Title: Shiny new things
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,275 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 420 - Shine
Summary: Owen has serious misgivings about keeping a dinosaur around the hub..



‘I think this is the stupidest idea you've ever had,’ Owen said, arms folded as he stared down at the pile of brown mess on the hub floor. ‘And that's saying something.’ It stank like nobody's business, which was a strange concept since it was somebody's business. Dinosaur business to be exact, and there was no way in hell that Owen was going to get rolled into helping clean it up.

‘Haven't you ever had a pet?’ Jack asked.

‘Yeah, we had a dog, and it used to crap in the backyard, not in the hallway, or on your bed, or right in front of that television. It also wasn't three times the size of a human and capable of killing us.’

Jack’s eyes rolled. ‘Don't be so dramatic,’ he chided. Truthfully, Owen was starting to believe Jack had in fact never had a pet and that he was just itching for one. Why he couldn’t settle for a Maltese-Cross was anyone's guess. Working for Torchwood for too long clearly addled the brain.

‘It's a prehistoric creature, Jack,’ Owen said, trying to make him see sense that it shouldn't be here.

‘Oh, and where do you suggest we put it, then?

‘You're the one who won't let us toy with the rift machine,’ he reminded Jack. There was every chance they could have sent it back, if not to exactly the right time and place, at least within a few hundred years. It was doubtful the creature would know the difference. When you were talking about millions of years ago, who cared about a few centuries either side?

Jack’s eyebrows knitted into a frown. ‘Did you want to risk Tyrannosaurus Rex slipping through and chewing up half of Splott in the process?’

Owen snorted. ‘Might be an improvement.’ God knew Splott could do with a few less of its residents and most of the estate housing bulldozed to the ground.

‘We’re not opening the rift,’ Jack said, putting a firm end to that particular discussion. ‘Besides, these are just teething problems.’

Teething problems? Having giant piles of dinosaur crap around the hub counted as a teething problem? ‘Jack, be serious. Just for once,’ Owen begged. ‘We cannot keep a pterodactyl as a pet. No way.’

‘We don't have much of a choice, Owen,’ came the reply. ‘Know any good zoos that would take her?’

Owen rolled his eyes at the rhetorical question.

‘Besides, I think she's taken a real shine to Ianto, and vice versa.’

‘Oh, so now we're making decisions based on someone who's been here five seconds?’

Owen had been annoyed enough getting a call at three in the morning to come to the hub and discover that Jack had picked up a dinosaur. He was even more miffed to find out that Jack had also brought home a toyboy he had no intention of retconning and dumping at the nearest bus shelter. Finding out that Ianto had been ex-Torchwood One was just the icing on the cake. Jack never trusted anything to do with Torchwood London, but apparently if you looked shaggable then the rest didn't matter. Owen wondered if Ianto even knew he was a target for Jack's eye for pretty things. He didn't come across as someone who batted for the opposition, but then with Jack things often went in a direction you didn't expect them to.

‘Ianto’s boyhood dream come true?’ Owen teased.

Jack shrugged. ‘They've developed a bit of a rapport. That’s not the kind of thing you can say happens on a regular basis’ Yes, because their experience in that field was now a sample of one.

‘Is that why you made Suzie be the one to teach it what to eat and what not to eat?’ Personally, Owen found that juice stuff Jack had concocted to help with feeding to be part of the problem. Small wonder her piles smiled as bad as it did. Suzie certainly hadn’t appreciated being given the task. If you asked her, she thought she was being punished.

‘Ianto is on probation. I didn’t want to hand him a task he wasn’t ready to handle yet. Besides, it’s good for Suzie to interact with living things once in a while.’

Owen snorted a laugh. ‘Yeah, she's a real people person, our Suze.’

Ianto is here for the time being, Jack announced, folding his arms in that telltale way he did when he was ending any argument with Owen. he’ll either make it here or he won’t. He needs something to sharpen his claws on something that isn’t sticking him out in the field where he’s likely to get hurt. I think it's good for him, and good for us. Honestly there's only so much cleaning up I can watch him do. Are we really that messy?’

‘Speak for yourself, Harkness.’

;He survived the fall of Canary Wharf. You saw what that place was like when we arrived for the clean up.’ How anyone survived was a small miracle. How he hadn't ended up a snivelling mental wreck was another matter. Owen didn't know much about the young man Jack had brought into that fold at Torchwood Three, but on the whole he seemed pretty well put together for someone who'd been through that. Either that or he was an expert at hiding it and was one act of madness away from crumbling into a complete basket case, or shooting them all in a psychotic rage.

‘I don't think this is quite the same as having a therapy dog,’ Owen said.

‘Why not? With all the things you've seen, Owen, is this really the strangest?’

‘Sorry,’ Ianto said, appearing from nowhere in that silent way that Owen found a little bit creepy. ‘I'll get this cleaned up,’ he added, referring to the pile of dung they were gathered around. ‘She knows she's not meant to do that anywhere except up outside,’ he said, as if they were discussing a few tiny droppings and not a huge pile of nearly steaming excrement.

‘Thanks, Ianto,; Jack said, before wandering off. ‘Get Owen to give you a hand if you need it, and then come see me afterwards.’ There was a smile and a wink and then Jack was gone.

‘Don’t look at me,’ Owen quickly said before Ianto could get the idea that Owen would follow Jack’s request. ‘She’s your bloody pet.’

‘I know,’ he said, not sounding put out at all. He looked skyward at the eyrie that has been set up for their newest addition to nest in. ‘You’re a naughty girl,’ he called up, though sounding about as ineffectual as Owen’s eighth grade English teacher. ‘It’s probably anxiety,’ he said, turning his attention back to Owen. ‘I’ve been working on ways to keep her relaxed when she's cooped up inside,’ he said.

‘How’s that working out for you,’ Owen replied.

Myfanwy sailed down from her perch high above and came far closer than Owen was comfortable having her. That beak could do some serious damage and he didn’t want to be within reach of it at any time. The same couldn't however be said of Ianto, who sidled up to her and gave her neck a gentle stroke, his own just inches from that beak of death. ‘I know you probably didn’t mean to, but the others are less than happy about it,’ he told her, as if she might understand a word he said. ‘I’m cleaning this up for you, but this is the last time, okay?’

Owen wandered away, shaking his head. He thought Jack was a nutter, but they bred them a whole lot crazier at Torchwood One.