shape, reasonably clean even if it was soaked in rift radiation. 'It's cute in a disturbing sort of way,' he said.

'He's in a snit about an ugly teddy bear?'

'Oh, no. That'd be on account of the SUV being the latest victim of your graffiti based crime spree.'

'What?'

'Oh, yeah. We went out, left the a car parked out the front of Boots and by the time we came back, the SUV had been treated like an art installation.'

He pulled out his phone and showed her a few photos she could add to her files of the royal blue scrawl covering the driver's side and the hood. It was just like all the others, not some kid making their tag all over town, but this weirdly abstract scribble. It wasn't words and it wasn't anything particularly recognisable as pictures. They'd been popping up all over the city in the most random places, whole sections of the city attacked overnight, and no one epany the wiser as to why or what the point of it was. Gwen suspected it was kids on drugs, since none of the markings made much sense, and even the worst street drugs weren't that psychedelic. It there was something alien going around however, that was more concerning. There was literally no telling what reaction people might have if they took it. A bit of bad street art could be just the beginning of their troubles.

'I don't mind telling you that I made a joke that blue was at least Jack's colour. Let me tell you that it did not go down as well as I'd hoped. When he says he wants to feed them to a weevil I think he might be being serious.'

'You seem very calm about it, all things considered, I half expected you to be in a complete rant about it.'

Ianto shrugged as if it were of no consequence. 'Trust me, after putting up with Jack's reaction al last night, any reaction at all in my part would have seemed half-hearted at best. Let's just say Andy should be very lucky Jack doesn't have his direct line. And besides, the SUV is coated with a special heavy duty teflon paint. A bit of soapy water and some elbow grease is all it'll take to remove it. I just couldn't be bothered at three in the morning. Not to mention Jack has also asked for the entire SUV to be fingerprinted.'

Gwen looked at him sympathetically. 'I'd offer you a hand but,' she said, gesturing at the box of police files on the matter.

'Yep. I know. Report within the hour. I should be offering to help you.'

'I think the quicker you get it out of Jack's sight, the better,' Gwen insisted, forgoing the offer of assistance.



When her hour was up, Gwen kept going. There was no point in checking in with Jack only to tell him she had nothing to report. Instead she spent another hour working up the locations, cross referencing the markings to other known graffiti around the city, tracing down suppliers who sold large quantities and the like. It wasn't a lot to work with but after two hours, she had a summary of facts, and coincidentally Ianto had finished scrubbing the SUV and was making a round of coffee. Coffee and an update on a case were two things that collectively would hopefully brighten Jack's disposition.

'What have we got people?' Jack asked as the pair of them filed in. 'Because I'm about a hairs breath away from calling the chief commissioner and demanding to know why we have to do his job for him. A question that I've been asking myself for more years than I can count.'

'Nothing on the fingerprints,' Ianto reported, setting down Jack's coffee and a generous plate of biscuits. 'Not really surprising since we only had the car detailed last week.'

Jack reached over and plucked put a chocolate coated digestive, inhaling it in one bite. 'Okay,' he muffled. 'What else?'

Gwen resettled the files on her lap as she crossed one leg over the other, taking a grateful sip on her own mug before anything else. 'Five more reports of vandalism logged with the police this morning, all within a two mile radius of your rift alert last night. No eye witnesses.'

'Still doesn't explain why they targeted our vehicle,' Jack sulked. 'Must've been dozen parked along the street.'

'Wouldn't be the first time we pissed someone off enough to want to run their keys down the side of our car,' Ianto added. When Jack glared at him he raised his own coffee mug, as if that could defend against the cold blue gaze. 'Just saying.'

'What about CCTV? The perp or perps must've been caught somewhere along the way.'

Gwen gripped the files in frustration. CCTV wasn't the silver bullet for everything, even if Jack thought otherwise. 'Can I remind you that CCTV stands for closed circuit? As in, can't be accessed from the outside? Fortunately some of them do back their data up into cloud systems we can access, but still... Most of these areas haven't got great coverage, and where they do, well, it's nighttime and the images are blurry or nonexistent.'

'Can't we refine them?'

Maybe if Tosh were here, she thought bitterly. 'They're basic cameras, Jack. Not infrared. They're not meant to take sharp images in the dark.'

