TW Fic: Intersecting Geodesics (2/5)
Title: Intersecting Geodesics (2/5)
Author: nancybrownb
Rating: R (language, situations, violence)
Spoilers: up through CoE, brief mentions of events from "Pack Animals," "Almost Perfect" and "Lost Souls"
Characters: Ianto, Jack, John, (Eleven and announced companion)
Warnings: Various shades of dub-con, non-descriptive mentions of sex trafficking, character death. I am operating under the assumption that John Hart is Captain Bad Touch, and so should you for the duration of this story.
Wordcount: 36,000 overall, 9500 this section
Betas: Deepest thanks go out to 51stcenturyfox and amilyn for the Britpicking, beta work, and all those other little details that made this story stronger; anything that's still misplaced, misspelled, misplotted or just plain missing is my fault
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my show. If they'd catch a clue and shut up in my head, we'd all be happier.
Summary: Stuck in the wrong time with a Jack who hasn't met him yet, all Ianto really wants is a way home.
Chapter 1
***
Chapter 2
***
Jack was shoving his shoulder, and Ianto mumbled, "Gwen won't be here for an hour."
"Who is Gwen?"
Ianto's eyes came open, and the sky was still dark outside the window. Jack sat back on his haunches, still nude but giving a definite impression of having showered. Not his Jack. Not his time. Fuck.
"Someone I knew once." He sat up. "Is it morning?"
"Close enough. I have to get to the Agency." Jack didn't make a move, continued watching him until Ianto felt like crawling deep under the blanket to hide from the stare. "You were going to give me information this morning."
"I didn’t say that."
"If you don't, I'm taking you with me to the Agency and they can deal with you like any other runaway fuge." Jack smirked. "They've got a new memory probe I've been dying to try, and they won't mind as long as they can still use you to herd sheep when I'm finished."
"It was the day your father died when Gray was taken. The enemy, they killed almost everyone. Your mother wept over his body. She blamed you for losing Gray."
"Shut up."
"You asked."
"I want to know where Gray is now." Jack's fingers dug painfully into Ianto's arms. His eyes were dangerous.
"I can't tell you that. I can tell you who finds him, and when. But I'm not going to, not yet." He knew he should be afraid. He met Jack's eyes and waited.
"I can't take you back to your time."
"Then I need you to help me survive in yours." At least until Ianto could find the Doctor, until he could work out a plan, Jack was his best and only hope. "I will tell you what I can, when I can. I promise."
"Fine," Jack said, and let go. "I won't turn you in. Not yet. I'll feed you today, but you're not my responsibility. You want to stay here, you pay, one way or another."
"Understood." He had about five pounds, left over from a wallet he'd lifted. Worthless, now.
"I need to go." He shrugged into his clothes, as Ianto put his own back on. They were stale, and advertised sex, and he'd died in them, but he had nothing else. "There's food in that shelf." Jack showed him which one, did not explain anything. "Stay here. You can go down to the private, but if you go any further, you won't find your way back and I'm not going to look for you."
"All right."
Jack left him there without another word. Ianto watched out the window, but if it overlooked the way he'd gone, Ianto could not tell.
He pulled out the table and chairs from the wall, then looked in the food drawer. He couldn't identify any of the food products in the cool space, but he was starving and his head was starting to pound from caffeine withdrawal. He selected a package at random, opened it, and found dry flakes that smelled of spices. He licked a bit off his finger, and wondered if he should reconstitute whatever it was with some water, if there was a place to warm it, if it was in fact food and not a misplaced cleaning supply. Water made it soupy, and he ended up drinking from a bowl he'd found on another shelf, like he would milk from his morning cereal.
The private did have what appeared to be bathing facilities, but their operation was beyond him. He found flannels in the drawer with Jack's sex equipment. (One of the drawers. There appeared to be four with varying objects that looked like something Jack would use.) A sponge bath wasn't his first choice, but he'd be clean. There was nothing to be done about the clothes unless he wanted to try some of Jack's, and the pair of them never had been the same size.
Having nothing else to do, he tidied the room. He folded and put away the clothes, the blankets, the accessories, learning the differences between "food" and "sex toy" (and later discovering in two cases he'd still confused them). He arranged the papers on the table, trying to suss out anything from them and coming up blank. The books he stacked neatly, again trying and failing to make the least sense of what they said.
He tried the mobile, not expecting it to work, not surprised when it didn't.
He needed a plan. Lists were his friends, dividing up his very often mad days into pieces he could digest, both mentally and otherwise. Jack might be angry with him for using one of his written sheets for taking notes, but Ianto found a blank page. He lacked a pencil or pen. He set the page down unmarked.
He had shelter, for now. Food was settled for the day, though Jack had indicated Ianto would have to purchase his own. He needed clothing, or a means to launder what he wore. He needed money, whatever passed for money in this time. He needed a job. These things he kept near the top of his mental list.
He needed to extricate himself from Jack and make sure Jack didn't remember him in any way that would damage the future. Once he had a job and a means of supporting himself, he could slip Jack a few of the pills in his pocket, or what might be simpler, keep the false name, change his appearance a bit --- the way his beard was already prickling at his chin suggested that wouldn't be difficult --- and assume Jack would simply forget him among a sea of other faces in his murky past.
He needed to avoid John Hart. Not that he thought Hart would recognise him later, but Ianto did not trust Hart at all. He was dangerous.
These were lower on his list, things he had to do but didn't need to make a primary focus.
He had to find a way back. Whatever Jack of the now said, his Jack would need him back in 2009. Jack functioned best when he had someone around to ground him, to remind him he was human. Ianto had been doing his best. He hated to think what would happen in his absence. Gwen loved Jack, would do what she could, but she hadn't made a study of his moods, hadn't spent months experimenting with silences to see which suited Jack best and when, hadn't surrendered all hope of an outside life for the sake of keeping him sane and real. Nor had she done it all for the rewards of being ignored when the Doctor came, and not being told about Jack's family, and never once hearing the words "Thank you," or "I missed you," or "I love you," without them being safely deflected to everyone else in the room.
Anyway. He'd made his choice a long time ago, and knowing that his Jack needed him was enough to make up for the rest.
The Doctor would be able to help him. If he could steal his way back into the Agency, he might be able to help himself. He put "Get home!" at the very top of his mental list, and circled it in red.
By the time Jack returned hours later, Ianto had eaten twice and examined every square centimetre of the room a dozen times. He had constructed a short list of jobs he might be able to undertake while he worked on his main goal, and as they walked together to a restaurant some streets away, he told Jack his ideas.
"I'm good with computers. Our mainframe was made partially of alien tech, so I'm familiar with extraterrestrial systems. I'm pretty good with maths. I had to manage the budget for my last workplace because y-- my manager had a habit of overstocking things like chocolates and paperclips and forgetting to submit the expense forms. I could do something with that, accounting or similar. Spreadsheets. I functioned as a personal assistant for years, so I've got a strong background in that area as well."
Jack said nothing, but led him to a table inside. What Jack had indicated was a restaurant when they'd headed over looked more like another pub, dark and smoky. Jack ordered for them both while Ianto looked around, seeing if he could recognise any of the alien species he saw.
After the waiter brought back two drinks, Jack motioned for Ianto to sit still while he talked to the alien bartender. Ianto took a hesitant sip of his own drink, and coughed it back up immediately.
"You drink this?" he asked when Jack returned.
"This?" Jack took a long drink and made a face. "It's shit." Ianto hoped he wasn't being literal. "This place has miserable drinks but the water's worse." He drank more.
"Come here often?"
"When I want to avoid other Agents, yeah. We're far enough into the city that you won't be spotted. Anyway, their glack isn't bad."
The waiter came back with two deep wooden plates. The food appeared to be a mixture of minced meat and vegetables with a binding that could have been rice but probably wasn't, wrapped tightly in a wide brown leaf. Ianto watched Jack pick his up in both hands and take a bite, and he followed suit. The firm texture of the leaf gave way to the warm, savory mixture inside. Not bad at all.
"I like it," he said. "Thanks." He chewed more and said, "This is going to be one of those cases where it's better if I don't ask what's it's made of, isn't it?"
Jack shrugged. "It's made of food."
Ianto set his down when he was half-finished. If he could take the rest back, he'd have something for tomorrow. "I don't suppose there are doggy bags in the future?"
"I don't have a dog."
"Never mind."
Jack polished off his meal and drank his and Ianto's cups dry. "Your shift starts in a couple of minutes. Are you going to finish that?"
"Shift?"
"Work shift. I arranged a job with the owner."
"Oh." He blinked. "Thank you. That was fast."
"You need money, I'm around this place enough to know they won't give you much trouble. I told them you're a half-wit I bought on my last off-world assignment."
"What?!"
"It's an easy cover. You'll be cleaning up here. You can mop and scrub, right?"
"I … Yes." He'd cleaned up enough alien blood and worse. This couldn't be too different. "I have other skills, you know." The smile that spread over Jack's face let him know which skills Jack was thinking of, and Ianto glared at him. "I told you, I can do a lot of things. I'm bright enough."
Jack sat back, playing with his empty cup. "Okay, we'll play a game. Something we learned in training."
"All right."
"Who was the smartest person in the year 1000 BC? Take your time."
Ianto searched his memory, could only pull out one name from that period: "Homer. Wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey."
Jack bent his neck. "Not actually who I was going for, but a good example. Homer. A blind poet who spoke ancient Greek. Now, put him on a street in London in your time. What's he going to do?"
Ianto wet his lips. "He was a genius."
"No one knows it's him, and if he tells them, he'll be locked up." Jack leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. "The Agency helps us prepare for trips into the future, but put me in the eighty-first century without a map, and I'm a blind man speaking Greek. You're going to earn your keep on your knees one way or another, James. You'd make a lot more showing off some of those things you did last night," Ianto stared at him in horror, "but I think you'd be happier for now with a scrub brush."
"That's fine," he said. "Half-wit, though? And you bought me? I thought the future was supposed to be some enlightened place, utopia, and so on."
"Who told you that?"
His Jack had hinted at it, but he always did lie about that sort of thing. "Nobody."
"If I convince the owner you're not very bright, he won't beat you for not understanding the language." Ianto spoke a small bit of Greek, actually, as well as Spanish, Japanese, conversational French, and of course he was fluent in Welsh and English. He'd made the mistake of calling himself a polyglot in front of Owen once, and had been teased for days until Tosh took mercy on them both and quietly explained to Owen what the word meant. He could learn this language, given time, but he supposed not having to understand it right out of the gate would help.
"That'll also explain when you get confused about something. He'll just assume you're mentally retarded. If I tell him I purchased you, he knows I've got a financial stake in your well-being. That means you won't be harassed as much. None of the staff will try to have sex with you without arranging it through me, and they'll keep an eye out so no one else injures you because they know it'll make me angry." He reached a hand under Ianto's bottom and squeezed.
"I feel so much better."
"Want to tell me more about my brother?"
"If I do, you'll leave me here and not come back."
"I might."
"Where's my damned broom?"
