Summary: The 456 are Junkies. Highly intelligent Junkies, with lots of blissed out time in which to think up more ways to get their fix. Why would they gas a building full of people who may yet live to create more children? The gas is more than anyone knows, and it's reaction to one Ianto Jones is more than anyone, even the 456, could have thought
Ianto has live next door to the Rift since he was born, and has encountered so many different kinds of energy that it shouldn't be a surprise that an Alien drug would have an extreme effect on him, but it is anyway.
EACH CHAPTER IS 10K. Patience for the next chapter… or not.
I was telling my sister that I already had a scene after the next one set up in my mind, and she suggested that I write it out already since it's there, so I did. That was about 7k. Then I had to finish writing the scene before that, and decided to split off what I had written already from this chapter, which is why I have chapter 4 ready so quickly…
And why it took so long to update. I've had this chapter ready for weeks!
Hope you enjoy!
(Also, sorry about the re-reposting in the previous chapter, but for some reason an entire scene was cut out.)
WARNINGS for torture and violence, most of it graphic, there's your trigger warning.
Chapter 4— My Body by Young the Giant
Ianto Jones takes a deep breath and exhales Green-Blue-Gold as he wakes up. Then he feels hungry. And confused.
The man next to him swears when he sits up, and he's dizzy for a moment because everything's still but moving—ah, he's in a car. What?
He shifts, and feels stretched out, arms aching, knees hurt, and a phantom pain in his stomach behind the churning feeling of hunger.
He could really use a sandwich.
He sees an arm swinging towards his face.
Darkness, and a pain in his temple throbs.
What?
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
"I don't suppose you'll get me a sandwich or some other kind of food, will you?" Ianto asks hopefully, though it feels unlikely, as he's hog tied to a chair. He looks up when a man in a suit—a rather nice one; a rather old cut though, even if it was a classic one—enters the room he's in.
Silver at the temples, but otherwise hair as dark as his own, age just showing on his face, and if it wasn't for the eyes Ianto would have placed him with a number of pale older gentlemen, the sort that would ruminate about the good old days but still move with the times.
But those sorts of men usually didn't look at people like they were science rats, a bug under the microscope, just there to experiment with.
He shifted in his bonds, glancing at the men with guns placed around the room, noticed the shift of a gun's grip under the fabric of the mans suit jacket, and when he glances down at himself, he stops to stare a bit.
It might be the knock to the head, but he didn't think he'd fit into a chair like this.
His feet were flat on the floor, ankles cuffed to the legs, and he would have thought that would only be possible at his body's age if it were a much smaller chair.
He glanced at the chair the Suit-ed man was in, and back to his own.
Didn't seem that much smaller.
Well, whatever they did (healing his stomach? Or making him think he'd been shot? Either way it said Alien), maybe it made him a bit taller. Perhaps something to speed up healing, but also stimulates growth? He'd have to think up a name for it later…
He looked up again, and raised an eyebrow at the man.
"I don't suppose I'll be getting that sandwich then…?"
The man twisted his lips into something like a smile, but so very far from it, and gestured to one of the Goons. He had a number of them. The Goon lifted his Browning, and aimed it at Ianto. He frowned.
"What is this, the London Mafia?"
There was that not-smile again.
"We're based just outside of Cardiff, actually. Shoot him."
The man lifted his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto breathed in deeply, waking up to an after image of green-blue-gold, and the hunger nudged at him. That had looked like a Browning…
"How are you doing this?" The man asked, eyes still assessing Ianto like he was an experiment.
Ianto blinked, but otherwise kept his face schooled.
What? Shouldn't he be asking them that?
"Again."
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto breathed in deeply, waking up to an after image of green-blue-gold, and he was really confused and hungry. His bonds were a bit looser, and he squirmed.
What?
That was definitely a Browning. Another Goon came up behind him and tightened the rope around his wrists up again.
What?
What?
"What?"
"We can do this all day, kid." A nod to the goon in front of him.
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
There was a fine mist dissipating in front of his face when he woke up, green, blue and gold, and Ianto blinked to clear his eyes.
What?
What?
What?
He was feeling extremely slow on the uptake, but—
What?
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto stared at the men around him with growing horror, ignoring the green-blue -gold mist.
(Not that it showed on his face.)
What? This could not be happening. What the hell? What the hell?
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto breathed in through the green-blue-gold, and shook his head, gnawing at his lip a moment. He was really hungry, stomach gurgling embarrassingly loud.
Men were going through his backpack, showing the food and clothing to the Boss Man (he would have to figure out another name for the guy), and his heart leapt to his throat when they pulled out his Mini Hub. The Goon holding it glanced at it, snorted. "A recorder, kid? Really? If it was an iPod at least I wouldn't be so goddamn bored…" The Boss Man speared the Thug with a glance, and examined his Mini-Hub, tilting it this way and that before setting it down on his other things.
What? Ianto didn't let anything show on his face, not the confusion and relief, not the shock or horror, and the answer came to him. Sluggishly.
(Ianto couldn't think normally when he was hungry, let alone when he was starving)
A Chameleon circuit? Like the Lift in the Hub, but more like the files on the TARDIS and it's supposed ability to blend in. Huh. Ianto would be far more interested in that if he wasn't so hungry. He could really go for a sandwich. Or several.)
He was distracted a moment, wondering why the TARDIs looked like a blue Police Box if it had one, and had a moment to doubt the files Torchwood One had before the Boss Man apparently got bored of his silence, and nodded to a Goon.
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
He ignored the Green-Blue-Gold when he opened his eyes.
Ianto hadn't felt this blindly, uselessly focused on one feeling since he'd been on suspension from Torchwood. He still remembered the first numb week and a half, of aching at the thought of Lisa and making himself mugs and mugs of tea. He'd read somewhere that if you were feeling horrible you should make yourself a good cup of tea. So he had. He hadn't drunk it. No, he doesn't much like tea. He'd just stare at it until he noticed that it was cold and over steeped, and then he'd go, heat up some more water, fill another mug, and steep himself some more.
