prose : day 3 in a week (weather included)
NC-17 part.
Wednesday
Woke up in the the hub again. Well, Jack's bunker anyway. Still can't get used to waking up there. Am thinking of adding some sort of homely item to make it more non-suprising i.e photograph, coffee cup, leather whip. The whole day was looking to be something of a pleasant sort of thing until Tosh picked something up on the monitors.
That's when the fun began...
---
There were voices, not normally an unusual thing to hear in a hub full of five people, but it was their tone that had Ianto worried. He jogged down the iron staircase into the bowels of the hub and walked over to where the team were crowded around Tosh's monitor.
"I don't get it," Jack was saying, his voice uncommonly grim. "How can there go from no weevils to sixteen in the same location, all within the last half an hour?"
"I don't know," replied Toshiko, trying to hide the impatience in her voice; Ianto noticed it straight away. It was the same tone he used every time the Captain pushed him beyond his own limits. "I've been following it for as long as you have. They just--"
"--appeared." It was Gwen who finished her sentence. "We can't work it out. They seemed to have slipped up from the sewer pipes near the bay barrage. Odd that we couldn't pick them up underground, though."
"It'll be the lead. The lead lining will interfere with our equipment." Owen nodded knowledgeably towards Jack. "You see it on the telly all the time."
Tosh pulled a face. "Like all television, Owen, that is complete rubbish. We have alien tech. You think they wouldn't have thought of that? It's because our sensors didn't spread out that far from the hub."
Ianto looked at the floor to stop himself from smirking.
"Good guess," offered Jack. "Widen our systems. And see if there are more of them below ground. Sixteen are bad enough, but heaven help us if there are even more."
Jack turned to the whole team, adopting the attitude he tended to use when about to allocate each of them their part of the mission. It was rather like being sent into battle, thought Ianto a little glumly.
"Tosh, stay here, monitor the systems. Keep in touch with all of us. If there's a weevil within half a mile of civilisation I wanna hear about it. Owen and Ianto; check out the cells and see what Janet thinks about all of this. Then get out into Cardiff; see if you can find anything of interest in regards to the locations of these things. Don't forget the spray and cuffs; we may be hauling a few friends into the cells tonight. Gwen, you come with me. We'll check out the barrage, see if there are any stragglers. Hopefully we'll find whatever's affecting the weevils--"
"--or not," supplied Ianto.
"I wanna know exactly why they're behaving like they are," Jack continued, ignoring him.
"Why does the cause of concern to sixteen weevils have to be our job?" Owen sighed, his mouth set in a frown. "Just once I'd like a trip to Porthcawl, Barry Island, hell, even Ely would be great compared to some of the things we do."
"No it wouldn't," Ianto said, his smile forced.
"Oh, I dunno. I've seen some of the girls--"
Jack cleared his throat. "Are you two just going to gossip your way through this?"
Owen's answer of no was given exactly the same time that Ianto nodded curtly.
"Cells, Janet, Cardiff, got it," Owen's voice said, trailing away with him as he walked in the direction of the holding cells. Ianto followed him swiftly, ignoring Jack's look of vague despair.
---
The SUV skidded smoothly on the wet road as Ianto cornered the street connecting central Cardiff to the Bay. Owen gave him a sour look as he was thrown in the seat and hit his shoulder against the passenger side window.
"Next time, I'm driving," was the only thing he said.
The thing about winter in Cardiff was that it was reliable. Never ending, it haunted the months between November and March with a steady stream of drizzle, its grey mists hanging low over the mountains and valleys surrounding the city. The lights of the SUV shone brightly as they reflected off the road. The swishing of tires through puddles echoed, car after car passing by the SUV in the tight streets of Cardiff, waves of water being sprayed over innocent bystanders as cars swerved around corners and raced along in the mad effort to finally reach their destination of home after a long day at work. It was in this time, as Ianto carefully watched those people going to their own safe havens, that a heightened sense of awareness struck him. It highlighted the fact that as those people travelled home, people of a world in which there was only one and that one was this, more people came out to do their own jobs, far more dangerous than any normal profession would ever be.
The windscreen wipers slowed to a scraping halt against the glass as Ianto turned the engine off. It ticked into submission, the engine cooling as Ianto unclasped his seatbelt. They had arrived in the centre of Queen Street, an unfortunately obvious place to be given that the entire road had been pedestrianised years ago. Nevertheless, Ianto reasoned, it was the best place as any to reach all parts of Cardiff's centre in a short amount of time. He reached over into the back seat and grabbed the weevil spray and cuffs, handing the latter to Owen with a pleasant smile.
"I don't swing that way," Owen said, taking the cuffs off Ianto with an equally unpleasant smile. "Bondage has never been my thing."
"Really? You should give it a go sometime."
Either he had shocked Owen into submission or Owen was considering his words; whichever it was, he was silent as he got out of the SUV and followed Ianto towards the back of the St David's Center Arcade. They were just turning a corner, leading from the main street into a side road, when Owen noticed it, a large figure that sprinted down the road so quickly that anybody who hadn't been looking for something unusual wouldn't have seen it. Ianto's hand flew up to his comm as he tried to call Tosh, pressing the button to dial straight into the hub. Owen had already started to push passed the shoals of people going by in a single moving crowd. Ianto began to slowly follow, picking up pace as the object grew nearer. After three rings Tosh's voice sounded in his ear.
"Ianto?"
"Tosh. We've got something in Charles Street, moving away from town. Put on a track on it, would you?"
"Doing it now." There was a pause, in which the crackle of static was the only sound to be heard, and then Tosh's own voice returned to the speaker. "You're right. It's a weevil, about a hundred yards from where you are, near St David's cathedral."
