Don't you think that you need somebody?
"Someone's kidnapping our Weevils," Jack said, his arms crossed on his chest. "We have to put a stop to that."
"I could go undercover?"
"No you can't," the leader shook his head at Gwen's proposition. "It's too dangerous and we don't know enough. Tosh and I noticed this a while back but it didn't seem important enough. It has gone out of proportions now. People are dying, others are barely conscious... The man we interrogated didn't want to talk."
"And we almost were about to torture him," Suzie shook her head. "It shouldn't be that hard. It's weird... I feel like we're missing something."
"But they're starting to make mistakes," Jack said, trying to lighten the pessimistic mood. "They're leaving dead bodies behind them, it has gone too far and maybe we're late, but we still can put a stop to it."
"I think Gwen's idea wasn't that bad. But I should go."
"Owen, we don't know what we're stepping in... It could be dangerous."
"That was the description of the job, wasn't it?"
"We don't even know how to infiltrate you in..."
"We'll figure," Gwen said, backing Owen's – her own, initially – plan up. "I can find something with Andy, we'll cross-reference our data. They must have done some other mistakes we missed. We just have to find a new identity to Owen, Tosh is a genius in this." Tosh smiled to thank her.
Jack considered the idea, his arms still crossed, then turned to Suzie who was frowning. She looked up when she felt the silence that meant they were waiting for her opinion. "I don't know, Jack," she sighed. "It could be a good idea, but we could lose Owen easily."
"I can take care of myself."
"Do we have any other idea?"
Before anyone could answer, Tosh, who had been on her computer already typing, straightened up suddenly. "Jack. There's someone in the office."
"How the hell did someone get in, wasn't it locked? Who was supposed to do this?"
"The last one to enter I guess?" Suzie shrugged. "That would be Owen, probably."
"Hey, nobody told me that rule."
"Who is it, Tosh?" Gwen asked, more professional than the two others.
"I don't know, a man. Does someone know him?" the woman said, confused, as the CCTV footage appeared on the big screen.
"Fuck," Jack whispered under his breath. Ianto was standing in the Office, looking calm. He walked around a bit, then got out, and Tosh followed him on the CCTV until he sat on the Plass, back on the camera.
"Who is it?"
"Someone," Jack said, walking out of the room. He came back, just passing his head through the door. "I want the cover ready when I come back. Don't count on me unless the world is ending," he added. "And good job!" And he was off.
The Team stared at the door for a while until Tosh coughed. "I guess we should get to work..."
"And he's going to... whatever, with a stranger? Who's this man anyway?" Owen grumbled, not moving.
"How should we know? Jack and his secrets," Gwen rolled her eyes.
"We don't need him to work for now. We can trust him to be back if we're in trouble, which we won't because we can deal on our own."
"And who-" Gwen started, but Owen moved to put his hand on her arm and shook his head with an exasperated look. Working with Suzie and Gwen in the same room was a nightmare Owen and Tosh were trying to control. The woman wanted to add something, but Tosh changed the subject and asked for ideas about who Owen might be for this case.
Jack walked to Ianto who didn't flinch when he arrived. They both knew what was about to happen.
"I wasn't sure you'd be here. Or that you'd come."
"You lied to me," Jack simply said. He hadn't asked Tosh or done research by himself on Ianto earlier because he hadn't thought he would find anything. He couldn't have been more wrong. After facing the barrel of a gun, he had typed the name Ianto Jones in the Torchwood database. No need to tell that he had felt betrayed by the young man, who could have said that he knew already who he was, what he was doing... He didn't really know what, but he could have said something, anything.
"I didn't."
"You hid important truth, that's the same," he snapped back. Ianto probably wasn't here for this, but it was a conversation they needed to have, as he had avoided Jack for the past two weeks or so, since their last confrontation.
"Like you care. You just wanted a fuck, and I wasn't asking questions. You slept with me when I was high."
"Oh so now it's my fault? Why not say I raped you!" Jack replied even if he knew he was being unfair.
