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fan_flashworks2025-06-09 11:32 am
m_findlow) wrote in fan_flashworks2025-06-09 11:32 am
Entry tags:
Torchwood: Fanfic: You get what you give
Title: You get what you give
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,363 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 481 - Charity
Summary: Ianto has charged himself and Owen with a less than ordinary Torchwood assignment.
‘It bloody stinks down here,’ Owen grumbled, sneaker squeaking and squelching underneath him after having accidentally slipped and going foot first into the foetid water running down the centre of the dank tunnel.
‘It's a sewer,’ Ianto replied. ‘How do you expect it to smell?’
Owen scowled, peering around the large box in his arms that was impeding his view. ‘Better than it does,’ he complained.
‘Well, you'll just have to suck it up.’
‘Sucking it up is one thing I won’t be doing.’
There was more indistinguishable grumbling as they padded their way carefully along the slippery stones, straining their ears for the sound of any danger, but hearing only the drip drop and constant trickle of small amounts of water. Thank God it wasn't raining up at street level. These tunnels would have been two or three feet deep full of rushing water, even the shallowest amount of which could take your feet out from under you and sweep you away. These parts of the sewer system were relatively safe and well mapped, with protective grates that stopped larger items – or human bodies – from dropping through steep overflow outlets, but that didn't necessarily prevent you from drowning if the tunnels filled rapidly from torrential downpours. In a city like Cardiff, rain was never too far away.
Dry with a light southerly breeze, Ianto told himself as he carried a second large box, reminded of the forecast from this morning's breakfast radio program. No chance of heavy rain. Perfect weather for what they had planned. Let’s hope the weatherman – or weather lady, he should say – had gotten it right for once.
‘This feels ridiculous,’ Owen said, footsteps echoing in the narrow chamber. ‘Why are we doing this again? Or better yet, why am I here getting lumped with this?’
‘Because we've always done it,’ came the plaintive, slightly terse reply. Or at least as long as any of them have been working at Torchwood. Beyond that, who really knew?
Weevils had never really been a thing when Ianto had worked at Torchwood London. He could count on one hand the number of times they’d been mentioned in daily life. They seemed to be exclusively Cardiff bound though Jack had never really explained why, or where they'd come from. He had a strange affectation for them despite their violent tendencies. He even gave them names – human names – as if they were people in their own right and deserved to be treated as such. Ianto liked naming things, but he found the process odd, even for Jack, who seemed to pity them. Odder still since they rarely reciprocated, usually preferring to rip out throats with their claws, and Jack’s throat was their favourite, albeit because he was the only one brave enough, or stupid enough, to get that close. Even so, Jack’s benevolence towards them had caused a ripple effect in the rest of them, still wary of the dangers, but keen to do their bit to protect their right to occupy the city.
Jack's kindness towards them took an even more bizarre turn the day Ianto had caught Jack late one night loading several boxes into the back of the SUV. When questioned, Jack wasn't secretive at all. ‘They're boiler suits,’ he said. ‘For the weevils,’ he clarified when Ianto frowned at him. ‘Fresh from the fashion houses of Butetown.’
‘But we haven't ordered any,’ Ianto had replied. He'd have known, handling all of the hub's paperwork. He'd have seen it and paid the bill for it.
‘Got a standing order with the supplier,’ Jack explained. ‘Every six months they ship ten boxes of brand new, Torchwood issue, crisp blue coveralls in large, extra large and double XL.’ He flipped open the lid on one of the boxes and showed Ianto he wasn't joking. ‘Gotta go hand these out where they're needed.’
Ianto had offered to go with him but Jack had politely declined the offer. ‘It's just something I have to do,’ he said, as if he felt personally responsible. Ianto had let it slide at the time, knowing Jack kept certain things to himself, but now that Jack was gone, Ianto wished he'd pressed Jack for more details. He'd forgotten all about it until a mysterious delivery of ten boxes had arrived a few days ago, underscoring Jack's long absence, and the weight of the responsibility they had to fill that gap. He couldn't let the boxes just sit there ignored. Jack has intended for them to have a purpose.
Ianto had felt that weight more and more the longer Jack's absence dragged on. He began to see the city from Jack's perspective, as if really seeing it for the first time. He saw it on the four am walks, when he'd been at the hub all night and had slept there, but unable to stay asleep for more than a few hours and needing some fresh air. Four am highlighted the homeless and the dispossessed, the grifters and the drifters. It was a far cry from the daylight city with its fancy bay precinct and its shiny new redevelopments. There was an underbelly to the city that needed just as much help, if not more, than the everyday people whose lives were impacted by the rift.
