Title: Mean streak
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,200 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 445 - Streak
Summary: Jack and Ianto’s night is interrupted by a weevil that hasn’t been seen in years, with a mean streak to match.


Two minutes from escaping out the door. Two minutes. Two minutes before an alarm started beeping that promised to ruin the evening. Life feels decidedly unfair of late.

‘What is it this time?’ Ianto asks, not even sounding disappointed. He should be, though with Ianto it's often hard to tell. He’s got a knack for concealing how he feels and a poke face to match. One of these days I'm gonna take him out to the Vegas Galaxy with a stacked deck and see if we can’t win ourselves a small fortune. Of course, the way things are going, we can’t even leave the hub for an hour to stuff our faces with steamed pork buns let alone anything that might be classed as a vacation or a sabbatical. Tonight is just another reminder that the job always – always – comes first.

I check the alert on my vortex manipulator, too lazy to go to a computer terminal for a more detailed analysis until I've got the headlines. ‘Weevil.’

‘Well, tonight is already looking up then,’ Ianto replied, still full of that youthful optimism, or perhaps just an excess of dry sarcasm. Because nothing says romantic date night like chasing down alien monsters hell bent on ripping your throat out.

I take a further look into the readings. If the weevil isn’t a new arrival, chances are it’s been collared by us before, and if so, it’s got a tag identifying which one it is. When the identification tag comes up I can't help but groan loudly. Tonight just keeps getting better.

‘Serial offender?’ Ianto asks.

‘Yup.’ Weevils are like kids stuck in the world's roughest orphanage. You eventually get to know them all, but some are inherently worse than others. You know that kid that likes to rip the legs off insects and see how long they can survive being burned alive under a magnifying glass? Well, this weevil is the equivalent of the kid who prefers to steal knives from the kitchen and experiment to see how long it takes to cut another kid’s fingers off and how much blood there'll be. ‘This one has a mean streak a mile long and two miles wide. Let me handle this.’

‘I’m coming with you.’ Statement, not a question. Surprise, surprise.

I shake my head. ‘You don’t know this one. There are some seriously bad weevils out there but this one is the worst I've ever had the pleasure of confronting.’ Killed me twice last time we did this dance; once when it took out most of my throat all the way to the spinal cord, and the second time as it was feasting on my small intestine. Trust me, that is not how you want to revive from death.

‘All weevils are bad.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ Weevils were just creatures that didn’t belong on a planet like this one. There was enough research to confirm that they preferred living in communal groups and that they were highly defensive around their young, whilst also being empathetically linked on a physical level that we simply couldn’t comprehend. They deserved the same level of protection as every other citizen in the city. More than once we’ve had to patch up weevils that found themselves on the receiving end of some less than desirable humans. Sometimes I think it’s the humans we should lock up.

‘This one is dangerous,’ I emphasise. ‘Haven’t seen it around here for years. Figured maybe it was dead, but obviously not. You stay here and I’ll deal with it.’

There’s a predictable roll of the eyes. ‘Oh yes, because letting you go out there on your own to handle a deadly alien creature is infinitely the best course of action.’

‘I’m serious, Ianto. You could get hurt out there.’

‘I can get hurt any day of the week. And often do,’ he reminds me. ‘I really don't think now is the time to start splitting hairs over it. You need me.’

I can feel my fists balling up. Of course I need him, even if it's not the way he thinks. We’re just two stubborn individuals who like getting our own way. It’s kinda hot, but not the time for it. ‘Fine.’ The word escapes me between clenched jaws. ‘But you do what I tell you. ‘

‘Don’t I always, sir?’

Would that he did.



The trip out to Cathays doesn’t take long. Of course, when you skip all the red lights, nothing ever takes very long. The tracker at least allows us to get within fifty yards of the weevil’s location. No traipsing around in the dark waiting for it to find us. I shoot a glare in Ianto’s direction. ‘Remember what I said. No heroics.’

‘I’ll do my best to contain myself.’ More of that dry humour.

Just before we pull over by the side of the park, I catch a glimpse of the weevil before it ducks between two trees and temporarily disappears from sight. It’s even bigger and nastier than before. ‘Okay, I'm going to get the stun weapons from the boot. You check the glovebox and see if we have any extra canisters of weevil spray. Something tells me we’re going to need it.’ Ianto nods in agreement and reaches forward to inspect the glove compartment as I get out of the car. Just enough to distract him as I slam the door shut and hit the locks, hearing them all loudly click in unison, sealing the SUV from the inside and the outside.

Nice thing about being the Captain is that I have a manual override for just about everything, no matter how many keycodes and passwords the average field agent has at their disposal. A vortex manipulator might not be able to travel through space and time anymore, but it can still do some pretty cool stuff.

Ianto, realising what I’ve done, rams a fist at the window even though it’s bulletproof glass. His expression is murderous. The words “you sodding bastard!” are clear enough for even the most amateur lip reader. ‘You'll thank me later.’ That or put me on that god awful decaf coffee for a week. Either way, it’ll be worth it. Now that I've seen our old weevil friend there’s no way I’m putting Ianto anywhere near it.