'Not much of a security system if you can't film at the one time of day when people are likely to try and commit a crime. Not like they're going to attempt it in broad daylight with everybody watching.'

'I didn't create the problem, I'm just flagging the inherent issues. They're a deterrent. Watch enough TV and they'll convince you they can zoom into the reflection in someone's eyes.'

Jack folded his arms, hardly placated at being told what he already knew. 'So, what do you have then?'

Gwen slid the top file off her lap and opened it up, pulling out several printed images and arranging them across Jack's desk. 'Well, of the footage there was, we got a few images of the culprit at two different locations. Fair warning though, nothing solid. Probably between five ten and six two, male, indistinct clothing.'

Jack studied each photo in turn with a frown. 'Well, that narrows it, he said with no small amount of sarcasm. A guy between age fifteen and forty with no fashion sense. That's half the population of Wales.'

'One of the cameras took images at twenty frames per minute.' She handed over a swatch of printouts, letting Jack thumb through them like a flip book. 'Notice how he moves when he leaves the scene?'

Jack flipped through them twice more before handing them across to Ianto to peruse. Put together, the man seemed to lope away from the newly vandalised fence, uncoordinated, like he had two left feet or a busted ankle. 'Not exactly the agile local criminal, is he? If you're a regular hoodlum, you'd be pretty adept and sneaking around and keeping out of sight. This guy downstairs even seem to care. Even guys spaced out on drugs don't usually move like that.'

'Exactly,' Gwen replied, getting to her next logical thought. 'It makes me think maybe this is just some kid, maybe with an intellectual disability. Could've run away from home, seen some other kids doing it and thought it was okay.'

'So, completely unintentional,' Ianto surmised. 'Sort of. Not targeting specific individuals. Would explain the lack of artistic endeavour.'

Gwen nodded. 'I think it's a distinct possibility. We should try to find him. He might be living rough or have fallen in with one of these halfway homes. He must have family somewhere. I just can't understand why they wouldn't have already reported him missing.'

Jack dropped the photos on his desk. 'We can't be tracking down every kid with ADHD, down syndrome or autism. Kick it back to the police. Tell Andy what you're hunch is and let them patrol the city. They've got the manpower for it and we don't.'

'But Jack,' she pleaded.

'I get it, Gwen. Really I do. I don't want some vulnerable kid out there on the streets either. It's only a matter of time until he graffities someone else's patch and comes off second best but this is what the police do. You know that better than anyone. Let them handle this.'

She let out a heavy breath. Deep down she knew Jack was right. There just weren't enough of them to handle Torchwood business as it was. Searching the whole city by daylight, looking for one lad was nearly impossible. Thus was one she was going to have to hand back to the police. If he wasn't very bright, they'd surely pick him up sooner rather than later and then everyone could go back to their normal lives. That's what she told herself at least.



At first Jack imagined he was hearing an alarm going off, then he tried to convince himself he was dreaming about an alarm going off, until he relaosed that an alarm was in fact going off and that it sounded distinctly like a combination of his phone and Ianto's, both chirupping simultaneously.

He groaned out a frustrated sound even as the duvet was shifting next to him, signaling that Ianto was already awake before his protests and wanted to know what had caused the sudden upset to their otherwise peaceful night.

'If this is another pointless outing for a lost stuffed animal, I'm staying right here in bed,' Jack moaned, pulling the covers up and over his head. Two nights in a row was just cruel to drag them out of bed. He could feel Ianto shuffling out from under the covers sufficiently to reach his phone and study the information flowing from their systems at the hub, analysed in detail by their mainframe before translating the results into a digestible summary.

'Would you like the good news or the bad news?'

Jack threw the covers back, turning his head to watch the outline of Ianto's back as he sat on the edge of the bed, silhouette aglow from the light of his phone display. 'I'm going to need some good news to cushion the bad.'

'Well, good news is it isn't Santa dropping things from his sleigh as he gets too close to the rift.'

Jack snorted. Only Ianto could be so cleverly witty at this hour. 'And the bad news?'

'Rogue weevil needing a catch and release. Do you want me to call Gwen?'

'If you do does that mean you'll stay home and get some sleep?'

'I'm awake already aren't I?'

'Just the two of us then,' Jack replied. 'Which means you missed some of the good news.'

'What's that?'