"Cheers, Tosh." Ianto pressed the comm again, muting Tosh for the time being as he jogged down the street. Owen was at the church already, using a scanner in his hand to detect the heat signature of a weevil. Just as Ianto approached him, Owen looked up and swore loudly.
"We've got trouble."
Looking at the scanner, Ianto whistled under his breath. He pressed the comm back on again, Owen mirroring his actions.
"Tosh? Get hold of Jack and Gwen now. They need to see this--" Owen said, and then to Ianto, "--what's that over there?"
---
Torch-light bounced off the wet walls of the sewer, illuminating the green mold growing over it's stone and metal walls, highlighting the years of Cardiff's underground in a most unflattering tableau of grimness. Gwen gingerly tiptoed along the side of the sewer pipe, trying to save her Converse from the suspicious brown water running through the very centre. Jack was on the other side of the small tunnel, his own torch wavering in the dark in front of them. They had to be at least a quarter of a mile from the ladder where they had dropped down now and so far the tunnel looked as empty as Starbucks on one of Ianto's coffee mornings.
The crackle of the comm bursting into life startled both Gwen and Jack; Jack's footing slipped and he landed in an unfortunately deep puddle of dark sludge.
"Tosh?" he barked in a less than friendly voice, shaking his shoe to rid it of the excess stale water.
"It's Ianto and Owen. They've found something, only it looks as though they might be in a spot of trouble."
Gwen flicked Jack a look of concern; he took it in his stride, directing his gaze away from her to the tunnel ahead.
"They okay?"
"As far as I know. Ianto tells me that there's at least twelve life signs located in St David's Cathedral in Cardiff. It's rush hour, Jack. Anybody could get attacked."
Jack looked as though Christmas had been cancelled. He clenched his fist uselessly and went to lean against the wall before thinking better of it; the walls smelled of something that even Torchwood had not yet met the likes of.
"Weevil heat signatures?"
"That's what Owen says."
"It's all quiet here. Tell them I'll be there in ten minutes."
Twenty, Gwen was mouthing at him, gesturing to the non-existant ladder above them, a sign that they had yet to find an exit to the warren of endless tunnels beneath the bay.
"Fifteen minutes," he corrected, cocking his head at Gwen as a frown graced his features. "Have you picked up any weevil traces near here recently?"
"They seem to have dispersed a little; bands of three of four are breaking off and thankfully moving out of the city, not in."
"Perhaps they slipped through the rift, a couple of them in one go." Gwen's voice echoed off the round walls ominously. Her words may have not been far from truth. Jack nodded, at Tosh or Gwen he wasn't sure which, and started to walk along the tunnel again.
"We'll be there. Keep in touch, Tosh."
---
The taste of blood was strong in his mouth. He spat to the ground and looked up in time to see Owen get clawed across the face.
There were two of them against three weevils. With the cuffs and spray it sounded like good odds, but Ianto had to remind himself that every weevil had about the manpower of two heavy-weights. Ianto's phone was crushed in a gutter, knocked from his hand as he'd started to dial Jack's number by a particularly nasty looking weevil. His comm had fallen out too and whilst not broken he'd barely had time to shove it in the pocket of his coat before a blow had been landed on the right side of his face. His ear still felt on fire, and a trickle of blood still ran down his neck, absorbed by his shirt near where his collar met skin.
Knowing that they were out numbered and seeing the absence of people around the scene, Ianto grabbed the back of Owen's jacket and hauled him to safety. They both stumbled into a run, wiping blood out of their eyes as they panted their way along the street and hit the SUV with a dull thud. Owen and Ianto both flung themselves into the van, clipping their seatbelts on quickly, the whites of their eyes showing with their new-found fear. Ianto placed his arm on the back of Owen's seat, looked over his shoulder in a textbook position, and threw the SUV into reverse. It skidded awkwardly, slipping on the wet pavement slabs, and spun into a perfect one-eighty. Ianto glanced at Owen and found his colleague holding his head back, a nasty cut and bruise blooming above his eyebrow, blood pooling in the hollow beneath his eye.
"This is exactly why we should never go out in daylight," Ianto said as his foot hit the acceleration.
---
Gwen found it odd to drive Jack to places in her own car. There was something distinctly less Torchwood about it than the SUV. It was the equivalent of riding around Cardiff, when she was on the force, in a Robin Reliant. It just didn't feel right, as though she couldn't take her job quite as seriously. In the passenger seat Jack was trying to ring Ianto, but their secretary's phone seemed to be switched off, and however hard he might of tried Jack still couldn't reach him on the comm.
"Tosh?" his voice asked after the fifth failed attempt at contacting Ianto or Owen. "Have you heard from them?"
"Nothing. Jack, I can't get hold of Owen, and Ianto's comm seems to be down too."
"So I gathered. We're by St Mary's Street now. If I don't hear from either of them in two minutes I--"
The screech of tires screamed into the oncoming dusk as Gwen swerved to narrowly avoid a large truck coming towards them. On second glance Jack could see the driver, his features hard to make out under a mask of blood but still undeniably him.
"Shit--" Gwen began, but Jack had already jumped out of the car, his greatcoat billowing behind him as he ran towards the SUV.
The sound of several horns blasted into the evening air as the SUV and Gwen's car began to slow the traffic following into St Mary's Street. Only buses and taxi's were allowed down there now, those and the authorities, but without the buses moving the traffic soon became quickly backed up. Gwen shoved the gear stick into reverse and drove around the SUV to park on the pavement outside of the castle. She was out of the way, at least for the time being, and it allowed her to run across the street and check on Ianto and Owen who were already being tended to by Jack.
