The Windhovers (8 of 10)
Title: The Windhovers
Chapter: 8 of 10
Author: sarcasticchick
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: R
Spoilers: TW S1, S2
Fluffers/Betas: lilithilien
Summary: "A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgement based upon it." - Bertrand Russell
A/N: See notes at the end when you're done reading.
Please see full A/N in Chapter 1 for story details, credits, and posting schedule.
Previous Chapters:
The Windhovers (1 of 10)
The Windhovers (2 of 10)
The Windhovers (3 of 10)
The Windhovers (4 of 10)
The Windhovers (5 of 10)
The Windhovers (6 of 10)
The Windhovers (7 of 10)
Previously on...
He shielded the mobile face, pausing as the light caught the marks on his hand, still visible in the faint light.
Something wasn't right. And for the first time that evening, he began to panic, a full-fledged fear chasing all the way down to his toes.
Ianto immediately canceled the number he'd begun dialing,
He couldn't go back to Providence Park. He'd have to deal with all that later, when his mind was willing to think, and most importantly, deal with the fact that it'd been encouraged or at least condoned by Torchwood.
And he couldn't go back to the Hub. Ianto believed Tosh in that much.
Quickly, he punched in the number before another damning wave from his migraine could drown him completely.
"I'm calling in that favor."
***
Ianto purposefully allowed himself to wake slowly, the drift back to consciousness reluctant for all he could distinctly remember pain.
But there was no pain, not that Ianto could discern behind closed eyelids. The absence of the feeling that his mind was shredding itself into a million pieces was most welcome.
As was the complete lack of institutionalized disinfectant lingering in the air.
He vaguely remembered giving the details of his location, more unintelligible babble into the mobile than enunciating clearly the road he was on. Ianto knew he'd been found, had felt hands lift him, but much more than that was a fog. Actually, remembering much of anything after that was a complete void of memory. Not that Ianto cared; so long as he did not smell Providence Park he could be on the arse end of Betelgeuse for all he cared.
Well, he might care, eventually, but anything was better than Providence Park. Ianto couldn't help himself. Despite the contradictory feelings of weightlessness and heaviness in his body and the questions quickly forming in his mind, Ianto smiled. No constant feelings of oppression as cries rang out in the night, no shouts of anger or random nonsense.
Just a still, steady silence. And birds, he could hear the birds singing a morning greeting.
"Ianto Jones. Back with us now, are you, lad?"
He could smell the horrible, artificial scent of orange even from where he lay. Ianto wasn't quite sure why, but it made him grin all the more broadly as he listened to the sounds of clothing shift-scratch and the rustle of paper, paper refolding and resting finally with a soft brush against wood.
"Bit of wonder you turned out to be. Come on, then, quit smiling like a sleepy Cheshire and thank me properly for remembering you at all."
"You owed me." Ianto tried clearing his throat after his voice rasped out like a two-pack-a-day smoker but that did nothing more than exasperate the pained tickle scratching his esophagus. He must have shouted the previous night; he had no memory but he recognized the feeling of the morning after. Sandpaper dry, parched lips, general ache from clenching muscles to propel the voice. Fear, pain, anger, defiance; any or all of those in combination, he'd yelled them all the day of the Battle.
Not something he particularly wanted to remember now, not while lethargy numbed his senses but his mind was sharp as ever. He'd think himself into circles of the past he couldn't run from. Never healthy.
Healthy. He wasn't at Providence Park. Or at hospital. That was a start.
Slowly, Ianto opened his eyes, dreading what he'd see. Lester was alien as they come, and his most recent experiences with anything remotely alien had left him with tainted memories, if Tosh was to be believed. Tainted memories and a month he'd rather forget.
Glass of Tang, a folded newspaper, bright sunlight pouring through an open window.
And Lester -
Species Profile
Species: Altarian
Origin: Altar
Threat Priority Level: Low
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: Rosly Reesly
Aliases: Rosso, Michael Rosly, Stan Reesly, Lester McDermott
Previous Violations: NONE
Active Warrants: NONE
Threat Priority Level: Low
Current Status: Earth, ERCY2008
- sitting in an old leather high-backed chair, looking just as Ianto remembered, if not a little more bald and a lot thicker about the middle. Life had treated Lester well, it would seem, since the days of London and Torchwood One's raid on his establishment. He'd never done poorly, but as Ianto let his gaze travel around the room, he noted a decadence to the decor that hadn't been present before. It was an eclectic display of wealth; mismatched chairs, tables and lamps decorated the floor and an exceedingly gaudy chandelier dripping with crystals that Ianto wasn't quite sure were authentic dangled from the ceiling.
An ancient-looking tapestry hung on the opposite wall - wasn't until that moment Ianto realized he lay on his side, blankets the shade of ivy clutched to his chin - and if Ianto wasn't mistaken, it portrayed a battle fought by a dragon and a knight with an odd plastic spaceship figurine pinned to the corner.
Lester always had an unusual sense of humor.
The Altarian still carried a tattered derby to cover his third eye at the back of his head, though Ianto was fairly certain the hat on the arm of the leather chair hadn't been in the collection when he'd worked for Lester. And for all Ianto could discern, he was curious to the extent of barely concealed zeal, but at least appeared to have a modicum of grip on his self-control. Unlike Jack who would have asked by now whatever question was on his mind.
Jack.
Ianto wondered if it was possible to both miss and hate the man.
"Can't think of a better way to repay it, either. Don't you be thinking I can't appreciate the irony. Now, you idiot child, why didn't you ever tell me? We could have helped you sooner."
The levity lightening Ianto's smile fled, leaving him with an affronted scowl as he shifted on his side, trying to get comfortable. He never slept like that and it was putting a terrible strain on his back, but it made it easier to speak with Lester without having to move, a proposition that made his toes curl in protest. "I was bloody sectioned, how was I supposed to phone-"
Ianto felt his ability to speak disappear like his good mood, dissipating like fog in the morning sun. His brain must have been damaged some how, there was no rational explanation how he could forget that. He withdrew one hand from under the blankets, afraid to look at what he'd seen before, afraid to look and remember why he'd run. A frantic escape, an escape with purpose.
His hand, marked in black.
Everything about him, everything he knew and understood, felt wrong. Not a slow dawning but an instant awareness that even his thoughts seemed to flow just slightly left of center as the weight of his physical mass even felt abnormal in comparison to what he remembered.
Etched in black, trailing down his fingers and twisting vine-like up his arm, beautiful patterns bent in on each other, splintering lines curling and straight as they encapsulated his skin with some hidden message.
It was a language. Ianto knew it as soon as he understood that he had no fathomable reason why he should know it. He couldn't read it though, couldn't make sense of what it was trying to say, but he knew with almost guaranteed certainty what he would find when he uncovered his other hand.
Hand, marked in black. Not wrong. Different. Different and not normal, but not wrong.
"What the fuck is going on?" Ianto's voice cracked on the curse; he blamed the scratchy throat rather than nerves pulling in every direction fueled by adrenalin and fear. He pushed the blankets down around his hips and stared at his arms, both of them, pale skin and black sworls, dots and lines against the ivy linens. Fingers shaking, he pressed an area of black, then raked a fingernail over the surface when he felt no pain from the pressure.
They weren't covering his skin, nor were they painted on. The delicate lines swirling over the backs of his hands ... they were his skin.
Tattoos?
He'd never been tattooed.
"What do you mean... Ianto? Naveen! Get in here!"
His chest.
Ianto blinked as his eyes caught a flash of black against white, the uniform shirt he'd stolen gone and all he could see were thick lines racing down his side, branches shooting off to twist and bend into patterned fine curls over his chest, the dramatic and bold fading almost into nothing the closer to the center of his torso they came.
Fading. Thinning. Explicit and purposeful. The patterns meant something.
His skin.
The lines were his.
He scratched his hand again, just to make sure. The sound of a door opening distracted him from trying it one more time just to be certain.
