Repressed 5/6
Summery: Ianto wakes up one morning to discover he's missing 3 months of memories.
Warnings: implied non-con, implied violence, may trigger.
Disclaimer: Torchwood is not mine.
Comments: Its not over yet! This chapter has exciting plants in it. Plants that like fish heads.
Peanut butter and fish heads
The following day Ianto had an extra spring in his step. He was beating this. He could feel it. He was almost back to normal. All he had to do was fight a little longer and he could put the whole thing behind him. He fixed everyone’s coffee to the usual specifications and arranged them all on his silver platter before making his way up to the conference room where they would discuss the day's events. He was just in time to see Owen slipping into the room with a frustrated look on his face. Ianto slowed down and made his foot falls quiet as he approached, keeping him self out of site. Jack was already in the conference room, and Ianto had a feeling he knew exactly what the two of them were talking about.
“Jack he's not ready,” Owen was saying.
“He'll be fine,” Jack said, “He's only going to go on really easy missions.”
“Jack, don't you remember what happened at the pub?”
“That was weeks ago. He's doing a lot better now. Besides, I'm not going to send him into any pubs.”
“Jack, people are harder to deal with than hammers.”
“Owen, what he needs right now is to rebuild his confidence. That is not going to happen with him cooped up in the hub.”
“Fine, but if he has a panic attack, or a flash back while we're all being eaten by weevils, don't come crying to me.”
“Don't worry Owen, I'll keep and eye on him.”
“You'd better.”
Sharp clicking foot falls indicated the approach of Tosh and Ianto drew himself up from his place against the wall. “Morning Tosh,” he said, with a smile as she came down the stairs.
“Morning Ianto,” she replied, plucking her mug off the tray. “Thank you.”
He followed her in and set Owen and Jack's mugs in front of them before taking his own seat at the table. Gwen followed shortly and Jack began to talk. He found the perfect opp to get Ianto started on. Small pets were disappearing in a local park. A kids league foot ball coach made a call to the park service swearing up and down he saw a Venus fly trap the size of a light post gobbling up squirrels. Ianto and Gwen were to do some research to determine what this plant might be, then go to the park and get it. The coach would be meeting them after lunch. Jack, Tosh and Owen were taking the SUV to Splott to deal with a blow fish who was trying to build a meth lab in the basement of an apartment building.
Seemed simple enough.
Ianto found about half a dozen possibilities in the archives. Satisfied with this he packed the weevil spray, a bucket of fish heads, two axes, a tranquilizer gun, and a bottle of ret-con into his car. Next he and Gwen popped off to Tescos for a gallon of peanut butter before heading off to the park.
It was on the edge of town, backed up against open space. There were a couple of foot ball fields and a few paved paths for joggers going into the forest. The coach was waiting for them in the parking lot. He was a gruff barrel chested man in a rugby shirt and track shorts with calf muscles the size of melons. He met them with a smile and a hand shake and insisted they call him Tom. Ianto immediately didn't like him. He was the kind of man who got into your personal space to talk about the latest foot ball match. The kind of man who sized other men up based on the firmness of their hand shake. Much to his relief Gwen seemed to sense this and took over the conversation right away.
“So you lot are from Torchwood, for real?”
“Yes, we are really from Torchwood,” Gwen said.
“I've heard all kinds of crazy stories about you lot,” he said. “Are you special opps, or what?”
“Something like that,” Gwen said.
“Wow, that must be really exciting.” he was almost jumping up and down, “You lot carry guns?”
'Oh boy,' Ianto thought.
“On occasion,” Gwen said.
He was moving closer to Ianto now, clearly more interested in the testosterone side of the equation. “Boy am I glad you came. I didn't think anyone would believe me. But I tell you, if this doesn't get dealt with we'll all be in big trouble. Big trouble. I saw this thing eat an entire squirrel in one bite! An entire squirrel I tell you. Didn't even chew it, just gulped it down like a pill!”
Ianto tried to step away, but Tom just followed.
“So what sort of guns do you lot carry?”
“Really bloody big guns,” Ianto dead panned.
“Really, like fifty caliber hand guns?”