Ianto found himself emptying the archives of all the stuff they didn't need: clothes, sleeping bags, tatty blankets and rucksacks, long past the dangers of residual rift radiation, and began handing them out on his walks. There were even a few transistor radios, which might either help someone pass the long hours, or at least still be worth a few quid at a pawn shop. Maybe this was what Jack saw when he stood up on his rooftops and looked out over the city. Maybe that was why he chose to distribute clothes to weevils on his own. Atonement for some of the things they couldn't fix.
‘How much further?’ Owen asked, huffing as his sneaker sloshed loudly in another puddle of water.
Ianto consulted the PDA resting on top of his box with its schematic of the Welsh Water Board's sewerage system. ‘About here should probably do it,’ he replied, setting down the box, pondering the PDA and opening the box flap, pulling out the clothing. ‘If we just put them in piles of two or three along this tunnel they should be able to find them okay.’
Owen dumped the box on the ground and tore open the top, pulling out the folded boiler suits with his small torch temporarily clutched between his teeth. He pulled it from his mouth and shone it on the top of the folded clothes. ‘You're joking, right?’
Ianto raised a questioning eyebrow and Owen pointed at the breast pocket, indicating the Torchwood logo stitched in clean white thread, illuminated by torchlight. ‘No wonder the police hate us. You've got our names stamped all over the only thing more vicious than a drunken Valleys girl on a Saturday night. Why are we advertising that the weevils have something to do with us?’ Owen groaned out a sigh. ‘Like we don't have enough problems with the coppers already. Thought Torchwood was meant to be a bloody secret.’
Ianto shrugged and kept removing the clothes from the box, setting them at intervals along the sewer. ‘It's how Jack wanted them,’ he said. He didn’t question it; didn’t want to question it. He just wanted to hold onto whatever he could of Jack.
‘Did he also want us risking our necks in known weevil nests handing out charity?’
‘It's just something we have to do,’ Ianto said, repeating the same words Jack had once said to him. Maybe there was more to this story than Jack had let on, or maybe it was a small way of paying it forward. Whatever the real reason, Ianto simply accepted that whilst Jack might be gone, and perhaps never coming back, there were some traditions still worth carrying on. Maybe one day he’d find out that these small acts of charity were going to play some larger part, and that Jack had left them some piece of history still yet to be written.
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,363 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 481 - Charity
Summary: Ianto has charged himself and Owen with a less than ordinary Torchwood assignment.
‘It bloody stinks down here,’ Owen grumbled, sneaker squeaking and squelching underneath him after having accidentally slipped and going foot first into the foetid water running down the centre of the dank tunnel.
‘It's a sewer,’ Ianto replied. ‘How do you expect it to smell?’
Owen scowled, peering around the large box in his arms that was impeding his view. ‘Better than it does,’ he complained.
‘Well, you'll just have to suck it up.’
‘Sucking it up is one thing I won’t be doing.’
There was more indistinguishable grumbling as they padded their way carefully along the slippery stones, straining their ears for the sound of any danger, but hearing only the drip drop and constant trickle of small amounts of water. Thank God it wasn't raining up at street level. These tunnels would have been two or three feet deep full of rushing water, even the shallowest amount of which could take your feet out from under you and sweep you away. These parts of the sewer system were relatively safe and well mapped, with protective grates that stopped larger items – or human bodies – from dropping through steep overflow outlets, but that didn't necessarily prevent you from drowning if the tunnels filled rapidly from torrential downpours. In a city like Cardiff, rain was never too far away.
Dry with a light southerly breeze, Ianto told himself as he carried a second large box, reminded of the forecast from this morning's breakfast radio program. No chance of heavy rain. Perfect weather for what they had planned. Let’s hope the weatherman – or weather lady, he should say – had gotten it right for once.
‘This feels ridiculous,’ Owen said, footsteps echoing in the narrow chamber. ‘Why are we doing this again? Or better yet, why am I here getting lumped with this?’
‘Because we've always done it,’ came the plaintive, slightly terse reply. Or at least as long as any of them have been working at Torchwood. Beyond that, who really knew?