"--gotta get back there," Gwen heard Ianto saying as she neared the SUV. His face looked awful, blood smeared in a thick line across his cheek, his lips red and bruised. "Three of them. Lots of people, Jack. We couldn't handle--"
Jack appeared not to be listening. He had crawled into the back of the SUV and was taking out the cuffs and spray, shoving them into his pockets and prompting Gwen to follow him with a swift wave of his hand. Ianto turned his head sharply and struggled with his seatbelt to get it undone. When he found that even that was hard to do he pulled his door shut with a loud slam and jerked the SUV into life, bringing it back around again and driving down the centre of Queen Street with little regard to the defenceless Cardiff street bins. Owen was jerked back into his seat, but for once he didn't complain. He seemed to be loosing a lot of blood, more than Ianto, and was already developing that listlessness that people got when an injury was worse than it first appeared. Ianto struggled with the belt again; it popped free after a minute of fumbling with the clip. He opened the door and fell out into the street, his legs barely carrying him so badly were they shaking with shock.
When he found Gwen and Jack he could see that one weevil had already been sedated. It moved restlessly on the floor, but the spark of fight that had been there only minutes before had been snuffed out by excessive use of Jack's spray. Both Gwen and Jack had a weevil each; it wasn't hard to see which of the two was barely coping with the weight of fighting a full grown weevil. Ianto ran towards Gwen's weevil and threw his weight into the creature, recalling every memory of rugby tackles from his schooldays. In the corner of his eye he could see Jack's weevil beginning to still; Jack had sedated the second.
"Jack!" he yelled, opening his hand and neatly catching the spray that Jack threw across to him. Ianto used everything in the can, until the creature beneath him was barely moving under his weight. He got off, falling backwards a little as he tried to gain his balance. His head was spinning, the events of the last ten minutes unfolding in a carousel of colours, blurred ones at that. Gwen and Jack both moved towards him in vain effort to help him stand without swaying.
Around them a crowd of people stared. Jack noticed; he gave a cheery wave and shouted something about thieves in masks being worse than hoodies nowadays. Ianto watched his performance, knowing that had his head not as thumped with quite the vehemence which it did, he would've found the whole thing a great deal more amusing. As it was, Jack reminded him of a Victorian street entertainer, rallying each grand cry with a flourish and a wave. Gwen checked Ianto could stand securely on his own before running over to see to Owen to check that he was alright. Ianto watched her manage to find a bandage in the home made first aid kit and apply pressure to the wound above his eye.
"How hard do you reckon it would be to retcon eighty people?" Jack said under his breath as he walked back to the SUV and opened the backdoor, ready to shove the three lifeless weevils into the back of the van.
"Harder than bringing down three weevils," replied Ianto, dean-pan. Jack did a once over of Ianto's wounds, taking in the stains on his neck and cheeks. Ianto hadn't seen him look so worried since the Brecon Beacons. He turned away from Ianto's stare and pulled the first weevil into the SUV, saying everything without saying anything.
"Maybe not then."
---
Wednesday (cont.)
... Gwen and Jack went back to secure the area. No civilian casualties were reported, but the church was empty when they got there. We're arranging an in-depth investigation as to why the weevils are congregating in such a way. Jack also wants to be prepared for future public outbursts. I think we're all in agreement that Owen and I probably could've handled it better. Or not. Well, I think Jack was just being nice when he said that "in all fairness Owen and you aren't exactly the biggest blokes in Cardiff."
I think.
I am now going to curl up with a nice drink and bottle of aspirin, perhaps not at the same time as it would make for unhelpful situation aka death.
Those weevils really know how to pack a punch. Calzaghe would be proud.
---
They lay in Jack's bed again, the sound of their own breathing the only thing in the hub. It was late; the other's had gone home hours ago, even Owen who seemed to have recovered slightly from the events of the day. He was being kept under observation by Tosh who had refused to leave him home alone in case of concussion, much to Jack's amusement. Ianto flinched as Jack gently wiped the cut under his eye with a cotton wool ball soaked in antiseptic. Owen hadn't thought the cut needed a stitch and for that Ianto was grateful. He had a feeling that had Jack got his way and taken Ianto to casualty the hospital staff would've had a different opinion on the subject, and he really hadn't felt like six hours of waiting rooms after getting home.
"You should be in a nurses' outfit," remarked Ianto, closing his eyes and leaning back on the wall behind Jack's bed. He felt the warm rumble of Jack's laughter slip under his skin, soothing his pains like only Jack could.
"Is that a proposal?" he murmured, sealing the words with a kiss on side of Ianto's neck, nose brushing the soft skin beneath his ear. Ianto opened his eyes, raised his hand to Jack's cheek and kissed him soundly on the lips.
"You don't have to do this." Ianto was grateful despite his words, enjoying the way Jack's careful hands cared for his tender wounds. Placing the cap on the bottle of antiseptic, Jack put it to one side and made use of his now free hands by running them over Ianto's waist as he leant in for another kiss.
"Seriously... I think a nurse outfit would be kinda kinky." Breath catching as Jack moved a cool hand under his shirt, Ianto rolled his eyes and went to swat Jack's shoulder.
"Jack," he admonished.
"No, really, think of all the places I could use a stethoscope."
"The hub? The office? Perhaps the boardroom?"
