The Windhovers (10 of 10 - Part 1)
Title: The Windhovers
Chapter: 10 of 10 (COMPLETE)
Author: sarcasticchick
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: NC17
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: You know that expression, eyes bigger than your stomach? Well, I swear my plot is bigger than my LJ word count limit. Or something. Long chapter, see endnotes for author blatherings.
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)
The Windhovers (8 of 10)
The Windhovers (9 of 10)
"No. Absolutely not."
Ianto closed his eyes and took a deep breath as the argument spun out yet again between Dr. Ramamurthy and Lester, finally deciding that brewing yet another pot of coffee would provide a good distraction to remove himself from the disagreement. Maybe find a sleeping pill to slip into the pair's drinks while he was up; surely the coffee and Tang would cover any taste. They'd been arguing for countless hours, or at least it felt like it, sitting on the incredibly uncomfortable stool that was his only option in a kitchen full of high back chairs.
Yet more comforts gone with the damned wings. For all the stories of angels and fairies, Ianto wondered how any of them actually functioned in normal, everyday life. Lester had dug up a Victorian threadbare chaise lounge (in the most awful shade of lavender) which Ianto used as an option to the wooden low-back chairs and stools, but he'd only strained the muscles in his shoulders reclining on the cursed furniture.
Dr. Ramamurthy had scolded him like an errant child for that, then again for not taking into account the increased demand on his chest and back muscles and promptly assigned modified exercises to strengthen and develop.
And then, with childlike curiosity, he'd asked Ianto if he'd tried to fly yet.
It wasn't that the question was outrageous or entirely out of line, but Ianto had been both embarrassed and furious, retreating to his room with a pair of mismatched weights. He'd have blamed the nerve of the doctor, only that would have been a lie and he knew it, knew it as well as he understood why he sat on his bed and miserably wept. Nothing was normal, no matter how he pretended it was or would be. He kept trying to adapt himself to the human world, but it was a world that didn't fit him.
Ianto's shame redoubled when he acknowledged to himself that he wished he was human. As a Windhover, it felt like both a dismissal of his entire race and a personal insult. There was an underlying thrum of pride that he didn't understand, a feeling of national unity, if one could call it that, but stronger, even if he couldn't explain it. Pretending to be human, wishing that he no longer had the marks or the wings; the self-hatred disgusted him even if he had no idea what his 'self' was anymore. Everything he'd taken for granted, from nationality to his heritage, his entire history was just gone. Not his personal history, he remembered that well enough. But everything he'd self-identified as his - countrymen, cultural and political history, hell, the Queen - weren't technically his.
Though, he'd been raised believing he was Welsh. That had to count, if only by adopted proxy.
Looking back, Ianto knew he'd been right pathetic that afternoon. Even by that evening he had grown angry with himself for wallowing in pity for things he couldn't change.
He'd even tried swishing his wings just a couple times to see how it'd work, from the privacy of his own room where none could laugh.
'Ungainly' was the word best used to describe that attempt, for sake of his ego.
While the rest of the house slept (it varied day to day, depending on the guests), Ianto had been stretching his wings, moving them and trying to learn how to 'walk' even if he swore he'd never actually try to fly. Contingency plan, he preferred to call it, as he revelled in the powerful strokes he could feel across his pectorals, through his traps and down to the fine muscles along the arched lengths of the wings. He never left the ground though. The idea of actually flying was too extreme and too far from normal to rationally accept, even as he tried to discover what it was to be one of the Windhovers.
He didn't get far; he didn't have much to go on.
And now Lester and Dr. Ramamurthy were arguing Round Thirty of the 'what do we do with Ianto/Jack/Torchwood debate.' Nearly six days had passed since the encounter with Wesley; Ianto's decision had been made just hours after Lester had retired for the evening. He would call Jack from a new mobile from a an off-site location, drop the phone, then leave with the transport vehicle (driving a car, yet another thing Ianto hadn't considered in the 'nigh-impossible' world of wings). A simple enough plan, and if executed far enough away from Cardiff he would be long gone before they traced the signal.
Dr. Ramamurthy had vehemently protested, and thus the continued debate until Ianto wished nothing more than to repeatedly strike his head against the hardwood kitchen table. It wasn't that he failed to understand the logic - the doctor had run from Torchwood for some time and knew the terrors they inspired. He feared both for his own safety as well as the thousands of others in Britain quietly living their life in peace. It was more that Ianto hated circular debates, repeated points, and unmade decisions.
Not to mention that once he'd decided to contact Jack - what he'd say Ianto hadn't the slightest - once he'd made that decision he'd given in to the need to hear Jack's voice.
The subsequent delay left Ianto with a vacuum where want triumphed over necessity and made the nights all the more lonely.
Fuck, he missed Jack.
"You don't know him like I do. Ianto calls him up and no matter what he says, Jack will think he's acting under duress. He'll continue to search for him. No matter that they're shagging, Jack is fiercely loyal to that team of his. He won't stop, and Torchwood will find us."
For a moment, Ianto wondered how long Dr. Ramamurthy had been keeping tabs on Jack. And for the first time since he'd arrived, Ianto felt the calming sense of control slipping into place as the argument took tones with which he was familiar. "And you'd know him better than I?" Ianto noticed with some small satisfaction that both men flinched. The debate had gone on for so long while Ianto had remained quiet that the introduction of Ianto's voice sparked a derailment from the pattern. "I trust Jack. If he knew about me or the underground you've got in Britain, he wouldn't cause any harm to anyone."
"He's Torchwood."
"He's Jack first, Captain Harkness, leader of Torchwood Three with no concern for Standard Operating Procedure so long as Earth is protected, second. Besides," Ianto added with a gesture from his empty coffee mug at Dr. Ramamurthy, "I'm Torchwood, too."
As the silence stretched, Ianto belatedly realized that the fact that he was Torchwood quite possibly had more to do with the argument then Jack. As for keeping him from communicating with Jack, Ianto asked the first question that came to mind. "So, am I prisoner here?"
"Don't be daft, lad." Lester levelled his gaze on Dr. Ramamurthy, though Ianto knew the comment was directed at him. "Naveen just thinks it's wise to be paranoid of all things Torchwood, and on most occasions, he's correct."
"They killed Karl."
"Karl?" Ianto looked back and forth between Dr. Ramamurthy and Lester. "Who's Karl?"
"Karl Colbert." Ianto raised his brow at Lester's rather horrid French accent and hoped he'd never attempt it again. "I believe he said "Sploe" as well. He was Hoosknarian, bipedal race with dagger teeth and a dog nose? Unknowingly jacked a UNIT vehicle full of munitions, you lot caught up to him before UNIT and had that spat about who's authority the case fell under."
He couldn't have stopped the wince if he'd tried; in fact, Ianto was fairly certain even his feathers winced. Oh, did he remember that case. "We had every reason to believe he was stockpiling arms to use in an attack. His death was ... an unfortunate accident."
"You blew up his head!"
"We didn't know he had high ... blood pressure." Ianto knew it was a weak defense, but they'd honestly not known of the severe consequences of the mind probe. Jack had believed it necessary to extract the information when every word out of the Hoosknarian's mouth was a lie. Stealing UNIT weapons was a crime unto itself, but UNIT had wanted blood for their fallen men and Jack had done his best to take control of the situation. "He killed three UNIT soldiers when he fled with the vehicle. He wasn't an innocent and he most certainly was not following laws established by the Shadow Proclamation."
"He was just a kid," Dr. Ramamurthy furiously pointed at Ianto, "and not terribly bright. And you lot hooked him up to tech you didn't understand and are responsible for his death. Tell me why the hell we should trust you not to turn us all over for study and extermination."
Ianto felt his face blanch at the doctor's words; intentioned as they might be they still rang a far different chord in him. "We're Torchwood, not Daleks. And while we've occasionally screwed up, Jack does his best to do what's right at Torchwood Three. I stand by his decisions." Lester began to say something, but Ianto plowed on, refusing to be stopped. This was the only home he was currently welcome in and he wasn't about to be branded as one of the worst from London. "Torchwood One is another matter, but I will not speak ill of the dead. London was destroyed, and Cardiff has reinvented itself under Jack's leadership."
He loomed over Dr. Ramamurthy, and finally Ianto understood what that meant. He stood in umbrage, wings spanning out to either side of him as he leaned his hands on the table. A bit dramatic, but then what was the point of wings if one couldn't loom? Jack would laugh, or he might even find it attractive, which made Ianto miss the man even more. He wouldn't be calling out Ianto's duty to Britain. "And I'd be a hypocrite if I turned you all over, wouldn't I?"
"Ianto-"
He rolled his eyes and Ianto swore he caught the barest of smiles on Dr. Ramamurthy's face, whether in sympathy of Lester's fatherly tone or amusement at his belligerence Ianto wasn't sure. Refocusing his argument and stripping all of their control from it, Ianto made his point. "I refuse permission to stage my death; that's my life out there you want to kill and I can't do that to my team. And I'll think of something to say to Jack that will convey that he is not to search for me any longer. But give me the chance to say goodbye."
Goodbye.
At least he had the chance to say goodbye, he supposed. Torchwood rarely gave the opportunity. Ianto knew to waste it would be foolish; he just had to think of what to say and how to say it. Dr. Ramamurthy was correct insomuch that very little would convince Jack that Ianto wasn't lying and needed rescuing. He could tell Jack about the wings - Ianto was certain that Jack wouldn't mind that he was now 'different' - but the odds of that not fracturing what refuge and safety he had at Lester's was enough to convince him to at least delay that pursuit.
And maybe it wouldn't take much for Jack to forget him, or to move on.
Ianto didn't think he ever would forget.
Dr. Ramamurthy sighed and tilted his chair back on two legs. "I'm going to be out-voted, aren't I?"
"This isn't up for vote." With his mind made up (for the second time), Ianto was adamant. Besides, he couldn't continue worrying about the safety of all the displaced as well as Torchwood's. He had to quit avoiding the fact that his life was no longer normal and he had to deal with loose ends from his former life.
Goodbye.
It did not mean, however, that it wouldn't hurt.
***
Ianto dreamed.
It was surreal, the awareness of dreaming, of controlling his path within his dream and yet he felt pulled by the dream itself in an absence of all control.
But he dreamed; aware within his dream of silken gray fog that he had rested his head to sleep or at least think about Jack.
Gray, sometimes blue flashing cerulean folds within the gray; wasn't gray so much as silvered air. Air? Wasn't air so much as gleaming life in undulating waves.
Or maybe he was the waves.
He dreamed, he was aware he dreamed. He dreamed and he wanted Jack within his dream.
