Ficlet: Well-Behaved
Jul. 21st, 2025 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Well-Behaved
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Tosh, Ianto, Owen, Gwen.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 650
Spoilers: A few weeks after End of Days.
Summary: With Jack gone, the rest of the team have been doing their best to carry on, but tonight they’ve decided they need a bit of a break from work.
Written For:
acoldwarinmyhead’s prompt ‘Any, Any, ‘we’re always the well-behaved ones,’ at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Team Torchwood had gone out together for a few drinks after work, because they’d decided after the week they’d had, they deserved to let their hair down a bit. No one had been entirely sure whether they were supposed to be celebrating their victories or drowning their sorrows over their failures, but in the end, it probably amounted to the same thing, so what did it really matter?
They were alive, they’d managed to keep the earth from being destroyed, even though it had been a close thing and there had been a couple of unavoidable deaths, but that was still a better result than they’d been expecting at the time, so they weren’t complaining, just resigned to the fact that they couldn’t always save everyone. Sometimes the fact that they’d managed to save ANYONE had to be enough.
So here they were, celebrating or whatever; at least, that was the general idea. The reality was a touch different, but they were Torchwood, they lived their lives a bit out of step with the general run of people, marching to the beat of their own drum, as it were.
“We’re always the well-behaved ones, have you noticed that?” Tosh said, sipping from her glass of wine as she watched their colleagues, more than a little drunk, behaving like… well, like themselves. Owen was busy hitting on every pretty woman in the bar, whether they were with someone else or not, trying to find a bedmate for the night, and spoiling for a fight. Gwen was having a screaming match with Rhys over the phone, apparently not caring that she was out in public and everyone in the bar could hear her side of the argument.
“Hard not to,” Ianto replied, peering morosely into what was left of his second pint. Part of him wished he had the freedom to get completely shitfaced like Owen and let loose, burning off all his frustrations in a pub brawl, but he knew he couldn’t risk another drink, at least not one containing alcohol. Someone had to keep an eye on things at the Hub overnight, and it wasn’t as if any of his colleagues ever volunteered now that Jack had gone off to… wherever it was he’d gone, leaving the four of them to manage without him. Not that any of them would be in any condition to, not the way they were drinking tonight.
“D’you ever wish you could behave like them, just say to hell with the consequences and do whatever you wanted, even if it landed you in trouble?” Tosh sounded as wistful as she looked, like she wanted to be a bad girl, but wouldn’t know where to begin. Ianto would, he’d grown up on a council estate, had run with a gang as a teen, a lager lout painting graffiti, shoplifting, joyriding in stolen cars, vandalising public property, but that was before he’d gone to London to make something of himself, and now… well, all that stuff just took too much bloody effort for too little reward.
“Been there, done that, back in my teens. Then I grew up. It’s not nearly as much fun as it looks, Tosh,” he said, smiling sadly at his friend. “Just be glad you aren’t like them, because you’ll still be able to respect yourself in the morning, while those two are going to be nursing killer hangovers and wishing they could forget tonight ever happened. Being the well-behaved ones really isn’t such a bad thing. We’ll be here to make sure Gwen gets home safely, and to bail Owen out of the drunk tank tomorrow.”
“I suppose someone does need to behave responsibly,” Tosh agreed, although she still sounded a little regretful.
“Just wait until tomorrow, when we can laugh at their self-inflicted suffering and feel all superior.”
Tosh brightened. “I hadn’t thought of that!”
“Sometimes good behaviour has unexpected perks.”
The End
They were alive, they’d managed to keep the earth from being destroyed, even though it had been a close thing and there had been a couple of unavoidable deaths, but that was still a better result than they’d been expecting at the time, so they weren’t complaining, just resigned to the fact that they couldn’t always save everyone. Sometimes the fact that they’d managed to save ANYONE had to be enough.
So here they were, celebrating or whatever; at least, that was the general idea. The reality was a touch different, but they were Torchwood, they lived their lives a bit out of step with the general run of people, marching to the beat of their own drum, as it were.
“We’re always the well-behaved ones, have you noticed that?” Tosh said, sipping from her glass of wine as she watched their colleagues, more than a little drunk, behaving like… well, like themselves. Owen was busy hitting on every pretty woman in the bar, whether they were with someone else or not, trying to find a bedmate for the night, and spoiling for a fight. Gwen was having a screaming match with Rhys over the phone, apparently not caring that she was out in public and everyone in the bar could hear her side of the argument.
“Hard not to,” Ianto replied, peering morosely into what was left of his second pint. Part of him wished he had the freedom to get completely shitfaced like Owen and let loose, burning off all his frustrations in a pub brawl, but he knew he couldn’t risk another drink, at least not one containing alcohol. Someone had to keep an eye on things at the Hub overnight, and it wasn’t as if any of his colleagues ever volunteered now that Jack had gone off to… wherever it was he’d gone, leaving the four of them to manage without him. Not that any of them would be in any condition to, not the way they were drinking tonight.
“D’you ever wish you could behave like them, just say to hell with the consequences and do whatever you wanted, even if it landed you in trouble?” Tosh sounded as wistful as she looked, like she wanted to be a bad girl, but wouldn’t know where to begin. Ianto would, he’d grown up on a council estate, had run with a gang as a teen, a lager lout painting graffiti, shoplifting, joyriding in stolen cars, vandalising public property, but that was before he’d gone to London to make something of himself, and now… well, all that stuff just took too much bloody effort for too little reward.
“Been there, done that, back in my teens. Then I grew up. It’s not nearly as much fun as it looks, Tosh,” he said, smiling sadly at his friend. “Just be glad you aren’t like them, because you’ll still be able to respect yourself in the morning, while those two are going to be nursing killer hangovers and wishing they could forget tonight ever happened. Being the well-behaved ones really isn’t such a bad thing. We’ll be here to make sure Gwen gets home safely, and to bail Owen out of the drunk tank tomorrow.”
“I suppose someone does need to behave responsibly,” Tosh agreed, although she still sounded a little regretful.
“Just wait until tomorrow, when we can laugh at their self-inflicted suffering and feel all superior.”
Tosh brightened. “I hadn’t thought of that!”
“Sometimes good behaviour has unexpected perks.”
The End
