Going Batty
Warnings: Crack and very bad humor.
Word count: ~1600
Summary: Ianto is a vampire. Cue Owen's obligatory Twilight jokes.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I once offered to write a thank-you fic for the lovely, eternally amazing triquetralin. She asked for a vampire!Ianto story, and I hemmed and hawed for a bit before regretfully saying that I didn't really care for vampires and couldn't do the prompt justice.
...And then a crack!bunny promptly ate my face.
(The vampires here are based off the ones I'm most familiar with - namely, Rayflo and Rayfel from the Vassalord manga. Part of me is sorry, but the rest is most emphatically not.)
Going Batty
The first time they take a case after sunset, Jack has them take a detour through an older part of Cardiff, where the houses are mostly abandoned husks of long-faded grandeur and the streets are dark and empty. Gwen sits stiffly in the passenger seat of the SUV, squinting a little against the dark, as Jack parks rather haphazardly at the kerb.
"All right," he says cheerfully, turning around in his seat. "Who's going to do the honors this time?"
Tosh and Owen trade a speaking glance. Unfortunately, Gwen's yet to become fluent in this-man-is-a-moron-someone-save-us-please, so she can't quite understand what it is they're communicating.
"Newbie's privilege," Owen says briskly, when the silence has just started to get uncomfortable. "Let Gwen do it."
"Oh, come on. That's not fair for her third case." Jack makes a face at them, which is not comforting at all. Gwen is still adjusting, yes, but she's not dumb. Anything that makes Jack think it's too much for her doubtless is, and it's also probably something that no sane person could look at without screaming.
The Torchwood team isn't sane. If Gwen ever thought so, that ship has long since sailed.
There's a glaring contest going on. Gwen just keeps her head down and tries to hang onto the tattered remains of her dignity. She doesn't have a lot left to work with, after a week in the present company.
Then Jack huffs out a sharp, dramatic breath (and God, sometimes she wonders what the hell she finds attractive about him) and throws his hands up. "Fine," he mutters. "If you're all going to be babies about it - "
"Dear god, Harkness," Owen snaps at his retreating back. "Common sense. I like my blood to stay in my body where it belongs. Just because your tastes run towards - "
"Tall, dark, and handsome?" Tosh mutters, but not like she wants anyone to hear her. Unfortunately, Owen does. He rounds on her with something like wounded betrayal on his face.
"No!" he moans piteously, slapping his hands over his face. "Next you'll be telling me that you devoured Twilight and want your next boyfriend to break into your house and watch you sleep!"
Gwen decides he entirely deserves it when Tosh hauls off and smacks him.
Jack is actually doing a fairly decent job of ignoring them entirely, Gwen notices when she turns back to the front. He's at the door of one of the ramshackle old houses, something that looks especially big and imposing set against the rising full moon as it is. The Captain lifts the heavy brass knocker as she watches, letting it drop with a thud she can hear from the car.
"Ianto!" he calls, as though that alone wasn't enough to wake the dead (and dear heavens, Gwen will look back at that thought later and laugh herself sick). "We've got a case! Get up!"
"Ianto?" Gwen asks, because at this point she physically cannot do otherwise. "Get up?"
"He's nocturnal," Owen says dryly.
At the same moment, Tosh answers, "Ianto is the fifth member of the team. He's...a special case. Jack recruited him specifically."
Gwen blinks. The first thing to come to mind is, "He's an...alien?"
Another shared glance, and then Owen snorts. "Not...exactly."
With a groaning creak, the heavy wooden door of the house swings open, and a man in a heavy black dressing gown is suddenly lounging in the doorway, robe falling open to reveal flashes of creamy pale skin. His eyes, Gwen can see, are a particularly stunning shade of light blue, even prettier than the Captain's. They're half-lidded right now, heavy with sleep and something else.
"Jack," the man drawls, and that's unmistakably a Welsh accent, but there's something...nearly archaic about it. Gwen's not fluent - she knows a bit, can carry on a basic conversation, and she once read - or tried to read - a few passages of ancient Welsh when she was feeling particularly adventuresome.
That's what she's brought to mind of right now, but there's no reason -
"Ianto," Jack answers, and there's a certain shade to his voice, a depth and breadth of warmth that Gwen is entirely unfamiliar with. "You're looking...peckish."