Ianto smiled, or at least he thought he did as the steel fog crackled in jade fire. He felt connected to everything within the billowing gray, connected to all points within as if each quantum particle was affixed to him by a tiny string. As he moved, so did the strings; as he thought, so followed the strings.
Exquisite tempest, dark and powerful swirling black as he spun to embrace the dreamworld. Jack would appreciate the dream, would dance until the storm burst gold, raining drops of white light on Ianto's skin until it infused his very being.
Or perhaps that was simply Jack.
Jack.
Linear thought on moebius tape, winding and twisting, but always the same path and destination no matter if he stood upside down or sideways along normal's face. Ianto searched, or maybe he was led, following his own direction through the sparking gray world until the haze cleared. Where it went he didn't know or care; it just dwindled to nothing like blowing steam from a cup of coffee.
Jack.
Jack lay just how Ianto remembered him from long ago, stretched out in light and shadows the length of his bed, one arm curled over his head and the crisp white bedding gathered at his hip. Before, Ianto had guiltily watched only a moment before scaling up the ladder and fleeing to Lisa within the depths of Torchwood Three. This time within the comforts of his dream he stared, memorizing the plane of Jack's chest, curling down across taunt skin that rose and sank with each breath.
Beautiful.
Beautiful was how Ianto remembered, relaxed and not innocent but pure. A conundrum to be studied and poetically transcribed but never fully realized. Sharp angles and straight lines, gentle curves and tight bends, Jack was a disarray of order and structured chaos, at once living and existing beyond until the story of his body surpassed mankind but never quite touched the divine.
Captain Jack Harkness, just a man with humanity's faults and the immortality of the gods. Would he be worshiped a million years in the future? Ianto wondered as he silently crept forward. Would he be a nameless hero and salvation's grace? Or would he eventually collapse into the darkness kissing the tales of his past, becoming an unstoppable scourge feared by all?
Two shades of one spirit wearing the face of man. Temptations no different than any human but with the capacity for much worse.
Or better.
Within the dream neither mattered on the angled planes of shadow and light. Before Ianto lay just a man. Human with every breath huffing past soft lips, slow and measured in undisturbed sleep. Human in mind and human in heart.
Ianto wanted nothing more than to worship Jack as a mere human himself, not the being he'd become. He didn't know why it was important, or why he so desperately wished it. But Ianto wanted a dream of what once was, of the relationship they long ago shared, not the shredded fragments of history they now were, twisted up in wings and marks.
It was just a dream, a dream he controlled as much as it controlled him.
As Ianto watched, the marks slipped from his skin. They ran like oil glides over metal to reemerge in pattern on the walls, spinning in huge swaths of ebony coils and straight lines as the patterns repeated mark for mark, line for line, in abstract upon Jack's dimly lit walls.
It said something, even within dream, twisting serpentine black before his eyes. But even as Ianto traced a curl up the wall to the ceiling, he couldn't read it any better than had it been on his hand.
His hand, pale and unmarked as it swam in the wan light.
His body, so light and re-balanced in absence of wings.
So human.
Ianto moved, or maybe he didn't move but the room moved around him as he stood still, black lines upon the walls stretching and twisting, pulling and pushing with such force Ianto felt it echoed upon his skin until the whole world snapped in blazing cerulean-touched gray. He was pressed against Jack's bedside, bent low, his tongue just a fraction of a thought away from licking the spot on Jack's neck that drove the man to his knees.
He licked.
Licked and tongued a path from neck to ear as Ianto felt Jack come alive beneath him with a murmured "Ianto" inscribing itself on the wall with the color of Jack's waking breath. His name pulsed with the rest of the black writing, throbbing until the walls themselves bowed with the beat half the tempo of his heart.
Fuck he wanted Jack.
Needed.
Ianto nipped the lobe of Jack's ear, hearing the half-awake moans escalate to a growl that crashed against his skin with the power of waves against a rocky shore. Heady, spiraling, effusive. He floated on the sound, tumbled with it until Ianto realized it wasn't the sound but Jack toppling him onto the bed, a bed so much larger than Jack's narrow mattress that they rolled but never hit wall or edge.
Legs naked and tangled, straight lines and curves as Ianto viewed them splayed on the storm-purple bedding, living replicas of the lines that danced upon the walls of Ianto's bedroom.
Where had Torchwood Three gone?
It didn't matter; Jack didn't seem to notice as Ianto both felt the man's weight pressing down over every touchable inch of Ianto's body and watched from a bird's view. Jack's desperate kiss turned nigh frantic with the need to touch and devour as an endless litany of nonsense and promise poured from his lips and wrote themselves upon the walls.
Promise. Ianto was aware he dreamed, he knew it as he watched himself fan long, pale fingers over the tanned skin of Jack's arse and felt their erections rub deliciously fierce and hot against the other. A dream where time was finite but unlimited and Ianto so ravenously needed that he saw it echoed in Jack as well while neither voiced a word and yet everything was said, everything Ianto could imagine possible and some things yet undefined.
A dream. "Love you," Ianto dared. Not dared, but rather confessed, abusing the privileged freedoms of sleep to test how Jack would react - no, could react to taboo words staining red the innocent white.
"Fuck, Ianto." Jack shuddered as he bowed to crush Ianto's lips, stealing breath no longer there to give as he pressed down in time with Ianto's angled thrusts, bodies curved and blended until they became a ring, joined head and hip while Jack rose and fell on his cock. Ianto'd missed this, he needed this. "Love you, too."
Ianto heard rather than saw the steel fog crackle and snap like flickers of flame dancing over wood as he surged up from his elbows, nearly overturning them but finding balance as the column wavered but stood tall and powerful. Chest plied to chest, Jack straddled his thighs. Shallow and rapid, Jack bounced on Ianto's cock, but no less wanton than the hitched sounds of punctuated words whose beat fell just slightly off rhythm.
Desperate.
A test with an outcome of many, but resulting in the one reply Ianto wanted.
Just a dream, Ianto knew as he watched himself trace the curve of Jack's arse to finger the lube-slicked hole wrapped vise-like around his erection, the touch more a tickled echo on his cock as Jack moved. The kiss deteriorated into more clinging than practiced action; Ianto could taste Jack's building orgasm on his tongue if he weren't already aware of the faltering, frenzied pace. It wrenched his control as easily as it'd been a wisp of dust on the whorling wind, the salty zing of gusts off the Bay reminding him to hold tight to Jack for fear of toppling off the pier.
Jack's cock blazed like a brand between their bellies, a trapped friction superheated until Ianto feared they'd melt through the planks. As the grey fog settled in around them, Ianto felt hot strings of semen rain his skin. Jack's voice dwindled to vibrations rippling across the delicate skin of Ianto's mouth, captured and drowned with the surf of a stormy sea. Ianto quickly followed as the clouds darkened with broad slashes of black. His orgasm more growled than shouted against Jack's lips even as lightning flashed brilliant jade against the night sky.
The dream was ending. He felt it even as his body quaked while coming down from the heavens, weak half-thrusts still attempting to claim every last moment buried deep within Jack, who seemed to sense it as well. Languid kisses turned possessive as he pushed Ianto back into the pier.
Claiming, but claims held no stake in a dream as Ianto soon realized, pier disappearing within sheets of flowing steel tipped in blue.
***
Ianto woke with regret that the dream ever had to end and the distinct displeasure of feeling disgustingly sticky. Fuck, he hadn't done that since his teens. He touched a hand to his stomach, lip curling as he felt the drying semen turning tacky. It was still dark out, Lester and anyone else staying at the place would be sleeping yet, but Ianto's room was far enough away that a shower wouldn't wake the others. Or at least he hoped. With a mammoth yawn as he walked into the lavatory, he blindly fumbled for the light cord and stepped in the shower, letting the water run over his head a moment before locating the flannel.
Jack.
He'd phone him later that day when the lingering whispers of dream-Jack's voice no longer could be heard in Ianto's subconscious. He'd tell Jack ... something, something Jack would believe. He'd had enough of Torchwood, he wasn't going back, he hated them all for sectioning him, doctor's orders - no Torchwood.
Problem was, he didn't believe himself even when he thought that, much less how he would say it when he was actually speaking with the man.
Wasn't going to be easy. At all.
With a curse, Ianto turned his face into the spray and increased the water's heat to barely tolerable. He absently rubbed the bar of soap quickly over his body, ignoring the small fissures of pleasure still burning beneath the surface. Fuck, he even missed his specially blended natural soaps and his pinstriped pajama bottoms. Maybe he could have Lester stage a break-in. Or he could buy new, except he didn't have a bloody job or access to his accounts, which left him feeling even more lost and unsettled than he had when he was a youth working for cash day to day.
He could write books. There was surely a profit to be made on science fiction based on his experiences. Or maybe he could work for the facilities where they tended the criminal elements of alien life on Earth.
What he really needed to do was stop being alien. Imagine that, a Torchwood agent who was actually the very alien Torchwood hunted. Life's irony never failed to bring out the bitter in him.
Frustrated, Ianto quickly shampooed his hair, turning off the water with a bit more force than necessary. He grabbed the towel folded on the shelf, buffing his hair dry while tallying all the places he might be employable.
Pretty limited to recluse within the city with a pernicious twin case of agoraphobia and anthropophobia or a marked freedom in the countryside. Alone, or maybe near Lester to allow for the occasional visitor.
Ianto scoffed at the idea of living in the city, an indelicate snort placing an exclamation point on the thought as he ran his hand over the mirror to clear the condensed steam.
Marked.
He stared at the reflection, heart racing so fast he was sure he'd pass out before he could rationalize what he saw.
Or didn't see.
Holding up his hand directly in front of his eyes, Ianto searched the skin for any trace, any indication, any hint of black.
None. Nothing. Perfectly pale, unmarked skin.
Twisting his head, he anxiously tried to catch a glimpse of his back, stepping a full circle before he realized with a cynical eye roll how inane he must appear and how relieved he was that no one caught him in the act. With his back to the mirror, he turned his head and saw ... nothing.
Nothing but skin covering bone and muscle. No wings, no feathers. Hell, he could see his back.
Light-headed, Ianto sat on the floor, the cold tile freezing his arse but he needed a moment to steady his breathing, to get a grip on himself. With his head pressed to his knees, Ianto looked at them, albeit blurred with the close distance, but there were no blurred lines, no black curves, circles or lines running over the skin there either.
He didn't know how, but fucking hell he didn't care.
***
Watching the expression on Lester's face as he walked into the kitchen was something Ianto would never forget.
He himself couldn't quit smiling. It was ridiculous, he had no bloody clue why, and that should scare the hell out of him as much as actually getting the wings, but he just couldn't make himself stop.
