First Time for Everything, Chapter 3b

[criccieth]

Series: First Time For Everything
Part: Three, Section B
Title: Touch - Ianto
Word Count: circa 9,000
Spoilers: This section, Fragments only
Rating: Over-all, NC17. This section: Hard R. WARNING: graphic descriptions of domestic abuse (physical, sexual violence also mentioned). Implied childhood abuse.
Pairing: Ianto/Lisa, Ianto/OMCs and OFC (historical).
Thanks: to the wonderful trio of travellingone, madtheo and used_songs for yanking me back from taking people OOC, for loads of helpful comments and for their time on this whole shebang.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and anyone you recognise belong to the BBC and were created by RTD.


Continued from Part A: http://criccieth.livejournal.com/5202.html

Previously: His legs give out and he falls to his knees as the memories start to surge up, shameful and loathsome. It’s what he hasn’t allowed himself to think about beyond the acknowledgement that he has to let Harkness think himself in control. The idea that Harkness might share Oliver’s tastes, Oliver’s kinks - Oh God. He can’t go back to that. He remembers the last time he was on the verge of having to go back to it....

Later, he would blame his lack of observation on the head-splitting migraine. He was normally very aware of everything around him, alert for any sign of danger, but that day he’d barely been at work an hour and the heat was already starting to build when some little shits in another open-top bus had snatched his hat from his head as the two vehicles eased past each other.

Eight hours later, after a day spent on the open-topped tour bus in the searing late-August heat dealing with the noise and chaos of central London traffic and idiotic tourist questions, he backed out of the Great August Birthday Piss-Up (so-called because 21 of the 30 tour guides and bus drivers hired that summer had birthdays in August) even though it had been planned since May.

“Ach, c’mon man - you have to come, you’re only 22 once!” Fliss poked him the ribs but when he lifted his head from his hands to look at her, her face flooded with shock.

“Fuck, pet - you look about to puke!”

He nodded tightly and bit back a moan of pain at the movement.

“Go on, get home! See you tomorrow if you’re up to it,” she said, looking honestly worried. “No-one came in by car - you gonna be ok on the Tube?”

“Mmmm.” Not up to his usual standard, but about all he could say for fear of vomiting on her shoes.

By the time he reached the surface after the Tube journey, he was nearly in tears with the pain. Lights kept flaring in the corners of his vision and even the sound of his own breathing hurt. As migraines went, this one was pretty spectacular. As he neared the flat, able to think of nothing but painkillers and sleep in a dark room, his phone beeped from his hip pocket. He flinched in renewed pain and snatched at the phone, just wanting the noise to stop. It was only ingrained habit that made him lift the phone to eye-level to see the caller ID instead of simply declining the call.

When he forced his gaze to focus on the tiny screen and he saw the name there, his heart gave a huge leap in his chest and he would have sworn it stopped beating for a second. He brought the phone closer, hitting “answer”.

“Mary.”

“Laddie, you need to run.”

At the words, he stopped dead and stood in the middle of the pavement, swaying on his feet as despair surged through him; he’d known what she was going to say from the second he saw her name. Sunday night was the time Mary rang to chat and check up on him. Andy always sent him a text once a week, whenever his shifts allowed. They only contacted him at any other time for this - to warn him.

He pressed the palm of his left hand to his forehead and forced the words out past the pain.

“You’ve heard from Andy?”

“No, boy - I was in evening Mass. You’re in the Intercessions Book, you always are, and as soon as the reader said “we pray for our own intentions”, I knew I had to call you. Boy, I’ve left Mass to call you.”

Startled, he looked at his watch. She had as well: it was barely 8pm - even a weekday Mass wouldn’t be over yet.

He stopped praying after Mam died. Then Oliver killed any last gasp of belief in a benevolent God. But after three years, he still had no idea what to make of Mary’s conviction that it was the saints or his ‘guardian angel’ who told her when he was in danger. Part of him wanted to say she was crazy but it was impossible to deny that twice she’d called to warn him, and twice she'd been right. She must be seriously worried this time - she regarded it as the next thing to blasphemy to leave Mass before the last note had faded.

“Ianto? You hearing me, lad?”

“Yes.” He looked up the road. From here, he could see the front gate of the flat, but York had taught him not to hesitate when Mary called. His wallet was in his back pocket, containing his drivers licence and the battered old medallion she’d given him three years ago. The stopwatch was in his hip pocket - it hadn’t left his possession since Gethin brought it back to him in Cardiff Royal. The necklace he hadn’t taken off since he'd put it on two hours after Marco gave it to him. Nothing else was important enough to worry about.

“Talk about minimalist living,” he muttered.

“What? Where are you boy? You home?”

What home? “No. I’ll….” He sighed. Sorry Fliss, guess you won’t be seeing me tomorrow. “I’ll get out of London tonight. I’ll call you when I’m somewhere for the night.”

“Stay safe, boy.”

He ended the call and turned to head back to the Tube station. Where to? Euston? Paddington? King’s Cross? Hard, through the pain in his head, to remember which stations led to which parts of the country. To remember where he’d been and where he’d already run from.

His leaden steps took him past an alley-way that cut down the back of a row of long gardens. With the houses at the far end of the gardens on one side and the derelict factory on the other, it was an isolated spot, always littered with used needles and condoms, the sort of place he normally viewed with caution. He started to glance into the entryway when he heard a nearby surface train, horn blasting, and the renewed surge of pain nearly took him to his knees.

