The Remains of the Date -- Part Two
"Shit," Ianto said, making a face. "The first infallible evidence that I am no longer on Earth is floating rat droppings."
Surprisingly, that realisation allowed the nausea to pass, replacing it with thoughts of the task at hand. He couldn't just wallow in transport sickness. He had work to do. He shrugged his shirt back into place then sat upright, at least as upright as he could manage without knocking his head again.
"Okay?" Jack asked, hand still on his shoulder.
"Right as rain," Ianto replied. "Let's do this."
"You might want to keep the bag handy." He tipped his head down the corridor in the direction they evidently needed to take. "It's not pretty."
It took Ianto a minute to process the next bit of proof that they were on an alien ship. He was sitting there with a carrier bag full of supplies, and he was going to have to crawl to their destination because these creatures did not build with human locomotion in mind. He looked back to Jack, who was already making the most of the situation. He'd bundled his greatcoat into a bag and stuffed it into a nook in the wall. There was just enough friction to keep it in place. He met Ianto's eyes with a grin. An excessively wide grin, even for him.
"Am I missing something?" Ianto asked.
"Nope," Jack replied, chomping down on the handles of his own carrier bag. Then he growled. He probably intended it to be sexy in a man-beast sort of way, but it actually made him look a bit like a Terrier attempting to defeat an evil chew toy.
"Don't sniff my arse." Jack failed miserably at looking innocent. Instead, he motioned to Ianto's bag. Ianto shook his head. "My mouth's not as big as yours."
Jack mumbled something around the handles. It sounded inappropriate.
"No chance of a Goolien butler, either, I suppose." Ianto sighed, failing to hook the handles of his bag over his head. The openings weren't large enough. "We could have thought this through a bit better, but we were more concerned with how to get rid of the rats rather than the crew. Aha!" He hooked it over his shoulder like a handbag, but as soon as he put his arm down into crawling position, he realised that wasn't going to work either.
"Maybe the Torchwood backpacks were the right idea after all?" Jack asked, bag back in his hands.
"No!" Ianto replied, shaking his head briskly. He gestured up to the very low ceiling, assigning it the direction of 'up' since his skull was most familiar with it. "Gwen was right. The backpacks are just going to get in the way."
"Millions of pounds worth of technology, centuries of advancement stored in our archives, and we're using Tesco's finest." Jack sighed heavily.
Ianto knew that tone all too well and threw a teasing look over his shoulder. "You're just sore that they're not branded with the Torchwood logo."
Jack shrugged. "Maybe we can report this as an increase in our recycling efforts."
"There you go! Probably get some sort of bonus for it."
Realising he had only one option left, Ianto resigned himself to hobbling down the corridor on two knees and one hand, awkwardly clutching the bag in the other. It wasn't as tough as he'd expected, actually, sort of like learning to dog-paddle with one arm. The challenge was in controlling his direction. If he moved too quickly, pushed off a surface by accident, he was helpless to do anything besides bounce off the opposite wall like a drunk. It would have been amusing if he'd actually been intoxicated. Instead, it served to remind him how many parts of his body had already touched the suspiciously moist surfaces of the tunnel. He tried not to think about why the metal was wet.
Jack seemed to have latched on to Ianto's feeble dog joke and offered up deep, rumbling growls or the occasional muffled bark. It was a bit peculiar, even for someone who thrived on attention. Just to be contrary - and perhaps to see precisely how far Jack would go - Ianto refused to laugh. After all, they did have work to do. Work that shouldn't wait for manful giggling, or for him to gape at the slit he'd just discovered in the hull. It was a window of sorts, circumscribing the ship, and through it, he saw stars. Stars and, for one breathtaking second, Earth. He forced himself to look away. Floating rat faeces was one thing. Earth herself? Too strange, too beautiful, too utterly distracting.
He forged on, crawling until they reached an opening in the tube. One Goolien entered the opening at the same time another left, merging together then splitting apart. Neither seemed to notice their guests. He knew both from the archives and simple observation that they didn't possess eyes. Not in the human sense. Instead, they perceived things around them based on temperature and texture.
"Think we're too warm?" he asked Jack, marvelling just a little bit as the alien slipped down the tunnel. "Too solid?"
He heard the rustle of bags behind him. "I don't think it's their custom to roll out the welcome mat, actually," Jack said, then followed the statement with a pat on Ianto's rear.
"Was that a grope or encouragement?"
"I found it quite encouraging," Jack snorted. "Lead on, Macduff."
"For a man who claims to have met Shakespeare, you could at least get the line right." Smirking, Ianto poked his head through the opening. As he scanned the room, he realised Jack had been acting the fool en route to buffer the shock.
