Title: One hell of a yarn
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,256 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 425 - String
Summary: Jack's is going to have a real tale to tell after this one.



Jack ran because he didn't know what else to do. The monster had almost been on top of him before he'd even realised he was in danger. He needed to get out of the archives and back up to the main hub for reinforcements.

He was completely out of breath by the time he'd gone up the nine floors from the bottom of the hub to its
main area, taking the stairs two at a time and feeling a burn in his calves that was doing wonders to replace the pain in his heart. The pain that he'd lost his lover down there, consumed by the monster.

As he burst through the door he palmed the big red button for the alarm system, sending the hub into a circus of red flashing lights and wailing klaxons. His team reacted immediately to the noise.

‘Jack, what is it?’ Gwen said, already pulling her gun from her drawer and checking it was fully loaded.

‘Big… alien creature… in the archives,’ he forced out between ragged breaths.

‘How big?’

‘Twelve feet tall and as wide,’ he said. ‘Need you to get every weapon we have. It… It got…’ He couldn't even say the words.

‘Got what?’ Ianto asked, appearing from nowhere, sliding a magazine into a gun before sliding it into a shoulder holster.

Jack's jaw hit the ground. ‘You… It… I couldn't get you on your comms! I thought it had…’

‘I took my earpiece out as soon as I came back upstairs. Didn’t think I’d need it if we were all up here.’

Jack ignored the severity of the situation long enough to pull Ianto into the tightest hug he could. Thank the gods Ianto was okay!

Ianto pulled back as the other gathered around. ‘What are we dealing with? There was nothing down there before, I swear.’

‘It's…’ It felt stupid to describe it as a gigantic sentient ball of string, but that was exactly what it looked like, so that's what he said. ‘It just about rolled over the top of me coming around the corner of one of the aisles and after that it was hell bent on chasing me down. I only just got out of there alive.’

‘I've always hated the archives,’ Owen said. ‘You never know what's down there.’

‘The only thing stopping it from going anywhere else right now is its size,’ Jack said, unsure if that were true, but it had given up its chase once he reached the corridors leading to the stairs. Unlike the archives, it simply wasn't any wider than three people abreast could comfortably walk along, and this thing was way bigger than that.

‘Do you really think guns will stop it?’ Tosh asked, looking sceptical.

‘I have no idea. I don't know what it is, how it got there, or what it's going to take to stop it. We take the plasma cannon, flame throwers, grenades… Anything we can try.’

‘Preferably not grenades and flamethrowers,’ Ianto said, frowning. ‘We could end up destroying more of the archives than we save. Or burning alive along with it.’

‘Right now our priority is the alien. Capture is not an option. This thing wants to kill. We'll split into two teams. Gwen, you take Owen and Tosh. Ianto,’ Jack said, hefting the huge plasma cannon into his arms, ‘you're with me.’



As soon as they were at the entrance to the archives, Jack made them wait and listened for the sound of anything moving down there. All was eerily silent. ‘We'll go right, you take the left. Stay together and stay safe.’ And with that, Gwen, Owen and Tosh disappeared silently between the enormous rows of shelving.

‘I’m telling you that there was nothing down here before,’ Ianto whispered as he followed silently at Jack's side, his shoes not making even the slightest sound compared to Jack's heavy boots.

‘I didn't make it up,’ Jack replied.

‘I never said you did. Just… Well, where did it suddenly come from? I think I'd have noticed it by now.’

‘I don't know. But it's bad news and we have to eliminate it. If it were to somehow get out of the hub. And who knows, maybe it can. Maybe it can unspool itself and escape through the pipes, or even the smallest crawlspace it could find.’

‘Like a massive tapeworm.’

Jack shuddered at the thought.

‘And it's made of string?’

‘Or something,’ Jack hissed, getting annoyed at Ianto's questions.

‘Could've been some technology that mutated a common ball of twine, I suppose,’ he said, carefully bringing his torchlight around the next corner before nodding that they were clear. ‘I do keep string down here. Not the sentient, murdering kind, but…’

Jack silenced him with a raised fist. He could hear something. A shuffling sound and then it was gone just as soon as it had begun. Jack jogged down the row of shelves and peered around the end into the empty darkness ahead, straining his eyes to see anything in the muted light. It was kept purposely dark down here to preserve things, but it was now doubling as an excellent lair for a monster to roam.

The silence was disrupted by shouts and the sound of gunfire. Gwen's team had found it and engaged, or had been forced to.

The pair of them ran towards the noise, preparing to enter the fray and maybe come at the thing from behind, flanking it on all sides. The gunfire and the shouting collapsed into more silence and Jack's boots slid around the corner, expecting to come face to face once more with the string creature but it was gone and his team worryingly nowhere to be seen.

Something ahead of them rattled and Jack threw out an arm to stop Ianto beside him. Something large was moving nearby, sending a shower of dust down from the highest shelves as it tried to squeeze between them. Then, just as before, the creature emerged, looming large.

‘I thought you said it was a giant ball of string,’ Ianto said. ‘It looks more like a big ball of dirty red wool.’

Jack grimaced and swallowed down the lump in the back of his throat. ‘It wasn't red before.’

Ianto took Jack's meaning with a silent beat. ‘Oh, God. Tell me that isn't…’

Blood? Jack tapped his earpiece and got nothing in response to his calls to the others. He felt sick thinking about it. His team. Why had he ever suggested they split up? ‘Ianto, get yourself out of here,’ came Jack's order.