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto breathed in deeply, waking up to an after image of green-blue-gold, and the hunger hit him.
He eventually ran out of mugs, he remembered hazily, and had moved onto using pots and pans—anything that could hold liquid, really.
(Because if you're feeling horrible, you have tea. That's what it said, so he'd do that. Tea. Huh. Should he have tea now? No, nasty stuff, really. Mulchy water without the mulch.)
He didn't even know he had tea until he'd gone looking for it, really.
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto breathed in deeply, waking up to an after image of green-blue-gold, and the hunger woke with him.
Didn't know he had that much tea until he'd come to about a week later with pots and pans full of over steeped tea all over his apartment, and he could hardly walk a couple of feet without having to step over or around a cup measure, or a warped plastic glass (and hadn't it been a good thing that he hadn't drunk that?), or a frying pan, or a ladle carefully set so that the water and tea bag wouldn't spill over.
He honestly hadn't realized he had that much tea, but it had been something to do to clean up all of it, and that was around the time he'd decided to go running and join a gym, and he wouldn't be buying tea ever again, thank you.
But this was somehow much worse.
(No, this was much worse, there was no wondering about it.)
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto breathed in deeply, waking up to swirls of green-blue-gold in his eyes, dizzying, and the hunger nipped at his insides.
Grief was a wound that hurt but numbed itself as it began to fester.
This hunger—literal hunger—ate at him. Excuse or acknowledge the pun, but that's what was happening.
Ianto was being eaten inside out by his own stomach, there was a shriveled and pruning bit inside of him that twisted and stretched tight despite the dryness (dryness despite his watering mouth), and was pulling the rest of his organs into itself.
He was going to turn inside out with hunger—
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto breathed in deeply, eyes managing to open, of green-blue-gold, and the hunger gnawed his intestines like they were rawhide.
—and these men were going to witness it.
Was he speaking? He thought he might be around the amount of saliva in his mouth—and how was that that he could feel so mind-numbingly, gut-churning hungry and still be able to drool so much? He wasn't much thirsty, but could you get full off of liquid?
Tea is a liquid, but so is coffee.
Gods, he could go for a coffee.
He thinks he says as much, but can't be sure.
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto breathed in deeply, all he can see is green-blue-gold, swirls of it and his head is wobbling about on his neck like an overcooked noodle (he would eat it, he would, he'd never complain about noodles ever again, overcooked or not), and the hunger was him.
He was hungry. So very, very hungry.
He knew he was still speaking, but it had the old-young familiarity of Welsh (Much less to get your tongue around, a good thing when you were licking your lips like crazy, licking and biting and wondering if it'd be worth it to bite your own lips off), and he wondered if he was finally telling them whatever answers they were looking for, and if they even knew Welsh…
Well, he thinks, they'd be a crap Welsh Mafia (based in Cardiff! HAH! He says as much to them), if they didn't know Welsh.
He knows, however, that he's not saying anything important.
Important like Jack (SEXY JACK!), like Torchwood (SHHHH!), like Tosh (LOVELY TOSH!), Owen (OWEN'S A PRAT!), like Gwen (FUCKING COOPER!), like Myfanwy—no, he does. But just Myfanwy.
He can scream in his head as much as he likes about what's really important, but he'll never tell them what it is. It's for in his head, it's for Elsewhere, it's for After He's Eaten, it's for After He's Gone, and it's for Anyone But Them.
Because quite honestly, if they can't even give up a sandwich, why should he give them anything?
"But you know what I can tell you about?" he asks as understandably as he can with his mouth flooding, with the smell of the sandwich someone had placed on the desk, with his stomach twisting him inside out. Evil people. Even without constantly shooting someone, you don't bring a turkey bacon club out to a starving man. Boy. Teen. What? Where was he? What was he? Somewhere in between all that?
The man in font of him pauses in the process of lifting his arm, and the man beyond that, the man on the other side of the sandwich, raises his brow. Silly Boss Man. Ianto raises an eyebrow back to show him how it's done, and Boss Man frowns.
Obviously jealous of his mad skills. (Isn't that the fad in America right now? Having mad skills? Or is it Mad Skillz? Ridiculous.)
Ianto has a moment to be free of what his body is screaming at him, has a moment to think clearly, and beyond the green-blue-gold he focuses totally on the man, hair silvery at the temples, wrinkles at his eyes softening a serious face, like a cotton blanket falling over a machete, and he bares his teeth in a grin. This moment will last long enough for a story.
He has this moment, because he's going to tell them a secret, and they won't know it's the truth, and it will be brilliant.
"When," he enunciates clearly like a drunk trying to show he isn't, "I was a little boy," a man to one side snorts, "I had all of these plans, all these brilliant plans, and you know what they were for?" He asks, and holds in a giggle. He has a moment to hear his voice, and it's young and ridiculous, and he knows he's grinning like a loon, but that just makes thing even more fantastic.
"Plans for immortality?" Asks the man beyond the trigger, beyond the sandwich. His eyes are focused in a way they weren't, when they were riveted and bored, fascinated and waiting, and a giggle escapes Ianto, because noooooo. He leaves things like that to Jack. (And even Jack didn't go planning for it, Ianto knew that much). He chokes back the giggle after that, swallowing it down like the food he so desperately craved, and it extended the moment, because dammit, he had a story to tell and he was telling it!
"No…" he drawled out. "I had bigger plans than that." Because when you're young you are immortal, everything is, and it's boring because you know in that childish wrong way that everything just keeps going until the end of the universe, except that keeps going too.
"Oh?" One silvery dark eyebrow went up, and Ianto keeps grinning.
