WIAD Week Seven, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Crack
WIAD Week Seven -- I am stressed out, I am exhausted, and I am worried. My last story didn't go over so well, and I didn't feel it met my standards. What fresh hell awaits me?

The prompt: Wasted.

Now, there's few prompts that lead to crack quite as well as having a character get completely and utterly trashed. And there is no Torchwood episode quite as cracky as "Something Borrowed." Alien pregnancy! Catfighting mothers! Rhys with a chainsaw! Ianto the Wedding Fairy! And then, of course, we finally get to meet the infamous Banana Boat, the best man who wound up in jail in Lanzarote and just barely got sprung in time for the wedding. My brain lit up. I spent my time wandering around, thinking up story ideas, and snickering to myself. It was fantastic.

Was it my best work ever? No, probably not. But it was a hell of a lot of fun to write, and I'm definitely going to expand a bit on the idea and see how much more I can do with it. I have a feeling there's loads.



Title: White Rabbit
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: for 2x08 and 2x09. Uses website content for 2x09.

It's not the first time he's found himself dazed and hungover in a jail cell. It's not even the first time he's done it somewhere they don't speak English, and had policemen pointing and jabbering at him while he tries to explain that he's Inglés, Inglaterra, no habla Español. So he's not worried, really.

One of the policemen speaks English well enough to explain why he's been arrested. They let him call the Embassy and Rhys, neither of whom are pleased to hear from him. Still, he's not worried. They'll sort things out

Two days in, a couple of men in military uniform come in to his cell, make pull his trousers and pants down and bend over. He's expecting the snap of a latex glove, but it never comes. They just stare at his arse, examining the skin as though he's got some sort of code tattooed there. Then one of them says something that sounds an awful lot like surgery. He starts to worry a bit at that.

Next morning, a couple of blokes come in wearing big white anti-radiation suits. Worry turns to all-out panic.

He used to watch anti-drug films and laugh his arse off. But what if they were right? Maybe he's still on the beach in Lanzarote, tripping out of his mind. Maybe he's gone round the twist and will end up leaping out a window under the delusion that he's an Olympic diver. Maybe Go Ask Alice was a true story after all.

A man in a three-piece suit meets them at the airport. He flashes a badge, says something in Spanish, and the blokes in the anti-radiation gear back off half a step. "I'm Ianto Jones," he adds, in a reassuringly familiar Welsh accent. "And you'd be... Banana Boat?"

Banana's so overwhelmed by relief that he hugs Ianto Jones, clinging to him like a lifeline, until the men in the radiation suits grab him, yelling in Spanish. Ianto Jones snaps back at them-- inofensivo, seguro, and they let go. A few more words and they're slinking away, obviously dismissed.

"Sorry about that," Ianto says. "Should never have told them you were radioactive." He pulls a pocket watch from his waistcoat, glancing at it. "Better hurry; we'll be late." He strides off down the concourse without waiting for a reply, and Banana can do nothing but scramble after him.

"Wait," he pants, trying to keep up. "I'm radioactive?"

Ianto flashes his badge at a gate attendant, and they're being hustled towards first class. Down the rabbit hole indeed. "Nothing to worry about," Ianto says, settling into his seat. "Care for a drink?"

*

Next morning, he wakes up in his own bed, with a hangover and no idea how he got back to Cardiff. But it's not the first time, so he's not worried.

He knew it'd sort itself out.