Owen had one hand at the small of Ianto's back, in what might have been a supportive gesture. The fact that Owen was using it to push Ianto in the room only made it slightly less so. He steered the younger man into the chair beside Jack and sat down beside him, arranging the trays in front of them.

Ianto picked up his fork before looking up at Tosh and Gwen, who were trying to look comforting. Gwen's brows furrowed in concern, and Ianto gasped.

"Gwen!" Jack snapped.

"Sorry!" Gwen eyes went wide,

"It's okay Jack" Ianto said quietly, voice taking on a soothing quality. "Just a little twinge." He flashed Gwen a reassuring smile.
"No harm done." He turned back to Jack, continuing in the same softly-spoken way "Sir, you haven't touched your food. I know it must taste terrible, but you need to eat."

Jack made a face. "Nothing tastes right." He complained.

"Then concentrate on the way it feels on your tongue instead. Try to balance your sense of taste and touch. That will help."

Jack unwillingly speared a link of sausage and took a bite before he could change his mind, obviously expecting the worst. His eyes opened wide in surprise. "It worked!" He said happily andbegan wolfing down his breakfast.

"Well of course it worked." Ianto replied, and Owen snickered at the mildly offended tone. "For god's sake Jack. Chew your food."

"How did he know that would do it?" Tosh asked as she leaned forward, studying Ianto closely. Ianto just ducked his head and went back to his own breakfast, ignoring the eyes on him

Owen sensed Ianto's discomfort. "Let's start at the beginning yeah?"

"Alright," Jack began, his mouth full of egg. "So late yest-"

"Sir!"

Jack rolled his eyes, swallowed, and started again. "So late yesterday Owen, Ianto and I were unloading the Deviled Egg-"

"Sir?"

"Owen thought you'd like the name. Are you going to say Sir after every sentence?" Jack took the opportunity to pop another fork-full of food in his mouth.

"I'll try to refrain… Sir."

"Good. Alright, so we were unloading the Deviled Egg when Ianto noticed this glyph." Jack clicked the remote and the computer monitor on the wall showed a video from the garage's camera. "Looking back over the CCTV, Ianto seemed attracted to it, more than either of us. We didn't notice it at the time, but that could have been the device influencing our perception. We all ended up touching it, in the indentions I thought were handles. Owen and I were shocked, and Ianto felt as if he were being pulled in." Jack paused, looking for confirmation, and Ianto nodded.

"So" he continued, "Owen and I began having some problems. We seemed to have enhanced senses. My hearing is insanely sensitive, as is my sense of touch and taste. And Owen's vision and sense of smell is the same. And Ianto...Ianto is empathic, and probably a little psychic. He can feel emotions but they hurt him. That's what the whole shielding thing is about. We didn't realize it at first so he had to spend all last night in pain."

Gwen gasped and Ianto's eyes widened and he breathed out a quiet 'fuck'.

Owen snarled at Gwen, and started to stand up before Ianto grabbed on to his jeans. As Owen sat back, Ianto slid a hand over Owen's leg, reassuring him. "Fine. I'm fine." He whispered, still trying to soothe Owen.

"I'm sorry!" Gwen jumped, looking guilty. "I'm sorry! Jesus, I only learnt psychic powers existed a few minutes ago, give me a break." she flinched back away from Owen.

"It's fine Gwen." Ianto reassured the distraught woman.

Owen glared at Gwen for a full minute before turning back to his breakfast.

"I think that may be a new development." Ianto smiled faintly. Owen had to agree, He had always been a little overprotective of those in his care, but the way he felt now, towards Ianto, was, in his opinion, completely fucking nuts.

Jack cleared his throat. "Yeah. Any way, Owen and I had some sort of...episode early this morning. We um. Well we stopped responding to anything and-"

"You stopped breathing." Ianto said quietly suddenly just pushing his food around the plate, no longer smiling.

Owen winced and Jack nodded. "Right. And Ianto, somehow sensed this, and came running and was able to wake us up. We both recovered pretty quickly, but it seemed to take a lot out of Ianto. After another thrilling round of medical poking, Ianto fell asleep, and except for a brief, but failed, mutiny, managed to stay that way."

Jack pressed the remote, bringing up a picture of the device they had named the Deviled Egg, as well as a set of schematics.

"In the last few hours we've managed to track down more information. Torchwood One had some experience with devices like this, maybe even this one. It's used to create teams of what they call Sentinel and Guides. A person would stand at each end and put his hands in the indentions. Then…something… happened, and they developed these…powers." Jack seemed a little lost for words.

"Which, incidentally, is where we sort of screwed up. The indentions under the blue glyph were meant for one set of hands.
Since me and Owen each grabbed one apiece, it looks like we split the sentinel aspect. While Ianto got the guide side to himself."

"Wait, Jack." Ianto held up a hand. "What exactly do Sentinels and Guides do?"

Jack flipped to a new slide that brought up an antique picture of a tribal man but it was Tosh who answered.

"Sentinels exist on Earth too, naturally. Though they're pretty rare. According to what we've read Sentinels were the protectors of the tribe, city, whatever, and the Guide was the one who helped them control their senses."

The next slide showed files branded with Torchwood One, and Jack took over again.

"Torchwood one dealt with an expert in the field, Blair Sandburg, who works with one of the apparently natural sentinels. They
experimented with the ones they made using the alien device, but didn't actually put them to use. Mostly just testing their senses,
seeing what happened when they separated the pairs. It...usually ended in death, or insanity. For both Sentinel and Guide."

Owen felt Ianto's hand tighten on his leg, and he slipped his own hand under the table, rubbing his fingers against the inside of
Ianto's wrist, in an attempt to bring a little comfort.

"Many of the Guides, like Ianto, scored fairly high on their psych tests, and had… problems with pain. They didn't make the connection between the two at first. But after awhile they started using guides with little to no natural psychic talent and had some better results."

Ianto tried to push his half finished breakfast away, but Owen reached out, pushing it back. Not eating wasn't going to help the
situation. Ianto shot him a disapproving glance, but continued to pick at his eggs quietly.

"It doesn't look like they ever tried the "two sentinels- one guide thing" though. They were still experimenting with it, when the whole Canary Warf thing happened, so that's pretty much where our research ends."

"Why?" Gwen asked.

"Why what?"

"What was the purpose of Sentinels and Guides? Why did they put them through all of that pain and destruction if they weren't even going to use them?"

"For the same purpose Torchwood did anything." Jack pushed his empty plate away, and stood, reaching out to gather up the other empty ones. He stopped abruptly and instead he stepped behind Ianto, resting his hands on the younger man's shoulders.

"If it's alien, it's ours. It's all about getting alien tech for the good of the British Empire. They must have thought Sentinels and
Guides would do that, once they figured out what made them tick. What were a few more loyal employees for the greater good?"

"Torchwood one," Owen said, grabbing the remote and punching the button violently to turn off the slides. "-were sick fucks."