Title: The Vague Outlines of Ghosts
Author: Analineblue & Sariagray
Artist: Rexluscus
Beta: Eldarwannabe
Genre: Romance, Episode Tag (2x10, From Out of the Rain)
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Team
Word Count: ~28k (total)
Rating: M
Warnings: Sexual situations, language.
Disclaimer: We do not own Torchwood, its characters, or its environs, nor do we receive any monetary gain.
Summary: Even after they have come and gone, Ianto can't quite let go of the case of the night travelers; more so than anything he's ever encountered, these creatures seem to be bound up in the past, present, and future of Torchwood, and of Jack. With help from the rest of the team, Ianto undergoes an investigation that he hopes will put this mystery to rest once and for all. While immersing himself in his research, Ianto also attempts to navigate both the personal and professional aspects of his relationship with Jack.
Notes: Written for the Ianto Big Bang over on LiveJournal. Story is complete, seven chapters total. (Please visit the following: rexluscus at livejournal dot com forwardslash 413117 dot html to view the wonderful cover art and fanmix by our artist - Rexluscus. Apologies for having to spell that all out, but this site is strange with links!)
The Vague Outlines of Ghosts - by Analineblue and Sariagray
Prologue
It was the musty smell of rain on old velveteen cloth that stayed with Ianto, long after the fear and disappointment had faded to a dull ache in the back of his mind. The moisture of it stained his memories the way that droplets of water might blur old photographs, making the ink bleed off of the thick paper. Each recollection of his past was like that; sometimes a half-formed sepia coffee ring circled a face, or a blot of jam obscured a bit of scenery, or the edge of the horizon was completely burnt away. Sometimes, too, the whole picture seemed to fade completely until there was nothing left save for the vague outlines of ghosts.
Chapter One
Delicately, between the tips of his thumb and forefinger, Ianto held up a daguerreotype from the file he had been perusing. Throughout the years, Torchwood had collected little concrete data on the night travelers, despite Jack's undercover operation and what they hadgathered had been rather poorly documented.
He stared at the picture. A woman stared back, her pale mouth grim and small, her dark hair pulled away from her face and tucked behind her ears. There was a smile in her eyes that contrasted her stiff pose and awkwardly placed limbs. Ianto had no idea who she was or if she even belonged in this particular file.
There was an exaggerated shuffle behind him and the low murmur of an unnecessary cough before a firm hand pressed against his shoulder. Ianto sighed.
"It's getting late," Jack whispered. "And you aren't going to find much in there."
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that," Ianto said quietly, turning to face him. His features softened as he observed Jack's comfortable smile.
Jack leaned over him, his hand on the back of Ianto's chair, and Ianto breathed deeply, inhaling the heady and powerful scent as the musk of pheromones washed over him.
The Hub was shrouded in the almost-darkness of after hours, and the already sparse light around them dimmed as Ianto's computer switched to screensaver mode. An undulating flow of blues and greens danced in patterns onto the surface of the desk in front of him.
The expansive space hummed around them - mostly asleep, but alert. The constant readiness of a soldier during wartime.
"Who's she?" Jack asked eventually, pointing to the photograph. "I don't remember her," he continued, tracing a finger over the edge. "Kinda cute, though. Am I right?"
"Always," Ianto agreed with a smirk, wheeling his chair around so that he could face Jack properly.
Jack nudged at his foot with a boot-clad toe. "Really, she's your type? I would have never guessed."
Ianto raised an eyebrow. "You must be slipping."
Jack smiled affectionately. "Not possible. Not with you, anyway."
"Such confidence."
Jack barked out a quick laugh. "Well, it's only hubris if I fail, right?"
Ianto stared at him for a long moment. He watched the corners of Jack's lips quirk up into an expectant smile.
"I have absolutely no idea what you mean," Ianto said calmly. "But you failing? Not something I'm worried about."
Jack grinned, high-wattage this time, and pulled up a spare chair from Tosh's workstation.
"Exactly," he replied, before his expression turned contemplative, and he gestured to the file on Ianto's desk. "So, what have you got so far?"
