A/N: This chapter (or, more specifically, the end of it) came to me out of left field. It isn't what I'd intended to happen, but... shrugs
There we are.
I will say this much, though - there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but anyone who is familiar with my style of writing will know damned well that said light could very well be an oncoming train. Make no assumptions. That's all I'll say.
Joe went to sleep that night with his blanket clutched in one hand and the toy dog in the other, and Ianto by his side. It had proven to be an extremely difficult day all round, particularly at meal times. When Ianto had brought lunch in, Joe all but panicked. Ianto managed to coax him over to the table, but he only sat there, staring at the plate in front of him. He flatly refused to touch any of the food, and whimpered audibly when Ianto tried to feed it to him.
Dinner time had been the same, although Ianto had managed to get Joe to eat at least a few bites — but only after eating nearly half the contents of the evening meal himself in order to prove it was untainted. Even Ianto's suggestions of a treat had no effect.
By the time Joe went to bed — still hungry, judging by the growls coming from his stomach — Ianto was ready to kill Branton and Bourke himself. He stroked his thumb lightly over Joe's forehead and temple, wondering again how anyone could look at Joe and not feel some degree of sympathy for him. The door opened, and Gage looking in at him quizzically.
"You're staying with him tonight, then?"
"Not the whole night," Ianto answered, even though a deeper instinct whispered otherwise. "I just wanted to make sure he's settled. It wasn't the easiest day for him."
"No kidding," Gage muttered. "And the fact that Branton and Bourke never showed today just proves that they were responsible, as far as I'm concerned."
"Do me a favour, Gage. Don't go after them. You know Spence will back them up if there's any trouble. It isn't worth it."
Gage grunted.
"Yeah, well, that's a matter of opinion. But all right, mate. I'll let it go. But if they try anything again, they're going to have a lot more than just me to worry about. Now, are you sure you're okay? You don't want me to bring the cot in for you?"
"No, I'm fine. I just want to sit with him for a while."
"All right, then. See you in the morning."
"Goodnight, Gage."
Ianto awoke what might have been minutes or hours later, startled back into awareness by the sound of the electronic lock releasing, and the door opening with a hiss. Slightly dazed from sleep, and abruptly and painfully aware of a serious crick in his neck, he looked around blearily to see two familiar and very unwelcome figures stumbling drunkenly into the room.
"Hey, look," Carl Branton slurred to his mate, Jon Bourke. "The little faggot's in here. You keeping your boyfriend company, faggot?"
Slowly, Ianto got to his feet. As yet, Joe had not woken up, and Ianto fervently hoped that he wouldn't. After the day he'd had, the last thing he needed was to be confronted by two drunken and abusive bastards.
"You two are drunk," he stated softly.
"Aren't you fucking observant," Bourke said with a sneer. Ianto didn't flinch at their hostility.
"Get out of here and go home, and I won't report you."
"Report us?" Bourke laughed. "Report us for what? You can't do a fucking thing to us, Jones. Spence won't let you, and you know it."
Suddenly, Branton let out a hoot of laughter that caused Joe to stir restlessly.
"Look, Jon! He's cuddling a teddy bear! A fucking teddy!"
"And a blankie!" Carl added, roaring with laughter. Disturbed by the noise, Joe awoke and looked around groggily.
"Yan toe?" he asked in confusion.
"Aw, sweet, he knows your name," Branton spat. Ianto stepped deliberately between Joe and the two aggressors, suddenly fearful that the situation was on the verge of turning violent.
"If you have a problem, Carl, then let's take it outside, please! Just leave Joe alone."
He stepped forward, intending to usher them out. Bourke seemed to take exception to the action, though, and in the next moment he was thrown around and slammed against the wall. He heard Joe utter a distressed cry, and tried to go to him. Bourke held him against the wall, though, and winded him with a solid punch to the gut when he struggled.
Barely able to breathe, Ianto could only watch numbly as Branton began to brat up Joe, using fists, feet and the much-hated stun stick. Joe didn't fight back, but just cowered and tried uselessly to protect himself from the blows that rained down on him. Branton's steel-tipped boot connected with Joe's forearm, and Ianto sobbed in anger and sympathy at the sickening sound of the bone breaking. Joe howled in pain, and when the damaged limb dropped, Branton delivered a second kick to Joe's face.
Joe collapsed, his cheek bone shattered by the impact. His body was slick with blood, his arm broken, his torso covered with bruises and abrasions and his face was a swollen and bloodied mess. Branton turned back to Ianto, a hate-filled sneer twisting his features.
"Your turn, Jonesy."
Ianto barely had time to blink before Bourke's fist drove into his gut again. He doubled over with a pained grunt, only to suffer a knee to the face that broke his nose, and would likely leave his eye well and truly blackened. He fell to his knees when one of them slammed their fists down on his back, and moments later he was spitting up blood as Branton's boot drove into his chest and stomach.