"Oh?" He mocked, eyes bright, raising his own eyebrow. "You don't sound particularly interested, you don't seem to want to know what I did, you don't seem like you care that I managed to do it the same way as I wrote it when I was a kid, you don't seem to care that I even still managed to do it with chocolate." He said all this the same way he'd tell Jack what he needed to do and when, even manages the same eyebrow raise, though Jack never got the grin so full of teeth it felt sharp on his face. Like it would cut his own mouth.
There was a taste of copper in his mouth, and Ianto stopped chewing the inside of his cheek.
The eyebrow had lowered, and the eyes were looking him over now, looking at him seriously, and well he should. Ianto wanted to see his face at the truth of it all, so he pushed the moment on for longer. The moment would last; he had a story to finish!
"Oh fine," Ianto rolled his eyes so hard his head flopped to follow the motion, and he was dizzy for one long moment before he was back. Back to the right moment. Back to the Moment he was sharing.
Moments were important, especially the important ones that Torchwood pays attention to. They were usually the last ones.
"I'll tell you the time I brought out old plans, the time I didn't change a thing about them, and how I managed to catch my very own pet dinosaur!" Ianto cackled, and wondered if he believed he wasn't insane anymore.
Some part of him wondered if he could really be insane if he was wondering if he was insane.
(Another part of him wondered if insanity was a sandwich, would he be able to eat that? No, that's just silly…
He feels disappointed all the same.)
But he was still laughing and giggling, and he thought he heard a sound behind him, like more laughter, but not.
Laughter like a gurgling river, like Myfanwy clacking her beak, like the creaking of old wood and the rustling of trees.
But really not like it at all, and Ianto forced himself to stop being poetic.
But then he got distracted by the sudden hunger in his gut, the twisting and churning, and laughs again, because it Twists and Twists and has Two Ends Like This, and wasn't it like the Faeries said?
And then he hears a tune from his childhood, and starts singing because he can. He takes extra pleasure belting out her name, and hears more giggling (but not) around him.
Paham mae dicter, O Myfanwy,
Yn llenwi'th lygaid duon di?
A'th ruddiau tirion, O Myfanwy,
Heb wrido wrth fy ngweled i?
Pa le mae'r wên oedd ar dy wefus
Fu'n cynnau 'nghariad ffyddlon ffôl?
Pa le mae sain dy eiriau melys,
Fu'n denu'n nghalon ar dy ôl?
He's taking a breath to start the next bit when—
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Green-Blue-Gold. It's all the same when he blinks, when he wakes up, he breathes the colours in one deep breath, and he has hunger, is with hunger, beside hunger, at the mercy of hunger, grins toothily at the men around the room (because everything is toothy when you're this hungry), laughing as The Man Who Was Once Beyond the Sandwich walked out of the room. "Send me anything and everything he says." Says the man well beyond the Sandwich, and Ianto lunges forwards, towards the table, and wrenches his shoulders from their sockets, and he curses handcuffs (except with Jack), curses chairs bolted to the floor (except with Jack) and curses the table for keeping the sandwich just out of reach.
(Jack would never be so mean.)
His mind is so jumbled it's knocking around his head like dice and everything is a gamble, like a jostled can of beer and everything inside is ready to explode, like there isn't anything else to think on except this rolling hunger beating up his insides. It's like everything and nothing and he wants it to stop.
And Boss Man can't even stick around for it?
Bastard.
He vaguely heard something else about cars and London, but who gave a fuck? The evil fucks did, but it was less a fuck they gave than a bullet, and Ianto honestly would rather be given the fucking sandwich already.
(Seriously. It was right there.)
But Ianto wasn't above being a bit secretly evil, because (he had so many secrets already) while he'd forgotten what else they were asking him, couldn't hear them above the pound of his heart, creak of his lungs, gurgles of his stomach, so he just kept talking between groaning for food.
So he talks about things in a variety of different languages, and loves that there's some indirect translation there, and decides to butcher Torchwood in several languages, making it more and more backwards in different sentences until he's just about singing about soggy logs and raining trees and hot branches and burnt forests, laughing through being turned inside out as his stomach ate the rest of him.
But you know what? No one would know what he was talking about! Who would make a connection when he was a kid-or-not and singing, and speaking lies and truths and riddles and jokes and pleading for food, he's asking you who?
"Nid oes unrhyw un, dyna pwy!" He shouts at them, laughing.
(More laughing around him, but the men are silent)
That's right, No one, that's who. In Welsh.
No one, that's who.
Nid oes unrhyw un, dyna pwy.
Who dat? No one, that's unrhyw un, who dyna, nid oes, that's right!
No one.
Exactly.
He thought perhaps it sounded silly to be mixing up his Welsh and his English.
He thought perhaps they thought so too, because—
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Time is a funny thing. It's more mobile than you'd think, more mobile than you're capable of thinking it, and in situations when you're able to recognize how mobile it is, you always manage to convince yourself that no, time kept moving at a normal pace, a set pace, and you just weren't paying attention. You weren't, or you were, and you were just checking the clock too much.
There is one man who can feel the passage of time, and he understands that it flexes and stretches as a living thing, and sometimes twists and folds, that it can run with you or sit down with you when you're dwelling, and because he's always paying attention to time, it doesn't have many chances to play tricks on him.
Everyone else is fair game.
(Let's put everything into perspective.)
This is why, at the same time Ianto Jones gets shot and dragged into a blacked-out van, Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper are waiting for Gwen to get back to her apartment to explain what had happened in the months they're apparently missing. The months that they're dead.
At the same time as Ianto Jones dies in that very same van, Gwen Cooper opens her door and bursts into tears at the sight of two of her dead friends, and she's just finishing hugging them when she thinks to pull her gun and question if they were really who she hoped they were, impossibly.
At that point, Ianto Jones takes a deep breath and exhales Green-Blue-Gold as he wakes up. The he feels hungry.
When Ianto Jones wakes up, and Gwen Cooper pulls a gun on two people who may very well be imposters, there are then people freaking out.