Jack grinned, even if Ianto could barely make it out in the darkness. 'You know what happens after a weevil chase.'

Ianto scoffed. 'If I'm still able to keep my eyes open and still have all my limbs. The former is less likely than the latter, by the way.'

'I'll do my best,' Jack promised. If anything could take the edge off a crummy night of hauling weevils around town, it was the rough and tumble in the back of the SUV afterwards. There was only one person Jack wanted to get roughed up by and it wasn't a weevil.



It didn't take long for them to get dressed and hit the road. There was a definite plus to both living under the one roof these days, in Jack's opinion, even if the convenience of one less pick up was not high on his list of advantages.

The streets were quite at this hour with barely a car or motorbike passing them. Even the shift workers appeared to be in bed, Jack though with no a, out of gloom. Once upon a time he'd relished a night of action. These days he preferred his action to stay in the bedroom, followed by at least six hours sleep.

'Gwen let that thing go earlier, didn't she?' The fact that he told Gwen to do something and her actually following his instructions was sometimes tenuous. She might openly agree and appear to comply but Ianto would know if that were true or not.

'Hmm?'

Jack gritted his teeth. 'Ianto, are you even listening to me?'

'Of course. I can multi-task, you know.'

'Staring out the window is multitasking?'

'Just keeping an eye out for a kid with a can of spray paint in his hand. I know it's a long shot, but it's that or watch your driving, and that is always terrifying.'

'Perhaps you should be looking out for our wayward weevil instead,' Jack suggested.

'Well, if you're going to use alliteration on me, consider me sold.'

Without indicating, Jack threw the SUV around the street corner and into a circuitous road that wound around a business park which was growing ever more populated with indistinct grey buildings.

'There,' Ianto said, pointing out the window. 'Ten o'clock.'

'Graffiti kid?'

'No. The weevil you numb-nut. Now who's not paying attention?'

Jack let the double insult slide, slowing the SUV down so as not to attract any more attention, letting it instead glide to a stop along the kerb. By the time he had, Ianto had already popped the middle compartment and retrieved two sets of hand clamps and cans of weevil spray. Added to that was his stun gun, slipped into the belt of his trousers. Jack's own trusty webley was already nestled in its holster on his hip. Stun guns as a general rule didn't do anything to stop a weevil, but it bought time to save yourself having a vital artery torn open, which is why Jack insisted his team carry them on any weevil escapade.

'Still got eyes on it?' Jack said, quickly exiting the car.

'Foraging through that dumpster,' Ianto replied, pointing at the far end of the access driveway for a set of industrial warehouses.

'Okay, let's roll.'



The weevil wasn't very bright and was quickly cornered and subdued. It was almost disappointing, though any weevil take down that didn't end with someone getting injured, even just a few cuts or scratches, was a victory. Jack backed the SUV up the access driveway whilst Ianto did the honors of tagging their newest visitor, ready for his trip to a known weevil nest where he would hopefully spend the rest of his days without causing too much trouble. They loaded it easily into the back and were soon on their way across town, eventually reaching a large outlet drain where carrying. It was a lot easier to carry a weevil in through an entrance you could stand up inside than it was to try and feed a weevil down a standard human sized manhole.

Jack grabbed the top end of the weevil, as was his custom, just in case the sedative wore off a little quicker than expected, whilst Ianto took the feet. If you asked Ianto however, the feet were the more disgusting end of a weevil.

Jack stepped backwards, hauling their cargo between them and breathed in loudly. 'Don't you just love the smell of effluent in the evening?'

'I really don't,' Ianto replied, his voice nasaly from breathing through his mouth and avoiding the smell as much as possible. 'Just watch where you're stepping,' he warned, trying to keep to the high side of the sewer tunnel, and away from the fetid water.

'Just you keep that light pointed in the right direction then,' Jack instructed. Right now he could only see as much as the light from Ianto's phone could cast, sticking out from his breast pocket. Even if he'd had a spare hand, he wouldn't have risked a proper torch. You never knew how far the resident weevils might travel, and they didn't want to announce themselves as an Uber Eats delivery.

They shuffled along for several hundred yards, only interrupted by the occasional grunt or curse from one or the other. For the most part they were listening for telltale signs of a weevil lurking nearby, but tonight there was only the sound of rats scurrying by and water dripping from the roof into the puddles below.