Ianto...hisses, which is not a noise Gwen has ever heard a human make before. She blinks, and in the time it takes to do so, Ianto is no longer leaning against the doorway, languid and somnolent. Instead, he's attached to Jack's throat by the teeth.
Gwen goes for her gun, but before she can so much as draw it, Tosh has a gentle hand on her wrist and is pushing the weapon back down.
"Easy," she warns. "This is normal."
"Normal?" Gwen squeaks.
Owen snorts, slouching back in his seat and looking entirely unimpressed, though she notes that his sharp eyes have yet to move from the scene in front of the house. "Yeah. The leech is always hungry when Jack wakes him up. Sleeps whenever Torchwood doesn't need him, I guess, and of course the idiot refuses to raid a blood bank." He sniffs again, as though this is personally offensive, and Gwen doesn't even bother with shooting him an incredulous look as she turns back around.
Insane, she reminds herself. They're all completely insane.
On the steps, Ianto has finally released Jack, who's wavering a fair bit, though his color is already rapidly improving. The...vampire? Owen's previous Twilight joke gives her the feeling she's not far off - he's following Jack back towards the SUV, and his skin has gone a bit rosy as compared to the alabaster-pale it was before. As he walks, the black robe shifts a little, and then whirls around him, reforming into a neat suit with subtle grey pinstripes and a crimson shirt that brings out his eyes.
"Good evening," he greets, as Jack opens the passenger door for him.
(Gwen discretely slides into the back, shoving herself between Tosh and Owen.)
"Evening, Ianto," Tosh answers with a sweet smile. "It's good to see you again."
"Mmm," Jack agrees dreamily. There's a certain happy vagueness about his expression that just bellows drunk. Gwen has experienced his uninfluenced driving. The thought of anything worse is truly terrifying. "Very good."
Ianto ignores the Captain entirely, offering Gwen a polite nod. He and Owen seem to be refusing to acknowledge the other exists. "Hello. I'm Ianto Jones. You must be Gwen."
It's an awkward angle, but Gwen shakes his hand anyway. "Nice to meet you, Ianto."
"Ianto cleans up after us and takes care of sticky situations," Jack says cheerfully, all but bouncing into the driver's seat.
Ianto shoots him a dry look, but smiles a little regardless. "I do my best, sir. Alien blood is surprisingly delicious, and I've yet to encounter a situation that you couldn't have gotten out of with enough time, Captain."
It sounds like an old argument, the kind Gwen's parents have now that they've been married over twenty years. And then the way they're looking at each other - that's closer to the honeymoon phase, she suspects.
That's...a surprisingly appealing thought, Gwen decides, casting an assessing eye over the two men.
On her left, Tosh catches her gaze, obviously thinking something along the same lines, and they share a wicked smile.
Jack pulls back out onto the road. Even as he does, a bright yellow Lamborghini goes roaring past, probably doing triple the speed limit, with an alien that looks like a blowfish at the wheel. In an instant, Jack floors it in pursuit.
"Ianto," he says, and it's somewhere between order and suggestion.
With a put-upon sigh, the vampire hits the button to roll down his window. "Why did I even bother getting dressed again?" he mutters, but as Gwen watches, his form is already shredding, breaking away into dark shapes that looks suspiciously like...bats?
They're definitely bats, she decides after a moment, and they swarm out the window, hundreds of them, blackening the sky. Several twist together, edges blurring, and suddenly Ianto is standing in the middle of the swarm, high up in the air, looking down over the maze of streets. He's entirely different than he was a moment ago, dressed in a black button-down shirt that's mostly open and a pair of sinfully tight jeans, with a leather cord twisted around his neck.
His feet are bare. Somehow, that strikes Gwen as oddest of all.
(She's happy [mostly] with Rhys; still, she feels no shame in leaning forward to get a better view for ogling. It feels a bit like justification when all of the others do the exact same thing.)
"Left, Jack, when you're done staring," Ianto's amused voice says through the comms, and then the bats whirl up and he's gone again, the swarm following the Lamborghini around the corner in a dark wave.
Gwen is still recovering from the sight of those tight jeans. She swallows and resists the urge to fan herself.
"That's - ?" she starts.
"Ianto," Tosh agrees fervently
.