It was like no bridge Ianto had ever seen on telly, no command centre he'd imagined from the pages of a book. A dimly-lit chamber gaped back at him, its walls moving, yet not moving. It wasn't breathing; it was just... impossible. Like Penrose had designed a sphere instead of a triangle. He couldn't comprehend the number of physical dimensions required for it to exist, yet it was staring him in the face, Gooliens oozing in and out of portals that flickered into being depending on the angle of his gaze. He closed his eyes, shaking his head to clear it, but it didn't help the overwhelming sense of dizziness. He was starting to worry he wouldn't be able to complete the mission when Jack tapped his shoulder.
"Oxygen," Jack said, and Ianto jerked with recognition, pulling the cylinder from its hook on his belt, taking a deep breath. The dizziness disappeared. The bridge didn't make any more sense, but at least he could look at it without his stomach doing a samba up his oesophagus. He exhaled in relief.
"That's why I set the timer on my wriststrap," Jack said, not unkindly.
Ianto nodded. "Time to stop ogling." He pushed himself back a bit, thrusting the carrier bag through first then pulling himself behind it. He just fit, his hips catching despite the tight denims. Once inside the bridge, he glanced around, hoping to find a crevice to stash his supplies so he could help Jack come through. Unlike the tunnels, these walls were soft and yielding, like flesh, but not. When he touched the surface, it changed colours, and he jerked his fingertips away, afraid he'd accidentally engaged the self-destruct system or disabled life-support. The Gooliens didn't seem to notice what he'd done, and the ship didn't begin to hurtle into the Earth's atmosphere. To his left, Jack gave a small laugh.
"What?" he asked, startled to realise Jack was already on the bridge.
Jack pointed down towards their feet. "Look."
Ianto looked. "We're floating." He almost gasped, stating the obvious. He kicked a leg back and forth, striking absolutely nothing, then grinned. It was like the first time he'd floated in the ocean, only without the water. The grin faded to confusion when a different kind of liquid flowed over his shoulder. Nothing at all like a wave, the undulating column slid forward and made contact with a gelatinous panel on the wall beside them. A column of Goolien, he assumed, because he was damned sure he wasn't getting stoned in front of a hired copy of "The Abyss."
"We're also in the way," Jack replied. He leaned back and, as effortlessly as an otter in a lake, used his own mass to generate enough momentum for them to get clear.
"You've done this before, I see," Ianto teased, holding onto Jack's upper arms, allowing himself to be tugged along.
Jack's eyes glowed warmly, relaxed and at ease in this strange place. "Once or twice." He pulled Ianto closer than was strictly necessary, and Ianto didn't protest. Instead, he let Jack control their drift while he marvelled at the organic technology, bobbing and weaving to stay out of the way of the crew. Only a minute or two had passed before Jack's eyes twitched to the side, and his gentle expression disappeared. They'd both been avoiding looking at what appeared to be the centre of the room.
Ianto nodded, swallowed for no reason other than the psychological benefit, and spun himself around, using Jack's chest as a springboard.
An enormous, gelatinous orb dangled in front of them, more of the liquid columns grasping the walls like giant fingers. It was the crew, "aggregate" being the preferred collective noun according to the Torchwood database. Gooliens lived in a single mass at the core of the ship, only detaching from the whole when work demanded. The records had equated the ability to separate to that of humans who trained to free dive. The creature who'd transported to Earth had been the Goolien equivalent of an Olympic athlete. And now it, as well as its shipmates, was under attack by a skittering plague of rats.
The rats had adapted to life in space by finding a food source, and the yielding skin of the aggregate made it easy to sink in their claws. They crawled over the orb, unconcerned by the lack of gravity as they nibbled on the skin of their giant rat snack. The Gooliens were being eaten alive, and most of them couldn't escape to save themselves.
Ianto gagged, turning away.
"Yeah," Jack said, voice rough, then lowering to a whisper. "Pretty much what I thought when I first saw it."
"How are they dealing with this?" Ianto hissed, unable to turn back just yet.
Jack manoeuvred himself closer. "Sacrifices. Right now, there's a single Qaa'aa'ajaa'aaa with its entire body spread over the others, protecting them."
Ianto choked, then forced himself to look again. "How many have already died?"
"It's bad form to ask," he replied. "But..." he trailed off, and Ianto spotted what had distracted him. The surface of the aggregate was beginning to change texture in places, like a sauce about to break.
He covered his mouth. "It's dying," he said from behind his hand. He refused to turn away again. He was going to witness it and know exactly what he was fighting for.
