Torchwood: Fanfic: Not so false alarm

[m_findlow]

Title: Not so false alarm
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M
Length: 3,068 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, getting it wrong" at fic_promptly
Summary: An old alarm system in the hub is on the blink, or so they think.

Ianto broke off the kiss as the sound of something hit his hears - a sort of whining, whirring sound. He paused over the top of Jack's body and listened. 'What's that?'

Jack lazed beneath him, dissatisfied with this interruption to their evening. 'Oh, just an alarm,' he said, hearing it for himself.

Ianto quirked an eyebrow at him. 'Just an alarm?'

'A very old alarm.' Jack chuckled. 'I didn't think those even still worked.'

'Huh?'

'Kidding,' Jack said. 'They haven't worked for years. Decommissioned. Old Torchwood systems that haven't been used since the nineties. Just a power surge probably got into the system, setting it off. It's nothing. A glitch.'

'It's an alarm, Jack. Alarms don't just go off for no reason.'

'It's not monitoring anything. How can it go off?'

'But-'

'Don't worry about it,' Jack insisted. 'It's an ancient alarm. Didn't even know it was still there. Probably just getting twitchy with old age.'

There was a little furrowing of Ianto's brow which Jack found adorable. 'Shouldn't we go take a look?'

Jack groaned at Ianto's persistence on the matter. 'Please. Tosh has overhauled our systems so many times that if there were a problem, there'd be about twelve different alarms going off. It's a wonder we get any peace at all with the number of systems and alerts she's set up.'

Ianto frowned at him. 'You're sure? It won't take long to go and check it out.'

Jack gripped Ianto's hips hard, preventing him from moving off of Jack's lap. 'Ianto, trust me. It's nothing.'

He wasn't about to let Ianto slip away that easily, not when he'd finally won naked hide and seek and was in the process of claiming his prize. He hadn't even cheated! That only made the victory even sweeter. Ianto must have been off his game tonight. Not that it mattered much. Win or lose, the final result was always enjoyable for all parties concerned. Jack intended on honoring that promise.

'But-'

'No buts.'

'Ah!' Ianto hissed, his back arching as Jack thrust upwards, burying himself deep inside his lover as he sat there straddled over the top of Jack. Jack grinned. Ianto cries of alarm were the only sounds he was interesting in hearing, as he hit all the right pleasure spots.

Jack continued in the same vein for a while longer, teasing Ianto with his relentlessly patient undulations. He was going to make this last tonight. Ianto might have been on top, but Jack was the one in charge at the moment, drawing out his pleasure in slow and agonising ways. The only thing interrupting his ministrations was the occasional chirp of that obnoxious alarm. Stupid thing. He was going to take a wrench to it in the morning if it continued to kill the mood. Blessedly though it finally gave up its protestations, and Jack returned his focus to the task at hand, making sure to send Ianto over the edge just moments before he got lost in his own rapturous ecstasy.

Ianto extricated himself and collapsed in a sated heap next to Jack, stroking Jack's sweat soaked chest.

'Worth losing?' Jack asked.

'Always,' Ianto replied.

In the hush that followed, they were both soon asleep, physically and mentally spent.

A sudden crashing sound woke Ianto and he started, waking Jack in the process. 'What was that?'

Jack yawned. 'Probably just Myf poking around where she shouldn't.'

'Did you leave chocolate in your drawer again?'

Jack sighed, trying to pull the blankets back up. 'Might have. So what? Let her have it if she's that desperate.'

There were no further sounds and so Ianto took Jack's advice and snuggled back down, letting Jack's arms snake around him and pull him close. He was almost back asleep when a thought occurred to him. 'There's just one problem, Jack.'

'What's that?'

'I let Myf out for tonight, so she couldn't possibly be in the hub.'

'Oh.'

'Yeah. So, that crashing noise...'

'...is probably someone else,' Jack finished, already pushing back the covers and sitting up in bed. 'Wait here. I'll go check it out.'

As Jack began clambering up the ladder, Ianto was about to hiss the word "pants" at him, before realising it probably made very little difference. In fact, seeing Jack with nothing on could very well be sufficient to scare off any number of things. Disliking being left behind like some helpless maiden, he quickly grabbed for his boxers and slipped them on, before following Jack up and out of the bunker.

'Jack?' he whispered, poking his head out, seeing him standing just inside the doorway of his office, watching something.

'Don't move,' Jack warned him.

'Why? What can you see?'

'It's a felis concolor, commonly known as a puma, or in the States, called a mountain lion.'

'A mountain lion?' Ianto cried, forgetting to stay quiet for a moment, before lowering his voice back to a hiss. 'How the hell does a mountain lion get inside the hub? Where did it come from?'

'Let's forget the rest of the "W" questions just worry about the what,' Jack replied. 'It's here. We have to deal with it.'

Ianto climbed all the way out of the bunker and came to stand behind Jack, watching over his shoulder as he saw the large cat prowling around, poking its nose in bins and slipping under desks, looking for food.

