It's Never Getting Any Better Than This
A/N: Written with Cat and NCIS Obsessed after a delightful trip to the beach. This story is a sort if sequel (though mostly not) to our other story Thow Your Cameras in the Air (and Wave them Like You Just Don't Care), you'll only understand the connection if you've read it otherwise it won't matter.
;-;
Should also note that this story is set somewhere between Dead Man Walking and Exit Wounds so Owen is dead but still walking around
"I hate the beach," complained Owen as the team all got out of the SUV, "and why exactly do we need to wear these stupid outfits?" Owen tugged on his loose white shirt and "dog watcher" cap.
"Oh, it's not so bad!" laughed Tosh as she examined her own lifesaving getup.
"Speak for yourself," said Gwen as she nodded towards Ianto, still clad in his usual suit.
"Why are you wearing a suit?" asked Owen
"Someone neglected to mention that this mission would take place at the beach," said Ianto as he glared at Jack, who just wore a sheepish look, he was also wearing a lifesaving uniform.
"That's why you always need to pack an extra bikini, just in case," said Gwen with a wink.
"Exactly!" exclaimed Jack, "that's my motto. Anyway, we need to get serious here, there is alien seaweed terrorizing locals. You'll be able to find it quite easily, it has a distinctive scent but whatever you do, do not let it touch you! There are DNA altering particles within the seaweed that will turn you into a seaweed monster too!"
"Why do we even care?" asked Owen with disdain, "we're at a tiny beach in Wales, no one goes here because it's too cold"
"Actually, for some unknown reason, there has been an increase in the amount of swimmers at this particular beach," explained Tosh, "anyway, this mission seems relatively simple. We can get this done quickly and have a nice day as a team!" Tosh was ever the optimist.
"So what exactly does the seaweed smell like?" asked Ianto as he fiddled with his tie, "you said it was distinctive..?"
"Ah yes! Well we have heard some reports, not sure how trustworthy they are, but some people have reported smelling something similar to microwave popcorn at this beach," said Jack, as he too fiddled with Ianto's tie. Ianto swatted his hand away, Jack gave him a look akin to that of a kicked puppy until Ianto relented and allowed Jack to continue fiddling with his tie.
;-;
Later in the day, Owen was walking along the beach, pretending to look out for stray dogs whilst unsubtly sniffing at every clump of seaweed he found when suddenly a small girl appeared.
"What do you want?" he asked rudely, what an asshole.
"Excuse me sir! There is a vicious dog on the beach! You need to go shoo it away!"
Owen rolled his eyes and followed the girl with a sigh, the girl led him up to a particularly small looking Chihuahua on a deserted stretch of beach, the only person in site was Jack, who was giving mouth to mouth to a girl who had stubbed her toe.
Owen was approaching the dog carefully, remembering the little girl's words, when the dog sprung suddenly into action and attached itself to Owen's leg. The little girl screamed and ran away as Owen's leg detached from his body.
"Ah shit" exclaimed Owen, "Jack! I need some help here!"
Jack looked up from where a girl had returned to the water, pretending to drown again, and noticed Owen was missing a leg.
"Don't worry Owen! I'll be right there!" he shouted as he began a sexy slow motion run towards where Owen was lying in agony.
"Jack I'm gonna need you to run at a normal pace! This isn't Baywatch!" shouted Owen.
"But I gotta give them something!" Said Jack as he nodded towards his audience of beach goers, who had all previously been pretending to drown.
Owen groaned and lay unmoving on the sand for the entire twenty minutes it took for Jack to reach him; Jack took a drink from a bottle of water that had seemingly appeared from nowhere, he looked down at Owen's lifeless body.
"So," he said breathlessly, with a shake of his perfect hair, "What seems to be the problem here?"
"I'm missing my bloody leg!" Owen deadpanned.
"Hmm I think you're going to need some mouth to mouth," said Jack with a wink.
"Don't you bloody dare Harkness," Owen snarled.
"Alright, alright! No need to get snappy with me, I have just the solution!" Jack pulled an inflatable beach stick from somewhere unknown, "it's a floaty stick!"
Owen sighed but still helped Jack to attach the floaty stick to his leg, all the while wondering where exactly Jack had stowed this away, before deciding that he really did not want to know the history of his new appendage.
;-;
As this was happening, Ianto was walking along the beach trying to subtly sniff the seaweed when he heard a familiar yet unwelcome voice.
"Hey Eye-Candy," John Hart called from where he was floating in the ocean. John stood up and emerged from the beach and to Ianto's extreme displeasure was naked except for a well-placed floaty stick.
"Oh God, not you again." Ianto looked away and when John re-emerged in his line of sight, was wearing a towel that looked suspiciously like the one Owen had packed. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard there was a seawillnilliesweedpopcornious monster at this beach, they're quite a delicacy on Mars, I thought I'd make some cash" explained John.
"Huh?" remarked Ianto intelligibly with a blank stare, John sighed.
"Evil alien seaweed that smells like popcorn but tastes remarkably like chicken," said John.