Without a cry or even a last gasp, the skin around the aggregate broke. It floated away silently, without the obscene splat one would expect on Earth. Then Torchwood finally got to see what the aliens looked like when healthy and in their natural habitat. The colour of the unprotected crew was less bilirubin, more like a butterscotch sweet.
Many of the rats were unperturbed by this change in circumstance, drifting away with bits of dead Goolien clutched in their tiny paws. Others squeaked unhappily, having been launched from the aggregate without a dollop of carnage for consolation. But they were smart, and they were survivors. It didn't take them long to get their bearings and start swimming back.
Ianto had seen enough. He crawled forward, now barely registering that he was propelling himself in a low-gravity environment. He was too intent on swatting the rats, sending them spiralling in slow motion across the bridge. But while he swatted at one and avoided the bite of another, a third managed to return to the aggregate. He tried to lunge forward, get in range of another rat, when he realised Jack had him by the arms.
"We have a plan," he said evenly. "Let's use it."
Ianto swallowed the vitriol, scowled his way to a nod of agreement, then swam through rat shit and Goolien viscera to retrieve the abandoned carrier bags.
Jack figured it would take them about half an hour to place the sonic array, so he made a point of shortening the timer intervals to give them more frequent oxygen breaks. His TUC was about ten minutes, but Ianto's appeared to be closer to eight. The stress of being in the midst of a battle for survival wasn't going to help.
"Top or bottom?" he asked Ianto, peeling an arm's length of plastic off a roll.
"Like I ever let you choose," Ianto snorted. He put a foot on Jack's knee and pushed off, floating to the top of the room, his back to the aggregate.
"That's my boy," Jack said, mostly to himself. He cut several more lengths of plastic, then got to work. They moved methodically, almost mirroring each other's progress in their respective hemispheres. The plan was simple enough: drive the rats to the ship's loading dock. Once confined, they'd be collected in collapsible cages and sent back to Earth.
The trick was getting the rats to abandon their food source. That was where the sonic waves came into play. A constant, irritating noise should override the rats' survival instincts, at least temporarily. Ianto had connected a wireless speaker system to a Sensorite transmitter, originally used as a tool for punishing criminals. It had seemed a rather fitting choice, in addition to avoiding some of the common flaws of the devices being marketed online. The only hitch was that the device couldn't support enough speakers to cover all the exits. So, while Ianto anchored speakers at even intervals, Jack sealed off the remaining exits with sheets of heavy plastic. They just had to hope the rats wouldn't start chewing through the plastic instead of moving from exit to exit until they found the one that led to silence - and to the loading dock.
"Last one," Ianto told him, drifting up to his back. He handed Jack the remnants of the putty they'd used to fasten the speakers, hanging in midair and fidgeting before shoving his hands in his jeans pockets.
"Still doing alright?" Ianto moved his head up and down slowly, and Jack wasn't sure if it was because he was uncertain, or if it was just an effect of the gravity. "Oxygen supply good?"
"I'll just..." Ianto motioned toward the exit.
"Sure." He watched as Ianto floated away, appearing somewhat distracted. Jack couldn't blame him. He'd seen and done far too many horrible things in his life, but just because the aliens were silent in their suffering didn't make it any easier to stay detached while they were being slaughtered. The rats were quite noisy as they devoured the latest living stab vest: teeth gnashing, squeaking, occasionally fighting over position or a particularly tasty morsel.
Another athlete had been assigned the task of cleaning up the dead. It slowly drifted around the room, gathering the remains. Jack could see a dark brown spot inside its body where it was literally absorbing the dead crewman. He wasn't entirely certain what would happen after everything had been collected, if the remains were reabsorbed into the whole of the aggregate, or if they had some type of formal burial process. He hadn't asked. It hadn't been necessary. He hoped for the former.
He pressed the necessary sequence of buttons on the orange and silver transmitter, then cranked the volume knob to maximum. A mauve light began blinking on the housing. His vortex manipulator registered sound waves of the correct frequency, but, to be safe, he checked each speaker to confirm their net had no holes.
When he was positive that everything was working - some of the rats had even started to look agitated - he went over to the exit Ianto had taken. It was going to take an hour or more before the noise was enough to motivate the rats away from their feast. He needed a break. Some Ianto Time. Otherwise, he was going to start swatting at rats himself.
It took Jack longer to track him down than Ianto expected. Apparently, his own ability to make himself scarce extended beyond the confines of the Hub. It was darker in this travel-tube than the others, and that's why he'd chosen it. That and the distinct lack of traffic. Both helped him avoid thinking about rats dining on defenceless aliens a few metres away. He'd braced himself in place, back against one side of the tunnel, boots against the other, the window slit at eye level. It gave him a perfect view of Earth, her aqueous glow almost blinding, but not so blinding that he couldn't see Jack's silhouette further down, hovering at the junction of two tubes.