Weevils had never really been a thing when Ianto had worked at Torchwood London. He could count on one hand the number of times they’d been mentioned in daily life. They seemed to be exclusively Cardiff bound though Jack had never really explained why, or where they'd come from. He had a strange affectation for them despite their violent tendencies. He even gave them names – human names – as if they were people in their own right and deserved to be treated as such. Ianto liked naming things, but he found the process odd, even for Jack, who seemed to pity them. Odder still since they rarely reciprocated, usually preferring to rip out throats with their claws, and Jack’s throat was their favourite, albeit because he was the only one brave enough, or stupid enough, to get that close. Even so, Jack’s benevolence towards them had caused a ripple effect in the rest of them, still wary of the dangers, but keen to do their bit to protect their right to occupy the city.
Jack's kindness towards them took an even more bizarre turn the day Ianto had caught Jack late one night loading several boxes into the back of the SUV. When questioned, Jack wasn't secretive at all. ‘They're boiler suits,’ he said. ‘For the weevils,’ he clarified when Ianto frowned at him. ‘Fresh from the fashion houses of Butetown.’
‘But we haven't ordered any,’ Ianto had replied. He'd have known, handling all of the hub's paperwork. He'd have seen it and paid the bill for it.
‘Got a standing order with the supplier,’ Jack explained. ‘Every six months they ship ten boxes of brand new, Torchwood issue, crisp blue coveralls in large, extra large and double XL.’ He flipped open the lid on one of the boxes and showed Ianto he wasn't joking. ‘Gotta go hand these out where they're needed.’
Ianto had offered to go with him but Jack had politely declined the offer. ‘It's just something I have to do,’ he said, as if he felt personally responsible. Ianto had let it slide at the time, knowing Jack kept certain things to himself, but now that Jack was gone, Ianto wished he'd pressed Jack for more details. He'd forgotten all about it until a mysterious delivery of ten boxes had arrived a few days ago, underscoring Jack's long absence, and the weight of the responsibility they had to fill that gap. He couldn't let the boxes just sit there ignored. Jack has intended for them to have a purpose.
Ianto had felt that weight more and more the longer Jack's absence dragged on. He began to see the city from Jack's perspective, as if really seeing it for the first time. He saw it on the four am walks, when he'd been at the hub all night and had slept there, but unable to stay asleep for more than a few hours and needing some fresh air. Four am highlighted the homeless and the dispossessed, the grifters and the drifters. It was a far cry from the daylight city with its fancy bay precinct and its shiny new redevelopments. There was an underbelly to the city that needed just as much help, if not more, than the everyday people whose lives were impacted by the rift.
Ianto found himself emptying the archives of all the stuff they didn't need: clothes, sleeping bags, tatty blankets and rucksacks, long past the dangers of residual rift radiation, and began handing them out on his walks. There were even a few transistor radios, which might either help someone pass the long hours, or at least still be worth a few quid at a pawn shop. Maybe this was what Jack saw when he stood up on his rooftops and looked out over the city. Maybe that was why he chose to distribute clothes to weevils on his own. Atonement for some of the things they couldn't fix.
‘How much further?’ Owen asked, huffing as his sneaker sloshed loudly in another puddle of water.
Ianto consulted the PDA resting on top of his box with its schematic of the Welsh Water Board's sewerage system. ‘About here should probably do it,’ he replied, setting down the box, pondering the PDA and opening the box flap, pulling out the clothing. ‘If we just put them in piles of two or three along this tunnel they should be able to find them okay.’
Owen dumped the box on the ground and tore open the top, pulling out the folded boiler suits with his small torch temporarily clutched between his teeth. He pulled it from his mouth and shone it on the top of the folded clothes. ‘You're joking, right?’
Ianto raised a questioning eyebrow and Owen pointed at the breast pocket, indicating the Torchwood logo stitched in clean white thread, illuminated by torchlight. ‘No wonder the police hate us. You've got our names stamped all over the only thing more vicious than a drunken Valleys girl on a Saturday night. Why are we advertising that the weevils have something to do with us?’ Owen groaned out a sigh. ‘Like we don't have enough problems with the coppers already. Thought Torchwood was meant to be a bloody secret.’
Ianto shrugged and kept removing the clothes from the box, setting them at intervals along the sewer. ‘It's how Jack wanted them,’ he said. He didn’t question it; didn’t want to question it. He just wanted to hold onto whatever he could of Jack.
‘Did he also want us risking our necks in known weevil nests handing out charity?’
‘It's just something we have to do,’ Ianto said, repeating the same words Jack had once said to him. Maybe there was more to this story than Jack had let on, or maybe it was a small way of paying it forward. Whatever the real reason, Ianto simply accepted that whilst Jack might be gone, and perhaps never coming back, there were some traditions still worth carrying on. Maybe one day he’d find out that these small acts of charity were going to play some larger part, and that Jack had left them some piece of history still yet to be written.