After seeing Ianto, Lester had immediately gotten on his mobile and rung Dr. Ramamurthy - even before making his morning glass of Tang and joining Ianto at the table.
Ianto, sitting in a regular chair instead of on his customary stool.
With a stupid grin on his face that matched the smiley-faced mug he'd hated so much before.
It was a while before Dr. Ramamurthy joined them; Ianto managed to finish two cups of coffee in the silence that stretched between him and Lester. Not altogether uncomfortable, but Ianto could tell he was nearly vibrating with the need to ask questions yet was holding his tongue for the moment. At least Ianto wouldn't have to explain his inability to answer any of those questions more than once.
Upon rushing into the kitchen - Lester had indicated a medical emergency - Dr. Ramamurthy promptly dropped his med kit. "Where the hell did they go?"
Ianto shrugged, eyeing the coffee pot to determine if another mug of coffee was necessary for the morning. "Don't really know. And certainly don't care." Third mug it was; Ianto stood from his chair, noting the absence of the weight on his back and realizing just how quickly he'd reverted to his former sense of balance.
That should probably concern him, too.
He'd forgone the shirt, knowing that Dr. Ramamurthy and Lester would wish to see his back and skin as proof of what they saw. And after days of walking around with no shirt at all, Ianto felt comfortable in his own skin. Well, comfortable so long as there were no wings on his back.
"You should care."
Lester sounded almost disappointed, though Ianto couldn't fathom why. Or he did, he just didn't care to broach that line of conscious thought. Instead, he poured another mug and sipped it while Dr. Ramamurthy continued his shocked, rambled monologue about the implications and theories in utter disconnect from Lester and Ianto. He might as well have been in a room all by himself, though that would have deprived Ianto from his slight amusement at watching the doctor giddy with a boyish glee.
"No, I really can't." Ianto leaned back against the counter, holding his mug in both hands after taking a generous sip. He hadn't lost a single feather when he'd backed into the cabinets after the incident with Wesley. In fact, there hardly seemed a barb out of place. It'd hurt when he'd bumped them, but apparently no damage. But he'd missed leaning, for fuck's sake. "They're gone, and I look normal."
Dr. Ramamurthy interrupted before Lester could argue with him. For the interruption Ianto was thrilled, even if it was to poke at Ianto's skin and prod his shoulder blades. "What happened? How did they go away?"
He shrugged again, itching to escape the exceedingly curious hands of the doctor. It wasn't that Ianto minded the touching, although maybe he did. But it was more unnerving as the doctor's excitement bled through. "I was sleeping, woke up, showered, then noticed the marks and the wings were gone."
"Different approach. What did you alter in your routine?"
Ianto flushed, though he was fairly certain Dr. Ramamurthy wasn't inquiring as to the state of his sheets upon waking. "Nothing different. Ablutions in the same order as every night before bed, laid down - wings and all - slept a couple hours, then woke up."
"And?" Lester's eyes never missed anything, Ianto remembered. Made him good at catching cheats. "What aren't you telling us?"
Flustered, Ianto looked at his feet, then took a sip of coffee before answering. "Dreamed. A very .. .vivid dream."
"A dream- ah ah." Dr. Ramamurthy turned away from his inspection of Ianto's back to wag a finger at him. "Spare us the sordid details. Can you feel the wings? Are they just invisible to our eyes, but still there?"
Concentrating, Ianto thought about what it had felt like when the wings were there. Before, even the slightest rustle of wind ruffled through the feathers, his nerves sparking like wildfire in awareness. But there was simply ... nothing. "No. At least not that I can tell. They're just gone."
"That's not possible. Matter just cannot vanish." Dr. Ramamurthy's voice shifted into his lecture mode; perfect for patients learning of new diseases, but matters of physics, biological constants, and anatomical theories were too much for Ianto to wrap his mind around at this time of morning.
Lester had a fond smile on his face as Dr. Ramamurthy began muttering to himself before he went to retrieve his kit. "What'd you dream about?"
"Jack." Simple answer, but it left him terribly embarrassed. Not embarrassed so much, sex was never an embarrassment, but Ianto preferred to keep such matters private.
"Ah." Lester gestured at Ianto with his glass, proving a pointed question in Tang. "And how did you appear?"
He was fairly certain Lester wasn't looking for a 'naked' answer, though it might have been amusing just to see what kind of reaction he'd get. "I appeared ... like this."
"Wait," Dr. Ramamurthy interrupted, a needle and vial in hand to withdraw blood. "You're telling me he dreams of shagging his partner as a human and poof! he's human? That's not possible. Biology doesn't work like that, not without a glandular development to facilitate shape-shifting, and you didn't have one."
"But I had the wings and marks to begin the dream," Ianto added, not sure if that really mattered as it'd been a dream. It wasn't like he'd gone and had sex with Jack in various locations about Cardiff. The walls didn't move and they didn't say things like 'love you' or anything of the other various rambled promises and endearments.
Just a dream.
"What happened in the dream, to make them go away?"
Ianto had a hard time looking at Lester as he was supposed to answer the question, and he knew full-well why, even if he didn't want to admit it. He looked at the floor instead, ignoring the rubber tourniquet tied round his upper arm. "I just wanted to be normal. Human."
Lester didn't say anything for a long while, then sighed and patted Ianto's shoulder. "I'll leave you in Dr. Ramamurthy's capable hands. If there's an answer, he'll find it."
As he walked away without another word, Ianto felt the initial joy at the discovery dim, just a bit.
***
Ianto cursed as he nearly dropped the PDA for the fourth time that trip; the borrowed device was smaller than the one he was used to driving and tracking with. He shouldn't probably be driving with it; if he was arrested while driving with the thing he wasn't sure that the "Torchwood" claim would work for him. Especially since he lacked any personal information, much less a security badge.
He held the PDA against the steering wheel, one eye on the road and one eye on the blinking marker. And occasionally, Ianto indulged himself and looked at his hand, waving his fingers to admire the mark-free skin.
It'd taken Dr. Ramamurthy less than six hours to declare him completely human ("Impossible!") and Lester a full eight before he'd re-entered the kitchen and demanded Ianto attempt to think himself back ("Are you mad? Why?").
Lester had emphatically stated that Ianto was going nowhere until he changed back. Ianto tried arguing everything from alien STD to parasite to contagious hallucination while Lester fought back with every insult of cowardice and self-loathing in his arsenal - quite full, given the variety of notorious activities he'd been involved in over the years.
In the end, thirty-six hours later in the dead of night and alone in the courtyard, Ianto pictured the dreamworld he'd moved through to get to Jack and reluctantly meditated on 'wings.'
He'd nearly wept as he felt the shift; a soft brush of displaced air inspired him to open his eyes to the marked hand he held in front of his face. It wasn't that he'd honestly believed his 'alien' aspect was truly gone, but for just a moment, there was the sliver of hope that it was all a terrible mistake.
Lester had just nodded when he had seen Ianto, complete with wings and body art, as if his appearance just reaffirmed a belief he held. Then he told told Ianto to repeat it again.
Taking a street corner sharper than he should have given his complete lack of ID, Ianto rechecked the blip on the PDA indicating that his target had yet to move. Didn't mean much in the grand scheme, but it at least gave him a starting point. Timetables had altered drastically earlier that day when a UNIT team broke into Bree's flat, and the investigation escalated far beyond what Ianto would permit. This was obscene; he was just one person and Torchwood was wasting far too much time and dedicated resources instead of performing their real duties.
Thankfully, Bree had been away from her flat when they'd broken in; somehow Lester had been alerted to that and four other 'places of suspicion' including a warehouse, the tiny shop where Ianto purchased his coffee beans, and the residences of two former Torchwood cases. Despite Dr. Ramamurthy's objections and Lester's hesitation as he insisted Ianto wasn't ready yet, he left Lester's in one of the spare vehicles retained on site for such purpose with a borrowed PDA and mobile.
After he'd showered of course. Twice. And made lunch. And carefully labeled his research. Not that he was avoiding the inevitable, but he was. He shouldn't have been nervous, he shouldn't be nervous, but it'd been nearly a month since he'd escaped from Providence and he felt more alien, literally and figuratively, than he had when he'd first joined the Cardiff branch of Torchwood. He felt it all the time now, a certain displacement of self and yet a distinct, albeit surreal, connection to everything. Ianto had made the mistake of attempting to describe the feeling to Lester, who had immediately declared a return to Torchwood off-limits.
Not that Ianto had listened, once Bree had been targeted. He realized he couldn't hide and toy around with his changes forever.
The toying had been interesting. Once he'd gotten the hang of - well, he had no better way to describe it than the strings he'd dreamed about - sort of, tugging on those strings and visualizing either human or alien, he'd ceded to Lester and Dr. Ramamurthy's requests to view it themselves. More anxious than his Torchwood One interview, Ianto had struggled briefly before the two pairs of watching eyes. He never really morphed, they insisted; there had been no fluidity of transition from one appearance to the next, he'd simply gone from human to winged with just a flicker amidst a halo of white-laced electric sky-blue.
There were other things as well. Subtle things that required conscious thought to observe as abnormal action or behavior for himself. Slightly faster reflexes than he remembered having (Lester thanked him for saving a shelf full of trinkets from crashing to the floor), his perception of things alien wasn't limited to just individuals but slowly tech names and uses began filtering in, confirming his suspicions that Lester's place wasn't just made with items found in the recent centuries. But like individuals, it wasn't consistent in quantity or quality. Sometimes just a year was associated, sometimes a race that created it. Mostly, the tech was weapons-related, a development inopportunely timed with venturing into Lester's munitions collection.
The overwhelming quantity of information was too much for him to take in; Ianto woke up on the floor with no recollection of laying down and a concerned Lester standing over him. He mentally collected himself, getting his bearings before facing down the weapons room, this time prepared for the onslaught. And it worked, though he was distracted for some time at the vast array of weapons until he hit one Class F sonic blasting device (a "Banshee" in colloquial terms) from the 79th century and Ianto turned his focus on Lester, yelling at the man for the stupidity of possessing a weapon one couldn't even license, much less have on premises without being charged with a Level-A crime.
Lester had just grinned, though why Ianto wasn't exactly sure.
He'd lost his grin once Ianto had begun dismantling the weapon, tearing it down wire by wire, destroying the main processor and permanently disabling the power supply. No way was such a weapon, capable of horrendous destruction, going to even exist on Earth, much less upon British soil. He handed the shell of the weapon back to a speechless Lester with a promise as much as a warning: "Not even Torchwood should touch such a weapon."
