Born This Way 9
Title: Born This Way 9
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, John, Gray, Owen, Toshiko/Tommy, Suzie, OCs
Rating: NC-17
Warnings/Contains: Supernatural themes, character death, drug references, dub-con.
Summary: Sequel to Choices - Ianto Jones was born and raised in Hell, but he isn’t feeling as demonic as usual lately-thanks to Jack Harkness. But you can’t desert Hell without consequences and suddenly Ianto’s and Jack’s happily ever after may not be so happy.
9
*~*
Guilty as Sin
*~*
Ianto
I pull into my building’s car park and cut the engine. In my rear-view mirror, I watch Suzie pull into a parking spot in the corner. I can’t see her through the Merc’s tinted windows, but as the amber dusk swirls closer to black, I catch the glow of red eyes peering at me from the darkness inside the car.
She’s on a mission, just as I was. Failure means dismemberment and the Fiery Pit, because I’m pretty sure no one is going to turn her mortal and tag her soul for Heaven. Which means she isn’t going to quit.
I sit, watching her watch me, and wonder how this is going to go. How do I get rid of her? As long as I have this shadow, I need to stay away from Jack. I was selfish earlier, going to the quarry. I can’t put him in danger.
Elle’s wagon pulls up next to me just as I’m getting out of my car.
“Hey, Ianto,” Elle says, holding up a flat white box. “I ordered a pizza even though I really can’t afford it. I was craving pepperoni. You want to go halves?”
“Sounds good.” I hold the door to the stairs for her.
She slips under my arm, and when we get to the second floor, she turns, an embarrassed cringe on her face. “Your apartment okay? Mine’s kind of a mess.”
“Sure.” I take the box from her hand and swing the door wide. I drop the pizza on the kitchen table and head to the cupboard for some plates. “What do you want to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having is good.”
I slide into my chair with plates and two bottles of water. “What do I owe you for the pizza?” I ask, twisting the top off his water and handing it to his.
She tugs a wedge of pizza out of the box and breaks the trailing strings of cheese with her finger. “Ten. I figured with a large there’d be leftovers, but then I thought maybe, if you hadn’t eaten, you might want…” She trails off and her eyes flick in my direction, “...some,” she finishes.
Her eyes connect with mine, and something raw rolls through me, tugging to my bones. With some effort, I break her gaze and pull a slice from the box. “Thanks.”
We eat in silence and I have to fight to keep my focus on the pizza. But despite my best effort, I catch them wandering to Elle, trying to decipher what it was I saw in that glance. Finally, I shake my head. It was nothing. Just my overactive imagination. Suzie has me all on edge- that’s all.
Bracing myself internally, I allow my eyes to meet hers again. “So, any luck finding a job?”
She shrugs. “Working on it. There were some summer jobs on the board at the community centre, but I’m kind of late looking, so most of them are already gone.”
“I’m sure something will turn up. I’ll keep my ears open.” I feel my clenched muscles relax as I answer. It was definitely my imagination. There’s nothing out of the ordinary-other than those eerie green eyes.
“So, you’re working at the library. What about Jack? Does he have a job?”
I flick the lid of the pizza box with my finger. “Jack started at Giovanni’s right after school got out.”
She smirks at me. “Giovanni’s is a little seedy. You let him work there?”
I bark out a laugh and tip my chair onto the back legs. “You don’t know Jack very well. I don’t ‘let’ him do anything. He’s the boss.”
“Really…? You seem like a take-charge kind of guy.” An almost smile barely curves the corners of her mouth.
I tear my eyes away from hers and grab for the table just in time to keep my chair from toppling over backward. Because when she smiled, just for a second, what flashed through my mind…
I’m on my feet and across the kitchen in a heartbeat. “So you said ten for the pizza?” My hand trembles as I slide it into my pocket.
“Yeah, thanks.”
I breathe deep and turn slowly back to her. “Take the last few pieces back with you,” I say. “I already ate my half.” I venture a smile, but it feels like guilt is plastered all over my face.
She folds the pizza box closed and lifts it from the table. I head toward the door and open it, handing her the ten as she slips into the hall. She spins back and smiles as she reaches her door. “See ya.”
What the hell is wrong with me? I thought I had these human teenage hormones figured out.
I’m still standing in the hall, staring after her, when she disappears into her apartment.
Which is why I don’t notice Suzie until her voice comes from just over my shoulder. “My, my, Lucifer-all the pretty young things. Lust is a sin, in case you’ve forgotten. All this time I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out how to reverse your tag, but you’re going to make my job easy.”
I turn to find her leaning against the wall next to my door. Her smile glints like the edge of a blade.
I breathe deep to clear the last vestiges of fog from my head. “You’re just jealous.”
She cocks half a smile and pushes away from the wall. “I am, actually.” Her smile pulls into a grimace. “But at the moment, I have bigger problems.”