"Oh," said Ianto as he attempted to make a mental note of the true name of their current enemy, "have fun!" he hurried off in such a manner that he forgot to smell the seaweed that was around him until he felt something touching his leg, he looked down and squealed in a totally manly way as he noticed that he had stepped in some of the seaweed. "Oh no, oh no" he muttered as the faint scent of popcorn reached his nostrils, "Nooo!" he exclaimed dramatically.
"Uh, are you okay sir?" Asked a small child sitting nearby, "would you like some popcorn?"
Ianto stared blankly at the kid for a moment before asking, "where did you get that popcorn?"
"From the stand over there," the kid pointed to a small but well established popcorn stall about three metres away.
"Who the hell serves popcorn on the beach?!" remarked Ianto angrily as he heard the dread filled sound of a camera snap and John's soft giggles behind him.
"Looks like that is just some regular sea weed Eye-Candy," commented John, who looked rather impressed with himself as he inspected the freshly printed polaroid in his hand, "this one's going in the scrapbook." Ianto tried to ignore John's comment, especially the thing about the scrap book, stupid John and his damn polaroid camera. Ianto shook the seaweed from his shoe, not quite daring to touch it, and continued on his mission.
;-;
"You don't even like cookies!" Tosh yelled in exasperation.
"It's just a thing that I do, you know, rooming with four boys in college, if you didn't eat quick you didn't eat at all, so, you know, I learnt to mark my territory."
"It's still disgusting!"
"How do you even know that I lick all the cookies in the hub? I thought only Jack knew…"
"Well, Ianto saw you on the CCTV and mentioned it over drinks the other night."
"You guys went out for drinks? Why wasn't I invited?"
"Well it's really just something that Ianto and I started doing a few years back, we meet up at the pub, play some pool and complain about the rest of you, we get along quite well," Gwen looked shocked at Tosh's comments but had little time to express her unhappiness as she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.
"Do you smell that?" She asked, wide eyed.
"What?" Asked Tosh, wrinkling her nose, "don't change the subject!"
"No, Tosh! Tosh!" Gwen called in a loud whisper, "do you smell popcorn?"
"If you shout-whisper, it defeats the whole purpose of whispering," she remarked in exactly the same voice, "but yes I do smell popcorn, and the nearest popcorn stand isn't for another 100 metres!"
Tosh turned to look in the direction Gwen was facing and noticed a slightly discoloured clump of seaweed. Both women approached the lump and sniffed it cautiously.
"That definitely smells like microwave popcorn," said Gwen as she tossed a seashell into the centre of the clump. Seconds later the shell had disappeared and in its place was more seaweed, the heavy scent of microwave popcorn once again filled the air.
Tosh immediately grabbed out her specially modified palm pilot and started scanning the seaweed.
"If I can get a proper reading on this I can calculate the exact formula needed to counteract the effects and find the location of the rest of the seaweed as well as the people it has taken. I can then give the readings of the people we find so Owen so he can help me find a cure to reverse the effects. Once the people are back to normal we can burn the rest of the seaweed," Tosh smiled proudly.
"But don't you need to know some of the specific characteristics of the people? What if some of them are allergic to the cure or something?" asked Gwen. Tosh pondered her statement before nodding.
"You go talk to some of the victims' families, they all live in this area so it shouldn't be too hard. I'll email you the details."
"Thanks Tosh!" Said Gwen as she pulled out her own palm pilot and walked back towards the SUV. Tosh looked down at her recordings and started to work on the formula. It wouldn't take her very long.
;-;
"Help! Help me!" Shouted Owen. He had been walking into the water, trying to get to a particularly strange coloured piece of seaweed when he had accidentally fallen down the drop off. He was two metres into the water and drowning , his right leg kept floating to the surface and he couldn't reach the bottom of the water.
"Stop messing around!" Shouted Jack from where he was giving mouth to mouth to a man with a particularly nasty looking blue bottle sting on his wrist.
"No Jack I'm seriously drowning! You need to help me!"
"Owen you are two metres out to sea, you cannot possibly be drowning. I will not risk this man's health for your foolish prank!"
Owen sighed and was for the first time grateful that he couldn't actually drown. He splashed around uselessly until some stray seaweed landed in his eye.
"Ahhh!" He shouted, "the seaweed! It's got me!" Jack's eyes shot up to where Owen was floating in the water and sighed.
"Owen, that piece of seaweed is grass green, I told you that the seaweed we are looking for is a deep shade of forest green. Stop overreacting." Even as he complained Jack sprung into action and pulled Owen out of the water.
"Wow that was deep! You might've actually been drowning!" Owen rolled his eyes at Jack's comments, "I'd better give you mouth to mouth!"
"Jack! For the second time today I do NOT want your mouth anywhere in the vicinity of my own!" shouted Owen.
"So just not near the mouth?" Jack asked with a smirk, when they heard the familiar click of a polaroid camera. They both spun around to see a smirking John Hart holding up his camera and eating popcorn.
"If he doesn't want it I'll take it," said John with a wink. Jack smirked before blowing his former partner a kiss which John happily caught.
"Is that my towel?" asked Owen, breaking the mood.
"Oh you can have it back if you want but fair warning I'm not wearing anything underneath," replied John as Owen sighed.