Ianto smirked in memory of Lester's outrage as he waited impatiently for the light to turn green; there was no one on the streets this late at night to even merit the stop. With his recent luck, however, he knew better than to tempt fate. The SUV was nearby, and while Ianto knew he could have staged his return at the Information Centre or on the Plas near the invisible lift (not actually in the Hub as Jack should have changed the security codes per Torchwood Standard Operating Procedure), he had no idea how he would be received if they thought he had been stolen away by a nefarious alien and showed up on their doorstep. Ianto still didn't know how well his reemergence would be taken far away from the Hub, but at least he had the chance to escape before they threw him in a holding cell for a permanent stay,
At least he no longer had wings. Or he did, rather, but had some semblance of control over their appearance.
He parked his car next to the SUV - quite close to the area where Ianto had first met Jack, actually - and listened, as his rigged PDA could only track the SUV's signal, not Jack himself. At least Ianto hoped it was Jack, but at this time of day generally it was Jack on a Weevil chase if he was out.
The sounds of a fight were easy to distinguish and Ianto ran in the general direction, slowing as he approached to maintain some element of surprise. He had no weapon, so he picked up a sturdy-looking branch, wondering again at the felicitousness of events.
Fate had a funny way of amusing itself.
Grimacing at the unpleasant sound of something striking a hard object, Ianto advanced to see a crumpled figure near a tree (he would not consider what it was he heard cracking because that was far too unpleasant a thought for the time) and a Weevil threatened with drool dripping over its fangs.
Why did it always have to be Weevils?
Ianto noted that wasn't actually the species' name, though it was an alternate moniker for the species. 'Kophs' they were called, the entire race held at a medium level threat so Ianto felt little reserve as he struck the alien at the base of its neck with the branch, wincing as the impact vibrated up the wood and into his hands.
Fucking stung.
He didn't have time to waste, however. While the Weevil was dazed he grabbed the discarded spray and hood dropped near the figure Ianto couldn't bear to look at; looked around was more what he was doing. A quick spray and the Weevil went down, luckily one of the few who were still affected by the spray, it would seem. While he was bagging the Koph, Ianto heard Jack gasp back to life, a sound he was far too familiar with but never got used to. What Jack went through - best not think about it, Ianto decided, tightening the cord around the Weevil's neck so it would remain pacified like a horse with blinders.
"Ianto?"
The fact that Jack recognized him from behind, even in denims and a simple tee instead of his standard suit, shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did. Ianto finished knotting the cord as the crunch of footfalls in the leaves behind him indicated movement by Jack. He rose, dusting his knees of the leaves before he turned around.
Now that he was here, Ianto irrationally wanted to flee, run far from Jack and Torchwood, from the bastards who sectioned him and the team he called family. His mind whirled in a bit of a panic set at blazing speeds, he should have listened to Lester: this was too soon, he could have phoned Jack, asked for some more time and to halt the search, bought himself more time to figure out who he was and what he was. But he hadn't, rushing off at the first opportunity because he could pass for a human and he missed Jack, the team, and even Myfanwy without so much of a half-arsed plan to keep him from being deemed a security threat.
Which he wasn't, for the most part. If he helped a few aliens who weren't a threat by protecting them from Torchwood through his position, that wouldn't be that great a threat, would it? He hadn't promised Dr. Ramamurthy he actually would do that, though Ianto had promised to consider it. Jack might even listen if Ianto insisted the ones he could identify weren't a threat. Maybe. Those questions were all for another time, however.
Ianto did acknowledge, however, that this was perhaps not the wisest thing he had ever done.
Holding up his hands so that Jack wouldn't shoot him before he could say anything, Ianto slowly turned on his heel, coming about to see the incredulous look-
Species Profile
Species: BADWOLF
Origin: BADWOLF
Threat Priority Level: BADWOLF
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: BADWOLF
Aliases: BADWOLF
Previous Violations: BADWOLF
Active Warrants: BADWOLF
Threat Priority Level: BADWOLF
Original Status: BADWOLF
Current Status: BADWOLF
-on Jack's face, which he was fairly certain was probably mirrored on his own.
Badwolf? What was Badwolf?
"Ianto?"
"Sorry, just ... remembering," Ianto lied, shaken far more by seeing Jack than he had prepared himself for, not to mention the profiles which were never wrong seeming completely ... hijacked ... when it came to Jack. He had no clue what it meant, but he'd deal with that later. He smiled with more than a little regret as he watched Jack's expression shift not to hostility, but wariness as the Captain's military-trained mind took over. Ianto had known it would come, but he still had no idea how to convince Jack that he was Ianto and not controlled by an outside source. "You've blood..."
As before, Jack stepped away from his touch and Ianto held up his hands in innocence as Jack drew his Webley. "You can see me?"
Ianto nodded with absolute certainty, gesturing with his head at the Weevil as well. "No more dead people, no more light. Just ... you."
Jack seemed as thrown as Ianto felt by the situation; Ianto really should have planned this better. He hadn't thought much beyond locating Jack and he lacked any evidence of any story he might tell, and even less of an explanation for what had gotten him sectioned in the first place.
No explanation other than the truth, and Ianto was not ready to tell Jack that just yet, no matter how accepting of it Jack proclaimed himself to be.
Fuck, usually he was more prepared than this.
"You disappeared." Jack's Webley shook and Ianto hoped it wouldn't accidentally go off; that was not the joyful reunion he had in mind. "We searched everywhere for you, but you'd just disappeared."
"It's called escape, Jack." His tone probably wasn't conducive to encouraging Jack to believe him, but he couldn't stop the cynicism from creeping in. In any event, it was at least helping prevent Ianto from saying that he knew just how much Jack searched. The cynicism wouldn't be fair in that context; Jack and Torchwood searching was every reason why he was there. "I reconnected with an old friend and spent the past month relaxing in the country." Not exactly a lie, though the time hadn't always been relaxing.
"Why didn't you call me?" The gun snapped back into place, Jack's voice sharp with hurt feelings. But really, it was going to take more than a gun aimed at his head to strike fear in his heart.
"You locked me up!" Ianto stepped closer, ignoring the gun. He didn't believe Jack would shoot him anyway, unless he suddenly sprouted wings and looked like an alien, and wouldn't that be an adventure? "Forgive me if my trust in Torchwood was a little less than solid at the time."
Jack's lips twisted themselves into a thin line, whether anger or self-recrimination Ianto wasn't sure, but the gun did lower, a small victory at the very least. "How? You were in no condition to run."
Ianto heard everything within Jack's words that he didn't say, the 'I watched yous' and the 'I saw yous' and the 'I came to you one night and held you while I wept.' He may have seen it as a glorious ball of brilliant white-gold light, but he knew it had been Jack. The 'why' portion of that question was still a mystery to Ianto; the best he could reason was that, as his mind and body changed, so did his ability to define what he was seeing. Maybe. Maybe he had gone just a bit mad for a while there. It'd certainly felt like it. "Please," Ianto scoffed at Jack's question with pure bravado that was every bit bluster as it sounded. "I've escaped from worse."
Daleks. Cybermen. His mother's madness and his childhood. Men with guns and cleavers. Owen-Weevil. Jack leaving him tied to the coffee machine, naked, mere minutes before the rest of the team was due to show for work.
He just kept on escaping and it didn't make sense why.
"Yeah." Jack touched his ear, surprising Ianto as he hadn't figured anyone would be at the Hub. "Found the Weevil. Had a little help catching it." Ianto stood tall as Jack leveled his stare, unyielding but not unforgiving. "Claims he's Ianto."
Ianto winced, knowing he had no evidence to support his claims other than it was really him; he wasn't a Sleeper agent or an alien in disguise (well, not like that), or functioning under the control of someone else. He almost wished he would have gone with one of Dr. Ramamurthy's plans - fake kidnapping and ransom, bruise him up a bit with a concocted story of escape, drop him off at some remote village and fake amnesia for a while. But no, he'd insisted, and if he said it wasn't to return to Jack, he'd be lying.
"You'll see for yourself. Call Owen in. I want to start tests immediately."
"Security Protocol Four," Ianto interrupted, holding out his hands. He knew the Torchwood handbook; hell, he preached it.
Jack actually looked pained at the idea. "Ianto, I'm not going to-"
"Lock me up?" Ianto smiled sadly as he remembered the first awareness of confinement, though it had been far more trapping within his own mind than actual bars and keys. Something else to deal with later. He straightened his shoulders though and raised his chin, determinedly keeping his hands in front of him, wrist to wrist. "I can't prove to you I am who I say I am and you would be a shit leader of Torchwood if you took me at my word. So call Security Protocol Four, it's at least my choice this time."
For a moment, Ianto thought Jack was going to continue to argue, but then he reached into his pocket and removed the wrist restraints Ianto had yet to figure out how to break free from. Security Protocol Four it was, suspected agent contamination or tampering, often used at Torchwood One but never at Torchwood Three; Ianto wasn't sure if that was because London was more paranoid or Cardiff was more lax. "Tosh ... yeah. I know. Look up Security Protocol Four, we play by those rules." Jack looked directly at him while he spoke, snapping the restraints over Ianto's wrists. "It's temporary ... no, I don't want to either. No ... he says he isn't, but maybe a blindfold couldn't hurt?"
Jack asked and Ianto shook his head, vehemently against being blindfolded walking through the Hub, if only to prove there was no cause for them to send him back to Providence Park. There'd be a lot of tech there, but he could handle it. At least he hoped. "No, we won't use one, but good idea ... yeah, neither do I. Loading up, we'll be there in five."
Ianto waited patiently as Jack loaded up the Weevil, then casually checked out Ianto's car after punching in a series of numbers into his wrist strap. Checking for explosives, Ianto knew, and tracking devices. There wouldn't be any; no way would Lester attempt anything of the sort. Then it was into the backseat for Ianto, his restraints hooked through the locking device on the back of the passenger seat. Not exactly comfortable, but he wouldn't complain.
Ask him two months ago, and Ianto would have stared out the window and not said a word. Ask him a month past and Ianto would have laughed at the idea so ludicrous it bordered on the obscene. An alien, in Torchwood?
And now? Fuck, he was actually headed back to Hub, back to his team and his job.
It wasn't perfect, in fact it was far from perfect - he was essentially under arrest until they deemed him no longer a security threat, something he'd initially hoped to avoid - but it was a start.
And there was Jack, checking the rear mirror so often Ianto wondered if he was watching the road at all. Maybe he was afraid Ianto would vanish again, or maybe he just expected an assassin's attempt to kill him before they made it to the Hub.
Or maybe he was happy to have Ianto back.
Truth or not, Ianto indulged, wrapping the notion tight about him like plastic wrap and it kept him warm all the way to Torchwood Three.