Jack took him to the back, where he introduced him to the bar owner, a multi-limbed alien who looked part-squid, part-horse. Ianto could not pronounce his name, and called him Sir. No one on the staff spoke English, so Jack helped him through a few gestures and quickly taught him the words for "Clean up," "Vomit," "Glass," and "Stop."
Ianto expected him to go, but Jack returned to his table, ordered more drinks, and spent the rest of the evening dancing and flirting with the other patrons while Ianto washed up drink containers, scrubbed tables, and kept the tiny dance floor free of debris, spilled food, and yes, alien vomit.
He was groped by strangers twice, until he took off his tie and waistcoat and left them in Jack's care. Jack leaned over so he could hear: "Tomorrow we'll get you some clothing. You'll make more tips in an outfit like that."
"Great."
Jack's eyes were dilated. Ianto had seen him share a powdery … something with a woman not long before, which they'd licked down together before meeting in a deep kiss. Drugs? A snack? Who knew here?
Jack laughed, and soon got into a game of something like poker and something like darts with two other patrons, cheating them out of what looked like a lot of money.
The night wore on, and Ianto could feel his hearing settle into that low roar which indicated mild loss from the loud music. His head hurt, and he was tired. From where he rested a moment, he could see Jack making out on the dance floor with two fairly attractive humanish men. The owner yelled at Ianto, and he went back to work.
While the final patrons were being chased out, Ianto swept up the last broken glass, sopping up the spilled drinks with a sponge. He hurried through a quick, soapy mop of the floor to remove the stickiness; he'd been on top of most of tonight's spills before they'd had a chance to stay, but drinks had sloshed, and he'd missed some whilst dealing with other messes in the back. Ianto himself was sticky and hot, he smelled the smoke on his clothes and in his hair.
"Doe-kat," said the owner. Stop. Ianto set down his mop, and gestured that he needed to rinse. The owner nodded, and let him spread a fine layer of water over the floor, which he swept away, leaving it clean.
Jack snored quietly at his table. Ianto woke him, noting that the remains of his own dinner were long gone but his tie and coat were safe. They wandered home together. By the time they reached the building, Jack was wide awake, and again Ianto noticed how big his pupils were. Definitely drugs.
Barely inside the room, Jack's hands were all over him, grabbing everywhere as Jack licked his neck.
"Don't," Ianto said. "I need a shower. I'm filthy."
"I'll make you filthier."
Ianto considered pushing him away, and then didn't, preferring to let Jack undress him, to work his own hands over the places on Jack's body that he knew his Jack liked. When Jack grabbed for the lubricant, now stowed neatly away, Ianto pulled the bottle away from him and poured a generous measure on his own hands and fingers. "You're going to like this," he said, and proceeded to show Jack what he could do while his lips stayed busy with Jack's mouth.
After, as they lay panting and sated, Jack lolled his head over. "Where did you learn that?"
"My boyfriend was a very patient teacher."
"Back home?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not going to ask if you miss him."
"Good." He wouldn't know how to answer the question anyway.
Ianto rested another moment, then took Jack's hand. "Come show me how to work the shower, and I'll teach you some more tricks."
"Done. But first I'm going to show you how to use a sonic razor."
***
The shops Jack dragged him to in the morning were in the same seedy neighbourhood as the pub, and the shopkeepers only opened reluctantly under Jack's insistent rapping on the window shades. Commerce was something that began after a leisurely breakfast on this world, Ianto would learn. But Jack had it in his mind to do something, and with a flash of his credentials, doors were opened and people bowed and scraped to make him happy.
Ianto was less happy. There were no dressing rooms in the future. When he balked at removing his own clothes in the middle of the shop, Jack stopped his complaints by removing them himself.
It's like a tailor's shop, Ianto told himself firmly, and reminded himself that embarrassment was not in fact fatal, as the first of what would be five or six tailors wrapped ribbons around his thighs and calves and chest to measure him. The first was the only one with just two arms. Jack haggled with each in turn, and despite the language barrier, Ianto could nearly follow along:
"My servant," Ianto always translated the word Jack used this way, "he needs better clothes."
"A difficult case. See the odd shape of the legs and torso? Very expensive work."
"Not worth expensive to me. What have you got in 'barely decent'?"
"I'm offended that you think I would sell something barely decent."
"My apologies." Ianto actually did not believe Jack was apologising, merely that he was making the proper face for it. "But we don't need something extravagant. Rags would do."
"Rags? You would step into my shop and ask for rags?"
At this point, Jack would look around dismissively. "The quality here would suggest that was an option."
This would continue for some time, during which exchange, Jack would indicate Ianto himself was worth somewhat less than what the tailor asked, and the tailor would indicate the cloth alone was more valuable than the tailor's own multi-legged larvae. At the end, Jack and Ianto would leave each shop with a single parcel containing clothing that fit Ianto well, and the tailor would be richer.
It was like pantomime, and Ianto would be enjoying the show much more if he'd spent each performance less naked.
Also, while he could appreciate the cut and make of these clothes, being not distantly related to the suits he'd adopted as his private uniform at Torchwood, he couldn't enjoy the thought of clean, new suits. Jack was purchasing them to dress Ianto up like a toy in the hope that customers at the pub would want him.
*
Ianto has located the abandoned Torchwood warehouse, and blesses the old file he happened to see just two days ago before everything went to hell. For now, there is still electricity, and privacy, and he needs both to keep Lisa safe and hidden. He's scavenged what he could from the wreckage, and she's guided him towards the pieces she needs to form a primitive life support unit. It's enough.
He wants to ask UNIT for help, to ask anyone, but he has already seen them line up the other partially-converted Torchwood employees, has seen the fear and recognition in Bob's eyes from his half-metal face as the guns are lifted, has watched Bob and the rest die. UNIT will not help him save Lisa.
The lights cannot stay on forever. After the situation settles and the bills no longer are paid, this site will lose power. They need a solution.
As he checks her vital signs, makes notes in a chart he maintains entirely to keep himself sane, they talk.
"The Glasgow site won't work," Ianto says. "There's only one employee, and I don't think he has the equipment."
"We'll have to go to Cardiff," she agrees. But how to get in? Torchwood Three has severed ties with London, even though their vultures are fighting with UNIT for the scraps of London's corpse.
"What do we know about them?"
Lisa can remember a little. Captain Jack Harkness is a mystery, and Yvonne cannot stand the sight of him. Could not stand. Ianto clamps down on the mindless terror again; now is for saving the living. Harkness. The rumours Lisa knows say he likes pretty men.
"You're pretty," Lisa says. "If you dressed up a bit, flirted with him, you could do this."
Ianto blushes and splutters. "You're … no. That's not … No."
"I didn't say you had to shag him. Just … be nice to him." She sighs, and later he will remember her sigh because it is one of the things he can cling to as evidence of her humanity. Later he will go through their moments like this, and sift the pieces of Lisa from the jagged fragments of the Cyberman who murdered her slowly right in front of him. Lisa, the real Lisa, said, "Look, women do this all the time. Dressing a bit nicer, smiling a bit more. It's how you survive."
"You never did."
"You think so? You know that red blouse, the one you like so much with the cream buttons?" He nods; it will be the last thing of hers that he throws into the incinerator while Jack watches and does not speak or help. "Eddie liked it too."
"What?" Eddie was her supervisor. Now he's listed among the missing.
"He liked the blouse, and I was promoted."
He tries to wrap his mind around this. "He promoted you because of your clothes?"
"No, you daft sod, he promoted me because I damn well deserved it for the work I'd been doing. But he noticed me because of the blouse." She rests her eyes, weariness across her whole body, and suddenly he will do anything to make her better.
"All right." His mouth quirks into the first smile he's managed in days. "But what do I wear?"
*
Jack stopped at a street stand to buy them lunch: chilled and crunchy and salty on a base that was bread-like and sour. Ianto carried his packages and tried to eat his food while keeping up with Jack's long strides until Jack took pity on him and sat on the edge of a flowerbed so they could eat.
"I'll drop you by my place, and then I need to go in for a while. Briefing."
"On what?" He was only trying to make conversation, but he was familiar with Jack's sharp "That's classified, dumbass," expression even before it fully formed on his face.
"I'll be back in time to get you to work. After tonight, you ought to be able to find it yourself." Jack watched the pedestrians go by, smiling prettily at a pair of purple-hued women sauntering along with some animal on a leash. Ianto hoped it wasn't sentient.
"I'll do my best." He took a bite of the sandwich, letting the flavours play on his tongue.
"You'd better. You get paid tomorrow, and it's not going to cover even one of these outfits."
Ianto finished chewing his bite. "About that. I'll need to understand the currency here."
Jack shrugged. "Not your problem right now. I'm keeping track of how much you're costing me. Everything you earn goes to my account. I'll let you know if I need more."
Ianto pushed away the sick feeling in his stomach and managed a soft, "Thanks." This Jack owed him nothing, had no reason to view him as anything but a burden and a potential source of information. His Jack had been an expert at compartmentalising sex from any emotional or financial attachment, and Ianto did not expect anything else of this one.
***
Jack came back to take him to work as promised, and Ianto watched landmarks, made mental notes of the incomprehensible signs, tried to show willing. Still, by the time they arrived at the noisy, smelly place, his new clothes felt constrictive and his heart raced. He could make himself do this, especially after Jack had so clearly laid out the alternative, but as he went into the back, as Sir garbled at him, as Jack found his favourite booth and lounged there like he belonged, Ianto wished for a pair of goddamned ruby slippers.
The noise was a fraction duller tonight. He had yet to learn holidays, weeks, anything that could indicate when they'd expect a crowd of partiers and when only the serious drinkers would show.
Jack was focused more on his drinking tonight, though he had a charming grin for anyone who looked his way, and more than once he made it to the tiny dance floor. When his duties allowed, Ianto watched him, jealous all over again at Jack's complete comfort with his own body, and awash in memory of so many times he'd shared in that confident glow for just long enough.
Sir yelled something, and Ianto went back to mopping under what he thought of as Table Two. At least it was just beer on the floor, or the local equivalent thereof.
When he managed to see Jack again, he was dancing closely with an alien woman, all branches and leaves and sultry eyes. The music had gone slower now, and sinuous. Make-out music, where at home the boys would be trying to feel up their dates while the girls would be imagining themselves as Cinderella, or possibly the other way around and never mind about mixing and matching. Sure enough, Jack's hand had crept around to where, on a human woman, a breast would have provided a perfect resting place for his fingers, and the tree-woman stretched into his touch as though he were the sun.
In the back, the two other evening employees began to quarrel, and Ianto scurried back to wash up the drink containers before they broke them again. Tweedledee (not her real name) was working up a large snit against Tweedledum (same -- their species tended towards the overly round, red and white alternating, with hair or some growth on their heads that put Ianto in mind of a propeller beanie, and he could not say either one's name, and the appellation helped him get through the night). Sir called the Tweedles out to wait on the customers while Ianto busied himself with soap and water.
By the time he emerged to clean up the spills that had occurred in his absence, because alien gods forbid either Tweedle pick up a mop, Jack and the tree-woman were nowhere to be seen.