“Ah, Christ!”

“You know I don’t like a foul mouth.”

He froze where he was, half-crouching, hands pressed to his head. My imagination, my imagination, my imagination he chanted to himself frantically. He knew that voice. Night after night, it haunted his dreams though he hadn’t heard it in his waking life since York, as he threw himself onto a train even as the guard went to slam the door. Nearly three years since that voice had been a part of his everyday life. My imagination. Please.

He straightened slowly, turning to face the mouth of the alley. To face Oliver. The other man stepped forward, coming just to the edge of the pavement. His red hair had a hint of grey in it these days, and he was smiling that polite, disarming smile that he always displayed to outsiders. At first glance, you’d think the smile touched his eyes. A handsome, charming man. Until you got to know him.

“And you’ve cut your hair,” Oliver observed with a small shake of his head. “You know I don’t like it when you cut your hair.”

“Ol….Oliver.” He couldn’t move, could barely breathe and the name came out as a rasp. Oliver took another step forward and Ianto’s eyes were drawn to the heavy, inch-thick leather-and-chain leash dangling from Oliver’s hand. The dog-lead. His skin seemed to crawl and he wrenched his eyes away, shooting a glance up and down the road. No sign of life, not even a car. A quiet area, at this time of day: Oliver had chosen well. In the alley, no-one would notice. No-one would hear. No-one would see whatever Oliver did to him.

“Seems to me you’ve been doing quite a few things I don’t like you doing,” Oliver said, his voice oh-so-reasonable, so matter-of-fact. “I thought we’d been over that before. But maybe you’ve forgotten what happens when you do that.” He paused for a beat. “Just going to have to remind you, aren’t I, before I take you home? Remind you what happens when you do things I don’t like. When you disobey me. And while I’m at it, I’ll remind you who you belong to.”

“I don’t belong to you.” The words were out, almost guttural, before Ianto could think to hold them back. The wrong thing to say and he knew it, but before he could get his feet to even try and move Oliver was on him, dragging him down into the alley and then slamming him backwards to hit the wall. One hand gripped Ianto’s face at the junction of jaw and throat, forcing his head up and back as a thigh shoved in between his legs, the pressure hard enough to cause pain. The other hand slammed into the wall next to his head, the lead dangling from his fingers. All Oliver’s good looks were gone and all that remained was the rage and the heat in his eyes that said he wanted to see pain.

“Yes, you do.” Oliver hissed the words, his hard weight against Ianto, face just inches away. His breath stank of alcohol. “You’re mine, you little shit. I took you in, I put a roof over your head, I fed you, I put clothes on your back, I gave you a bed to sleep in and what did you do, you ungrateful bastard? You ran away. You got me demoted with your lies, did you know that? Dropped me and half the squad in the shit. They didn’t prosecute because they knew you were lying but they said we’d brought the Force into disrepute. So they disbanded the squad. I got demoted and lost the fucking squad - after everything I’d worked for. All because of you. All those lies you told, all those things you said. Three years I’ve been trying to find you and every time I’ve been close, you’ve run again. How the hell has an idiot like you managed to stay ahead of me? Who’s been helping you? Was it Davidson? I know the scrawny twat helped you leave Cardiff. Tried to make him pay but his boss wouldn’t listen to me and that was because of you as well. You’ve cost me my job, you bastard, did you know that?” He bared his teeth, a vicious travesty of a smile. “I went to Nottingham. I found that boy at the art gallery.”

Ianto fought for breath, trying to twist free of Oliver’s grip, but at those words he froze. Oh God, no. Not Peter. Don’t let him have found Peter. With the surge of concern for his last partner, he felt a shameful wave of fear for himself, for what Oliver would do to him for Peter. For Marco.

“I was only trying to find out where you were, but the stupid boy claimed he didn’t know. So I lost my job just for trying to get him to answer a few questions. Why wouldn’t he answer, hmmm? Were you letting him fuck you? Were you letting Davidson fuck you as well? You must have been - no other reason I can think of that they’d help someone like you. Using all your little tricks were you, whore? Don’t try and deny it. I went to the hotel in Portsmouth - found out about that Spanish bastard. You let him fuck you, didn’t you? Whore. You always were a slut. Never satisfied, always wanting it, always asking for it, always wanting a cock in you, never caring whose it was. How many, whore? Twenty? Thirty? Can’t be less, you’re too much of the slut for that. How did they have you, whore? Against a wall? Over a desk? Did you put your arse in the air for them? How many of them have there been? How many men have you begged to fuck you, Ianto?”