I trek off in the direction I saw the weevil headed, trying not to feel guilty about locking Ianto in the car like a toddler. Perhaps that heavy weight is just the extra equipment in my pockets but I doubt it. It doesn't take long before the heavy breaths of the weevil can be heard just up ahead. Darth Vader, eat your heart out.

I stay back from it. Weevils have an incredible sense of smell and I'm going to stand out like the proverbial in a park with no one else around. Apparently Eau du Jack Harkness isn’t as alluring for weevils as it is for everybody else. On the other hand, their hearing is about as good as your eighty year old grandfather. Their ears just aren’t built to receive sound the way ours are, so it pays to stay quiet and keep your distance until you’re ready to strike. Of course striking is easier said than done. The element of surprise usually helps, coming at it from behind and trying to get a face full of spray at it before it knows what’s what. It’s also safest to stay behind a weevil when those arms and claws go flailing about in retaliation.

I should have known tonight wasn’t ever going to go to plan. Before I can get anywhere near the weevil, it turns on me and spots me.

‘Hiya, Frank.’ Frank as in Frankenstein because he looks like a science experiment gone wrong, and probably was. No weevil looks that big, ugly and mean. That’s a face not even a mother could love.

Frank lunges at me and I try to lurch right, out of his way, but he’s a big guy and faster than I remember him being. Been working out, obviously. Instead he clips me, and of course when I say clip, I mean completely knock me flat to the ground with barely any effort on his part. Not my finest moment. I’ve still got the spray in one hand though so as I roll onto my back and come face to face with the huge beast towering over me he at least gets a whole can of the stuff. It's designed to disorientate rather than sting, so don’t confuse it with something you’d try on that guy who's been trying to hit on you at the club all night. It’s not likely to reduce his IQ any lower than it already is.

Frank's surprise at being sprayed lasts about half a second. If you’ve seen how the night has progressed so far and think to yourself, ah that rakishly handsome devil is about to get lucky and have that weevil spray take down the creature, then you really don’t know how little luck I have. It might as well have been April Violets by Yardley for all the difference it made, which is a shame, because it means the next thirty seconds are just me screaming as Frank finds new ways to disembowel a human. At full time it’s Frank one, Jack Harkness nil.

Death isn’t the release people think it is. Resurrection is even worse. Imagine living through a real life Blair Witch Project, terrified out of your brain and then, just when you think you might finally be safe and take a breath, something comes out of nowhere and your only reaction is just to scream. That’s what resurrection feels like. Screaming your way through the unknown.

Alive again, but not completely healed yet. Cat Stevens wasn't kidding when he said the first cut is the deepest. It also stings like a son of a bitch. ‘God!’ I cry out, still reeling from simultaneous pain and healing, though what God has to do with any of it, I don't know. I gave up on believing in gods a long time ago.

‘Shh, it’s okay.’ Soft Welsh tones and the sensation of something gripping around my shoulders that doesn’t feel like a weevil preparing for round two. ‘I’ve got you.’

I suck in a few ragged breaths, unaware that I hadn't caught up with beginning to breathe again. It’s easy to forget little things like that. ‘Ianto? No, you can’t be out here! I locked you in the car!’

‘I’m determined,’ comes the plaintive reply.

‘But Frank…’ I mumble. ‘He’s…’ What? Where?

‘If you mean, the weevil, then I'm sorry, but it’s dead. I didn't have any other choice.’

I blink a few times, trying to make sense of the world and make sure I'm not still half dead in some wacky Alice in Wonderland type dream where the tea has been spiked and the Cheshire cat is the least crazy of all of them. I manage to tip my head to the left and there, lying in the grass is a mountain of dead weevil. Not a dream then. ‘How?’ I ask. It had taken me down in less than sixty seconds.

Ianto shrugs, as if there’s nothing to see here, folks. ‘Like I said, I'm determined. I don't care how mean a weevil is if he happens to think he's going to eviscerate my boyfriend. I also don’t appreciate being locked in the SUV whilst you go off and try to get yourself killed.’

Touché. I wince, feeling the slashes in my abdomen slowly closing over, the last of the oozing blood coming to a halt as it sucks its way back inside before the skin can close over completely. Weirdly, that never gets any less strange to watch.

‘You still need a few minutes?’ Ianto asks, all too familiar with the process of my dying and coming back now to know that sometimes you can't rush these things.

I nod, feeling ten kinds of stupid as I lie there in his arms, watching skin heal beneath torn bits of fabric. Strange how not all of the blood that gets soaked into the clothes makes it back inside. Never could figure that one out. ‘Sorry.’ It feels inadequate, but it's just been one of those sorts of nights.

‘Not as sorry as I am for letting you hoodwink me.’ His gaze drifted past me in the darkness to the huge corpse. ‘I didn’t want to kill it.’

‘It’s had that coming for years,’ I confess, only noticing now that there were eight bullet holes in the front of its head, obliterating the back like a smashed watermelon. Good to know now how many bullets it would have taken. I’d have run out after six and still come up short.

‘Think you can stand up now?’ I let Ianto take my weight as my legs still feel like jelly underneath me. ‘What’s say we get that in the boot and then go home and have that quiet date night you were promising me?’

‘No argument from me.’ Curry and Grand Designs sounds far more appealing than it had been an hour ago.