A/N: Excuse the ptero-ble pun. The first draft, and the title, were written between 2am and 3am. It's undergone edits since but the vast majority remains the same so enjoy whatever this is that my sleep deprived brain thought up.
For the prompts 'pets' and 'surprise' for Torchwood Bingo Fest 2022
"Morning all!" Owen called out cheerfully as he strolled into the hub.
His cheerful mood disintegrated immediately as he was met by the strong, foul stench of fish. It was so bad that he was unfortunate enough to inhale the smell which proceeded to get stuck in the back of his throat, making him gag. His hand instinctively covered his nose.
"What the hell is that smell?" he demanded answers.
"Oh, hi Owen!" Tosh greeted.
She was sat in her chair at her workstation, completely unbothered by the disgusting odour, and even went so far as to smile across to him as if he hadn't just almost choked on a smell.
"It's fish," she proceeded to answer his question.
Yeah, no fucking shit Sherlock!
"Cheers Tosh, that's information," Owen's sarcastic response was a little more appropriate than what first came to mind. "Care to expand upon that at all? Like why the entire place stinks of fucking fish? Don't tell me the rift's turned to chucking out fish aliens at us now. I know I complain about the Weevils but I'd take them over this any day of the week."
"Fish aliens?" Tosh repeated with a small chuckle.
Right, because that's completely impossible.
"Hey, it's Torchwood. You never know with Torchwood," he pointed out to her as he took the couple of steps up to the raised platform. "I mean you did have that encounter with a space pig. I don't space fish are much of a stretch from there."
"You mean the space pig that turned out to be a hoax?" Tosh reminded him without even looking away from her computer screen. "Which you'd know if you'd been there like you were supposed to."
"Oh whatever!" Owen waved her off as he dropped into his chair. "There's an entire universe out there! I'm sure that in one tiny corner of it there are fish aliens and space pigs. So, if the retched smell isn't aliens, what's causing it?"
"Well-"
A loud screech rang out around the hub, cutting Tosh off before he could get his answers. Owen leapt into action immediately, jumping to his feet and grabbing his gun. His finger hovered over the trigger as his alert brown eyes darted around the hub to locate the source of the noise.
Owen's heart leapt into his throat when a fucking pterodactyl erupted from the lower levels, soaring into the hub with another deafening screech. The gust of wind generated from the creature's huge wingspan took Owen by surprise as it hit him square in the chest and he stumbled back a few steps before managing to steady himself.
A montage of characters in movies getting ripped to shreds by dinosaurs flashed through his mind, prompting Owen to tighten his grip on his gun. His job entailed him going toe-to-toe with aliens on a weekly basis, there was no way in hell he was about to become dinosaur food without a fight. He aimed his gun at the creature which had taken to circling the hub above their heads.
"Owen!" Jack's shout alerted Owen to the Captain's presence in the hub.
Owen momentarily took his eyes off the flying reptilian to locate Jack's position. He, too, had not long emerged from the lower levels, standing at the top of the stairs, holding a dead fish in his hand.
"What are you doing? Don't shoot it!" Jack exclaimed.
"Don't shoot?" Owen repeated in disbelief.
Is he having a bloody laugh?
He waved his gun in the general direction of the circling creature.
"There's a bloody dinosaur loose in the hub!" Owen pointed out.
"Not a dinosaur," Suzie nonchalantly piped up from her own desk and, until that point, Owen hadn't even realised she was there.
She wasn't at all concerned by the presence of their latest visitor, going about her work with the glove as if it were just an average Torchwood morning. Not that Torchwood had average mornings.
"Look at it! It's a huge, flying dinosaur!" Owen responded.
"It's a pterosaur," Suzie replied matter-of-factly, managing to sound bored.
What the hell is she on?
Owen stared at her, "Same thing!"
"Not at all the same thing!" Suzie protested.
"It's a pterodactyl. A pterodactyl is a dinosaur!" Owen argued.
"There's so much wrong with everything you just said," Suzie grumbled with a sigh. "First things first, dinosaurs couldn't fly. Pre-historic flying reptiles are called pterosaurs. And clearly, it's not even a pterodactyl, it's-"
"Whatever the hell it is, it's loose in the bloody hub!" Owen exclaimed, beginning to feel like he was repeating himself.
Am I speaking bloody Welsh?
Suzie gave a small shake of her head before returning her full attention to her precious glove. Owen glanced around to find Tosh had barely even looked away from her workstation and Jack was watching the flying not-dinosaur with a huge grin plastered across his face whilst waving his stupid fish in a big to get its attention.
