Title: The one that got away
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,694 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 506 - Melt
Summary: Jack thought he had their alien under wraps.


‘Don't you dare let it get away,’ Ianto warned, chasing hard after Jack, but still unable to keep pace with Jack's ridiculously long strides.

Jack garbled out a frustrated cry, still at least two yards behind his quarry and seemingly unable to close the gap. He had no idea what it was, but it was scaly and about the size of a small dog. He was already annoyed by Ianto's disapproval that he didn't know what it was. Did Ianto not fully appreciate just how vast the universe was? Jack may have been from the future and seen many things on his travels through time and space, but that certainly didn't make him an encyclopaedic font of knowledge about everything that had ever existed in the universe. That was just nuts.

The trouble with not knowing however, was that he also had no idea if the creature was dangerous. Sure, it was currently running away, but so did lots of things in the first instance. Backed into a corner was another matter entirely. Fight or flight would kick in at that point. It could have razor sharp claws or poisonous spittle. Maybe it could even combust on demand, releasing a wave of noxious gases or spores. That was one of the reasons Jack made sure he stayed ahead of Ianto. He didn't doubt Ianto's bravery for a moment, but if anyone was going to cop a face full of deadly poison, it should be Jack.

Jack pushed his legs harder, even though he could feel that burn starting to creep into them. Whatever this thing was, it didn't have any notions about trying to duck and weave into some small place where they wouldn't be able to follow. It just ran and ran. Stupid, of course, but he'd take stupid tonight. Stupid would hopefully make his job invariably easier, if only he didn't have to clock a half marathon for it.

‘You're gaining on it!’ came the breathless voice behind him, though Jack could scarcely tell the difference. It felt like he'd been running forever and that it was only luck that hadn't resulted in his flying across a road in front of a fast moving car yet. At the last moment he looked up and realised they were approaching the river. If the creature made it to the embankment, they'd never catch up with it as it slipped down the grass and slipped away into the night.

Jack tugged frantically at his greatcoat, wondering not for that first time whether it had slowed him down with its lack of aerodynamics. Finally he managed to get his arms free and without giving it too much thought, he flung the coat ahead of him, blanketing the creature and lunging over the top of it, pinning the coat's corners with his hands and knees. ‘Gotcha!’ The thing struggled for a few seconds, then went still.

Ianto's ragged breaths and heavy footfalls sled towards him before coming to a stop. ‘Did you get it?’

Jack paused to catch his breath before responding. ‘I got it.’

Ianto looked down at him, obviously not seeing the clever intervention but more of a bad impression of a game of Twister. ‘A little unconventional, I'll give you that.’

‘Doesn't matter,’ Jack said, happy to be the butt of Ianto's teasing for the sake of getting the job done. ‘If you haven't figured out that there's nothing conventional about this job by now… Go fetch a containment unit.’

Ianto's sigh might as well have been a slap to his face. ‘The SUV is about two miles back that way,’ he said, thumbing over his shoulder, still trying to slow his breathing.

‘So?’

Another sigh and a rolling of eyes. ‘Fine. But I'not jogging all the way back.’

Jack's jaw clenched, resisting the urge to ask Ianto if he wanted to switch places. His job was easy! ‘So power walk. Go.’

Ianto turned on his heel, still grumbling under his breath, but Jack caught the words “told him we should've taken the portable field generator…”

Jack let the complaints wash over him. If he took umbrage at every little grizzle from his team he'd do nothing else. Instead he focused on keeping his coat pinned down over the creature, making sure it couldn't slip out from under the coat. His coat was, strictly speaking, not really the best equipment for capturing unknown aliens, but he'd made do with less. You took what you could get when you could get it, regardless of how ridiculous it might look after the fact. A century of capturing aliens had taught him that much. Nothing in this job was easy and though he could be armed to the teeth with every kind of gun and alien contraption known to man, inevitably there would always be times when they were caught short.