Hours passed, and his back hurt, and he kept reminding himself that he could have been dead, and Jack did not return. The pub closed, and the Tweedles kicked the last drunkards out the door while Ianto, true to prediction, went to his hands and knees to get a particularly vicious stain out from right in front of the bar, and Jack did not return. Sir gathered the last of the day's receipts in a bag and gestured with his keys, and Jack had not returned.
"I don't know where to go," Ianto said, desperate and unable to explain.
Sir gestured more emphatically.
Defeated, Ianto let himself be pulled outside by Tweedledum while Sir locked up and left in a different direction than the one Ianto thought was home.
Night, it was night, and he was wandering the street of an alien city, and panicking right now would be his last mistake ever.
He took a breath, and he looked around. All right. This was the street with the pub. He'd stepped outside before, knew the takeaway shop across the street, knew the sloping rooftop of the home next door where gangling grayish aliens lived in a pack of about two dozen, all piling in and out of the tiny house at all hours. Even now, a blank-eyed alien napped on the front step, an infant sprawled on its chest. Two doors down was the place that could have been a laundry and could have been a brothel; scratch that, Jack would have visited it had it been the latter. They passed it on the way here.
Ianto headed down the street in that direction.
Every time he came to an intersection, he looked first for traffic and second for blue-uniformed guards because he was still worried, and then he searched the signs for the markings he'd tried to memorise. A circle, a squiggle, something like an eye. Four intersections, nothing, and he was feeling the panic come back when he reached the fifth and almost missed the sign.
Okay. Turn here. Which direction?
They'd made a left, so he turned right, and yes, as he made his way down the street, there was one of the shops Jack had taken him to this morning, closed now and vacant-looking. People still wandered the streets, though few and far-between, none of them meeting his eyes.
Two more corners, and there was the odd-looking bench he'd put to memory, so he turned left. As he turned, he made out the outline of Jack's building lit against the sky.
He had no idea how to get inside. No amount of waving his hand across the plate would open the door. Local stalking ordnances aside, he wasn't sure how effective lurking outside the door would be before it got him noticed and arrested.
Waiting would do no good, and yet he continued, walking up and down the street to stay warm, to stay awake. Fifteen minutes later, a man came out the door, and Ianto took the chance to dart inside before it closed.
Now all he had to do was work the lift, have any idea of what storey Jack was on, and find the room in a maze.
Ianto sank down to the ground, and rested his head against one wall. This floor was not designed for sleeping, but at least he was inside. He closed his eyes.
***
No time at all later, Jack was shaking him roughly awake, yelling at him in the language Ianto didn't know.
"What?" he groused, standing and feeling every painful muscle.
"You're not supposed to sleep here."
"I didn't know where to find you. You left." He failed to keep the hurt out of his voice, but if Jack heard it, he didn't let it show. The lift was going now, and he saw humans, aliens, everything. The future was amazing, and polymorphic, and featured entirely too much sleeping on floors.
"You made it back here and couldn't manage an elevator?"
"Show me, then." Ianto scowled at him, surly and sore.
Jack dragged him to the lift. "Think about where you want to go." The homesickness hit him so hard he almost gasped, and Jack actually slapped him on the back of the head. "No. Try again."
He pictured Jack's flat. Immediately the lift whooshed them up to another floor. The doors all looked alike, but Ianto had started to count them and found it in one go. "That's it?"
"You slept in the … What's the word?"
"Lobby."
"You slept in the lobby because you didn't just step on the pad. Bright."
"So where's Twiggy?" It came out brittle, and was meant to. Jack's confusion did not help the barb. "You went home with someone last night."
"She left a while ago. It's morning." He led Ianto into the flat, where the scattered blankets and pillows smelled of sex and maple syrup.
"I hope you got splinters." He pulled the chair from the wall and sat heavily.
Jack laughed, though his eyes were cold. "Next time, figure out the elevator faster and you can join us."
"Are you working today?"
"Yes. I've got an assignment. You'll see me in two days."
"Do you know where you're going?"
He shrugged. "Past. There's a shipwreck, no one ever found. If it pans out, we can take the whole boat."
"You're going to pull more people out of their lives?"
"No, I'm going to find out if they're worth saving from their deaths."
"How do you judge?"
"I infiltrate. See what they're like, how genetically diverse the group is, if they'll be a good fit."
He remembered Thames House. "Someone infiltrated us."
"Sure. It was an office building, so the population was diverse enough. The agent would have been mostly concerned with how recent death was before extraction."
"So we were dead." He still had trouble comprehending that. Jack had come back from the dead any number of times, said it was like being dragged over broken glass. Ianto had simply fallen numbly into Jack's arms, and woken up three thousand years later.
"For a while. But our process can work on someone who's up to about twelve hours dead. After that, the brain decomposition is too severe for recovery. You were lucky."
"That's a word." He felt his cheek again. "It fixes everything?"
"It can repair simple damage."
"And you just go out and find dead people and take them?"
"Dead people are easier to transport, but we'll take living ones any time we can get them. Stick them all on a planet together, they'll get the idea."
"Breed."
"They're stock, chosen to repopulate a dying universe whenever we need them, dotted around the galaxy like caches of fresh water in a desert." Jack's eyes were distant. "Anyway, that's the idea," he said, coming back with a snap. "The missions I've gotten lately are more political. Save the passengers of this yacht the ambassador's son wrecked when he was drinking. Start a war over here. Go to that world, but we're not saving it because that lineage of humans came from the wrong part of the Earth."
"Seriously?"
Jack shrugged. "I'll see you."
"I can't open the doors," Ianto said before he was gone. He waved his hand ineffectually.
"Oh." Jack went to the wall and touched it. "Come here." Ianto went to the panel and let Jack scan his hand with a tingle. "Now you can."
"Thanks."
***
The two days passed. Ianto couldn't judge time yet, and arrived at work insanely early both days. Sir fed him, and Ianto was sure the words "out of your pay" were spoken at him in some dialect.
The clientele mostly left him alone as long as he chose to forgo the ties and waistcoats, which he was happy to do. A few patrons took the opportunity of Jack's absence to shove hands, and bills, into his trousers, but a well-placed mop handle kept either from going further. He squirreled the money away in his otherwise useless wallet, hidden in Jack's room.
Once, while he washed up, he saw a head of bleached-blond hair come in, and he hid in the back until he was sure the coast was clear. Two things: first, as he listened, the voice was clearly Hart's, and second, Hart started out speaking English and then switched. Unlike Jack, English was John's first language. Ianto really wanted to kill him now and save them all a lot of grief later. The timeline fracture might be irreparable, but it might not be. He treated himself to various daydreams about shooting Hart, strangling him, pushing him off tall buildings, and the like, while the drudgery of his job faded into the background.
He tried his mobile three times a day. The last time he tried was at work, out behind the pub where they took the garbage, pointing the phone to the sky. The battery gave out.
When he woke on the third morning, really the middle of the night, Jack was in the room crouched over him, naked and wanting. Too tired to argue or even to care, Ianto let Jack fuck him while he squeezed the useless phone until his fingers cramped.
***
"Tell me about your trip."
"No."
Later, after significantly more alcohol than Ianto thought Jack's liver ought to be able to tolerate, Jack said, "They were sex workers. Women." He snorted. "Girls. I don't think any of them was older than seventeen. Someone bought a bunch of kids from their parents or their pimps, and was shipping the lot to work somewhere else when the storm hit. Fifty-two of them, and seven crew members."
"What did you do?"
"I talked to them." Jack's face had always been a study in broken pieces. "The youngest was nine."
"Shit."
"It would have been a good catch. We can get shipwrecks with men all the time. Sailors. Women are harder to locate that way. Get two stock sets like that, and there's your first colony." The Agency planted five to six small colonies per world, close enough to interact when they were ready, far enough to avoid a wipeout in case of disease or unforeseen local disaster.
"'Would have?'"
"History says the ship was lost at sea. History wins."
"Why? You could have saved them."
"No. I could have taken fifty little girls and let them be put on an isolated planet with a pack of lonely men who've just been told their duty to the galaxy is to breed." Jack ordered another drink, and Tweedledee brought it out.
"You could have taken them someplace else, then. You didn't have to leave them to drown."
"Lega thought that. She was a Time Agent. I knew her. She was sent to investigate a slaver ship. She wanted to save them, not force them into a different kind of slavery. She was found out and fired." He drank.
"Does the Time Agency ever do anything useful?"
"Preserve humanity from extinction." He finished the rest in one swallow. "You know something, James? I've done slave ship assignments. Between you and me, I don't think humanity's worth it."
Jack left early that night, but he was sleeping alone when Ianto made it home, and he curled unhappily against Ianto's back, lost in bad dreams.
***
"Hey, Gorgeous!" The too-familiar voice shook Ianto from his daydream. "Miss me?" The clothes were different, but the face, the swagger and the mad affection were all Hart as he slid into Jack's booth.
"Never," said Jack, and put paid to the lie by practically eating John's face. Ianto looked away, looked at his broom, prayed the shadows in the bar would hide the flush on his cheeks.
When Jack finally came up for air, he kept one hand firmly on John's arse. "Where'd you go this time?"
"520,900. Tsunami on Estana Prime. Got the stock set up to go, was running just a small sideline, keep my hand in, hardly worth mentioning, and then You Know Who found out."
Jack laughed. "Are you for real?"
"Week in jail. That bastard has it in for me."
"Only a week?" Ianto didn't mean to say it out loud.
John's head turned, and Ianto was ready for the size-up and the predatory gleam. "And you are?"
Jack said, "That's mine. I found him a few trips ago and the price could not be beat."
"You bought me a present?"
Hot words came to Ianto's lips, but Jack said, "He's not your type."
"I'll judge that for myself."
"Do it later. So, jail?"
"I was lucky. The penalty is usually death. The squid himself stepped in."
"He does have it in for you."
"Squid?"
Ianto regretted opening his mouth as John's attention returned. "There's this alien, shows up in history about fifty thousand years from now. Pain in the arse. Has a whole thing against the Time Agency, always messes with us. Five billion years of history, step one foot into any of his territory, Face of Boe smacks you down."
"He's got a vendetta against Georgn," said Jack. "I thought they stopped sending you forward because of all the hassle."
"They did, but my name came up when Piut got fired."
Unexpectedly, they broke from their embrace. Jack took a long swig from his glass, and John took it from him to drink more.
"One of these days, I'm taking a hammer with me and cracking his fish tank open just to watch."
"Sure you are," said Jack agreeably. He nodded at Ianto. "Face is just that: a big head in a jar. Superrich, older than dirt, and loves to fuck with Georgn."
"Your archenemy is a head in a jar?" Ianto cracked a smile. "Who puts him," he gestured at John, "in jail?" Jack nodded. "I like him already."
"Got to be a gangster," John said. "All that money, came out of nowhere, knows every con in the book. Old enough to have written some of the book."
"Bastard," said Jack.
"I was thinking, let's leave this dump. I found some Glory. You and me, we can have it gone by morning."
"I haven't done Glory in months."