"Mr. Jones, good to see-"
Species Profile
Species: Human
Origin: Earth
Threat Priority Level: UNKNOWN
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: Naveen Ramamurthy
Aliases: NONE
Previous Violations: UNKNOWN
Active Warrants: NONE
Threat Priority Level: Low
Original Status: Earth, ERCY3668
Current Status: Earth, ERCY2008
"-you again under better circumstances. My sincerest apologies for my errors in diagnosis and care. If I had known this I would have arranged for your care at one of our safe houses."
Safe houses? Ianto flinched as a penlight flashed in his eyes, the hand steadying his chin feeling like remorse personified rather than flesh contacting his.
Completely unsettling.
"Naveen, I don't think he knows."
Ianto felt the hand on his chin still, then withdraw as Dr. Ramamurthy stepped back to fall into line with Lester. Know what? What was wrong with him?
Not wrong, different. Altered. But not wrong.
He'd be angry with Dr. Ramamurthy later for his misdiagnosis, for thinking him mad, but the way the two were staring at him, much as Jack and Owen did after he'd hallucinated various deceased individuals, stripped the anger as quickly as it came.
Know what?
"I don't know how you can stand this stuff, Mr. Lester. I don't care if it is your grandmother's recipe, anything this orange is simply unnatural. And I brought your tea as well, oh! Ianto-"
Species Profile
Species: Ckass
Origin: Orion
Threat Priority Level: Low
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: Cket Nmuth
Aliases: Sabrina Matthews, Bree Matthews
Previous Violations: NONE
Active Warrants: NONE
Threat Priority Level: Low
Current Status: Earth, ERCY2008
"-you're awake. Would you care for some ginger tea? I saw some in the kitchen. It might help your throat, I bet it's pretty raw after last night."
His neighbor. His bloody neighbor, Bree, was setting down a serving tray with tea and a neon-orange glass of Tang. It was her. Ianto knew without even her suggesting the ginger tea, he recognized that voice. Her voice. Which had been overlayed by his father's; her freckles and red hair replaced by blond hair and glasses.
It'd been Bree handing him his post.
The thought startled him as much as her appearance had. He wasn't hallucinating. Unless all of it wasn't real, which was a possibility Ianto really didn't want to entertain. But she was Ckass, that was the final piece in Tosh's theory. Anything alien. Yet now there were three looking at him, watching him, and all three were outside the normal scope of 21st century human and they looked as they should. No dead walking, no parents or Owen or Torchwood One. Simply them.
"Aw, cat got your tongue?" Bree giggled and then covered her mouth with her hand, but Ianto heard the smothered laughter behind it. "Oh, that's probably offensive, isn't it? I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it and besides, I think they're gorgeous. Quite striking. I bet your partner loves to-"
"Sabrina." Lester's tone was more warning than rebuke, silencing Bree as effectively as pushing her out of the room and closing the door behind her. "Now, Ianto, I don't want to alarm you-"
Ianto didn't think it would be possible to alarm him more than he was. He wasn't hallucinating, Bree was apologizing for offences he didn't understand and something was terribly wrong from the looks on Lester and Dr. Ramamurthy's faces.
He could smell their apprehension and that just heightened his personal tension.
"-but ... you've ... "
Lester's flailing hand didn't help.
Ianto looked down at his bare chest, seeing the same black markings that he'd seen before. Something alien had struck him. That was the only reasonable explanation, but it didn't explain the anxious looks or Bree who wasn't even looking at his chest. She was looking behind him. Over his shoulder? Just a wall behind him, he could feel the pressure against his back.
His back.
Ianto closed his eyes, resisting the urge to follow the others' gaze, deluding himself that if he didn't look then whatever they saw didn't exist. He'd markings across his arms and chest, maybe he'd grown a hump. Third arm? Perhaps there was an alien attached to his back, the marks simply tendrils tendrils of alien attaching itself to him. Maybe he'd become affixed to the wall itself.
He was Torchwood; any number of things could and had happened.
A deep breath and he turned his head till his chin just brushed his shoulder. Slowly he opened one eye, as if doing so would somehow change the outcome ... or perhaps he could close it quickly again and pretend whatever it was didn't exist.
"Shit!" Ianto instinctively lept from the bed, his vision so filled with glossy black that whatever it was, he needed distance before it devoured him. And with his leap came consequence as his upper body pushed forward with far too much momentum, top-heavy when whatever was behind him followed.
He was hallucinating. That's all there was to it. He was imagining this because it wasn't real.
Three pairs of hands caught him before he completely fell in a graceless heap on the floor as though they anticipated his movement. Maybe they had. But the hands didn't help, concerned and anxious and curious all tightly wound into individual pressure points on his skin. He careened backwards once they did let go, the weight unexpected and miscalculated. Vertigo in the worst of senses, he couldn't find his center; even when he thought he was steady that thing behind him shifted, moved, changed the position enough to throw him off again.
Something. Whatever it was.
Problem being, Ianto knew what it was all glossy black. But perhaps if he didn't apply a name it would cease to exist.
He never was really good at pretending. Wishing, either.
"What the hell is wrong with me?" Not wrong. Altered. Different. But not wrong. Ianto knew that as much as he denied it, denied everything from the marks to the things on his back. "Undo this."
"Undo?" Dr. Ramamurthy stepped forward to match Ianto's step back, grabbing his shoulders before he toppled over completely. To Ianto's relief, he let go nearly as quickly, holding on only until Ianto had steadied himself. "I don't know that anything's exactly wrong with you."
Not even the weight on his back moved Ianto, frozen still by the doctor's words.
This was not him.
"Tell me this isn't real." It wasn't real. It couldn't be. And even if it was, it wasn't because of him. A device, something, somewhere struck him and this was the result. Or a drug. An infection. A consequence of shagging Jack, like an alien STD. "Tell me I'm hallucinating like before." He didn't trust Dr. Ramamurthy; hell, he didn't even know the man. Didn't really know Bree either. It'd been an error in judgement to phone Lester. This wasn't real. He was still at Providence Park, or better yet, passed out in the autopsy bay of the Hub. Or in a coma and dreaming.
"Tell me I've not got fucking wings attached to my back." Ianto shouted, ineffectual really given his voice but there was need; it was either that or give in to the panic. "Tell me that somewhere in that 37th century brain, doctor, you know how to bloody undo this!"
It wasn't real. Just a hallucination. Jack would know, he'd know what was wrong. Not wrong. Different. True. But he'd gotten nowhere with Jack and Torchwood before; they'd solved nothing and had him sectioned. And whatever it was had advanced, worsened, leaving him in this state. Fuck Torchwood. But he had no one else so what the hell was he supposed to do?
"How do you know that?"
Ianto's focus snapped from the splotch on the wall, some kind of patchy fading cloth once probably a rich burgundy but now more a smoothie-orange, that had captured his attention. Not that he'd been studiously analyzing the patch, but the riveting procedure of tracing individual threads had occupied the half of his persona inclined to run around the room screaming and kicking things. It was calming. But Dr. Ramamurthy's question derailed all calm. "Know what?"
"37th century. I never told you that."
He tried, he honestly did, to come up with an explanation for how he knew the information. Someone had said it, maybe during the point from the road to wherever this was that he couldn't remember. Ianto knew that was the most rational explanation. Most rational and simplest.
But as rational as it might be, he understood that wasn't the correct answer.
For every second Ianto wasted trying to formulate words that failed to capture the uncatchable, the honest confusion on Dr. Ramamurthy's face drifted to suspicion and hostility. And if Ianto read the expression properly, a little bit of fear, which logic failed to explain as well.
The unease sent a shiver down his spine, not because he believed Dr. Ramamurthy was fearful of ... whatever had happened to him, but rather that the doctor believed there was a reason to fear him. Ianto would have pursued that path of thought towards understanding but the reflexive shiver had an additional consequence as he felt along lengths which before had never existed, ruffling with a soft thrum the air at his back. Nothing dramatic, nothing drastic, but he felt it.
By all the gods in spacetime, he felt it. Down the twin lengths, long as he was tall, like a tickle in his arms, Ianto sensed the shiver travel. Even if he hadn't yet seen he could visualize precisely the shape and size because they were him.