'Just about here ought to do it,' Jack said, feeling the burn in his forearms that signaled they'd come far enough. Dropping a weevil from tired arms was guaranteed to wake it up so they set it down gently, letting it continue to slumber undisturbed.

'Would you look at that?' Ianto remarked, drawing Jack's attention away from the weevil.

'What?'

Ianto pulled his phone from his pocket at shone it at the wall. Same graffiti as Gwen's police reports and the SUV.

Jack couldn't deny that the scrawl matched samples from other spots around the city. Even a bad artist left a mark like a fingerprint that could be distinguished from another.

'You'd have to be mad to come down here. Or olfactorially challenged. People know this place is teeming with weevils, don't they?'

'Or the rumours of them at least,' Jack replied. Cardiff was full of scuttlebutt and gossip about Torchwood and the things that lurked in the shadows. No one in their right mind would hang out in the sewers if they believed even a fragment of any of it. And that was what gave Jack an idea. He pulled a small pen light torch from his own pocket and began working him way further down the passage.

'Jack, what are you doing?' Ianto hissed at just above a whisper.

'Testing a theory,' he replied, not even looking back at where he'd left Ianto, until he heard the careful footsteps following him. He shouldn't go too far or he'd be right in the heart of the weevil colony, but once he spotted a second set of graffiti on the walls, his curiosity had him by the nose. And other few yards along and there was more, along with the abandoned empty can of paint.

'Jack! Stop!' Ianto's words were more insistent this time. Jack realised he could hear the distant growling snore of a sleeping weevil, but there were many more markings on the wall here.

He tiptoed slowly and purposefully, freezing as the sight of three full sized weevils asleep greeted him. Slowly and silently he shone the pen light around, finding every last inch of walls covered in painted marks. Behind him he felt the subtle pressure of Ianto's body up against his, equally silent as he saw what Jack was seeing. Satisfied he'd see enough, he made a motion with his hand, indicating to Ianto to reverse up, leaving sleeping weevils where they lay.

When they were just a few dozen feet from the end of the sewer outlet, Jack finally found his voice again. 'Did you see that? It was everywhere.'

'No one is getting that close to weevils,' Ianto replied.

'Which really only leaves one explanation for it,' Jack said. 'It isn't some disturbed kid doing the spray painting. It's a weevil, or perhaps several of them.'

'Like aboriginal artwork?'

Jack shrugged. 'We know that they're more intelligent than we think. What's to say they don't understand how to draw?'

'Well, I wouldn't go quite that far.'

Jack stepped out into the night air, rustling a hand through his hair as he took in the clean air. 'You remember that video Gwen had with the perp hobbling away from the scene? Doesn't it just remind you of exactly how a weevil moves when it isn't under threat?'

'Now that you mention it,' Ianto replied, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his hands on it in an attempt to clean them. 'And it would account for the indistinct wardrobe. One of ours presumably if it's got a nondescript boilersuit.'

Jack stopped just short of the SUV and turned. 'What I don't get though is where they got the paint from. A weevil can't just walk into a hight street ship and buy it. And you saw how much of it there was. That's cans and cans of the stuff.'

'Gangs don't buy their cans of spray paint from shops on the high street. Not ones that don't want to get caught, anyway. They order them by the box load and stash them somewhere.'

Jack smirked as he tugged open the door, catching Ianto's gaze over the rooftop. 'Sounds like you know a bit about it.'

Ianto blushed. 'My teenage years were more colourful, as I think you well know.'

Jack slid into the driver's seat, the smell of the sewer lingering on his clothes finally hitting his senses now that they were in a confined space. 'Ah. So, we think a gang of locals probably stashed their art supplies down in the sewers?'

Ianto flipped on the air con, letting the outside air push the smell behind and away from their faces. 'Or at least in an access point. A weevil who goes wandering could found them and taken them back to their nest. I'll bet one of them has probably seen the teenagers down by the railway lines vandalising the sides of buildings and gotten the same idea. Wouldn't be hard to figure out how a can of paint works.'

Jack chuckled. 'Huh. Weevil art. Whatever next? Do you want to be the one to tell Gwen she can't spot a weevil a fifty yards or shall I?'

'I'll leave the honors to you. She won't be happy trying to explain that one to the police.'