Ianto sighed and closed the folder with a crisp, resolute snap. Jack had been straddling the line between curious interest and concern for the past two days, waltzing around Ianto like the steps to a foreign dance; one movement would find him cloyingly close and then suddenly he was back across the room. It was dizzying.
"A headache."
Jack laughed. "That all?
"Well, Torchwood's always been focused on two things about the night travelers; what they want and how to get rid of them. I think it's always been assumed that they're alien, but there's no proof. The only thing that seems to be consistent is what they do to their victims. There also seems to be a strong connection to water. The latter thread has never really been followed, though, as far as I can tell."
Jack nodded. His eyes were clouded with hesitation and Ianto wished fervently that he could explain why it mattered, wished they could just move on from this once and for all.
It had only been fifty three hours and twenty seven minutes since they had put this case to bed; it felt like years. It felt like seconds.
Ianto ran his hand through his hair, his eyes flickering closed and then open. "There's the rain, of course. And Tosh swears she was picking up readings unique to the sea. Also, Jonathan found one of them soaking in his bathtub."
"Not to mention the dehydrated state of the victims," Jack mused thoughtfully. "Right, so, water is a necessity."
"No," Ianto murmured, shaking his head. "No, it's more than that. It's an obsession, I think. Almost like an addiction."
"Okay, so we're looking for something that can be addicted to water. Or is it something in the water, some part of it? Oxygen, maybe?"
Ianto shrugged. "I'm not sure. I'm going to cross-reference our compendium of alien species and see what turns up."
"Tonight? It's almost ten."
"Says the man who never sleeps," he quipped, watching Jack curiously. "If I didn't know better, I might think you'd rather I drop this altogether."
Jack shook his head. "That's not it. I'm just as worried as you are that these things - whatever they are - could turn up again."
Ianto nodded. He believed Jack, he really did, but there was just something odd about the whole thing, he supposed. When he'd seen Jack's figure step into that frame up on the screen in the Electro, his heart had practically jumped into his throat. It had been exhilarating, this surprise piece of Jack's past thrown up there - like a gift, almost. The man who couldn't die.
Part of him wondered if Jack knew more than he was letting on, but he couldn't tell if the feeling was directly related to all of this, to the night travelers, or if it was something else, something deeper. Because, of course, Jack always knew more than he let on, about most everything.
Ianto sighed and met Jack's gaze.
"You think I know something, something I'm not telling you," Jack observed, and Ianto almost laughed. Jack could be so astute when he wanted to be.
"I don't," Jack assured him, sounding a little hurt.
"I know," Ianto said quickly.
Maybe he was making more of this than it really was. Seeing things that weren't really there. Maybe it really was just a mystery. It certainly wouldn't be the first, or the last, mystery he'd encountered with this job, and the fact that lives had been lost didn't exactly set it apart, either.
"I wasn't as…" Jack continued and Ianto watched him pause, searching for the words, like he always did when he spoke of his past, "thorough back then as I am now. I followed orders."
Ianto nodded and leaned back in his chair, watching Jack, who was fiddling with a stray thread at the edge of his waistcoat.
"I never should have let it go back then."
Ianto shook his head. "You didn't know what would happen. You couldn't have."
"I knew enough," Jack said darkly, and somehow, Ianto wasn't sure how to argue that point.
Placing a hand on Jack's knee, Ianto offered a small smile. "Take me home."
As his Audi crept out of the garage and into the still night air, it dawned on Ianto that he may just have been played with a false sulk, the oldest trick in the book. In fact, he was fairly certain that this was the case – Jack's normal method of brooding did not turn quite so quickly into something that assuredly gleeful.
It was strange. They had never stopped conning one another (old habits are hard to break; this was no different), but somewhere along the way it had shifted from actual illicit pretense. Now they tricked one another into completing paperwork, eating proper meals, and getting as much sleep as possible.
It would be infuriating if it wasn't so comfortable.
"…dinner and did you even eat lunch? Not much is going to be open now."
Okay, maybe it was a little infuriating.