The Windhovers (10 of 10 - Part 2)
Chapter: 10 of 10 (COMPLETE)
Author: sarcasticchick
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: NC17
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: You know that expression, eyes bigger than your stomach? Well, I swear my plot is bigger than my LJ word count limit. Or something. Long chapter, see endnotes for author blatherings.
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)
The Windhovers (8 of 10)
The Windhovers (9 of 10)
"No. Absolutely not."
Ianto closed his eyes and took a deep breath as the argument spun out yet again between Dr. Ramamurthy and Lester, finally deciding that brewing yet another pot of coffee would provide a good distraction to remove himself from the disagreement. Maybe find a sleeping pill to slip into the pair's drinks while he was up; surely the coffee and Tang would cover any taste. They'd been arguing for countless hours, or at least it felt like it, sitting on the incredibly uncomfortable stool that was his only option in a kitchen full of high back chairs.
Yet more comforts gone with the damned wings. For all the stories of angels and fairies, Ianto wondered how any of them actually functioned in normal, everyday life. Lester had dug up a Victorian threadbare chaise lounge (in the most awful shade of lavender) which Ianto used as an option to the wooden low-back chairs and stools, but he'd only strained the muscles in his shoulders reclining on the cursed furniture.
Dr. Ramamurthy had scolded him like an errant child for that, then again for not taking into account the increased demand on his chest and back muscles and promptly assigned modified exercises to strengthen and develop.
And then, with childlike curiosity, he'd asked Ianto if he'd tried to fly yet.
It wasn't that the question was outrageous or entirely out of line, but Ianto had been both embarrassed and furious, retreating to his room with a pair of mismatched weights. He'd have blamed the nerve of the doctor, only that would have been a lie and he knew it, knew it as well as he understood why he sat on his bed and miserably wept. Nothing was normal, no matter how he pretended it was or would be. He kept trying to adapt himself to the human world, but it was a world that didn't fit him.
Ianto's shame redoubled when he acknowledged to himself that he wished he was human. As a Windhover, it felt like both a dismissal of his entire race and a personal insult. There was an underlying thrum of pride that he didn't understand, a feeling of national unity, if one could call it that, but stronger, even if he couldn't explain it. Pretending to be human, wishing that he no longer had the marks or the wings; the self-hatred disgusted him even if he had no idea what his 'self' was anymore. Everything he'd taken for granted, from nationality to his heritage, his entire history was just gone. Not his personal history, he remembered that well enough. But everything he'd self-identified as his - countrymen, cultural and political history, hell, the Queen - weren't technically his.
Though, he'd been raised believing he was Welsh. That had to count, if only by adopted proxy.
Looking back, Ianto knew he'd been right pathetic that afternoon. Even by that evening he had grown angry with himself for wallowing in pity for things he couldn't change.
He'd even tried swishing his wings just a couple times to see how it'd work, from the privacy of his own room where none could laugh.
'Ungainly' was the word best used to describe that attempt, for sake of his ego.
While the rest of the house slept (it varied day to day, depending on the guests), Ianto had been stretching his wings, moving them and trying to learn how to 'walk' even if he swore he'd never actually try to fly. Contingency plan, he preferred to call it, as he revelled in the powerful strokes he could feel across his pectorals, through his traps and down to the fine muscles along the arched lengths of the wings. He never left the ground though. The idea of actually flying was too extreme and too far from normal to rationally accept, even as he tried to discover what it was to be one of the Windhovers.
He didn't get far; he didn't have much to go on.
And now Lester and Dr. Ramamurthy were arguing Round Thirty of the 'what do we do with Ianto/Jack/Torchwood debate.' Nearly six days had passed since the encounter with Wesley; Ianto's decision had been made just hours after Lester had retired for the evening. He would call Jack from a new mobile from a an off-site location, drop the phone, then leave with the transport vehicle (driving a car, yet another thing Ianto hadn't considered in the 'nigh-impossible' world of wings). A simple enough plan, and if executed far enough away from Cardiff he would be long gone before they traced the signal.
Dr. Ramamurthy had vehemently protested, and thus the continued debate until Ianto wished nothing more than to repeatedly strike his head against the hardwood kitchen table. It wasn't that he failed to understand the logic - the doctor had run from Torchwood for some time and knew the terrors they inspired. He feared both for his own safety as well as the thousands of others in Britain quietly living their life in peace. It was more that Ianto hated circular debates, repeated points, and unmade decisions.
Not to mention that once he'd decided to contact Jack - what he'd say Ianto hadn't the slightest - once he'd made that decision he'd given in to the need to hear Jack's voice.
The subsequent delay left Ianto with a vacuum where want triumphed over necessity and made the nights all the more lonely.
Fuck, he missed Jack.
"You don't know him like I do. Ianto calls him up and no matter what he says, Jack will think he's acting under duress. He'll continue to search for him. No matter that they're shagging, Jack is fiercely loyal to that team of his. He won't stop, and Torchwood will find us."
For a moment, Ianto wondered how long Dr. Ramamurthy had been keeping tabs on Jack. And for the first time since he'd arrived, Ianto felt the calming sense of control slipping into place as the argument took tones with which he was familiar. "And you'd know him better than I?" Ianto noticed with some small satisfaction that both men flinched. The debate had gone on for so long while Ianto had remained quiet that the introduction of Ianto's voice sparked a derailment from the pattern. "I trust Jack. If he knew about me or the underground you've got in Britain, he wouldn't cause any harm to anyone."
"He's Torchwood."
"He's Jack first, Captain Harkness, leader of Torchwood Three with no concern for Standard Operating Procedure so long as Earth is protected, second. Besides," Ianto added with a gesture from his empty coffee mug at Dr. Ramamurthy, "I'm Torchwood, too."
As the silence stretched, Ianto belatedly realized that the fact that he was Torchwood quite possibly had more to do with the argument then Jack. As for keeping him from communicating with Jack, Ianto asked the first question that came to mind. "So, am I prisoner here?"
"Don't be daft, lad." Lester levelled his gaze on Dr. Ramamurthy, though Ianto knew the comment was directed at him. "Naveen just thinks it's wise to be paranoid of all things Torchwood, and on most occasions, he's correct."
"They killed Karl."
"Karl?" Ianto looked back and forth between Dr. Ramamurthy and Lester. "Who's Karl?"
"Karl Colbert." Ianto raised his brow at Lester's rather horrid French accent and hoped he'd never attempt it again. "I believe he said "Sploe" as well. He was Hoosknarian, bipedal race with dagger teeth and a dog nose? Unknowingly jacked a UNIT vehicle full of munitions, you lot caught up to him before UNIT and had that spat about who's authority the case fell under."
He couldn't have stopped the wince if he'd tried; in fact, Ianto was fairly certain even his feathers winced. Oh, did he remember that case. "We had every reason to believe he was stockpiling arms to use in an attack. His death was ... an unfortunate accident."
"You blew up his head!"
"We didn't know he had high ... blood pressure." Ianto knew it was a weak defense, but they'd honestly not known of the severe consequences of the mind probe. Jack had believed it necessary to extract the information when every word out of the Hoosknarian's mouth was a lie. Stealing UNIT weapons was a crime unto itself, but UNIT had wanted blood for their fallen men and Jack had done his best to take control of the situation. "He killed three UNIT soldiers when he fled with the vehicle. He wasn't an innocent and he most certainly was not following laws established by the Shadow Proclamation."
"He was just a kid," Dr. Ramamurthy furiously pointed at Ianto, "and not terribly bright. And you lot hooked him up to tech you didn't understand and are responsible for his death. Tell me why the hell we should trust you not to turn us all over for study and extermination."
Ianto felt his face blanch at the doctor's words; intentioned as they might be they still rang a far different chord in him. "We're Torchwood, not Daleks. And while we've occasionally screwed up, Jack does his best to do what's right at Torchwood Three. I stand by his decisions." Lester began to say something, but Ianto plowed on, refusing to be stopped. This was the only home he was currently welcome in and he wasn't about to be branded as one of the worst from London. "Torchwood One is another matter, but I will not speak ill of the dead. London was destroyed, and Cardiff has reinvented itself under Jack's leadership."
He loomed over Dr. Ramamurthy, and finally Ianto understood what that meant. He stood in umbrage, wings spanning out to either side of him as he leaned his hands on the table. A bit dramatic, but then what was the point of wings if one couldn't loom? Jack would laugh, or he might even find it attractive, which made Ianto miss the man even more. He wouldn't be calling out Ianto's duty to Britain. "And I'd be a hypocrite if I turned you all over, wouldn't I?"
"Ianto-"
He rolled his eyes and Ianto swore he caught the barest of smiles on Dr. Ramamurthy's face, whether in sympathy of Lester's fatherly tone or amusement at his belligerence Ianto wasn't sure. Refocusing his argument and stripping all of their control from it, Ianto made his point. "I refuse permission to stage my death; that's my life out there you want to kill and I can't do that to my team. And I'll think of something to say to Jack that will convey that he is not to search for me any longer. But give me the chance to say goodbye."
Goodbye.
At least he had the chance to say goodbye, he supposed. Torchwood rarely gave the opportunity. Ianto knew to waste it would be foolish; he just had to think of what to say and how to say it. Dr. Ramamurthy was correct insomuch that very little would convince Jack that Ianto wasn't lying and needed rescuing. He could tell Jack about the wings - Ianto was certain that Jack wouldn't mind that he was now 'different' - but the odds of that not fracturing what refuge and safety he had at Lester's was enough to convince him to at least delay that pursuit.
And maybe it wouldn't take much for Jack to forget him, or to move on.
Ianto didn't think he ever would forget.
Dr. Ramamurthy sighed and tilted his chair back on two legs. "I'm going to be out-voted, aren't I?"
"This isn't up for vote." With his mind made up (for the second time), Ianto was adamant. Besides, he couldn't continue worrying about the safety of all the displaced as well as Torchwood's. He had to quit avoiding the fact that his life was no longer normal and he had to deal with loose ends from his former life.
Goodbye.
It did not mean, however, that it wouldn't hurt.
***
Ianto dreamed.
It was surreal, the awareness of dreaming, of controlling his path within his dream and yet he felt pulled by the dream itself in an absence of all control.
But he dreamed; aware within his dream of silken gray fog that he had rested his head to sleep or at least think about Jack.
Gray, sometimes blue flashing cerulean folds within the gray; wasn't gray so much as silvered air. Air? Wasn't air so much as gleaming life in undulating waves.
Or maybe he was the waves.
He dreamed, he was aware he dreamed. He dreamed and he wanted Jack within his dream.