Owen felt utterly lost.
"Why am I the only one concerned about our uninvited guest?" Owen demanded answers whilst struggling to remain patient. "Has no one else here seen the Jurassic Park movies?"
"Relax Owen. It's a Pteranodon. It's got no teeth so it's not going to be able to eat you now, is it?" Suzie informed him. "So for God's sake, put the gun away, you look ridiculous."
"I'm the ridiculous one?" Owen repeated as he slowly lowered his gun. "That's a perfectly normal reaction to seeing a bloody dinosaur, thank you very much!"
"Also, less of the uninvited please, Owen," Jack spoke up before Suzie had a chance to reprimand him for referring to it as a dinosaur, "I invited her in."
"You what?" Owen marvelled.
That's it. Jack's lost it.
Owen could scarcely believe how his morning was going which was quite something in itself. Upon taking the job at Torchwood, he had very quickly learned to expect the unexpected. The event unfolding before him that morning, however, were well and truly taking the biscuit.
"It was either that or leaving her to terrorise Cardiff," Jack pointed out. "Apparently, movies and television have given her a bad reputation. Imagine the mass panic amongst the public if they saw her flying around the city."
"Well, if it really doesn't eat people, that would have been amusing to sit back and watch," Owen remarked.
"Owen!" Tosh instantly spoke up.
"Obviously, that was a joke," Owen insisted. "Although, that is exactly what the three of you have just done to me so don't be acting all high and mighty about it!"
Hypocrites!
Owen collapsed back down into his chair whilst maintaining a close eye on the flying creature. It was still circling but had dropped lower than it had previously been. Presumably, it was eyeing up the fish Jack continued to wave about. Either that, or everyone was wrong about its docile nature, and it was planning its attack.
Would it be wrong to say 'I told you so' if Jack got mauled?
"Isn't she wonderful?" Jack uttered, grinning from ear to ear as he stared at it in complete and utter awe, his blue eyes tracking its every move. "These creatures lived millions and millions of years ago. Palaeontologists can only imagine what they looked like. And there she is, flying before our very eyes in all her beauty."
"Yeah, wonderful," Owen muttered to himself sarcastically, complete with a roll of his eyes.
The sooner it was back to where it came from, the happier he would be. What could possibly go wrong with a flying dinosaur roaming the secret underground base of an alien hunting organisation?
"Myfanwy! Myfanwy!" Jack coaxed, persisting with waving hi fish about. "Come and get the nice fish."
For fuck's sake.
"You're joking," Owen gaped. "Jack, you've actually gone and given it a name?"
"I didn't name- wait, you've got a problem with naming her now?" Jack asked, giving him a look like he was the one out of his mind.
"People name dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils – you know, pets!" Owen responded.
"Well, we can't exactly send her back through the rift to where she came from. You know it doesn't work like that," Jack pointed out, "so, is it too much to ask for a more welcoming attitude towards Torchwood's first ever pet?"
Is it too much to ask for some rationality around here?
"You're having me on!" Owen replied with a shake of his head. "Come on, dinosaurs aren't pets!"
"Good thing she's a pterosaur then," Suzie piped up to correct him once more.
"Oh Suzie, give it a rest, would ya?" Owen groaned. "It's getting boring now."
"Get it right then," Suzie shrugged. "It's not hard. Three syllables. Just the same as dinosaur."
"Fine! Pterosaur," Owen corrected. "The point remains, you don't get people walking around going 'This is my pet pterosaur. Go ahead and pet it, it won't bite.'"
"Owen's right," Tosh spoke up conversationally, "people don't do that-"
Thank you, Tosh! Can always rely on you to see sense.
"-because they were extinct-"
Fuck.
Oh well, makes a change to be the only logical one in this place.
"No one's ever had the chance to keep one as a pet. This is the first known pterosaur to exist alongside humanity," Tosh continued.
"Oh, bring back the aliens already!" Owen muttered to himself, more than ready to get back to their absurd day job.
Aliens, he knew. He could handle aliens. He was paid to deal with aliens. Dinosaurs or pterosaurs or whatever were not in the job description.
"Yeah, she's definitely not having the fish," Jack stated as he finally gave up with the fish.
About time too.
Jack chucked the fish into a bucket positioned at the foot of the water tower which was filled with a load of others of its kind. It was an action which answered Owen's long forgotten question regarding the stench which filled the hub. Jack strolled across the remainder of the hub and stopped beside Tosh. He stuck his hands in his pockets and look up at Myfanwy – a stupid name for a dinosaur or whatever, as far as Owen was concerned.
