Choices - Chapter 21 Part 1
Title: Choices
Chapter 21 - Into the Fire 1/3
Pairing(s)/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Owen, Tosh, John, OCs
Rating: NC17 (overall)
Warnings: supernatural themes, violence, m/m pairing
A/N :Here's the next part sooner than planned - just because. This is a pretty full on chapter (3 parts) and there’s a bit of a climax on its way. A couple more players are about to enter the fold. What will this mean for Jack and Ianto?
21 - Into the Fire
*
JACK
o-o-o
“You know I was only yanking Lucifer’s-sorry, Ianto’s-chain about that whole virgin birth thing, right?”
I pull my head off the car door and look at John through the haze of my hangover. “What?”
“You know...the other night you came over. After he told you about...what he is...”
“Oh yeah. So, I’m not gonna turn into Mary?”
“No.”
“Good. I kinda like my male anatomy thank you very much. Besides, I’d make a shitty mother anyway,” I say, rubbing my forehead. “Plus I’m hoping not to be a virgin too much longer.” I drop my forehead back against the car window with a thump that sends a shock wave through my head, turning my brains to mush. “Owww...” I groan.
John laughs. “Serves you right.”
“Shut up.”
We pull up to my house and Mom comes out onto the porch. John opens my door and pulls me onto my feet. I try to keep my legs under me as we walk up the path, but John has to mostly drag me along. When we get to the stairs, he gives up and practically lifts me up and carries me up.
“Did you have a nice time?” Mom asks chirpily.
What I want to know is, how many seventeen-year-olds could show up hung-over at nine o’clock in the morning being held up in someone’s arms (even if that person is an angel, which my parents couldn’t possibly know) and get a ‘did you have a nice time?’ It’s disgusting. Course, if it had been Ianto I was draped over, things would be different.
“Did we, Jack?” John is trying not to laugh and if I had the strength I’d punch him in the face.
But instead, I mumble, “Shut up,” into his shoulder.
Mom follows us up the stairs and John gently places me on my bed and actually tucks me into bed. I can hear sisters giggling, but I don’t open my eyes to see which ones.
John sits on the edge of my bed. He runs a finger along the line of my jaw and even though I feel like death, I shudder. “You gonna be okay?”
“I will if you shoot me,” I beg.
He leans down and his lips glide across my cheek to my ear, where he whispers, “No can do.” He chuckles and I’m wondering if I can shoot him.
“Then get the hell out,” I say, rolling on my side and pulling the covers over my head.
I hear Mom shuffle out of the room chattering about chicken soup. But John’s still here-I can feel him.
“What do you want?” I mumble into the pillow.
“The same thing I’ve always wanted. I want to tag your soul. You need to forgive yourself.”
“No.”
“Why? Why do you need to hold on to this?”
“Because.” I breathe against the tears. “I need to.”
“Need to what?”
He’s making my head throb. “Can we please not do this?”
“No,” he insists. “We need to do this know. What do you mean, ‘I need to’?”
I groan as a sharp pain shoots through my brain. I pull the sheets off my head for some air. “I can’t so this. You know everything I’m thinking anyway. Can’t you just pick what you’re looking for out of my head and leave me the hell alone?”
“If you were thinking it, I could. That’s where I’m trying to get you-to where you know why you can’t let it go.”
“Because I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Just go away.”
The bed creaks as he slides closer and I feel his cool breath in my ear. “I’m not going anywhere, Jack. I’ll always be here for you-no matter what.” His lips slide over my cheek and my headache’s suddenly gone, replaced with a deep ache somewhere else. Somewhere I definitely shouldn’t be aching. I roll and twist my hand into his hair. His lips brush mine-just as Mom pops back into the room with two steaming mugs in her hands.
“Oh! Oh dear...” she says.
John’s eyes smile into mine for a second longer before he shifts off the bed and stands. “I’ve really got to be going.”
“Oh, don’t go,” Mom says with and awkward smile, holding out a mug. “Have some soup.”
He smiles at her. “Thank you, Mrs Harkness, but Jack is in good hands,” He turns back to me. “I’ll check on you later,” he says, backing toward the door.”
“’Kay,” It’s all I can manage.
He leaves and I roll on my side toward the wall, ignoring Mom and her soup and trying to figure out what just happened. And I think about Ianto. He’s supposed to come over tonight, and I’m gonna try this Sway thing with my parents, if I can figure out what it is-maybe change their minds about him.
But maybe my mind needs some work first.
I think of his Shelby parked across the street right now and feel my heart pound. I love him. I know that now. So why do I still want to kiss John?
I suck.
*
IANTO
o-o-o
I follow John and Jack back to his house and sit out front most of the day. I watch his window, wondering what to say to impress his parents, or at least convince them I’m not the devil incarnate anymore. But as I sit here, staring at his window, I feel a sharp pain in my gut, and there are noises coming from down there. As time passes, the pain gets sharper and the noises get louder until it’s impossible to ignore.
Unholy Hell, is that my stomach? Am I hungry? As I lift my arm to rub my stomach, I catch a whiff of myself and groan. Brimstone’s got nothing on the way I smell right now. That’s some serious stink. Not likely to impress Jack’s parents. Being almost human is turning out to be extremely inconvenient-and a little gross.
