Choices - Chapter 21 Part 2
Title: Choices
Chapter 21 - Into the Fire 2/3
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 posted qucikly as promised. Part 3 will be posted tomorrow...maybe...
21 - Into the Fire - Part 2
JACK
o-o-o
When the lightning hits my brain, it shocks me awake. I roll to the side and dry heave into the bin next to my bed as the image of Ianto lying in a bloody heap on the floor floats behinds my eyelids.
“NO!”
The next thing I know, my mom is at the side of my bed, panicked. “Jack, are you sick? What’s wrong?”
Through my stupor, “No...” is all I can say...over and over. It’s like every brain cell has sort-circuited. I can’t function-or think.
She starts to lift me to a sitting position. “Come on, sweetheart. We’re going to the doctor.”
I find my voice. “No! I need Ianto.” My heart is beating impossibly fast, and I’m inching toward hyperventilation as stars dance in front of my eyes. “I need to find him.”
And just then, there’s a honk in the driveway. I spring to the window and Ianto is parked there. He smiles up at me and sticks and arm out the window, waving me down.
“Oh God!” I feel my blood start to flow again. He’s not dead. “I have to go, Mom,” I say, tugging on my jeans and a T-shirt and running for the door on shaky legs.
“Jack! What’s this about?” she says as she chases me down the stairs.
“Nothing. Just give me a minute.” I step through the door and slam it behind me. I run to his car and jump in, throwing my arms around him.
“I’m happy to see you too,” he says, a wicked gleam in his eye.
I pull back and look at him. He’s alive-for now. “Something’s going to happen. I saw you...”
“What, Jack? What did you see?” He doesn’t look frightened or concerned. If he looks anything, it would be eager-hungry.”
“There was blood...you were...”
“Dead?” he finishes for me with a grin.
I just nod.
“Do I look dead, Jack?”
“Not now. But it’s going to happen.”
“What? What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know...maybe Saxon...”
He interrupts me, shaking his head. “I’ve taken care of Saxon. No need to worry about him anymore.”
“What do you mean? Is he gone?”
“Very.”
“So, something else, then...I know you’re in danger.”
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
But I am worrying. He reaches for me, and as he pulls me into a kiss, I begin to calm down. My breathing slows and my heart ticks back down to a nearly normal pace.
“I was born careful. Nothing’s going to happen.”
I wish I could believe him. I look up and my mom is staring out the front window at us. I’m sure she thinks I’ve lost it, which isn’t going to help our cause at all. Especially after the John thing earlier. “So...you ready?”
“For what?
“You know. The whole impressing the parents thing?”
“Oh. Yeah. About that...”
“Come on, Ianto. I thought you were good with this. I really want to be able to hang here this summer.” More so now. I want him close.
“I’m really not up to this right now. I’d rather be alone with you,” he says, and his eyes are in fire, making me tingle all over.
“What are you thinking about?”
“All the really outrageous things I could do to you-how I could make you feel if you’d let me.”
I swallow thickly and take a deep breath as he pulls me to him. “Where’s this coming from all of a sudden? You’re the one who said we couldn’t...you know.” But the thing is, I’m starting to think about some of those ‘outrageous things’ too.
“I’ve changed my mind. I want you,” he says, his lips hot on my neck.
I tip my head back, giving him easier access. “So the whole lust thing is...what? No big deal now?”
“Nope. No big deal,” he repeats as he reaches under my shirt and grasps the top of my jeans. “We could just slide into the backseat...”
“Jesus, Ianto! My mother is looking out the window at us right now,” I say, pushing him away. “Why are you acting so weird?”
He smiles wickedly. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“Fine. Then let’s go to your apartment.”
“It’s sort of a mess right now. Someone let some dogs in and they got into the garbage. Tore it to shreds.”
“What? Who would do that?”
“Just an old friend. Nothing to worry about,” he says with a wildly wicked grin, and just for a second. I smell rotten eggs. “Let’s go somewhere else. I want you where I can make you crazy.” He kisses me, hard and deep, and then slides over the seat and starts the ignition. He lays his hand on my thigh as he pulls out of the driveway.
A short drive later, we pull over on a corner, near the park at the edge of my neighbourhood. Almost before the car has stopped, he’s all over me again. I look around and see the park is nearly empty.
I lean into Ianto’s burning kiss as his touch, hot on my skin, raises goose bumps all over. After a long, deep kiss, I pull back gasping for air, my heart hammering, and hear his honey sweet whisper in my ear, “I want you so bad.” I shudder as he eases his hands under my shirt again. “You won’t ever forget this. I promise,” he says, and I feel fingertips burn a track across my waist to the button of my jeans.
And it’s then that I notice he’s on fire. Hotter than he’s been in a long time. My breath catches. “Hold up,” I say, grabbing his hand just before it reaches its target. “I don’t know where this is coming from. You’ve been telling me for weeks that we can’t go there. I need to think.” But it’s really hard to think when he’s offering me what I more than anything.
For just an instant I swear I see rage darken his face before it smoothes into perfect calm. “What’s there to think about? I’m tired of waiting. Jack. I want you so much I can’t stand it anymore. I promise I’ll make it amazing for you. The things I’ll do to you...” The rest is lost as his hot tongue slips into my ear.
I can’t focus, thinking about the things I want him to do to me, but what he said before still echoes in my head. We can’t do this until I know it’s safe for you. I take a deep breath and work to connect my last rational brain cell to my mouth. “What’s changed, Ianto?”
