OMG TORCHWOOD FIC
Title: IANTO GETS SHOT
Author:
entropy_comix
Pairing: Ianto/Bullet
Spoilers: MOST DEPRESSING EPISODE OF TORCHWOOD EVER PARTIALLY RECREATED HEREIN
Summary: Ianto gets shot in Exit Wounds.
Written for
spoggly, who feels that Torchwood does not inflict enough harm on Ianto.
Gwen's gaze never wavered from Captain Hart's face, the tip of her gun just barely shaking with the rage reverberating through her whole body.
“It can't be-that ring was guaranteed for 5 millennium, through three ecological climate layers.” Hart's obstinate tone was tinged with fear. “It stops broadcasting-we'll never find him. He'll be buried...forever.”
For a moment, the sudden, deafening, electronic shriek coming over her ear piece sent every single reading on Tosh's hand-held monitor right off the screen.
And then she was running.
“Owen, Gwen can you hear me?” Ianto pressed himself up against the wall in the alleyway. Tosh was beside him gasping. This was more than a jailbreak; this was an army. Tosh had a pheromone monitor in the hub indicating there was somewhere between 250 and 400 Weevils in the city of Cardiff at any given time, but she had certainly never intended that they should all be this close to her at the same damn time.
“The streets are flooded with Weevils. They came out of nowhere. There's no chance we'll get to the nuclear power station in time.”
Something about the way Ianto said 'in time' made Tosh wonder if he actually thought combating their a small army of razor-toothed killing machines was a plausible plan. This was a nuclear meltdown; if they could teleport they still might not even get there in time.
The King of the Weevils headed towards the plant, and Tosh and Ianto raced back to base.
000
“You got a real pest problem around here,” remarked Hart, as the two advancing Weevils managed to successfully cut Gwen off from her gun. She tensed, backing away until she and Hart were back to back...
A succession of bangs brought both Weevils down. They emitted gurgling moans of disapproval as they sank to the floor. Gwen's head snapped towards the noise.
“God, I am so pleased to see you,” she breathed. Ianto strode forward without looking at her, eyes boring into Hart, and raised his gun. Gwen and Hart both began yelling at the same time, though Gwen managed to quickly snake her arm around Ianto's and push the gun towards the floor.
“Don't start, I'll make things right, Eye Candy.” Hart curled and uncurled a defensive hand before dropping it. Not that an out-turned palm afforded great protection against bullets fired by jealous lovers. Hart sneered at him, and moved on Tosh's command.
“Get those Weevil's into the cells before they can recover.” She began tapping keys on several of the keyboards suspended in her workstation. “It takes more than a bullet to stop them.” Hart and Gwen had already hefted the prone aliens, and began to drag them away. Ianto was empty handed, staring at Hart's retreating back as though he were contemplating whether he should tackle him or simply shoot him.
“Ianto, come here and boot up this grid monitor.” Tosh pointed to the cluster of monitors to her right, without looking away from what she was doing. “I can't do every bloody thing myself,” she muttered. Ianto threw one last hateful look at Hart before acquiescing.
“Owen,” Tosh spoke slowly into her comm. “I don't want you to panic, but the reactor has already reached a critical point.”
“Right,” said Owen. His voice was an empty calm. “So if it goes into meltdown I'm right here in the eye of the storm. Can you fix it?”
She raced through a series of schematics on her screen, faster than Ianto could follow, and her face lit up. “Of course I can,” she said enthusiastically. “I'm brilliant.”
“I'm going to try to divert power from an auxiliary source, back to terminal. If that works--” She looked around. “I'll talk you through returning the cooling system.” She reached over and flipped a switch on another monitor. “Ianto get me the portable tracer and put the input into this machine-and tell me if the base level on the grid goes above 400.”
Ianto moved quickly to the table and lifted up the glowing device. Tosh had managed to condense a large number of her monitoring programs into one small portable computer, meaning that she had sacrificed a great deal of reading comprehensibility for diversified quantity. Ianto understood some of it. Most of it. OK, it was mostly gibberish to everyone but Tosh.
“Here. 398,” warned Ianto. “What happens if it gets above 400?”