In a flash, her hand shoots out and grabs the collar of my T-shirt, slamming me against and up the wall. “Who did it?”
I stare her down. “I don’t know.”
Her eyes flare red heat. She leans in, her nose an inch from mine. “Liar.”
“That’s what I do. It’s in my blood.” I twist out of her grasp and back into the door of my apartment. “Why does it matter to you?”
She glares a hot dagger. “Because I need them to undo it so I can bring you back.”
“So, then, it probably wouldn’t be in my best interest to help you with that.”
Her roar echoes down the hall as I slam the door in her face.
*~*
Jack
The party at the quarry dies, and Tosh and Tommy drop Owen and me off at my house. We run into Maggie and Mona on the way upstairs to my room.
“Hey, Mona,” Owen says, catching her elbow. “Do you have Russell’s number? That guy from your band?”
She shakes his head. “Alex might. He does all the organising.”
Owen crosses his arms and gives Mona a cynical smirk. “Well, can you get it?”
“Right now?” Mona asks in a ‘you’ve got to be joking’ tone.
“C’mon, Mona.” Maggie’s hand is on the doorknob and she’s staring impatiently up the stairs.
Mona skirts past Owen. “I’ll tell Alex to call you.” She escapes out the door with Maggie.
I roll my eyes and turn to head up the stairs. “Why don’t you just tackle her?”
“I would if it’d get me that damn number,” Owen mutters. He closes the door behind him then picks up my iPod and sticks it onto the speakers. He tosses me a bottle of aloe vera from his bag and sprawls next to me on the bed.
“Put that on my back,” he says, pulling his shirt gingerly over his head and exposing glowing red skin. He lies on his stomach and relaxes on the cool bed cover.
“Jesus, Owen. Did you never hear of sunscreen?”
He glares up at me. “Are you gonna put that on my back or what?”
I squirt a big glob of it between his shoulder blades and smile when he screeches.
“Shit, that’s cold!”
“Sorry,” I say, not really meaning it.
“Prick,” he says, totally meaning it.
“Wanker.”
‘Bitch!”
I rub it around his back, making a point to dig my fingers a little deeper than necessary into the reddest spots. Once I’ve done sufficient damage, I lean off the bed and wipe my hands on his beach towel, which is in a heap on the floor.
“So, what’d Dale say, anyway?” I say, pulling myself back onto the bed.
“You should have heard her. Holy shit.” He sits up and tosses his shirt onto his towel and winces slightly at the movement. “He’s all, like, ‘Baby, I missed you so much,’ and I’m thinking, Does anybody ever really buy this bollocks? And then he says, ‘You know I love you.’ And I couldn’t help it, I pushed him off the cliff.” His eyes spark and a grin splits his face. “Did you hear him scream? Oh my god!”
I laugh with the memory. “That was pretty pathetic.” I slap him and then remember the sunburn. “Sorry. Are you up for going into town on Thursday?”
“I’m always up for that.”
“There’s a new girl in Ianto’s building who’s gonna come with us.”
He looks at me and winces. “Are you taking in strays again, Harkness? Remember what happened with Tosh….”
I smile at him and go to slap him again but decide not to because I don’t want to hear him bitching all night. “She doesn’t know anybody. Oh-and she’s going to university here, too.”
“Whatever.” He gets up and inspects himself in the mirror. After a minute he turns back around.
His eyes catch mine as I start to pull myself off the bed. “What was that at Williams’ last night? You guys just took off.”
“There was a guy that Ianto knows from before-where he used to live. It’s some kind of feud or something.”
His eyes spark and a smile turns up the corners of his mouth. “Like gangs?”
“Sort of, I guess. But Ianto was never really in a gang. Not like that, anyway.”
His expression turns wistful, his eyes clouding over a little. “I always knew there was something dangerous about him.”
If you only knew. “Taken, Owen.”
His eyes clear and snap back to mine. “Yeah. You bite, you know that?”
“No. Thanks for telling me-again. I missed it the first hundred times you said it.”
“You bite.”
“Got it.”
“So, if that guy is from where Ianto used to live, it must not be too far away.”
“I guess,” I say, not knowing where he’s going with this, but sure it’s somewhere.
“So, where is it?”
“South.”
“Really? South where?
“Why so interested, Owen?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe if the guys ‘south’ of here are as sexy as Ianto… I could do with some of that myself, if you know what I mean.”
I glare at him. “Why can’t you ever think of anything else but sex?”
He grins at me again and sits back on the bed. “What else is there?”
‘Sexy and I know It’ blasts from Owen’s bag on the floor. He pulls his phone from the front pocket and sprawls on the bed. His eyes glint when he looks at the screen.
“Speaking of sex…,” he says with a lascivious grin. He lifts the phone to his ear. “Hey, Alex. You got a number for me?”