A bit of fun, a bit of angst, and Weevils behaving strangely.
Ianto pushed Jack away, breathless and blushing furiously.
"Cut it out, Jack," he hissed. "I can hear the others smirking from here!"
Jack tilted his head to one side, listening intently. "Sounds more like childish giggling to me."
"Whatever," Ianto huffed, waving one hand for emphasis while the other busily fastened the buttons Jack had managed to get undone. "I don't blame them. That was totally inappropriate. What the hell were you doing?"
Jack eyed his flustered Welshman with a teasing smile lingering on swollen lips. Ianto needed to protest in order to save face, he supposed, but the Welshman was anything but an unwilling participant.
"If you couldn't tell, I obviously need more practice," Jack teased. "But seriously," he continued, flipping from companion to commander. "You were about to leap out into a clearing full of Weevils. There were plenty of ways to stop you, but none of them quite so pleasant."
Ianto's eyes dropped. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I guess I was just…..no, doesn't matter."
Jack watched him squirm with equal parts concern and curiosity. "It's usually me who leaps into situations without thinking," he said pointedly, "And you who stops me. What's going on in that head of yours to make you act so out of character, Ianto?"
It was a rebuke, for all that it was delivered in the concerned tones of a lover, and Ianto knew better than to continue ignoring it.
"I was fired up about being on a mission with you again, and I didn't think, OK?" he admitted quickly, impatient to get it over with. "I know it was unprofessional, and I'm sorry. It's just…." He gulped, swallowed. "Like I said earlier, I miss it, Jack. Working in the field with you, I mean. I really miss it."
Jack's eyes closed, trapping the moisture within them that threatened to overflow. "Me too," he answered softly. "But I…..You….." he stopped with sigh. "Be careful, please?"
Their gazes met, and then flickered away. Jack cleared his throat and cleared the air, before either of them could choke on the sentiment flooding the vehicle. "Or I'll have to distract you again, and I'll be careful to do a more thorough job of it this time. You never know, it might be enough to scare the Weevils away. Probably more effective than this heap of…er…fine British engineering."
Ianto glowered. Jack smirked unrepentantly and tweaked his comm.
"We're going to try running them off now," he announced.
"In that?" Mickey asked doubtfully.
"It's quite sturdy, thank you," Ianto snapped, bristling at the further slight on his beloved vehicle.
Jack smiled beatifically across the cabin. "It should get their attention," he agreed. "Given that rattle in the engine….."
"There's no rattle," Ianto growled.
"You mean, it's meant to sound like that?" Gwen asked, in an innocent tone Ianto didn't trust for a second.
Fifteen minutes later, three members of Torchwood were sagging in their seats while Ianto stared fixedly through the windscreen. The only comfort to be taken from the situation was that the tears soaking their faces were from laughter. In spite of Ianto's best, and increasing desperate, efforts, the Weevils had done no more than turn their heads enquiringly towards the rampaging sedan before disregarding it completely.
Jack recovered first. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve then reached across to peel Ianto's hands off the steering wheel, delivering a comforting squeeze with both of his own, at which Ianto unbent enough to smile ruefully. They might not always find the right words, but they spoke well like this. The language of touch accomplished more for them than any number of impassioned speeches.
"I think we can safely say they've conquered their fear of automobiles," Jack announced into the comm. "Any other ideas?"
"Well, back while you two were inspecting each others tonsils," Mickey began, and then paused to allow the various gasps and giggles to subside. "What?" he said defensively. "If you can't keep your hands off each other, you've gotta expect a reaction. Jealousy, if nothing else."
That silenced them all, for a variety of reasons. Mickey smirked to himself, well satisfied. The big buffoon image enabled him to deliver all sorts of subtle barbs, as well as ensuring no-one called him on them. Most people never looked past the surface, so they swallowed their outrage and took his digs at face value. The smirk spread into a grin as Mickey acknowledged he'd probably have a reckoning with Ianto later. That bloke wrote the book on false frontages, he'd have no problems seeing right through Mickey's.