"Then I'll do the whole bag. Come on, you're wearing too much."
"Let's go to yours."
"Yours is bigger."
"Damn right," Jack said, grinding against him. John growled and Jack pulled him in for another kiss.
Ianto heard a crash; another dropped glass. He should go clean up, but his feet rooted to the floor, watching them. Sir shouted and that broke the spell. By the time he'd swept up the mess, they were gone.
***
He could hear them from the other side of the door. The walls were thinner than he'd anticipated, and he wondered how many of Jack's neighbours had listened in on their own noisy shenanigans, as Gwen would say.
Ianto rested outside the flat, not wanting to go in, less out of fear of intrusion and more out of worry of what John and Jack would suggest. "Georgn," he reminded himself, and while Jack had said his name was "Jaxon," he seemed to be answering to something closer to "Jarryn" or "Jarron." Names were something to steal and to discard. Of course since everyone against all likelihood was calling Ianto "James Bond," he shouldn't judge.
He'd never wanted to know what John Hart's sex noises were like.
When they finally quieted, Ianto let himself inside, grateful that the blankets covered John's slumbering body. He grabbed another blanket and found a place over by the window. Odours permeated the room, and he'd been listening to them rut for ages, and having such a painful hard-on was just not fair.
Morning came, leisurely after such a long night, and he woke to the alternately attractive and horrifying sights of Jack and John sprawled nude on the floor picking over breakfast. Ianto had slept in his clothes from work, and smelled it. He grabbed another outfit without a word and went to shower.
They were still eating and still naked when he returned, although he'd lingered under the water extra long just in case. Jack's lips had that swollen look about them of fresh sex, and the room reeked, so they'd apparently been occupied by more than food.
"Now," John said, "I have to ask. You complain when I bring toys home."
"You break your toys." Jack popped a bit of fruit into his mouth. Ianto wondered where he'd found it. Chewing, Jack continued, "Anyway, this one's got information. I want to keep him where I can see him."
Ianto took a few pieces of the fruit, and sat beside Jack to eat. The view was worse but the company was better.
John said, "He talked last night."
"I don't have anything to say to you."
"Be nice," Jack admonished. "Georgn, this is James. He has intel about Gray."
John's eyes widened. "Really?" A smile played on his lips. "I'll get the ropes, you get the knives. We'll have him talking in ten clickits."
"Later." Then Jack said something in the planet's language, and John laughed while Jack touched Ianto's shoulder. The gesture wasn't nearly as comforting as it would have been yesterday.
Ianto said, "I've already said I'll tell you everything."
"You will."
"A little simple torture will make this go much faster," said John. "Then you can sell him off to pick up some quick cash and we can be on our way to find your brother by tomorrow."
The hand on his shoulder squeezed. Ianto forced himself to relax. If Jack sided with John, he had no hope of fighting them both.
"We'll go with my plan for now," Jack said. "And when it's time, I'll go alone. Gray is my responsibility."
John was chastened, but only a little. He picked at his food. "I just want to help you." The pout was familiar.
Ianto said, "I take it the two of you have already spent your two week holiday together? The one that went a bit long?"
John grinned, but Jack didn't.
"That reminds me," John said. "Did you hear about Klaust?"
"What about him?"
"Got found with three fuge girls locked up at his place. Nasty business."
"I always wondered about him."
"Everyone wondered about him."
Ianto said, "What's a fuge?"
"Temporal refugee," said Jack. "Another name for the stock we acquire." His eyes held a warning, and he said, "The Agency has strict rules about the treatment of fuges."
"Which everyone breaks," John said. "Half of them are so grateful that you saved them, they'll nob you voluntarily." Ianto didn't ask about the other half. He suddenly wondered what had become of Charlotte and the others. "As long as no one ends up pregnant, the Agency doesn't care."
"But we don't keep them locked up," said Jack. "That's pasten."
John shrugged again. Ianto really wished he'd put on some trousers. "Klaust is getting fired later today. We could go watch."
Jack flinched. "No thanks."
"He ought to be fired," Ianto said. "You don't treat people that way."
"Listen to the bloodthirsty toy," John said.
Ianto turned to Jack, lost again. Jack said, "James doesn't understand." He started to rip a piece of food into small bits. "When a Time Agent is fired, it means he's put in front of a firing squad."
"So, no severance package, then?" Ianto said weakly.
"That's a good one, mate," said John. "Yes, the package gets severed."
Jack had talked about getting fired, about his friends getting fired. Taking Ianto back to 2009 would get him fired. Keeping him as a prisoner would get him fired, although apparently a blind eye could be turned to keeping him as an indentured servant and/or sexual plaything.
Ianto really hated the future.
***
After John had finally left and Ianto had turned to the task of straightening up, Jack said, "I never told you about that."
"About what?"
"The five years Georgn and I were trapped in that time loop."
He shrugged, folding a blanket. "I told you we cross paths."
"Apparently I don't keep my mouth shut when we do."
"No. Keeping your mouth shut is in fact one of the things you are infamous for not doing." Not that Jack volunteered information like, "I'm immortal and can't die," or "I've got a grown daughter and a grandson," unless he had to. For someone who kept a running commentary going as much as Jack did, he often never said a thing.
Jack watched him work for a while. "Georgn's very … possessive. That trip was half a year ago. We haven't officially worked together since. But if I snap my fingers," he demonstrated, "he comes running. It's useful."
"Officially?"
"Hm?"
"You haven't worked with him officially. Unofficially?"
Jack's smile curled into a lazy grin. "He's a good partner. We've got a few games we work when things are dull."
"I don't want to know." His imagination had filled in too many gaps from the audio track last night.
"Two-man shows are the best. I'm good at playing the part of the policeman, or the jeweler, or that one time I was the priest."
Ianto flushed. They'd only played "the priest and the altar boy" the once, and they'd stopped halfway through when Ianto had blurted out their safe word ("Weevil! Fuck, Jack. Weevil.") before he was completely freaked out.
"Georgn's better at the conman who almost got away, or the broke traveller with nothing but his poor mother's ring to his name."
"I don't think I know that game."
"That one's a classic. Georgn checks into a hotel, or gets a meal, or something. When it's time to pay, he's lost his money, left it back at home or dropped it in his room. He begs the clerk to let him go look, and hands over a jeweled ring that belonged to his mother as a show of good faith. Then after he runs off to get his money, I, another patron of whatever establishment this is, introduce myself as a merchant who specialises in the gem trade, and I take my time with the ring, finally telling the clerk it's worth a fortune, and that I know a buyer who'll pay thousands for it. I leave my contact information, and hurry out because I have a ship to catch or a meeting to attend. When Georgn comes back with his money, the clerk offers to buy the ring from him, for a nice sum. Georgn cries about his mum, explains it's all he has left to remember her by, and so on, until the sum is much nicer."
Not a sex game, then. A con. "What happens when the clerk gives him back the ring and hands him your contact info?"
"Don't know. It hasn't happened yet." He grinned like a wolf. "After expenses, we tend to pull in at least a couple of hundred each on that one."
He looked like he expected a compliment, but something had been bothering Ianto for a while. His Jack had always been generous with his own cash, while this one accounted for every single credit Ianto owed him. "What do you do with all the money?"
"Use it. Georgn buys whatever concoction he thinks will make him stop thinking about all the people we've killed. I look for Gray."
"I don't understand."
"I can't go back to the day he vanished. I'm blocked from travelling any time during my natural lifespan plus some buffer time. I can go before I was born, and I can go anywhere after one hundred years from now. They don't tell you that when you enlist. They make suggestions, not quite promises, about making the past a better place and saving the future. But you can't change your own life. You can't save the people you love. That's the first lesson they teach." His eyes flickered. "Georgn lost his whole family. Slaughtered in front of him when he was a kid. He joined for the same lies I did."
"And Gray?"
"Money buys information. It bribes officials who keep the records of that period of history. It pays people to look the other way when I'm looking through the places I can search. It purchases intel on the aliens who raided Boeshane." He dropped his gaze to the mess he'd made on the table, the shredded fruit covering his sticky hands. "And it buys enough alcohol and everything else so I can forget when none of those things work."
All this, and a wait that would last over a century, for someone who murdered dozens of people because he was angry Jack didn't get there sooner. Tosh's face still haunted his dreams.
If he told Jack everything he knew, right now, he still wouldn't find Gray. Maybe he'd be strong enough to stop John from doing it, though, and Tosh and Owen would live, but Ianto doubted it. This Jack would do anything for his brother, and even his Jack couldn't kill him in the end, had left it for Gwen and Ianto to arrange a short-circuit in the stasis chamber for the sake of their silent agreement that Gray would never hurt anyone again.
Ianto could not tell this Jack about that, nor how a sensation of freedom had flooded him as he'd watched the numbers on Gray's vitals all drift down to zeroes. Jack had killed the one monster Ianto never could, and he'd been grateful to finally repay that gift.
***
Jack was always gone for two to three days for missions, even though they often took him much longer to accomplish. The Agency arranged for him to come back shortly but definitely after he'd left to avoid timeline contamination. Ianto accustomed himself to Jack's absences, just as he had grown used to his presence.
Work at the pub was monotonous but bearable. Ianto began picking up on more words and phrases. He couldn't take meal or drink orders yet, but he could summon one of the Tweedles to do it instead.
The next time Jack went on a mission, John came to the pub alone. After a few hours of ingesting things that shouldn't be legal, he ducked into the back while Ianto was washing up.
Hands were suddenly on his, and his face was pressed against the greasy wall. "You know," said John, breath crystallising in the air from the booze and more, "Jarron and I share everything." Ianto fought to stay calm, feeling the hard bulge against his arse, mentally counting how many weapons he knew John had on his person.
Both of his hands were shoved together into one grip, and John's free hand went wandering. Really, the destination wasn't hard to guess.
"That's not what he said," Ianto said, biting down on his fear.
"What?"
"Jarron. He doesn't like you that way."
"Excuse me?" John's body grinded against him.
"Oh, he'll use you for the sex. But he's not that into you. He doesn't love you. He laughs at you when you're not there. Calls you his dog."
"Says the toy with the leash."
"Says the man Jarron confides in. That isn't you anymore, is it?"
John spun him around, and Ianto's head cracked sharply on the wall. "You don't know anything." John gripped Ianto's arms so tightly that the bruises lingered for days.
"I know what you know. The second he finds his brother, he's leaving the Agency far behind, and you won't even be a fond memory." He was grasping, but the words seemed to find their intended target.
At that moment, Sir came into the back and gesticulated at John, who dropped Ianto's arms and held up his hands in a "Who me?" fashion.
John's hurt expression contorted into a grin. "I can't wait until Jarron puts you up for sale. I'll buy you myself, just for the enjoyment of cutting you apart, one bit at a time. Kisses."
It wasn't the last time he saw John there, but it was the last time he went anywhere without watching his exits more carefully. Jack came home the next day, happier than usual after having secured a piece of transport technology from a species whose name Ianto couldn't pronounce even after several tries. Jack laughed at his attempts, was only slightly less amused when Ianto told him about John's attentions.
