46
They left the next morning, as Jack had promised. John wanted to come and Ianto saw no reason to object, sitting in the back of the Transporter did feel weird though. John was in the jump seat, talking ten to the dozen to his old partner, Jack seemingly not even noticing that he was in Ianto's seat and after a while Ianto actually started to see the funny side.
For all of Ianto's silence, John was like a fucking parrot or something, repeating himself, leaping about in the seat and more than once Jack told him to cut it out and sit down. If he had been in the back, he knew John would have been between popping the seats doing that and Ianto might have to shoot him. So… it made sense for Ianto to be in the very back snoozing as Mickey and Owen watched the crazy show in the front.
After a while Mickey kicked his foot and Ianto looked up from his lap with a grunt of surprise, not knowing they had reached the firehouse already. As they all got out, John seized the tools and stalked over to the nearest downpipe, pulling at it like a fuckwit as Owen watched on with folded arms. Clearly, he was not about to tell John it's the spouting, not the pipes they need. After all… it was entertaining.
Mickey moved into the firehouse with Jack,. Both of them going over the place for things that had been left last time and had played on their minds that they should have taken, no one noticing Ianto heading for the back office area. He paused at the door and then took a deep breath, entering the room with a hand over his mouth.
He hated being right.
Ianto always hated being fucking right.
He slammed the door shit again, and then took a shallow breath, looking down to check his boots as he cured softly. He then pulled a black sharpie pen from his pocket and wrote on the door 'DO NOT OPEN DEATH INSIDE' before cursing again, and heading down the hallway to find some gaffer tape. He returned to find Owen at the door and he barely had time to register what was happening before the fucking twat opened said door… you know.. the door with the warning on it… and took a step inside.
Owen's yodel was loud, more like a girly scream and it might have been because Ianto seized him by the back of his jacket and flung him back against the hallway wall, or it might have been the fact four juvenile Bugs the size of a cat were on the desk looking straight at him with glowing eyes.
"WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING" Ianto screamed into his face, shaking him slightly before releasing him. Owen slid to the floor with wide eyes as Ianto swung around to start taping up the door like smoke might come out of it.
Everyone had heard the scream and came running, finding Owen on his hands and knees hyperventilating as Ianto cursed up a blue storm, the entire roll of tape now used as he looked at the empty roll.
"Ianto?" Jack asked, then read the writing on the door "What?"
"Bugs" Owen croaked, pointing at the door "a dead and rotting thing and… four of the little fuckers. Like…baby ones."
"For Fucksake, what were you thinking" Ianto repeated, more calmly now as his hands stopped shaking "Jesus, that could have been something contagious ,old spores in there ya know."
"But there wasn't…. it's just us that do that. That mess they were eating… ewwwwww…. That was a bug right?" Owen rose and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, clearly feeling sick.
"I had a theory" Ianto said, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor next to Owen. "They didn't listen to me then, I doubt they will now."
Owen straightened up and settled next to him, his hands clasped together but colour retuning to his face "Tell me."
Everyone stood and listened as Ianto laid it out. "You see… I kept thinking about the lack of sexual organs, and the fact there were so many staggered ages. The idea of a queen in a nest sort of… didn't quite jell with the fact there were so many different sized ones, not clear steps. So, they must have something inside them, like in their armpit, back of a knee… somewhere there is a pouch where they carry the necessary DNA or whatever eggs or something so when they die, the rotting part of them eats what is left, the heat helps hatch out the young and they then eat the host."
"You are sick… fucking… fuck. You're right" Owen choked.
"They seem to hold the memory of their host, so either they are aware but in stasis or it is passed down in the DNA… I don't know. It's scary because if they are eating us, then are they learning our memories? Thought patterns?" Ianto shrugged "that is what scares me now."
"And that… that in there… four fuckers looking at us… fuck… they are so small. So, if they hatch out… what the size of a mouse? A bumble bee? How big can those little fuckers be when they move around outside?" Owen demanded, now rising with alarm as he finally got the problem.
They only saw ones the size of a ten year old up to larger than a standard man. There were little rat fucker ones they had not know about.
"I don't know" Ianto said, and then looked at Jack who was boring his eyes into him, so he admitted "But I do have a theory."
"Fuck" Owen said it for all of them really.
They were not going to like it, I bet.