I would like to send a special thanks to repeat reviewers: specialfrancine, Nikkiesheepie, and Jolinar Jackson, for making the new kid at the lunch table feel welcome. It's hard breaking into a new school, er, fandom! I appreciate all the feedback!

And also a special thanks to my constant reviewers UP2L8, for the support and encouragement, and to Jorgmund Piper, for kicking my ass (grammatically) when it needs to be kicked...

I feel this may be one of the best plots I've ever written (maybe, hopefully), and I've still got miles and miles to go...

And as a special thanks to all of my readers, there is a, ahem, special fun flashback in this chapter...:)

Chapter 6: A Welcoming Darkness

Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828

"Good Morning, Mr. Hare!"

Will was making his way along the main thoroughfare of the Grassmarket when James Wilson-better known as Daft Jamie-came bounding up beside him. Jamie was, as usual, dressed in a fine velvetine burgundy suit with the chain of his precious gold pocket watch swinging from the vest, and he was wearing a tall hat decorated with strange feathers. And no shoes. Jamie never, ever wore shoes. He bounced along the cobbled walkway beside Will, keeping in time with his steps, chattering mindlessly, a beatific smile plastered on his face.

"It's a fine sunny day, isn't it Mr. Hare? In fact, the sun and sky looked just like this three years ago on this very day, back in 1825. That was a Wednesday, I believe." Daft Jamie was known as the Walking Calendar of Edinburgh-he had an odd gift for matching past events to their exact date and time, no matter how odd or random or forgettable. Daft Jamie always remembered them. He was always precise. It was a peculiar and mostly useless gift, given to a peculiar and mostly useless individual. Everyone in the West Port knew of Daft Jamie. Knew him by the sight of his feathered hat and fine rumpled clothes and lack of shoes. He was as much of a fixture in Edinburgh as the South Bridge or the Cowsgate...

"'Tis a fine day out indeed," Will answered amiably. It was a gorgeous summer day, and Will was in a particularly affable mood. He had on a brand new jacket of a fine, pale blue weave and a new matching cap. He was away from the choking atmosphere of Tanner's Close, away from his nagging wife and her constant, barking demands. And Burke had gone away to visit some relatives in Falkirk. So there were no murders for him to plot, no bodies to dispose of. Nothing but this: just Will, alone and walking, on a bright summer's day.

It was like heaven.

"Where you headed to, Mr. Hare?" asked Jamie.

"Towards the South Bridge," Will answered vaguely.

"Do you mind if I walk with? Mrs. McGarrity says I have to wait to have my porridge-"

"-no!" Will answered quickly. Then, seeing the hurt and puzzled expression on Jamie's face, he added, "You know I don't usually mind the company, Jamie, but today I can't...that is, I must be left alone to my errands."

Daft Jamie quirked his head to the side, the colorful feathers of his hat dipping to and fro like bright banners caught up in a high breeze. "As you say, Mr. Hare." The beatific smile returned to Jamie's face, and he skipped away down the street, singing as he went:

Now if yer tired and weary, feelin' sad and blue

Don't let your cares upset ya, 'al tell ye what tae do

Jus' take a trip to Springburn and go in tae Quin's Pub there

And go doon in tae the wee room underneath the stair!

For it's doon in the wee room underneath the stair

Everybody's happy, an' everybody's there

An' they're all makin' merry, each one in his chair

Doon in the wee room underneath the stair...

Will watched Jamie skip off, then proceeded on to the South Bridge. He made his way past the tenant slums there, past the desperate calls of the street hawkers and the girls about town, past all the wayward poor of the West Port, and on towards the majestic, pointed towers of the university, and beyond that, the Royal Infirmary and Surgeon's Square. He bounded up the stairs of closes and down the stony paths of narrow wynds. Normally, he would have found such a long walk tedious, tiring, and annoying. But not today. Not on such a beautiful, sun-warmed day...

Behind him, in the distance, the university's bell tower tolled, Bing! Bong! Bing! Bong!, signaling the mid-day hour. Will picked up his pace. He took the last close leading into Surgeon's Square two stairs at a time and was out of breath by the time he approached the building with the number ten painted on its door. Will, in his usual fashion, skirted around the side of the building, heading for the cellar door. It was strange, making this trip alone. Strange, without the overwhelming presence of Burke, without the heavy weight of a dead body straining the muscles of his arms...

Will descended the short staircase to the basement door and rapped four times. He waited, his heart pounding out a steady rhythm of eager anticipation, anticipation spiced by a nagging, distant refrain of guilt which played softly, persistently in the background. Moments passed, and Will found himself looking warily around him, as if he feared being seen, even though such a notion was ludicrous-there was no one around, no one else to see. Just himself. And finally...