He pushed closer to Ianto and suddenly it was obvious how much the situation was affecting him. Terrified, Ianto felt the old, familiar feeling of sick helplessness flood over him. But buried in there was something else. The subject matter was familiar - God help him if another man so much as met his eyes or if he smiled at one without permission, though how that squared with the ‘parties’ where he was handed to any man who was asked or called in a favour or a loan, he’d never dared question - but the irony of it all suddenly made him want to laugh. Here was Oliver, assuming he’d been fucking his way around the country whereas in truth, it had been almost a year before anyone could so much as touch him without him jumping out of his skin. He’d thought, hoped, that Susan was the rock he could cling to - but when he tried for honesty about who the ‘Oliver’ who haunted his dreams was, she’d left him the same night. “Disgusting” she’d called him, as she’d pulled her clothes on. “Pervert.” Nothing he hadn’t heard before but it still hurt. It was almost six months after that before he’d been able to even think about sleeping with another man again, back when Marco started work. It had then taken two more months and the excuse of getting blind drunk before he could ignore the fear enough to respond in kind when Marco made a move. Marco was everything Oliver wasn’t - and even then, he couldn’t bring himself to step over those mental lines. And Peter? That started with a kiss at the Christmas party and then after three months, Peter had dumped him; saying there was no point in having a boyfriend ‘too head-fucked to fuck and too freaked-out to blow me’. Three partners in three years and the last man to fuck him had been Oliver himself. Hardly the whore. Not that Oliver would believe him, of course.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Oliver bellowed, and all urge to laugh fled as Ianto’s gaze automatically snapped up to met the cold green eyes. That phrase was a bad one. That phrase was always the last prelude to one of the beatings that left him unable to stand, never mind walk. The only worse words were….

“I’m going to give you a choice, Yan.”

Suddenly Oliver wasn’t just holding him pinned to the wall, he was holding him up, because Ianto’s legs gave out at those words, at the nickname he only ever heard when Oliver was angry with him, and he shook so hard he could hear the faint sound of his jacket rasping against the brick wall behind him. Oliver forced his head to the left so he could see the lead dangling from blunt fingers.

“For every time you’ve let another man fuck you over the last three years - I’ll give you a choice. This…” He moved his right hand slightly, making the lead sway hypnotically. Then his left hand moved, coming forward along Ianto’s jaw, forcing his mouth partly open. At the same time, he shifted his grip on the dog-lead and pushed his thumb into Ianto’s mouth. “…Or this.”

Ianto’s stomach roiled even at the thought and he tried to wrench his head away. Oliver’s grip shifted again, strong fingers closing over his Adam’s apple. Pain lanced through his neck as his breathing was cruelly restricted.

“Your choice, Yan. What’s it going to be?” Once he had realised how much Ianto hated going down on him, it had become a sick game for Oliver to play when he was in a particularly savage mood: make Ianto choose his own punishment. If he didn’t choose, he got both. And when he did choose, he had to tell Oliver why he had to be punished and ask for what he’d chosen. No, not ask - beg. Beg Oliver for a beating, or beg to be ‘allowed’ to go down on his knees. And if he didn’t beg well enough, he got both punishments and more besides.

In the long moment that stretched out after Oliver’s words, it felt as though Ianto could hear the roaring of his blood as his heart hammered against his chest. Choose, a terrified voice whispered in his head. He hadn’t heard that voice for years but it was back now. Back so quickly and what did that say about him, about how weak he was? Choose, quickly! You know what’ll happen if you don’t….

Then Oliver’s eyes narrowed and his left hand forced Ianto’s head further up and back and now his right hand reached down and Ianto realised with a sick rush of dread that Oliver had seen the necklace.

“What the hell’s this, slut?” He leaned slightly back, his fingers twisting into the necklace, pulling so that it dug into the back of Ianto’s neck. “This a pay-off from one of the cocks you’ve had? This one of your payments, whore? Who was it?” He paused for a second, almost as though he was honestly expecting an answer and then he twisted the chain even tighter, turning his hand so his knuckles pressed into Ianto’s throat. “Can’t remember, Yan? Too many of them, is that it? Too many men to remember any one of them, eh? Well, you’re not keeping this payment, whore. You’re not flaunting any of those men in front of me, you little bastard. You’re not taking this back home.” He started to pull down on the necklace, his left hand still holding Ianto’s head against the wall. The pressure of the chain against the back of Ianto’s neck became painful.

You deserve it. The same old voice with the same old words. You slept with Marco, you slept with Peter. You got Oliver into trouble, you deserve it. All the pain, all the punishments. You deserve it all.

All. Suddenly, it was as though he could feel every bruise, every cut, every burn, every bite; every broken bone and dislocated joint Oliver had ever inflicted on him. Every humiliation, every abuse. For one single second, the world was nothing but pain. But the necklace was warm against his neck, warm enough to remind him of Marco’s touches, Peter’s caresses; Susan’s embraces. Three lovers in three years and none of them seemed to think he deserved what Oliver had dealt him every day. And now Oliver was going to take the only thing he had of Marco, the single best thing of those three years. Take it and force him back into the old life.

The first time it went beyond a slap, Ianto had hit back. Oliver, nearly four inches taller and almost three stone heavier, had pinned him down on the sofa and then afterwards used the dog-lead to beat him. The second time Ianto had tried to hit back left him with one of the blank spots in his memory. He didn’t know what had happened, he only remembered waking up in pain. He’d never dared raise a hand to Oliver again. Until now.

The right hook carried years of pain and fear and rage and hate. Oliver went stumbling backward almost clear across the alley before he fell. Ianto didn’t stop to see what happened next - he ran.

Out of the alley and down the road that ran alongside the factory. From here it was just a few minutes to the Tube station where there was bound to be a cop who could help and dear God but wasn’t that ironic? Half of Oliver’s squad had known what was going on and the neighbours had called the police three times, but when the cops who showed up realised whose house it was…

Ahead, down the slight incline, he could see the surface line that lay between him and the Tube station. Flashing lights signalled the level-crossing barriers coming down and he could just see the slow-moving goods train edging towards the crossing that now blocked his route to the Tube.