Ianto cast a look between them. Neither of them had a shred of clothing on, except for Ianto in his boxers. They looked like the two people on earth most ill-equipped to deal with this right now. If anything, he thought they looked like a good dinner for a big cat, already out of the packaging and ready to eat. 'I thought we had those dozens of systems Tosh created to warn us about stuff like this?'

Jack held up his arm, checking his wrist strap for anything useful about the state of their equipment that could explain it. He frowned at the results. 'Our systems are down. How could that happen? They were working just fine a few hours ago when I turned off the CCTV so we could play naked hide and seek.'

'Could it be that the same power surge which set off that old alarm, also caused our other systems to conk out?' Ianto suggested. 'And that maybe that old alarm was trying to warn us about this?'

Jack considered it. 'I suppose that's possible. But the old systems wouldn't be connected to the same power grid as all our current systems. All of that stuff must still be tied in with some old backup generator that kicked in after the surge.'

'All very interesting and useful information for later, but what about our problem out there?' Ianto could see the puma sniffing the air. He hoped they were downwind of it somehow. Their sweat covered bodies would probably reek to a carnivorous predator.

'I've got my gun,' Jack declared. 'It's on the desk. Go get it.'

'Seriously? You want to try and shoot it with a 1940's pistol?'

'You have a better suggestion?'

'I was thinking something a little more humane.'

'Ianto, all of our stun guns are locked away in the armory.'

'I've got some weevil spray. Always keep a spare in my coat,' he said, already rushing over to the coat stand, rifling through the pockets until he found it.

'Well, sure, if you want to to piss it off even more,' Jack said, looking disdainfully down at the can of spray. 'You don't happen to have a sedative in there as well, do you?'

'Ah, no,' Ianto said, realising that one without the other was probably not much use. Weevil spray was really only just enough to blind a weevil and disorient it enough to be able to inject it without losing your arm. Sprayed in the face of a puma, it might just be the last thing he ever did.

'You're gonna have to get to the armory and get a stun gun,' Jack said. 'Or better yet, a taser. There might even be a tranquilizer gun in there. You do that and I'll distract it.'

'Too late,' Ianto said, gripping Jack's waist and holding him still, seeing the puma lock onto them and their scent, prowling casually over. 'Don't move,' Ianto whispered.

'There's two us,' Jack whispered back. 'I thought if you made a racket it scared them off.'

'We don't have time to Google "how to survive a puma invading your hub"! It could just as likely attack if we try.'

Jack fixed it with a glare as it paused, watching him intently. If he looked away now, it might think that was the opportunity it had been waiting for. 'Ianto, back away real slow,' Jack instructed.

'No way.'

'Yes, way,' he said, not looking away. 'I'm blocking the doorway. It's gotta get past me first. Move back until you're out of sight, then go around through the lab. I'll draw it into my office. Then you go for the armory.'

Ianto squeezed Jack's waist tighter. 'This is a really bad plan, made worse by the fact that we should have checked out that bloody alarm hours ago.'

'Don't argue,' Jack said, growing impatient as the puma slinked closer, maybe only ten feet away now.

Ianto slowly pulled his head back from Jack's shoulder, giving it a gentle kiss as he did so, a signal for Jack to please be careful. He took one very slow step backwards, followed by another. He couldn't see the puma anymore, blocked by Jack's body, which he supposed had been the intention. Before long, he found himself ten yards away, almost at the door at the opposite end of Jack's office, which opened out onto their small laboratory. Once he was out there, he would be fair game for any wildcat.

Jack didn't dare wrest his gaze from the puma, merely trusting to instinct that Ianto was now at a safe distance, and needing Jack to do more to give him the freedom to move from one end of the hub to the other.

'Like what you see?' Jack asked, his naked body on show, completely unprotected. He tested out taking one very slow step backwards. Rather than leap at him, the big cat merely continued to watch him. 'Not everyone gets a private viewing like this. Good kitty. Nice kitty.' It took another step forward as he took one back, and he noticed how thick and powerful its paws were. If it attacked, how long could he hold it off before it tore his neck open? How long before Ianto could get to safety? Ten seconds? Twenty? Would it be enough? He took another step, trusting that even though he couldn't see Ianto, he'd be coordinating his movements with Jack's. As he entered his office properly, Ianto would be leaving it.

'You're lucky, you know,' Jack said. 'Normally we have our guard dog here. She doesn't like strangers.' Two big yellow eyes watched him intensely, unconcerned. Just keep moving slowly, Jack, he told himself. Stop and you're probably going to be a dead man.

Ianto tiptoed across the lab, keeping an eye on Jack as he slipped inside his office, just at the moment Ianto exited, staying out of sight of the puma. Even as he did so, he kept his footfalls light and slow, despite the urgency. Barefoot was actually a bonus on this occasion, allowing him to move virtually silently. He was almost to the water tower, skipping behind it and hiding for a second, losing sight of Jack. Just don't do anything stupid, he prayed. The second he heard agonising screaming he knew he'd lose it. Gone would be any empathy for saving the creature. He'd grab the Glock from Gwen's desk and put two bullets right through its skull without a thought.

