Title: The Aliens Are Always To Blame
Rating: PG
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Tosh/Owen
Word Count: 872
A/N: Much love to jadesfire2808 for betaing.
Summary: Owen opens a bottle that should've stayed closed, and the Hub pays the price.

"So, let's make sure I understand this," Jack said, as he stood with his hands on his hips. Before him, a tangled mass of furniture, fabric and flushed faces covered the Hub's floor. Ianto stood beside him, while Gwen, Owen and Tosh scrambled around to attempt to relocate their clothes.

"Owen opened the alien bottle that I made perfectly clear that he wasn't to open?"

"Yes, sir," Ianto confirmed from behind him. The smirk on his face carried through his voice, earning him a harsh scowl from Owen. He didn't appear to care.

"And he then dropped half the contents on himself?"

"On his trousers, actually."

"Sounds like we're gonna have a long story to tell the dry-cleaners," Jack said with a grin. Before them, Gwen hastily pulled on her knickers and jeans, using one arm to cover the pale skin of her breasts. "And then Tosh came in?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the alien serum started to affect her." At those words from Jack, Tosh's cheeks flamed further; seeing as, so far, she'd only managed to relocate her shirt, Ianto could see that the blush crept all over her body. He hastily removed his gaze and stared at his feet instead. "And she started to sniff Owen's crotch. Not a nice image."

"Oi!"

"Shut it, Owen. Just be glad I'm not yelling. Yet." Jack paused and shifted his hands from his hips, to cross them over his chest instead. Tosh smiled thankfully when Gwen passed her the pants she'd discovered on the floor. "And at some point between that and Gwen entering, Owen somehow thought he ought to pour the rest of it over Tosh's back."

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Owen mumbled as an excuse. Tosh glared at him, doing up the buttons on her shirt at break-neck speed.

"'course it did," Jack agreed. "Probably seemed even better once it made Gwen real eager to-"

"Right," Gwen said, straightening up. At some point during Jack's talking, she seemed to have discovered all of her clothes and was now fully dressed. "I think that's enough, Jack – we all know what happened, we don't need you to give us a recap."

Jack smirked, his expression now matching Ianto's. "I know – it's just fun."

"For you, maybe," Tosh said as she finished getting dressed and stood up beside Gwen. "For the three of us it's just embarrassing."

"Maybe you'll remember not to play with the merchandise in future," Ianto suggested with a smile, ignoring the way Owen's eyes rolled at 'merchandise' – as if they'd sell this kind of thing. The chaos in the streets would be impossible to explain away. "Just be glad it wore off before Jack and I arrived."

"Torchwood orgy?" Tosh said, and she sounded almost intrigued rather than repulsed.

Ianto's eyebrows rose, and he glanced to the empty bottle: none of the liquid remained, which meant that Tosh wouldn't be able to conduct any experiments with it. He was fairly sure that he ought to be relieved about that.

Jack was still smiling, though. "Exactly, Tosh. Sadly, we came just too late. We'll try to be more punctual next time."

"Next time?" Owen muttered under his breath as he shrugged his jacket on and began to walk to the lift. "Bloody next time?" Hurriedly, Gwen walked after him, and with a shrug Tosh went to join them too.

Jack waited until the three of them had disappeared before he laughed under his breath and moved forwards to start rearranging the furniture; one of the desks had been over-turned, the computer smashed in the process, and Ianto had to wonder just how all of this had managed to happen.

"Jack?" he asked as they started to sift through the debris. "What exactly was it that they used?"

Jack glanced up at him as he hefted the desk back up, gritting his teeth. Once it landed back with a heavy crash, he leaned against it and smiled. "Now that would be telling."

"That's sort of the point of asking."

"And that was sort of my way of saying 'I don't know'."

"Oh." Ianto nodded, unaccustomed to that. He'd thought that he would eventually get used to Jack's unapologetic bluntness, but so far, that seemed not to be the case. Give him some more time, he reasoned. Another few years and he maybe wouldn't even blink when Jack blurted out something unexpected. "There's no more in the archive."

Jack murmured in agreement and knelt down to start to deal with the tangle of wires and fallen pencils that had been abandoned there.

When he dropped down to join Jack, Ianto smirked again. "Shame, really," he stated, as he looked up from below his lashes. "It would've been quite interesting to experiment with its effects."

Jack's hands stilled where he was gathering a bunch of pencils, and he swallowed hard before a flirty grin appeared. "I'm sure we could experiment without the serum…" he suggested, thumb rubbing over the sides of the pencils in his hands.

Ianto nodded gravely. "That would be the responsible thing to do," he agreed, as they rushed to finish tidying up the Hub.

He didn't think he'd ever managed it in such record time.