Ficlet: Above And Beyond
mood: 
tired
tiredTitle: Above And Beyond
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Tosh, Jack
Rating: PG
Word Count: 522
Summary: Ianto makes a heroic sacrifice to help Jack.
Spoilers: Nada
Written For:
brumeier’s 
comment_fic prompt ‘Any, Any, kissing a lot of frogs to find a prince/princess.’Disclaimer: I don’t own Doctor Who or any of the characters. Which is sad.
Bloody Torchwood! If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. By now Ianto was used to finding himself in weird situations, but this one took the cake. He wasn’t even sure where to begin trying to deal with it.
Shoving one hand through his hair as he looked around the Hub, he gave a put-upon sigh; what a mess! Practically every surface was seething with movement. Just once, he’d like to have a normal day at Torchwood, a day when absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened. Sadly, today obviously wasn’t going to be it.
Tosh picked her way carefully over to him. “What’re we supposed to do now?” she asked. “There must be hundreds of them, maybe thousands, and they’re all completely identical; there’s no way to tell which is the right one, not even my scanners can tell one from another!”
Ianto gave another resigned sigh and a helpless shrug. Why did everyone always expect him to have the answer? When he’d said ‘I know everything’ all those months ago, he’d mostly been joking, but for some reason his teammates had taken him seriously, and now they expected him to have the answer to everything, right at his fingertips. He was good, but he wasn’t THAT good; miracles were a bit beyond his abilities. Nevertheless, he had to try something.
“It was some kind of magic, right?”
“It seems that way,” Tosh agreed. “I mean there wasn’t any alien technology involved, not as far as I could see, just a small, rather annoyed… person.”
“A pixie I believe. Or maybe a sprite. Something along those lines. Who knew mythological beings were actually aliens?”
“I can name one person.”
Ianto nodded. “Jack, who is going to drinking the cheapest, nastiest instant decaf I can find for the foreseeable future, if I ever find a way to undo this. Trust him to put his foot in it.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to cause offence.” Tosh’s loyalty to her boss, while commendable, was rather misplaced in Ianto’s opinion.
“I know, he seldom means to, but more often than not he still manages to. As talents go, it’s not especially helpful.” Ianto pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off an incipient headache. “Right, so, if this is the result of magic, then there’s only one thing I can think of that might have a chance of working, and I can tell you right now, it’s not something I ever imagined I’d have to do.” Ianto glanced at Tosh. “I want it on record that I’m going above and beyond the call of duty here. Jack had better appreciate the sacrifice I’m making on his behalf.”
With that, he picked up the nearest frog, steeled himself, and planted a kiss on its froggy lips. Nothing happened. Tosh took the frog from him and put it in a box as Ianto picked up the next one and kissed it, with the same disappointing lack of result.
One of the damned things had to be Jack, but it looked like he was in for a very long night trying to find out which!
The End
Shoving one hand through his hair as he looked around the Hub, he gave a put-upon sigh; what a mess! Practically every surface was seething with movement. Just once, he’d like to have a normal day at Torchwood, a day when absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened. Sadly, today obviously wasn’t going to be it.
Tosh picked her way carefully over to him. “What’re we supposed to do now?” she asked. “There must be hundreds of them, maybe thousands, and they’re all completely identical; there’s no way to tell which is the right one, not even my scanners can tell one from another!”
Ianto gave another resigned sigh and a helpless shrug. Why did everyone always expect him to have the answer? When he’d said ‘I know everything’ all those months ago, he’d mostly been joking, but for some reason his teammates had taken him seriously, and now they expected him to have the answer to everything, right at his fingertips. He was good, but he wasn’t THAT good; miracles were a bit beyond his abilities. Nevertheless, he had to try something.
“It was some kind of magic, right?”
“It seems that way,” Tosh agreed. “I mean there wasn’t any alien technology involved, not as far as I could see, just a small, rather annoyed… person.”
“A pixie I believe. Or maybe a sprite. Something along those lines. Who knew mythological beings were actually aliens?”
“I can name one person.”
Ianto nodded. “Jack, who is going to drinking the cheapest, nastiest instant decaf I can find for the foreseeable future, if I ever find a way to undo this. Trust him to put his foot in it.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to cause offence.” Tosh’s loyalty to her boss, while commendable, was rather misplaced in Ianto’s opinion.
“I know, he seldom means to, but more often than not he still manages to. As talents go, it’s not especially helpful.” Ianto pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off an incipient headache. “Right, so, if this is the result of magic, then there’s only one thing I can think of that might have a chance of working, and I can tell you right now, it’s not something I ever imagined I’d have to do.” Ianto glanced at Tosh. “I want it on record that I’m going above and beyond the call of duty here. Jack had better appreciate the sacrifice I’m making on his behalf.”
With that, he picked up the nearest frog, steeled himself, and planted a kiss on its froggy lips. Nothing happened. Tosh took the frog from him and put it in a box as Ianto picked up the next one and kissed it, with the same disappointing lack of result.
One of the damned things had to be Jack, but it looked like he was in for a very long night trying to find out which!
The End
Still, Ianto is determined to restore Jack, even if he has to kiss every single frog. Jack will not like his punishment for this, lol!
Thank you!
Oh no! For Ianto's sake I hope that plan works!
Thank you!