"You didn't!" Ianto stood up and started pacing. "I wanted this, I've always wanted it, every single time..."
"Then why didn't you say anything?"
Ianto stopped and looked at Jack. "Would you have stayed? Honestly? What was I supposed to say?"
"That you knew!"
"I didn't think it mattered."
"It's my job, of course it matters! If I had known, I would never have..." Jack started but stopped, understanding too late that what he was about to say answered what Ianto had just asked.
"Exactly. You wouldn't have slept with me if you had known. Do you think I say this to everyone? Do you think someone knows it in this city? Do you think I walk around yelling on the roofs that I'm one of them? That somehow I survived while hundreds other died? No, I don't, because it's not me. I'm not a survivor, I'm not a hero, I'm not brave, I fucking hid and I survived because I was a fucking coward. I didn't even know who you were the first time... I just... It doesn't matter anymore. I'm not here for this. I need your help."
"Oh so now you need my help?"
"Now?" Ianto repeated.
"If I recall correctly you refused my help a few times." Again, he wasn't being fair, but he was angry that Ianto had hidden his identity. He was angry because he had thought he could trust the man, not with any Torchwood secrets, or personal ones, but he had liked their nights together, and it felt good to have something constant, even something like sex.
"... Don't. Fucking don't go there," Ianto hissed between gritted teeth, pointing an accusing index at Jack.
"I offered to help you with your drug addiction and you refused," he still said, ignoring the warning.
"I'm not an addict!"
"So you keep saying!"
"Maybe you should have thought about it sooner and helped those crawling out of Canary Wharf instead of coming just to retrieve alien techs!" Ianto yelled, lowering his voice only for the word 'alien', and panted. "Fuck," he whispered and ran his hands on his face then his hair, trying to calm himself. "You know what? Forget about it. But if I ever die, it'll be on you, Jack Harkness," he said calmly, close enough to intimidate Jack by stepping in his personal space. They stared at each other for a while and Ianto eventually turned with a scoff, walking away.
"Ianto," Jack called back, but Ianto just raised his middle-finger to the man who rolled his eyes and eventually started to follow him. "What do you need help with?"
"Getting rid of someone," Ianto grunted.
"Alien? Who?"
"You," the young man snapped, and Jack stopped briefly, surprised, then caught up with him again.
"You're Torchwood, you have to tell me. I'm your direct superior now that London no longer exists."
"Are you serious? Torchwood One's gone, and I'm not Torchwood anymore. Seriously, go fuck yourself, I'm done with this shit, I'm done with the aliens, I'm done with you."
"Ianto, wait," Jack sighed, but Ianto ignored him. He eventually grabbed him by the wrist and Ianto seemed to consider freeing himself, but chose not to. "I said wait," he insisted.
"Don't fucking give me orders, I'm not your pet."
"I know, I know. Look, I'm sorry about what happened. Back in London, and me not asking about you... But you wouldn't have asked if you were me, right? And you wouldn't have asked me if you hadn't already known who I was. You can't blame me for this. And you seemed serious about needing help, so I want to hear you out, okay? Just say what it is. I won't help if you don't want me to but I can't let you go if you're in danger."
Ianto considered it, then sighed, giving up. Jack carefully let go of his arm, but Ianto didn't try to run away. "It's about the aliens living in the sewers, I don't know how you call them."
"Weevils."
"Weevils?"
"Yeah. What about them?"
"They're being kidnapped."
"I know," Jack nodded, as he had just had a meeting with his team about that very same subject.
"Will you let me finish?!" Ianto rolled his eyes.
"Right, sorry, go on."
"I know who's doing this, but they're much more than I would have thought and I don't have the authority nor the weapons to survive if I try to take them down."
"We know that already, we just don't know how to find them, they're good."
"They're organised. I know how to find them, but do you really understand what they do with the aliens?"
"I have my guess..."
"They put you in a cage with one and the longer you survive, the funnier it gets for them. You're supposed to provoke the Weevil and see how long you can hold. Some just wants to be the best so they don't tell when to stop and can get killed easily."