On his right, across the road, the unbroken wall of the local secondary school blocked any escape attempt. Ahead, the level crossing was unmanned and there was no-one else in sight. Behind him, running footsteps sounded on the concrete pavement. Not daring to stop or slow down or even take a glance over his shoulder, Ianto headed left, plunging down the steep grassy slope that led to the Common. There was refuge on the other side of the Common, houses and shops and a 24-7 supermarket. The footsteps were still pounding behind him: Oliver had always been fast on his feet for such a bulky man. Ianto pushed himself to run faster, trying not to fall as the ground dropped away under his feet.

The sloping grass changed to level concrete as he found himself on a path, and then the trees closed in around him as the walkway led into a wooded area. From somewhere ahead, he heard rustling and movement, but it was the sounds behind that were of more concern. He could still hear footsteps, the leaves crunching under Oliver’s feet and he tried to run faster still even as he stumbled out of the copse. The path he was on ended here at a ‘T’ junction, intersecting with another trail and he wrenched himself round to the right, aware of the smooth expanse of grass spreading out from the other side of the new lane. Up ahead he could see a woman and two small children walking towards him, a dog trotting behind. The first people he’d seen and there was no way she could help him.

Then the rustling from the trees he’d just come out of increased and something burst out of the thin woods and onto the path, right between him and the family.

It looked like something out of a horror film, all leathery skin and misshapen head and razor-sharp teeth as it stood there in between them and looked from Ianto to the woman and children. Ianto skidded to a stop and stared at the creature. Can’t be real. Can’t be real, has to be….a joke….someone…dressing up? But the breeze brought the stench of the creature to him and it snarled, and even from here he could see the saliva dripping from its jaws. Oh Jesus Lord, it’s fucking real.

Behind it, the woman screamed and the children shrieked and the creature turned and made straight for them as Ianto stood frozen to the spot. From beyond them, the dog, a full-grown Alsatian, leapt past the family right at the…thing, but the creature literally caught the dog in mid-air and threw it against the tree-line. It swung around to face the dog as the pet struggled back to its feet with a snarl almost as vicious as the creature’s own.

Even as the dog leapt for the creature again, Ianto found himself moving. He ran straight past the creature towards the woman and children. She had them both by their arms and was dragging them back, away from the creature, eyes wide with horror. Ianto didn’t stop or waste breath on speech but simply swept one of the children up into his arms and ran on, off the path and across the grass towards the nearest tree away from the copse itself. As soon as he got there, he shoved the child up as high as he could reach, into the middle branches of the tree. The little girl, who couldn’t have been more than five years old, grabbed the branches around her and stared down at him in now-silent terror.

“Climb!” he snapped at her and spun round to find her mother was two paces behind him, her son in her arms. He grabbed the child from her and turned to push the boy into the tree after his older sister. He turned again to face the woman. It was then he realised that she had a bright piece of cloth draped across her chest and tied around her. He could see a pair of tiny hands just poking their way out of the wrapping. A baby.

Beyond her, he could see the…thing fighting the dog. In that moment, the creature lifted the dog up and brought it down hard against a raised leg. The crack! echoed even to where they were standing and he heard the horrible, high-pitched yelp before the dog went limp. Staring terrified into his face, the woman flinched at the sound.

Oh fuck. That thing just killed an Alsatian with its bare hands. He could see the baby’s bald little head now, a head he could have held in the palm of his hand. It must be just days old, eyes closed, blissfully unaware of what was happening while it slept curled against its mother. Why the hell did your Mam have to choose tonight to take you all for a walk in the park, bachgen?

He reached out, grabbed her by the arms and wrenched them both round so her back was to the tree. She was nearly a foot shorter than him and he disregarded all dignity and simply lifted her up and shoved her onto the bottom-most branches of the tree. As she went up he spotted the dog-lead in her hand and snatched it from her, the crazy urge to laugh returning as he turned. He heard the rustling behind him as she scrambled higher into the tree towards her children.

The thing was far closer already, and there was something just wrong in the way it moved. Something….alien. But there was no time to wonder or worry about that now, no time to wonder what the hell was going on and what this creature was. No time even to dwell on the irony of the fact that five minutes ago he’d been running from Oliver and that fucking dog-lead that still cropped up in his nightmares. All there was time for was stepping away from the tree and spinning the Alsatian’s lead so it hissed through the air like a whip, forming a metallic circle in the air in front of him. The creature tried to leap forward and Ianto let the spinning chain catch its arm. It jerked back with a hiss, spitting at him. Yeah, hurts like fuck doesn’t it?

And beyond it, back up on the path, a second alien thing stepped out of the copse just as Oliver arrived on the T-junction.

“What the……” It was only then, as Oliver spoke, that Ianto realised how quiet everything had gone. After the initial screams, the woman and her children had gone silent and no sound of traffic carried from the roads around. Since the dog’s death, the only sounds had been the snarls of the creature and the hiss of the spinning chain. Oliver’s voice sounded incredibly loud in that near-silence.