Owen and Tosh and Rhys are freaking out because Gwen pulled a gun on them ("Bloody hell woman!" "Gwen!" "Gwen, what are you doing?" "Until I know that you are who you bloody well look like you are I'm not taking chances!" "You bring me back again and you're wondering if I'm an imposter? Fuckin' hell!"), and the men in the blacked-out van are freaking out ("Well that's bollocks, Boss's gonna flip his shit." "Too bloody right, he wanted to talk to the—Bloody Fuckin' Hell!" "What the fuck!?" "What's goin' on? Pay attention to traffic!" "What the fuck? He was dead!"), and then that's when Time starts shifting.
It takes a very short amount of time to get Ianto Jones to what he later calls 'The Hideout' ("Drive dammit, drive!" "I am!"), and it takes a very long time to convince Gwen that Owen and Tosh are whom they seem to be ("Fucking hell, who else would know about me being dead—which I want answers on, because I bloody well told Harkness not to bring me back, and he did, and even if I do now have a pulse I'm gonna rip him a new one—" "Call Ianto, I can tell you all the movies we've seen on movie nights and he can verify. We still haven't had that Matrix Marathon though, we keep putting it off…" "What the—movie nights with Tea Boy? When did that start?").
It takes very little time to have Ianto Jones tied up to a chair ("I don't suppose you'll get me a sandwich or some other kind of snack, will you?"), and very little time for a man with silver at his temples to be told of the situation in the van ("And then there was this weird mist stuff, and he woke up! He didn't have a pulse, I'm telling you, and the thing is that he woke up different! He's not the same little kid, he's like an older version or sommat." "I see… And you're sure of this?" "I can bring up the CCTV, you'll see it's not the same kid, he's different." "Like he's older." "Yeah. Boss, he's sommat different, I'm telling you." "… Then he might not be interested in a job after all… not immediately… I'd like to see this myself." "Yessir." "If you're telling the truth, I'll have some questions for our little climber." "Yessir." "… If you aren't, I'll have some for you." "…Yessir…").
It takes much longer than that for Gwen to finally start telling Tosh and Owen about the rest of their team. This is made more fixed by watching convenient videos online, as these bits of time had been stuck down with pins by time stamps, but it fluctuates once again when Tosh and Owen are getting their things, getting to Ianto Jones' flat, and try to settle in with memories floating about in the air.
At that point, Time becomes meaningless to Ianto Jones, and a week will pass, a week full of thoughts and nattering nonsense in over 12 different dialects to people whose job it was to shoot and film him.
In all that time, Ianto Jones will have shifted and thrashed in many different ways, and will have gained a number of bruises that last longer than would be comfortable, but certainly for less time than would be accepted as normal, and yet it took until the end of that week for him to thrash just so, strain in just the right way, for him to register the feel of something different.
It'll be the fifth time shot of that day that he'll feel the wad of handkerchiefs in his pocket.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Green Blue Gold around him, swirling, and he can't see past it, can't see past the black spots floating dizzily around his head, bits of blackness, of nothing, so Ianto doesn't look at them, but it's difficult since they kept creeping and floating to where he was looking.
It was irritating, but he thought he'd look silly if he just sat there with his eyes closed. And really, he wasn't sleepy. Just hungry.
And grossed out. His mouth was tacky with dried blood, because when they finally consented to feeding him the sandwich (this was at a point where Ianto was spewing out random but true facts that didn't mean anything about anything that he hadn't managed to forget), he'd eaten it, and when the Goon in front of him mockingly patted his cheek, he'd turned his head and bitten the mans index and middle fingers off.
He'd spat them out (and dry gagged, visions of Tosh looking scared, of a cleaver set to slit his throat, of chains and hooks set up to hang meat…) and grinned a bloody smile when he was backhanded for his trouble. He'd managed to get out one more random fact ("Did you know that it only takes as much force to bite through your finger as it would take to bite through a carrot? The only thing stopping you is your brain going 'No, Don't Do That', and you don't. Only works for your own fingers thou—") before: BANG!
Ianto wondered if there was something beyond hungry, beyond starving, and snorted to himself. Jack once told him that the English language was not the best when talking about time travel, and Ianto was certain that in some other planet there would probably be the word he was looking for.
Possibly some Intergalactic Standard Mark Applesauce Dash V12 or something equally ridiculous.
Humans are ridiculous, especially is the numerical system becomes what Jack says it does. He says this aloud, omitting Jack's name for a general 'he' and he sighs, realizing with surprise that he was getting bored.
Bored and hungry, hungry because he's bored? No, bored because he's hungry.
People eat when they're bored, but he's just so damn hungry it's not from boredom.
But he's been shot so many times, and all he really wants is a sandwich (a hundred of them) and a shower (an hour long one, while eating sandwiches, and he won't even care if they're soggy), and he was regretting not stuffing his face with the apples the Faeries had given him however long ago.
"Did you know there's Faeries? Real ones, not that you'd believe me." He says in English, Welsh, a smattering of French and Latin, and continues.
"And I do mean Faeries," he enunciates, and manages a laugh. "Not Fairies." He winces at his own accent, American always falling Southern in his mouth (not like Jack's, but that's alright), but the difference is there so he's satisfied.
He shifts in his bonds (and how many bondage jokes would Jack be able to make by now? He couldn't even imagine, and debates telling the ones that come to mind to the Goons surrounding him, but the more they shoot him the grimier he feels), and pauses.
The he grins. He'd seen them go through his bag, scoff at his borrowed clothes, apples, and toss his Mini Hub—his Miniature Mainframe—to the side giving him a withering look. ("A recorder, kid? Really? If it was an iPod at least I wouldn't be so goddamn bored…" because Ianto cared if he was bored, really. But the thought of his Mini Hub maybe having something like a perception filter, a chameleon thingy, distracted him through three more bullets. Not anymore though. Had he already thought of this? That was boring.)