Ianto glanced over at Gwen and she smiled apologetically.
“I shot a 35 once,” Tom said, “heck of a kick that gun had. I'll bet you've shot all kinds of guns,” and he clapped Ianto on the back.
The rats in his gut leaped into action, racing to their battle stations, and squealing out a red alert. Tom's hand lingered on his shoulder.
“What is the biggest gun you ever shot? Ever shot a Gatling gun?”
It was coming. Ianto knew it was coming. He could feel it burning in his chest like a spitting furnace about to flair out of control. He faked a yawn. “Early morning,” he said, “Anyone fancy a coffee? I think I saw a shop across the street.”
“Nancy's Coffee Shack,” Tom chirped. “They make a pretty decent mocha frappacino.”
“Why don't you and Officer Cooper go take a look at that plant, and I'll run and fetch us some caffeine”
“Sounds like an excellent idea,” Gwen said.
Ianto nodded, trying to hide the tremor as the rats marched around in circles and the furnace bulged ready to burst in his chest. He headed back to the parking lot at a brusque pace, struggling to control his breathing. There was a restroom near the end of the path and he ducked in, locking himself into a stall before collapsing on the toilet and hanging his head between his knees. His breath came in shallow ragged pants.
He fingered the small jar in his pocket. If he took a sedative he would have to go home. Company policy. He wasn't going to break that rule. If he had to go home on his first field mission he was sure he would be confined to the hub for another couple months. This was just a hiccup. Just a small panic attack. He wasn't huddled in the corner. All he had to do was catch his breath. He did this plenty of times after Lisa's death.
Once his breathing settled back into a normal rhythm, he slumped back against the plumbing for a few moments and struggled to muster up the strength to get back on his feet. Every muscle in his body felt drained. His head was starting to pound. Caffeine would help that. He forced himself to move. He gave himself a couple of minutes in front of the cracked mirror to straighten out his suit and hair, pulling together the iron mask he would wear for the rest of the day. Then he force his posture straight and washed his hands before forcing himself to walk out the door as if there were nothing wrong.
He took a few more moments to push his anxiety into a steel lock box while he waited for his order to be filled at the coffee shop. He rewound Gwen's reaction to his sudden need for coffee in his head. She didn't seem worried, did she? No, just the opposite in fact. She seemed just as eager for the stuff as he was. Which was odd since he made her a cup an hour before they left.
“Here, you go sweet heart,” the lady behind the counter set a card board carrier with all their drinks down in front of him.
He made it half way across the parking lot before ret-con occurred to him. No wander Gwen thought coffee was an excellent idea. He stopped at a picnic table to open up the cup labeled 'mocha frappachino' and slip a pill inside.
The plants were amazing. They reached up to the sky almost as tall as the trees searching for birds and squirrels to snag with their deep red fang filled jaws. Their long slender leaves curled against their stocks like ribbons on a present. They matched one of the files Ianto found perfectly.
Ianto told Tom he could help them take the plants down. Tom grinned from ear to ear and took a deep gulp of his coffee. “Great!” he said.
“I have some hatchets in the car,” Ianto said, and started down the path before Tom could clap him on the shoulder again.
“This is gonna be great! Just wait until I tell the wife about this! Boy, you lot are really something!”
Tom was starting to weave by the time they made it back to the parking lot.
“Lets get you back to your car,” Gwen was saying as she took him by the arm to steady him.
Ianto opened the trunk of his Audi and retrieved the bucket of fish heads and the gallon of peanut butter while she got Tom into his vehicle.
“Good call on the coffee,” She said, taking the peanut butter as they made their way back up the path. “Some blokes just turn back into five year olds at the slightest provocation. So I was thinking, if we put the fish heads on the ends of long sticks and wave them up in the air, we might have better luck.”
A few days later a lady by the name of Linda Prickett found her poodle chewing on a glowing blue rod about the size of a baguette. She thought it might be radio active and called the police.
“Its not a sex toy,” Jack said as he drove himself and Ianto to her estate.
“I'm sure you'd find a way to use it as one,” Ianto said.
“Hmmm,” Jack started to seriously think about this.
“But not on me.”