Ianto said nothing to make it easier for Jack to find him. Instead, he focused on the view, wishing he'd brought a camera. He had a little digital number in his pocket, but he wanted a real one. With film. Something with a living emulsion that could respond to the touch of so much luminous beauty. Still, he couldn't start prattling on like that around Jack.
"Sort of like a waterbed, right?" Jack asked, sidling up next to him. He made little undulating motions with his hands before sticking his legs out, mimicking Ianto to lock himself in place.
Ianto kept his eyes on the window. "Except without the water. Do you need something?"
"Not right now." Their shoulders collided, inevitable with the floating, as they gazed down at home. North America, actually, but close enough. "That's pretty heavy thinking considering the lack of gravity."
Ianto smirked. Trust Jack to fill a silence. "I was thinking about you." Not only him, but Jack didn't need to know that.
"Oh, yeah?" Jack asked, lowering his voice suggestively, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the need to swat rat dung away from his face. He edged in closer, trying to salvage a seduction.
"Slow up, Flesh Gordon. Surprising though it may seem, I didn't come all this way to shag."
"Why not?" The alarm on his wriststrap went off, and he reached for his oxygen tank. Ianto didn't bother. Without Jack around, he'd been dosing up as he felt the need, and he'd just had a good lungful. "That was my first thought when we got here. Bet you've never had sex in zero G." He pointed to Ianto's tank, glowering meaningfully.
Ianto rolled his eyes and took a grudging hit, just to avoid explaining himself. The extra oxygen actually felt pretty good. Oxygen toxicity, like alcohol, could be quite enjoyable when used to one's advantage.
"And precisely when would I have had the opportunity?"
"You're a man of great mystery," Jack replied, the leer audible. "I don't know what you do when I'm not around."
"I frequent outer space brothels. You've caught me out." Ianto rolled his eyes, but his heart wasn't in it. "What I was actually thinking," he added pointedly, "was how few people have ever been able to see Earth from this perspective. Astronauts. A few scientists. You."
"I think this is only the second time I've seen her directly instead of on a vid screen." He cocked his head to the side, squinting one eye. "We might have been over China at the time. Fourteenth century? The details are fuzzy."
Ianto knew better, but didn't call him on the lie. "You're killing my buzz," he told him instead and motioned for Jack's oxygen tank. "Give it. You owe me."
Jack laughed and handed it over. He watched while Ianto took a deep breath from the plastic mask, swallowing the oxygen like a stiff drink. "You were saying?"
"Was I? Oh, yeah." Ianto scooted forward, placing a hand on the window's thin glass. Or plastic. Or whatever material they used. He tried to recall what they'd used to construct the whale tank in "Star Trek IV" but couldn't, then realised that it didn't matter. Reality never agreed with Hollywood. But even sitting in a dark, fetid tube was pretty fucking amazing when you were doing it in outer space. "She's huge, isn't she?" he finally added. "We can't comprehend just how big when we're down there. For all the Rift activity, Cardiff's only the tip of the iceberg." He traced along the Earth's outline with two fingers, feeling strangely affectionate towards her. "I wonder how you do it."
Jack's brow furrowed, questioning. "What? Travel to fabulous locales like this one?"
"How you come back." Ianto felt a bit peevish when he saw Jack's expression change to something resembling empathy. He hadn't really intended to raise the issue again, not after he'd offered up all that carefully repressed insecurity while they'd been sick with Xanther Syndrome. He tried backpedalling, "I mean, I'd leave. If I were you." Unfortunately, that sounded even worse, so he clamped his mouth into a grim line.
Jack just shrugged. "It's easy when there are things worth staying for. Torchwood. The mission..." As he trailed off, he looked to Ianto, obviously not expecting him to be staring right back. Their eyes met, and, just as quickly, they both turned away. For once, they didn't even have to pretend the view was fascinating.
"It's funny how it actually looks like it does in the pictures. I can see the weather patterns."
"I do miss it. Sometimes." Jack was pensive, commanding in the way that only he could manage by avoiding his typical bombast.
"Really?" Ianto wasn't sure if he should be pathetically thrilled by the tidbit of closely-guarded information, or if he should add it to that list of insecurities.
"Why do you think I spend so much time on roofs? Next best thing."
"So, it's more than sometimes, then." He elbowed Jack in the side, enough to knock him a couple inches away. Jack floated back to him and linked their arms, making sure it couldn't happen again.
