66
Andy has gone shopping, Rhys going next door to the electronics store as Andy wheels around the supermarket gathering a few things for lasagne for tea that night.
He really feels like lasagne and knows Rhys will make the best damned lasagne the world had ever seen in that oven.
As he slows to look for some tomato paste he notices some people seem to be a little jumpy as they look up at the ceiling and he stops to listen.
A scratching sound.
Erk.
Rats?
An infestation?
He was getting seriously wigged as the sound seemed …well…big. More like a bloody elephant in the ceiling.
The lights start to pulse.
Urging him forward.
He obeys.
Some panels fall and people scream, then move back to look up into the cavernous ceiling.
Something stirs in the rafters.
Coiled about the pipes.
Andy stops still a good thirty feet from the movement.
Straining to see.
Was it a man?
A burglar who got stuck?
A young Heddlu officer has his baton out as he looks up nervously and Andy went to speak but it starts moving, climbing at him upside down on the pipes.
FAST.
Andy starts wheeling himself back away from the site but slowly, agonizingly slowly compared to the beast.
He turns the corner, and spins around to look back.
The Heddlu officer steps under the thing, still trying to see what it was.
"No!" Andy cries but the fear on the young man's face tells of the error in his decision.
Andy starts pumping toward the door.
He's strong, picking up speed, but a fucking alien rounds the corner and bolts after him out of nowhere.
Andy can't even look back as the thing gains on him. The door begins to come down, the Heddlu officer starts to scream and Andy is panting as he tries to remember what he had been taught.
Andy rolls forward, face set - the alien a few feet behind, reaching for him.
The loading bay!
Andy gets a boost as he rockets downhill, the beast still on him, the door closing, too low for him to clear. He gets there and hits a lever, his chair lays its back down to a dolly position, his head just clears the closing door as the alien slams into it, Andy is spinning out and flying off the chair it tilts, landing in a heap next to him.
Lying still on the ground, he listens as the beast slams against the door a few more times, then fades off.
"Fuck everything..." Andy growls as he reaches up for the chair and from the back of it he pulls out a sawn off shotgun.
Rhys is screaming his name and Andy calls out to him as he struggles for the chair, then Rhys is hugging him as he pants from the exertion of running around the store.
"Babe, we need to tell…."
The sound of gunfire is uncannily familiar and when a boom blows a hole in the side of the store both men watch from their seats on the ground as Ianto calmly steps out to look at them, then turns and yells back into the store in a calm voice "Found them."
Rhys starts to giggle as Ianto steps back through the hole then they scream as Ianto flies back out with something large black and…fuck it's an alien.
Rhys stands and holds the gun the way Ianto showed him, protecting his prone mate who is still not in his chair as Ianto roars and struggles with the thing.
Ianto gets his hands around its neck and snarls with his teeth exposed as it twists and its tail whips around him in a squeeze of its own.
It's a no brainer.
Rhys steps over to them as they writhe on the ground and places the shotgun to the side of its head where he can see the head part shifting.
BOOM
Andy has hold of Rhys' shirt yanking him back as the thing's green blood splatters everywhere.
"Acid!" Andy reminds him and Rhys stands dumbfounded as he looks his lover in the eye.
"Andy" he says softly.
"Christ on a stick, you OK there Yan?" Andy is still hanging onto Rhys as he looks down at the man who is laying there smoking from the acid slowly eating through his flat jacket.
"Shit" Ianto finally comes out of it and sits up, shaking the vest off to let it drop and smoulder on the ground.
"Baby" Rhys says softly.
"What?" Andy turns to look at him with raised eyebrows.
"Andy" Rhys' face splits into a grin to rival one of Jack's, "Andy love. You're standing."
Andy looks down with shock to find he had got to his feet to save Rhys from the spray.
"Well. Bugger me!"
"Later if ya lucky" Jack laughs from the hole in the wall as he looks at the scene.
He lifts Ianto to his feet and they kiss passionately. The other two men shrug and do the same.
Save the world, get your guy.
Right?