He tried to spy Jack through the glass windows but he seemed to be at the wrong angle, unable to see anything. Taking a chance he sprinted the rest of the way to the other side, quickly keying the combination into the keypad and slipping inside the armory. He hated himself for it, but he sealed the door behind him, just in case.

So many weapons, so little time to debate the choice. He snapped a stun gun from its bracket on the wall and slipped it into the elastic waistband of his boxers, before selecting a larger dart gun, and rifling through the drawers for the munitions that accompanied it. How strong were they, he wondered, clipping a vial into the chamber. Would it knock out a cat that big instantly, or would there be a delay? Would shooting it only aggravate it and cause it to attack Jack? All questions for a medical professional, who wasn't here right now. In his head he formulated a basic plan, but it was going to take a lot of things to go right to pull it off. Gripping the gun in the crook of his arm, he let out a breath and prepared to rejoin the fray.

Jack was almost in the lab, still moving ever so slowly as his opponent toyed with him, lulling him into a false sense of security. Jack had thought he could confuse it by stepping around behind his desk, putting it between them. He'd also hoped to grab his gun whilst he was there, but the big cat had deftly leapt up onto the tall piece of furniture like it weighed no more than a feather, rather than being a two hundred pound monster. It swished its long tail menacingly at him, giving a growl, dashing any thoughts of going for his gun. He kept moving, knowing it was soon going to lose patience with him, and just be done with things.

'Come on, Ianto,' he muttered, knowing that once he was out of the lab, both of them were back on the menu.

It was a flash of relief when he spotted Ianto moving efficiently towards his office door. He really wanted to make some comment about how sexy he looked standing there in only his boxers brandishing his gun like some big game hunter. Instead he watched in his peripheral vision as Ianto did something very strange, bending down and putting something on the floor.

'There's a stun gun here, Jack,' Ianto said very quietly. 'I'm going to kick it to you just as soon as I've shot it. I don't know how long until the sedative might kick in. You may need to protect yourself.'

Jack smiled. 'I love that you're always thinking about my welfare.'

The puma sensed the second person in the room, twirling its head to clock Ianto. It growled again, annoyed. 'You've got a lot of cheek to be the one that's miffed,' Ianto replied. 'I was in bed with Jack when you interrupted our evening. Do you know how hard it is to get a quiet date night?'

The cat turned and began moving toward Ianto, faster than before. Jack could sense that it had picked an easier target despite the gun. Rather than risk it, he yelled out and lunged forward, forcing the puma to twist back and attack.

The next few moments were a blur. Ianto fired the gun without hesitation, the dart hitting the cat's rear flank as its teeth sank into Jack's arm held up to protect his neck. Jack heard rather than saw the gun skitter across the floor, practically sliding straight into his free hand, before gripping it and shoving it into the side of his attacker. Whether it was the sudden voltage or the drugs, he couldn't tell, but the puma went limp, its heavy weight dropping on top of his prone body.

'Jack?' Ianto was rushing over in a flash to help him.

'I'm good,' he assured his lover, crawling out from under the creature, now a dead weight.

'Your arm,' Ianto said, gingerly taking it in his hand, inspecting the large claw marks dripping with blood.

'It'll be fine,' Jack said. It stung like crazy, and would sting even worse once Ianto forced him to sit down and have it cleaned with alcohol, but it would heal up just fine within an hour or two. 'First time on safari?' Jack joked. 'You looked good.'

'Last, hopefully,' Ianto replied, still fussing over Jack's wounds. 'I'd rather we visit the zoo, than have it visit us.' He cast a look down at the puma. Sedated, it looked like nothing more than a really big house cat, albeit one that could tear you limb from limb.

'I'll go get the trolley,' Jack said. 'I'm not lugging that down to the cells by hand.'

'Let me patch you up first,' Ianto insisted. 'And some clothes.'

Jack gave him a quizzical look. 'You don't wanna risk it waking back up?'

He shrugged. 'I wasn't sure how much sedative to use, so I just picked the biggest one.'

Jack leaned over and saw the dart sticking out of the short brown fur. He laughed. 'That's enough to take down an elephant. It's a wonder you didn't kill it with that much. Lucky you're a good shot. I wouldn't have wanted that lodged in my arse, not that I'd probably know about it.'

'And yet an elephant would have been preferable to a carnivore with big teeth and sharp claws.'

'I still don't get how it got in here. We've got shielding to prevent rift spikes from occurring inside the hub. Otherwise what's the point in having a rift machine?'

Ianto scratched his head thoughtfully. 'It could be something we've never encountered before. Maybe that's why it caused a surge in the systems, tripping only the old sensors.'

Jack let out a frustrated sigh. 'A big job for Tosh tomorrow. I won't sleep easy until I know how we were breached.'

'Agreed,' Ianto replied. 'And next time we get an alarm, we won't ignore it, no matter how silly or impossible it seems.'

Jack cast his mind back to what they'd been doing at the time. It was a tough tradeoff to sacrifice that for one dodgy alarm, but was it definitely better than finding themselves no longer at the top of the food chain. The only person who got to sink their teeth into his lover was him.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Yikes, that was tense! I hope they get the Mountain Lion locked away before it wakes up. What they're going to do with it after that is anybody's guess.