“Potentially nothing,” Tosh tipped her head, eyes flitting between screens. “Potentially a power s--”
She was interrupted by a single gunshot. They sounded so strange in the Hub, Ianto thought. All that echoing, high ceilings and concrete. Something lanced through Ianto's chest; Tosh screamed.
He looked down. It was such a small hole, really, but it felt like a bomb had exploded in his chest. Blood was blossoming rapidly around it, and the fabric of his shirt drinking it into an ever growing circle. He fell to his knees as Grey advanced on him. The curiosity on his face looked almost innocent.
Ianto felt Tosh's hands on the back of his jacket, and as his knees gave way he found himself on his back, his head on her lap.
“Where--” Ianto gasped. Talking hurt, god, everything hurt. He felt frantic and paralyzed at the same time. Warm blood was dripping down his stomach, curving around to his back in long, sticky channels. “Where's Jack?”
“Hell,” Grey responded nonchalantly. Ianto could hear Owen's voice in his ear piece, screaming Tosh's name. Grey reached forward with a pale, careful hand. So much like Jack's, strong and graceful at the same time. “Does it bother you that you'll never see him again, in this life or any other?” He fingertips touched Ianto's shirt. “Tell me what does it feel like? Are you sad? Are you relieved?”
Ianto could feel Tosh's hands snaking into the hostler in his coat. He thought Grey might notice, but he was enamored. He lifted his hand to examine his crimson stained fingertips with child-like fascination.
BANG.
The spell was broken. Grey's head snapped up; he looked around the Hub with narrowed eyes.
“What was that?” he demanded, glaring at Tosh.
“I-don't know,” Tosh's voice was shaking, but he felt tension as his gun inched forward out of it's holster. Ianto could see white clouding in on the edge of his vision. He tried to take a deep breath, but breathing hurt, so he shut his eyes and tried to say Tosh's name, but nothing came out.
BANG. BANG.
Grey stood up and pointed his gun at Tosh's heart. “I'll be right back,” he said, clicking back the safety on his gun. “I want you to tell me what it feels like.”
BANG.
Ianto's pistol went off in Tosh's raised, bloodstained hand. Grey threw himself backwards and ran as Tosh fired off several more shots. He disappeared into the morgue.
Tosh was crying, and cursing under her breath. She snatched the hand held monitor from the floor and disappeared for a moment. Ianto was alone on the floor, which was much, much colder than he remembered, from the occasions he had lain on it in Jack's office. He could hear the machines beeping rapidly.
“Here we go!” Owen's voice again, this time frantic with excitement. “You've done it, Tosh! We've got power!”
Ianto felt something press up against his chest. He opened his eyes and saw that Tosh had returned, she was kneeling above him, holding a handful of gauze to his wound.
“Tosh, are you OK? What happened?”
“Grey shot Ianto, I'm trying to keep pressure on it, but I-oh god, no--”
“There's pain meds in--”
“I know-Owen,” her voice was breaking. “There's no way to stop the meltdown. It's too far gone.”
“Ok, that is not good is it? Come on, Tosh. There's got to be something; there's always something.”
“I can seal the building, contain the meltdown-” Tosh was reaching for a keyboard, trying to keep pressure on Ianto's wound at the same time, and struggling. “But the fuel is going to vent into the containment chamber, where you are now.”
“So what do I do--”
“I'll tell you, just listen-I think there might be a power surge coming-you need to get out of there as soon as you program the fuel redirection. I can channel the power else where, buy you a few more minutes, but--” She reached for the far keyboard, the machine Ianto had stood in front of earlier, and cursed under her breath. She looked at down at him, eyes tearful, and their gazes met.
Ianto reached a hand up, and closed it around the blood-soaked gauze. He couldn't seem to close his fist all the way, so he gently set his hand on Tosh's.
“Help him,” Ianto managed. There were knives in his chest, he was sure of it.
“But--” Oh christ. Was she really going to argue? He didn't think he could manage an entire fucking conversation.
“Quickly.” He rasped, and coughed. There was blood on his tongue, salty and metallic and choking him with ever increasing speed. He felt that if he could just take a deep breath he might be ok but he felt like there was a car parked on his chest. Tosh squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a moment.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered.