His bloody wings.
If this was the result of an alien STD he received from Jack, Ianto was going to personally see to the removal of everything the man held dear, up to and including hair, coffee, prick and greatcoat.
Movement distracted him yet again, his ability to concentrate on one thing seemingly completely fractured though Ianto reasoned there was justification to his scattered thoughts given recent events. Dr. Ramamurthy had turned and stared at Lester in blatant defiance, so like Owen in mannerism (though definitely not in looks, Ianto would have to be blind not to appreciate the man's beauty, from the dark mane of curls framing his face to the expressive brown eyes narrowing in response to Ianto's lack of one) that for a moment, Ianto believed that perhaps he'd simply been transported to another time, another place, alternates running around in different bodies but embodying the personalities of Torchwood Three.
It would also provide a perfectly rational argument against the marks. And the other things.
"I vouch for him, Naveen. The lad's not a threat to you."
"He's Torchwood."
"He's one of us, first."
Ianto watched the exchange but didn't quite know what to make of it, other than Lester was implying (not so) vague notions that Ianto didn't want to consider. "No, you're wrong. I'm not one of you," he interrupted before he had to listen to any more of the apparent stand-off. "This ... isn't me. Something's wrong and there's a cure, I just need to find it. Research. Do you have a library here? A computer?"
Even while he said the words, the lie felt as obvious had it been dressed in blinking neon lighting. Not wrong.
"Careful what you say around here, Ianto." His old boss turned to him, patting his shoulder. Unlike before, the gesture spoke nothing more than comforting reassurance to Ianto. "That cure you speak of implies that we're faulted humans. And much as I appreciate the lot for supporting my business ventures, I do not wish to be one." Lester smirked and Ianto at first was taken aback before he realized the look wasn't directed at him. In fact, Ianto was almost certain the Alteran's third eye was looking directly at Dr. Ramamurthy. It would have been spooky had Ianto not witnessed working security at the poker parlor. "No offense, Naveen."
For a moment, Ianto thought Dr. Ramamurthy would argue, but the fight left as quickly as it came. He grabbed a tablet PC instead, shoving it into Ianto's hands. "Data from scans taken after we got you here, plus labs taken at hospital. I'll run further analysis later, but all initial readings indicate this is not caused by an exterior source. And if you honestly know nothing of who you are, I can begin sequencing once I've a vial of your blood to compare to known species. We might at least be able to identify a common ancestor from whom to start."
Before Ianto could open his mouth to argue that he was human, that he'd been born and raised human and this was all ... a terrible misunderstanding and there was no species to identify (lie, a lie and he knew it), Dr. Ramamurthy stepped closer, pushing just hard enough at the tablet Ianto clutched to his chest that he could feel the warning. "I don't know how you know when I'm from, but if Torchwood finds me, your name will be the first and only name to leave my lips. Do you understand? I've lived far too long to be threatened by those savages."
"We're not-" Ianto cut himself off, his mind flashing to Torchwood Standard Operating Procedure. Not that Jack ever followed it, but Torchwood One had. Down to the last tittle, to their eternal detriment. But even considering Jack's leniency with the Torchwood protocol, Ianto wasn't quite sure how that applied to him now.
He didn't want to even give rise to the thought of Jack's reaction to ... this.
Dr. Ramamurthy nodded, taking Ianto's half-response for whatever affirmative he'd sought and left the room, reducing the overall number in the room, but for some reason, Ianto believed that somehow increased the focus of the remaining two.
"Don't mind him. He's lived through some rough years in London. Good man, just prefers to keep his secrets his own."
Earlier panic dwindled into resigned numbness, and Ianto couldn't even think of an appropriate response to Lester's endorsement of the doctor. Looking down was a mistake. The black lines stretching across his skin curled into accusatory reminders of everything he was doing his best to avoid thinking about. Not to mention, the action shifted the weight at his back again, reminding him of ... all of that. He'd gotten better at standing, however, less leaning and more upright as his mind and body quickly adjusted to the change.
Adapting quickly, almost like it was natural. Not wrong.
It couldn't be real, could it? He'd spent so much time fighting to discern reality from hallucination it was difficult to tell anymore which he'd prefer when reality suddenly deviated from 'normal.'
Was it better than a life at Providence Park? It made him sick to even consider the possibility that it might be.
"I imagine you'd like some time to yourself. Get used to things, look over the information Naveen gave you." Lester grabbed the tray Bree had brought in, smacking his lips over a long drink from his glass. Tang. Ianto had known Lester was an alien, even before he'd seen the third eye, because of that drink. First he'd ever really known of aliens, but it hadn't bothered him much at all. Was even that connected? "There's a mirror there, inside the wardrobe door. And when you're done, the place is yours. Kitchen's stocked, there's even coffee in there."
Ianto didn't look at the wardrobe, didn't even move. Bree smiled at him, silent through all, but not once did her smile waver. Or leer, Ianto noted as the realization struck that he stood in just the uniform pants he'd stolen. He'd be embarrassed, but really, being with Jack had made any embarrassment over his body disappear overnight.
Fuck. Jack.
It was possible, Ianto knew, that given he appeared to no longer be hallucinating, he would be able to see Jack instead of the light. It was also possible that Jack would take one look at him and lock him up in a cell next to all the other Torchwood Three permanent guests. But Jack wasn't that way, Ianto was quick to reassure himself, for what little good that did. Jack was a good man who had divorced himself and Torchwood Three from Torchwood One. He might not care.
He might.
Ianto bolstered his resolve not to think of Jack, their relationship or even of Torchwood Three by remembering the long-buried images of the team shooting Annie-Lisa, of Jack sending Myfanwy to feed on Lisa. Lisa the Cyberman.
Alien.
Fuck, what if he had an ulterior motive? A prime directive to kill inborn in his psyche, one he couldn't resist if he tried? What if-
"Ianto."
His head snapped front-and-center at the sound of Lester's voice, startled out of his thoughts.
"Whatever it is you're thinking, stop. You'll do no good by yourself thinking in terrible circles of what-ifs and maybes."
In response to the question he never needed to ask, Lester gestured to him ... no, behind him, and Ianto realized one more important thing about his new self.
Agitation and stress - causing the sensation of hair rising on the back of his neck as tension worked its way down his spine until he felt almost rigid with the desperate withdrawal of emotions - most likely had a different result when he had two large fucking wings attached to his back.
Where was his Torchwood One control now?
"Don't worry, lad. Couldn't have called in a better favor. Universe righting itself out. Who'd have guessed we were supposed to meet?" For some reason, Ianto failed to latch hold of Lester's enthusiasm. Though, he rather thought enthusiasm was beyond him at the moment. "Come join us when you feel up to it, we've got a lot to catch up on."
Lester raised his glass of Tang before gesturing to Bree with the tray to follow him as he left.
She didn't, for what reason Ianto couldn't imagine, but he assumed it had nothing to do with some missing post.
"They really are gorgeous, you know. Suits you." Ianto tried to smile in acknowledgement and thanks for her effort, but he felt it fail miserably. At least he tried. "I don't know if it matters, or if it's even relevant. But when I was a kid growing up on Orion, we heard stories. The kind they tell on Earth, you know the ones, monster under the bed type of stories."
Ianto nodded with the disheartening feeling that she was going to tell him he resembled the boogeyman.
"Oh, cheer up, you." She touched his arm in play, but he didn't flinch or pull away; it was almost nice. Reassuring. "It's not like that. See, there was one story, some children were out playing where they weren't supposed to, and a giant, fire-breathing Hornsk attacked. Heard of them? They're vicious, all teeth and little else. But the children were saved by a winged creature named Bob, and you just sort of remind me of the way the story described him."
"Bob?" Ianto couldn't stop the snort of laughter, and the rasp in his throat made the name two syllables instead of one, but surely, not Bob? "So what was the winged creature called?" He asked mostly in jest, but in part curiosity simply because it was the first hint of an answer, even if it was entirely false, just the bedtime ghost stories of another world.
"We didn't really have a name for them, or rather, we didn't know their real name. We just called them angels."