"You know that's not what I meant," growled Jack playfully, unbuttoning Ianto's shirt with a sort of bored restlessness, kissing the warm skin which he found beneath the powder blue material. Light flooded through the opening to Jack's bunker, the ghostly blue of the abandoned hub above them shimmering off the walls. It was such a peaceful feeling, the touch of Jack's fingers owning him, possessing him, with the knowledge that miles above them Cardiff was going to sleep, her lights dipping into darkness, hundreds of souls drifting off to sleep in the warmth of their houses and homes. It felt almost powerful, to be here with Jack in the dim of their important sanctuary, from where a hundred plans had already been assembled and executed in a effort to keep this capital and many more safe.
Jack was important: and here Ianto could be important with him.
Ianto's fingers worked at pulling Jack's white t-shirt over his head, gracing the newly revealed skin with careful, measured kisses. His arms were sore, bruises blushing his white skin with shades of lavender, but Jack's touch seemed to make each twinge and ache disappear. Within minutes he felt breathless and dizzy, his lips never parted from Jack's for long before they were kissing again. Vaguely he noticed the jerk of Jack's body each time his cold fingertips touched Jack's flushed skin. Using it to his advantage, Ianto ran his hand down Jack's back making him arch down against Ianto, voice purring in a contented growl at the back of his throat.
"So where do you think I should use my stethoscope, Ianto?"
Chuckling against Jack's shoulder, Ianto traced a line with his finger to the base of Jack's spine. Jack shook his heading, smiling roguishly.
"Try again."
Using the same finger, Ianto trailed his hand over Jack's waist, around to the front, and stopped at a point just above Jack's navel. He ignored the way the taut skin rippled invitingly as Jack laughed again, his eyes sparkling in a way that Ianto didn't see enough of nowadays.
"Again."
This time the route was short. Ianto travelled only a few inches up, his fingertip resting on the centre of Jack's ribcage. Beneath it he imagined the frantic beating of Jack's heart, trapped like a bird craving flight. The gesture was too intimate for Jack; he looked away, smile fading. If Ianto hadn't been watching so intently for such a reaction, he would've missed it altogether. It was never love. It wouldn't ever be love for Jack, at least that's what Ianto believed after Jack had left.
"Again," repeated Jack, lips centimetres from Ianto's mouth. Hiding feelings unfelt for months Ianto mustered a convincing if not artificial grin and moved his whole hand down Jack's torso, stopping just above Jack's waistband. He waited for the raised eyebrow he knew would come and then, with clever fingers working smoothly, unzipped Jack's trousers, his hand finding warmth and hardness. Jack hummed a sigh on contentment, unbuckling Ianto's belt, flicking down his zip with a considered gesture, a well-practised trick. Both their trousers open they were free to move against each other, the new-found sensations welcome and needed.
A broken sound came from Ianto's lips as Jack brushed a particularly sensitive bruise on his chest. He looked up to find Jack's face a mask of poorly disguised concern. He kissed a spot on Ianto's forehead and reached over to the bedside table where he found a tube and uncapped it, squeezing the cold contents onto his hand. Moving Ianto's trousers further down his legs, shirt tails pushed carefully out of the way, Jack circled Ianto's cock with his hand and began to slowly bring it up and down, a soft, slick movement that had Ianto soon forgetting about the pain in his arms and chest.
"You'd make a great nurse," murmured Ianto as Jack stopped stroking him and carefully moved over Ianto, kissing his way over cuts and scratches.
"That's what Ms. Nightingale said when last we met."
Ianto laughed breathlessly, not knowing whether to take Jack seriously or not. Taking Ianto's speechlessness as a sign to change gear, Jack slowly positioned himself so that he could sit on Ianto's lap without hurting his cuts and bruises and allowed Ianto to enter him slowly. Jack's neck arched backwards, a graceful gesture. His face looked completely without pain; only an expression of bliss dared to show as he began to stroke himself slowly. Ianto followed his example, placing his hand over Jack's, watching a relaxed smile playing on Jack's lips. When Jack kissed him there were no bright lights, no explosions of colourful dust, yet Ianto felt warmed to his core, an overwhelming flood of some otherworldly presence.
Love, he thought numbly.
Slowly moving together, the climax hit them both by surprise, too wrapped up in each other were they to worry about what was going on around them. Ianto jerked sharply, arching his body up, feeling Jack come between them. Ianto wiped his hand across Jack's stomach and grasped his back, pulling him forward, the motion making him come himself. Their voices danced awkwardly, stuttering cries and gasps filling the small space. Ianto's throat felt too dry as he cried out softly, slipping out of Jack and feeling the beautiful touch of his Captain being replaced with a kiss on his jaw line only seconds later.
Jack rolled onto his side and grinned at Ianto as though they had done the wickedest thing imaginable. They probably had, reasoned Ianto, shifting onto his own side. Jack saw the flinch despite Ianto's efforts to hide it. He forced Ianto to roll onto his back once more, all smiles faded in the wake of stirring new feelings.
"I shouldn't have let you both go alone."
"You were the one that went after sixteen of them!" Ianto retorted, grinning at Jack. "We should've been more prepared. At least no harm was done."
Ianto could tell that Jack was biting his tongue at this; his deep blue eyes were tracing the bruises as though they had personally wronged him in some way.
"...makes you vulnerable," Jack murmured under his breath. Eyebrows falling into a comical frown, Ianto sighed wearily and sidled closer to Jack. Jack took the hint and placed his arm lightly around Ianto's waist, kissing his neck softly.
"Can I sleep now?" asked Ianto, closing his eyes.
"Thought you were meant to be going home tonight, come what may? asked Jack with a wry smile. Ianto opened one eye and pulled a face at Jack.
"Getting rid of me?"
"Never," Jack replied with hesitation, pulling the blankets over them. Outside, Cardiff slept.