"Anyway, while I've been stuck here," Mickey continued, more diplomatically, "I've tweaked my PDA a bit, and gotten into that Weevil database back at the Hub."
"Once a hacker, always a hacker," Jack muttered, before subsiding in the face of the withering glare Ianto sent him across the car.
"And two of that mob out there are the ones we released today," Mickey concluded.
"Maybe they're trying to reject them," Gwen suggested. "Sending them back where they came from."
"And the SUV's where they came from, you reckon?" Mickey finished. "And we used my van this morning too, when we dropped them off here. Worth considering, that is."
"Maybe," Jack agreed, doubt clear in his tone. "Though, that would suggest they've jumped a level of social evolution. Rejection usually involves maiming."
"Well, who says they can't evolve?" Gwen persisted. "And they took those two in while they were still dopey from sedatives, don't forget. If they were going to hurt them, that'd be the time, wouldn't it?"
Ianto sighed as the argument gained tempo. He could of course try to play peacemaker in the ongoing moral debate between Gwen and Jack, but for the first time since losing Tosh, he had an alternative. Ianto pushed the resulting stab of grief into the background and pulled out his own PDA.
Mickey and Ianto communicated electronically while the campaign for Weevil rights raged on around their heads.
"The two we relocated aren't amongst the ones closest to the cars," Ianto summarized, breaking into Gwen's impassioned argument for Weevilution. "There aren't any Weevils between them and the tunnel entrance, either. So they're not actually trying to get away and there's nothing stopping them from getting back in. And their vital signs are all normal, so they haven't been harmed."
"Which means you're both wrong," Mickey concluded bluntly. "No signs of rejection, violent or otherwise. Now, if no-one minds can we skip the philosophy and do something practical? There's a beer at home with my name on it going flat as we speak."
Ianto tried not to smirk as he passed his PDA across to Jack. Though, surely he owed Jack a smirk or two.
Jack's eyes flickered rapidly over the data on the small screen. "The two from this morning are hanging back," he observed. "Back under those trees. So, OK, agreed, this isn't a rejection. Any suggestions?"
"We could let them in?" Gwen said hesitantly, to the whistling sounds of three sets of indrawn breaths. "No, really, can anyone think of a better way of finding out what they want?"
Mickey coughed. "Me, I'm all for it, what with all the tricks in the shield behind my passenger cab. But that SUV, Gwen, you do realize there'd be nothing between you and an unrestrained Weevil except a cargo barrier, don't you?"
"A heavily reinforced cargo barrier," Ianto supplied. "It's not an ordinary SUV, Mickey, any more than your van."
"There'll be plenty of time for you petrol heads to compare toys later," Gwen interrupted. "But I for one want to get out of here. We can't run them off, we don't want to kill them, and we can't communicate with them." Gwen's voice broke briefly, but she had the comfort of knowing that at least two of the others shared the pang she felt. The loss of Owen was a constant ache, but this was the first time she'd longed for the sardonic medic in his King of the Weevils persona. "So what's left?" Gwen concluded.
Mickey cleared his throat. "Yeah, all right," he agreed. "Let's offer these hitchhikers a ride."
Jack sighed. "Nothing else for it, I suppose," he agreed. "You can release the doors from inside the cabins, right?"
"Done," Gwen reported. "Yup," Mickey agreed. "Of course, we've still got to open them up. On the count of three, milady?"
Gwen's laugh was brave, but fragile.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jack snapped. "You've got at least one each outside your driver's doors."
"The boot won't open itself, Jack," Gwen argued. "Or the van."
Jack sighed. "Give me a minute, then. Have a distraction ready."
The click as he released the safety catch on his Webley was echoed by the softer sound of the Glock from the other side of the car. Jack turned sharply to Ianto, "You stay here," he hissed.
"Bollocks, Jack," Ianto returned sharply. "You're not going out there alone."
They hadn't killed the comms, and there was an ominous lack of response from either Mickey or Gwen. Both of them, Jack thought resignedly, were leaving it to Ianto to manage Jack, because he usually could.
Jack glanced at the other two vehicles, with their ring of Weevil attendants, and his gut clenched within him. "I'm just going to open the doors, Ianto," he protested. "You can….you can make another pass at them in this. Distract them for me."