They'd even pulled the folded up knife from his pocket, but they'd apparently left everything else. He flexed his thigh to feel the lump of cloth in his pocket, and a giggle escaped his clenched teeth.
"Do you believe me?" He asks in English, smiling as sweetly as he can manage to whichever Goon is the closest. He can't see straight, so fuck if he knows if he's talking to a Goon 5, 10, or 50 feet away.
There was a scoff.
"Not fuckin' likely."
The smile stays on his face (and isn't that a thought, that Ianto hadn't smiled so much so constantly ever, not since he'd gone delirious from being shot (whenever that started, however long ago that was)), and he turns his face to point more in the direction of the voice.
"I'm sorry sir, do I seem like much of a liar to you? I take it you don't keep after your superstitions then, hmm?"
Another snort is his answer, one that was echoed somewhat around the room he was in.
Ah, skepticism.
What a breath of fresh air.
"You know, I had Faeries visit my apartment." He's the picture of nonchalance, can feel his Trust Me face slipping over his features, ruined somewhat by the grin still in place and his continued inability to focus on anything because fuck, those black spots were irritating.
"Oh? And where would that be?" asked one of the many Goons. This one didn't have a Welsh accent. Ianto shook his head mock seriously.
"Now that would be telling… but what I can tell you is that Faeries are a bugger to clean up after."
"What, did they leave glitter on your couch?" mocked another Goon. Ianto giggled to the room at large at the thought. His voice was rough as sandpaper and grated at his skin.
"Noooo…. But that would have been even more of a mess to clean up." Ianto was pleased; mostly the Goons had just listened to him ramble, not answering his questions, and so this was at least new. He was still bored though.
(You can only skip and jump through so many topics before you're repeating yourself)
"No, what they did was a bit more fantastical, and even if you don't believe me—which you should, really—you should try to imagine this: My room was covered with petals, and they'd stuffed bits of lavender in my clothing. On my nightstand, right where I'd left my phone, was a Cedar sapling. A sapling! On my phone! That was a bit irritating, though it made it into a pinecone—yes, on a cedar tree, one doesn't argue logic with a Faery—and it crumbled into my phone. But then, if that wasn't enough, in my bathroom they turned everything into a set up for a pond! Shower running, lily pads in the tub, frogs swimming about, sand everywhere, rocks piled about my toilet, it was all ridiculous! But, oh, my kitchen would be a dream come true right about now…" Ianto groaned, and felt a new rush of saliva in his mouth. "A pyramid of apples, the floor covered with fruits and berries so ripe and juicy they spilled over your face when you bit into them. There were a couple of bales of wheat, and if I'd had some way to grind it up, you know it'd make the best bread, soft and moist and delicious… the smell might make you cum in your pants, I'm sure. There was, however, a chicken with its head hopped off—feathers and all, just about still twitching—but wouldn't it be delicious all cooked up. A full chicken, stuff it with berries, bread, onions, and some of the carrots and potatoes that were buried in the sink, roast it up for a bit and oh, it would be delicious."
Ianto got lost in the fantasy for a moment, and he could smell the sweet scent of the fruit, he could practically feel himself biting into the tender chicken, berry juice sliding over his tongue, he was so, so hungry. His gums ached and he longed to sink his teeth into something solid and edible.
(Not fingers.)
"Oy! Shut him up, I dunna want te be bored an' hungry!"
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Blue Green Gold, Green Blue Gold, Gold Green Blue, Blue Gold Green…
Ianto woke up laughing.
"And then you'll know how I feel! HAH!" There was laughter around him, and Ianto kept laughing along with it, because wasn't it just wonderful!? Bored and Hungry, hungry because you're bored, bored while you're hungry, Ianto would get some of his own back, and wasn't it hilarious? They were complaining about being bored and hungry. HAH! He wondered why the laughter wasn't always around, the stuff that sounds like clacks and clatters and rushes and gurgles unlike the ones coming from his belly.
There was a sound of footsteps getting closer, and Ianto grinned even as cigarette breath reached his face.
"Why don't you ask your Faery friends to help you then?"
His giggles subsided enough to focus on what the man, Cigarette Breath, was saying, and he'd said it in what Ianto supposed would be something like menacing, mocking, or some other delightful word that started with M but wasn't necessarily the word 'magpie' (the only other word that jumped to mind), but it just started his giggling up again.
It was one of those situational awareness things that let Ianto loosen his neck for the blow, but it was a mix of vindictiveness and an old memory that had him twisting enough to bite the hand before it could move from out of his reach.
Here's a fun fact: Your fingers are only about as hard to bite though as a carrot would be, and the only thing keeping you from doing it is you brain saying "no, don't do that." There's noting stopping you with other people's fingers, though.
Except the fact that they're, you know, fingers. Ugh.
Oh, and there he was repeating himself.
Again. Maybe.
Fantastic.
(Unless he hadn't actually done any of this before, and wasn't that a thought?)
But it was a bit if a funny fact, though, wasn't it?
But the dumb fucks had already forgotten about the last time they let their fingers by his mouth.
The man howled as Ianto spat out the finger (nasty thing, strange texture, and now there was more blood in his mouth and on his chin. Gross. Blech. Icky. Nasty stuff.), and he got a punch to his stomach to go with the forming bruise on his cheek.
The laughter around him stopped, and a distinct feeling of menace surrounding him made him grin a bloody smile. He was almost used to the feel of blood coating his teeth, as unhygienic as that was.
He ran his tongue over his teeth and coughed to keep it from his throat and spat the result.
Really nasty stuff.
The man in front of him raised his arm and pulled the trigger.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto was still laughing, gasping, Green Blue Gold in his vision, still had the taste of blood in his mouth, and yeah, he was really bored of doing that. But he still had his things in his pocket, and that made this glorious.
"Why the hell not?" he answered, delayed and laughing.