The door to the cellar fell open, with the light of the summer sun cutting a swath through the shadowy darkness. Normally, Will would be faced with one of the assistants, either Miller or Jones, but today it was the doctor himself who answered the door. Dr. Knox greeted him with a warm, but still decidedly reserved: "Good afternoon, John."

Will had no such reservations. He knew the reason for his visit and knew that the doctor knew it as well. He immediately threw himself into Knox's expensively clothed arms and said, insistently: "Will. Call me Will."

And as their mouths came together in a clash of desperation, Will reached back and pulled the cellar door closed behind them, barring the light of the mid-day sun, cloaking their illicitly intertwined forms in an all-consuming, but welcoming, darkness.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Present Day

"Ianto. For God's sake, stop yelling."

Jack's voice was little more than a whisper by his ear as the captain's arms encircled him, as his hand held his mouth closed. In a panic, Ianto jammed his elbow into Jack's ribs, neatly breaking his hold. He whirled on him in anger, his fear all but forgotten.

"You insufferable immortal ass! You scared the living daylights out of me!"

Jack was rubbing his ribcage beneath his coat. "Damn, Jones, you certainly are strong. You got me good..."

"You're still an ass!"

Jack held up a calming hand. "Shhhh. Stop yelling. Ianto, I think there's something in here."

"You think?" answered Ianto in a sarcastic, high pitched whisper. Then: "Did you see the little girl, too?"

Jack's brows furrowed demonically beneath the garish glow of the flashlight beam. "A little girl? No. There were footsteps. Loud footsteps. And a man. You didn't see him?"

Now it was Ianto's turn to look confused. "No. I saw a little girl. She was...she was jumping rope."

As Ianto spoke, another bulb began to flicker, its reddish light dimming and brightening like the club lights of hell. A stomping noise came from the left-the ominous, approaching sound of heavy footsteps. Jack grabbed Ianto by the arm, propelling him to the right. "C'mon, let's go."

Ianto's eyes widened as Jack pulled him along. "Not that way. The little girl with the dolls-"

"-that is no little girl behind us," hissed Jack. They went barreling through the room with the dead bulb and down the hallway where the shrine of dolls lay waiting. But instead of going into that room, Jack veered off into another, a room which led into another long hallway, a hallway that had several identical doorways which lead off into claustrophobically small, darkened chambers. Jack pulled him into a shallow niche that was little more than an alcove with the command, "Kill the torches." They shut off their lights and waited, huddled together in tense, miserable silence.

Nothing but silence.

Ianto could hear the sound of his own breathing, and it was loud, far too loud for such an all-encompassing, deafening silence. They waited tensely for the distant sound of footsteps. But there was nothing. Nothing but silence.

Not even the sound of a jump rope...

Traitorous trails of cold sweat crept down Ianto's well-starched collar and seeped down his back. He jumped as Jack's hand reached around to clasp his shoulder. He closed his eyes, leaning gratefully into the welcoming safety net of Harkness's arms. By his ear, he heard Jack whisper:

"Don't worry, Jones, I'll get us out of this." A pause, then:

"You trust me, don't you Ianto?"

At those words, Ianto suddenly remembered...

"...you trust me, don't you?"

Pale moonlight bounces lazily off the water, and the light of the docks filters in through gauzy, swaying curtains. In the distance, there is the sound of a low whistle, the sound of a tanker leaving the harbor. And above him, there is Jack's face: tense, strained with desire. Desire and base lust, mixed with something else. Something like concern, like empathy, like...

No...don't bring emotion into it, Ianto's mind whispers futilely.

"This is going to hurt," Jack murmurs, leaning down, trailing kisses from his forehead, to his ear, to his neck. Ianto is on fire with animal sensation, on fire with the touch of Jack's bare skin on his, and he finds himself wanting things he never thought he'd want. Here, in the semi-darkness of Jack's bed, in the little flat on the water, the flat that he never thought he'd be in. The place where he had waited, day after day, morning after morning, with a cup of coffee in hand-waited for Jack to relent and give him a job with Torchwood Cardiff. He'd been so damn persistent back then, so unswervingly sure...

"Go home. I'm not hiring," Jack had said.

"I can't. I saw what they did at Canary Wharf. I saw it burn. What am I supposed to do with those memories?"

"I don't know, and I don't care. Go back to London and find yourself a new life."

"Give me a three month trial period," he had pleaded.

"No."

"Three weeks."

"No."

"Three days."

"No. Forget it. There's no job for you here, and there never will be..."

Those words echo distantly through his head as Ianto reaches up to grab Jack's chin, as he pulls his face in for another deep, soul-searing kiss. He spreads himself out under Jack's too gorgeous form, hooks his legs up and around him, pulls him in. He doesn't know this creature he has become-this wanting, needy thing, keening with desire, eager to be taken. He's on fire, inside this foreign skin with a foreign voice uttering such crass words of encouragement. He's not himself...

...or maybe this is his true self, underneath the skin.

