Fic: This Other Darkness - Jack/Ianto 3/6

[metztlimoon]

Author: Metztlimoon
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/OMC
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Blood, Vampirism, Mind control/iffy consent.
A/N: Written for thestopwatch  fic exchange
Betas: Jimmymick and blaiyzed

 
Part ONE is HERE.
Part TWO is HERE
  

Now

 

“I need to see last night's CCTV coverage of the Plas,” Jack says, noticing but hardly caring that Gwen and Tosh have literally just walked through the entrance.

 

“Jack, need a word...” Owen says.

 

 “One minute. Tosh?”

 

“Have we missed something?” Gwen says, rolling her eyes. 

 

“Could say that, yeah,” says Owen.

 

“Well? It's a bloody long drive to Barmouth and back, particularly for  a batch of dodgy toothpaste. What's the excitement?”

 

“Toothpaste?” Owen is distracted.

 

“Which wasn't even dodgy,” says Tosh, opening the CCTV footage while Jack taps his fingers impatiently. “The alien eggs turned out to be food colouring.”

 

“Story for another time,” says Owen, remembering what he is supposed to be doing. “Jack!”

Jack waves him silent and concentrates on Tosh's console. “See if you can pick up Ianto leaving about 7.30 . Track him.”

 

“Ianto?” says Tosh, shocked.

 

“Oh my God,” says Gwen. “Has something happened to Ianto? Is that why he wasn't here when we left this morning?”

 

“He's fine, “Jack says, dismissively, and peering over Tosh's shoulder.  “He's in the cells.”

 

“He's in the... bloody hell, Jack.”  Gwen stands up and moves towards the cells. Jack intercepts.

 

“He's fine,” he says. “Leave him be.”

 

“JACK!” Owen says, finally standing in front of him and waving. Jack follows him to the edge of his desk.

 

“Yes?” he asks.

 

“There's a strange energy field in his blood,” Owen says, pointing to the monitor.  “It seems to be linked to a shape change in his haemoglobin. That's the molecule that carries oxygen. The globin is rewriting itself over time – when he came in it wasn't enough to notice- now it's about 45%. The new molecules are reinforcing and generating the energy... which in turn changes more globin. His cells are currently going into overdrive trying to synthesize the new protein.”

 

“What's causing it?”

 

“I have no idea. There's no unknown material in his body. Closest I could guess.... he's infected with some kind of alien energy. I need more samples to be sure, and I need to see if it's affecting his other systems. I can run some of the scans from up here.”

 

“Found him,” says Tosh. Jack turns his attention to the other monitor on Tosh's desk.  “He leaves the tourist office at 7.34, spends some time inspecting the tyres on his car, then heads round the corner. We pick him up here.... where he stops for a while, seems to be talking to himself... then heads for the city centre.”

 

“Talking to himself?” Nothing about this is good.

 

Tosh points. “Looks like it to me.”

 

“Christ,” says Owen, suddenly.  “I don't fucking believe it.”

 

“What?”

 

Owen swivels the monitor to face Jack.  “Ianto's cell is empty.”

 

Jack hits the base lock-down as Tosh abandons the external CCTV to focus on the internal systems. “I'm running the pattern recognition algorithm,” she says, “but I'm not getting anything.”

 

“Not again,” Owen mutters under his breath and Jack shoots him a look.

 

On Owen's monitor, Gwen wanders into view and stands opposite Ianto's cell. She activates her earpiece. “Why've we just gone into lockdown?”

 

“Get back up here, Gwen,” Jack says. Because I'm not sure he'll be able to stop himself...

 

 “Ianto's gone missing,” Tosh fills in.

 

Gwen wrinkles her nose. “No he hasn't.”

 

“We've got the cell and you on CCTV,” Jack says.

 

“I've got the cell under my nose Jack. And Ianto's right here.”  She looks up at the camera and points at the cell.

 

“What the hell is going on here?” Jack says. He snatches his gun from his office and heads into the cells.

 

Ianto is standing by the door, looking puzzled. Gwen says nothing, just gestures and shakes her head. Jack stands in front of the cell, staring. Owen runs in and stands beside him

 

“Tosh, anything?” Jack says.

 

“I can see you, Owen and Gwen,” she says.  “But not Ianto.”

 

“What's going on?” Ianto says.

 

“Check for airborne hallucinogens, toxins, anything out of the ordinary,” Jack says.

 

“I'm getting nothing,” Tosh says.

 

“Jack?” Ianto says. When Jack can't think of an answer that isn't- who the hell are you? Ianto looks at Gwen.