“Awe, you're no fun Ianto.”
Linda was a nice old lady. She had vintage Beatles posters framed on her walls and an impressive collection of records Ianto very much wanted to flip through. She insisted on making them a cup of tea and Ianto found himself seated in her kitchen crowded with decades of knickknacks painted by children and grand children while she talked about what a scandal it was for her to get a divorce from her worthless husband in the late seventies.
Jack flirted with her of course. Ianto always found it endearing that Jack could sincerely flirt with a woman in her seventies, and when she burst into peels of laughter at Jacks advances, Ianto couldn't help but smile.
The artifact was produced. She was keeping it safe in a cardboard box cradled in crumpled news paper. Ianto thought it really looked and awful lot like a sex toy, but he kept his thought to himself until Linda commented that she was sure it was her neighbor's dildo when Ringo (her poodle) first brought it home. After all, this had happened once before. Ianto found himself genuinely laughing for the first time in months as she told this story.
Ringo trotted in as the kettle began to boil and Linda decided she should introduce the dog to everyone while their tea steeped. Ianto never really liked dogs, but this one seemed well behaved enough, so he gave him a scratch behind the ears while Linda explained his penchant for finding odd things and bringing them home. “Ever since he was a puppy,” she said, fetching a bag of treats from the top of the refrigerator. Immediately the dog sat and perked it's ears up at attention. She pulled a treat out of the bag and held it above the dog's nose and Ringo lifted up on to his hind legs and pulled up his paws.
“Good boy,” she said as she feed the dog its treat.
“Beg. Beg like the bitch you are,” the gravely voice said in the back of Ianto's head. He found himself staring at the dog while the rats churned in his stomach. He had to think fast.
“Was there a paistery shop on the corner?” he asked, “Some paisteries would be perfect with this tea.”
“Oh, I'm sure I've got some biscuits or something,” Linda said, pulling open the pantry.
“Let me buy us some paisteries,” Ianto insisted, “Its the least we can do for all the help you've been. Its just on the corner.”
“Well, okay. That would be lovely,” Linda said, although she did seem to find the offer a bit awkward. Ianto didn't care. He needed to get out of the house and fast. That gravely voice was still echoing in the back of his head and he could feel thick nylon chafing around his throat.
He just barely had time to throw himself into the back of the SUV before the panic attack took him, and he curled up on the floor of the vehicle for several minutes waiting for it to pass while he dreaded what would happen if Jack came out to see if something was wrong.
But Jack did not follow him, and fifteen minutes later he was straightening out his hair in the reflection off the sneeze guard in the bakery and sliding that iron mask back into place while the man behind the counter put apple turnovers into a white paper sack.
“Bit of a line at the bakery,” he said upon his return.
“Linda was just telling me about a Beatles concert in Liver Pool she attended,” Jack said, catching his breath at the tail end of a bout of laughter.
They did not ret-con Linda, for which Ianto was quite grateful. The artifact was easily explained away as a new bit of government tech, and it was not radio active. “Picks up satellite signals,” Jack explained. “We've been missing it, thank you for your assistance in this matter.”
As they packed it up in the back of the SUV Jack said, “Its a non-lethal weapon. Sends out a burst that knocks everyone out with on a hundred yards. Leaves you with quite a headache.”
“Well its a good thing her neighbor didn't use it as a sex toy then,” Ianto said.
Jack smiled, and they got in the car. He started the engine. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” Ianto said, “Just needed some air.”
It was several weeks before Jack caught on the first time Ianto developed this habit after Lisa died. Ianto was sure he'd be over this before Jack caught on again.
He was sure of it. He was regaining more and more control everyday.
That evening a trip to Tesco's nearly ended in disaster when Ianto walked past the pet isle and smell of dog food set him off again. Luckily it was the middle of the night or someone would have walked into the men's room and heard him sobbing with frustration while he sat on the floor collapsed against a toilet bowl containing everything he managed to eat that day.