"Faeries?" he called out, smiling. "If you help me out of this place, I'll teach you something new!" He giggled (gods, he was doing that a lot), but got the sense that he was being listened to. (Maybe. Or maybe he's gone round the bend.)
By more than the prats around him, anyway, so he carried on.
"Don't you remember? I showed you a trick all that time ago, when you were collecting Jasmine, when you met my team; you took my rocks from me! That wasn't a very nice thing, and I showed you my special trick anyway."
"What special trick?" Ianto thought it was the same goon who asked him the last question, about his apartment, and he grinned wildly.
"You know my special trick, don't you? You know of it at least…" he laughed and searched his memory. "'It twists, and twists, and has two ends like this' you said, and then I showed you how, but I bet you've forgotten. So many other things to think of, and you forgot about my memory knots, didn't you? Forgotten already from the Unchosen Chosen? The Impossible Possibility? What does that even mean?" He ended with a scream.
"Fuck, what the hell—"
"It's a bloody—"
"Holy Fuc—"
Shots rang out and a smell like the inside of a flower shop greeted his nostrils, and a feeling like driftwood brushing his cheek was all the answer he needed for the sudden silence around him.
He was still grinning when the cuffs holding his wrists rusted and fell away from his raw flesh, and only swayed a little bit when the ropes around his torso and legs went mushy and pliant, mulchy under his questing fingers. The fibers had rotted.
"This knot, You say…"
"For Us, You say…?"
"For Us, a Gift…"
"For Freedom, You say…?"
"Yes." Ianto grins, and slides off of the chair to the ground. There's dried blood, tacky and slick, but in that moment he doesn't care. He doesn't have any strength to stand.
An apple by its sound hits his palm, and he immediately brings it to his mouth.
Finishing that quickly, he finds another beside him, a pile of them, and he stuffs his face, groaning and moaning over the bursts of flavor through the taste of copper over his tongue, the crunch removing the stale taste from his mouth, the fuzz from his teeth, and all the pains in his stomach come back to him then as new food reaches his stomach and reminds his body how hungry it is.
He knows he should slow down or something, but just the thought causes his stomach to grumble, and there's a bottle of water—his bottle, one of them, refilled—and he's guzzling it down before going for another apple. He felt vaguely nauseous, but it would be a calm day in Cardiff before he gave up any of this food.
Fingers are running through his hair, long and large, and there's a clicking noise about him, giant wings, and a soft humming noise, and Ianto opens the eyes he hadn't known he'd closed and isn't in the least bit startled to see himself surrounded by lanky green figures with arms like branches, grinning from flat faces, teeth like a piranhas.
He grins back to them, and there's only a little bit of Green-Blue-Gold in his vision now, but he keeps eating. He's so hungry.
All the apples are done, and the Faeries are still stroking his hair, his shoulders, arms, back, and they flit about and follow him as he stand up to search out more food.
He didn't think all that blood on their fingers was from him, but that wasn't important right now.
That Sandwich had to come from somewhere.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
He thinks that there must be something wrong with the fact that he was walking past and over collapsed bodies, giving hardly a glance at the red petals spilling from their mouths as he munched on his last sandwich.
(Though he did have a crazy thought that he felt like a videogame character when he searched through their pockets for anything useful.)
He thought there must be something wrong with the fact that he wasn't terrified at the fact that the Faeries' attention was fully on him, that they were twirling his hair and stroking at his clothes and making that humming/crooning/growling noise at him.
But then again, he had his handkerchiefs. He walked into the room he was held for whatever amount of time, and stuck his tongue out at the chair as he passed it. Stupid thing. He was exhausted, and that chair meant no food, no sleep, only dying and waking up to colours in his face.
A light from the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned to see a camera set up, red light blinking to show it was recording.
He contemplated for a moment whether or not he should leave a message, or trash the camera and it's recording, or figure out something else entirely.
There was a chord attached to the camera, leading to a laptop, and Ianto raised an eyebrow at it. So there really wasn't any way to make sure that the man from before didn't see what just happened. Looked like it was sending directly to another computer. Or maybe it was a recording. But Boss Man seemed clever enough, even if he wasn't smart enough to take a hint. Even if he WAS a massive cunt.
He wondered if Faeries showed on camera… he smirked. If not, then there are random bits of his hair being twirled by an invisible force.
He had a thought.
The man had the Thugs and Goons come after him because of a job possibility (and wasn't that still a hilarious thought: A Mafia based in Cardiff! And they wanted to hire him. Hysterical), but ended up 'experimenting' when it turned out Ianto couldn't die.
(Or maybe he did, but kept being brought back to life. That sucked. But at least he didn't remember death.)
He frowned and hoped that Jack's first realization that he wasn't going to die wasn't due to x number of bullets being shot through his head. Ianto shivered and hoped that he would, eventually die.
(Except wouldn't it be better if he couldn't? He could stay with Jack…)
(A small bubble of panic started rising in his throat at the thought, but he swallowed it down for another time. He could flip his shit later. Much later.)
(He didn't want to live forever.)
And really, if it wasn't the 456's alien gas that forced him into this situation, then the next most likely thing is that the Faeries had something to do with it.
He had to pause a moment to appreciate the sheer amount of strange in that one thought.
That would explain Steven, though. It made his heart ache to think about it, but even if Steven wasn't a Chosen, perhaps one of his children or grandchildren was. Could the Faeries even bring someone back? It made a bit of sense, even when it didn't.
Ianto frowned some more.
He hoped it was because he was the Impossible Un-Chosen or Possible Chosen thing that they were talking about before, because he didn't want to think about future children, not when his mind was filled with Jack.
(Not with Jack's story about being pregnant before floating in the background of his thoughts.)
Anyway, Ianto moved back around to in front of the camera and gave his blandest smile.
"Hello. I would like to say that was pleasant, but that would be a lie. You were looking for answers, so here's a question for you…"
(Ianto loved non-answers and implications. He was so good at them.)
"Do you believe in Faeries?"