"Jack. I'm fine. Really."
The roadways were clear, damp with the evening's sudden (if not unexpected) rainfall. They glistened in the glow of the pale yellow streetlamps and a light, low-lying mist clung to the ground. It wafted slightly in the wake of Ianto's car, like a horde of specters, and he found himself glancing at the rearview mirror to watch the gentle sway.
"Besides," he continued as his eyes flicked from the windshield, then the rearview, then Jack, and back again, "Gwen practically force-fed me pizza while you were on that call with Martha."
The Audi slipped silently through the night, just the soft rush of air and the wet sound of tires on slick pavement cutting through the quiet.
"Well," Jack said after the lull had reached a point of awkwardness. "Tea, and then bed."
Ianto frowned. "Tea?"
"Seems a shame to just send you to bed without tea."
It was, perhaps, the most ridiculous but also the most logical thing Ianto had heard all night. At least, coming from Jack.
"Since when do we have tea before bed, Jack?" Ianto chided. He watched the lines of the road as they disappeared into the darkness on either side of the car. "Not that I'm saying it's a bad idea…"
Jack laughed, somewhere between amused and flirtatious, and stared over at Ianto from the passenger seat.
"I suppose it is a little 'old married couple,' isn't it?" he said, and out of the corner of his eye, Ianto could see Jack's eyebrows raised expectantly in his direction.
Ianto's grip on the steering wheel tightened involuntarily. He swallowed.
"Nothing against old married couples," Jack continued, seemingly oblivious to the sudden change in the air; it was electrified with a thousand uncertainties that neither of them would say a word about, but that hung there between them all the same.
Ianto just smiled blithely. The moment passed.
It wasn't a long drive from the Hub to Ianto's flat, but this wasn't the first time it'd seemed to stretch endlessly.
At the fork at the end of the main road that led to the smaller, more suburban development, Ianto should have turned left.
Except that this time, he didn't. On a whim, he kept going. It took Jack nearly a minute before he realized they were off course.
"Hey," Jack said cautiously. "Shouldn't you have made a-"
"Change of plans."
"Something I said?" Jack joked, but there was understanding in his voice – Jack was never truly oblivious, after all.
"Research," Ianto offered, making up his mind. "I've followed up on some of the police reports of strange goings-on in the area over the past few weeks. The police station in Pontypridd received a report of suspicious activity at Ynysangharad Park last Tuesday. A woman, wearing hardly anything, and a strange man were seen wandering around the abandoned swimming pool there."
"Water," Jack commented and nodded.
"Exactly. Figured we could check it out."
"Sure. There's always time for tea later, right?" Jack grinned.
Ianto hummed a soft acknowledgement and tried to focus on the road instead of the image that had materialized in his brain: Jack comfortably ensconced on his sofa, a mug of milky sweet tea cupped in his hands, watching some sort of late night program on the telly. It was as soothing a thought as it was terrifying.
Jack reached over and clicked on the radio. He turned the volume down low enough to barely drown out the whir of the engine.
"You know," he said after a moment, "there's been a movement for liquid stabilized oxygen as a cure for cancer. Torchwood One kept an eye on them for a few years, but they were just your average medicinal conspiracy nuts. The treatment doesn't work at all, but it's not a cover for anything sinister, so they dropped the case."
Ianto blinked and frowned, a twinge of familiar panic running through him at the mention of the fallen division.
"Right."
"Well, I was thinking that perhaps it's related."
The rain had started again. Steady, large drops pattered against the windshield and Ianto flicked on the wipers. Not enough water had collected, and the rubber shrieked against the glass in protest.
"You think the night travelers have cancer?"
"No, no," Jack chuckled. "But they may have a need for oxygen that's stabilized. For purposes of energy, essentially oxygen and carbohydrates are needed. In carbon-based life forms, at any rate."
Ianto frowned again, put on his blinker, and turned down the next street.
"They came out of film," he muttered. "They're hardly carbon-based."
"So, celluloid. Which is made from–"
"Nitrogen." Ianto paused as the realization hit him. "They're nitrogen-based."