A few days later Owen strongly protested Jack's decision to take Ianto to the mall the check up on Sid. Sid was an alien stranded on earth a few years back who could approximate the appearance of a human well enough to live on his own. So long as he wore baggy cloths and a hat, he looked like a perfectly ordinary little person with a bit of a weight problem. He was always starting up new businesses in an attempt to continue his life as a merchant. His latest endeavor was a used book store in the mall. Jack and Ianto were going to try and talk him out of serving coffee in his book store. He just never could grasp the basics of human foods no matter how hard he tried.
“It's Wednesday morning, Owen. There will be maybe a dozen people in the whole mall, and I guarantee there will be no one in Sid's book store except for Sid.” Jack insisted.
“I will be find, Owen,” Ianto said. “I have been shopping for my self for months now. I think I can manage the mall on a quiet day so long as I avoid the pet store.”
“What's wrong with the pet store?” Gwen asked.
“It just smells wrong,” Ianto said. “I don't know why.” Which was a lie of course. He had a pretty good idea why he could no longer stand the smell of pet food. He knew exactly what the stuff taisted like.
Owen and Jack did not question this. Apparently they knew why too.
Sid's used book store was about what Ianto expected. Some what disorganized. Step stools everywhere. Shelves and shelves full of out dated computer manuals and self help books.
Owen milled around the work out section while Jack talked to Sid about human food.
Ianto wasn't sure what started his panic. The mall was about as crowded as Jack predicted. Only a few homemakers and teenagers milling around, and none of them were in Sid's book store. Maybe it was the store across the way displaying rainbow tu-tus on a headless mannequin. Or it could have been the smell of stale bread and drain cleaner that seemed to follow Sid everywhere he went. Ianto couldn't figure out what it was, but it was coming on quick.
“I'm going to get us some coffee,” he announced, and headed for the nearest public restroom.
The hardest part was getting back up when the panic attack was over. He felt like he was turned into jelly and everything ached. But he forced himself to do it. He forced himself to fix his appearance and fix his mask back into place because he was starting to believe he stuck like this, and if he were stuck like this he had to learn how to live with it. If he didn't he would be an invalid for the rest of his life living off disability and afraid to step out onto his own front porch. So he cleaned the sweat off his face with a damp paper towel and went out to find some coffee while he thought up an excuse for the time this was taking him.
Warnings: implied non-con, implied violence, may trigger.
Disclaimer: Torchwood is not mine.
Comments: Its not over yet! This chapter has exciting plants in it. Plants that like fish heads.
Peanut butter and fish heads
The following day Ianto had an extra spring in his step. He was beating this. He could feel it. He was almost back to normal. All he had to do was fight a little longer and he could put the whole thing behind him. He fixed everyone’s coffee to the usual specifications and arranged them all on his silver platter before making his way up to the conference room where they would discuss the day's events. He was just in time to see Owen slipping into the room with a frustrated look on his face. Ianto slowed down and made his foot falls quiet as he approached, keeping him self out of site. Jack was already in the conference room, and Ianto had a feeling he knew exactly what the two of them were talking about.
“Jack he's not ready,” Owen was saying.
“He'll be fine,” Jack said, “He's only going to go on really easy missions.”
“Jack, don't you remember what happened at the pub?”
“That was weeks ago. He's doing a lot better now. Besides, I'm not going to send him into any pubs.”
“Jack, people are harder to deal with than hammers.”
“Owen, what he needs right now is to rebuild his confidence. That is not going to happen with him cooped up in the hub.”
“Fine, but if he has a panic attack, or a flash back while we're all being eaten by weevils, don't come crying to me.”
“Don't worry Owen, I'll keep and eye on him.”
“You'd better.”
Sharp clicking foot falls indicated the approach of Tosh and Ianto drew himself up from his place against the wall. “Morning Tosh,” he said, with a smile as she came down the stairs.
“Morning Ianto,” she replied, plucking her mug off the tray. “Thank you.”
He followed her in and set Owen and Jack's mugs in front of them before taking his own seat at the table. Gwen followed shortly and Jack began to talk. He found the perfect opp to get Ianto started on. Small pets were disappearing in a local park. A kids league foot ball coach made a call to the park service swearing up and down he saw a Venus fly trap the size of a light post gobbling up squirrels. Ianto and Gwen were to do some research to determine what this plant might be, then go to the park and get it. The coach would be meeting them after lunch. Jack, Tosh and Owen were taking the SUV to Splott to deal with a blow fish who was trying to build a meth lab in the basement of an apartment building.