Tosh stood up, whirled around and descended upon the computers in a flurry of movement. “Owen I'm opening up the system protocol. I need you to enter the time frame and then get the hell out of there. I'll buy you some time before the lock down.”
“The what?” replied Owen, obviously displeased. He sounded tired. Strange, for someone who didn't need to sleep anymore.
“Shut your mouth and listen,” snapped Tosh. “The protocols are all listed under the header marked 'mainframe,' do you see it?”
Ianto closed his eyes. Tosh and Owen were talking, and then something was electronic was shrieking, and then suddenly everything was silent.
000
When he woke up Jack was standing over him, and the world was still there.
“What happened?” Ianto demanded. His voice was weaker than he expected to hear--his throat felt stiff.
“You got shot,” said Jack. Jack was holding his hand, a little tighter than was comfortable but Ianto couldn't imagine wanting him to let go.
“That part I remember, funny enough,” said Ianto. “Grey?”
“He's gone.” Jack's face took on a very specific look when it was unwise to press an issue, and Ianto knew it well. Sometimes, he pressed him anyway. This time, though, Jack mostly just looked hurt.
“A hospital, huh?” said Ianto, checking out his surroundings. “Should I feel special?”
“Owen said that he got back just in time,” said Jack. “You should feel lucky.”
“I already do,” said Ianto softly. Jack bent forward and gave him a kiss on the forehead.
“Tosh wants to see you.” Jack's lips lingered near his head. He leaned back and smoothed Ianto's hair down with his hand, then walked over the to door. “Actually, everyone wants to see you, but I think Tosh wants to personally apologize for almost letting you bleed to death.”
Ianto would have shrugged if he could, but he was so bound up in bandages that he found it difficult to move any parts of his body independently. “She did what she had to do. I would have forgiven her.”
“Even if it killed you?” Jack looked away for a moment, running his fingertips down the door frame.
“Of course.” Ianto smiled. “Could be the morphine talking though.”
Jack let out a small chuckle. He looked as though it had been a long time since he laughed. Thousands of years, maybe.
“Get some rest,” Jack ordered, and shut the door gently behind him.
Author:
entropy_comix
Pairing: Ianto/Bullet
Spoilers: MOST DEPRESSING EPISODE OF TORCHWOOD EVER PARTIALLY RECREATED HEREIN
Summary: Ianto gets shot in Exit Wounds.
Written for
spoggly, who feels that Torchwood does not inflict enough harm on Ianto.
Gwen's gaze never wavered from Captain Hart's face, the tip of her gun just barely shaking with the rage reverberating through her whole body.
“It can't be-that ring was guaranteed for 5 millennium, through three ecological climate layers.” Hart's obstinate tone was tinged with fear. “It stops broadcasting-we'll never find him. He'll be buried...forever.”
For a moment, the sudden, deafening, electronic shriek coming over her ear piece sent every single reading on Tosh's hand-held monitor right off the screen.
And then she was running.
“Owen, Gwen can you hear me?” Ianto pressed himself up against the wall in the alleyway. Tosh was beside him gasping. This was more than a jailbreak; this was an army. Tosh had a pheromone monitor in the hub indicating there was somewhere between 250 and 400 Weevils in the city of Cardiff at any given time, but she had certainly never intended that they should all be this close to her at the same damn time.
“The streets are flooded with Weevils. They came out of nowhere. There's no chance we'll get to the nuclear power station in time.”
Something about the way Ianto said 'in time' made Tosh wonder if he actually thought combating their a small army of razor-toothed killing machines was a plausible plan. This was a nuclear meltdown; if they could teleport they still might not even get there in time.
The King of the Weevils headed towards the plant, and Tosh and Ianto raced back to base.
000
“You got a real pest problem around here,” remarked Hart, as the two advancing Weevils managed to successfully cut Gwen off from her gun. She tensed, backing away until she and Hart were back to back...
A succession of bangs brought both Weevils down. They emitted gurgling moans of disapproval as they sank to the floor. Gwen's head snapped towards the noise.
“God, I am so pleased to see you,” she breathed. Ianto strode forward without looking at her, eyes boring into Hart, and raised his gun. Gwen and Hart both began yelling at the same time, though Gwen managed to quickly snake her arm around Ianto's and push the gun towards the floor.