"Yeah, like I suspected."
Ianto pulled over to the side of the dark roadway and turned to Jack, who was beaming at him with equal parts pride and excitement.
"And," Ianto continued with a small smile, "nitrogen dissolves in water. But there's also a decent presence of it in the rain, in tap water, in sea water, all of it. South Wales is a fairly agricultural community, so the concentration must be relatively high."
"That could explain why they showed up here," Jack said thoughtfully.
"We should take samples," Ianto said, eyes flashing. "From any standing water we find at the park, and then from the Cardiff locations, too."
Jack nodded in agreement, and then frowned. "Have you got anything we can use in the boot?"
"Just a basic kit for emergencies, but there should be a few suitable containers."
Jack nodded and then just grinned at him, which was a little unnerving.
"What?" Ianto asked, knowing he was playing right into whatever Jack was thinking, but too hyped up from the idea of actually getting somewhere with the case to really care.
Jack leaned over the console between them.
"Have I ever mentioned before how happy I am that I hired you?" Jack stage-whispered, and despite himself, Ianto felt his cheeks flush slightly.
"Only about twice a day," he mumbled. "Give or take."
Jack chuckled deep in his throat, and suddenly Ianto could feel his heart thumping wildly in his chest. Jack's hand on his thigh began to creep dangerously close to what was quickly becoming an uncomfortable tightening of wool against cotton, just underneath the zipper of his trousers.
The rain was coming down in earnest against the windows now, streaking along the windshield, and almost drowning out the sound of his heart and his breath as it huffed out in front of him.
"I thought we were working," Ianto muttered, sucking in a long breath as Jack's hand palmed the erection he'd fought so valiantly against for all of thirty seconds before giving in.
"We are working," Jack insisted. "I'm helping us focus," he continued, unbuttoning Ianto's trousers and sliding his hand inside with practiced ease.
"Trust me," Jack whispered, and Ianto just managed to roll his eyes before squeezing them shut tight and letting his head fall back against the headrest with a low groan.
The next thing he knew, Jack had pushed Ianto's seat backward with a sharp snick and lowered the back until Ianto was completely horizontal. Startled, and a bit in pain, his eyes flew open just in time to see Jack attempt to straddle him.
Despite the dizzying sensation of the sudden shift in blood flow, Ianto chuckled and raised an eyebrow.
"That didn't work last time, either."
"Shut up," Jack growled and nipped at his neck as he settled himself precariously over Ianto's body.
"Yes, sir."
Jack growled again, low and rumbling, before fumbling with the zip of his trousers. The rain began to pelt the roof harder, building into a pattering tempo. Ianto closed his eyes once more and relaxed his body into the warm leather of the seat.
The hot, slick feel of Jack's cock aligning with his own, the closeness of his large fist encompassing them both in a slide of friction, and the cool air snaking between Jack's grasp made Ianto's eyelids flicker.
"Fuck," he muttered against the soft skin just below Jack's ear. "Fuck."
Jack's teeth bit a trail of sharp marks along Ianto's jaw as he increased the speed of his hand. He was panting, as close as Ianto was, surely. Ianto bucked his hips to better angle himself in Jack's grip.
He opened his eyes and they widened, almost instantly, in shock.
"What the fuck was that?" he gasped.
He shoved Jack away from him and stared out the window into what was now, apparently, nothing.
Nothing but rain and darkness and a single flickering streetlamp.
Jack's hand steadied him, fingers splayed out against the small of his back, as he stared out into the darkness and the rain at what had obviously been nothing at all. Warmth pooled at the base of his spine and he turned to Jack, caught somewhere between exasperation and desire.
"You're always so calm."
Jack stared up at him from his lounging position, eyes dark, curious. "Well, one of us has to be, right?"
Then he nodded for Ianto to come back and join him, and for a second, Ianto considered refusing - he wasn't an exhibitionist, whatever Jack had to say to the contrary, and while he was fairly certain that there'd been nothing outside the car other than his overactive imagination, the front of his car would never be his preferred location.