"I'll talk to him," he said, and that was all.
***
Chapter 3
Author: nancybrownb
Rating: R (language, situations, violence)
Spoilers: up through CoE, brief mentions of events from "Pack Animals," "Almost Perfect" and "Lost Souls"
Characters: Ianto, Jack, John, (Eleven and announced companion)
Warnings: Various shades of dub-con, non-descriptive mentions of sex trafficking, character death. I am operating under the assumption that John Hart is Captain Bad Touch, and so should you for the duration of this story.
Wordcount: 36,000 overall, 9500 this section
Betas: Deepest thanks go out to 51stcenturyfox and amilyn for the Britpicking, beta work, and all those other little details that made this story stronger; anything that's still misplaced, misspelled, misplotted or just plain missing is my fault
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my show. If they'd catch a clue and shut up in my head, we'd all be happier.
Summary: Stuck in the wrong time with a Jack who hasn't met him yet, all Ianto really wants is a way home.
Chapter 1
***
Chapter 2
***
Jack was shoving his shoulder, and Ianto mumbled, "Gwen won't be here for an hour."
"Who is Gwen?"
Ianto's eyes came open, and the sky was still dark outside the window. Jack sat back on his haunches, still nude but giving a definite impression of having showered. Not his Jack. Not his time. Fuck.
"Someone I knew once." He sat up. "Is it morning?"
"Close enough. I have to get to the Agency." Jack didn't make a move, continued watching him until Ianto felt like crawling deep under the blanket to hide from the stare. "You were going to give me information this morning."
"I didn’t say that."
"If you don't, I'm taking you with me to the Agency and they can deal with you like any other runaway fuge." Jack smirked. "They've got a new memory probe I've been dying to try, and they won't mind as long as they can still use you to herd sheep when I'm finished."
"It was the day your father died when Gray was taken. The enemy, they killed almost everyone. Your mother wept over his body. She blamed you for losing Gray."
"Shut up."
"You asked."
"I want to know where Gray is now." Jack's fingers dug painfully into Ianto's arms. His eyes were dangerous.
"I can't tell you that. I can tell you who finds him, and when. But I'm not going to, not yet." He knew he should be afraid. He met Jack's eyes and waited.
"I can't take you back to your time."
"Then I need you to help me survive in yours." At least until Ianto could find the Doctor, until he could work out a plan, Jack was his best and only hope. "I will tell you what I can, when I can. I promise."
"Fine," Jack said, and let go. "I won't turn you in. Not yet. I'll feed you today, but you're not my responsibility. You want to stay here, you pay, one way or another."
"Understood." He had about five pounds, left over from a wallet he'd lifted. Worthless, now.
"I need to go." He shrugged into his clothes, as Ianto put his own back on. They were stale, and advertised sex, and he'd died in them, but he had nothing else. "There's food in that shelf." Jack showed him which one, did not explain anything. "Stay here. You can go down to the private, but if you go any further, you won't find your way back and I'm not going to look for you."
"All right."
Jack left him there without another word. Ianto watched out the window, but if it overlooked the way he'd gone, Ianto could not tell.
He pulled out the table and chairs from the wall, then looked in the food drawer. He couldn't identify any of the food products in the cool space, but he was starving and his head was starting to pound from caffeine withdrawal. He selected a package at random, opened it, and found dry flakes that smelled of spices. He licked a bit off his finger, and wondered if he should reconstitute whatever it was with some water, if there was a place to warm it, if it was in fact food and not a misplaced cleaning supply. Water made it soupy, and he ended up drinking from a bowl he'd found on another shelf, like he would milk from his morning cereal.
The private did have what appeared to be bathing facilities, but their operation was beyond him. He found flannels in the drawer with Jack's sex equipment. (One of the drawers. There appeared to be four with varying objects that looked like something Jack would use.) A sponge bath wasn't his first choice, but he'd be clean. There was nothing to be done about the clothes unless he wanted to try some of Jack's, and the pair of them never had been the same size.
Having nothing else to do, he tidied the room. He folded and put away the clothes, the blankets, the accessories, learning the differences between "food" and "sex toy" (and later discovering in two cases he'd still confused them). He arranged the papers on the table, trying to suss out anything from them and coming up blank. The books he stacked neatly, again trying and failing to make the least sense of what they said.
He tried the mobile, not expecting it to work, not surprised when it didn't.
He needed a plan. Lists were his friends, dividing up his very often mad days into pieces he could digest, both mentally and otherwise. Jack might be angry with him for using one of his written sheets for taking notes, but Ianto found a blank page. He lacked a pencil or pen. He set the page down unmarked.
He had shelter, for now. Food was settled for the day, though Jack had indicated Ianto would have to purchase his own. He needed clothing, or a means to launder what he wore. He needed money, whatever passed for money in this time. He needed a job. These things he kept near the top of his mental list.
He needed to extricate himself from Jack and make sure Jack didn't remember him in any way that would damage the future. Once he had a job and a means of supporting himself, he could slip Jack a few of the pills in his pocket, or what might be simpler, keep the false name, change his appearance a bit --- the way his beard was already prickling at his chin suggested that wouldn't be difficult --- and assume Jack would simply forget him among a sea of other faces in his murky past.
He needed to avoid John Hart. Not that he thought Hart would recognise him later, but Ianto did not trust Hart at all. He was dangerous.
These were lower on his list, things he had to do but didn't need to make a primary focus.
He had to find a way back. Whatever Jack of the now said, his Jack would need him back in 2009. Jack functioned best when he had someone around to ground him, to remind him he was human. Ianto had been doing his best. He hated to think what would happen in his absence. Gwen loved Jack, would do what she could, but she hadn't made a study of his moods, hadn't spent months experimenting with silences to see which suited Jack best and when, hadn't surrendered all hope of an outside life for the sake of keeping him sane and real. Nor had she done it all for the rewards of being ignored when the Doctor came, and not being told about Jack's family, and never once hearing the words "Thank you," or "I missed you," or "I love you," without them being safely deflected to everyone else in the room.
Anyway. He'd made his choice a long time ago, and knowing that his Jack needed him was enough to make up for the rest.
The Doctor would be able to help him. If he could steal his way back into the Agency, he might be able to help himself. He put "Get home!" at the very top of his mental list, and circled it in red.
By the time Jack returned hours later, Ianto had eaten twice and examined every square centimetre of the room a dozen times. He had constructed a short list of jobs he might be able to undertake while he worked on his main goal, and as they walked together to a restaurant some streets away, he told Jack his ideas.
"I'm good with computers. Our mainframe was made partially of alien tech, so I'm familiar with extraterrestrial systems. I'm pretty good with maths. I had to manage the budget for my last workplace because y-- my manager had a habit of overstocking things like chocolates and paperclips and forgetting to submit the expense forms. I could do something with that, accounting or similar. Spreadsheets. I functioned as a personal assistant for years, so I've got a strong background in that area as well."
Jack said nothing, but led him to a table inside. What Jack had indicated was a restaurant when they'd headed over looked more like another pub, dark and smoky. Jack ordered for them both while Ianto looked around, seeing if he could recognise any of the alien species he saw.
After the waiter brought back two drinks, Jack motioned for Ianto to sit still while he talked to the alien bartender. Ianto took a hesitant sip of his own drink, and coughed it back up immediately.
"You drink this?" he asked when Jack returned.
"This?" Jack took a long drink and made a face. "It's shit." Ianto hoped he wasn't being literal. "This place has miserable drinks but the water's worse." He drank more.
"Come here often?"
"When I want to avoid other Agents, yeah. We're far enough into the city that you won't be spotted. Anyway, their glack isn't bad."
The waiter came back with two deep wooden plates. The food appeared to be a mixture of minced meat and vegetables with a binding that could have been rice but probably wasn't, wrapped tightly in a wide brown leaf. Ianto watched Jack pick his up in both hands and take a bite, and he followed suit. The firm texture of the leaf gave way to the warm, savory mixture inside. Not bad at all.
"I like it," he said. "Thanks." He chewed more and said, "This is going to be one of those cases where it's better if I don't ask what's it's made of, isn't it?"
Jack shrugged. "It's made of food."
Ianto set his down when he was half-finished. If he could take the rest back, he'd have something for tomorrow. "I don't suppose there are doggy bags in the future?"
"I don't have a dog."
"Never mind."
Jack polished off his meal and drank his and Ianto's cups dry. "Your shift starts in a couple of minutes. Are you going to finish that?"
"Shift?"
"Work shift. I arranged a job with the owner."
"Oh." He blinked. "Thank you. That was fast."
"You need money, I'm around this place enough to know they won't give you much trouble. I told them you're a half-wit I bought on my last off-world assignment."
"What?!"
"It's an easy cover. You'll be cleaning up here. You can mop and scrub, right?"
"I … Yes." He'd cleaned up enough alien blood and worse. This couldn't be too different. "I have other skills, you know." The smile that spread over Jack's face let him know which skills Jack was thinking of, and Ianto glared at him. "I told you, I can do a lot of things. I'm bright enough."
Jack sat back, playing with his empty cup. "Okay, we'll play a game. Something we learned in training."
"All right."
"Who was the smartest person in the year 1000 BC? Take your time."
Ianto searched his memory, could only pull out one name from that period: "Homer. Wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey."
Jack bent his neck. "Not actually who I was going for, but a good example. Homer. A blind poet who spoke ancient Greek. Now, put him on a street in London in your time. What's he going to do?"
Ianto wet his lips. "He was a genius."
"No one knows it's him, and if he tells them, he'll be locked up." Jack leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. "The Agency helps us prepare for trips into the future, but put me in the eighty-first century without a map, and I'm a blind man speaking Greek. You're going to earn your keep on your knees one way or another, James. You'd make a lot more showing off some of those things you did last night," Ianto stared at him in horror, "but I think you'd be happier for now with a scrub brush."
"That's fine," he said. "Half-wit, though? And you bought me? I thought the future was supposed to be some enlightened place, utopia, and so on."
"Who told you that?"
His Jack had hinted at it, but he always did lie about that sort of thing. "Nobody."
"If I convince the owner you're not very bright, he won't beat you for not understanding the language." Ianto spoke a small bit of Greek, actually, as well as Spanish, Japanese, conversational French, and of course he was fluent in Welsh and English. He'd made the mistake of calling himself a polyglot in front of Owen once, and had been teased for days until Tosh took mercy on them both and quietly explained to Owen what the word meant. He could learn this language, given time, but he supposed not having to understand it right out of the gate would help.
"That'll also explain when you get confused about something. He'll just assume you're mentally retarded. If I tell him I purchased you, he knows I've got a financial stake in your well-being. That means you won't be harassed as much. None of the staff will try to have sex with you without arranging it through me, and they'll keep an eye out so no one else injures you because they know it'll make me angry." He reached a hand under Ianto's bottom and squeezed.
"I feel so much better."
"Want to tell me more about my brother?"
"If I do, you'll leave me here and not come back."
"I might."
"Where's my damned broom?"