Seemed simple enough.
Ianto found about half a dozen possibilities in the archives. Satisfied with this he packed the weevil spray, a bucket of fish heads, two axes, a tranquilizer gun, and a bottle of ret-con into his car. Next he and Gwen popped off to Tescos for a gallon of peanut butter before heading off to the park.
It was on the edge of town, backed up against open space. There were a couple of foot ball fields and a few paved paths for joggers going into the forest. The coach was waiting for them in the parking lot. He was a gruff barrel chested man in a rugby shirt and track shorts with calf muscles the size of melons. He met them with a smile and a hand shake and insisted they call him Tom. Ianto immediately didn't like him. He was the kind of man who got into your personal space to talk about the latest foot ball match. The kind of man who sized other men up based on the firmness of their hand shake. Much to his relief Gwen seemed to sense this and took over the conversation right away.
“So you lot are from Torchwood, for real?”
“Yes, we are really from Torchwood,” Gwen said.
“I've heard all kinds of crazy stories about you lot,” he said. “Are you special opps, or what?”
“Something like that,” Gwen said.
“Wow, that must be really exciting.” he was almost jumping up and down, “You lot carry guns?”
'Oh boy,' Ianto thought.
“On occasion,” Gwen said.
He was moving closer to Ianto now, clearly more interested in the testosterone side of the equation. “Boy am I glad you came. I didn't think anyone would believe me. But I tell you, if this doesn't get dealt with we'll all be in big trouble. Big trouble. I saw this thing eat an entire squirrel in one bite! An entire squirrel I tell you. Didn't even chew it, just gulped it down like a pill!”
Ianto tried to step away, but Tom just followed.
“So what sort of guns do you lot carry?”
“Really bloody big guns,” Ianto dead panned.
“Really, like fifty caliber hand guns?”
Ianto glanced over at Gwen and she smiled apologetically.
“I shot a 35 once,” Tom said, “heck of a kick that gun had. I'll bet you've shot all kinds of guns,” and he clapped Ianto on the back.
The rats in his gut leaped into action, racing to their battle stations, and squealing out a red alert. Tom's hand lingered on his shoulder.
“What is the biggest gun you ever shot? Ever shot a Gatling gun?”
It was coming. Ianto knew it was coming. He could feel it burning in his chest like a spitting furnace about to flair out of control. He faked a yawn. “Early morning,” he said, “Anyone fancy a coffee? I think I saw a shop across the street.”
“Nancy's Coffee Shack,” Tom chirped. “They make a pretty decent mocha frappacino.”
“Why don't you and Officer Cooper go take a look at that plant, and I'll run and fetch us some caffeine”
“Sounds like an excellent idea,” Gwen said.
Ianto nodded, trying to hide the tremor as the rats marched around in circles and the furnace bulged ready to burst in his chest. He headed back to the parking lot at a brusque pace, struggling to control his breathing. There was a restroom near the end of the path and he ducked in, locking himself into a stall before collapsing on the toilet and hanging his head between his knees. His breath came in shallow ragged pants.
He fingered the small jar in his pocket. If he took a sedative he would have to go home. Company policy. He wasn't going to break that rule. If he had to go home on his first field mission he was sure he would be confined to the hub for another couple months. This was just a hiccup. Just a small panic attack. He wasn't huddled in the corner. All he had to do was catch his breath. He did this plenty of times after Lisa's death.
Once his breathing settled back into a normal rhythm, he slumped back against the plumbing for a few moments and struggled to muster up the strength to get back on his feet. Every muscle in his body felt drained. His head was starting to pound. Caffeine would help that. He forced himself to move. He gave himself a couple of minutes in front of the cracked mirror to straighten out his suit and hair, pulling together the iron mask he would wear for the rest of the day. Then he force his posture straight and washed his hands before forcing himself to walk out the door as if there were nothing wrong.