At last, so did they.
Wednesday
Woke up in the the hub again. Well, Jack's bunker anyway. Still can't get used to waking up there. Am thinking of adding some sort of homely item to make it more non-suprising i.e photograph, coffee cup, leather whip. The whole day was looking to be something of a pleasant sort of thing until Tosh picked something up on the monitors.
That's when the fun began...
---
There were voices, not normally an unusual thing to hear in a hub full of five people, but it was their tone that had Ianto worried. He jogged down the iron staircase into the bowels of the hub and walked over to where the team were crowded around Tosh's monitor.
"I don't get it," Jack was saying, his voice uncommonly grim. "How can there go from no weevils to sixteen in the same location, all within the last half an hour?"
"I don't know," replied Toshiko, trying to hide the impatience in her voice; Ianto noticed it straight away. It was the same tone he used every time the Captain pushed him beyond his own limits. "I've been following it for as long as you have. They just--"
"--appeared." It was Gwen who finished her sentence. "We can't work it out. They seemed to have slipped up from the sewer pipes near the bay barrage. Odd that we couldn't pick them up underground, though."
"It'll be the lead. The lead lining will interfere with our equipment." Owen nodded knowledgeably towards Jack. "You see it on the telly all the time."
Tosh pulled a face. "Like all television, Owen, that is complete rubbish. We have alien tech. You think they wouldn't have thought of that? It's because our sensors didn't spread out that far from the hub."
Ianto looked at the floor to stop himself from smirking.
"Good guess," offered Jack. "Widen our systems. And see if there are more of them below ground. Sixteen are bad enough, but heaven help us if there are even more."
Jack turned to the whole team, adopting the attitude he tended to use when about to allocate each of them their part of the mission. It was rather like being sent into battle, thought Ianto a little glumly.
"Tosh, stay here, monitor the systems. Keep in touch with all of us. If there's a weevil within half a mile of civilisation I wanna hear about it. Owen and Ianto; check out the cells and see what Janet thinks about all of this. Then get out into Cardiff; see if you can find anything of interest in regards to the locations of these things. Don't forget the spray and cuffs; we may be hauling a few friends into the cells tonight. Gwen, you come with me. We'll check out the barrage, see if there are any stragglers. Hopefully we'll find whatever's affecting the weevils--"
"--or not," supplied Ianto.
"I wanna know exactly why they're behaving like they are," Jack continued, ignoring him.
"Why does the cause of concern to sixteen weevils have to be our job?" Owen sighed, his mouth set in a frown. "Just once I'd like a trip to Porthcawl, Barry Island, hell, even Ely would be great compared to some of the things we do."
"No it wouldn't," Ianto said, his smile forced.
"Oh, I dunno. I've seen some of the girls--"
Jack cleared his throat. "Are you two just going to gossip your way through this?"
Owen's answer of no was given exactly the same time that Ianto nodded curtly.
"Cells, Janet, Cardiff, got it," Owen's voice said, trailing away with him as he walked in the direction of the holding cells. Ianto followed him swiftly, ignoring Jack's look of vague despair.
---
The SUV skidded smoothly on the wet road as Ianto cornered the street connecting central Cardiff to the Bay. Owen gave him a sour look as he was thrown in the seat and hit his shoulder against the passenger side window.
"Next time, I'm driving," was the only thing he said.
The thing about winter in Cardiff was that it was reliable. Never ending, it haunted the months between November and March with a steady stream of drizzle, its grey mists hanging low over the mountains and valleys surrounding the city. The lights of the SUV shone brightly as they reflected off the road. The swishing of tires through puddles echoed, car after car passing by the SUV in the tight streets of Cardiff, waves of water being sprayed over innocent bystanders as cars swerved around corners and raced along in the mad effort to finally reach their destination of home after a long day at work. It was in this time, as Ianto carefully watched those people going to their own safe havens, that a heightened sense of awareness struck him. It highlighted the fact that as those people travelled home, people of a world in which there was only one and that one was this, more people came out to do their own jobs, far more dangerous than any normal profession would ever be.
The windscreen wipers slowed to a scraping halt against the glass as Ianto turned the engine off. It ticked into submission, the engine cooling as Ianto unclasped his seatbelt. They had arrived in the centre of Queen Street, an unfortunately obvious place to be given that the entire road had been pedestrianised years ago. Nevertheless, Ianto reasoned, it was the best place as any to reach all parts of Cardiff's centre in a short amount of time. He reached over into the back seat and grabbed the weevil spray and cuffs, handing the latter to Owen with a pleasant smile.
"I don't swing that way," Owen said, taking the cuffs off Ianto with an equally unpleasant smile. "Bondage has never been my thing."
"Really? You should give it a go sometime."
Either he had shocked Owen into submission or Owen was considering his words; whichever it was, he was silent as he got out of the SUV and followed Ianto towards the back of the St David's Center Arcade. They were just turning a corner, leading from the main street into a side road, when Owen noticed it, a large figure that sprinted down the road so quickly that anybody who hadn't been looking for something unusual wouldn't have seen it. Ianto's hand flew up to his comm as he tried to call Tosh, pressing the button to dial straight into the hub. Owen had already started to push passed the shoals of people going by in a single moving crowd. Ianto began to slowly follow, picking up pace as the object grew nearer. After three rings Tosh's voice sounded in his ear.
"Ianto?"
"Tosh. We've got something in Charles Street, moving away from town. Put on a track on it, would you?"
"Doing it now." There was a pause, in which the crackle of static was the only sound to be heard, and then Tosh's own voice returned to the speaker. "You're right. It's a weevil, about a hundred yards from where you are, near St David's cathedral."