Before dusk, once I’ve confirmed that John is here, I take off and swing by the MacDonald’s drive-thru on my way back to my apartment for shower. Turns out Quarter Pounders aren’t all that bad. Who knew?
It also turns out that there are more downsides to being human than I’d hoped. The list of stuff I’m going to need, just in the personal hygiene department, is staggering. I’m thinking about everything I need to take care of before my magic’s completely gone-lots of big bank accounts and investments, lots of alternative identities for both Jack and me in case we need to run, maybe an academic scholarship to university with Jack-when I step through my apartment door and the pungent smell of brimstone hits me like a baseball bat to the face. So, okay, maybe I don’t really smell that bad after all. How did I ever think the smell of brimstone was pleasant?
I look up through watery eyes at Gwen-my boss. Even though I can’t sense the presence of demon or deity anymore, I should have expected this. She’s here in all her Hellish Glory: steaming leathery, black-flecked crimson skin, short, twisted black horns that nearly scrape the ceiling; her tail wrapped around her pelted satyr’s waist. Though she’ll never admit which sin she’s born of, the fact that she’s always draped in a short red robe and wearing her golden crown makes it obvious. She belongs to pride. Her back is to me, admiring the Doré print near the kitchen. I think about backing out and closing the door-I was never there-but a twitch of her ear lets me know it’s too late for that.
I step through the door and close it behind me. “Is this a social call, Gwen, or is there something you need?”
She turns slowly, her hoof scraping across the linoleum, leaving smouldering black gash. There’s no humour in her flaming red eyes, and her fangs flash as a grimace contorts her flat, pinched face.
Her voice is a low raspish hiss as she says, “What I needed was for you to do your job, Lucifer. Do it without stabbing me in the back. Did you really think you were worthy of my position? Well, now we all know better, don’t we? You’ve demonstrated your ineptitude quite spectacularly, especially to King Lucifer.”
The smell of dog breath and rotting meat permeates the brimstone. I smell it before I hear the snarls. Hellhounds. Perfect.
“This apartment doesn’t allow dogs, Gwen. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take your pooch...” I look toward the bathroom door as three immense black dogs, one with three head and all with glowing red eyes that demark all infernal creatures, come slinking out, “oh...excuse me, pooches, and leave.”
“A shame. I thought you’d enjoy the company, pet. You’ve been here for so long I figured you may be feeling a bit homesick.”
“No. I’m doing just fine, thanks. You’re company is in no way needed, or wanted, Gwen.”
In a smoking red flash she’s across the room and I’m choking as her burning fist clamps around my throat, nearly lifting me off the ground. And for the first time, I realise I truly am human, because my lungs are screaming for air as she holds me here, suspended and oxygen deprived.
“You’re doing far from fine!” she rages and throws me across the room. I thud hard into the wall, face-first, and drop to the floor at the paws of the hounds, struggling to catch my breath. Turning human is really working to my disadvantage at the moment, and the blood trickling down my forehead and into my eyes is definitely not going to help with the hound situation.
I sit up, brushing the back of my arm casually across my forehead, ignoring the throb in my head and the growl of the hounds. “Was that really necessary, Gwen?”
Gwen’s red eyes flare, and her face stretches into a heinous grin. “Blood? Oh, this is getting better by the minute,” she says, stepping over and drawing a talon across my chest, through my T-shirt and the flesh under it, like warm butter. As blood seeps through the wound on my chest, she raises her head, sniffs the air, and scrunches her face. “I knew you didn’t smell right. Thought I might be coming down with a cold.” Her bloody eyes shoot to the hounds. “Oh, pet, this will save me having to drag you back to the Fiery Pit. So much easier than Saxon and Lucy.” She shakes her head slowly, a forlorn frown on her leathery lips. “Three of my best-what a waste...” Then her eyes flash. “Though, that’s what happens to traitors. King Lucifer will see the error in his judgement when it’s me who tags the child’s soul. And then he will be mine. You and Saxon were never worthy.”
Saxon and Lucy, thrown into the Fiery Pit. I should be ecstatic, but instead my stomach turns. No second chances in the Underworld.
She sighs and her frown pulls into a grin. “They say if you want a job done right you have to do it yourself. But I don’t understand, Lucifer. This should have been an easy one. He’s a tiny, helpless little thing.”
Jack’s face, so kissable, floats in front of my eyes. Tiny to a demon, maybe, but far from helpless. He has proved that.
She looks to the hounds. “My sweet pets, I’ll leave you to your job. I have mine,” her eyes shift to mine, “or, more accurately, yours, to do.” And then she transforms into my human form.
No!
I swallow back my fear with the lump in my throat. “Really, I don’t think we’re going to pull off the twin thing, Gwen. After all, we’re trying to be inconspicuous. Twins draw too much attention,” I say, pulling myself off the floor.
I watch as her face snarls back at me. “No problems. There won’t be two of us for long,” she says, and my face grins at me. She snaps her fingers, and the hounds are on me as she walks out the door.