Ianto smiled, or at least he thought he did as the steel fog crackled in jade fire. He felt connected to everything within the billowing gray, connected to all points within as if each quantum particle was affixed to him by a tiny string. As he moved, so did the strings; as he thought, so followed the strings.
Exquisite tempest, dark and powerful swirling black as he spun to embrace the dreamworld. Jack would appreciate the dream, would dance until the storm burst gold, raining drops of white light on Ianto's skin until it infused his very being.
Or perhaps that was simply Jack.
Jack.
Linear thought on moebius tape, winding and twisting, but always the same path and destination no matter if he stood upside down or sideways along normal's face. Ianto searched, or maybe he was led, following his own direction through the sparking gray world until the haze cleared. Where it went he didn't know or care; it just dwindled to nothing like blowing steam from a cup of coffee.
Jack.
Jack lay just how Ianto remembered him from long ago, stretched out in light and shadows the length of his bed, one arm curled over his head and the crisp white bedding gathered at his hip. Before, Ianto had guiltily watched only a moment before scaling up the ladder and fleeing to Lisa within the depths of Torchwood Three. This time within the comforts of his dream he stared, memorizing the plane of Jack's chest, curling down across taunt skin that rose and sank with each breath.
Beautiful.
Beautiful was how Ianto remembered, relaxed and not innocent but pure. A conundrum to be studied and poetically transcribed but never fully realized. Sharp angles and straight lines, gentle curves and tight bends, Jack was a disarray of order and structured chaos, at once living and existing beyond until the story of his body surpassed mankind but never quite touched the divine.
Captain Jack Harkness, just a man with humanity's faults and the immortality of the gods. Would he be worshiped a million years in the future? Ianto wondered as he silently crept forward. Would he be a nameless hero and salvation's grace? Or would he eventually collapse into the darkness kissing the tales of his past, becoming an unstoppable scourge feared by all?
Two shades of one spirit wearing the face of man. Temptations no different than any human but with the capacity for much worse.
Or better.
Within the dream neither mattered on the angled planes of shadow and light. Before Ianto lay just a man. Human with every breath huffing past soft lips, slow and measured in undisturbed sleep. Human in mind and human in heart.
Ianto wanted nothing more than to worship Jack as a mere human himself, not the being he'd become. He didn't know why it was important, or why he so desperately wished it. But Ianto wanted a dream of what once was, of the relationship they long ago shared, not the shredded fragments of history they now were, twisted up in wings and marks.
It was just a dream, a dream he controlled as much as it controlled him.
As Ianto watched, the marks slipped from his skin. They ran like oil glides over metal to reemerge in pattern on the walls, spinning in huge swaths of ebony coils and straight lines as the patterns repeated mark for mark, line for line, in abstract upon Jack's dimly lit walls.
It said something, even within dream, twisting serpentine black before his eyes. But even as Ianto traced a curl up the wall to the ceiling, he couldn't read it any better than had it been on his hand.
His hand, pale and unmarked as it swam in the wan light.
His body, so light and re-balanced in absence of wings.
So human.
Ianto moved, or maybe he didn't move but the room moved around him as he stood still, black lines upon the walls stretching and twisting, pulling and pushing with such force Ianto felt it echoed upon his skin until the whole world snapped in blazing cerulean-touched gray. He was pressed against Jack's bedside, bent low, his tongue just a fraction of a thought away from licking the spot on Jack's neck that drove the man to his knees.
He licked.
Licked and tongued a path from neck to ear as Ianto felt Jack come alive beneath him with a murmured "Ianto" inscribing itself on the wall with the color of Jack's waking breath. His name pulsed with the rest of the black writing, throbbing until the walls themselves bowed with the beat half the tempo of his heart.
Fuck he wanted Jack.
Needed.
Ianto nipped the lobe of Jack's ear, hearing the half-awake moans escalate to a growl that crashed against his skin with the power of waves against a rocky shore. Heady, spiraling, effusive. He floated on the sound, tumbled with it until Ianto realized it wasn't the sound but Jack toppling him onto the bed, a bed so much larger than Jack's narrow mattress that they rolled but never hit wall or edge.
Legs naked and tangled, straight lines and curves as Ianto viewed them splayed on the storm-purple bedding, living replicas of the lines that danced upon the walls of Ianto's bedroom.
Where had Torchwood Three gone?
It didn't matter; Jack didn't seem to notice as Ianto both felt the man's weight pressing down over every touchable inch of Ianto's body and watched from a bird's view. Jack's desperate kiss turned nigh frantic with the need to touch and devour as an endless litany of nonsense and promise poured from his lips and wrote themselves upon the walls.
Promise. Ianto was aware he dreamed, he knew it as he watched himself fan long, pale fingers over the tanned skin of Jack's arse and felt their erections rub deliciously fierce and hot against the other. A dream where time was finite but unlimited and Ianto so ravenously needed that he saw it echoed in Jack as well while neither voiced a word and yet everything was said, everything Ianto could imagine possible and some things yet undefined.
A dream. "Love you," Ianto dared. Not dared, but rather confessed, abusing the privileged freedoms of sleep to test how Jack would react - no, could react to taboo words staining red the innocent white.
"Fuck, Ianto." Jack shuddered as he bowed to crush Ianto's lips, stealing breath no longer there to give as he pressed down in time with Ianto's angled thrusts, bodies curved and blended until they became a ring, joined head and hip while Jack rose and fell on his cock. Ianto'd missed this, he needed this. "Love you, too."
Ianto heard rather than saw the steel fog crackle and snap like flickers of flame dancing over wood as he surged up from his elbows, nearly overturning them but finding balance as the column wavered but stood tall and powerful. Chest plied to chest, Jack straddled his thighs. Shallow and rapid, Jack bounced on Ianto's cock, but no less wanton than the hitched sounds of punctuated words whose beat fell just slightly off rhythm.
Desperate.
A test with an outcome of many, but resulting in the one reply Ianto wanted.
Just a dream, Ianto knew as he watched himself trace the curve of Jack's arse to finger the lube-slicked hole wrapped vise-like around his erection, the touch more a tickled echo on his cock as Jack moved. The kiss deteriorated into more clinging than practiced action; Ianto could taste Jack's building orgasm on his tongue if he weren't already aware of the faltering, frenzied pace. It wrenched his control as easily as it'd been a wisp of dust on the whorling wind, the salty zing of gusts off the Bay reminding him to hold tight to Jack for fear of toppling off the pier.
Jack's cock blazed like a brand between their bellies, a trapped friction superheated until Ianto feared they'd melt through the planks. As the grey fog settled in around them, Ianto felt hot strings of semen rain his skin. Jack's voice dwindled to vibrations rippling across the delicate skin of Ianto's mouth, captured and drowned with the surf of a stormy sea. Ianto quickly followed as the clouds darkened with broad slashes of black. His orgasm more growled than shouted against Jack's lips even as lightning flashed brilliant jade against the night sky.
The dream was ending. He felt it even as his body quaked while coming down from the heavens, weak half-thrusts still attempting to claim every last moment buried deep within Jack, who seemed to sense it as well. Languid kisses turned possessive as he pushed Ianto back into the pier.
Claiming, but claims held no stake in a dream as Ianto soon realized, pier disappearing within sheets of flowing steel tipped in blue.
***
Ianto woke with regret that the dream ever had to end and the distinct displeasure of feeling disgustingly sticky. Fuck, he hadn't done that since his teens. He touched a hand to his stomach, lip curling as he felt the drying semen turning tacky. It was still dark out, Lester and anyone else staying at the place would be sleeping yet, but Ianto's room was far enough away that a shower wouldn't wake the others. Or at least he hoped. With a mammoth yawn as he walked into the lavatory, he blindly fumbled for the light cord and stepped in the shower, letting the water run over his head a moment before locating the flannel.
Jack.
He'd phone him later that day when the lingering whispers of dream-Jack's voice no longer could be heard in Ianto's subconscious. He'd tell Jack ... something, something Jack would believe. He'd had enough of Torchwood, he wasn't going back, he hated them all for sectioning him, doctor's orders - no Torchwood.
Problem was, he didn't believe himself even when he thought that, much less how he would say it when he was actually speaking with the man.
Wasn't going to be easy. At all.
With a curse, Ianto turned his face into the spray and increased the water's heat to barely tolerable. He absently rubbed the bar of soap quickly over his body, ignoring the small fissures of pleasure still burning beneath the surface. Fuck, he even missed his specially blended natural soaps and his pinstriped pajama bottoms. Maybe he could have Lester stage a break-in. Or he could buy new, except he didn't have a bloody job or access to his accounts, which left him feeling even more lost and unsettled than he had when he was a youth working for cash day to day.
He could write books. There was surely a profit to be made on science fiction based on his experiences. Or maybe he could work for the facilities where they tended the criminal elements of alien life on Earth.
What he really needed to do was stop being alien. Imagine that, a Torchwood agent who was actually the very alien Torchwood hunted. Life's irony never failed to bring out the bitter in him.
Frustrated, Ianto quickly shampooed his hair, turning off the water with a bit more force than necessary. He grabbed the towel folded on the shelf, buffing his hair dry while tallying all the places he might be employable.
Pretty limited to recluse within the city with a pernicious twin case of agoraphobia and anthropophobia or a marked freedom in the countryside. Alone, or maybe near Lester to allow for the occasional visitor.
Ianto scoffed at the idea of living in the city, an indelicate snort placing an exclamation point on the thought as he ran his hand over the mirror to clear the condensed steam.
Marked.
He stared at the reflection, heart racing so fast he was sure he'd pass out before he could rationalize what he saw.
Or didn't see.
Holding up his hand directly in front of his eyes, Ianto searched the skin for any trace, any indication, any hint of black.
None. Nothing. Perfectly pale, unmarked skin.
Twisting his head, he anxiously tried to catch a glimpse of his back, stepping a full circle before he realized with a cynical eye roll how inane he must appear and how relieved he was that no one caught him in the act. With his back to the mirror, he turned his head and saw ... nothing.
Nothing but skin covering bone and muscle. No wings, no feathers. Hell, he could see his back.
Light-headed, Ianto sat on the floor, the cold tile freezing his arse but he needed a moment to steady his breathing, to get a grip on himself. With his head pressed to his knees, Ianto looked at them, albeit blurred with the close distance, but there were no blurred lines, no black curves, circles or lines running over the skin there either.
He didn't know how, but fucking hell he didn't care.
***
Watching the expression on Lester's face as he walked into the kitchen was something Ianto would never forget.
He himself couldn't quit smiling. It was ridiculous, he had no bloody clue why, and that should scare the hell out of him as much as actually getting the wings, but he just couldn't make himself stop.