“Don't start, I'll make things right, Eye Candy.” Hart curled and uncurled a defensive hand before dropping it. Not that an out-turned palm afforded great protection against bullets fired by jealous lovers. Hart sneered at him, and moved on Tosh's command.
“Get those Weevil's into the cells before they can recover.” She began tapping keys on several of the keyboards suspended in her workstation. “It takes more than a bullet to stop them.” Hart and Gwen had already hefted the prone aliens, and began to drag them away. Ianto was empty handed, staring at Hart's retreating back as though he were contemplating whether he should tackle him or simply shoot him.
“Ianto, come here and boot up this grid monitor.” Tosh pointed to the cluster of monitors to her right, without looking away from what she was doing. “I can't do every bloody thing myself,” she muttered. Ianto threw one last hateful look at Hart before acquiescing.
“Owen,” Tosh spoke slowly into her comm. “I don't want you to panic, but the reactor has already reached a critical point.”
“Right,” said Owen. His voice was an empty calm. “So if it goes into meltdown I'm right here in the eye of the storm. Can you fix it?”
She raced through a series of schematics on her screen, faster than Ianto could follow, and her face lit up. “Of course I can,” she said enthusiastically. “I'm brilliant.”
“I'm going to try to divert power from an auxiliary source, back to terminal. If that works--” She looked around. “I'll talk you through returning the cooling system.” She reached over and flipped a switch on another monitor. “Ianto get me the portable tracer and put the input into this machine-and tell me if the base level on the grid goes above 400.”
Ianto moved quickly to the table and lifted up the glowing device. Tosh had managed to condense a large number of her monitoring programs into one small portable computer, meaning that she had sacrificed a great deal of reading comprehensibility for diversified quantity. Ianto understood some of it. Most of it. OK, it was mostly gibberish to everyone but Tosh.
“Here. 398,” warned Ianto. “What happens if it gets above 400?”
“Potentially nothing,” Tosh tipped her head, eyes flitting between screens. “Potentially a power s--”
She was interrupted by a single gunshot. They sounded so strange in the Hub, Ianto thought. All that echoing, high ceilings and concrete. Something lanced through Ianto's chest; Tosh screamed.
He looked down. It was such a small hole, really, but it felt like a bomb had exploded in his chest. Blood was blossoming rapidly around it, and the fabric of his shirt drinking it into an ever growing circle. He fell to his knees as Grey advanced on him. The curiosity on his face looked almost innocent.
Ianto felt Tosh's hands on the back of his jacket, and as his knees gave way he found himself on his back, his head on her lap.
“Where--” Ianto gasped. Talking hurt, god, everything hurt. He felt frantic and paralyzed at the same time. Warm blood was dripping down his stomach, curving around to his back in long, sticky channels. “Where's Jack?”
“Hell,” Grey responded nonchalantly. Ianto could hear Owen's voice in his ear piece, screaming Tosh's name. Grey reached forward with a pale, careful hand. So much like Jack's, strong and graceful at the same time. “Does it bother you that you'll never see him again, in this life or any other?” He fingertips touched Ianto's shirt. “Tell me what does it feel like? Are you sad? Are you relieved?”
Ianto could feel Tosh's hands snaking into the hostler in his coat. He thought Grey might notice, but he was enamored. He lifted his hand to examine his crimson stained fingertips with child-like fascination.
BANG.
The spell was broken. Grey's head snapped up; he looked around the Hub with narrowed eyes.
“What was that?” he demanded, glaring at Tosh.
“I-don't know,” Tosh's voice was shaking, but he felt tension as his gun inched forward out of it's holster. Ianto could see white clouding in on the edge of his vision. He tried to take a deep breath, but breathing hurt, so he shut his eyes and tried to say Tosh's name, but nothing came out.
BANG. BANG.
Grey stood up and pointed his gun at Tosh's heart. “I'll be right back,” he said, clicking back the safety on his gun. “I want you to tell me what it feels like.”
BANG.
Ianto's pistol went off in Tosh's raised, bloodstained hand. Grey threw himself backwards and ran as Tosh fired off several more shots. He disappeared into the morgue.