The two creatures turned to the new sound immediately and Ianto suddenly knew what was going to happen. Instinct took over and surpassed everything, even hatred.

“Oliver, run!” But it was too late - the second creature was too close, Ianto was too far away and even if he’d been closer, there was no way in hell he would have left the woman and her children to their fate. The second creature covered the few feet between itself and Oliver in seconds. The summer evening gave plenty of light. He saw the expression on Oliver’s face as the creature closed in. Saw the realisation, and the fear.

The scream seemed to echo from the trees, a horrible sound that started low and went higher and higher in just the few seconds it lasted before it changed to a gurgling, gasping sound which simply faded away.

For a moment, everything seemed to slow down and every little detail became crystal-clear. Ianto could see the second of the two creatures, hunched on the ground, its teeth buried in Oliver’s throat. He could see Oliver’s arm go limp, the hated dog-lead falling out of his hand and lying there, glinting silver-and-blue against the black path. He could see the first creature start to move forward, as though to go join its fellow. Then it turned and he knew it had remembered the victims it had cornered. And he knew they were all going to die. There was nothing he could do against two of these creatures, no way he could save this family. Even as he stood his ground he knew this was it, the end. From somewhere buried in the back of his mind, words he’d not spoken in nearly five years came back: Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. This time, he did laugh and even to his own ears it sounded half-mad.

And then suddenly, there were voices. Figures came running out of the tree-line, and there were sharp, muted noises and then the two creatures were slumping to the ground, unmoving, the new figures closing in on them, one dark-clothed silhouette standing over each of the fallen things. A third figure bent briefly over Oliver before standing up and heading for the tree.

Someone else came walking between the bodies and up to Ianto: a woman, somewhere in her late twenties, with shoulder-length hair so white it seemed to glow. She was tall, nearly his own height and she walked straight up to him as he let the chain slow and stop. She looked up into the tree and then at him. Then she suddenly smiled.

“Hey there, good-looking. Don’t suppose you’re looking for a job?” Abruptly, she held out a hand and Ianto automatically shook it. “Rebecca DuPris: Team Leader, Field Team Seventeen, Torchwood London. Fuck Hartman’s recruitment protocols - my team’s one man down and….” Her gaze slid up and down his frame and she grinned, a mischievous light in her eyes. “I like what I see.”

The sound of feet coming down the steps towards the boardwalk brings him snapping back to the present and he realises that he’s sitting huddled on the ground, shaking. He hastily scrambles to his feet, scooping up the now-empty mug, trying to regain control even as Costello walks towards him. He walks past her, his head down, careful to give her a wide berth and hoping she won’t look at him. Luck is with him it seems because she goes past without giving him so much as a second glance, her gaze intent on the Tourist Office.

He reaches the steps and throws one quick glance at the office door, but she’s already gone. There is something about Costello, something that has bothered him since he first saw her in London. He rarely forms snap judgements of people, but he cannot shake his first impression of the woman. He dislikes her, distrusts her. She is hiding something, he knows that much; knows it with all the conviction of a man carrying more than his own fair share of secrets.

He stands at the foot of the steps for a moment, taking long slow breaths, trying to bring himself back under control. He hasn’t let himself actually think about Oliver for over two years now, though until Daleks and Cybermen took over his dreams the man was still the cause of most of his nightmares. After a week spent listening to the name ringing off the walls on a nightly basis, Lisa had asked him who ‘Oliver’ was. Memories of Susan clear in his head, he’d lied to her - one of the only outright lies he’d ever told her. Placed Oliver into his early childhood, which he’d already told her something about. She wasn’t the only one he lied to about Oliver. He lied to Becca as well, taking the opportunity to disavow all knowledge of who the man was when they told him the young family he’d saved would remember nothing. As far as Torchwood was concerned, Oliver had been in London for unknown reasons and had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Death due to Weevil attack, the paperwork had said and they’d stowed his body in the morgue with the official story being that he’d gone under a bus. Somewhere in Cardiff lies the body of a homeless man; one of the many nameless bodies Torchwood London appropriated for the purpose of a good cover story. Above the grave, the headstone reads Oliver Phillip Grant. Even Mary, Andy and Gethin think it’s Oliver who’s buried there, think he was a not-so-tragic victim of a normal accident.

For two years Ianto has been doing his best to forget, to bury the memories. And now, if Harkness does turn out to want what Oliver wanted…It won’t be the same, he tells himself firmly. Won’t be trapped. Won’t be a prisoner this time. As soon as she’s better, we’ll leave. Slowly, his hands stop shaking. Lisa, he reminds himself. It’s for Lisa. Whatever it takes, remember? Doesn’t matter what it costs. You can handle it. It’s for her. But he feels so cold.

He’s pulling himself up the stairs, unsure as to his next move when the Rift activity locator beeps from his pocket. Yanking it out, he flips it open as he reaches the top of the stairs. He calls up the mapping layer to see where the Rift surge actually is and freezes, staring in horror at the screen for what feels like an age before he snaps it shut and starts to run.

Over the noise of the bike, he can’t hear whether anything comes over the comm interceptor or not, so by the time he gets to the industrial wasteland which is the approximate location of the Rift spike, he has no idea of how much of a lead he has on the team. He can’t imagine that one of them isn’t coming though - presumably Harper or Sato, as Harkness is already half-way to Barry by now. He pulls the bike up on the side of the road and scrambles off, removing the helmet and stashing it. He’s just about to pull the locator out to try and get an exact fix on where the spike was when he hears something shriek from half-way up the hill that climbs from the road. He looks in the direction of the sound and feels his jaw drop.