"Are you trying to get rid of me?" he teased. "Because I'm not going anywhere."
"Not even Club Remedy?"
"Okay, I'll go there. Then..." Jack stuck out his thumb, waving it invitingly. "First spaceship outta town."
"Show a little ankle. It always helps," Ianto replied, smirking.
"On some planets, a little ankle is quite a lot." Jack widened his eyes, reliving a private memory, then snaked his hand down Ianto's arm until their fingers laced together. It happened easily enough. Lots of things like that were getting easier. Ianto opened his mouth to say something just as Jack took a breath to do the same. They both stopped.
"You first," Jack said, thumping a palm against Ianto's chest.
"It's nothing. Go ahead."
"Nah. I wanna hear. Tell me."
Ianto shrugged. "All the things we do to save the world, and here it is. Saved. But so much to do to make sure it stays that way. I suppose I've been too busy doing my job to put a lot of thought into it."
"And now that you are, make you feel small?"
Ianto shrugged again. "Makes me think that it might be worth saving. What were you going to say?"
Jack reached out, idly stroking a finger along the beads floating around Ianto's neck. "I like the choker. You should wear it more often."
"Oh." He jerked back, almost too far, but corrected himself at the last second. Jack grinned, as if he thought he'd found a new ticklish spot. In reality, without their weight against his skin, Ianto had forgotten he was wearing Lisa's beads. And he wasn't particularly interested in explaining their origin to Jack. A convenient diversion arrived in the form of a Goolien, coming to a jiggling halt next to them. Ianto turned to Jack, who seemed to be waiting for the alien to offer up another comm sphere.
"Think maybe we're blocking its way?" Ianto asked, bending his knees and freeing himself to float in the corridor.
"I don't..." Jack paused, tilting his head to one side as the alien began extruding an object. Whatever it was, it wasn't one of the spheres.
"Is that a bowl?" Ianto leaned over Jack's shoulder, watching closely. "No, wait, it's more like a cup. And there's something... something liquid in it," he added, unnecessarily. The alien hovered eagerly, or at least that's how it seemed, but the liquid decidedly did no such thing. It stayed firmly in the cup in defiance of all laws of gravity. "Is that a message, or are we being served refreshments?"
"Maybe we're being offered someone's eldest for a marriage ceremony?"
Ianto whacked Jack on the shoulder. "It's a really good thing they don't understand English."
Three hours later, they were suspended at the entrance to the loading dock, staring curiously at a room full of floating rodents. Like the bridge, the dock was spherical, but it was constructed of the same smooth metal alloy as the corridors. It had only two small patches of organic controls: one at the entrance and one at the external door. The rats had no nooks or crannies in which to hide, no surfaces to gain traction. Instead, they appeared to have gathered into two loose groups. Some were near the floor, snuffling for food or an exciting spot to relieve themselves. Others floated around idly. Bellies still full from their last meal, they had no pressing concerns now that the awful noise had ceased.
"It's rather like a snow globe," Ianto suggested, arms folded across his chest in an approximation of casual. He twitched, trying to keep himself upright without flailing.
Jack eyed the cavalcade of vermin sceptically. "You can be the snowman."
"No thanks." Ianto pulled two sets of gloves from his back pockets, offering one pair to Jack. When Jack didn't take them, he looked him up and down, registering the fact that Jack wasn't carrying any parcels. The skin-tight shirt and denims, for all they made it quite pleasant to look at him, didn't exactly provide places to hide things. "Cages still back at the transport platform?"
Jack shrugged. Ianto opened his mouth, realised what Jack was implying, then stared at the rats for a moment. Eventually, he shrugged back. "Right then. We'll tell Gwen we did our best."
They pushed away from the entrance, and Jack lifted his forearm. "Just take me a minute to figure out their control matrix," he said, voice rising on the last couple of words. He began poking around at the buttons on his vortex manipulator, entering sequences. "No." He tried another combination. "No." Ianto rustled impatiently, eventually tapping a stray rat back into the loading dock with his gloves.
"Gotcha!" The word hissed through Jack's teeth with minor triumph as the door to the bay began sliding shut. "Now, just let me do," he punched a few more buttons, "this." A loud whoosh followed.
Ianto immediately ducked, peering through the window slit. "Looks peaceful."
Jack crouched behind him, a hand on his shoulder, their faces almost side by side. "It is," he replied, "until you boil from the inside out." He moved a little closer, fitting his chest to Ianto's back, chin resting on the corded muscle at the top of his shoulder. Ianto snorted acknowledgement, and they lingered in silence, watching the rats drift away in the ship's wake.