Ianto scowled, remembering the collection of little white ceramic angels his mother had kept in the windowsill, their wings edged in chintzy gold leaf. Her little army, she'd called them. But she had had collections of newspapers, rocks, and tangles of hair, so he hardly believed it of any relevance other than a common theme across cultures, Ckass and humans alike.
"Yeah, we have those stories here, too." Everything had burned; his mother's little army lost.
***
Ianto watched Bree leave the room, closing the door behind her. And with her all the sound fled and the bedroom quieted to stillness, not even the birds sang.
Quiet. Until Ianto started laughing, because really, what other option was there?
Crying, screaming, kicking things. But those all seemed so far outside the realm of possibility.
He laughed until his stomach hurt, doubled over and clutching Lester's leather chair to steady himself, the computer long forgotten. Laughed until the idea of 'angels' had lost its amusement. Laughed until it no longer seemed funny.
Laughed until he realized that he hadn't toppled over, face first into the cushion, because of the weight of the wings.
He laughed until he balanced.
It was as sobering as it was surreal.
All mirth vanished in favor of determination. Ianto collected himself enough to stand, aware of how easy it was and not sure whether he should be pleased with the progress or concerned for how 'normal' it felt. The wardrobe beckoned, the looming wooden box instilling far more terror than a bloody Dalek and he knew that terror. It was ridiculous and silly, but Ianto had never felt such childish trepidation.
The mirror, the monster under his bed.
Irrational and if he could get over the mental images of Owen standing with a gun aimed directly at his (Annie-Lisa's) heart, he could hear Owen mocking him for being a coward.
Ianto opened the door of the wardrobe forcefully, just to silence the internal ridicule.
He just didn't tell the voice of Owen in his head that he had his eyes closed.
Anxiety was felt on levels of his first Torchwood One interview, of setting up that first encounter with Jack, of brewing that perfect coffee that he was sure to win Jack over. Of every day dreading the discovery of Lisa and the anticipation of finding a cure.
There hadn't been a cure for her.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, knowing the mirror nor the quest for self-identity would ever truly go away. At first he didn't see, didn't permit himself even though his eyes were open, creating a moment when he actually thought he'd somehow made himself blind through anxiety.
He hadn't, however. And slowly his eyes focused on the figure reflected in the mirror, pale skin accentuated by black swirled lines-
Species Profile
Species: Windhovers
Known Variants: Angels, Protectorati, Guardians, Sky Walkers, Seraphim
Origin: (d) Halcyon
Alert Status: MIN - Individual
Network: ACTIVE
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: Ianto Jones
Aliases: NONE
Current Status: Earth, ERCY2008
-extending below the waistband of his trousers, which he refused to lower for fear of what he might see. Just to make sure, and he would swear until his dying breath it was without panic, Ianto did pull the waistband out enough so that he could reach a hand down and just double check that everything was in order. Prick, balls, all good.
A small relief.
After resettling the trousers on his hips, Ianto froze at the sight before him, finally taking in his full body in the mirror.
His face, too.
He didn't know whether to cry or laugh, the ideas of blending in (the unmentionables on his back excluded) as Bree had accomplished slipping away like silk over glass as he pressed fingertips to his cheeks, his temples.
Black lines, fine and delicate swirled up from his neck, curling over his jawline and round near his ears, branching up until the patterns stretched over his temples. Dots and sworls, intricate as they intertwined in a recognizable form he couldn't place, a language he couldn't speak. Lines and curves shadowing his hairline, lightening - or rather simply becoming fewer in quantity - as they worked middle towards his nose and mouth, arching over and around his eyes with faint traces of black painting pale, but he knew it wasn't painted; it wouldn't merely wash away.
It was him, his face, his skin, marked by something alien.
While fingers traced a lone sinuous line over his cheekbone, movement caught his eye, subtle yet enough that it brought his undivided attention involuntarily to a point just over his shoulders. By that time it was too late to deny, too late to pretend.
They were there.
Wings arching sharply from a point on his back before falling in relief; glossy jet-black feathers for fuck's sake, and as much as Ianto's mind protested what he saw, gone was any belief that it was wrong. Conflicting but right, normal, normalcy the only thing stopping Ianto from lashing out, breaking the mirrored glass to shatter his reflection and the possibility of existence.
Windhovers.
Ianto tried the name out on his tongue while he stared, turning to the side so he could see more. When he couldn't quite see his back because the long span of the wing fell nearly to the floor, he thought and the wing moved. Fuck, it was really connected to him. Connected; he could move them.
Difficult at first, a feeling not dissimilar from shaking a hand after Jack slept on it wrong, cutting off circulation, pins and needles signifying the waking limb. Slowly control returned, a welcome sensation when everything had been so numb.
He'd been numb before.
And now every nerve woke, pins and needle awareness spreading down like fire across the wings, tendons straining as muscles flexed and relaxed, not remembering but learning.
Shit, it was real.
Or an exceedingly elaborate hallucination, but Ianto wasn't that lucky in life.
Just a thought and movement, the wings bending at the joints extended above his head, fanning out until one side was stopped by the bed. Feathers, appearing soft and light-weight but at the same time gleaming like obsidian as they stretched long, a contradiction in - and blending of - sensations his eyes couldn't quite separate into unique and logical categories.
He should be scared. He should be having the stress-induced breakdown he'd been expecting starting with Torchwood One.
Windhovers.
Ianto didn't know how he knew that name, wasn't even really aware when or how it came to him. It was nebulous, intangible, fist-fulls of nothing if he tried to pin it down. But it was there, just as with Dr. Ramamurthy.
Touching his reflection in the mirror he traced the angle of one wing, following it until his fingers fell off the mirror edge.
He couldn't go back.
The thought made his hand tremble as they touched the pane of glass again, this time following the curve of his neck as the intricate black lines played over his skin, hovering over the stricken expression. He couldn't hide, not even with his best avoidance skills. And he couldn't be confined to the Hub, he'd go mad fighting Myfanwy for airspace.
His hand covered the image in the mirror when it reflected the sound not quite a sob but the feeling was similar, the very joke of the idea nearly enough to unsettle the loose emotional stability he maintained.
No hallucination this time. It was all so very real.
Windhovers.
***
A/Ns:
1. Apologies for the delay. Got back from my trip in a total funk and found it very hard to get back in the writing mode. The wedding went off without a hitch (although the tornado sirens went off just a couple hours before the wedding - go figure), however, the damage we saw was extensive and depressing as hell - Iowa farmland looked like southern swampland, only no houses on stilts to get them up out of the water. And it was only getting worse downstream. If you've got a few spare $, please consider donating to the Red Cross. They're having to borrow money for relief efforts they're so strapped. And even though the flooding and tornadoes have kind of taken a backburner spot in the news, it's still an ongoing major threat and recovery effort.
2. Yes, I did it. I did warn you at the beginning this was a 'take back the plot' fic! *ducks and hides* Hopefully you'll continue approving of the story and not write it off as being one of -those- fics. ;) I'm getting enough mocking from the beta as it is. *grins and smishes the beta for putting up with her* Yeah, I know. -wing!fic- *hands her writer creds over now* Hopefully you've got a few more answers as well, more to come in both this story and in future stories within the 'verse.
3. After watching the trailers for the new DW epis, I have a feeling I am going to get completely, totally, utterly jossed in a major mythos of this series (won't come up this fic, but in others within this 'verse, certainly). So, DW s4 and new Who canon established in s4 is being utterly ignored. Because at this point, throwing out that mythos would destroy the world I'm building and that's simply not acceptable. :)
4. Fic self-pimp! Proof of Your Existence. Just in case you missed it and need something to read ;) (And might I add, a little weird having the fic not be in my own journal? Gah, loss of control!) This is a second world that I'll be playing within in the future, so just a heads up! Be sure to throw a nod to the two talented artists who got their fabulous artistic thing on for the fic as well, then check out the rest of the fic in the challenge! Great stuff.