"That's... What... That's stupid," Jack said. They had guessed it was something like this, but had had little faith in humanity. Apparently they shouldn't have. It was so inhuman that Jack sometimes wondered if they were defending themselves against the right species. Weren't humans just way more frightening than half of the aliens they met? "And how do you know this?" Ianto quirked an eyebrow and Jack frowned, afraid to understand. "No. You didn't... Ianto, did you go in there?"
"Only twice."
"Did you fight a Weevil?" Ianto looked away and Jack took his arm again to pull at his collar with the other hand. There was nothing on the left side but he saw bandages on his right shoulder and suddenly worried. "Did you see a doctor?"
"Yes."
"Is that why you can't take them down? Because you're injured?"
"No it's not. One guy with a gun isn't much. But if you guys could come it would put an end to it. It's a good feeling, but lives are at stake, including the aliens' ones, and my fucking conscience can't live with it."
"What do you mean it's a good feeling? Being in that cage? Facing death?"
"Yeah, that."
"What, now you want to die? What is wrong with you Ianto?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Yes I want to die!" Ianto said, freeing himself from Jack's grip as he hadn't let him go. Jack didn't react because the sentence felt like a punch to the guts. "Isn't it obvious? Everything's wrong with me and..." Ianto took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "It's not important. How many are you?"
"That's classified," Jack said, filing away Ianto's will to die for a later conversation.
"Fuck, Jack, how many?"
"Enough."
"Jack."
"Fine, we're five."
"... I'm sorry, what?"
"I knew you would react like this. We're a small team, but we're efficient. Way more than London was."
"I worked there, stop talking about it like this or I'm going."
"Okay. Where's the next one?"
"I can't tell you."
"Are you serious?"
"I will know in a couple of hours. Don't you have a phone number I can reach you to?"
"All of this to get my number, isn't it?" Jack smiled but nodded anyway. Ianto rolled his eyes but couldn't quite hide his amusement and took his phone out to give it to Jack who entered his number. "That's my personal one, use it wisely," he said with a wink.
"It's purely professional."
"Sure."
"I should go now," Ianto said, but didn't move.
"Right."
"I'll just be at my flat, waiting..."
"Yeah."
"Oh fuck it, you coming?"
"You bet I am," Jack grinned and followed Ianto back at his flat. On the way, Jack texted everyone the same thing, saying he had a plan of action and that they could give up the idea of Owen going undercover. He simply told them to wait for his signal, but be ready to move. He then turned his phone off and walked in silence to Ianto's place. He still blamed the man for lying to him, but he had known for a while that even if Ianto was an evil son of a bitch, he'd never refuse to be in his bed, because it felt amazing. And they needed to busy themselves while waiting. It wasn't as if Ianto could be a danger for him, he couldn't even die, and Ianto probably would have killed him a long time ago if that was what he wanted.
(Title from the song November Rain by Guns N' Roses)
I'm supposed to read Robinson Crusoe or The Tempest, but I thought it was a much better idea to update instead... ;) No? Oops.
Anyway! About the previous chapters, and particularly the man dragging Ianto out of the pub, I wanted to say somewhere that it was how he got in contact for the Weevil fight clubs, or whatever it was, but I kept a Jack's POV on the thing and it didn't fit anywhere so I didn't mention it, but just know that the man who dragged him out told him about the combats, much like what happened with Owen in the episode about this. I didn't lose a lot of time with what is related to the episode because, well, first I was lazy and didn't want to re-watch the episode to think about what to keep and what to throw away, and it didn't seem interesting to repeat the episode but with a few changes, as it wouldn't have bring much to the story.
I put only some references to some episodes in this fic, and they are not taking place in the same order. This is basically an AU, don't forget it :) I'm trying to write a bit about the team together, but it's way harder than writin about Jack and Ianto, so I apologize, I'm doing my best! ;)
Mmh... That's all, I think. If you have any questions, suggestions, blablah, don't hesitate to ask. And reviews are always welcomed! Thank you for reading.