‘No way. I'm not leaving you down here to face this thing on your own.’

‘It took out three trained agents with barely a fight. What chance do you think we stand without a better plan?’

Ianto gripped his gun tighter. ‘Oh yes, because we've got loads of those filed away upstairs! You've got the plasma cannon. You took out half the council offices with it last month. If that doesn't blow it to tiny bits then we can reconsider plan B.’

Jack hefted the cannon onto his shoulder. This one was to avenge the friends he’d lost, trying not to let the tears in his eyes blur his vision as he aimed the thing.

Jack's shot with the plasma cannon went slightly wide, catching only the outer edge of the string monster, winging it and turning its rage on them. Gone was the element of surprise now.

‘Go!’ Jack said, shoving Ianto ahead of him, breaking into a run.

The monster barrelled down the aisle behind them, forcing the shelves on either side to sway, knocking things from them, large boxes and wooden crates tumbling ahead and behind them, forcing them to dodge and duck the added peril.

The more they ducked and weaved, the more the creature forced its way after them, pushing its way through where it scarcely fit. It forced the shelves on their left to buck and away too far this time, swinging back and tipping forward, collapsing down on their heads. Or it might have, had the shelves on the other side not stopped its fall. It didn't however stop the contents from spilling off the wooden shelves, crashing down on top of them.

Jack felt something clip the back of his head, knicking deeply into the skin and making him see stars for a moment. He might have remained in that dazed confusion except for hearing Ianto yell out. He was several yards behind Jack, on the ground, his leg caught under a heavy crate. He was trying to prise it free, but the crate was clearly too heavy. There was a panicked look exchanged between them as they both saw the string creature coming up from behind. In a heartbeat and with only a single scream, Jack watched it roll over the top of Ianto, and a splatter of blood was all that indicated his lover was gone for real this time.

Jack let out a sob and scarcely moved an inch even as the monster continued rumbling towards him, ready to ensnare its last victim. Jack could tell if he'd tried to run or simply stood there like a deer in the headlights as the tangle of strings rolled over the top of him as well, wrapping him up within its body. He felt its stings twisting tightly around his arms and his leg, binding his torso and strangling him around his neck until there wasn't an inch of his body he could move no matter how hard he tried. Then the cords tightened even more, preparing to cut him into a hundred pieces with its razor sharp strings, just like all the others.



‘Jack! Jack!’ A voice was calling out to him and Jack knew he could hear Ianto, still screaming for him as the string creature devoured them. Jack struggled as hard as he could and then there was an "Ow!" and a hard smack to his own face that made his eyes fly wide open in pain rather than squint.

The vista of endless ropes was replaced by something much darker and he blinked a few times until his bunker came into focus, and Ianto, gorgeous Ianto, was standing there over him.

‘Jack!’ The word was slightly muffled and Ianto had one hand culled over his nose, which was what was giving those usually musical Welsh vowels their slightly nasally undertones.

‘You slapped me!’ Jack said, realising now that the pain he'd felt was real.

‘You hit me in the face!’ he countered, pulling his hand away and looking relieved to see that it wasn't clarted in blood. ‘And it was the only way to wake you. I tried everything else first, honestly I did, but you were so wrapped up in your nightmare and the sheets it's a wonder you could get an arm free to hit anyone!’ He was still trying to disentangle Jack even now, and Jack looked down to see the sheets twisted tightly around him, replicating the sensation of being swallowed up by the string monster. ‘How you ever managed to get yourself so tangled up in everything I'll never know,’ Ianto said, fussing as he tried to unknot Jack from his prison. ‘Did Owen give you sleeping tablets again?’

Jack had to think about the question for a moment, before pushing aside the nightmare and thinking back to his last real memory. ‘They were only supposed to be an antihistamine,’ he said. His allergies had been driving him crazy and somewhere lurking in the hub was a cat, he was sure. Cats always wreaked havoc with his allergies more than anything else. He'd only gone to have a brief nap after a sleepless night of runny nose and itchy, watery eyes.

‘I've told him not to give you anything with sedatives in it,’ Ianto chastised. ‘I know it gives you terrible nightmares when you're that deeply asleep. What was it that had you thrashing for dear life? Spiders? Daleks? Cybermen?’ He paused and gave a worried look. ‘It wasn't The Master, was it?’ They both knew the kinds of night terrors memories of that year that had never been could bring about.

‘None of the above,’ Jack replied, feeling a little out of sorts and slightly embarrassed. ‘Just a monster in the archives that was killing everyone. I tried to stop it but…’

‘Shhh…’ Ianto was sitting on the edge of Jack's cot, stroking his face as he was now fully untied from his bedsheets. ‘There's no monsters here. Or in the archives. I checked this morning. Just us. We're all safe.’

Of course they were, Jack assured himself. A giant ball of string becoming a flesh eating, rampaging monster was just silly.

‘I thought I might go and tie up a few loose ends down there if you're done with trying to fight your way out of bed. I only came down here to make sure you were keeping your promise to get a few hours rest. Didn’t think I’d have to rouse you from the one thing you actually needed.’

Jack grabbed for Ianto's wrist. ‘No!’ He coughed and cleared his throat, embarrassed at how panicked he’d sounded. ‘I mean, how about we wait until tomorrow to do that? Together,’ he added.

Ianto gave him a strange look but didn't argue. ‘Okay then. Tomorrow. We can even take our guns if it would make you feel better.’

‘And big, sharp scissors,’ Jack replied. It never hurt to be too careful.