 

“I don't know, Ianto,” Gwen says. “I only just got here. Jack?”

 

Gwen is looking confused. Jack doesn't have an answer. Eventually Owen supplies one.

 

“Ianto's turning into a vampire,” he says.

 

“Ianto is NOT a vampire,” Jack turns on Owen.. “Vampires don't exist.”

 

“I'm sorry,” Owen says. “Call it what you like. But he's going to have immense protein cravings with the changes to his biology. He was drinking blood for fuck sakes.”

 

“Oh God,” says Gwen.

 

“Look,” says Owen. “Strange energy, cravings for blood, cameras aren't seeing him. If I had a mirror I'd bet he won't show up in that, either. Tosh could work out a plausible reason. Maybe that energy throws out the EM fields.” 

 

“Twenty minutes ago you were convinced it was a mental illness.”

 

“Twenty minutes ago he was still on the CCTV,” Owen says. “And I can't think of a single psychiatric condition that has 'doesn't appear on cameras' as a clinical sign.”

 

“But I can see him,” says Gwen. “And light is electro-magnetic, isn't it?”

 

Jack can't quite believe what he's hearing, but something stirs in his mind and it's starting to make sense. Why shouldn't a myth like that, an ancient myth, be alien in origin, like the Mara...  “Assuming...and by that I'm not agreeing, that you are right, how do we stop it?”

 

“No bloody idea,” says Owen.

 

“Are we sure it's Ianto?” says Gwen. “I'm sorry Ianto, but are we certain it's really him?”

 

“DNA matches. Knowledge test matches,” Owen says. “I don't know any way to be surer without an EEG, and frankly I don't think that will work.”

 

Ianto sits heavily on the cell's bunk. “I wonder if you'd all be so kind as to talk about me somewhere else.”

 

Jack looks at him, disturbed by the aching feeling inside his chest and his sense of fear. He wants to hold him. No no no, I can't think properly if I'm thinking like this.  I was trying to protect you from that thing on the desk while the threat was somewhere else. Was that the point? Who'd know enough about me to do that?  Jack runs his mental list and it is very small, and mostly marked off as deceased. He can't bring himself to believe any of the living ones would do something like this.

 

“ Owen, keep working on it. Gwen, you and Tosh keep working on the CCTV, I want to know exactly where he went last night, and anyone he talked to.”

 

 “Where are you going?” Owen says.

 

 Jack looks sadly at Ianto. “Watch him,” Jack says.  “And I mean watch him. With your eyes. And somebody buy some steak.”

 

 “Jack.....”Owen begins, but Jack isn't listening.

 

---------

 

It's red and gold and dark. It smells of candles and age, and the spot lamps throw light  across flock wallpaper. It looks as though it hasn't changed in a hundred years, and Jack knows it has not. It still gives him the creeps, this private club for Cardiff's human weird.  The faces change through the years, all except one. She is as unchanging as its purpose.

 

 Jack pauses on the threshold, looking down angrily at the hand of the door man, pressed flat against his chest. “I said, back off,” Jack growls.

 

“It's all right,” says the girl at the table.  “I'm expecting him.”

 

The doorman steps back, and Jack moves on to approach the girl's table. A man with long, blonde hair leaves his seat for him. As the man passes he smiles, darkly seductively and Jack lets himself return the smile. “She's all yours,” the man says, with a strong, English accent. “I must say, she's very good.”

 

“So I'd heard,” Jack says.

 

“Goodnight,” the man says, and sweeps out of the room. 

 

For a moment Jack feels several pairs of eyes swing from the stranger to look at him, then return to their business.  Jack sits. “You know why I'm here?”

 

She looks at him, and he sees, for the first time, something akin to fear.  She turns over two of the tarot cards onto the table. Lovers; inverted. Two men holding hands. The Jack of Swords.

“Your lover is falling into darkness,” she says. “He has been touched by something older than you or I.”

 

Jack picks up the Jack of swords. “Do you keep that up your sleeve just for when I come round?”

 

“Like you, it is here when it needs to be,” she says. “But, it isn't me you need to speak to, Captain.”

 

“I figured someone here might know a thing or two about ....”

 

She presses her fingers to her lips. “Shhh.” She turns another card; The Devil. It takes the form of a long haired blond man with a seductive smile.

 

Jack leaps to his feet. “Thank you...”

 

She shakes her head. “Don't thank me.”

 

I must be crazy. Would be crazy if I didn't know a rift could change you. If I didn't know the psychic potential of the human race. If I hadn't seen.