“Me. It’s safe, I know it is. I’m human now. They can’t get to us.”
I want so badly to believe him, but that brain cell is fighting to be heard. I push his hand away from where it’s working the button of my jeans. “That doesn’t make any sense. You said we were in more danger now ‘cause you couldn’t see them coming.” And all of a sudden I smell it again, rotten eggs. Oh God-brimstone. Saxon?
Ianto’s eyes flare red, lighting up the car. “Come on, baby. You’re killing me,” he says. I feel like gravity just doubled and all the oxygen has been sucked off the planet. Ianto would never call me baby.
Holy Shit! Saxon. Think!
I hear John’s voice in my head: If you ever need anything, you know where to come. And even though I know it’s probably a bad sign to have all these voices in my head that aren’t mine, for the moment, I’m okay with it.
“I know where we can go,” I say, pulling my shirt down and trying not to panic. “We’re house-sitting for a friend, just around the corner. The house is empty. We’ll be all alone.” My voice shakes slightly, and my heart’s pounding relentlessly against my ribcage, trying to escape my chest.
“Now we’re talking. Where to?” he asks, starting up the car.
“Take a left here.”
I take him on a loop around the neighbourhood, past Owen’s and back past my house, pretending to be lost, before I make up my mind what to do. Then, as we drive toward the house with the huge potted Christmas cactus and porch swing, I say, “Here,” pointing to John’s house.
“Finally. I was starting to think you were just being a tease.”
This guy is really pissing me off, “Just pull into the driveway.”
He pulls in and I’m wondering if I did the right thing. Am I putting John in danger? Will he know this isn’t really Ianto? And my biggest question, the one that’s been eating me alive-if this is Saxon, where is Ianto? The vision of his bloody body crumpled on the floor taunts me, and I swallow back the terror along with the bile rising in the back of my throat.
As I step out of the car, my panic slips into despair. The house is dark. What if John’s not here?
The Ianto doppelganger is around the car, grabbing me quickly, and we start heading for the front door. It’s only then I realise I don’t have a key, and I can’t exactly knock, since the house is supposed to be empty...
“I think the front door might be unlocked,” I say, hoping I’m right.
When we get to the door, I see I’m more than right. The door is actually swinging open, exposing the darkness within.
“Remind me never to have you house-sit,” the doppelganger snorts.
“Yeah...well...” My mind is racing. Maybe John has something gold or silver that I can use.
He pushes me through the door and closes it behind us. It’s pitch black, and he’s all over me-hands everywhere. As I look desperately around in the dark, I don’t need to see it to remember that everything is white. No gold, no silver. Nothing.
“Let’s find a bed,” he rasps in my ear.
“Um...maybe upstairs,” I say loud enough that if anyone is here they’ll hear me.
He pulls me toward the stairs, lit only by a thin slant of moonlight crossing the family room from the window and trailing up the lower few. But as we reach the banister, he freezes in his tracks and looks around warily.
“Whose house did you say this was?”
“Just a friend’s.”
He looks at me with a grimace, and as I watch the pale moonlight, he morphs into-something. In just a few seconds, he’s towering above me, the heat burning my scalp where he’s grabbed a handful of my hair. The stench of singeing hair and rotten eggs is unbearable, making my eyes water.
Reflexively, I drop into a crouch and swing a leg high into his chest, but he’s suspending me by my hair, so my balance is off and I don’t get any leverage behind the kick. Still, the crunch of his bones under my foot is unmistakeable.
I think the thing is chuckling-not the reaction I was hoping for-except it sounds choked and dry, almost like coughing.
“Ooh...fire! Very clever. I like that. Maybe you can show me again later just how fiery you can be.” Then he drags me a step back from the stairs and tuts. “But you see, we demons have a sixth-sense.” He turns and hisses loudly, “You’re too late, John.”
I regroup and take another swing, this time at the arm holding me suspended. But I barely contact. He leers down at me, shaking me by the hair. “This was charming before, but now it’s becoming annoying. Stop.”
Just as my heart sinks, John’s symphonic voice comes from everywhere all at once-surround sound deluxe, “You’ll want to let her go, Gwen.”
And then he’s there, at the top of the stairs, except I can’t see him. All I can see is a vague shape from which intense white light is emanating. His glow illuminates the whole room, including the monster holding me captive. I look up at its hideous face and hear myself groan as all the blood in my body runs instantly cold. It’s not Saxon. This one is bigger, female-I think-and nastier-looking, if that’s possible, and smells much worse-as if breathing wasn’t already hard enough through my panicked gasps.
“John, you’ve always had a wonderfully droll sense of humour. Why would I let my prize go?”
“Because he’s not your prize. You don’t have any claim to him. His soul is clean.”
“Hmm...yes, but still so ripe. Still, Lucifer didn’t give me much to work with, did he? I’m sure I could fix that though.” She grins monstrously and then scowls-very much the same expression, really-and looks down at me and chuckle-coughs again. “He found this assignment...challenging. Falling in love. Love!” She lets out a sharp bark of a laugh. “How very quaint.”
“Yes, it was a completely transforming, life-altering event. You’ve heard the saying, love conquers all?”
“Well, in the end, it hasn’t conquered anything, has it? He’s dead and I’m holding the prize.”
“Dead is all relative, don’t you think?” a voice from another room calls.