"I think she preferred the chocolate," Jack contemplated.
Yep. Sure. The dinosaur's eaten chocolate now.
"Mhmm, of course you've given her chocolate," Owen just nodded. He'd given up being surprised by the things that came out about the whatever, it was too exhausting. "You know dogs are allergic to chocolate, right? How do you know she isn't."
"We don't," Jack admitted with a grin. "Let's just hope for the best."
"Jack," Owen sighed as he tiredly rubbed his temple. "Serious question now. We're barely keeping on top of everything as it is. There's coffee cups and pizza boxes everywhere. How do you expect us to look after a pet dino- pterosaur?"
"Don't worry. I'll be taking care of that," a Welsh voice piped up.
"Jesus!" Owen exclaimed, jumping out of his skin at the sudden unfamiliar voice.
Despite being based in the capital of Wales, the Welsh accent was not supposed to be heard within the hub, given it was a top secret underground base of a team in which none of the members were actually Welsh.
Owen's head jerked around the hub as he frantically searched for the source of the voice. His eyes fell on a young man, dressed in a smart black suit and walking across the hub towards them from the stairs which led to the lower levels.
Owen recognised the man immediately. Ianto Jones. Jack had got them all looking into him less than a week ago and, in the days that had passed since, Ianto had been following Jack everywhere in an action Owen could only describe as being like a lost puppy.
"Since when were we letting the stalker into the hub?" Owen questioned, baffled.
"Owen!" Tosh chastised again.
"What? What happened to severing all ties with Torchwood London?" Owen used Jack's own words to defend himself.
"Torchwood London is gone. It's not coming back. I think you can consider that ties severed," Jack pointed out. "You said it yourself, Owen, we need some extra help around here. Ianto has Torchwood experience, he said my life the other night, and he was the one who alerted me to Myfanwy's arrival through the rift."
"Oh, so that," Owen turned to Ianto as he waved a dismissive hand towards Myfanwy, "is your fault?"
Bad first impression, matey.
Ianto simply looked at a lost as to how to respond.
"Owen, play nice," Jack told him.
"Ignore him Ianto, Owen can be a grumpy sod!" Suzie called over. "Especially in the mornings!"
"Exactly! I'm not a morning person," Owen said. "And what have I walking into this morning? A new guy and a dinosaur-"
"Pterosaur!"
Fuck off, Suzie.
"-roaming the hub without so much as a heads up!"
"It's the twenty-first century, Owen. Everything's changing. You need to keep up," Jack shot at him teasingly.
"Just to make sure I'm getting this right, keeping up means learning to work alongside a dinosaur, right?" Owen checked.
"That's the spirit!" Jack confirmed, giving him a pat on the back as he strolled past him. "And talking of work, since it's quiet on the rift-front for now, I do need the autopsy report on that Hoix."
"Yeah, yeah, it's all but done," Owen replied with a nod. "Give me an hour, tops."
Seemingly satisfied, Jack responded with a short nod then ventured off into his office.
"Listen mate," Owen turned back to Ianto with a more friendly approach the second time, "word of advice, whatever you think you know about Torchwood, forget it. This place is nothing like Torchwood London."
"Yes," Ianto agreed with a nod. "I gathered that much from Myfanwy. Torchwood London would have locked her up right away, probably even be carrying out tests and experiments on her by now."
Owen considered his words for a moment, "Sounds like Torchwood London had the right idea."
Ianto looked horrified, "That's a living animal. It doesn't deserve that."
Give me strength.
"Relax mate. That was a joke," Owen spelled it out for him. "Look, I'm not a pet person so just keep it out of my way, and all will be good."
"Consider it done," Ianto nodded then swiftly moved on. "Anyone for coffee?"
"Cheers mate," Owen agreed in amongst the chorus of agreements from the rest of the team.
As Ianto set off to start on the coffees, Jack's head buried into his own paperwork, Tosh continued typing away at her computer, Suzie continued working on the glove and Myfanwy appeared content circling the upper levels, Owen took the few steps leading down into the medical bay.
There, on his autopsy table, Owen found Myfanwy had left him a greeting present.
"Arrggh!" Owen finally snapped, his patience lost and frustrations bubbling over. "That damn pterodactyl-"
"Pteranodon!"
"Whatever it bloody is has shit all over the fucking place!"
Suffice to say, Owen was confident that they could all agree, from the sight before him, that chocolate and Pteranodons did not mix.