Title: Fluff Life
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Nosy, Jack, Tosh, Team.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1089
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The effects of alien tech on humans aren’t always unpleasant. Sometimes they result in quite enjoyable, not to mention educational, experiences.
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 350: Change.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.



Ianto supposed it wasn’t an entirely terrible thing, certainly not the worst that had ever befallen him. A bit of a nuisance, yes, but nonetheless quite educational.

“At least now we know what that device does,” Jack said. “It turns people into an identical copy of whatever living thing they’re physically closest to.” He was a bit confused, but not worried, certain that Tosh would be able to undo what the device had done.

“But how do we tell which is which?” Tosh wanted to know. “They’re identical!”

Jack looked from one to the other. “Will the real Nosy the Fluff please stand up?”

Nosy raised the front metre of its body off the concrete.

“There, you see? Easy.” Jack petted nosy. “Ianto?”

“Hum?”

“Don’t worry, Tosh will fix this.”

Ianto wanted to say, “I’m not worried, I know she will, and anyway this is interesting,” but all he could say was “Hummm.” He tried to say it in as reassuring a tone as he could manage though.

He turned to Nosy and hummed some more, flexing his long body in various ways.

“It’s nice to be able to talk to you Fluff to Fluff.”

“You make a very good Fluff,” Nosy replied, in the same manner. “We’re confusing the humans though. Perhaps you should change your colour. You do it this way,” and it explained, not in words as such, more as a sort of mental projection.

“Clever!” It took a few minutes, but gradually Ianto’s fur changed from grass green to black with red stripes. “How’s that?”

“Very good. You learn quickly.”

“Nice!” Jack approved. “Now we can tell which is which.”

“Hum,” Ianto agreed. After all, that was the idea. “Unfortunately,” he added to Nosy, “being a Fluff means I can’t make coffee.”

“Yes, that’s a shame, but it can’t be helped. Would you like to play?”

That sounded like an excellent idea. “I’ve always wanted to try out your ball pit.”

“You’re always very welcome to, although I suspect the experience would be different as a human.”

“I expect so. Humans can’t slink and slither.”

“It’s very sad, but they don’t seem to mind.”

“That’s because they have no way of knowing how much fun it is.” Ianto was following behind Nosy, slithering quickly across the concrete, which didn’t feel at all cold through his thick under-fluff. He was beginning to realise that a great deal of Fluff communication was on an almost telepathic level, although expressed less in words than in emotions. It was an incredibly nuanced language, and once again Ianto was impressed by how intelligent Fluffs were.

Playing in the ball pit was so much fun! It reminded Ianto a bit of swimming underwater, only easier, with less resistance, and a delicious tingle of static electricity that seemed to vibrate through every hair on his long body. He hummed with delight, popping up to the surface only to dive deep again among the hundreds of balls, trying to catch Nosy is a sort of tag game that had no rules whatsoever.

When the two Fluffs tired of that, they slithered out again, their fur standing on end, and shook themselves vigorously.

“What shall we do now?” Ianto asked.

“Let’s build something with my blocks.”

“Okay.” It would give Ianto a chance to learn more about Fluff dexterity, what was possible when you only had a mouth to work with instead of a pair of hands.

There was a simplicity to being a Fluff. Human stresses just seemed to melt away as they played, although Ianto found he could sense exactly how each member of the team was feeling. Most of the time it was sort of like a song playing in the background, but if he focused, he could separate out each thread of the melody and identify which of his friends it belonged to. No wonder Nosy was always so keenly aware of everyone’s moods. He could even feel Myfanwy up in her aerie, and Janet and the other residents down in the cells. More distantly, he could dimly sense people up on the Plas, and the many minds, both human and alien, who inhabited Cardiff. He felt connected to everything, to varying degrees.

The day drifted past at a leisurely pace. Ianto and Nosy enjoyed a shared lunch of fresh fruits, nuts, and rice cakes, washed down with coffee from the shop across the Plas.

“Not as good as the coffee you make when you’re a human, but still very pleasant,” Nosy commented.

To his surprise, Ianto realised he wasn’t bothered that he couldn’t get on with his work. Fluffs, it seemed, were more laid back than humans. He couldn’t do filing or sort out the archives while he was a Fluff, so there was no point in worrying about it. The work would still be there when he was changed back, and if that meant he was behind in the tasks he’d set himself, what did it really matter? An extra fifteen minutes of work each day and in a week or two he’d be caught up.

‘I need to think more like a Fluff when I’m human again,’ he decided. ‘All of us could learn from Nosy’s example.’

Perhaps, once he was human again, everyone on the team could use the clever device to be a Fluff for a few hours. Not all at once, of course, just one at a time… Yes, he’d have to suggest that to Jack. If having a Fluff on the team was therapeutic, being one, even just for a while, was even more so.

For now though, he just intended to make the most of his ‘vacation’ and enjoy the experience of being a Fluff to the full.

Up in his office, Jack was just hanging up the phone after a call from one of UNIT’s bigwigs, and as always, it had left him in a bad mood. Something would have to be done about that, and Ianto knew the perfect antidote for UNIT’s unique brand of idiocy.

“I think,” he told Nosy, “that we could both do with a thorough grooming.”

Nosy hummed agreement. Nothing soothed a human better than grooming a Fluff, and surely two would be even better than one. Together, they slithered up to Jack’s office, taking a grooming brush with them. Ianto squiggled happily as he slithered along the catwalk; there was no mad rush to be changed back into a human again, not when there was still so much to discover about the life of Fluffs.


The End