5. No five, other than I enjoy nice rounded #s in lists so felt it necessary to make a fifth entry. Cheers!
Next Chapter
Chapter: 8 of 10
Author: sarcasticchick
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: R
Spoilers: TW S1, S2
Fluffers/Betas: lilithilien
Summary: "A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgement based upon it." - Bertrand Russell
A/N: See notes at the end when you're done reading.
Please see full A/N in Chapter 1 for story details, credits, and posting schedule.
Previous Chapters:
The Windhovers (1 of 10)
The Windhovers (2 of 10)
The Windhovers (3 of 10)
The Windhovers (4 of 10)
The Windhovers (5 of 10)
The Windhovers (6 of 10)
The Windhovers (7 of 10)
Previously on...
He shielded the mobile face, pausing as the light caught the marks on his hand, still visible in the faint light.
Something wasn't right. And for the first time that evening, he began to panic, a full-fledged fear chasing all the way down to his toes.
Ianto immediately canceled the number he'd begun dialing,
He couldn't go back to Providence Park. He'd have to deal with all that later, when his mind was willing to think, and most importantly, deal with the fact that it'd been encouraged or at least condoned by Torchwood.
And he couldn't go back to the Hub. Ianto believed Tosh in that much.
Quickly, he punched in the number before another damning wave from his migraine could drown him completely.
"I'm calling in that favor."
***
Ianto purposefully allowed himself to wake slowly, the drift back to consciousness reluctant for all he could distinctly remember pain.
But there was no pain, not that Ianto could discern behind closed eyelids. The absence of the feeling that his mind was shredding itself into a million pieces was most welcome.
As was the complete lack of institutionalized disinfectant lingering in the air.
He vaguely remembered giving the details of his location, more unintelligible babble into the mobile than enunciating clearly the road he was on. Ianto knew he'd been found, had felt hands lift him, but much more than that was a fog. Actually, remembering much of anything after that was a complete void of memory. Not that Ianto cared; so long as he did not smell Providence Park he could be on the arse end of Betelgeuse for all he cared.
Well, he might care, eventually, but anything was better than Providence Park. Ianto couldn't help himself. Despite the contradictory feelings of weightlessness and heaviness in his body and the questions quickly forming in his mind, Ianto smiled. No constant feelings of oppression as cries rang out in the night, no shouts of anger or random nonsense.
Just a still, steady silence. And birds, he could hear the birds singing a morning greeting.
"Ianto Jones. Back with us now, are you, lad?"
He could smell the horrible, artificial scent of orange even from where he lay. Ianto wasn't quite sure why, but it made him grin all the more broadly as he listened to the sounds of clothing shift-scratch and the rustle of paper, paper refolding and resting finally with a soft brush against wood.
"Bit of wonder you turned out to be. Come on, then, quit smiling like a sleepy Cheshire and thank me properly for remembering you at all."
"You owed me." Ianto tried clearing his throat after his voice rasped out like a two-pack-a-day smoker but that did nothing more than exasperate the pained tickle scratching his esophagus. He must have shouted the previous night; he had no memory but he recognized the feeling of the morning after. Sandpaper dry, parched lips, general ache from clenching muscles to propel the voice. Fear, pain, anger, defiance; any or all of those in combination, he'd yelled them all the day of the Battle.
Not something he particularly wanted to remember now, not while lethargy numbed his senses but his mind was sharp as ever. He'd think himself into circles of the past he couldn't run from. Never healthy.
Healthy. He wasn't at Providence Park. Or at hospital. That was a start.
Slowly, Ianto opened his eyes, dreading what he'd see. Lester was alien as they come, and his most recent experiences with anything remotely alien had left him with tainted memories, if Tosh was to be believed. Tainted memories and a month he'd rather forget.
Glass of Tang, a folded newspaper, bright sunlight pouring through an open window.
And Lester -
Species Profile
Species: Altarian
Origin: Altar
Threat Priority Level: Low
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: Rosly Reesly
Aliases: Rosso, Michael Rosly, Stan Reesly, Lester McDermott
Previous Violations: NONE
Active Warrants: NONE
Threat Priority Level: Low
Current Status: Earth, ERCY2008
- sitting in an old leather high-backed chair, looking just as Ianto remembered, if not a little more bald and a lot thicker about the middle. Life had treated Lester well, it would seem, since the days of London and Torchwood One's raid on his establishment. He'd never done poorly, but as Ianto let his gaze travel around the room, he noted a decadence to the decor that hadn't been present before. It was an eclectic display of wealth; mismatched chairs, tables and lamps decorated the floor and an exceedingly gaudy chandelier dripping with crystals that Ianto wasn't quite sure were authentic dangled from the ceiling.
An ancient-looking tapestry hung on the opposite wall - wasn't until that moment Ianto realized he lay on his side, blankets the shade of ivy clutched to his chin - and if Ianto wasn't mistaken, it portrayed a battle fought by a dragon and a knight with an odd plastic spaceship figurine pinned to the corner.
Lester always had an unusual sense of humor.
The Altarian still carried a tattered derby to cover his third eye at the back of his head, though Ianto was fairly certain the hat on the arm of the leather chair hadn't been in the collection when he'd worked for Lester. And for all Ianto could discern, he was curious to the extent of barely concealed zeal, but at least appeared to have a modicum of grip on his self-control. Unlike Jack who would have asked by now whatever question was on his mind.
Jack.
Ianto wondered if it was possible to both miss and hate the man.
"Can't think of a better way to repay it, either. Don't you be thinking I can't appreciate the irony. Now, you idiot child, why didn't you ever tell me? We could have helped you sooner."
The levity lightening Ianto's smile fled, leaving him with an affronted scowl as he shifted on his side, trying to get comfortable. He never slept like that and it was putting a terrible strain on his back, but it made it easier to speak with Lester without having to move, a proposition that made his toes curl in protest. "I was bloody sectioned, how was I supposed to phone-"
Ianto felt his ability to speak disappear like his good mood, dissipating like fog in the morning sun. His brain must have been damaged some how, there was no rational explanation how he could forget that. He withdrew one hand from under the blankets, afraid to look at what he'd seen before, afraid to look and remember why he'd run. A frantic escape, an escape with purpose.
His hand, marked in black.
Everything about him, everything he knew and understood, felt wrong. Not a slow dawning but an instant awareness that even his thoughts seemed to flow just slightly left of center as the weight of his physical mass even felt abnormal in comparison to what he remembered.
Etched in black, trailing down his fingers and twisting vine-like up his arm, beautiful patterns bent in on each other, splintering lines curling and straight as they encapsulated his skin with some hidden message.
It was a language. Ianto knew it as soon as he understood that he had no fathomable reason why he should know it. He couldn't read it though, couldn't make sense of what it was trying to say, but he knew with almost guaranteed certainty what he would find when he uncovered his other hand.
Hand, marked in black. Not wrong. Different. Different and not normal, but not wrong.
"What the fuck is going on?" Ianto's voice cracked on the curse; he blamed the scratchy throat rather than nerves pulling in every direction fueled by adrenalin and fear. He pushed the blankets down around his hips and stared at his arms, both of them, pale skin and black sworls, dots and lines against the ivy linens. Fingers shaking, he pressed an area of black, then raked a fingernail over the surface when he felt no pain from the pressure.
They weren't covering his skin, nor were they painted on. The delicate lines swirling over the backs of his hands ... they were his skin.
Tattoos?
He'd never been tattooed.
"What do you mean... Ianto? Naveen! Get in here!"
His chest.
Ianto blinked as his eyes caught a flash of black against white, the uniform shirt he'd stolen gone and all he could see were thick lines racing down his side, branches shooting off to twist and bend into patterned fine curls over his chest, the dramatic and bold fading almost into nothing the closer to the center of his torso they came.
Fading. Thinning. Explicit and purposeful. The patterns meant something.
His skin.
The lines were his.
He scratched his hand again, just to make sure. The sound of a door opening distracted him from trying it one more time just to be certain.