"Cheers, Tosh." Ianto pressed the comm again, muting Tosh for the time being as he jogged down the street. Owen was at the church already, using a scanner in his hand to detect the heat signature of a weevil. Just as Ianto approached him, Owen looked up and swore loudly.
"We've got trouble."
Looking at the scanner, Ianto whistled under his breath. He pressed the comm back on again, Owen mirroring his actions.
"Tosh? Get hold of Jack and Gwen now. They need to see this--" Owen said, and then to Ianto, "--what's that over there?"
---
Torch-light bounced off the wet walls of the sewer, illuminating the green mold growing over it's stone and metal walls, highlighting the years of Cardiff's underground in a most unflattering tableau of grimness. Gwen gingerly tiptoed along the side of the sewer pipe, trying to save her Converse from the suspicious brown water running through the very centre. Jack was on the other side of the small tunnel, his own torch wavering in the dark in front of them. They had to be at least a quarter of a mile from the ladder where they had dropped down now and so far the tunnel looked as empty as Starbucks on one of Ianto's coffee mornings.
The crackle of the comm bursting into life startled both Gwen and Jack; Jack's footing slipped and he landed in an unfortunately deep puddle of dark sludge.
"Tosh?" he barked in a less than friendly voice, shaking his shoe to rid it of the excess stale water.
"It's Ianto and Owen. They've found something, only it looks as though they might be in a spot of trouble."
Gwen flicked Jack a look of concern; he took it in his stride, directing his gaze away from her to the tunnel ahead.
"They okay?"
"As far as I know. Ianto tells me that there's at least twelve life signs located in St David's Cathedral in Cardiff. It's rush hour, Jack. Anybody could get attacked."
Jack looked as though Christmas had been cancelled. He clenched his fist uselessly and went to lean against the wall before thinking better of it; the walls smelled of something that even Torchwood had not yet met the likes of.
"Weevil heat signatures?"
"That's what Owen says."
"It's all quiet here. Tell them I'll be there in ten minutes."
Twenty, Gwen was mouthing at him, gesturing to the non-existant ladder above them, a sign that they had yet to find an exit to the warren of endless tunnels beneath the bay.
"Fifteen minutes," he corrected, cocking his head at Gwen as a frown graced his features. "Have you picked up any weevil traces near here recently?"
"They seem to have dispersed a little; bands of three of four are breaking off and thankfully moving out of the city, not in."
"Perhaps they slipped through the rift, a couple of them in one go." Gwen's voice echoed off the round walls ominously. Her words may have not been far from truth. Jack nodded, at Tosh or Gwen he wasn't sure which, and started to walk along the tunnel again.
"We'll be there. Keep in touch, Tosh."
---
The taste of blood was strong in his mouth. He spat to the ground and looked up in time to see Owen get clawed across the face.
There were two of them against three weevils. With the cuffs and spray it sounded like good odds, but Ianto had to remind himself that every weevil had about the manpower of two heavy-weights. Ianto's phone was crushed in a gutter, knocked from his hand as he'd started to dial Jack's number by a particularly nasty looking weevil. His comm had fallen out too and whilst not broken he'd barely had time to shove it in the pocket of his coat before a blow had been landed on the right side of his face. His ear still felt on fire, and a trickle of blood still ran down his neck, absorbed by his shirt near where his collar met skin.
Knowing that they were out numbered and seeing the absence of people around the scene, Ianto grabbed the back of Owen's jacket and hauled him to safety. They both stumbled into a run, wiping blood out of their eyes as they panted their way along the street and hit the SUV with a dull thud. Owen and Ianto both flung themselves into the van, clipping their seatbelts on quickly, the whites of their eyes showing with their new-found fear. Ianto placed his arm on the back of Owen's seat, looked over his shoulder in a textbook position, and threw the SUV into reverse. It skidded awkwardly, slipping on the wet pavement slabs, and spun into a perfect one-eighty. Ianto glanced at Owen and found his colleague holding his head back, a nasty cut and bruise blooming above his eyebrow, blood pooling in the hollow beneath his eye.
"This is exactly why we should never go out in daylight," Ianto said as his foot hit the acceleration.
---
Gwen found it odd to drive Jack to places in her own car. There was something distinctly less Torchwood about it than the SUV. It was the equivalent of riding around Cardiff, when she was on the force, in a Robin Reliant. It just didn't feel right, as though she couldn't take her job quite as seriously. In the passenger seat Jack was trying to ring Ianto, but their secretary's phone seemed to be switched off, and however hard he might of tried Jack still couldn't reach him on the comm.
"Tosh?" his voice asked after the fifth failed attempt at contacting Ianto or Owen. "Have you heard from them?"
"Nothing. Jack, I can't get hold of Owen, and Ianto's comm seems to be down too."
"So I gathered. We're by St Mary's Street now. If I don't hear from either of them in two minutes I--"
The screech of tires screamed into the oncoming dusk as Gwen swerved to narrowly avoid a large truck coming towards them. On second glance Jack could see the driver, his features hard to make out under a mask of blood but still undeniably him.
"Shit--" Gwen began, but Jack had already jumped out of the car, his greatcoat billowing behind him as he ran towards the SUV.
The sound of several horns blasted into the evening air as the SUV and Gwen's car began to slow the traffic following into St Mary's Street. Only buses and taxi's were allowed down there now, those and the authorities, but without the buses moving the traffic soon became quickly backed up. Gwen shoved the gear stick into reverse and drove around the SUV to park on the pavement outside of the castle. She was out of the way, at least for the time being, and it allowed her to run across the street and check on Ianto and Owen who were already being tended to by Jack.