Jack tried to guess what held Ianto's fascination. Not just the unfortunate vermin, given how his eyes flitted from point to point: a star, perhaps, or a planet, a supernova, the universe staring back at them, immense and cold and constant. So new to Ianto, so commonplace to Jack, and for a moment, he wondered if Ianto could adapt to the spacefaring life. Or even to time travel. Then the alarm on his wriststrap went off again, and the moment vaporised. Work to do. They both unclipped their oxygen tanks, straightening out as much as possible to give their lungs room to expand.
Ianto struggled to clip his tank back onto his belt without turning a somersault, looking adorably petulant in the process. Jack grabbed it, then tucked his fingers into the waist of Ianto's denims, tugging him closer. He popped the tank onto its clip with a flourish. "Now, don't let me catch you saying I never take you anywhere nice," he added.
The corner of Ianto's mouth lifted begrudgingly. "Wouldn't dream of it. Shall we finish cleanup?"
"What's to finish?" Jack asked, sparing a quick glance out the window to see if, maybe, a rat had managed to cling to the ship's hull.
Ianto pointed to a rat dropping floating by their faces. He pulled another carrier bag from his pocket, wrapped it over his hand, and plucked the dropping out of the air. He handed the bag to Jack. "Don't say I never give you presents."
Jack looked down at the bag crumpled in his hand. "Remind me never to ask you for chocolates."
When they transported back to the Hub, Gwen leapt from her workstation and rushed over to give them both enormous hugs.
Muli lagged a step behind. "Where are the rats?" she asked, gaze shifting between them and their mostly empty hands.
"Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning," Ianto replied. He managed to prise off the brunette limpet attached to his side, leaving her to Jack so he could breathe again. He was convinced he could taste the oxygen. Even the Hub's dank air was a vast improvement over the muck they'd been sucking on for the past several hours. "Oh. Souvenir." He offered Muli a carrier bag with a rat in it. "Found it floating on the bridge. I think you'll find it died of natural causes."
Gwen gave them both a dirty look. "Is this Goolien?" she asked, pointing to a yellowish blot staining Jack's shirt.
He looked at the spot, lifted the shirt up and sniffed. "Uh, no." He grimaced and immediately peeled it off, tossing it over his head to a random spot near his office.
"We didn't bring you anything," Ianto said to Gwen, somewhat apologetically.
She seemed half-unaware that he'd spoken, shaking her head and reluctantly dragging her eyes from Jack's bare chest. "Oh, yes, um, that's fine," she said, hands raised. "Just fine."
The doctor was far more interested in the corpse in the bag than she was in the rest of the team, barely bothering to glance up as Jack began to peel off his denims. "It was floating?" she asked.
"That is what things tend to do without gravity," Jack replied, bouncing on one foot while freeing his other.
"So that means you were breathing..." She made a disgusted face, then sighed. "We'll start you both on a course of penicillin as a precaution." She dangled the bag a safe distance in front of her as she headed down to the med bay. "When I finish testing this, I'll tell you if you need anything else."
Jack and Ianto sat in the SUV, engine idling as they watched the line of people waiting to get into Club Remedy. The music boomed and throbbed against the windows, but neither of them had made a move to actually leave the vehicle. Ianto fidgeted with the hem of his suit jacket. Jack had one thumb hooked behind a brace, shadows falling on his face as clumps of people passed in front of the SUV's bonnet.
"Well," Ianto offered stiffly, "looks like it's still hopping."
Jack nodded. "Yeah. It's only 01.30. Any club worth going to doesn't even warm up until after midnight."
"Yup." Ianto shot his cuffs, glancing down at the floor mats before tapping away a clod of dirt stuck to his brogan. His stomach growled loudly, but it was drowned out by his yawn.
"So, next time?"
Ianto sighed, nodding. Jack shifted the SUV back into gear and slipped out of the parking space. They were on Pierhead Street before Ianto spoke again. "Maybe we're just not cut out for dating."
Jack gave him an understanding smile. "We'll find someplace better."
"How are you going to do better than outer space?"
"Something without rats?" he asked, taking a corner one-handed.
"Guess I should cancel the reservation at Abalone's then." Jack laughed, but Ianto didn't join him. "Seriously. I mean, I know... I get what you're trying to do, and it's okay. We can stop this. It's a bit ridiculous, really. Us. On a date." He scoffed, glancing out the windscreen and hoping for a distraction. Was it too much to ask that the Rift work in his favour occasionally? A nice wreck, maybe. Multi-car pile-up with a possible extraterrestrial cause.