They were going to kill him, he was certain of it. They would kill him, and leave his body there to make it look like Joe had gone berserk and killed him. He wanted to weep at the injustice of it, but he could barely breathe, let alone cry.
He watched dazedly as Branton drew his foot back, and tried to brace himself for what he expected would be a killing blow. Except, it never came.
Ianto tried hard to focus, and gradually he managed to make out the sight of Carl Branton being dragged backwards by an enraged Joe. Branton was shrieking for help like a baby as he struggled futilely against Joe's greater strength. Ianto watched in numb shock as Joe, with only one hand, gripped Branton around the throat, swung him around and slammed him into the wall with brutal force. Branton's head collided with the concrete wall and blood spattered in a wide arc as his skull caved in with the force of the impact.
Panicked, Bourke snatched up the stun stick and brandished it wildly. He managed to connect, and Joe bellowed in rage and pain. Rather than disabling him, though, the pain only served to galvanise him. With a snarl, Joe lunged at Bourke and tackled him to the floor. Ianto braced himself, not sure just what Joe was going to do. He watched breathlessly while Joe hovered over Bourke, as though contemplating how to deal with him.
"Jones!" Bourke screamed. "Jones, get him the fuck off me!"
Slowly, Ianto pushed himself up into a sitting position. He wiped a hand across his mouth, managing to smear blood across his cheek in the process. He didn't need a mirror to know he looked a mess.
Joe had paused. He still had Bourke pinned firmly to the floor, but he was watching Ianto. Waiting for instructions, like a good soldier…
He blinked, wondering where on earth that comparison had come from. Feeling dazed and sick, he forced himself to focus on Bourke.
"Looks like we've got the upper hand, doesn't it, Joe?"
Joe looked back to Bourke, and grinned menacingly.
"Upper hand," he whispered, and his tome sent chills down Ianto's spine.
"Call him off!" Bourke begged. "Damn it, Jones, call it off, or I swear to God I'll kill you!"
"You're not in any position to be threatening, me, Bourke," Ianto said blandly, and then shook his head in annoyance. "Now that wasn't clichéd at all, was it?"
"Yan toe?" Jack asked, a slight frown on his swollen features. Ianto sighed. Little though he liked having to let Bourke go, he could not condone murder.
"Let him go, Joe."
Though he didn't make a sound, Ianto could have sworn that Joe was disappointed. Even so, he didn't hesitate to back off and let Bourke up.
"You little fucker, I'm going to kill you for this," Bourke snarled as he crawled over to check Branton. A moment later, he realised what Ianto already knew. "He's dead… Your goddamn freak killed him! The Director will have your ass for this, Jones. You'll be ret-conned… or maybe even executed… and your pet here will be shipped off to fucking Antarctica!"
Ianto laughed sourly as he struggled to his feet.
"Is that what you think is going to happen, Jon? You really think that the Director is going to ship off the Institute's most valuable commodity? I think that was the phrase she used. In which case, I believe that makes you the expendable one, and not Joe. And as for me, something tells me that she's not going to be too hasty in getting rid of me, either, when I'm the only one who can really control Joe. So again, what do you think is going to happen?"
The look that slowly dawned on Bourke's face told Ianto that he'd just come to the same realisation. He stood up slowly, suddenly very quiet. He and Ianto stared down for nearly a full minute before Bourke finally lowered his gaze. Ianto barely restrained himself for uttering an audible sigh of relief.
"Get out of here, Bourke. I don't want you ever coming anywhere near Joe again. You do, and I'll kill you."
"You don't have the balls."
Ianto returned Bourke's sullen glare easily.
"You really don't want to test me on that. Now, get out."
Bourke walked towards the door, head down to shield his face from Ianto's sight. He was almost out the door when he turned suddenly and lunged at Ianto with a howl of rage. Ianto was frozen, his reactions dulled and leaving him incapable of defending himself.
But then, just as abruptly, Joe was between him and Bourke, intercepting the attack and easily bearing the brunt of Bourke's substantial bulk slamming into him. That time, Joe didn't wait for instructions from Ianto. He grabbed the sides of Bourke's head, despite his broken arm, and gave a single, clean twist.
Ianto winced at the sound of Bourke's neck snapping, and watched with a morbid fascination as the lifeless body crumpled to the floor at Joe's feet. As Joe turned back to him, Ianto couldn't stave off the shock any longer, and he slid numbly to the floor. As much as he had known all along that Bourke and Branton hated him, it was still a massive shock to the system to comprehend that they had actually just tried to kill him.
He felt hands on his shoulders, and looked up to see Joe crouching in front of him, worry and fear in his eyes. He tried to tell Joe not to worry, but his brain longer seemed to want to cooperate with the rest of his body, and he couldn't form the words.
He was going into shock, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
The sudden sensation of lips pressed against his own was unexpected, to say the least, but he could barely believe it when the pain and the confusion fogging his brain began to clear. New warmth began to spread steadily through his body, bringing him back to awareness and taking away the worst of the pain.