After seeing Ianto, Lester had immediately gotten on his mobile and rung Dr. Ramamurthy - even before making his morning glass of Tang and joining Ianto at the table.
Ianto, sitting in a regular chair instead of on his customary stool.
With a stupid grin on his face that matched the smiley-faced mug he'd hated so much before.
It was a while before Dr. Ramamurthy joined them; Ianto managed to finish two cups of coffee in the silence that stretched between him and Lester. Not altogether uncomfortable, but Ianto could tell he was nearly vibrating with the need to ask questions yet was holding his tongue for the moment. At least Ianto wouldn't have to explain his inability to answer any of those questions more than once.
Upon rushing into the kitchen - Lester had indicated a medical emergency - Dr. Ramamurthy promptly dropped his med kit. "Where the hell did they go?"
Ianto shrugged, eyeing the coffee pot to determine if another mug of coffee was necessary for the morning. "Don't really know. And certainly don't care." Third mug it was; Ianto stood from his chair, noting the absence of the weight on his back and realizing just how quickly he'd reverted to his former sense of balance.
That should probably concern him, too.
He'd forgone the shirt, knowing that Dr. Ramamurthy and Lester would wish to see his back and skin as proof of what they saw. And after days of walking around with no shirt at all, Ianto felt comfortable in his own skin. Well, comfortable so long as there were no wings on his back.
"You should care."
Lester sounded almost disappointed, though Ianto couldn't fathom why. Or he did, he just didn't care to broach that line of conscious thought. Instead, he poured another mug and sipped it while Dr. Ramamurthy continued his shocked, rambled monologue about the implications and theories in utter disconnect from Lester and Ianto. He might as well have been in a room all by himself, though that would have deprived Ianto from his slight amusement at watching the doctor giddy with a boyish glee.
"No, I really can't." Ianto leaned back against the counter, holding his mug in both hands after taking a generous sip. He hadn't lost a single feather when he'd backed into the cabinets after the incident with Wesley. In fact, there hardly seemed a barb out of place. It'd hurt when he'd bumped them, but apparently no damage. But he'd missed leaning, for fuck's sake. "They're gone, and I look normal."
Dr. Ramamurthy interrupted before Lester could argue with him. For the interruption Ianto was thrilled, even if it was to poke at Ianto's skin and prod his shoulder blades. "What happened? How did they go away?"
He shrugged again, itching to escape the exceedingly curious hands of the doctor. It wasn't that Ianto minded the touching, although maybe he did. But it was more unnerving as the doctor's excitement bled through. "I was sleeping, woke up, showered, then noticed the marks and the wings were gone."
"Different approach. What did you alter in your routine?"
Ianto flushed, though he was fairly certain Dr. Ramamurthy wasn't inquiring as to the state of his sheets upon waking. "Nothing different. Ablutions in the same order as every night before bed, laid down - wings and all - slept a couple hours, then woke up."
"And?" Lester's eyes never missed anything, Ianto remembered. Made him good at catching cheats. "What aren't you telling us?"
Flustered, Ianto looked at his feet, then took a sip of coffee before answering. "Dreamed. A very .. .vivid dream."
"A dream- ah ah." Dr. Ramamurthy turned away from his inspection of Ianto's back to wag a finger at him. "Spare us the sordid details. Can you feel the wings? Are they just invisible to our eyes, but still there?"
Concentrating, Ianto thought about what it had felt like when the wings were there. Before, even the slightest rustle of wind ruffled through the feathers, his nerves sparking like wildfire in awareness. But there was simply ... nothing. "No. At least not that I can tell. They're just gone."
"That's not possible. Matter just cannot vanish." Dr. Ramamurthy's voice shifted into his lecture mode; perfect for patients learning of new diseases, but matters of physics, biological constants, and anatomical theories were too much for Ianto to wrap his mind around at this time of morning.
Lester had a fond smile on his face as Dr. Ramamurthy began muttering to himself before he went to retrieve his kit. "What'd you dream about?"
"Jack." Simple answer, but it left him terribly embarrassed. Not embarrassed so much, sex was never an embarrassment, but Ianto preferred to keep such matters private.
"Ah." Lester gestured at Ianto with his glass, proving a pointed question in Tang. "And how did you appear?"
He was fairly certain Lester wasn't looking for a 'naked' answer, though it might have been amusing just to see what kind of reaction he'd get. "I appeared ... like this."
"Wait," Dr. Ramamurthy interrupted, a needle and vial in hand to withdraw blood. "You're telling me he dreams of shagging his partner as a human and poof! he's human? That's not possible. Biology doesn't work like that, not without a glandular development to facilitate shape-shifting, and you didn't have one."
"But I had the wings and marks to begin the dream," Ianto added, not sure if that really mattered as it'd been a dream. It wasn't like he'd gone and had sex with Jack in various locations about Cardiff. The walls didn't move and they didn't say things like 'love you' or anything of the other various rambled promises and endearments.
Just a dream.
"What happened in the dream, to make them go away?"
Ianto had a hard time looking at Lester as he was supposed to answer the question, and he knew full-well why, even if he didn't want to admit it. He looked at the floor instead, ignoring the rubber tourniquet tied round his upper arm. "I just wanted to be normal. Human."
Lester didn't say anything for a long while, then sighed and patted Ianto's shoulder. "I'll leave you in Dr. Ramamurthy's capable hands. If there's an answer, he'll find it."
As he walked away without another word, Ianto felt the initial joy at the discovery dim, just a bit.
***
Ianto cursed as he nearly dropped the PDA for the fourth time that trip; the borrowed device was smaller than the one he was used to driving and tracking with. He shouldn't probably be driving with it; if he was arrested while driving with the thing he wasn't sure that the "Torchwood" claim would work for him. Especially since he lacked any personal information, much less a security badge.
He held the PDA against the steering wheel, one eye on the road and one eye on the blinking marker. And occasionally, Ianto indulged himself and looked at his hand, waving his fingers to admire the mark-free skin.
It'd taken Dr. Ramamurthy less than six hours to declare him completely human ("Impossible!") and Lester a full eight before he'd re-entered the kitchen and demanded Ianto attempt to think himself back ("Are you mad? Why?").
Lester had emphatically stated that Ianto was going nowhere until he changed back. Ianto tried arguing everything from alien STD to parasite to contagious hallucination while Lester fought back with every insult of cowardice and self-loathing in his arsenal - quite full, given the variety of notorious activities he'd been involved in over the years.
In the end, thirty-six hours later in the dead of night and alone in the courtyard, Ianto pictured the dreamworld he'd moved through to get to Jack and reluctantly meditated on 'wings.'
He'd nearly wept as he felt the shift; a soft brush of displaced air inspired him to open his eyes to the marked hand he held in front of his face. It wasn't that he'd honestly believed his 'alien' aspect was truly gone, but for just a moment, there was the sliver of hope that it was all a terrible mistake.
Lester had just nodded when he had seen Ianto, complete with wings and body art, as if his appearance just reaffirmed a belief he held. Then he told told Ianto to repeat it again.
Taking a street corner sharper than he should have given his complete lack of ID, Ianto rechecked the blip on the PDA indicating that his target had yet to move. Didn't mean much in the grand scheme, but it at least gave him a starting point. Timetables had altered drastically earlier that day when a UNIT team broke into Bree's flat, and the investigation escalated far beyond what Ianto would permit. This was obscene; he was just one person and Torchwood was wasting far too much time and dedicated resources instead of performing their real duties.
Thankfully, Bree had been away from her flat when they'd broken in; somehow Lester had been alerted to that and four other 'places of suspicion' including a warehouse, the tiny shop where Ianto purchased his coffee beans, and the residences of two former Torchwood cases. Despite Dr. Ramamurthy's objections and Lester's hesitation as he insisted Ianto wasn't ready yet, he left Lester's in one of the spare vehicles retained on site for such purpose with a borrowed PDA and mobile.
After he'd showered of course. Twice. And made lunch. And carefully labeled his research. Not that he was avoiding the inevitable, but he was. He shouldn't have been nervous, he shouldn't be nervous, but it'd been nearly a month since he'd escaped from Providence and he felt more alien, literally and figuratively, than he had when he'd first joined the Cardiff branch of Torchwood. He felt it all the time now, a certain displacement of self and yet a distinct, albeit surreal, connection to everything. Ianto had made the mistake of attempting to describe the feeling to Lester, who had immediately declared a return to Torchwood off-limits.
Not that Ianto had listened, once Bree had been targeted. He realized he couldn't hide and toy around with his changes forever.
The toying had been interesting. Once he'd gotten the hang of - well, he had no better way to describe it than the strings he'd dreamed about - sort of, tugging on those strings and visualizing either human or alien, he'd ceded to Lester and Dr. Ramamurthy's requests to view it themselves. More anxious than his Torchwood One interview, Ianto had struggled briefly before the two pairs of watching eyes. He never really morphed, they insisted; there had been no fluidity of transition from one appearance to the next, he'd simply gone from human to winged with just a flicker amidst a halo of white-laced electric sky-blue.
There were other things as well. Subtle things that required conscious thought to observe as abnormal action or behavior for himself. Slightly faster reflexes than he remembered having (Lester thanked him for saving a shelf full of trinkets from crashing to the floor), his perception of things alien wasn't limited to just individuals but slowly tech names and uses began filtering in, confirming his suspicions that Lester's place wasn't just made with items found in the recent centuries. But like individuals, it wasn't consistent in quantity or quality. Sometimes just a year was associated, sometimes a race that created it. Mostly, the tech was weapons-related, a development inopportunely timed with venturing into Lester's munitions collection.
The overwhelming quantity of information was too much for him to take in; Ianto woke up on the floor with no recollection of laying down and a concerned Lester standing over him. He mentally collected himself, getting his bearings before facing down the weapons room, this time prepared for the onslaught. And it worked, though he was distracted for some time at the vast array of weapons until he hit one Class F sonic blasting device (a "Banshee" in colloquial terms) from the 79th century and Ianto turned his focus on Lester, yelling at the man for the stupidity of possessing a weapon one couldn't even license, much less have on premises without being charged with a Level-A crime.
Lester had just grinned, though why Ianto wasn't exactly sure.
He'd lost his grin once Ianto had begun dismantling the weapon, tearing it down wire by wire, destroying the main processor and permanently disabling the power supply. No way was such a weapon, capable of horrendous destruction, going to even exist on Earth, much less upon British soil. He handed the shell of the weapon back to a speechless Lester with a promise as much as a warning: "Not even Torchwood should touch such a weapon."