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto had found some small screwdrivers earlier in his hunt for food, and had started taking apart the computer that the camera had ben attached to in search of bugs.
He knew what went into a laptop like this, and knew what would be an upgrade and what would be a plant, and was nearly done putting it back together (sans two bugs) when one of the Faeries took the back plate of it an threw it over his head.
Another Faery caught it and wheeze-choke laughed.
Ianto frowned, but figured that they'd waited around long enough, and he was close to being able to pack up that he didn't have any reason to make them wait around any longer.
He was impressed that they'd waited as long as they had; he didn't recall Faeries ever being known for their patience, immortal creatures or not.
"Fine, fine, I'll show you already."
He pulled out one of the handkerchiefs in his pocket, and then pulled out another, one that didn't have his blood on it.
(He thought he was mixing up superstitions and mythology, and possibly some pop culture, but he didn't want to willingly give them his blood if he could help it.)
With the same dramatics of that night so long ago (lifetimes ago, just about literally, if it's Torchwood Lifetimes), Ianto folded the handkerchief and displayed it, thinking of Tosh, of when she'd shown him what most bugs looked like, then what her own bugs looked like, how she laughed and cried at movie nights, at her bad luck when falling for people, how brilliant she was, and folded the 'kerchief in front of him.
He tossed it to the nearest Faery, and grabbed the backing of the computer before it hit the chair to finish putting the computer together while the Fae chattered to each other about the knot.
Ianto was starting to get worried about the lack of reaction he was having to them, at his dismissive attitude, and wondered if this was what shock felt like. He had shock before, but he couldn't remember it exactly. He was just too tired to think clearly right now.
He wondered if a blanket would help.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
It was about this time that a particular man shows up in an intergalactic bar, and sends a note to a familiar Captain, directing him to Midshipman Alonso Frame.
Captain Harkness didn't know if he should be disappointed that the accent that greets him isn't Welsh.
Doesn't know if he should be happy or sad that that particular roll of vowels wasn't a more common thing in the cosmos.
As it is, he settles for thinking that the Doctor is the worst at hooking someone up, and doesn't spare a thought at how sad the other man looked, doesn't think of going after him.
Oh, Ianto…
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto shouldered his pack, now heavier from food and a blanket, a small tool kit, and a first-aid kit, and picked up the computer case by his feet. It was bulging oddly because his Mini-Hub was plugged into it (and hadn't that been a bit of a surprise, the cable detaching from the little twined up bit of wires that made up it's sides), doing something to the computer, but Ianto didn't know what.
Probably hooking up to the Internet.
It was an organic computer that lived off of information, and it'd had something like a three year fast even with the tidbits it got off of the Mainframe in the Hub. It was probably even more hungry than Ianto had been.
The Faeries were still in the building, trading he tied Handkerchief between them, and Ianto turned back for one last thing.
"Thank you!"
And he tossed another tied Handkerchief into the fray.
A little ways away he managed to stop grinning, and turned his mind back to where it was however long ago, back to plans and Jack and Torchwood all rolled into a little bundle called survival.
And he had just the place in mind to stay until he could figure out what the hell was happening.
Wasn't it convenient that they brought him all the way back to Cardiff?
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
The place Ianto had in mind was about an hours walk away from the Roald Dahl Plass, nearly into Splott's residential district; it was the area that had started turning the neighborhood houses into apartments, but had stopped due to a lack of funding and interest.
The building Ianto was thinking of staying in was one that had been boarded up and shut down to await demolition a year ago, officially due to a problem in the flooring (the paperwork suggested that it was unsound), various support problems (paperwork hinted at termites), an electrical problem (a house fire waiting to happen, really), and a case of black mold.
Unofficially, it was on a leyline of the Rift, and prone to energy surges and lulls (resulting in a number of months of free electricity for the previous tenants), and the metal Caution sign drilled into the red brick said as much. Torchwood owned the building under a fake name and had the building emptied of residents and ready to be set up as a temporary safe house. Obviously not in time for the 456 situation, but Ianto focused on the fact that there had still been the warehouse for them. It had been enough. It had required that he dip his hand back into pickpocketing to make it operational, but it had been enough. There had been too much room for them to use all of the room, giving a different sense of space than the Hub had.
Not like this four-story loft apartment. The door was bricked up, the brick several shades off from being the same red-brown as the rest of the building, windows boarded, and the fire escape was rusted, the ladder that would have dropped to the street level permanently stuck out of reach.
Well, almost.
There was still a dumpster in the alley next to it, barely lit by the light of the street lamps, and even though it was on the other side of the alley, it was close enough for what Ianto had in mind.
Standing on the dumpster lid, he made a face and threw his backpack and the computer case above and across to land on the first level of the fire escape. He winced at the sound of the computer in its case hitting the metal, but at least it made it over.
Now all he had to do was make it himself.
Rubbing his palms against his jeans (surprisingly clean considering how many times he'd been shot, but then, so was his shirt. He wasn't going to complain about a clean shirt, because even if he had a few to spare, it wasn't something that he could clean on his own right then, and he only had the one spar shirt.
When he was actually a kid (not just in the body of one) he hadn't liked being dirty, and that wasn't going to change any time soon.
Jack had only ever been able to make being dirty fun the once, and even then Ianto had had a much better time in the shower with him afterwards), he tensed, and then twisted as he jumped.
Fingers hooked like claws scrabbled and caught the edge of the railing; the bottom rung hit his thighs with a low rumbling clang. Ianto could feel the bruises forming, and his arms trembled as he pulled himself up and over, old, chipped, and rusty flakes of paint crunching into his palms even after he hauled his torso over the rail.
Ianto was glad that he'd grabbed the first-aid kit as he picked rust-covered paint from his fingers, trying not to rub at the scraped skin there. His palms were sill a dusty orange-brown from the experience though.
Shouldering his pack and picking up the hopefully undamaged laptop, Ianto checked on his Mini Hub.