“Oh, FUCK.” The….pteradactyl? Pteranodon? Yes, Ianto, get the name right because that is really the important point here, he snarls at himself. Idiot! The flying dinosaur fortunately doesn't seem to be interested in him, being far more concerned with the still feebly-moving sheep it’s just finishing gutting. Luckily, the wind is blowing downhill, carrying his scent away from the creature. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, that also means the wind carries to him the fetid odour of blood and guts.

Ianto squeezes his eyes shut for a second, refusing to acknowledge how it is he recognises that smell. This is a sheep, not a human. Still, he starts to breathe through his mouth.

By the time he opens his eyes again, the sheep is still and large chunks of flesh and wool are disappearing down the dinosaur’s gullet. At least that will keep it distracted for a few minutes. The rest of the flock, a couple of dozen, are milling around further up in the field, their pathetic bleats of fear audible even down here.

Yanking open the bike’s carry-box, he studies the contents. His Colt is there, but he doubts he could take it out with that. Looking for anything useful, he rummages through the few pieces of tech and kit there; the rejects from what he collected in those first few days when, under Lisa’s orders, he was scavenging for replacements for those parts of the unit that had been sucked into the Void just before the Doctor sealed it. Lisa and he had kept it all because…well, because it was alien and they were Torchwood. What else was there to do with it? They could hardly dump it in a rubbish bin after all. And anyway, there was always the possibility of using it on Torchwood Three as bribery or a sop of some sort. But right now, it’s about as much use as it was to Lisa.

The sight of the tech reminds him sharply about the comm intercept and he yanks it from his jacket pocket, slamming it on just in time to hear a man’s voice: London accent - Harper. As he listens, he watches the dinosaur, which remains focused on its meal.

“Suzie, just picked up Tosh - we should be out at the spike in about twenty minutes.”

“Understood, Owen. Call in when you get there.”

So he has less than twenty minutes to do something about the creature and to plant something in its place for Harper and Sato to find to explain the Rift spike. Because opposite the field and the pterodactyl, on the other side of the abandoned warehouses and the derelict railway line that lay over the road, is the back wall of St Teilo’s Hospital. He cannot risk either this creature or Torchwood ending up at the hospital when there was a chance they could stumble upon Lisa and the makeshift lab.

The wind shifts then. It’s not a big enough change to carry his own scent to the creature, but it clearly brings the dinosaur new sensory input because it looks up suddenly with a sharp, questioning squawk and moves its head from side to side as though trying to place something. Ianto freezes where he stands but it’s seen him, and suddenly it launches itself into the air with an unnerving shriek.

He doesn’t hesitate now, just turns and runs as fast as he can, half-throwing himself over the fence on the far side of the road and going full-pelt across the open stretch of concrete that leads to the ramshackle warehouses. They’re all abandoned - the near-desolation of this little sub-corner of Cardiff was the final factor in his selection of it as their medical base - and now they are about his only hope of cover. Set into the wall of the nearest warehouse is a small, half-open door. It won’t be able to follow him through that, making it better cover then the next warehouse over, where the old loading doors sit almost fully open.

He’s always been a fast runner - school record for the 100m every year and winger for each year’s rugby team from 11 to sixteen when they kicked him out for “conduct unbecoming” - but he’s wearing jeans and boots and anyroad, he doesn’t reckon Colin Jackson himself could outrun something that can fly. He’s barely half-way across the tarmac before there is a screech from above and just behind and he hears the truly disconcerting sound of leathery wings.

He swings around, only then realising he’s still carrying the second backpack in one hand. Automatically, he throws it straight into the dinosaur’s face. It snaps at the bag and rips it, various metallic items going flying across the ground as Ianto back-pedals frantically. It seems that after all his efforts, this is how he’s going to die - torn to shreds by something that died out millions of years ago - and a sick horror grabs him by the throat. There is a reason that almost every culture has its fireside stories about man-eating monsters looming out of the dark. Mankind has been at or near the top of the food chain for millenia and the idea of being food for another creature, especially one that might not stop to check you’re dead first, is the stuff of nightmares.

It has the end of the bag in its jaws now and shakes its head violently from side to side like a terrier with a rat. Something dark, about the size of his hand flies from the shreds of nylon and starts to tumble towards the ground, but the creature moves faster than he would have believed possible, dropping the remnants of the backpack and somehow managing to snap the item out of the air. As its jaws close on it, one smaller piece falls away as it bolts the larger piece down. Quite suddenly, Ianto can smell chocolate.

Huh? Then he remembers - the woman he accepted the chocolate from was desperate to finish for the day, so she gave him her last three bars. When he left for the night himself, one bar had almost fallen out of his pocket and he had shoved it into the bag, leaving the other two bars in his coat.

The creature suddenly drops to the ground, looking totally alien as it stands there on the concrete, its wings outstretched as though for balance. As he watches, it reaches forward and snaps up the small chunk of chocolate left on the ground.

It likes chocolate. For a moment, he just stands still, absorbed in the surrealness of it all as he stares at the dinosaur bolting down the chunk of chocolate. Then his brain seems to kick into gear. It likes chocolate.