"Mr. Jones, good to see-"
Species Profile
Species: Human
Origin: Earth
Threat Priority Level: UNKNOWN
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: Naveen Ramamurthy
Aliases: NONE
Previous Violations: UNKNOWN
Active Warrants: NONE
Threat Priority Level: Low
Original Status: Earth, ERCY3668
Current Status: Earth, ERCY2008
"-you again under better circumstances. My sincerest apologies for my errors in diagnosis and care. If I had known this I would have arranged for your care at one of our safe houses."
Safe houses? Ianto flinched as a penlight flashed in his eyes, the hand steadying his chin feeling like remorse personified rather than flesh contacting his.
Completely unsettling.
"Naveen, I don't think he knows."
Ianto felt the hand on his chin still, then withdraw as Dr. Ramamurthy stepped back to fall into line with Lester. Know what? What was wrong with him?
Not wrong, different. Altered. But not wrong.
He'd be angry with Dr. Ramamurthy later for his misdiagnosis, for thinking him mad, but the way the two were staring at him, much as Jack and Owen did after he'd hallucinated various deceased individuals, stripped the anger as quickly as it came.
Know what?
"I don't know how you can stand this stuff, Mr. Lester. I don't care if it is your grandmother's recipe, anything this orange is simply unnatural. And I brought your tea as well, oh! Ianto-"
Species Profile
Species: Ckass
Origin: Orion
Threat Priority Level: Low
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: Cket Nmuth
Aliases: Sabrina Matthews, Bree Matthews
Previous Violations: NONE
Active Warrants: NONE
Threat Priority Level: Low
Current Status: Earth, ERCY2008
"-you're awake. Would you care for some ginger tea? I saw some in the kitchen. It might help your throat, I bet it's pretty raw after last night."
His neighbor. His bloody neighbor, Bree, was setting down a serving tray with tea and a neon-orange glass of Tang. It was her. Ianto knew without even her suggesting the ginger tea, he recognized that voice. Her voice. Which had been overlayed by his father's; her freckles and red hair replaced by blond hair and glasses.
It'd been Bree handing him his post.
The thought startled him as much as her appearance had. He wasn't hallucinating. Unless all of it wasn't real, which was a possibility Ianto really didn't want to entertain. But she was Ckass, that was the final piece in Tosh's theory. Anything alien. Yet now there were three looking at him, watching him, and all three were outside the normal scope of 21st century human and they looked as they should. No dead walking, no parents or Owen or Torchwood One. Simply them.
"Aw, cat got your tongue?" Bree giggled and then covered her mouth with her hand, but Ianto heard the smothered laughter behind it. "Oh, that's probably offensive, isn't it? I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it and besides, I think they're gorgeous. Quite striking. I bet your partner loves to-"
"Sabrina." Lester's tone was more warning than rebuke, silencing Bree as effectively as pushing her out of the room and closing the door behind her. "Now, Ianto, I don't want to alarm you-"
Ianto didn't think it would be possible to alarm him more than he was. He wasn't hallucinating, Bree was apologizing for offences he didn't understand and something was terribly wrong from the looks on Lester and Dr. Ramamurthy's faces.
He could smell their apprehension and that just heightened his personal tension.
"-but ... you've ... "
Lester's flailing hand didn't help.
Ianto looked down at his bare chest, seeing the same black markings that he'd seen before. Something alien had struck him. That was the only reasonable explanation, but it didn't explain the anxious looks or Bree who wasn't even looking at his chest. She was looking behind him. Over his shoulder? Just a wall behind him, he could feel the pressure against his back.
His back.
Ianto closed his eyes, resisting the urge to follow the others' gaze, deluding himself that if he didn't look then whatever they saw didn't exist. He'd markings across his arms and chest, maybe he'd grown a hump. Third arm? Perhaps there was an alien attached to his back, the marks simply tendrils tendrils of alien attaching itself to him. Maybe he'd become affixed to the wall itself.
He was Torchwood; any number of things could and had happened.
A deep breath and he turned his head till his chin just brushed his shoulder. Slowly he opened one eye, as if doing so would somehow change the outcome ... or perhaps he could close it quickly again and pretend whatever it was didn't exist.
"Shit!" Ianto instinctively lept from the bed, his vision so filled with glossy black that whatever it was, he needed distance before it devoured him. And with his leap came consequence as his upper body pushed forward with far too much momentum, top-heavy when whatever was behind him followed.
He was hallucinating. That's all there was to it. He was imagining this because it wasn't real.
Three pairs of hands caught him before he completely fell in a graceless heap on the floor as though they anticipated his movement. Maybe they had. But the hands didn't help, concerned and anxious and curious all tightly wound into individual pressure points on his skin. He careened backwards once they did let go, the weight unexpected and miscalculated. Vertigo in the worst of senses, he couldn't find his center; even when he thought he was steady that thing behind him shifted, moved, changed the position enough to throw him off again.
Something. Whatever it was.
Problem being, Ianto knew what it was all glossy black. But perhaps if he didn't apply a name it would cease to exist.
He never was really good at pretending. Wishing, either.
"What the hell is wrong with me?" Not wrong. Altered. Different. But not wrong. Ianto knew that as much as he denied it, denied everything from the marks to the things on his back. "Undo this."
"Undo?" Dr. Ramamurthy stepped forward to match Ianto's step back, grabbing his shoulders before he toppled over completely. To Ianto's relief, he let go nearly as quickly, holding on only until Ianto had steadied himself. "I don't know that anything's exactly wrong with you."
Not even the weight on his back moved Ianto, frozen still by the doctor's words.
This was not him.
"Tell me this isn't real." It wasn't real. It couldn't be. And even if it was, it wasn't because of him. A device, something, somewhere struck him and this was the result. Or a drug. An infection. A consequence of shagging Jack, like an alien STD. "Tell me I'm hallucinating like before." He didn't trust Dr. Ramamurthy; hell, he didn't even know the man. Didn't really know Bree either. It'd been an error in judgement to phone Lester. This wasn't real. He was still at Providence Park, or better yet, passed out in the autopsy bay of the Hub. Or in a coma and dreaming.
"Tell me I've not got fucking wings attached to my back." Ianto shouted, ineffectual really given his voice but there was need; it was either that or give in to the panic. "Tell me that somewhere in that 37th century brain, doctor, you know how to bloody undo this!"
It wasn't real. Just a hallucination. Jack would know, he'd know what was wrong. Not wrong. Different. True. But he'd gotten nowhere with Jack and Torchwood before; they'd solved nothing and had him sectioned. And whatever it was had advanced, worsened, leaving him in this state. Fuck Torchwood. But he had no one else so what the hell was he supposed to do?
"How do you know that?"
Ianto's focus snapped from the splotch on the wall, some kind of patchy fading cloth once probably a rich burgundy but now more a smoothie-orange, that had captured his attention. Not that he'd been studiously analyzing the patch, but the riveting procedure of tracing individual threads had occupied the half of his persona inclined to run around the room screaming and kicking things. It was calming. But Dr. Ramamurthy's question derailed all calm. "Know what?"
"37th century. I never told you that."
He tried, he honestly did, to come up with an explanation for how he knew the information. Someone had said it, maybe during the point from the road to wherever this was that he couldn't remember. Ianto knew that was the most rational explanation. Most rational and simplest.
But as rational as it might be, he understood that wasn't the correct answer.
For every second Ianto wasted trying to formulate words that failed to capture the uncatchable, the honest confusion on Dr. Ramamurthy's face drifted to suspicion and hostility. And if Ianto read the expression properly, a little bit of fear, which logic failed to explain as well.
The unease sent a shiver down his spine, not because he believed Dr. Ramamurthy was fearful of ... whatever had happened to him, but rather that the doctor believed there was a reason to fear him. Ianto would have pursued that path of thought towards understanding but the reflexive shiver had an additional consequence as he felt along lengths which before had never existed, ruffling with a soft thrum the air at his back. Nothing dramatic, nothing drastic, but he felt it.
By all the gods in spacetime, he felt it. Down the twin lengths, long as he was tall, like a tickle in his arms, Ianto sensed the shiver travel. Even if he hadn't yet seen he could visualize precisely the shape and size because they were him.