Jack took him to the back, where he introduced him to the bar owner, a multi-limbed alien who looked part-squid, part-horse. Ianto could not pronounce his name, and called him Sir. No one on the staff spoke English, so Jack helped him through a few gestures and quickly taught him the words for "Clean up," "Vomit," "Glass," and "Stop."
Ianto expected him to go, but Jack returned to his table, ordered more drinks, and spent the rest of the evening dancing and flirting with the other patrons while Ianto washed up drink containers, scrubbed tables, and kept the tiny dance floor free of debris, spilled food, and yes, alien vomit.
He was groped by strangers twice, until he took off his tie and waistcoat and left them in Jack's care. Jack leaned over so he could hear: "Tomorrow we'll get you some clothing. You'll make more tips in an outfit like that."
"Great."
Jack's eyes were dilated. Ianto had seen him share a powdery … something with a woman not long before, which they'd licked down together before meeting in a deep kiss. Drugs? A snack? Who knew here?
Jack laughed, and soon got into a game of something like poker and something like darts with two other patrons, cheating them out of what looked like a lot of money.
The night wore on, and Ianto could feel his hearing settle into that low roar which indicated mild loss from the loud music. His head hurt, and he was tired. From where he rested a moment, he could see Jack making out on the dance floor with two fairly attractive humanish men. The owner yelled at Ianto, and he went back to work.
While the final patrons were being chased out, Ianto swept up the last broken glass, sopping up the spilled drinks with a sponge. He hurried through a quick, soapy mop of the floor to remove the stickiness; he'd been on top of most of tonight's spills before they'd had a chance to stay, but drinks had sloshed, and he'd missed some whilst dealing with other messes in the back. Ianto himself was sticky and hot, he smelled the smoke on his clothes and in his hair.
"Doe-kat," said the owner. Stop. Ianto set down his mop, and gestured that he needed to rinse. The owner nodded, and let him spread a fine layer of water over the floor, which he swept away, leaving it clean.
Jack snored quietly at his table. Ianto woke him, noting that the remains of his own dinner were long gone but his tie and coat were safe. They wandered home together. By the time they reached the building, Jack was wide awake, and again Ianto noticed how big his pupils were. Definitely drugs.
Barely inside the room, Jack's hands were all over him, grabbing everywhere as Jack licked his neck.
"Don't," Ianto said. "I need a shower. I'm filthy."
"I'll make you filthier."
Ianto considered pushing him away, and then didn't, preferring to let Jack undress him, to work his own hands over the places on Jack's body that he knew his Jack liked. When Jack grabbed for the lubricant, now stowed neatly away, Ianto pulled the bottle away from him and poured a generous measure on his own hands and fingers. "You're going to like this," he said, and proceeded to show Jack what he could do while his lips stayed busy with Jack's mouth.
After, as they lay panting and sated, Jack lolled his head over. "Where did you learn that?"
"My boyfriend was a very patient teacher."
"Back home?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not going to ask if you miss him."
"Good." He wouldn't know how to answer the question anyway.
Ianto rested another moment, then took Jack's hand. "Come show me how to work the shower, and I'll teach you some more tricks."
"Done. But first I'm going to show you how to use a sonic razor."
***
The shops Jack dragged him to in the morning were in the same seedy neighbourhood as the pub, and the shopkeepers only opened reluctantly under Jack's insistent rapping on the window shades. Commerce was something that began after a leisurely breakfast on this world, Ianto would learn. But Jack had it in his mind to do something, and with a flash of his credentials, doors were opened and people bowed and scraped to make him happy.
Ianto was less happy. There were no dressing rooms in the future. When he balked at removing his own clothes in the middle of the shop, Jack stopped his complaints by removing them himself.
It's like a tailor's shop, Ianto told himself firmly, and reminded himself that embarrassment was not in fact fatal, as the first of what would be five or six tailors wrapped ribbons around his thighs and calves and chest to measure him. The first was the only one with just two arms. Jack haggled with each in turn, and despite the language barrier, Ianto could nearly follow along:
"My servant," Ianto always translated the word Jack used this way, "he needs better clothes."
"A difficult case. See the odd shape of the legs and torso? Very expensive work."
"Not worth expensive to me. What have you got in 'barely decent'?"
"I'm offended that you think I would sell something barely decent."
"My apologies." Ianto actually did not believe Jack was apologising, merely that he was making the proper face for it. "But we don't need something extravagant. Rags would do."
"Rags? You would step into my shop and ask for rags?"
At this point, Jack would look around dismissively. "The quality here would suggest that was an option."
This would continue for some time, during which exchange, Jack would indicate Ianto himself was worth somewhat less than what the tailor asked, and the tailor would indicate the cloth alone was more valuable than the tailor's own multi-legged larvae. At the end, Jack and Ianto would leave each shop with a single parcel containing clothing that fit Ianto well, and the tailor would be richer.
It was like pantomime, and Ianto would be enjoying the show much more if he'd spent each performance less naked.
Also, while he could appreciate the cut and make of these clothes, being not distantly related to the suits he'd adopted as his private uniform at Torchwood, he couldn't enjoy the thought of clean, new suits. Jack was purchasing them to dress Ianto up like a toy in the hope that customers at the pub would want him.
*
Ianto has located the abandoned Torchwood warehouse, and blesses the old file he happened to see just two days ago before everything went to hell. For now, there is still electricity, and privacy, and he needs both to keep Lisa safe and hidden. He's scavenged what he could from the wreckage, and she's guided him towards the pieces she needs to form a primitive life support unit. It's enough.
He wants to ask UNIT for help, to ask anyone, but he has already seen them line up the other partially-converted Torchwood employees, has seen the fear and recognition in Bob's eyes from his half-metal face as the guns are lifted, has watched Bob and the rest die. UNIT will not help him save Lisa.
The lights cannot stay on forever. After the situation settles and the bills no longer are paid, this site will lose power. They need a solution.
As he checks her vital signs, makes notes in a chart he maintains entirely to keep himself sane, they talk.
"The Glasgow site won't work," Ianto says. "There's only one employee, and I don't think he has the equipment."
"We'll have to go to Cardiff," she agrees. But how to get in? Torchwood Three has severed ties with London, even though their vultures are fighting with UNIT for the scraps of London's corpse.
"What do we know about them?"
Lisa can remember a little. Captain Jack Harkness is a mystery, and Yvonne cannot stand the sight of him. Could not stand. Ianto clamps down on the mindless terror again; now is for saving the living. Harkness. The rumours Lisa knows say he likes pretty men.
"You're pretty," Lisa says. "If you dressed up a bit, flirted with him, you could do this."
Ianto blushes and splutters. "You're … no. That's not … No."
"I didn't say you had to shag him. Just … be nice to him." She sighs, and later he will remember her sigh because it is one of the things he can cling to as evidence of her humanity. Later he will go through their moments like this, and sift the pieces of Lisa from the jagged fragments of the Cyberman who murdered her slowly right in front of him. Lisa, the real Lisa, said, "Look, women do this all the time. Dressing a bit nicer, smiling a bit more. It's how you survive."
"You never did."
"You think so? You know that red blouse, the one you like so much with the cream buttons?" He nods; it will be the last thing of hers that he throws into the incinerator while Jack watches and does not speak or help. "Eddie liked it too."
"What?" Eddie was her supervisor. Now he's listed among the missing.
"He liked the blouse, and I was promoted."
He tries to wrap his mind around this. "He promoted you because of your clothes?"
"No, you daft sod, he promoted me because I damn well deserved it for the work I'd been doing. But he noticed me because of the blouse." She rests her eyes, weariness across her whole body, and suddenly he will do anything to make her better.
"All right." His mouth quirks into the first smile he's managed in days. "But what do I wear?"
*
Jack stopped at a street stand to buy them lunch: chilled and crunchy and salty on a base that was bread-like and sour. Ianto carried his packages and tried to eat his food while keeping up with Jack's long strides until Jack took pity on him and sat on the edge of a flowerbed so they could eat.
"I'll drop you by my place, and then I need to go in for a while. Briefing."
"On what?" He was only trying to make conversation, but he was familiar with Jack's sharp "That's classified, dumbass," expression even before it fully formed on his face.
"I'll be back in time to get you to work. After tonight, you ought to be able to find it yourself." Jack watched the pedestrians go by, smiling prettily at a pair of purple-hued women sauntering along with some animal on a leash. Ianto hoped it wasn't sentient.
"I'll do my best." He took a bite of the sandwich, letting the flavours play on his tongue.
"You'd better. You get paid tomorrow, and it's not going to cover even one of these outfits."
Ianto finished chewing his bite. "About that. I'll need to understand the currency here."
Jack shrugged. "Not your problem right now. I'm keeping track of how much you're costing me. Everything you earn goes to my account. I'll let you know if I need more."
Ianto pushed away the sick feeling in his stomach and managed a soft, "Thanks." This Jack owed him nothing, had no reason to view him as anything but a burden and a potential source of information. His Jack had been an expert at compartmentalising sex from any emotional or financial attachment, and Ianto did not expect anything else of this one.
***
Jack came back to take him to work as promised, and Ianto watched landmarks, made mental notes of the incomprehensible signs, tried to show willing. Still, by the time they arrived at the noisy, smelly place, his new clothes felt constrictive and his heart raced. He could make himself do this, especially after Jack had so clearly laid out the alternative, but as he went into the back, as Sir garbled at him, as Jack found his favourite booth and lounged there like he belonged, Ianto wished for a pair of goddamned ruby slippers.
The noise was a fraction duller tonight. He had yet to learn holidays, weeks, anything that could indicate when they'd expect a crowd of partiers and when only the serious drinkers would show.
Jack was focused more on his drinking tonight, though he had a charming grin for anyone who looked his way, and more than once he made it to the tiny dance floor. When his duties allowed, Ianto watched him, jealous all over again at Jack's complete comfort with his own body, and awash in memory of so many times he'd shared in that confident glow for just long enough.
Sir yelled something, and Ianto went back to mopping under what he thought of as Table Two. At least it was just beer on the floor, or the local equivalent thereof.
When he managed to see Jack again, he was dancing closely with an alien woman, all branches and leaves and sultry eyes. The music had gone slower now, and sinuous. Make-out music, where at home the boys would be trying to feel up their dates while the girls would be imagining themselves as Cinderella, or possibly the other way around and never mind about mixing and matching. Sure enough, Jack's hand had crept around to where, on a human woman, a breast would have provided a perfect resting place for his fingers, and the tree-woman stretched into his touch as though he were the sun.
In the back, the two other evening employees began to quarrel, and Ianto scurried back to wash up the drink containers before they broke them again. Tweedledee (not her real name) was working up a large snit against Tweedledum (same -- their species tended towards the overly round, red and white alternating, with hair or some growth on their heads that put Ianto in mind of a propeller beanie, and he could not say either one's name, and the appellation helped him get through the night). Sir called the Tweedles out to wait on the customers while Ianto busied himself with soap and water.
By the time he emerged to clean up the spills that had occurred in his absence, because alien gods forbid either Tweedle pick up a mop, Jack and the tree-woman were nowhere to be seen.