Ianto glared. "I might fall for that if they hadn't already quite blatantly ignored anything this car does," he snapped. "We'll do one door each."
Jack's mouth opened to protest, but of course now both Gwen and Mickey were quite happy to chime in.
"You take the SUV, Ianto mate," Mickey suggested. "Let Jack have the van. The door sticks a bit sometimes; it'll be harder on your ribs."
"I think we should open our driver's doors, too, just a crack," Gwen added. "It ought to bring some of them to the front."
"Blow your horns first," Ianto put in. "That'll get their attention."
Jack's mind fought with his heart. It felt right; all of them working together like this. But to have Ianto running the gauntlet of those Weevils, with their teeth and claws…To maybe have to watch from the other side of the clearing…..
A hand rested lightly on his arm. "Straight back here after," Ianto said softly. "No heroics."
Jack closed his eyes, swallowed, and forced his head to nod. "Be careful." His voice firmed. "All of you. If they show any aggression, shoot. That's an order. No messing around, no stun guns. Understood?"
"Understood," Ianto agreed. The confirmation echoed from across the comms. "Us too," Mickey agreed. "And we'll cover you both, if we need to."
"I'll have no hesitation running right over the lot of them if they try to hurt either of you," Gwen added, unexpectedly fierce. "I'm not losing anyone else."
Jack couldn't help smiling. "I'll survive, Gwen. You know I will."
Gwen snorted. Actually snorted. "You've already died twice this week, Jack, that we know of anyway. You've filled your quota, so the no heroics rule applies to you, too."
"Hear Hear," Ianto mumbled.
"It's a mutiny," Mickey commented. "Sucks to be you mate. You've got two wives, and you aren't even married."
"I'm not his wife," Gwen parried.
"I'm not the wife," Ianto said, at the exact same time.
Jack accepted it philosophically. He was probably due to be the brunt of the teasing. This was the Torchwood equivalent of banging spears against shields. The prelude to the battle.
"On three," he announced.
-XXX-
"And that," Mickey announced, his voice echoed across the eerily silent clearing. "Was the dictionary definition of anticlimax. We could load it to Wikipedia."
Gwen sighed, a gravelly, breathy sound, born of equal parts exhaustion and frustration. "Is anyone else thinking we could have left them to it," she agreed. "And that they'd still have been here in the morning, waiting patiently? It's mad, this is."
"Hey, the plan worked," Jack offered brightly.
And it had. The sounding of horns caught the Weevils attention, all of them looking to the source of the noise exactly as a pet dog will do at the sound of cutlery scraping against plates. No one had anticipated the effect of the cabin lights shining as Gwen and Mickey opened their doors, but the burst of light had the Weevils scrambling. Working strangely in concert, the creatures surrounding each vehicle banded together to lift one of their number and attempt to throw it bodily through the rapidly closing gaps.
Weevils cry when they bounce off reinforced metal. Something for the database.
Neither Jack nor Ianto fired a single shot. They each opened their assigned door and were safely inside the sedan while the Weevils were still howling their frustration at the hastily secured front doors.
Shortly thereafter, the Weevils regrouped, heaved their somewhat battered targets into the invitingly open cargo bays….and dispersed. Vanished back into the tunnels.
"We….um….ought to close the doors, I suppose," Ianto suggested.
"Should we flood the backs with sedative first?" Gwen asked.
"We've gotten this far without," Jack declared. "We're a bit late to start thinking sensibly." Before anyone even thought to stop him, he was back out into the clearing, slamming the doors shut on their inhabitants.
"What was that about no heroics?" Mickey asked mildly.
"Jack's orders seldom apply to Jack," Gwen answered, her own annoyance palpable.
Jack returned to the car only to face the full force of Ianto's best death glare. Jack smiled at his lover with a complete lack of repentance. "Had to work off the adrenaline somehow," he said.
Gwen gasped. Mickey laid his head on his steering wheel and tried to hold back the pained laughter. It was crazy how both of them knew exactly how a big a mistake that was, yet Jack didn't have a clue. They waited with baited breath for the response.