"Just do it," Ianto half begs, half demands. Half-crazed with wanting...

Jack's first thrust brings an electric shock of pain to his system. He knew it was going to hurt the first time, hurt in a way that no amount of stretching or prepping was going to alleviate. Still, he's surprised by the slick trail of tears sliding silently from the corners of his eyes. Surprised by the foreign sensation of being invaded, of being cleaved in half. A second, deeper thrust has him grunting in pain, writhing, like a butterfly pinned to a mat, writhing with an odd sort of desperation.

Ianto feels Jack's tongue sliding into his mouth, feels his hands gliding across his body, a welcome distraction from the pain. Jack pauses; he reaches down to grasp Ianto's cock, and there is the sudden heady zing of pleasure, pleasure now eerily intertwined with the pain, and Ianto finds himself straining against Jack's hands and cock, straining toward something unknown, something he has to have...

"Move with me," Jack whispers.

Ianto moves. He is consumed by Jack, possessed by Jack: his tongue, his hands, his cock. He is everywhere, all over him, inside him. And together, they start building a rhythm, start building a friction as old as fire, as old as the great, gleaming moon hanging above the water.

"Oh, fuck yey! That's it..." Jack chuckles. Even in the midst of all this, Jack's laughing, laughing as if enjoying some private cosmic joke.

Ianto grits his teeth, clings to the naked form above him. "Jack," he gasps. "Jack...you gotta..."

"Ooh, I think he's starting to like it." There is the slither of a smirk in the moonlight.

"Stop being a-aaah!" The words are lost as Jack slams into him hard, lost as he fucks him into the sheets. Ianto finds himself being sucked into the hypnotic rhythm, into an overwhelming friction. Feels himself being sucked in by the burning, building sensation inside of him. Into an all-encompassing, mounting pressure.

He feels like a star ready to explode, like a geyser ready to blow...

Jack fucks him hard, harder, until Ianto is clawing at him, biting into his shoulder, drawing blood from a wound that will quickly heal. The sounds coming from his own throat are inhuman, animal. He has never felt like this before. Has never been like this before. Not with Lisa, not with anyone.

Only Jack.

"Move..." Jack commands. And Ianto moves, fucks him back. Over and over again, in a pounding rhythm. The bed is squeaking, the headboard banging against the wall. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, the world's gone, disintegrated. Shattered, like a supernova. It all goes white, white as the cum spurting out across his stomach, white as the moon glowing outside the window...

"...MOVE!"

Ianto was startled back into consciousness as he felt Jack's hands shoving him out of the alcove. The desperation in Jack's voice, the urgency in his scrambling movements, caused Ianto to panic and drop his light, losing it in the darkness. "Jack-the torch..."

"Just keep moving!"

They abandoned the tiny alcove, with Jack pulling him down the hall. The bulb over the doorway behind them flashed and flickered erratically, creating a strobe light effect, like the garish lights of a bad rave. Ianto looked back over his shoulder, back at the other end of the hall, and standing there in the doorway was the figure of a man, caught in brief, chaotic lightning flashes of black and red...

"Jack..."

He felt Jack shove him through the doorway of another long room. The bulb there flickered and died, plunging them into darkness. There was only Jack's torch beam now, playing uselessly over the far walls. He heard the unmistakable sound of Jack's revolver as he cocked it, heard the shot ring out as Jack fired blindly at the distant doorway.

"Ianto, run!"

Ianto stumbled clumsily in the permeating darkness, any hint of light now gone. His hands brushed the walls, following the uneven, damp, stony surface into a place of utter chaos. He had lost track of Jack's torch beam; it had vanished into the void.

"Jack, where are you?"

One last desperate call, another echoing gun shot, and then everything went completely, utterly silent. Deathly silent. Ianto fumbled along, clinging to the bumpy surface of the bare wall. He wanted to call for Jack again, but fear held his voice in check. There was nothing but darkness and silence. And someone-or something-out there.

There was the sudden rush of cold air, and Ianto reached out a hand, found the curve of another archway. He was moving blindly in the dark, his heart pounding out a rapid bass note of panic, fear, and despair. He had to find Jack! Had to find his way back into the light! Ianto waved a hand through the archway and felt nothing but cold air brush his fingertips. Cold air, and then a low, taunting whisper:

"I told you Mister Boots was coming..."

And then something grabbed his hand and yanked him forward. Forward through the archway, and Ianto felt himself falling, falling into nothingness, his high-pitched screams bouncing uselessly off the stone walls around him. Falling, falling into the waiting arms of an infinite darkness...

End Chapter 6.

I did not make up Daft Jamie, or the song that he sings in this chapter. I also paraphrased some of the dialogue from the episode "Fragments" for the flashback.

I would also like to give a double, triple thanks to J. Piper, for unraveling the ungodly mess I made of this chapter. Oh, and I still haven't decided which version of it I like better...