Jack's head snapped around, neck cracking for dramatic emphasis. He stared at Ianto for a moment then returned his attention to the road.
"What?" Ianto asked, but Jack didn't answer. Instead, he swung the car hard into the roundabout, changing their route from the one to Ianto's flat to the A4232 instead. "Jack?" Ianto asked, leaning into the turn, which incidentally slid him into Jack's personal space.
Jack flashed him an enigmatic grin but still said nothing. Ianto shrugged. If Jack didn't want to go into it, neither did he. He checked his mobile for messages then relaxed into the passenger seat, closing his eyes so he could catch a few winks until they got wherever they were going. Full Torchwood stand-downs were about as rare as eight hours of continuous sleep, and he intended to remain well-rested as long as he could. He cleared his mind of all thoughts but one: sleeping with Jack on the camp bed in the hothouse when they'd been sick. Dr. Muli had suggested it, the humid air helpful for easing congestion. And Jack had actually slept, his warm, even breath bathing Ianto's throat...
The SUV jarred to a stop, and Ianto blinked. He was sure he'd only closed his eyes for a second. The fact that they were in the parking lot of the 24-hour Tesco suggested otherwise. He'd got probably ten, fifteen minutes of sleep, depending on traffic.
"You could've just given me a list," he said, rubbing his face to get the blood flowing. "I'm making a supply run tomorrow." He reached for the latch on his seat belt, but Jack stopped him.
"Wait here. I'll only be a minute."
A little confused, but not so confused that he didn't prefer staying in his warm, comfortable seat, Ianto nodded. The next time he woke up, the parking lot was dark. Startled, he made to climb out and check what had happened, only to spot Jack waving him off.
"Not yet, almost ready!"
"What?" he asked. Then he took a good look around. They were no longer in the car park. They were on top of a small rise, bracketed by trees. Not far ahead of them, a river flowed gently, water speckled with moonlight.
"The Taff?" he asked. He took another look. "Why are we at Bute Park?" he asked the fascia panel. A quick check of his PDA showed no signs of Rift activity - it did seem to favour Bute Park - nor did he have any messages on his mobile. Odd. He was considering booting up one of the onboard computers when Jack yanked the passenger door open.
"Okay!" Jack said, startling him with a gust of chilly night air. "Your dinner awaits."
"What?" He was getting a lot of practise saying that, but he climbed out anyway, the damp soil giving way beneath his brogans.
Jack waved an arm expansively. "Since Club Remedy isn't going to happen, I figured the least I could do is give you dinner. I still owe you for when we got interrupted by the time lock."
Ianto looked him over, sceptical, but Jack just laughed, grabbing him by the arm and walking him down to the river. "Come on, before it gets cold. Well, it won't actually get cold, because it's cold already, but..." He pointed to the ground quite proudly, though all Ianto could see was Jack's greatcoat splayed next to a stack of triangular plastic containers and a six pack of Brains IPA. "Have a seat." He gestured to his coat.
Finally feeling alert enough to wed two and two, Ianto smiled. "OK, ten points for style, but I am not having that coat cleaned again this week." He bent over and whisked the coat off the ground. Jack stared at him in what may well have been dismay. "Just wait," Ianto said, raising a finger. He stuck the coat out. "Put this back on."
He stuffed a hand into his trouser pocket and pressed the button on his SUV key. The boot door released, and he hauled it the rest of the way up, lifting the floor panel and taking out the emergency road kit.
"Plan B," he said as he returned. He flipped the blade out of his Swiss Army knife, slicing the plastic off a small parcel. It fluttered away on the wind.
"Litterbug," Jack teased.
"We'll tidy up before we leave." He offered Jack a corner of an emergency blanket, and they pulled it open to spread it on the ground. "It's also waterproof." He directed Jack to take the seat this time round, then followed him down, settling cross-legged on the crinkling surface.
Jack leaned closer, watching as Ianto fiddled with the plastic cap covering the end of a cylinder, and Ianto enjoyed the fact that he'd turned the tables on him. With a crackle of phosphorous, the road flare burst into flame. He stabbed it into the wet ground beside them. "Candlelight," he added triumphantly, "or a reasonable facsimile."
Jack clapped his hands then rubbed them together, beaming. "So, your menu includes..." He began tossing containers at Ianto. "Curried shrimp salad with chutney in a pita, cheese and pickle on whole wheat, and," he paused, holding the last one possessively to his chest, "rare roast beef with extra horseradish."
"On fully-processed white bread with extra preservatives, I'm sure?" He snatched the cheese and pickle for himself.