Tosh was crying, and cursing under her breath. She snatched the hand held monitor from the floor and disappeared for a moment. Ianto was alone on the floor, which was much, much colder than he remembered, from the occasions he had lain on it in Jack's office. He could hear the machines beeping rapidly.
“Here we go!” Owen's voice again, this time frantic with excitement. “You've done it, Tosh! We've got power!”
Ianto felt something press up against his chest. He opened his eyes and saw that Tosh had returned, she was kneeling above him, holding a handful of gauze to his wound.
“Tosh, are you OK? What happened?”
“Grey shot Ianto, I'm trying to keep pressure on it, but I-oh god, no--”
“There's pain meds in--”
“I know-Owen,” her voice was breaking. “There's no way to stop the meltdown. It's too far gone.”
“Ok, that is not good is it? Come on, Tosh. There's got to be something; there's always something.”
“I can seal the building, contain the meltdown-” Tosh was reaching for a keyboard, trying to keep pressure on Ianto's wound at the same time, and struggling. “But the fuel is going to vent into the containment chamber, where you are now.”
“So what do I do--”
“I'll tell you, just listen-I think there might be a power surge coming-you need to get out of there as soon as you program the fuel redirection. I can channel the power else where, buy you a few more minutes, but--” She reached for the far keyboard, the machine Ianto had stood in front of earlier, and cursed under her breath. She looked at down at him, eyes tearful, and their gazes met.
Ianto reached a hand up, and closed it around the blood-soaked gauze. He couldn't seem to close his fist all the way, so he gently set his hand on Tosh's.
“Help him,” Ianto managed. There were knives in his chest, he was sure of it.
“But--” Oh christ. Was she really going to argue? He didn't think he could manage an entire fucking conversation.
“Quickly.” He rasped, and coughed. There was blood on his tongue, salty and metallic and choking him with ever increasing speed. He felt that if he could just take a deep breath he might be ok but he felt like there was a car parked on his chest. Tosh squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a moment.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered.
Tosh stood up, whirled around and descended upon the computers in a flurry of movement. “Owen I'm opening up the system protocol. I need you to enter the time frame and then get the hell out of there. I'll buy you some time before the lock down.”
“The what?” replied Owen, obviously displeased. He sounded tired. Strange, for someone who didn't need to sleep anymore.
“Shut your mouth and listen,” snapped Tosh. “The protocols are all listed under the header marked 'mainframe,' do you see it?”
Ianto closed his eyes. Tosh and Owen were talking, and then something was electronic was shrieking, and then suddenly everything was silent.
000
When he woke up Jack was standing over him, and the world was still there.
“What happened?” Ianto demanded. His voice was weaker than he expected to hear--his throat felt stiff.
“You got shot,” said Jack. Jack was holding his hand, a little tighter than was comfortable but Ianto couldn't imagine wanting him to let go.
“That part I remember, funny enough,” said Ianto. “Grey?”
“He's gone.” Jack's face took on a very specific look when it was unwise to press an issue, and Ianto knew it well. Sometimes, he pressed him anyway. This time, though, Jack mostly just looked hurt.
“A hospital, huh?” said Ianto, checking out his surroundings. “Should I feel special?”
“Owen said that he got back just in time,” said Jack. “You should feel lucky.”
“I already do,” said Ianto softly. Jack bent forward and gave him a kiss on the forehead.
“Tosh wants to see you.” Jack's lips lingered near his head. He leaned back and smoothed Ianto's hair down with his hand, then walked over the to door. “Actually, everyone wants to see you, but I think Tosh wants to personally apologize for almost letting you bleed to death.”
Ianto would have shrugged if he could, but he was so bound up in bandages that he found it difficult to move any parts of his body independently. “She did what she had to do. I would have forgiven her.”
“Even if it killed you?” Jack looked away for a moment, running his fingertips down the door frame.
“Of course.” Ianto smiled. “Could be the morphine talking though.”
Jack let out a small chuckle. He looked as though it had been a long time since he laughed. Thousands of years, maybe.
“Get some rest,” Jack ordered, and shut the door gently behind him.