Ficlet: Another Fine Mess
Jun. 30th, 2025 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Another Fine Mess
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack, Team.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 667
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Ianto hadn’t been gone long, but the team had still managed to cause chaos.
Written For:
templefugate’s prompt ‘Any, any, “You've gotta be kidding me!”’, at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
This was the story of his life, Ianto realised with a horrible sinking feeling. This kind of thing was destined to happen over and over because he had the misfortune to work with a bunch of bloody idiots. They proved that every time he turned his back on them for five minutes.
As he stood in the doorway, staring aghast at the complete and utter chaos the team had wrought, all he could think was “You’ve got to be kidding me”, because the Hub hadn’t looked like this when he’d left to pick up lunch twenty minutes ago, and now… It was like something out of the Keystone Cops, or Buster Keaton. His teammates were desperately scrabbling around, slipping and falling on a floor that looked like it was buried several inches deep in millions, possibly even billions, of shiny metal ball bearings.
“What the hell did you lot do this time?” he demanded, in a tone of mingled exasperation and resignation, already knowing that he would most likely be the one expected to clear up the mess they’d made, and equally sure they’d all be finding stray ball bearings everywhere for months.
Jack glanced up guiltily from where he was on his hands and knees among the ball bearings, groping about as if searching for something.
“You know that piece of tech I brought in last night?” he asked.
Ianto did, in so far as his lover had shown it to him earlier, but Jack didn’t bother to wait for an answer, he just kept talking.
“Well, I gave it to Tosh to figure out what it was, because neither of us have ever seen anything like it, and she got it working, which was okay at first. But it wouldn’t turn off, and then while I was trying to un-jam what we thought must be the off switch, it kind of slipped out of my hands, and now we can’t find it, and it’s still going, and…” he trailed off sheepishly. “Would it help if I said I’m sorry?”
“No, I think I can honestly say it wouldn’t,” Ianto said, watching the swelling tide of ball bearings flow across the floor towards him.
He followed the pattern of movement back to where it seemed to originate, shuffled his way carefully into the ball bearing sea, reached down, felt around for a moment, and straightened up with the piece of tech responsible for the mess clutched in one hand. It continued to spill a steady stream of tiny metal balls onto the floor as he turned it upside down, studied the jammed switch, then banged the device on the edge of Tosh’s desk. The flow of ball bearings cut off, the last one dropping with a muted plink.
“That’s better.”
“You stopped it!” Jack beamed at Ianto and floundered towards him through the ball bearings.
Silently, Ianto held up one hand, and pulling out his pocketknife, prised open a small compartment in the base of the device, extracting the power source, and set both items on the desk.
“That is going straight in the secure archives, as soon as I can get there without risking breaking my neck; I highly doubt we’ll ever need more ball bearings than we’ve already got. In the meantime, I suggest you all start shovelling these up into any receptacle you can find.” He turned back towards the cogwheel door.
“Where are you going?” Jack tried to get up and follow, but his feet slipped out from under him, and he fell flat on his face.
“I’m going to buy as many plastic buckets and storage boxes as I can find. There’s an empty room on level nine, we can put all of these…” he waved his hand at the ball bearings, “in there until we can decide what to do with them.”
This time, his teammates could handle the clean-up themselves. All he was going to do was supervise; maybe that might teach them to be more careful in future.
The End
As he stood in the doorway, staring aghast at the complete and utter chaos the team had wrought, all he could think was “You’ve got to be kidding me”, because the Hub hadn’t looked like this when he’d left to pick up lunch twenty minutes ago, and now… It was like something out of the Keystone Cops, or Buster Keaton. His teammates were desperately scrabbling around, slipping and falling on a floor that looked like it was buried several inches deep in millions, possibly even billions, of shiny metal ball bearings.
“What the hell did you lot do this time?” he demanded, in a tone of mingled exasperation and resignation, already knowing that he would most likely be the one expected to clear up the mess they’d made, and equally sure they’d all be finding stray ball bearings everywhere for months.
Jack glanced up guiltily from where he was on his hands and knees among the ball bearings, groping about as if searching for something.
“You know that piece of tech I brought in last night?” he asked.
Ianto did, in so far as his lover had shown it to him earlier, but Jack didn’t bother to wait for an answer, he just kept talking.
“Well, I gave it to Tosh to figure out what it was, because neither of us have ever seen anything like it, and she got it working, which was okay at first. But it wouldn’t turn off, and then while I was trying to un-jam what we thought must be the off switch, it kind of slipped out of my hands, and now we can’t find it, and it’s still going, and…” he trailed off sheepishly. “Would it help if I said I’m sorry?”
“No, I think I can honestly say it wouldn’t,” Ianto said, watching the swelling tide of ball bearings flow across the floor towards him.
He followed the pattern of movement back to where it seemed to originate, shuffled his way carefully into the ball bearing sea, reached down, felt around for a moment, and straightened up with the piece of tech responsible for the mess clutched in one hand. It continued to spill a steady stream of tiny metal balls onto the floor as he turned it upside down, studied the jammed switch, then banged the device on the edge of Tosh’s desk. The flow of ball bearings cut off, the last one dropping with a muted plink.
“That’s better.”
“You stopped it!” Jack beamed at Ianto and floundered towards him through the ball bearings.
Silently, Ianto held up one hand, and pulling out his pocketknife, prised open a small compartment in the base of the device, extracting the power source, and set both items on the desk.
“That is going straight in the secure archives, as soon as I can get there without risking breaking my neck; I highly doubt we’ll ever need more ball bearings than we’ve already got. In the meantime, I suggest you all start shovelling these up into any receptacle you can find.” He turned back towards the cogwheel door.
“Where are you going?” Jack tried to get up and follow, but his feet slipped out from under him, and he fell flat on his face.
“I’m going to buy as many plastic buckets and storage boxes as I can find. There’s an empty room on level nine, we can put all of these…” he waved his hand at the ball bearings, “in there until we can decide what to do with them.”
This time, his teammates could handle the clean-up themselves. All he was going to do was supervise; maybe that might teach them to be more careful in future.
The End
