Ficlet: A Thoughtful Gift
Feb. 19th, 2026 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: A Thoughtful Gift
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Tosh, OC.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 697
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Ianto never knew what he’d wind up having to deal with, but at least Torchwood was seldom boring.
Written For:
wearing_tearing’s prompt ‘any, any, accidental monster acquisition’, at threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Ianto had long thought that Torchwood should carry a health warning, much like cigarette packets did these days. Something like Caution: Torchwood may negatively affect your sanity. Not that anyone deemed sane by the rest of society would want to work for a not as secret as it was supposed to be organisation that routinely dealt with extraterrestrial visitors, most of whom arrived in Cardiff purely by accident rather than by choice.
Today was being one of THOSE days, the kind where he found what was left of his sanity balancing precariously on a knife edge. It wasn’t that anything particularly awful had happened, just little things, but they had a cumulative effect, and the last one was… well…
The party or Indarians who’d shown up in the Tourist Office half an hour ago had been nice enough… people. Yes, they were seven feet tall, with dark red skin, yellow eyes, sharp, pointy horns on their heads, prehensile tails, and teeth that would turn the average shark green with envy, but they’d been quite civil, politely asking for assistance in reasonably accurate English. They’d taken a wrong turn thanks to the Rift, and had needed a hand pinpointing their exact position so they could get back on course for their original destination.
Ianto had been happy to help, they were conspicuous enough that helping them on their way as quickly as possible had seemed like a good idea, and they’d been most appreciative. Possibly TOO appreciative, because…
“Uh, Ianto, I don’t know how to tell you this, but… it looks like you have a monster following you,” Tosh said, looking torn between confusion, concern, and, judging by the way her lips kept twitching, a curious desire to burst out laughing, although… Ianto suspected that last might have been less to do with his newly acquired shadow, and more because of the put-upon expression on his face.
Sighing, he closed his eyes, vainly hoping that by doing so he could open them again and find all this had been nothing more than a particularly weird dream, perhaps brought on by eating leftover pizza before bed. Unfortunately for him, the monster trailing hopefully behind him failed to vanish.
It wasn’t a particularly large monster, only eighteen inches in height at the most, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that could easily be overlooked or ignored. It was quite… fluffy, for a monster, a shaggy, roundish puffball in shades of brown and tan, with short legs somewhere under all the fur, the front pair of which doubled as hands. Two round, bright yellow eyes peered out through the fur above a small nose like a dog’s, and a mouth that resembled nothing on earth. It was wide, almost lipless, and equipped with a great many very sharp teeth, with a second set of teeth further in.
Ianto dredged up a resigned smile for his best friend. “Aren’t I lucky? Apparently, some alien races have a peculiar idea of what constitutes an appropriate thank you gift. I gave them directions, and they gave me a monster, which I would have gladly turned down, but under the circumstances, it didn’t seem wise to offend them. There were nine of them, and they were quite a bit taller than me. So, now I have my very own monster. I’m just not quite sure what to do with it now that I have it.”
“It’s quite… cute. You know, for a monster.”
“Have you seen the teeth?”
Tosh nodded slowly. “There are rather a lot.”
“I can only hope it’s been trained. And housebroken.”
“You’re going to keep it?”
Ianto raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I have a choice. I mean, it’s an alien, and it was a gift; I can hardly rehome it.”
“That’s true.” Tosh looked at the monster, squatting obediently beside Ianto’s left foot. It looked like it had no intention of moving until its new master did. “What are you going to call it?”
“Good question.” Ianto frowned at his monster, which stared up at him, unblinking. “Boris,” he decided, after careful consideration. He smiled. “Come along, Boris. Let’s go scare Owen.” At least that might prove entertaining.
The End
Today was being one of THOSE days, the kind where he found what was left of his sanity balancing precariously on a knife edge. It wasn’t that anything particularly awful had happened, just little things, but they had a cumulative effect, and the last one was… well…
The party or Indarians who’d shown up in the Tourist Office half an hour ago had been nice enough… people. Yes, they were seven feet tall, with dark red skin, yellow eyes, sharp, pointy horns on their heads, prehensile tails, and teeth that would turn the average shark green with envy, but they’d been quite civil, politely asking for assistance in reasonably accurate English. They’d taken a wrong turn thanks to the Rift, and had needed a hand pinpointing their exact position so they could get back on course for their original destination.
Ianto had been happy to help, they were conspicuous enough that helping them on their way as quickly as possible had seemed like a good idea, and they’d been most appreciative. Possibly TOO appreciative, because…
“Uh, Ianto, I don’t know how to tell you this, but… it looks like you have a monster following you,” Tosh said, looking torn between confusion, concern, and, judging by the way her lips kept twitching, a curious desire to burst out laughing, although… Ianto suspected that last might have been less to do with his newly acquired shadow, and more because of the put-upon expression on his face.
Sighing, he closed his eyes, vainly hoping that by doing so he could open them again and find all this had been nothing more than a particularly weird dream, perhaps brought on by eating leftover pizza before bed. Unfortunately for him, the monster trailing hopefully behind him failed to vanish.
It wasn’t a particularly large monster, only eighteen inches in height at the most, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that could easily be overlooked or ignored. It was quite… fluffy, for a monster, a shaggy, roundish puffball in shades of brown and tan, with short legs somewhere under all the fur, the front pair of which doubled as hands. Two round, bright yellow eyes peered out through the fur above a small nose like a dog’s, and a mouth that resembled nothing on earth. It was wide, almost lipless, and equipped with a great many very sharp teeth, with a second set of teeth further in.
Ianto dredged up a resigned smile for his best friend. “Aren’t I lucky? Apparently, some alien races have a peculiar idea of what constitutes an appropriate thank you gift. I gave them directions, and they gave me a monster, which I would have gladly turned down, but under the circumstances, it didn’t seem wise to offend them. There were nine of them, and they were quite a bit taller than me. So, now I have my very own monster. I’m just not quite sure what to do with it now that I have it.”
“It’s quite… cute. You know, for a monster.”
“Have you seen the teeth?”
Tosh nodded slowly. “There are rather a lot.”
“I can only hope it’s been trained. And housebroken.”
“You’re going to keep it?”
Ianto raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I have a choice. I mean, it’s an alien, and it was a gift; I can hardly rehome it.”
“That’s true.” Tosh looked at the monster, squatting obediently beside Ianto’s left foot. It looked like it had no intention of moving until its new master did. “What are you going to call it?”
“Good question.” Ianto frowned at his monster, which stared up at him, unblinking. “Boris,” he decided, after careful consideration. He smiled. “Come along, Boris. Let’s go scare Owen.” At least that might prove entertaining.
The End
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Date: 2026-02-19 05:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2026-02-19 05:59 pm (UTC)