The creature is shrieking again, flapping its wings and half-hopping, half-flying towards him, its mouth snapping open and closed. It might not have teeth, but he doesn’t want to find out how strong those jaws are. Yanking one of the additional bars from his pocket, he breaks it rapidly into four without bothering to unwrap it. One piece he throws to the ground several feet in front of the creature, and it makes that same flying hop forward to retrieve it. He rapidly moves a few paces on a diagonal towards the open loading doors he saw moments earlier and throws a second piece down between himself and the pter…dinosaur. It comes forward and snatches it up. The third piece and then the fourth are handed out in the same way, tempting the creature closer and closer to the doors.

“Come on then, come and get some more chocolate,” he says, trying to keep his tone calm. “Nice stuff, huh?” He breaks the last bar into four as well. The first quarter brings it almost to the entryway. He stands just inside, glancing rapidly from side to side at the two large doors. They don’t look too swollen and the runners don’t look desperately rusted. This might work. This has to work.

He throws the second quarter past himself and into the warehouse. The creature hops forward and stands right in the doorway, virtually next to him. For a long moment, it is still, staring into the dim interior of the building and he wonders how much it can see, whether it has some sort of instinctive aversion to enclosed spaces. Then, just as he’s beginning to panic, it jumps forward and hops towards the chocolate. Before it’s even reached it, he’s thrown the third piece further, beyond where the second has landed. Turning, he reaches up to grab the handle of the left-hand door and heaves.

Perhaps for once someone up there is smiling at him, because the door only resists for a second before it starts to move and there isn’t even very much noise. How good the dinosaur’s hearing is he has no idea, but it doesn’t even turn its head, just hops from the spot where it’s finished the first piece of chocolate to snap up the second. He hauls the thankfully well-balanced door to the middle of the doorway and runs across to the second door, to start pulling that one closed too.

The narrowing strip of light reaching into the building clearly alerts the dinosaur to the fact that something is going on because it turns abruptly and shrieks, and then suddenly it goes from a standing start to a glide and it’s coming straight for him.

He throws the fourth and last piece of chocolate across the floor to skid across the concrete underneath the creature. It’s less about bribery this time and more about the need to free up both hands, and he yanks on the door to join it to its partner as fast as possible. The last glimpse he has of the creature is of it gliding fast and low across the floor of the warehouse as the two doors meet. Then he steps backwards and slams the heavy beam down and the locking clip up even as the door shakes under the impact of the dinosaur. Before it can recover enough to really try and attack the door, he starts slamming the big steel bolts home; there are two going across from door to door and then three on each panel shooting down into the ground.

He steps back cautiously and watches and listens. He hears the creature’s shrill cry, but all the windows on this warehouse are whole and the walls and doors are thick, shutting in most of the sound. The doors move slightly as the creature again impacts with the inside of the door, but they look like they’ll hold. Which is good, because a glance at his watch tells him he has little more than 5 minutes to hide the evidence of a Rift-surfing dinosaur and get the hell away before Harper and Sato arrive.

He turns and darts back across the tarmac to the scattered pieces of tech. He quickly settles on the transformer; a perfectly normal transformer - except that it works at 100% efficiency and no-one, not even Tech Research, can figure out how. There had been two of them in the Archives and he’d grabbed both, only for the first to blow when they tried to use it. Which is why the second is still unused. But it’s clearly not of current Earth standard, so there should be no reason for Harper and Sato to doubt it’s just come through the Rift.

He shoves the transformer and a scrap of the bag into his pocket and gathers up the remainder of the tech into the largest surviving part of the backpack before bundling them into the bike’s carrybox. Leaving the jacket slung across the box, he scrambles over the fence that separates the road from the field and heads for the carcass. It only takes a glance to see that the wounds it suffered weren’t inflicted by anything as small as a dog. Taking the transformer from his pocket, he hastily wipes the surface over with the scrap of bag and then drops the transformer onto the grass close to the sheep. Bending down, he takes hold of the corpse and swings it up to rest across his shoulders. It’s heavy, but far lighter than Lisa in her current state. Higher up the field, there is a small stand of trees and he heads for it. Minutes later, his shirt covered in blood and other things he’d rather not dwell on, he runs back down to the spot where the sheep died. There is some blood and torn fleece, but no solid evidence and a few moments spent churning the rain-soaked grass to mud leaves little sign of the death. He sprints back to the bike. Dragging the jacket on to hide the stains, he pulls the helmet on and starts the bike. As he pulls away, a glance in the mirror shows the big black SUV that Harkness drove last night coming round the corner. Talk about cutting it close.

He turns off the quiet road within a mile, heading for the hospital. His shirt is sticking to him under the jacket and he can smell blood and sheep-shit. The skin across the back of his neck is itching as the source of the smell dries on him. He only has one more change of clothes other than his suits, but he cannnot bear to remain in the stinking clothes. And besides which, he cannot hang around the Bay looking like a horror film extra.

As he leaves the shed where the bike is kept, the comm intercept bursts into life once more.

“Suzie?” It’s Harper again. “We found it - some bit of tech. Tosh is running prelimnary checks now. No witnesses. We’re on our way back.”

“Fine. Jack’s on his way back as well. Apparently the mammoth turned out to be a Newfoundland.”