"--gotta get back there," Gwen heard Ianto saying as she neared the SUV. His face looked awful, blood smeared in a thick line across his cheek, his lips red and bruised. "Three of them. Lots of people, Jack. We couldn't handle--"
Jack appeared not to be listening. He had crawled into the back of the SUV and was taking out the cuffs and spray, shoving them into his pockets and prompting Gwen to follow him with a swift wave of his hand. Ianto turned his head sharply and struggled with his seatbelt to get it undone. When he found that even that was hard to do he pulled his door shut with a loud slam and jerked the SUV into life, bringing it back around again and driving down the centre of Queen Street with little regard to the defenceless Cardiff street bins. Owen was jerked back into his seat, but for once he didn't complain. He seemed to be loosing a lot of blood, more than Ianto, and was already developing that listlessness that people got when an injury was worse than it first appeared. Ianto struggled with the belt again; it popped free after a minute of fumbling with the clip. He opened the door and fell out into the street, his legs barely carrying him so badly were they shaking with shock.
When he found Gwen and Jack he could see that one weevil had already been sedated. It moved restlessly on the floor, but the spark of fight that had been there only minutes before had been snuffed out by excessive use of Jack's spray. Both Gwen and Jack had a weevil each; it wasn't hard to see which of the two was barely coping with the weight of fighting a full grown weevil. Ianto ran towards Gwen's weevil and threw his weight into the creature, recalling every memory of rugby tackles from his schooldays. In the corner of his eye he could see Jack's weevil beginning to still; Jack had sedated the second.
"Jack!" he yelled, opening his hand and neatly catching the spray that Jack threw across to him. Ianto used everything in the can, until the creature beneath him was barely moving under his weight. He got off, falling backwards a little as he tried to gain his balance. His head was spinning, the events of the last ten minutes unfolding in a carousel of colours, blurred ones at that. Gwen and Jack both moved towards him in vain effort to help him stand without swaying.
Around them a crowd of people stared. Jack noticed; he gave a cheery wave and shouted something about thieves in masks being worse than hoodies nowadays. Ianto watched his performance, knowing that had his head not as thumped with quite the vehemence which it did, he would've found the whole thing a great deal more amusing. As it was, Jack reminded him of a Victorian street entertainer, rallying each grand cry with a flourish and a wave. Gwen checked Ianto could stand securely on his own before running over to see to Owen to check that he was alright. Ianto watched her manage to find a bandage in the home made first aid kit and apply pressure to the wound above his eye.
"How hard do you reckon it would be to retcon eighty people?" Jack said under his breath as he walked back to the SUV and opened the backdoor, ready to shove the three lifeless weevils into the back of the van.
"Harder than bringing down three weevils," replied Ianto, dean-pan. Jack did a once over of Ianto's wounds, taking in the stains on his neck and cheeks. Ianto hadn't seen him look so worried since the Brecon Beacons. He turned away from Ianto's stare and pulled the first weevil into the SUV, saying everything without saying anything.
"Maybe not then."
---
Wednesday (cont.)
... Gwen and Jack went back to secure the area. No civilian casualties were reported, but the church was empty when they got there. We're arranging an in-depth investigation as to why the weevils are congregating in such a way. Jack also wants to be prepared for future public outbursts. I think we're all in agreement that Owen and I probably could've handled it better. Or not. Well, I think Jack was just being nice when he said that "in all fairness Owen and you aren't exactly the biggest blokes in Cardiff."
I think.
I am now going to curl up with a nice drink and bottle of aspirin, perhaps not at the same time as it would make for unhelpful situation aka death.
Those weevils really know how to pack a punch. Calzaghe would be proud.
---
They lay in Jack's bed again, the sound of their own breathing the only thing in the hub. It was late; the other's had gone home hours ago, even Owen who seemed to have recovered slightly from the events of the day. He was being kept under observation by Tosh who had refused to leave him home alone in case of concussion, much to Jack's amusement. Ianto flinched as Jack gently wiped the cut under his eye with a cotton wool ball soaked in antiseptic. Owen hadn't thought the cut needed a stitch and for that Ianto was grateful. He had a feeling that had Jack got his way and taken Ianto to casualty the hospital staff would've had a different opinion on the subject, and he really hadn't felt like six hours of waiting rooms after getting home.
"You should be in a nurses' outfit," remarked Ianto, closing his eyes and leaning back on the wall behind Jack's bed. He felt the warm rumble of Jack's laughter slip under his skin, soothing his pains like only Jack could.
"Is that a proposal?" he murmured, sealing the words with a kiss on side of Ianto's neck, nose brushing the soft skin beneath his ear. Ianto opened his eyes, raised his hand to Jack's cheek and kissed him soundly on the lips.
"You don't have to do this." Ianto was grateful despite his words, enjoying the way Jack's careful hands cared for his tender wounds. Placing the cap on the bottle of antiseptic, Jack put it to one side and made use of his now free hands by running them over Ianto's waist as he leant in for another kiss.
"Seriously... I think a nurse outfit would be kinda kinky." Breath catching as Jack moved a cool hand under his shirt, Ianto rolled his eyes and went to swat Jack's shoulder.
"Jack," he admonished.
"No, really, think of all the places I could use a stethoscope."
"The hub? The office? Perhaps the boardroom?"