Ianto smirked in memory of Lester's outrage as he waited impatiently for the light to turn green; there was no one on the streets this late at night to even merit the stop. With his recent luck, however, he knew better than to tempt fate. The SUV was nearby, and while Ianto knew he could have staged his return at the Information Centre or on the Plas near the invisible lift (not actually in the Hub as Jack should have changed the security codes per Torchwood Standard Operating Procedure), he had no idea how he would be received if they thought he had been stolen away by a nefarious alien and showed up on their doorstep. Ianto still didn't know how well his reemergence would be taken far away from the Hub, but at least he had the chance to escape before they threw him in a holding cell for a permanent stay,
At least he no longer had wings. Or he did, rather, but had some semblance of control over their appearance.
He parked his car next to the SUV - quite close to the area where Ianto had first met Jack, actually - and listened, as his rigged PDA could only track the SUV's signal, not Jack himself. At least Ianto hoped it was Jack, but at this time of day generally it was Jack on a Weevil chase if he was out.
The sounds of a fight were easy to distinguish and Ianto ran in the general direction, slowing as he approached to maintain some element of surprise. He had no weapon, so he picked up a sturdy-looking branch, wondering again at the felicitousness of events.
Fate had a funny way of amusing itself.
Grimacing at the unpleasant sound of something striking a hard object, Ianto advanced to see a crumpled figure near a tree (he would not consider what it was he heard cracking because that was far too unpleasant a thought for the time) and a Weevil threatened with drool dripping over its fangs.
Why did it always have to be Weevils?
Ianto noted that wasn't actually the species' name, though it was an alternate moniker for the species. 'Kophs' they were called, the entire race held at a medium level threat so Ianto felt little reserve as he struck the alien at the base of its neck with the branch, wincing as the impact vibrated up the wood and into his hands.
Fucking stung.
He didn't have time to waste, however. While the Weevil was dazed he grabbed the discarded spray and hood dropped near the figure Ianto couldn't bear to look at; looked around was more what he was doing. A quick spray and the Weevil went down, luckily one of the few who were still affected by the spray, it would seem. While he was bagging the Koph, Ianto heard Jack gasp back to life, a sound he was far too familiar with but never got used to. What Jack went through - best not think about it, Ianto decided, tightening the cord around the Weevil's neck so it would remain pacified like a horse with blinders.
"Ianto?"
The fact that Jack recognized him from behind, even in denims and a simple tee instead of his standard suit, shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did. Ianto finished knotting the cord as the crunch of footfalls in the leaves behind him indicated movement by Jack. He rose, dusting his knees of the leaves before he turned around.
Now that he was here, Ianto irrationally wanted to flee, run far from Jack and Torchwood, from the bastards who sectioned him and the team he called family. His mind whirled in a bit of a panic set at blazing speeds, he should have listened to Lester: this was too soon, he could have phoned Jack, asked for some more time and to halt the search, bought himself more time to figure out who he was and what he was. But he hadn't, rushing off at the first opportunity because he could pass for a human and he missed Jack, the team, and even Myfanwy without so much of a half-arsed plan to keep him from being deemed a security threat.
Which he wasn't, for the most part. If he helped a few aliens who weren't a threat by protecting them from Torchwood through his position, that wouldn't be that great a threat, would it? He hadn't promised Dr. Ramamurthy he actually would do that, though Ianto had promised to consider it. Jack might even listen if Ianto insisted the ones he could identify weren't a threat. Maybe. Those questions were all for another time, however.
Ianto did acknowledge, however, that this was perhaps not the wisest thing he had ever done.
Holding up his hands so that Jack wouldn't shoot him before he could say anything, Ianto slowly turned on his heel, coming about to see the incredulous look-
Species Profile
Species: BADWOLF
Origin: BADWOLF
Threat Priority Level: BADWOLF
---***---
Individual Profile
Name: BADWOLF
Aliases: BADWOLF
Previous Violations: BADWOLF
Active Warrants: BADWOLF
Threat Priority Level: BADWOLF
Original Status: BADWOLF
Current Status: BADWOLF
-on Jack's face, which he was fairly certain was probably mirrored on his own.
Badwolf? What was Badwolf?
"Ianto?"
"Sorry, just ... remembering," Ianto lied, shaken far more by seeing Jack than he had prepared himself for, not to mention the profiles which were never wrong seeming completely ... hijacked ... when it came to Jack. He had no clue what it meant, but he'd deal with that later. He smiled with more than a little regret as he watched Jack's expression shift not to hostility, but wariness as the Captain's military-trained mind took over. Ianto had known it would come, but he still had no idea how to convince Jack that he was Ianto and not controlled by an outside source. "You've blood..."
As before, Jack stepped away from his touch and Ianto held up his hands in innocence as Jack drew his Webley. "You can see me?"
Ianto nodded with absolute certainty, gesturing with his head at the Weevil as well. "No more dead people, no more light. Just ... you."
Jack seemed as thrown as Ianto felt by the situation; Ianto really should have planned this better. He hadn't thought much beyond locating Jack and he lacked any evidence of any story he might tell, and even less of an explanation for what had gotten him sectioned in the first place.
No explanation other than the truth, and Ianto was not ready to tell Jack that just yet, no matter how accepting of it Jack proclaimed himself to be.
Fuck, usually he was more prepared than this.
"You disappeared." Jack's Webley shook and Ianto hoped it wouldn't accidentally go off; that was not the joyful reunion he had in mind. "We searched everywhere for you, but you'd just disappeared."
"It's called escape, Jack." His tone probably wasn't conducive to encouraging Jack to believe him, but he couldn't stop the cynicism from creeping in. In any event, it was at least helping prevent Ianto from saying that he knew just how much Jack searched. The cynicism wouldn't be fair in that context; Jack and Torchwood searching was every reason why he was there. "I reconnected with an old friend and spent the past month relaxing in the country." Not exactly a lie, though the time hadn't always been relaxing.
"Why didn't you call me?" The gun snapped back into place, Jack's voice sharp with hurt feelings. But really, it was going to take more than a gun aimed at his head to strike fear in his heart.
"You locked me up!" Ianto stepped closer, ignoring the gun. He didn't believe Jack would shoot him anyway, unless he suddenly sprouted wings and looked like an alien, and wouldn't that be an adventure? "Forgive me if my trust in Torchwood was a little less than solid at the time."
Jack's lips twisted themselves into a thin line, whether anger or self-recrimination Ianto wasn't sure, but the gun did lower, a small victory at the very least. "How? You were in no condition to run."
Ianto heard everything within Jack's words that he didn't say, the 'I watched yous' and the 'I saw yous' and the 'I came to you one night and held you while I wept.' He may have seen it as a glorious ball of brilliant white-gold light, but he knew it had been Jack. The 'why' portion of that question was still a mystery to Ianto; the best he could reason was that, as his mind and body changed, so did his ability to define what he was seeing. Maybe. Maybe he had gone just a bit mad for a while there. It'd certainly felt like it. "Please," Ianto scoffed at Jack's question with pure bravado that was every bit bluster as it sounded. "I've escaped from worse."
Daleks. Cybermen. His mother's madness and his childhood. Men with guns and cleavers. Owen-Weevil. Jack leaving him tied to the coffee machine, naked, mere minutes before the rest of the team was due to show for work.
He just kept on escaping and it didn't make sense why.
"Yeah." Jack touched his ear, surprising Ianto as he hadn't figured anyone would be at the Hub. "Found the Weevil. Had a little help catching it." Ianto stood tall as Jack leveled his stare, unyielding but not unforgiving. "Claims he's Ianto."
Ianto winced, knowing he had no evidence to support his claims other than it was really him; he wasn't a Sleeper agent or an alien in disguise (well, not like that), or functioning under the control of someone else. He almost wished he would have gone with one of Dr. Ramamurthy's plans - fake kidnapping and ransom, bruise him up a bit with a concocted story of escape, drop him off at some remote village and fake amnesia for a while. But no, he'd insisted, and if he said it wasn't to return to Jack, he'd be lying.
"You'll see for yourself. Call Owen in. I want to start tests immediately."
"Security Protocol Four," Ianto interrupted, holding out his hands. He knew the Torchwood handbook; hell, he preached it.
Jack actually looked pained at the idea. "Ianto, I'm not going to-"
"Lock me up?" Ianto smiled sadly as he remembered the first awareness of confinement, though it had been far more trapping within his own mind than actual bars and keys. Something else to deal with later. He straightened his shoulders though and raised his chin, determinedly keeping his hands in front of him, wrist to wrist. "I can't prove to you I am who I say I am and you would be a shit leader of Torchwood if you took me at my word. So call Security Protocol Four, it's at least my choice this time."
For a moment, Ianto thought Jack was going to continue to argue, but then he reached into his pocket and removed the wrist restraints Ianto had yet to figure out how to break free from. Security Protocol Four it was, suspected agent contamination or tampering, often used at Torchwood One but never at Torchwood Three; Ianto wasn't sure if that was because London was more paranoid or Cardiff was more lax. "Tosh ... yeah. I know. Look up Security Protocol Four, we play by those rules." Jack looked directly at him while he spoke, snapping the restraints over Ianto's wrists. "It's temporary ... no, I don't want to either. No ... he says he isn't, but maybe a blindfold couldn't hurt?"
Jack asked and Ianto shook his head, vehemently against being blindfolded walking through the Hub, if only to prove there was no cause for them to send him back to Providence Park. There'd be a lot of tech there, but he could handle it. At least he hoped. "No, we won't use one, but good idea ... yeah, neither do I. Loading up, we'll be there in five."
Ianto waited patiently as Jack loaded up the Weevil, then casually checked out Ianto's car after punching in a series of numbers into his wrist strap. Checking for explosives, Ianto knew, and tracking devices. There wouldn't be any; no way would Lester attempt anything of the sort. Then it was into the backseat for Ianto, his restraints hooked through the locking device on the back of the passenger seat. Not exactly comfortable, but he wouldn't complain.
Ask him two months ago, and Ianto would have stared out the window and not said a word. Ask him a month past and Ianto would have laughed at the idea so ludicrous it bordered on the obscene. An alien, in Torchwood?
And now? Fuck, he was actually headed back to Hub, back to his team and his job.
It wasn't perfect, in fact it was far from perfect - he was essentially under arrest until they deemed him no longer a security threat, something he'd initially hoped to avoid - but it was a start.
And there was Jack, checking the rear mirror so often Ianto wondered if he was watching the road at all. Maybe he was afraid Ianto would vanish again, or maybe he just expected an assassin's attempt to kill him before they made it to the Hub.
Or maybe he was happy to have Ianto back.
Truth or not, Ianto indulged, wrapping the notion tight about him like plastic wrap and it kept him warm all the way to Torchwood Three.
The Windhovers (10 of 10 - Part 2)