‘So, where did you come from?’ Jack asked, making idle conversation with the thing you can no longer see trapped under his coat. ‘Are you carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, or something else entirely? Not judging,’ he added, ‘I happen to like variety. I find the universe is always more interesting if you keep an open mind and experiment whenever the opportunity presents itself.’ He chuckled to himself. He'd done more than experiment, and not always necessarily when the opportunity presented itself, often manufacturing a scenario where he could take full advantage.

If the creature underneath the coat had any opinion on the matter it didn't show it. In fact it was barely moving at all. He gave it a gentle, experimental poke, not enough to rile it in case it happened to be the kind of alien that had a bad temperament, but just enough to make sure it was still there. It stirred slightly, shuffling beneath the dark wool, but it was no longer putting up a fight. For all he knew it was intensely sensitive to enclosed spaces, or afraid of the dark. Or it was just waiting for him to lift the edge of the coat enough for it to lunge at him and chew off half his face.

He was positioned awkwardly as he pinned down each of the four ends of the coat, two up near the shoulders, and two down further where the coat spread out into a large drape, with the alien tucked in under the bunched fabric in the middle. He would have loved to have sat back on his haunches and taken a breather. Just because he was immortal didn't mean he didn't feel every moment of physical exertion on his body. He was 40 going on 140 and some days he felt every year of it. He tried not to focus on the way his ankles and wrists were cramping from the effort as he waited for Ianto to come back with the containment unit. He didn't think Ianto would stroll leisurely back to the SUV and come back again at the same pace. He wasn't going to run, or even jog as he said so earlier, but he might trot occasionally at a reasonable pace, not leaving Jack hanging here looking stupid and feeling even more awkward.

‘Come on,’ Jack said to himself, the minutes dragging by like hours. It was only two miles and this time he wouldn't be zigzagging around the streets of Cardiff. The most direct route using every shortcut possible had to be quicker.

Eventually, Jack could hear the familiar clicking of polished shoes approaching. ‘I hope you've been enjoying your little rest while I've had to walk miles in shoes not designed for it,’ he said, brandishing a decent sized cage. ‘Now, how are we going to do this?’

Fair point. Everything was good in theory. Jack considered it for a moment. ‘Okay, you place the cage with the open end up near the collar and I'll slowly bunch the shoulders together so it's got no option but to head for what it thinks is an escape.’

‘Got it.’ Ianto dutifully placed the cage as close to the top of Jack's coat as he could, wedging it up against the collar and Jack slowly wriggled, trying to encourage the thing underneath to scurry out and straight into their waiting clutches. As he moved though, something felt off. He wriggled some more and then pressed gently at the folds, but where there'd been something soft underneath, now he couldn't feel anything. Throwing caution to the wind, he suddenly flung the cost back, revealing an empty space. ‘It's gone.’

‘You let it get away?’

‘No!’ It had been right there the whole time. He looked down and all that was underneath his coat was a slim storm water grate with slits too thin to allow anything to escape through it. He touched the grate and his fingers came back sticky. ‘Oh, that's gross.’

‘What?’ Ianto looked confused.

‘Don't ask me how, but I think it somehow melted itself and slipped through the grate and into the sewer.’ He pulled back his coat into his lap. ‘Oh, and it's gone and left melted goo all along the inside of my coat, too. Yuck!’

‘Great,’ Ianto said, not sounding pleased at all. ‘So now we have melty alien gurgling through the sewers?’

‘Maybe, or maybe not. Maybe it's capable of physical mutation. Or it may have just freaked out and imploded into goo.’

Ianto looked unimpressed by either scenario. ‘Well, if it is down there I doubt it will last long. We're in prime weevil territory, which is why the storm water grates are so small. Less chance of anyone getting down there and running into the local wildlife.’

Jack stood slowly, feeling the cramp in his legs as he held up his coat and inspected the goopy lining. ‘Ew. If we do ever find it again and it doesn’t become weevil chow, it owes me a hefty dry cleaning bill.’

Ianto took the coat from him. ‘As if you ever worry about the dry cleaning. That’s my job.’ He frowned as a small gob of something hit his shoe. ‘From now on, perhaps we should leave vintage garments out of our alien catching arsenal.’