Hours passed, and his back hurt, and he kept reminding himself that he could have been dead, and Jack did not return. The pub closed, and the Tweedles kicked the last drunkards out the door while Ianto, true to prediction, went to his hands and knees to get a particularly vicious stain out from right in front of the bar, and Jack did not return. Sir gathered the last of the day's receipts in a bag and gestured with his keys, and Jack had not returned.
"I don't know where to go," Ianto said, desperate and unable to explain.
Sir gestured more emphatically.
Defeated, Ianto let himself be pulled outside by Tweedledum while Sir locked up and left in a different direction than the one Ianto thought was home.
Night, it was night, and he was wandering the street of an alien city, and panicking right now would be his last mistake ever.
He took a breath, and he looked around. All right. This was the street with the pub. He'd stepped outside before, knew the takeaway shop across the street, knew the sloping rooftop of the home next door where gangling grayish aliens lived in a pack of about two dozen, all piling in and out of the tiny house at all hours. Even now, a blank-eyed alien napped on the front step, an infant sprawled on its chest. Two doors down was the place that could have been a laundry and could have been a brothel; scratch that, Jack would have visited it had it been the latter. They passed it on the way here.
Ianto headed down the street in that direction.
Every time he came to an intersection, he looked first for traffic and second for blue-uniformed guards because he was still worried, and then he searched the signs for the markings he'd tried to memorise. A circle, a squiggle, something like an eye. Four intersections, nothing, and he was feeling the panic come back when he reached the fifth and almost missed the sign.
Okay. Turn here. Which direction?
They'd made a left, so he turned right, and yes, as he made his way down the street, there was one of the shops Jack had taken him to this morning, closed now and vacant-looking. People still wandered the streets, though few and far-between, none of them meeting his eyes.
Two more corners, and there was the odd-looking bench he'd put to memory, so he turned left. As he turned, he made out the outline of Jack's building lit against the sky.
He had no idea how to get inside. No amount of waving his hand across the plate would open the door. Local stalking ordnances aside, he wasn't sure how effective lurking outside the door would be before it got him noticed and arrested.
Waiting would do no good, and yet he continued, walking up and down the street to stay warm, to stay awake. Fifteen minutes later, a man came out the door, and Ianto took the chance to dart inside before it closed.
Now all he had to do was work the lift, have any idea of what storey Jack was on, and find the room in a maze.
Ianto sank down to the ground, and rested his head against one wall. This floor was not designed for sleeping, but at least he was inside. He closed his eyes.
***
No time at all later, Jack was shaking him roughly awake, yelling at him in the language Ianto didn't know.
"What?" he groused, standing and feeling every painful muscle.
"You're not supposed to sleep here."
"I didn't know where to find you. You left." He failed to keep the hurt out of his voice, but if Jack heard it, he didn't let it show. The lift was going now, and he saw humans, aliens, everything. The future was amazing, and polymorphic, and featured entirely too much sleeping on floors.
"You made it back here and couldn't manage an elevator?"
"Show me, then." Ianto scowled at him, surly and sore.
Jack dragged him to the lift. "Think about where you want to go." The homesickness hit him so hard he almost gasped, and Jack actually slapped him on the back of the head. "No. Try again."
He pictured Jack's flat. Immediately the lift whooshed them up to another floor. The doors all looked alike, but Ianto had started to count them and found it in one go. "That's it?"
"You slept in the … What's the word?"
"Lobby."
"You slept in the lobby because you didn't just step on the pad. Bright."
"So where's Twiggy?" It came out brittle, and was meant to. Jack's confusion did not help the barb. "You went home with someone last night."
"She left a while ago. It's morning." He led Ianto into the flat, where the scattered blankets and pillows smelled of sex and maple syrup.
"I hope you got splinters." He pulled the chair from the wall and sat heavily.
Jack laughed, though his eyes were cold. "Next time, figure out the elevator faster and you can join us."
"Are you working today?"
"Yes. I've got an assignment. You'll see me in two days."
"Do you know where you're going?"
He shrugged. "Past. There's a shipwreck, no one ever found. If it pans out, we can take the whole boat."
"You're going to pull more people out of their lives?"
"No, I'm going to find out if they're worth saving from their deaths."
"How do you judge?"
"I infiltrate. See what they're like, how genetically diverse the group is, if they'll be a good fit."
He remembered Thames House. "Someone infiltrated us."
"Sure. It was an office building, so the population was diverse enough. The agent would have been mostly concerned with how recent death was before extraction."
"So we were dead." He still had trouble comprehending that. Jack had come back from the dead any number of times, said it was like being dragged over broken glass. Ianto had simply fallen numbly into Jack's arms, and woken up three thousand years later.
"For a while. But our process can work on someone who's up to about twelve hours dead. After that, the brain decomposition is too severe for recovery. You were lucky."
"That's a word." He felt his cheek again. "It fixes everything?"
"It can repair simple damage."
"And you just go out and find dead people and take them?"
"Dead people are easier to transport, but we'll take living ones any time we can get them. Stick them all on a planet together, they'll get the idea."
"Breed."
"They're stock, chosen to repopulate a dying universe whenever we need them, dotted around the galaxy like caches of fresh water in a desert." Jack's eyes were distant. "Anyway, that's the idea," he said, coming back with a snap. "The missions I've gotten lately are more political. Save the passengers of this yacht the ambassador's son wrecked when he was drinking. Start a war over here. Go to that world, but we're not saving it because that lineage of humans came from the wrong part of the Earth."
"Seriously?"
Jack shrugged. "I'll see you."
"I can't open the doors," Ianto said before he was gone. He waved his hand ineffectually.
"Oh." Jack went to the wall and touched it. "Come here." Ianto went to the panel and let Jack scan his hand with a tingle. "Now you can."
"Thanks."
***
The two days passed. Ianto couldn't judge time yet, and arrived at work insanely early both days. Sir fed him, and Ianto was sure the words "out of your pay" were spoken at him in some dialect.
The clientele mostly left him alone as long as he chose to forgo the ties and waistcoats, which he was happy to do. A few patrons took the opportunity of Jack's absence to shove hands, and bills, into his trousers, but a well-placed mop handle kept either from going further. He squirreled the money away in his otherwise useless wallet, hidden in Jack's room.
Once, while he washed up, he saw a head of bleached-blond hair come in, and he hid in the back until he was sure the coast was clear. Two things: first, as he listened, the voice was clearly Hart's, and second, Hart started out speaking English and then switched. Unlike Jack, English was John's first language. Ianto really wanted to kill him now and save them all a lot of grief later. The timeline fracture might be irreparable, but it might not be. He treated himself to various daydreams about shooting Hart, strangling him, pushing him off tall buildings, and the like, while the drudgery of his job faded into the background.
He tried his mobile three times a day. The last time he tried was at work, out behind the pub where they took the garbage, pointing the phone to the sky. The battery gave out.
When he woke on the third morning, really the middle of the night, Jack was in the room crouched over him, naked and wanting. Too tired to argue or even to care, Ianto let Jack fuck him while he squeezed the useless phone until his fingers cramped.
***
"Tell me about your trip."
"No."
Later, after significantly more alcohol than Ianto thought Jack's liver ought to be able to tolerate, Jack said, "They were sex workers. Women." He snorted. "Girls. I don't think any of them was older than seventeen. Someone bought a bunch of kids from their parents or their pimps, and was shipping the lot to work somewhere else when the storm hit. Fifty-two of them, and seven crew members."
"What did you do?"
"I talked to them." Jack's face had always been a study in broken pieces. "The youngest was nine."
"Shit."
"It would have been a good catch. We can get shipwrecks with men all the time. Sailors. Women are harder to locate that way. Get two stock sets like that, and there's your first colony." The Agency planted five to six small colonies per world, close enough to interact when they were ready, far enough to avoid a wipeout in case of disease or unforeseen local disaster.
"'Would have?'"
"History says the ship was lost at sea. History wins."
"Why? You could have saved them."
"No. I could have taken fifty little girls and let them be put on an isolated planet with a pack of lonely men who've just been told their duty to the galaxy is to breed." Jack ordered another drink, and Tweedledee brought it out.
"You could have taken them someplace else, then. You didn't have to leave them to drown."
"Lega thought that. She was a Time Agent. I knew her. She was sent to investigate a slaver ship. She wanted to save them, not force them into a different kind of slavery. She was found out and fired." He drank.
"Does the Time Agency ever do anything useful?"
"Preserve humanity from extinction." He finished the rest in one swallow. "You know something, James? I've done slave ship assignments. Between you and me, I don't think humanity's worth it."
Jack left early that night, but he was sleeping alone when Ianto made it home, and he curled unhappily against Ianto's back, lost in bad dreams.
***
"Hey, Gorgeous!" The too-familiar voice shook Ianto from his daydream. "Miss me?" The clothes were different, but the face, the swagger and the mad affection were all Hart as he slid into Jack's booth.
"Never," said Jack, and put paid to the lie by practically eating John's face. Ianto looked away, looked at his broom, prayed the shadows in the bar would hide the flush on his cheeks.
When Jack finally came up for air, he kept one hand firmly on John's arse. "Where'd you go this time?"
"520,900. Tsunami on Estana Prime. Got the stock set up to go, was running just a small sideline, keep my hand in, hardly worth mentioning, and then You Know Who found out."
Jack laughed. "Are you for real?"
"Week in jail. That bastard has it in for me."
"Only a week?" Ianto didn't mean to say it out loud.
John's head turned, and Ianto was ready for the size-up and the predatory gleam. "And you are?"
Jack said, "That's mine. I found him a few trips ago and the price could not be beat."
"You bought me a present?"
Hot words came to Ianto's lips, but Jack said, "He's not your type."
"I'll judge that for myself."
"Do it later. So, jail?"
"I was lucky. The penalty is usually death. The squid himself stepped in."
"He does have it in for you."
"Squid?"
Ianto regretted opening his mouth as John's attention returned. "There's this alien, shows up in history about fifty thousand years from now. Pain in the arse. Has a whole thing against the Time Agency, always messes with us. Five billion years of history, step one foot into any of his territory, Face of Boe smacks you down."
"He's got a vendetta against Georgn," said Jack. "I thought they stopped sending you forward because of all the hassle."
"They did, but my name came up when Piut got fired."
Unexpectedly, they broke from their embrace. Jack took a long swig from his glass, and John took it from him to drink more.
"One of these days, I'm taking a hammer with me and cracking his fish tank open just to watch."
"Sure you are," said Jack agreeably. He nodded at Ianto. "Face is just that: a big head in a jar. Superrich, older than dirt, and loves to fuck with Georgn."
"Your archenemy is a head in a jar?" Ianto cracked a smile. "Who puts him," he gestured at John, "in jail?" Jack nodded. "I like him already."
"Got to be a gangster," John said. "All that money, came out of nowhere, knows every con in the book. Old enough to have written some of the book."
"Bastard," said Jack.
"I was thinking, let's leave this dump. I found some Glory. You and me, we can have it gone by morning."
"I haven't done Glory in months."
"Then I'll do the whole bag. Come on, you're wearing too much."