And then Jack flopped over onto his side, and Ianto caught a glimpse of his hand, long fingers draped lazily around his half-hard cock, and it was all the invitation he needed.
"Seriously," he panted in Jack's ear, tongue darting out to taste the skin there, just for a moment. It was warm, and under his tongue he could feel Jack's pulse, hammering quickly as his hand worked between them. "Don't you ever..." he groaned, close now.
"Don't I ever..." Jack prompted, sounding, well, calm, of course.
"Worry about..." He struggled to finish his thought, well aware that most of Jack's attention was elsewhere, "...what's out there. All the things we... fuck..." he hissed as Jack nipped at his ear. He bucked his hips up. "Don't understand..."
"All the time," Jack whispered, unexpectedly serious, before his head thumped hard against Ianto's shoulder. He ground out Ianto's name, low and rough, and Ianto squeezed his eyes shut tight, and just let go.
He focused on the sound of the rain and the soft warmth of Jack's breath on his cheek as he let his nerves settle. He felt Jack shift a bit until all of his weight rested on Ianto's left side.
"Don't tell me you're trying to cuddle," he muttered without looking.
"No, trying to find tissues."
"They should be in the glove box, underneath the torch and the bandages. Left of the sanitizer."
Ianto rolled his shoulders as Jack retrieved his prize with a sharp exhale of victory. He let Jack clean them off, relishing in the quiet of the moment. As soon as he was done, Jack plopped back in his seat with a thwack and poked at Ianto's side until he opened his eyes.
"So," he grinned when Ianto fixed him with a glare, "where were we?"
"About to collect samples of water from the park and the rest of Cardiff, I believe. So we can test them for nitrogen."
"It's late. We can do it tomorrow," Jack prompted, a note of hope in his voice that Ianto really hated to have to crush.
"Did you miss the part where I said that nitrogen dissolves in water?"
"It's going to be compromised anyway. We're better off getting samples from the Hub tomorrow. From the water system, from the rain, from the bay… We can do any immediate testing then. Nitrogen doesn't have a very long half-life. I doubt you'd find anything conclusive in that pool, but we can check it out some other time. We'll see better, for one."
Ianto sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.
"So we just had sex, in my car, in the middle of the road, for absolutely no reason whatsoever?"
"Such a romantic," Jack teased, and raised his eyebrows at Ianto, a little like he was expecting him to protest.
Ianto rolled his eyes. "Sorry, I must be missing something. What part of that was supposed to be romantic?"
He went about re-buttoning his trousers, then tucked his shirt in and straightened his tie, before he let out a huff of breath and turned to Jack again. Outside, the rain seemed to be letting up just a bit, a few drips and drops here and there on the windows and the roof, but it hardly compared to the downpour of a few minutes ago. It only served to accentuate Jack's curious silence.
"What?" Ianto asked finally. He tried not to sound as exasperated as he was starting to feel.
Jack watched him - his glance was severe, but still largely unreadable. It was enough to make Ianto's stomach clench up for a moment.
"Jack?" Ianto tried again, torn between starting the car and just getting the hell out of there, or waiting for Jack's response.
He was about turn the key, but his conscience got the better of him and he turned to Jack instead.
"Sorry," he said, letting out a breath. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded before."
At this, Jack let out a quick laugh and Ianto felt his cheeks flush with color. He closed his eyes, hand still on the ignition.
"We should get out of here," he said, because he didn't know what else to say, because he never knew what to say when Jack was like this.
Ianto turned the key in the ignition, thankful that at least the storm outside had died down.
The car idled for a moment, neither of them speaking. Ianto kept sending surreptitious glances in Jack's direction, but he had his head firmly turned to stare out the window. Finally, Jack exhaled, the only noise other than the occasional drop of rain and the distant hum of the engine.
"We'll go out later," he promised to the window and Ianto watched as the glass fogged and cleared and fogged again with each breath.
Ianto threw the Audi into reverse and rested his arm on Jack's seat to check the empty street behind him. The car inched backwards and then he turned it around to head home. As he went to remove his arm, Jack grabbed his hand, squeezed it once, and remained silent.