"You can keep it," he exhaled, just as a parrot decided to perch itself on his shoulder and start pecking at his hair.
"Uncommon to see those in this area," remarked Ianto, who had just appeared behind John, holding out a bag of popcorn for Jack.
;-;
After having spoken to all four of the victims' families, Gwen returned to the beach to see that the four guys had only just reached where Tosh was doing her calculations. For some unknown reason, Owen had a parrot sitting on his shoulder and was wearing Ianto's jacket.
"I fell in the water," he said in explanation to Gwen's suspicious glances.
"So why the floaty stick leg then?" Asked John conversationally.
"Why are you even here?" responded Owen angrily.
"Didn't you hear? This is the best popcorn in Wales, it won an award." Replied John as Ianto gave him a wary look as he remembered their earlier conversation.
"It is good," remarked Jack as he ate his own popcorn.
"Ah I found the solution!" exclaimed Tosh happily. She was about to explain her method as Owen's parrot suddenly attacked her hands, causing her to drop the palm pilot into the water, rendering it useless.
"Owen!" she shouted, "your stupid parrot just ruined our only chance to fix this!"
"What? Can't you just put it in a bag of rice or something?!" Owen snarked.
"Yes but that could take days, these people don't have that long! After 48 hours there is no way to even turn them back!" Tosh shot back.
"Uh guys..."
"Why didn't you mention this sooner?!" shouted Jack.
"Well maybe if you were actually here rather than giving mouth to mouth to everything that moves you would've known!"
"Hey that poodle could've drowned!"
"That poodle was attractive," remarked John with a nod.
"Guys, you need to look over there."
"You kissed a poodle?!" asked Ianto in horror, "brush your teeth before coming anywhere near me later."
"I saved it!" insisted Jack, "that should be worth something!"
"It's not." Flat lined Ianto.
"Guys we really don't need to be hearing this," sighed Owen.
"Speak for yourself, I want details," Said John, pulling out an even larger bag of popcorn as he dropped the other bag to the ground.
"You shouldn't litter at the beach, a dolphin could get trapped in that," Jack stated.
"What?" Questioned Ianto, bewildered.
"You need to look right now!" Gwen repeated as a loud gurgling sound was heard from the direction she was pointing. Everyone spun around to see that the seawillnilliesweedpopcornious had now devoured every single living thing on the beach (including Jack's poodle and John's popcorn wrapper) and was now roughly the size of a double story house.
"Oh bugger."
;-;
"A well-deserved meal after a job well done," said John as he happily tucked into his burger. They had stopped at McDonalds on the way home.
"We had to burn everything in sight, 23 people suffered from major burns, the foliage was destroyed and four popcorn stands were demolished," remarked Gwen hysterically.
"And that dolphin got stuck in John's popcorn wrapper." Added Ianto with a bewildered look towards Jack.
"A job well done." Repeated John as he stuck another picture into his scrapbook. The picture was of the team looking horrified in front of a burning mass of seaweed, whilst John pulled a peace sign and had a cheesy grin.
"There was popcorn everywhere," said Tosh, in a slightly unhinged voice.
"Why are we giving John a lift back anyway?" Gwen questioned.
"I just lost my keys."
"Oh God." Ianto muttered under his breath.
"And I promised I'd bring back my friend some fish from that beach before midnight, it's a real delicacy you know? Nothing else like it in the world. Why did you think I was there anyway?" Ianto just looked at him.
"What fish?" Asked Owen.
"Whoops," said John in a high pitched voice while placing some popcorn into his burger.
"On a different note, I got you a happy meal Owen, and it came with this!" said Jack happily as he held up a cardboard pirate hat, "Now you get to be the captain!"
"What?" asked Owen as Jack shoved the hat onto his head. Owen did in fact resemble a pirate; with his false leg, loose shirt, suit jacket, makeshift eye patch and the parrot who had refused to leave his shoulder. John had named it Ludwig.
"Oh you're so funny," complained Owen, "wait, if I'm captain does that mean I get to drive?"
"No because you're terrible at parrrralel parrrrking," said Gwen in a poor pirate voice.
"I am not!" said Owen defensively,
"Oh but you arrr," replied Tosh.
"Ugh we'll have to organize some shots for that thing," said Ianto.
Gwen eyed the parrot, "I'm sure he's fine."
"I wasn't talking about Ludwig."
"What's a horny pirate's worst nightmare?" Asked Jack as Owen put his foot down.
"No. I do NOT want to know what a horny pirate's worst nightmare is." Shouted Owen as he put his fingers over his ears, "There can't possibly be that many more pirate jokes anyway!"
Owen soon discovered that his assumption was wrong as he endured the four hour car ride home, though he couldn't quite decide if the worst part was the constant pirate jokes, John's incessant scrapbooking as he fiddled with all the polaroids he had taken or Ludwig pooing on his shoulder.
Twice. What an asshole.
;-;
A/N: Originally over 250 people and 4 dogs died but we thought that that might be a little too dark for this story (we like dogs)
Review to find out the punch line to Jack's impressive joke about horny pirates (yes this is a bribe).