It looked fine. Ianto hoped that it was actually fine. He hoped that if something actually went wrong with it, he'd be able to fix it. Or be able to tell it was broken in the first place…
He didn't hope too hard though, because bad things happened when he hoped.
He climbed up the steps, ignoring the boarded up windows for now, and climbed onto the top railing, pushing the laptop over the edge onto the roof before pulling himself up.
His arms shook, at the added weight of his backpack, but he made it over and sat for a moment on the gravelly rooftop for a moment to catch his breath; give his arms a chance to stop shaking before he picked up his new laptop.
The roof-access door was there, not boarded up and not bricked over, and Ianto let himself tentatively believe that things were looking up.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
For a week, Tosh and Owen had started to settle into Ianto's place, and for that week Tosh had managed to hold in the urge to burst out crying every time she saw something that reminded her of Ianto.
It helped that things were significantly messier than they had been.
There was a bit of a schedule that they kept before heading to the warehouse acting as a temporary HQ, and Tosh thought that the fact that they were sleeping together might have made her happier, or else embarrassed, but she took comfort in no having to sleep alone. She always woke up before Owen, and it was usually about an hour before he got up.
This was her alone time, when she forced herself to think about Ianto. To focus on the happy memories rather than on the loss of her friend.
Tosh nearly made it through the hour that Owen kept sleeping without breaking down sobbing.
It was the sight of the Matrix Box set that set her off, and she had to hide it on top of the fridge before she could calm down.
When she went to make coffee she almost broke down again, but managed to hold things together. Ianto would have never forgiven himself if the thought of him made her cry about coffee.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Ianto had to smash the lock holding the door closed to get in, and once he was he turned the deadbolt behind him. It was dark, and he carefully felt along the wall as he made his way down the stairs.
If he remembered correctly (his memory was impeccable), the light switch would be… aha!
A bare light bulb swaying from the ceiling flickered to life after a few false starts, and an attic room with sheet-covered furniture was revealed. It looked like it was once an attic living room of some sort, with a couch and two chairs, a table pushed up against one wall with a boarded window at the middle. One door proved to be a closet with a lone coat hanger still on the rod, the other another set of stairs, and the third leading to a hall with two bedrooms.
Down the stairs was much of the same, but with the addition of a large bathroom with unfortunate carpeting and a strange smell—probably a result of using carpet instead of tile in a washroom. The mirror was broken, only a rough quarter still hanging stubbornly on the wall; the rest scattered and crushed into the carpet.
There was only one bedroom on this floor, but that was mainly because the wall that once split the room was a crumbling heap between them, a lone pillar, remarkably unmarred, keeping everything stable.
He did have to remind himself of that fact: that it was all stable. There were a few broken down walls, but the pillars that held everything up were cement and immovable: stable.
The next level down was largely dominated by an open concept kitchen obviously built to be able to hold more than five residents, and there were three smaller rooms and a sort of dining/sitting room area. There was more sheet-covered furniture, another table, and there were a couple of cupboard doors missing. An industrial sized freezer, the sort that advertised by saying how many deer could fit into it, was set up next to an old, but also large fridge.
There was also a cat.
It was staring at Ianto from its perch in one of the cupboard, mottled brown and orange and glaring.
Huh. Ianto wondered, since it was entirely possible that the Cat decided that this is its territory, if that made it a feral cat or a house cat.
That train of thought was quickly abandoned.
Ianto headed for the stairs, and thought that at least there wasn't a rat problem.
The first thing he saw when he reached the first floor was a large crate.
The first thing he thought, was Thank God they got it in before the door was sealed off…
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Tosh and Owen didn't talk about her break down the previous night (Owen had made the mistake of referring to Ianto as 'tea-boy' when Tosh had been feeling particularly emotional), didn't talk about the tears that escaped Owen's eyes in quiet moments when he has time to actually think (though Owen awkwardly huffed about getting used to controlling all his faculties), and breakfast was a quiet affair.
They shared a smile over the coffee though; because of course Ianto would reuse brand-name tins to hold his own mix. They had been steadily working through the dozen tins kept in his cupboards, and each and every blend was fantastic.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
The crate, as soon as he pried the lid off with the crowbar conveniently placed on top of it, had all the equipment he needed to set this building up as a second Hub, a safe hideout. Putting the packing straw aside as he started carefully pulling out the large screens inside, setting them carefully to the side while he searched for the supports to hold them up.
Once he had them, he brought them upstairs and set them on top of one of the sheet-covered couches, and started making space for the Monitors and equipment. He thought he might be able to get everything up stairs…
He didn't want to keep everything on the main floor on the off chance of someone hearing something from outside. Also, on the less likely chance that someone would break through the boards covering the still intact glass windowpanes, there wouldn't be thousands of dollars worth of equipment in plain view, with priceless information and programs running on them.
He already had some plans as to how to make the second floor secure against anyone coming in from the street, and so long as he keeps the fire escape off of street level, no one should be able to get in.
He was still figuring out a security system for the roof's door, but for now it would have to suffice.
The Cat had, at some point, moved from its spot in the cupboards, and was watching him with something like interest, boredom, and hostility all rolled into one.
A bit like Jack looked at him, the first few days of him working at Torchwood Three.
Though, he had to admit, Jack's gaze was also sometimes filled with lust. Ianto didn't care if the cat lived here, it could continue doing so, so long as it didn't eat his food once he got it, but if it started looking at him exactly like Jack once had…
Well.
He could probably cook the meat, anyway.
For now, he ignored it.
The Cat continued to stare.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
So, I hope you enjoyed having two updates so quickly, and I hope you enjoyed this even if it did have a bit of Crazy!Ianto in it.
Tell me what you think :D
(P.s. I'm crazy happy that the most commented on thing so far is that people are confused but want to read more: Means I've got an original idea in my hands, a rare beast to find on the internet CX)
~Doodled93~