Sighing again, Ianto rested their clasped hands on Jack's thigh and continued driving.
He wasn't sure why he had been so quick to anger lately, but ever since he'd seen Jack up on the screen, performing for a group of strangers who clappedevery time he died and came back, he'd straddled the line between awestruck and infuriated.
And that Jack had done it all for the sake of a case that remained unsolved almost a century later left Ianto feeling restless and ineffectual.
"I am sorry," he said, softly, when they turned the corner back to the main road. "I just meant – well, I don't know what I meant. I just…I want to fix this."
"Some things aren't meant to be fixed," Jack whispered.
Resisting the urge to bang his forehead against the steering wheel, Ianto squeezed Jack's hand.
"This is. This can be. I'm not trying to fix you, I wouldn't change who you are, but this isn't about you."
"It's not about you, either. Though if you talk about having sex with me as if it's some kind of burden again, it just might becomeabout you."
While his voice sounded amused enough, Ianto found himself glancing over anyway, just to make sure.
Jack was smiling fondly. He rubbed his thumb over the back of Ianto's wrist, a tiny gesture, but Ianto could feel himself relax, his heart steadying, as if Jack was ironing out the creases with measured movements against his skin.
"You know I didn't mean it that way."
"I also know how you can be about this car."
Ianto frowned. "Then you ought to know I wouldn't have sex with just anyone in here."
"I should hope not," Jack said softly, before he turned to the window again. "We've had a lot of rain this month," he observed calmly.
There was a hint of nostalgia in his voice, though, and suddenly Ianto was reminded of what it was that had him so infatuated with the whole idea of the night travelers in the first place. He'd wanted to know more, wanted to get closer to figuring out the kind of person Jack had been back then, standing up in front of those crowds night after night, and raising his pistol to his temple. He'd wanted to know what Jack had been thinking, too, playing with his own mortality like that.
"How many times did they make you die?" is what he ended up saying, as he turned a corner and pointed them back in the direction of his flat, and Cardiff proper.
It sounded like he was missing the point, even to his own ears, but to his surprise Jack just squeezed his hand. And when he had to let go a moment later to make the next turn, he found Jack's hand on his knee.
"Too many to count," Jack said eventually. He sounded a little embarrassed. "Had to pass the time somehow, right?"
He was grinning. Ianto could see it, though the rain had started again, forcing him to keep his gaze firmly fixed on the road.
"This isn't about me though, remember?"
"It's always about you," Ianto muttered, his voice low. "It always comes back to you."
Jack snorted and Ianto shook his head to forestall any comments.
"No," he continued. "It does. You know, sometimes I think about this one time I fell out on the Plass. I was seven. I ran away from my sister and tripped on an uneven piece of ground. I skinned my knee and she was so afraid she'd get in trouble for losing sight of me. And all that time, you were probably below or above me, at that very moment."
"So," Jack snickered, squeezing his knee suggestively, "not much has changed."
Ianto's eyes narrowed and then he laughed. "You – look, I'm a mess, okay? A complete mess."
"You know, he didn't want Owen. The Ghostmaker, I mean. It was in the report."
"That's not a very unusual occurrence. Not many people do."
Jack huffed a laugh and shook his head slightly. It was like an undulating shadow.
"I'd thought they'd come for me," Jack said. "Thought I was perfect for them. But then, I don't have a last breath to take, either."
"So you decided to spend your nights shooting yourself in the head, instead. Logical conclusion."
Sighing, Jack reached up to pet his arm. "Look, it's in the past. The very, very distant past. I was different then."
Stopping at the light, Ianto twisted to face Jack and felt the heat rise up in his chest like bile.
"That doesn't make it okay, Jack!"
He paused, holding his breath, and let the words bounce around and then flutter to the floor. Exhaling, he ran his hand through his hair. Jack stared at him with wide eyes, like he'd just spoken a foreign language.
"Are you hungry?" Jack finally asked.
The light changed.