Title: A real gas
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,191 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 438 - Leak
Summary: Ianto runs into trouble trying to retrieve a live alien.


No one paid Ianto any attention as he wound the end of the plastic tape across the doors of the building, tying it off against a parking sign, effectively cordoning off the frontage of the small three storey office block. It was strange to take pride in such a task. It wasn’t as if he’d never done it before, but each time he did, it felt like it got that little bit easier. Funny how Welsh people never liked being told what to do or where to go, yet roll out a bit of tape and nobody gave you two thoughts. Rubbernecking just wasn’t what it used to be.

‘Murder or something, is it?’ someone asked as they strolled by, taking only a mild interest in the newly restricted space.

Ianto rolled up the loose end of the yellow and orange tape before pocketing it. ‘Nothing so sinister, I’m afraid,’ he replied, giving one of his well practised and reassuring smiles. ‘Just reports of a potential gas leak. We like to take precautions whilst we’re checking it out.’

The passerby scarcely slowed to listen to the response, confirming for Ianto that people didn’t care so much unless it was something sensational that might be worth filming on their phones on the off chance that someone from a news channel might pay them twenty quid for the footage. What a shame he couldn’t admit the truth. Actually, there’s an alien somewhere in the building that we’ve come to apprehend. Luckily the building is empty and advertised for lease or it might have eaten a dozen people before morning tea time. How about that for newsworthy?

He watched the pedestrian carry on and give the tape one final tug to make sure it was secure before pulling open the front doors and heading inside, locking them behind him as an added precaution. Okay, so maybe the alien wasn't a people eater, but if it felt threatened it could certainly still cause injury to anyone that got in its way. A Moogly was a large, long-haired dog type creature, about the size of a bull with a long floppy tail and ears that almost dragged along the ground. Mostly it was a stupid creature, easily distracted by food or toys. Ianto joked that dealing with a Moogly was mostly the same method he employed as dealing with Jack. Offer up something shiny and it was highly likely to forget all about attacking you or finishing overdue reports.

It was also why he had no qualms about heading out to deal with it on his own. Jack was already tied up at City Hall with a certainly tedious and unpleasant meeting with the mayor and a few of her local council sidekicks. Back at the hub, the others were busy with their own caseloads or research. Ianto’s schedule was the most flexible. After all, how urgent could unstacking the dishwasher and online ordering of food for the hub’s residents be? He’d already done all the reports and filings he absolutely had to, leaving his day free for the mundane day-to-day tasks that everyone else took for granted.

He took the lift to the top floor of the building. The plan was to conduct a top down search, hopefully flushing the Moogly out to the lower ground floor where it could be easily sedated and moved out the back doors and straight into the SUV for transport back to the hub. What he definitely didn't want was to have to shoot it using his micro dart gun and then somehow lug it all the way down. In one pocket he had a squeaking dog toy, and in the other, a snap lock bag full of doggy treats that could be used to lure it. Like coaxing ET with a packet of Skittles, he thought, drawing the analogy.

As soon as the lift doors opened, Ianto nearly gagged on the smell. Either the toilets had become backed up whilst no one had been using the building, or there was an alien nearby. ‘What on earth have they been feeding you?’ he muttered to himself, trying to breathe through his mouth to avoid the smell. Alien flatulence was one of the unspoken downsides of the job, and Mooglies were not known for holding it in, but this was next level stink.

He cast a slow look around the office building, still with its office cubicle partitions, chairs tucked under desks next to filing cabinets, but otherwise bereft of the typical detritus that gathered in places where humans spent the better part of their days.

He tugged the chew toy from his pocket and gave it an experimental squeeze, forcing an annoying squeak from it. ‘Here Moogly, Moogly, Moogly…’ he chanted, hoping the silly creature would simply come bounding towards him at the sound. He paused, listened and waited, but there was nothing. Sod.

He slowly wandered the office floor, just in case the creature had been hurt on its way through the rift and was huddling somewhere in silence, licking its wounds, checking under desks and in darkened storage rooms. Even in those enclosed spaces the smell was terrible. Definitely a plumbing issue, he decided, doing his utmost to avoid the loos except to take one quick, cursory glance through a partly opened door, holding his breath as he did so. No aliens in the gents, or the ladies. Just another bout of gagging as he inadvertently got a whiff of the smell again, covering his mouth with his hand to stop anything from coming out, before swallowing back the awful acidic bile. ‘Jesus,’ he groaned, pulling the door back tightly shut. Deciding that the level was clear, he took the stairs down to the second floor. Anything to get away from the smell.

There was little improvement down there either. If there were stink pipes up on the top of the building, then they were doing little to filter the smell out of the building's ventilation systems. If anything it felt like the vents were making things worse. Adding to the stench was the way breathing through his mouth was giving him a headache, having to constantly override his unconscious desire to breath normally through his nose.