Ianto muted his comm. and leaned across the cabin. "Just as well," he hissed. "Because after that stunt you won't be working it off on me."
Given that Jack hadn't muted his own comm, the others still heard every word. Muffled laughter escaped before either could stop it, but for once Ianto was too annoyed to be bothered by it. He was even somewhat relieved at the evidence that his teammates were with him on this one.
It was totally unfair that Jack persisted in his attempts to wrap Ianto in cotton wool, but refused to rein in the impulses which, in someone slightly more mortal, would definitely fall within the 'exhibits suicidal tendencies' category.
"We've got two Weevils to relocate," Ianto announced crisply, ignoring the puppy-dog eyes battering him from across the cabin. "And if you'll excuse a bit of speculation on my part, I'd suggest we take them back to where you found the original two."
"Rebalancing the populations, huh?" Gwen said thoughtfully.
"Dispersing the gene pool," Mickey added. "Yeah, good idea."
"Let's do it," Jack decided. Ordering the team to take action they'd already decided on was a cheap way of reasserting his authority, but he'd take cheap if that was all that was on offer.
And on the other end of the spectrum, he had an extremely angry Ianto to placate. Which, Jack had to admit, was amongst the low numbers on his personal list of favorite activities.
Jack waited until the others had left the clearing. Waited until they'd confirmed that the un-sedated Weevils weren't causing any problems in the moving vehicles.
Waited until Ianto looked at him. And smiled. His very best smile, the one he'd started saving for Ianto.
Ianto averted his eyes and wondered how long he'd last before crumbling. Hopefully a bit longer than usual. His annoyance was completely justified, this time.
Jack muted his comm., quite pointedly, and waited with raised eyebrows until Ianto did the same.
"I love it when you take charge," Jack murmured, slowly sliding closer.
Ianto transferred the wandering hand from his leg back to Jack's. There was a point to be made here, and he had no illusions about his capacity for rational thought while Jack was touching him.
Jack pouted. When that didn't work either, he finally began to get worried.
"C,mon, Ianto, look at me," he coaxed. "Say something. Anything. Hell, yell if you want. But not this."
"I don't want to yell," Ianto said. "I've had enough arguing with you, especially when it's obviously not going to make a blind bit of difference. Just put on your seatbelt so we can leave. I don't want to keep the others waiting again."
The seatbelt remained stubbornly in its holder. Jack arms remained stubbornly crossed.
"Fine," Ianto said, through gritted teeth. "I'm fed up of you nagging me about staying safe when you keep pulling stunts like that." He finally turned to face Jack, and Jack actually shrank back against his seat at the cold fury in Ianto's face. "We'd gotten out of it without a scratch, Jack. Why can you never be content with that? Why do you always have to push it? Do you really need to be the centre of attention that badly?"
Jack blinked eyes which had become suspiciously itchy. Angry Ianto was one thing, and not altogether a bad one. Disappointed Ianto was a totally different prospect.
Jack sighed and reached for Ianto's hand. "I'm sorry?" he offered tentatively.
Ianto unbent enough to squeeze the hand, albeit briefly. Jack retreated back into his own seat and fastened his belt with a grand show of meekness.
Ianto shook his head and started the engine. "Sure you are," he muttered. "Mind, you'd have probably been a whole lot sorrier if they'd had a go while you were out there. Especially after the rest of us dived in after you."
The resultant chill went right to Jack's toes. He could feel it through the very soles of his feet, as though the floor beneath him had suddenly turned to ice.
"You wouldn't have," he faltered. The image of coming back from death to find Ianto's broken body draped over him was vivid, and terrifying. "You wouldn't do that, Ianto…It'd be stupid….reckless…You wouldn't do that to me…." at which he faltered to a halt, floundering in the sea of his own hypocrisy.
"You're right," Ianto answered quietly. "I wouldn't."
They spent the rest of the journey contemplating the fact that they hadn't escaped an argument tonight, after all.
Err, yeah, sorry about that. Laying foundations. It'll get worse before it gets better, but it will get better, promise.