“You what?”

“Some dog-breeder in Barry is trying to beat the world record for the size of their Newfoundlands. And the witness was drunk.”

“How fucking drunk does someone have to be to mistake a dog for a bleedin’ mammoth?”

“However that may be, he’s on his way back.”

Dismissing the whole mammoth affair from his mind, Ianto leaves the bike outside the hospital and walks through the main door. Within seconds, he feels his heart-rate pick up and he speeds up along the corridor. Keith’s job during the day is to keep an eye on Lisa’s readouts and to keep scanning the newly installed CCTV monitors for uninvited guests. Usually when Ianto arrives back earlier or later than expected, Keith will meet him as he did last night but now there is nothing - no Keith appearing from the ward, no voice shouting a query about his early return.

With every step, Ianto’s fear increases. He knew Keith was wavering and he left her with him. He put her in danger. Oh God, he should have spotted me by now, should have called or come out. Where the hell is he? What has he done?

He breaks into an outright run and goes through the ward door at full speed. As the door slams open, he’s sure he’s about to find at least one body - either Lisa’s, in which case Keith’s death is as inevitable as the next sunrise, or Keith’s own corpse, in which case he will find Lisa wherever she has been taken, no matter by who.

Instead, the first thing he sees is Lisa lying in repose within the life-support system, her eyes closed as the respirator cuts time into tiny pieces. The second thing he sees is Keith startling up from the metal chair. The look of utter confusion on the man’s face tells its own story. Keith blinks at Ianto for a few seconds as the Welshman stalks across the ward towards him, and Ianto is half-way to him before Keith’s eyes widen as he takes in Ianto’s appearance.

“What the…” Keith starts to say. Anger, worry, stress, tension, relief and fear all combine and it seems like an echo of his earlier memory when he throws the punch that sends Keith reeling back.

“You bastard,” he snarls. He steps forward and the second punch drives Keith to the floor. “You fucking bastard, you were asleep! You’re supposed to be looking after her and you were asleep, you lazy shit! Don’t try and deny it.” He’s above Keith now and he reaches down and grabs a handful of the close-cropped hair and drags Keith up to his knees. His fist draws back and he glares down into Keith’s face as he pulls the other man’s head up and back. The smaller man's face is twisted with pain and he lifts both hands to Ianto’s wrist, trying to pull free. For a moment, there is a savage satisfaction in being the one causing the pain instead of being the recipient, then -

Dragged by the hair to his knees and held in place, blow after blow raining down from above until his mouth is full of the coppery taste of blood and he can’t see through the haze of pain…

He lets go of Keith’s hair as though scalded, staggering backwards with one hand over his mouth as he shuts his eyes, fighting the renewed nausea that threatens to overwhelm him. Oh God, what is he becoming? The Cybermen and Oliver between them are turning him into the sort of monster he spent the second half of his childhood swearing that he would never be. If The Bitch could see him now, it would be the proof of every comment about ‘bad blood’ that she ever threw at him. What would Andy say if he saw this? What look would he see on Mary’s face? On Gethin’s? He doesn’t even let himself think of Mam and Tad because they refused to believe he would ever disappoint them, even when he did.

He opens his eyes slowly, dreading what he will see, almost convinced that Lisa will have woken despite her drugged state and will be looking at him in horror as she sees who is the more monstrous of the two of them. Instead he sees Keith backing away slowly with one hand cupped to his jaw, staring at Ianto like he’s never seen him before. Their eyes meet for a second and when Keith speaks, it’s in a tone Ianto has never heard from him before. With a sickening lurch, he recognises it as the way he used to speak to Oliver when the other man came home looking for a reason to hand out a beating - cautious, placatory. Judging the impact of every word and seeking to find the phrase that will forestall the violence. Not that it ever worked.

“She’s all right, Ianto. She’s fine. You….erm…you look like the morning didn’t go as planned?”

It’s the first time he’s used Ianto’s name in eight weeks and Ianto closes his eyes again briefly, turning his head down and away; he cannot bring himself to meet Keith’s eyes for a second longer. After this, he wouldn’t blame the man for deciding that he is the bigger danger, not Lisa.

“No. It….didn’t. I….I need to clean up.” He turns and starts to walk away and then stops and looks over his shoulder. “Keith? For what it’s worth - I’m sorry. My fault, it was my fault. I had no right to…It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.” He walks away before Keith can reply, wondering if the man has any idea why Ianto has just reiterated where the blame for his attack lies when any normal person would consider it obvious.

He’d heard “I’m sorry” from Oliver so many times in those first few months. Of course, the apologies stopped before long, but even when he had heard them, they were always tempered with the apportioning of fault, the placing of blame. The denial of guilt. “I’m sorry, but: ‘rough day at work’; ‘traffic was bad’; ‘I’ve got a headache’; ‘It was the last straw’”. Those were the ‘reasons’ in the first few weeks. After that, it rapidly became Ianto’s ‘fault’, and soon the ‘I’m sorry’ stopped as well and it was only: ‘You answered me back’; ‘You didn’t listen’; ‘You didn’t do what I told you’. By the end, Ianto had come to believe it himself. Battered, abused, terrified and occasionally drugged into compliance, he’d given up. Until that last night.

Continued in Part C: http://criccieth.livejournal.com/4528.html