His bloody wings.
If this was the result of an alien STD he received from Jack, Ianto was going to personally see to the removal of everything the man held dear, up to and including hair, coffee, prick and greatcoat.
Movement distracted him yet again, his ability to concentrate on one thing seemingly completely fractured though Ianto reasoned there was justification to his scattered thoughts given recent events. Dr. Ramamurthy had turned and stared at Lester in blatant defiance, so like Owen in mannerism (though definitely not in looks, Ianto would have to be blind not to appreciate the man's beauty, from the dark mane of curls framing his face to the expressive brown eyes narrowing in response to Ianto's lack of one) that for a moment, Ianto believed that perhaps he'd simply been transported to another time, another place, alternates running around in different bodies but embodying the personalities of Torchwood Three.
It would also provide a perfectly rational argument against the marks. And the other things.
"I vouch for him, Naveen. The lad's not a threat to you."
"He's Torchwood."
"He's one of us, first."
Ianto watched the exchange but didn't quite know what to make of it, other than Lester was implying (not so) vague notions that Ianto didn't want to consider. "No, you're wrong. I'm not one of you," he interrupted before he had to listen to any more of the apparent stand-off. "This ... isn't me. Something's wrong and there's a cure, I just need to find it. Research. Do you have a library here? A computer?"
Even while he said the words, the lie felt as obvious had it been dressed in blinking neon lighting. Not wrong.
"Careful what you say around here, Ianto." His old boss turned to him, patting his shoulder. Unlike before, the gesture spoke nothing more than comforting reassurance to Ianto. "That cure you speak of implies that we're faulted humans. And much as I appreciate the lot for supporting my business ventures, I do not wish to be one." Lester smirked and Ianto at first was taken aback before he realized the look wasn't directed at him. In fact, Ianto was almost certain the Alteran's third eye was looking directly at Dr. Ramamurthy. It would have been spooky had Ianto not witnessed working security at the poker parlor. "No offense, Naveen."
For a moment, Ianto thought Dr. Ramamurthy would argue, but the fight left as quickly as it came. He grabbed a tablet PC instead, shoving it into Ianto's hands. "Data from scans taken after we got you here, plus labs taken at hospital. I'll run further analysis later, but all initial readings indicate this is not caused by an exterior source. And if you honestly know nothing of who you are, I can begin sequencing once I've a vial of your blood to compare to known species. We might at least be able to identify a common ancestor from whom to start."
Before Ianto could open his mouth to argue that he was human, that he'd been born and raised human and this was all ... a terrible misunderstanding and there was no species to identify (lie, a lie and he knew it), Dr. Ramamurthy stepped closer, pushing just hard enough at the tablet Ianto clutched to his chest that he could feel the warning. "I don't know how you know when I'm from, but if Torchwood finds me, your name will be the first and only name to leave my lips. Do you understand? I've lived far too long to be threatened by those savages."
"We're not-" Ianto cut himself off, his mind flashing to Torchwood Standard Operating Procedure. Not that Jack ever followed it, but Torchwood One had. Down to the last tittle, to their eternal detriment. But even considering Jack's leniency with the Torchwood protocol, Ianto wasn't quite sure how that applied to him now.
He didn't want to even give rise to the thought of Jack's reaction to ... this.
Dr. Ramamurthy nodded, taking Ianto's half-response for whatever affirmative he'd sought and left the room, reducing the overall number in the room, but for some reason, Ianto believed that somehow increased the focus of the remaining two.
"Don't mind him. He's lived through some rough years in London. Good man, just prefers to keep his secrets his own."
Earlier panic dwindled into resigned numbness, and Ianto couldn't even think of an appropriate response to Lester's endorsement of the doctor. Looking down was a mistake. The black lines stretching across his skin curled into accusatory reminders of everything he was doing his best to avoid thinking about. Not to mention, the action shifted the weight at his back again, reminding him of ... all of that. He'd gotten better at standing, however, less leaning and more upright as his mind and body quickly adjusted to the change.
Adapting quickly, almost like it was natural. Not wrong.
It couldn't be real, could it? He'd spent so much time fighting to discern reality from hallucination it was difficult to tell anymore which he'd prefer when reality suddenly deviated from 'normal.'
Was it better than a life at Providence Park? It made him sick to even consider the possibility that it might be.
"I imagine you'd like some time to yourself. Get used to things, look over the information Naveen gave you." Lester grabbed the tray Bree had brought in, smacking his lips over a long drink from his glass. Tang. Ianto had known Lester was an alien, even before he'd seen the third eye, because of that drink. First he'd ever really known of aliens, but it hadn't bothered him much at all. Was even that connected? "There's a mirror there, inside the wardrobe door. And when you're done, the place is yours. Kitchen's stocked, there's even coffee in there."
Ianto didn't look at the wardrobe, didn't even move. Bree smiled at him, silent through all, but not once did her smile waver. Or leer, Ianto noted as the realization struck that he stood in just the uniform pants he'd stolen. He'd be embarrassed, but really, being with Jack had made any embarrassment over his body disappear overnight.
Fuck. Jack.
It was possible, Ianto knew, that given he appeared to no longer be hallucinating, he would be able to see Jack instead of the light. It was also possible that Jack would take one look at him and lock him up in a cell next to all the other Torchwood Three permanent guests. But Jack wasn't that way, Ianto was quick to reassure himself, for what little good that did. Jack was a good man who had divorced himself and Torchwood Three from Torchwood One. He might not care.
He might.
Ianto bolstered his resolve not to think of Jack, their relationship or even of Torchwood Three by remembering the long-buried images of the team shooting Annie-Lisa, of Jack sending Myfanwy to feed on Lisa. Lisa the Cyberman.
Alien.
Fuck, what if he had an ulterior motive? A prime directive to kill inborn in his psyche, one he couldn't resist if he tried? What if-
"Ianto."
His head snapped front-and-center at the sound of Lester's voice, startled out of his thoughts.
"Whatever it is you're thinking, stop. You'll do no good by yourself thinking in terrible circles of what-ifs and maybes."
In response to the question he never needed to ask, Lester gestured to him ... no, behind him, and Ianto realized one more important thing about his new self.
Agitation and stress - causing the sensation of hair rising on the back of his neck as tension worked its way down his spine until he felt almost rigid with the desperate withdrawal of emotions - most likely had a different result when he had two large fucking wings attached to his back.
Where was his Torchwood One control now?
"Don't worry, lad. Couldn't have called in a better favor. Universe righting itself out. Who'd have guessed we were supposed to meet?" For some reason, Ianto failed to latch hold of Lester's enthusiasm. Though, he rather thought enthusiasm was beyond him at the moment. "Come join us when you feel up to it, we've got a lot to catch up on."
Lester raised his glass of Tang before gesturing to Bree with the tray to follow him as he left.
She didn't, for what reason Ianto couldn't imagine, but he assumed it had nothing to do with some missing post.
"They really are gorgeous, you know. Suits you." Ianto tried to smile in acknowledgement and thanks for her effort, but he felt it fail miserably. At least he tried. "I don't know if it matters, or if it's even relevant. But when I was a kid growing up on Orion, we heard stories. The kind they tell on Earth, you know the ones, monster under the bed type of stories."
Ianto nodded with the disheartening feeling that she was going to tell him he resembled the boogeyman.
"Oh, cheer up, you." She touched his arm in play, but he didn't flinch or pull away; it was almost nice. Reassuring. "It's not like that. See, there was one story, some children were out playing where they weren't supposed to, and a giant, fire-breathing Hornsk attacked. Heard of them? They're vicious, all teeth and little else. But the children were saved by a winged creature named Bob, and you just sort of remind me of the way the story described him."
"Bob?" Ianto couldn't stop the snort of laughter, and the rasp in his throat made the name two syllables instead of one, but surely, not Bob? "So what was the winged creature called?" He asked mostly in jest, but in part curiosity simply because it was the first hint of an answer, even if it was entirely false, just the bedtime ghost stories of another world.
"We didn't really have a name for them, or rather, we didn't know their real name. We just called them angels."