"You know that's not what I meant," growled Jack playfully, unbuttoning Ianto's shirt with a sort of bored restlessness, kissing the warm skin which he found beneath the powder blue material. Light flooded through the opening to Jack's bunker, the ghostly blue of the abandoned hub above them shimmering off the walls. It was such a peaceful feeling, the touch of Jack's fingers owning him, possessing him, with the knowledge that miles above them Cardiff was going to sleep, her lights dipping into darkness, hundreds of souls drifting off to sleep in the warmth of their houses and homes. It felt almost powerful, to be here with Jack in the dim of their important sanctuary, from where a hundred plans had already been assembled and executed in a effort to keep this capital and many more safe.
Jack was important: and here Ianto could be important with him.
Ianto's fingers worked at pulling Jack's white t-shirt over his head, gracing the newly revealed skin with careful, measured kisses. His arms were sore, bruises blushing his white skin with shades of lavender, but Jack's touch seemed to make each twinge and ache disappear. Within minutes he felt breathless and dizzy, his lips never parted from Jack's for long before they were kissing again. Vaguely he noticed the jerk of Jack's body each time his cold fingertips touched Jack's flushed skin. Using it to his advantage, Ianto ran his hand down Jack's back making him arch down against Ianto, voice purring in a contented growl at the back of his throat.
"So where do you think I should use my stethoscope, Ianto?"
Chuckling against Jack's shoulder, Ianto traced a line with his finger to the base of Jack's spine. Jack shook his heading, smiling roguishly.
"Try again."
Using the same finger, Ianto trailed his hand over Jack's waist, around to the front, and stopped at a point just above Jack's navel. He ignored the way the taut skin rippled invitingly as Jack laughed again, his eyes sparkling in a way that Ianto didn't see enough of nowadays.
"Again."
This time the route was short. Ianto travelled only a few inches up, his fingertip resting on the centre of Jack's ribcage. Beneath it he imagined the frantic beating of Jack's heart, trapped like a bird craving flight. The gesture was too intimate for Jack; he looked away, smile fading. If Ianto hadn't been watching so intently for such a reaction, he would've missed it altogether. It was never love. It wouldn't ever be love for Jack, at least that's what Ianto believed after Jack had left.
"Again," repeated Jack, lips centimetres from Ianto's mouth. Hiding feelings unfelt for months Ianto mustered a convincing if not artificial grin and moved his whole hand down Jack's torso, stopping just above Jack's waistband. He waited for the raised eyebrow he knew would come and then, with clever fingers working smoothly, unzipped Jack's trousers, his hand finding warmth and hardness. Jack hummed a sigh on contentment, unbuckling Ianto's belt, flicking down his zip with a considered gesture, a well-practised trick. Both their trousers open they were free to move against each other, the new-found sensations welcome and needed.
A broken sound came from Ianto's lips as Jack brushed a particularly sensitive bruise on his chest. He looked up to find Jack's face a mask of poorly disguised concern. He kissed a spot on Ianto's forehead and reached over to the bedside table where he found a tube and uncapped it, squeezing the cold contents onto his hand. Moving Ianto's trousers further down his legs, shirt tails pushed carefully out of the way, Jack circled Ianto's cock with his hand and began to slowly bring it up and down, a soft, slick movement that had Ianto soon forgetting about the pain in his arms and chest.
"You'd make a great nurse," murmured Ianto as Jack stopped stroking him and carefully moved over Ianto, kissing his way over cuts and scratches.
"That's what Ms. Nightingale said when last we met."
Ianto laughed breathlessly, not knowing whether to take Jack seriously or not. Taking Ianto's speechlessness as a sign to change gear, Jack slowly positioned himself so that he could sit on Ianto's lap without hurting his cuts and bruises and allowed Ianto to enter him slowly. Jack's neck arched backwards, a graceful gesture. His face looked completely without pain; only an expression of bliss dared to show as he began to stroke himself slowly. Ianto followed his example, placing his hand over Jack's, watching a relaxed smile playing on Jack's lips. When Jack kissed him there were no bright lights, no explosions of colourful dust, yet Ianto felt warmed to his core, an overwhelming flood of some otherworldly presence.
Love, he thought numbly.
Slowly moving together, the climax hit them both by surprise, too wrapped up in each other were they to worry about what was going on around them. Ianto jerked sharply, arching his body up, feeling Jack come between them. Ianto wiped his hand across Jack's stomach and grasped his back, pulling him forward, the motion making him come himself. Their voices danced awkwardly, stuttering cries and gasps filling the small space. Ianto's throat felt too dry as he cried out softly, slipping out of Jack and feeling the beautiful touch of his Captain being replaced with a kiss on his jaw line only seconds later.
Jack rolled onto his side and grinned at Ianto as though they had done the wickedest thing imaginable. They probably had, reasoned Ianto, shifting onto his own side. Jack saw the flinch despite Ianto's efforts to hide it. He forced Ianto to roll onto his back once more, all smiles faded in the wake of stirring new feelings.
"I shouldn't have let you both go alone."
"You were the one that went after sixteen of them!" Ianto retorted, grinning at Jack. "We should've been more prepared. At least no harm was done."
Ianto could tell that Jack was biting his tongue at this; his deep blue eyes were tracing the bruises as though they had personally wronged him in some way.
"...makes you vulnerable," Jack murmured under his breath. Eyebrows falling into a comical frown, Ianto sighed wearily and sidled closer to Jack. Jack took the hint and placed his arm lightly around Ianto's waist, kissing his neck softly.
"Can I sleep now?" asked Ianto, closing his eyes.
"Thought you were meant to be going home tonight, come what may? asked Jack with a wry smile. Ianto opened one eye and pulled a face at Jack.
"Getting rid of me?"
"Never," Jack replied with hesitation, pulling the blankets over them. Outside, Cardiff slept.
At last, so did they.