6

Jack was first to speak "What is this place?"

They were parked in front of a huge castle style building in the middle of nowhere. It was quite impressive and at the same time… like a giant had placed a toy house down without much thought, then left it behind when it was time to go home.

"A posh bastard's private lair" Owen said with a sniff, then laughed at himself "some reclusive dude with too many books and not enough fucks to give for anyone else. He was one of my patients and I knew about this place so… when shit hit the fan we came here."

"How many people are here?" Jack asked, glancing at Ianto as they shared the idea of body heat and body numbers.

"You two would make ten. There's me and my bird, the three staff that were here, their gardener and his family plus you lot now. I know. You've worried about too many in one place? Yeah, we worry about that too but we went bat-shit crazy after getting into his wine cellar and covered the roof with emergency foil blankets, tin foil and anything else we thought might confuse them. At some point someone painted Fuck off with black paint too." Owen said with wide, innocent eyes. Ianto and Jack both grinned as it was clear who that was. They both liked him already.

"The bugs come, move around for a few hours and go. They don't seem to know we are in there so… I think we are OK. Huge thick stone walls. Cold." Owen added with a grin "come on. Let's move before lockdown starts."

"You have a lockdown?" Ianto asked as he and Jack gathered their backpacks and locked up the Transporter, while heading for a nearby door at speed.

"Yeah, we make sure everyone is in before the midday quiet ends" Owen said as they entered, Owen overly excited to introduce them to everyone. The only one that Ianto could remember was the gardener's wife Gwen. She was brassy, loud and the first to demand any weapons be handed over.

"Like what… I can cut my dry wit form my brain box?" Ianto asked calmly.

Those around them sniggered softly as Ianto faced the mad thing, her bottom lip wobbling, as were her tits as she huffed at him. "I will pat you down then."

"Or not" Ianto replied without blinking.

"Come on… we have time to go" Jack said a she gathered their backpacks form the floor "come on Ianto. Back in the transporter we go."

Owen looked around with frantic alarm "guys… they have a military transporter, they saved my life just now and are clearly now about to cut us up and eat us. For Fucksake, is she going to do this with everyone new? Considering SHE is an interloper… thanks Rhys."

"Owen is right. Wind your neck in girl" came a growl as one of the security guards glared at her "Should we not be the ones to check out anyone?"

Jack and Ianto were led to the sleeping areas, "these two rooms are free over here"

Both men walked into one of them, then paused and looked at one another before Jack steppe back out. With all the books in there, it was clearly one Ianto preferred and he got the one with the ensuite instead. Ianto felt weird unpacking his bag so didn't. Jack didn't either, their habit of moving each day still there.

They settled at the main table and ate in silence as Owen regaled everyone with the story of how he met them, some questions asked about the transporter and such that Jack answered as Ianto cleared away the dishes. Then he sat and listened to their own stories, most of them less scary than his as they moved within hours of the vessels coming into orbit. They heard of attacks but although they had seen bug, they have not seen a kill yet. They were casually talking about going to the nearby village on a recon as they were low on provisions, the bomb shelter food supposed to last for three years not good enough. Gwen wanted chocolate. They seemed to listen to her and agree, it would be fine. Especially now THEY had a transporter.

Interesting.

Then they settled for the night.

.

.

"Ianto, are you awake?"

Ianto rolled his head to find Jack in the open doorway and he sat up with alarm "I locked that!"

"Yeah, I locked mine too but woke to find it open." Jack replied softly "I think they are checking on us. I just feel…"

"Exposed"

"Yeah." Ianto motioned "Come on. I can't sleep properly in this room. The bed is wrong. It feels huge after the back of the transporter. And I got used to the weight of you against me."

"Me too" Jack rushed to get in and then went back to lock the door, then place a chair against the door knob.

Safely locked in they both settled, much as they had every night in the transporter with Jack spooning Ianto, both men not even thinking twice about this. They had done this ever since they first started sleeping together, the small mattress shoved in the well of the transporter barely fitted, no room for space between them and it was warmer in the night anyway.

As they slept on they had no idea the shitstorm they would be waking to.