Ianto scowled, remembering the collection of little white ceramic angels his mother had kept in the windowsill, their wings edged in chintzy gold leaf. Her little army, she'd called them. But she had had collections of newspapers, rocks, and tangles of hair, so he hardly believed it of any relevance other than a common theme across cultures, Ckass and humans alike.
"Yeah, we have those stories here, too." Everything had burned; his mother's little army lost.
***
Ianto watched Bree leave the room, closing the door behind her. And with her all the sound fled and the bedroom quieted to stillness, not even the birds sang.
Quiet. Until Ianto started laughing, because really, what other option was there?
Crying, screaming, kicking things. But those all seemed so far outside the realm of possibility.
He laughed until his stomach hurt, doubled over and clutching Lester's leather chair to steady himself, the computer long forgotten. Laughed until the idea of 'angels' had lost its amusement. Laughed until it no longer seemed funny.
Laughed until he realized that he hadn't toppled over, face first into the cushion, because of the weight of the wings.
He laughed until he balanced.
It was as sobering as it was surreal.
All mirth vanished in favor of determination. Ianto collected himself enough to stand, aware of how easy it was and not sure whether he should be pleased with the progress or concerned for how 'normal' it felt. The wardrobe beckoned, the looming wooden box instilling far more terror than a bloody Dalek and he knew that terror. It was ridiculous and silly, but Ianto had never felt such childish trepidation.
The mirror, the monster under his bed.
Irrational and if he could get over the mental images of Owen standing with a gun aimed directly at his (Annie-Lisa's) heart, he could hear Owen mocking him for being a coward.
Ianto opened the door of the wardrobe forcefully, just to silence the internal ridicule.
He just didn't tell the voice of Owen in his head that he had his eyes closed.
Anxiety was felt on levels of his first Torchwood One interview, of setting up that first encounter with Jack, of brewing that perfect coffee that he was sure to win Jack over. Of every day dreading the discovery of Lisa and the anticipation of finding a cure.
There hadn't been a cure for her.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, knowing the mirror nor the quest for self-identity would ever truly go away. At first he didn't see, didn't permit himself even though his eyes were open, creating a moment when he actually thought he'd somehow made himself blind through anxiety.
He hadn't, however. And slowly his eyes focused on the figure reflected in the mirror, pale skin accentuated by black swirled lines-
Species Profile
Species: Windhovers
Known Variants: Angels, Protectorati, Guardians, Sky Walkers, Seraphim
Origin: (d) Halcyon
Alert Status: MIN - Individual
Network: ACTIVE
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: Ianto Jones
Aliases: NONE
Current Status: Earth, ERCY2008
-extending below the waistband of his trousers, which he refused to lower for fear of what he might see. Just to make sure, and he would swear until his dying breath it was without panic, Ianto did pull the waistband out enough so that he could reach a hand down and just double check that everything was in order. Prick, balls, all good.
A small relief.
After resettling the trousers on his hips, Ianto froze at the sight before him, finally taking in his full body in the mirror.
His face, too.
He didn't know whether to cry or laugh, the ideas of blending in (the unmentionables on his back excluded) as Bree had accomplished slipping away like silk over glass as he pressed fingertips to his cheeks, his temples.
Black lines, fine and delicate swirled up from his neck, curling over his jawline and round near his ears, branching up until the patterns stretched over his temples. Dots and sworls, intricate as they intertwined in a recognizable form he couldn't place, a language he couldn't speak. Lines and curves shadowing his hairline, lightening - or rather simply becoming fewer in quantity - as they worked middle towards his nose and mouth, arching over and around his eyes with faint traces of black painting pale, but he knew it wasn't painted; it wouldn't merely wash away.
It was him, his face, his skin, marked by something alien.
While fingers traced a lone sinuous line over his cheekbone, movement caught his eye, subtle yet enough that it brought his undivided attention involuntarily to a point just over his shoulders. By that time it was too late to deny, too late to pretend.
They were there.
Wings arching sharply from a point on his back before falling in relief; glossy jet-black feathers for fuck's sake, and as much as Ianto's mind protested what he saw, gone was any belief that it was wrong. Conflicting but right, normal, normalcy the only thing stopping Ianto from lashing out, breaking the mirrored glass to shatter his reflection and the possibility of existence.
Windhovers.
Ianto tried the name out on his tongue while he stared, turning to the side so he could see more. When he couldn't quite see his back because the long span of the wing fell nearly to the floor, he thought and the wing moved. Fuck, it was really connected to him. Connected; he could move them.
Difficult at first, a feeling not dissimilar from shaking a hand after Jack slept on it wrong, cutting off circulation, pins and needles signifying the waking limb. Slowly control returned, a welcome sensation when everything had been so numb.
He'd been numb before.
And now every nerve woke, pins and needle awareness spreading down like fire across the wings, tendons straining as muscles flexed and relaxed, not remembering but learning.
Shit, it was real.
Or an exceedingly elaborate hallucination, but Ianto wasn't that lucky in life.
Just a thought and movement, the wings bending at the joints extended above his head, fanning out until one side was stopped by the bed. Feathers, appearing soft and light-weight but at the same time gleaming like obsidian as they stretched long, a contradiction in - and blending of - sensations his eyes couldn't quite separate into unique and logical categories.
He should be scared. He should be having the stress-induced breakdown he'd been expecting starting with Torchwood One.
Windhovers.
Ianto didn't know how he knew that name, wasn't even really aware when or how it came to him. It was nebulous, intangible, fist-fulls of nothing if he tried to pin it down. But it was there, just as with Dr. Ramamurthy.
Touching his reflection in the mirror he traced the angle of one wing, following it until his fingers fell off the mirror edge.
He couldn't go back.
The thought made his hand tremble as they touched the pane of glass again, this time following the curve of his neck as the intricate black lines played over his skin, hovering over the stricken expression. He couldn't hide, not even with his best avoidance skills. And he couldn't be confined to the Hub, he'd go mad fighting Myfanwy for airspace.
His hand covered the image in the mirror when it reflected the sound not quite a sob but the feeling was similar, the very joke of the idea nearly enough to unsettle the loose emotional stability he maintained.
No hallucination this time. It was all so very real.
Windhovers.
***
A/Ns:
1. Apologies for the delay. Got back from my trip in a total funk and found it very hard to get back in the writing mode. The wedding went off without a hitch (although the tornado sirens went off just a couple hours before the wedding - go figure), however, the damage we saw was extensive and depressing as hell - Iowa farmland looked like southern swampland, only no houses on stilts to get them up out of the water. And it was only getting worse downstream. If you've got a few spare $, please consider donating to the Red Cross. They're having to borrow money for relief efforts they're so strapped. And even though the flooding and tornadoes have kind of taken a backburner spot in the news, it's still an ongoing major threat and recovery effort.
2. Yes, I did it. I did warn you at the beginning this was a 'take back the plot' fic! *ducks and hides* Hopefully you'll continue approving of the story and not write it off as being one of -those- fics. ;) I'm getting enough mocking from the beta as it is. *grins and smishes the beta for putting up with her* Yeah, I know. -wing!fic- *hands her writer creds over now* Hopefully you've got a few more answers as well, more to come in both this story and in future stories within the 'verse.
3. After watching the trailers for the new DW epis, I have a feeling I am going to get completely, totally, utterly jossed in a major mythos of this series (won't come up this fic, but in others within this 'verse, certainly). So, DW s4 and new Who canon established in s4 is being utterly ignored. Because at this point, throwing out that mythos would destroy the world I'm building and that's simply not acceptable. :)
4. Fic self-pimp! Proof of Your Existence. Just in case you missed it and need something to read ;) (And might I add, a little weird having the fic not be in my own journal? Gah, loss of control!) This is a second world that I'll be playing within in the future, so just a heads up! Be sure to throw a nod to the two talented artists who got their fabulous artistic thing on for the fic as well, then check out the rest of the fic in the challenge! Great stuff.
5. No five, other than I enjoy nice rounded #s in lists so felt it necessary to make a fifth entry. Cheers!
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