 

He jogs up the basement steps, catching up to the man, and catching his shoulder.  “Excuse me.”

 

“Hello again,” he says, with the same smile. “How can I help you?”

 

“She said I should speak to you,” Jack says. 

 

“Indeed? That shouldn't surprise me,” he says.  “That would make you the handsome Captain with the questions about Vampires.”

 

“Jack Harkness.”

 

“Thorne Gilmour,” the man says, and shakes his hand. “A pleasure to meet you. ”

Jack looks up. It's starting to rain again. “Let's talk.”

 

 

 -------

 

  

Ianto stares at the wall. I'm so hungry... so hungry. So hungry.  They'd fed him steak, but it felt wrong in his mouth, wrong and tasteless.  Oh God.  He draws his knees up to his chest and hugs them. Stop it. Stop it. Do something else. Don't think about it, find something else to think about. Think about Jack, think about how he felt last night, think about his mouth, making you come. The taste of his skin, the hot pulse of his blood... No!

 

“No!”

He only realises he's spoken aloud when Gwen says. “Are you all right?”

 

“No,” he says.

“I'm so sorry,” she says.

 

“Is Jack back, yet?”

 

“No. But he will be. You know how he is with his secret plans.”

 

Ianto does his best to smile. “It could be worse, I suppose. I could be craving Marmite.”

Gwen laughs, but it sounds a little false. “Or gherkins.”

“There's nothing wrong with gherkins,” he says.  “My aunt used to pickle them. Rows and rows of jars of gherkins.”

 

Thorne offers his the skin of his throat, drawing Ianto's lips against him. Ianto bites, feeling the blood well into his mouth... he drinks, drinks hard, feeling Thorne's fingers rake his back. No! Damn it. No! Ianto turns and punches the wall. I will not think about this. 

 

 “Ianto?” Gwen says, concerned. “Ianto?”

 

He ignores her. His hand hurts. Fucking hurts, if he's honest about it but he doesn't care. And again. Into the wall. Again. Again. A.. No. Get off me!

 

 Gwen is dragging at his hands. “Ianto. Stop it. Owen! Tosh! Somebody get down here and help me!”

 

He pushes her away. “Leave me alone, Gwen.”

 

“We can sort this. It will be okay.”

 

He can almost smell her concern. Her fear for him. Not for herself. He charges her against the wall, pinning her against the brick.“No it won't,” he says.  She is warm, so very warm, and now she's afraid of him, her heart racing... her blood rushing so very close to the surface.  He leans in close, his lips brushing her throat, tasting the salt on her skin, then a sudden pain as she kicks at his knee.  For a moment he hesitates, and she runs, stumbling towards the open door. He catches her as she tries to run past him and throws her back against the wall. He snatches away her headset, throws it aside. “I'm sorry Gwen,” he says. I don't want this. I don't want this. “But I'm so hungry.”

 

She pushes at him.. “Ianto, please don't do this.”

 

He stands still for a moment, looking at his bloodied hand and Gwen's terrified face. He turns his head towards the open door. If I run, they'll shoot me. But that way I won't be trying to eat them, won't be trapped here...

 

“I'm sorry,” he says, pushing her onto the floor. He pauses only long enough to lock the cell door behind him.

 

 Owen is just coming into the cell block when Ianto reaches the door. He gets one shot into his shoulder, but Ianto keeps coming, and lays him out with one punch before he can fire again.  Tosh is pointing a gun at him when he reaches the main body of the hub, but her eyes betray her. She won't shoot him. So instead he snatches the weapon off her and throws it into the water, dragging her with him onto the lift platform. “Take us out of lock-down,” he says.

“I can't,” she says. “Not from...”

 

“Yes, you can,” he says. “You installed the voice command unit last week.”

 

“Ianto you're hurting me.” Her eyes are wide, and she pushes at him.

 

“I know,” he says, his eyes stinging with tears. “I have to get out of here. I have to get away from you, all of you. I'm not safe. Please. Before I break your neck.”

 

Come find me.

 

“Enable voice recognition.” Tosh reels off a sequence of words.

 

Around him, he hears locks disengage as the lift starts moving.  Beside him, Tosh is shaking. 

 

“When we get to the top,” he says. “I'm going to let you go. Don't follow me. Please... just don't.”

 

------

 

*****************

Part FOUR is HERE

Comments

[cytherea999.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh! I seriously thought Ianto was gonna eat Gwen!

I am so loving this so far!

[metztlimoon.livejournal.com]

Your icon makes me giggle like I'm 12 :)