His eyes opened to find Joe's face a hair's breadth from his own, and Joe's warm, soft lips against his. It was fairly chaste as far as kisses went, but Ianto could feel something in it aside from a somewhat clumsy exchange of tongues. He could feel a strange sort of energy being fed into him through the kiss — an energy that was boosting his body's healing rate to the point where he could actually feel his broken nose repairing itself.
Suddenly panicked that Joe was damaging himself, however inadvertently, Ianto pulled away from the embrace. At a glance, Joe didn't appear any worse for wear, but Ianto did notice that none of Joe's injuries were showing any signs of beginning to heal. His expression didn't reflect the pain of his injuries, though. Rather, he looked nervous, but hopeful as he watched Ianto.
"Better?" he asked simply, reaching out to touch Ianto's cheek.
"Yes," Ianto answered hoarsely. "Much better."
And it was, he realised. Whatever Joe had done, whether it was intentional or not, had healed the worst of his injuries. His chest and stomach no longer felt like they were on fire, and he could breathe easily through his nose once more.
His vision was slowly clearing, and as it did his gaze fell on the dead bodies of Carl Branton and Jon Bourke, and nausea rose afresh in his gut. With considerable effort he clamped down on the urge to yell at Joe. That desire was the fear talking, he told himself. It wasn't Joe's fault — he'd reacted instinctively to a tangible threat, and not even to protect himself.
"You saved my life," Ianto whispered. He lifted one trembling hand to Joe's shoulder as the enormity of what had just happened suddenly crashed down on him. Joe had not actually fought back until Branton and Bourke turned on him. Up until that point, he had simply lain there and taken the beating they were dishing out. The moment they'd turned on him, though, that had all changed.
Branton and Bourke had never had a chance, Ianto realised numbly, and by the time they'd understood that, it had been too late.
Ianto found his mind dwelling on the last few minutes, and had to actively gather his thoughts into a cohesive order.
"We need to deal with the bodies," he muttered, more to himself than to Joe. "And the CCTV footage… Need to do something about that… We need help, Joe. I can't do this on my own."
"Gage," Joe said softly. He was cradling his broken arm against his body, and was starting to look a little on the pale side. Ianto nodded his agreement, even as he guided Joe over and urged him to sit on his bed.
"Right. Gage. Good idea. And Tomas, too, I think."
Joe's face darkened at the second name, and Ianto sighed and ruffled Joe's hair soothingly.
"I know you don't like him, Joe, but we need his help. Please, just try not to growl at him?"
Joe looked up at him with such a look of wide-eyed innocence that Ianto couldn't help but laugh.
"Yes, I'm talking to you, you silly goose. Now, just wait here while I go and call Gage and Tomas."
Gage arrived within ten minutes, and Tomas shortly after. Both men were stunned speechless by the scene they were confronted with.
"Bloody hell," Gage whispered in shock. "Look at this…"
Tomas moved from Bourke to Branton, checking each man carefully before looking around at Ianto, who was in the process of trying to splint Joe's broken arm.
"Joe seriously did all of this? Fuck me…"
"He was protecting me," Ianto answered defensively. "The silly fool just lay there and let those bastards beat him, but the moment they turned on me, he took them both out. I've never seen anything like it before. It was frightening, like something you'd only ever expect to see in a movie. He just grabbed Carl by the throat and slammed him into the wall hard enough to cave his head in, and he snapped Jon's neck like a twig. I'm starting to wonder whether perhaps Joe used to be a soldier."
"Or maybe an assassin," Gage murmured speculatively. "He definitely seems to have a killing instinct."
Ianto said nothing, opting to focus on the bandages he was wrapping carefully around Joe's forearm.
"It doesn't matter what he used to be," Tomas said impatiently. "What matters is what we do right now."
"The CCTV," Ianto said without looking up. "We have to clear the footage. Then we'll need to get rid of the bodies."
"No," Tomas cut him off, and Gage rounded on him incredulously.
"Are you out of your mind? Do you think we should just leave the bodies here?"
"That's exactly what I'm thinking," Tomas replied.
"Damn it, Tomas, do you have any idea what they'll do to Joe when it gets out that he killed them? It won't matter than he did it to protect Ianto! He'll be locked away in some dank little hole, and he'll be treated worse than he was before Ianto came along!"
"Are you done?" Tomas asked when Gage paused to take a breath. "Because if you want to get through this mess, then you'd best shut up and listen."
Gage glanced at Ianto before sighing and nodding.
"Fine. Go ahead."
"Thankyou. Now, we are only going to delete footage of this room, so that no one knows Ianto was here. Aside from that, we touch nothing."
Ianto's jaw clenched as he tried to maintain a reasonable semblance of calm.
"Why?"
"Because," Tomas answered with a tight smile, "that way the blame will be put firmly on Carl and Jon tomorrow morning when it's discovered that Joe escaped in the night."
tbc...