He took a few more moments to push his anxiety into a steel lock box while he waited for his order to be filled at the coffee shop. He rewound Gwen's reaction to his sudden need for coffee in his head. She didn't seem worried, did she? No, just the opposite in fact. She seemed just as eager for the stuff as he was. Which was odd since he made her a cup an hour before they left.
“Here, you go sweet heart,” the lady behind the counter set a card board carrier with all their drinks down in front of him.
He made it half way across the parking lot before ret-con occurred to him. No wander Gwen thought coffee was an excellent idea. He stopped at a picnic table to open up the cup labeled 'mocha frappachino' and slip a pill inside.
The plants were amazing. They reached up to the sky almost as tall as the trees searching for birds and squirrels to snag with their deep red fang filled jaws. Their long slender leaves curled against their stocks like ribbons on a present. They matched one of the files Ianto found perfectly.
Ianto told Tom he could help them take the plants down. Tom grinned from ear to ear and took a deep gulp of his coffee. “Great!” he said.
“I have some hatchets in the car,” Ianto said, and started down the path before Tom could clap him on the shoulder again.
“This is gonna be great! Just wait until I tell the wife about this! Boy, you lot are really something!”
Tom was starting to weave by the time they made it back to the parking lot.
“Lets get you back to your car,” Gwen was saying as she took him by the arm to steady him.
Ianto opened the trunk of his Audi and retrieved the bucket of fish heads and the gallon of peanut butter while she got Tom into his vehicle.
“Good call on the coffee,” She said, taking the peanut butter as they made their way back up the path. “Some blokes just turn back into five year olds at the slightest provocation. So I was thinking, if we put the fish heads on the ends of long sticks and wave them up in the air, we might have better luck.”
A few days later a lady by the name of Linda Prickett found her poodle chewing on a glowing blue rod about the size of a baguette. She thought it might be radio active and called the police.
“Its not a sex toy,” Jack said as he drove himself and Ianto to her estate.
“I'm sure you'd find a way to use it as one,” Ianto said.
“Hmmm,” Jack started to seriously think about this.
“But not on me.”
“Awe, you're no fun Ianto.”
Linda was a nice old lady. She had vintage Beatles posters framed on her walls and an impressive collection of records Ianto very much wanted to flip through. She insisted on making them a cup of tea and Ianto found himself seated in her kitchen crowded with decades of knickknacks painted by children and grand children while she talked about what a scandal it was for her to get a divorce from her worthless husband in the late seventies.
Jack flirted with her of course. Ianto always found it endearing that Jack could sincerely flirt with a woman in her seventies, and when she burst into peels of laughter at Jacks advances, Ianto couldn't help but smile.
The artifact was produced. She was keeping it safe in a cardboard box cradled in crumpled news paper. Ianto thought it really looked and awful lot like a sex toy, but he kept his thought to himself until Linda commented that she was sure it was her neighbor's dildo when Ringo (her poodle) first brought it home. After all, this had happened once before. Ianto found himself genuinely laughing for the first time in months as she told this story.
Ringo trotted in as the kettle began to boil and Linda decided she should introduce the dog to everyone while their tea steeped. Ianto never really liked dogs, but this one seemed well behaved enough, so he gave him a scratch behind the ears while Linda explained his penchant for finding odd things and bringing them home. “Ever since he was a puppy,” she said, fetching a bag of treats from the top of the refrigerator. Immediately the dog sat and perked it's ears up at attention. She pulled a treat out of the bag and held it above the dog's nose and Ringo lifted up on to his hind legs and pulled up his paws.
“Good boy,” she said as she feed the dog its treat.
“Beg. Beg like the bitch you are,” the gravely voice said in the back of Ianto's head. He found himself staring at the dog while the rats churned in his stomach. He had to think fast.
“Was there a paistery shop on the corner?” he asked, “Some paisteries would be perfect with this tea.”
“Oh, I'm sure I've got some biscuits or something,” Linda said, pulling open the pantry.
“Let me buy us some paisteries,” Ianto insisted, “Its the least we can do for all the help you've been. Its just on the corner.”
“Well, okay. That would be lovely,” Linda said, although she did seem to find the offer a bit awkward. Ianto didn't care. He needed to get out of the house and fast. That gravely voice was still echoing in the back of his head and he could feel thick nylon chafing around his throat.