"Organic rye, actually." He launched several packets of crisps into the space between them. The foil labels reflected off the emergency blanket, twinkling in time with the road flare as it burned.
"So, how do you think Vy's doing?" Ianto asked, taking a long pull off the bottle Jack offered him. He followed up with a deeply satisfying belch.
"Ze's better equipped to be on that ship than we were," Jack replied, tearing open his sandwich and taking a big bite.
"How so?"
"The limbs." Jack was still chewing as he gestured with his sandwich. "You noticed ze had a few spares, right?"
"It escaped my review completely," Ianto replied, tucking a serviette under his chin. He unfolded another one on his lap for good measure. After spending hours in a giant rat toilet, he was enjoying being clean, even if it wasn't the clothing he'd expected he'd be in at two in the morning. Actually, he'd rather expected clothing to be optional. He sighed, glad for the sandwich at least, and tucked in.
"Tetrabrachians can walk upright or on all eights. It's up to them." Jack made a face that landed somewhere between surprise and pain. "Oh, yeah, good horseradish."
Ianto chuckled at him. "Then those tunnels will be a snap. Plenty of limbs for traction."
"Exactly. And the Qaa'aa'ajaa'aaa are gonna appreciate hir helpfulness. We may have got all the airborne stuff, but I'll bet there're a few surfaces in need of a scrub."
They both took noisy gulps of the crisp night air, sharing a smile. It only lasted for a minute, though, trumped by the need for more food. Ianto popped a handful of crisps in his mouth, talking as he chewed. "That Sensorite device really worked a treat. We should think about setting it up in the Hub, provided we can add more speakers to it."
Jack nodded enthusiastically. "Good idea. Plus, if you're not busy controlling our rodent population, you can start helping out with the-"
"Shouldn't we be talking about something besides work?" Ianto interrupted, then laughed at himself. He dropped his packet of crisps. "If this is still a date, we should talk about something else. Do it properly."
Jack offered Ianto's bottle to him, and he took it, eyebrow arched. "You're right," Jack replied, quite seriously. "We really should separate our work life from our personal life."
Ianto stared at him for a moment, panicking at the idea of a life separate from Torchwood. Then he spotted the twinkle in Jack's eye and exhaled. They both chuckled, clinking their bottles. Jack stuffed the last hunk of his sandwich into his mouth, chewing around a grin.
"So," Ianto asked, feigning innocence, "shagging in zero G. What's that like?"
Jack nearly choked, struggling to swallow. He waved a hand in front of his face, eventually succeeding in taking a breath. "Now you want to know? Now?" He grabbed the last of his ale, washing everything down.
Ianto leaned over. "Purely intellectual curiosity, of course." He scooted a bit closer, lowering his voice. "I mean, all we can do out here is talk, right? A road just behind those trees." He pointed with his bottle. "Behind us, too. Plus, the footbridge," he added, directing Jack's gaze downstream. A late-night jogger appeared on the bridge, passing in and out of the light as she crossed the Taff. "Really, quite silly even to think about it." He leaned in and licked the crumbs from the corner of Jack's mouth. "Far too much risk of exposure."
Jack looked him up and down, tossing his empty bottle aside. "Good thing you had me keep the coat, isn't it?"
"One might even accuse me of premeditation." He tossed his own empty onto the ground next to Jack's, then grabbed the remnants of the road flare, flipping it over and stubbing it out. "So, blanket or prop?"
"Depends," Jack said with a highly acrobatic eyebrow waggle. "How exposed do you want to get?"
Ze moved slowly through the tube, relaxed and content as ze helped hir latest hosts recover from their recent suffering. Work always kept hir feeling balanced. No matter how humble, it was honourable, and ze owed it to the Great Drovers to repay hir debts. Ze had been so fortunate, when others of hir huddle had not been.
The Terrans had been good to hir, contrary to the many horror stories that had circulated in other sectors. They'd rescued hir, helped hir heal, respected hir dead, even given hir an Earth name. Ze'd felt part of their huddle for the short time ze'd been on planet. But things were much calmer on this ship than in their underground nest, and ze appreciated that, too.
Still, ze couldn't shake thoughts of the poor Terrans and what they were facing. Ze had known of no way to warn them because there was no defence. They did not understand the signs all around them. Best, perhaps, to make them comfortable in their final days. Especially the poor female; she was gestating a youngling she would not get to meet before the horror befell her homeworld. It seemed to have been the correct path, for the Great Drovers had provided hir with a means of escape.
"Vy-o-let," ze said experimentally, still stumbling over the unfamiliar vibration it created at the front of hir mouth. Ze would use the name in remembrance of hir Terran friends.
END