He hadn’t been searching for long before he spotted the huge lump of brown fur huddled beside a clunky looking photocopier. ‘There you are,’ he said as he watched the slow rise and fall of its body as it was clearly asleep. Rather than get too close, for fear of waking it and startling it in a way that could land up with him getting hurt, he took a number of steps back, raised the chew toy in his fist and gave it a couple of hard squeezes. It was quite loud, startling even him a bit, yet it had no effect on waking up the Moogly.

‘Wakey, wakey!’ he yelled out to no effect before daring to approach a little closer. He rapped his knuckles against the photocopier bypass tray, then opened and closed it a few times, making a loud noise, but there was still no reaction. Could it be more than just asleep, he wondered. Maybe it was sick or suffering some internal injury that he couldn’t see.

‘Hello!’ he yelled, feeling the word pound loudly in his own head, the smell beginning to give him a serious headache now, risking going all the way up to the Moogly and gently prodding it with his hand. ‘C’mon,’ he pleaded. ‘Wake up you stupid thing so we can both get out of here.’ He didn't dare sedate it before he knew that sedation wouldn't make its situation worse, but neither could he stay here all day. He grabbed one large paw and attempted to move it but the Moogly was a dead weight. The sedative he had planned for it wasn’t to knock it out completely, just to make it more compliant. He could never hope to move all its weight on his own.

He paused to reconsider his options, one hand leaning heavily on the edge of the copier as his head spun for a second, probably from getting up too quickly from where he'd been down on his haunches a moment ago. His headache was getting worse from the awful smell. He should go out and get some fresh air and regroup, but he also knew that when he came back inside the smell would be twice as bad and that he was probably semi immune to the worst of it now. Going out and coming back would just make it worse.

He relinquished his grip on the copier and somewhat with jelly legs moved back and shoved the Moogly as hard as he could, confirming that moving it in its current state was useless. He lifted one long, floppy ear and squeezed the chew toy right in its ear canal and even that didn't wake it up, but the noise made Ianto's own head feel like it was about to split right in two like an overripe melon. He staggered back feeling dizzy and the toy dropped from his hand, emitting one last pathetic squeak as it hit the floor before a second thud followed it and Ianto joined it on the floor.



The next thing Ianto heard was a rumbling sound. Something underneath him was rattling and he got the feeling as if he was moving but without moving. It was a very strange feeling, coupled with something trying to suffocate him over his face. He struggled to get up and try to grab at the thing smothering him but his hands and arms were sluggish and wouldn’t cooperate properly. It didn’t help that he felt a heavy weighted pressure on his shoulder trying to keep him down until he heard the words “Easy, you're okay,” and Jack’s familiar accent.

He tried to open an eye and confirmed that it was indeed Jack's face hovering over him, along with Jack's hand on his shoulder, holding him down, but that even though Jack's face above him wasn’t moving, everything else still was. The thing on his face wasn’t trying to suffocate him but was rather some kind of breathing mask, and the movement he felt under him he finally recognised as the rattling wheels of a medical trolley, and the lights moving overhead as those of the corridor that led from the Millennium Centre car park into the bowels of the hub.

‘You're at the hub, Ianto,’ Jack said, answering the question Ianto had already answered for himself through blurred vision and a headache to surpass any he’d ever had. ‘You're going to be fine,’ he said, adding reassurance into the mix.

The rattling movement underneath him came to a halt as the gurney stopped inside an elevator and the face of their medic Jez also came into view in the crowded space. On a positive note, he didn’t look too concerned so that counted for something. Ianto reached for the mask again, just wanting to take it off long enough to speak, but Jack's hand was there to stop him once more.

‘There was a gas leak,’ Jack said , reading Ianto’s moving lips as he tried to ask for more information. ‘A team had been sent out to fix it but they saw that the place had already been taped off and assumed another team were already there sorting it out. The place was saturated in carbon monoxide from a broken heating unit but nobody noticed it until it started setting off alarms in the building next door. Your gas leak cover story worked a little too well. Didn’t help that the plumbing was backed up and people had been ignoring the smell for days when they opened their windows.’

‘How’d you…’ The words were muffled but the oxygen mask over his mouth.

‘You weren't answering your phone,’ Jack replied, ‘and you always answer your phone, even if you know I don't want anything. After Gwen confirmed you’d gone out to check things on your own, I headed straight down there. Found you and the Moogly both unconscious. It's going to be fine too,’ he added. ‘Its metabolism naturally slowed and was able to absorb far more of the gas without harm than the average human body, but with some oxygen therapy you’ll both make a full recovery.’ Jack stopped and stood up tall, stretching to the right, then the left. ‘As for me… have you put on weight? I think I put my back out carrying you down to the car. I thought the Moogly would be tough going but do you know how hard it is to get you into a fireman’s lift? One of both of us is going to have to start hitting the gym.’

Ianto let his head relax back onto the foam gurney, setting aside any worries about future exercise for another day. Next time he had to come up with a cover story, he decided that having a building full of candy floss would be a better option. Just in case it turned out to be true.