"Let's go to yours."
"Yours is bigger."
"Damn right," Jack said, grinding against him. John growled and Jack pulled him in for another kiss.
Ianto heard a crash; another dropped glass. He should go clean up, but his feet rooted to the floor, watching them. Sir shouted and that broke the spell. By the time he'd swept up the mess, they were gone.
***
He could hear them from the other side of the door. The walls were thinner than he'd anticipated, and he wondered how many of Jack's neighbours had listened in on their own noisy shenanigans, as Gwen would say.
Ianto rested outside the flat, not wanting to go in, less out of fear of intrusion and more out of worry of what John and Jack would suggest. "Georgn," he reminded himself, and while Jack had said his name was "Jaxon," he seemed to be answering to something closer to "Jarryn" or "Jarron." Names were something to steal and to discard. Of course since everyone against all likelihood was calling Ianto "James Bond," he shouldn't judge.
He'd never wanted to know what John Hart's sex noises were like.
When they finally quieted, Ianto let himself inside, grateful that the blankets covered John's slumbering body. He grabbed another blanket and found a place over by the window. Odours permeated the room, and he'd been listening to them rut for ages, and having such a painful hard-on was just not fair.
Morning came, leisurely after such a long night, and he woke to the alternately attractive and horrifying sights of Jack and John sprawled nude on the floor picking over breakfast. Ianto had slept in his clothes from work, and smelled it. He grabbed another outfit without a word and went to shower.
They were still eating and still naked when he returned, although he'd lingered under the water extra long just in case. Jack's lips had that swollen look about them of fresh sex, and the room reeked, so they'd apparently been occupied by more than food.
"Now," John said, "I have to ask. You complain when I bring toys home."
"You break your toys." Jack popped a bit of fruit into his mouth. Ianto wondered where he'd found it. Chewing, Jack continued, "Anyway, this one's got information. I want to keep him where I can see him."
Ianto took a few pieces of the fruit, and sat beside Jack to eat. The view was worse but the company was better.
John said, "He talked last night."
"I don't have anything to say to you."
"Be nice," Jack admonished. "Georgn, this is James. He has intel about Gray."
John's eyes widened. "Really?" A smile played on his lips. "I'll get the ropes, you get the knives. We'll have him talking in ten clickits."
"Later." Then Jack said something in the planet's language, and John laughed while Jack touched Ianto's shoulder. The gesture wasn't nearly as comforting as it would have been yesterday.
Ianto said, "I've already said I'll tell you everything."
"You will."
"A little simple torture will make this go much faster," said John. "Then you can sell him off to pick up some quick cash and we can be on our way to find your brother by tomorrow."
The hand on his shoulder squeezed. Ianto forced himself to relax. If Jack sided with John, he had no hope of fighting them both.
"We'll go with my plan for now," Jack said. "And when it's time, I'll go alone. Gray is my responsibility."
John was chastened, but only a little. He picked at his food. "I just want to help you." The pout was familiar.
Ianto said, "I take it the two of you have already spent your two week holiday together? The one that went a bit long?"
John grinned, but Jack didn't.
"That reminds me," John said. "Did you hear about Klaust?"
"What about him?"
"Got found with three fuge girls locked up at his place. Nasty business."
"I always wondered about him."
"Everyone wondered about him."
Ianto said, "What's a fuge?"
"Temporal refugee," said Jack. "Another name for the stock we acquire." His eyes held a warning, and he said, "The Agency has strict rules about the treatment of fuges."
"Which everyone breaks," John said. "Half of them are so grateful that you saved them, they'll nob you voluntarily." Ianto didn't ask about the other half. He suddenly wondered what had become of Charlotte and the others. "As long as no one ends up pregnant, the Agency doesn't care."
"But we don't keep them locked up," said Jack. "That's pasten."
John shrugged again. Ianto really wished he'd put on some trousers. "Klaust is getting fired later today. We could go watch."
Jack flinched. "No thanks."
"He ought to be fired," Ianto said. "You don't treat people that way."
"Listen to the bloodthirsty toy," John said.
Ianto turned to Jack, lost again. Jack said, "James doesn't understand." He started to rip a piece of food into small bits. "When a Time Agent is fired, it means he's put in front of a firing squad."
"So, no severance package, then?" Ianto said weakly.
"That's a good one, mate," said John. "Yes, the package gets severed."
Jack had talked about getting fired, about his friends getting fired. Taking Ianto back to 2009 would get him fired. Keeping him as a prisoner would get him fired, although apparently a blind eye could be turned to keeping him as an indentured servant and/or sexual plaything.
Ianto really hated the future.
***
After John had finally left and Ianto had turned to the task of straightening up, Jack said, "I never told you about that."
"About what?"
"The five years Georgn and I were trapped in that time loop."
He shrugged, folding a blanket. "I told you we cross paths."
"Apparently I don't keep my mouth shut when we do."
"No. Keeping your mouth shut is in fact one of the things you are infamous for not doing." Not that Jack volunteered information like, "I'm immortal and can't die," or "I've got a grown daughter and a grandson," unless he had to. For someone who kept a running commentary going as much as Jack did, he often never said a thing.
Jack watched him work for a while. "Georgn's very … possessive. That trip was half a year ago. We haven't officially worked together since. But if I snap my fingers," he demonstrated, "he comes running. It's useful."
"Officially?"
"Hm?"
"You haven't worked with him officially. Unofficially?"
Jack's smile curled into a lazy grin. "He's a good partner. We've got a few games we work when things are dull."
"I don't want to know." His imagination had filled in too many gaps from the audio track last night.
"Two-man shows are the best. I'm good at playing the part of the policeman, or the jeweler, or that one time I was the priest."
Ianto flushed. They'd only played "the priest and the altar boy" the once, and they'd stopped halfway through when Ianto had blurted out their safe word ("Weevil! Fuck, Jack. Weevil.") before he was completely freaked out.
"Georgn's better at the conman who almost got away, or the broke traveller with nothing but his poor mother's ring to his name."
"I don't think I know that game."
"That one's a classic. Georgn checks into a hotel, or gets a meal, or something. When it's time to pay, he's lost his money, left it back at home or dropped it in his room. He begs the clerk to let him go look, and hands over a jeweled ring that belonged to his mother as a show of good faith. Then after he runs off to get his money, I, another patron of whatever establishment this is, introduce myself as a merchant who specialises in the gem trade, and I take my time with the ring, finally telling the clerk it's worth a fortune, and that I know a buyer who'll pay thousands for it. I leave my contact information, and hurry out because I have a ship to catch or a meeting to attend. When Georgn comes back with his money, the clerk offers to buy the ring from him, for a nice sum. Georgn cries about his mum, explains it's all he has left to remember her by, and so on, until the sum is much nicer."
Not a sex game, then. A con. "What happens when the clerk gives him back the ring and hands him your contact info?"
"Don't know. It hasn't happened yet." He grinned like a wolf. "After expenses, we tend to pull in at least a couple of hundred each on that one."
He looked like he expected a compliment, but something had been bothering Ianto for a while. His Jack had always been generous with his own cash, while this one accounted for every single credit Ianto owed him. "What do you do with all the money?"
"Use it. Georgn buys whatever concoction he thinks will make him stop thinking about all the people we've killed. I look for Gray."
"I don't understand."
"I can't go back to the day he vanished. I'm blocked from travelling any time during my natural lifespan plus some buffer time. I can go before I was born, and I can go anywhere after one hundred years from now. They don't tell you that when you enlist. They make suggestions, not quite promises, about making the past a better place and saving the future. But you can't change your own life. You can't save the people you love. That's the first lesson they teach." His eyes flickered. "Georgn lost his whole family. Slaughtered in front of him when he was a kid. He joined for the same lies I did."
"And Gray?"
"Money buys information. It bribes officials who keep the records of that period of history. It pays people to look the other way when I'm looking through the places I can search. It purchases intel on the aliens who raided Boeshane." He dropped his gaze to the mess he'd made on the table, the shredded fruit covering his sticky hands. "And it buys enough alcohol and everything else so I can forget when none of those things work."
All this, and a wait that would last over a century, for someone who murdered dozens of people because he was angry Jack didn't get there sooner. Tosh's face still haunted his dreams.
If he told Jack everything he knew, right now, he still wouldn't find Gray. Maybe he'd be strong enough to stop John from doing it, though, and Tosh and Owen would live, but Ianto doubted it. This Jack would do anything for his brother, and even his Jack couldn't kill him in the end, had left it for Gwen and Ianto to arrange a short-circuit in the stasis chamber for the sake of their silent agreement that Gray would never hurt anyone again.
Ianto could not tell this Jack about that, nor how a sensation of freedom had flooded him as he'd watched the numbers on Gray's vitals all drift down to zeroes. Jack had killed the one monster Ianto never could, and he'd been grateful to finally repay that gift.
***
Jack was always gone for two to three days for missions, even though they often took him much longer to accomplish. The Agency arranged for him to come back shortly but definitely after he'd left to avoid timeline contamination. Ianto accustomed himself to Jack's absences, just as he had grown used to his presence.
Work at the pub was monotonous but bearable. Ianto began picking up on more words and phrases. He couldn't take meal or drink orders yet, but he could summon one of the Tweedles to do it instead.
The next time Jack went on a mission, John came to the pub alone. After a few hours of ingesting things that shouldn't be legal, he ducked into the back while Ianto was washing up.
Hands were suddenly on his, and his face was pressed against the greasy wall. "You know," said John, breath crystallising in the air from the booze and more, "Jarron and I share everything." Ianto fought to stay calm, feeling the hard bulge against his arse, mentally counting how many weapons he knew John had on his person.
Both of his hands were shoved together into one grip, and John's free hand went wandering. Really, the destination wasn't hard to guess.
"That's not what he said," Ianto said, biting down on his fear.
"What?"
"Jarron. He doesn't like you that way."
"Excuse me?" John's body grinded against him.
"Oh, he'll use you for the sex. But he's not that into you. He doesn't love you. He laughs at you when you're not there. Calls you his dog."
"Says the toy with the leash."
"Says the man Jarron confides in. That isn't you anymore, is it?"
John spun him around, and Ianto's head cracked sharply on the wall. "You don't know anything." John gripped Ianto's arms so tightly that the bruises lingered for days.
"I know what you know. The second he finds his brother, he's leaving the Agency far behind, and you won't even be a fond memory." He was grasping, but the words seemed to find their intended target.
At that moment, Sir came into the back and gesticulated at John, who dropped Ianto's arms and held up his hands in a "Who me?" fashion.
John's hurt expression contorted into a grin. "I can't wait until Jarron puts you up for sale. I'll buy you myself, just for the enjoyment of cutting you apart, one bit at a time. Kisses."
It wasn't the last time he saw John there, but it was the last time he went anywhere without watching his exits more carefully. Jack came home the next day, happier than usual after having secured a piece of transport technology from a species whose name Ianto couldn't pronounce even after several tries. Jack laughed at his attempts, was only slightly less amused when Ianto told him about John's attentions.
"I'll talk to him," he said, and that was all.
***
Chapter 3