He just barely had time to throw himself into the back of the SUV before the panic attack took him, and he curled up on the floor of the vehicle for several minutes waiting for it to pass while he dreaded what would happen if Jack came out to see if something was wrong.
But Jack did not follow him, and fifteen minutes later he was straightening out his hair in the reflection off the sneeze guard in the bakery and sliding that iron mask back into place while the man behind the counter put apple turnovers into a white paper sack.
“Bit of a line at the bakery,” he said upon his return.
“Linda was just telling me about a Beatles concert in Liver Pool she attended,” Jack said, catching his breath at the tail end of a bout of laughter.
They did not ret-con Linda, for which Ianto was quite grateful. The artifact was easily explained away as a new bit of government tech, and it was not radio active. “Picks up satellite signals,” Jack explained. “We've been missing it, thank you for your assistance in this matter.”
As they packed it up in the back of the SUV Jack said, “Its a non-lethal weapon. Sends out a burst that knocks everyone out with on a hundred yards. Leaves you with quite a headache.”
“Well its a good thing her neighbor didn't use it as a sex toy then,” Ianto said.
Jack smiled, and they got in the car. He started the engine. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” Ianto said, “Just needed some air.”
It was several weeks before Jack caught on the first time Ianto developed this habit after Lisa died. Ianto was sure he'd be over this before Jack caught on again.
He was sure of it. He was regaining more and more control everyday.
That evening a trip to Tesco's nearly ended in disaster when Ianto walked past the pet isle and smell of dog food set him off again. Luckily it was the middle of the night or someone would have walked into the men's room and heard him sobbing with frustration while he sat on the floor collapsed against a toilet bowl containing everything he managed to eat that day.
A few days later Owen strongly protested Jack's decision to take Ianto to the mall the check up on Sid. Sid was an alien stranded on earth a few years back who could approximate the appearance of a human well enough to live on his own. So long as he wore baggy cloths and a hat, he looked like a perfectly ordinary little person with a bit of a weight problem. He was always starting up new businesses in an attempt to continue his life as a merchant. His latest endeavor was a used book store in the mall. Jack and Ianto were going to try and talk him out of serving coffee in his book store. He just never could grasp the basics of human foods no matter how hard he tried.
“It's Wednesday morning, Owen. There will be maybe a dozen people in the whole mall, and I guarantee there will be no one in Sid's book store except for Sid.” Jack insisted.
“I will be find, Owen,” Ianto said. “I have been shopping for my self for months now. I think I can manage the mall on a quiet day so long as I avoid the pet store.”
“What's wrong with the pet store?” Gwen asked.
“It just smells wrong,” Ianto said. “I don't know why.” Which was a lie of course. He had a pretty good idea why he could no longer stand the smell of pet food. He knew exactly what the stuff taisted like.
Owen and Jack did not question this. Apparently they knew why too.
Sid's used book store was about what Ianto expected. Some what disorganized. Step stools everywhere. Shelves and shelves full of out dated computer manuals and self help books.
Owen milled around the work out section while Jack talked to Sid about human food.
Ianto wasn't sure what started his panic. The mall was about as crowded as Jack predicted. Only a few homemakers and teenagers milling around, and none of them were in Sid's book store. Maybe it was the store across the way displaying rainbow tu-tus on a headless mannequin. Or it could have been the smell of stale bread and drain cleaner that seemed to follow Sid everywhere he went. Ianto couldn't figure out what it was, but it was coming on quick.
“I'm going to get us some coffee,” he announced, and headed for the nearest public restroom.
The hardest part was getting back up when the panic attack was over. He felt like he was turned into jelly and everything ached. But he forced himself to do it. He forced himself to fix his appearance and fix his mask back into place because he was starting to believe he stuck like this, and if he were stuck like this he had to learn how to live with it. If he didn't he would be an invalid for the rest of his life living off disability and afraid to step out onto his own front porch. So he cleaned the sweat off his face with a damp paper towel and went out to find some coffee while he thought up an excuse for the time this was taking him.