Torchwood fic: Amends
...Yep, Torchwood fic. I know, you are all shocked!
Thanks to mojokid for Brit-pick and iuliamentis for beta, and to strangecobwebs and missmollyetc for not divorcing/defriending me at any point in the last three weeks, for reasons I do not fully comprehend.
Ianto, gen. Post-Cyberwoman (and post-Fragments). 2,084 words.
The thing in the dark was what he'd come for, and he had not come empty-handed.
Amends
The first few hundred feet of the trip were easy enough, just one more of the Hub's wrought-iron spiral staircases. Ianto climbed quietly, shod in rubber-soled hiking boots, rucksack scarcely a perceptible weight on his back. The hard part would come right at the end, the sideways scramble over the crumbling brick wall that formed the nearer side of the pterodactyl's lair.
He let himself pause for a second, just to catch his breath, before he tackled it. The only sound in the Hub was the soft constant rushing of the water. Everyone had gone home for the night; even Jack seemed to have left off watching Ianto's every move. Ianto didn't mistake it for forgiveness, but he had other things to worry about. It had been two full days now, and the pterodactyl hadn't come out into the Hub since...
Since. Since Lisa. Since Lisa had fought it off; since Lisa had killed and been killed.
Ianto gritted his teeth and pulled himself up onto the narrow iron rail, grabbing at the hard-edged bricks to pull himself over. There was a dizzy moment with his feet in the air, when he was balanced on his belly with the bricks scraping him through his shirt. He felt his center of gravity inexorably shifting--and then he pulled, thrashed, and was over, falling to the curved stone floor a foot from where it dropped off. He prodded at his own ribs for form's sake, and noticed when he took his hand away that he was leaving small smears of blood. He'd got a couple of gashes on his fingertips and a scrape on one palm, all bleeding sluggishly, filthy with brick dust.
"Brilliant," he murmured, staring at his hands. "Well begun, Jones."
There was a small sound from further back in the tunnel, beyond the gate, and his head whipped around to face it. His heart was pounding suddenly, typical prey-animal response to the thing moving in the dark.
But the thing in the dark was what he'd come for, and he had not come empty-handed. Ianto brushed his hands off on his jeans--thinking even as he did that he'd have to remember to wash them quickly, if he wanted the blood out--and rolled to his knees, shrugging the rucksack off.
"Hello there," he said softly. "Brought you something."
It was hard to tell, with the brightness of the Hub behind and the dark before him, but he thought he saw movement; it hadn't retreated far. Ianto got the torch out first, switched it on and put it in his mouth, then reached in and pulled the carrier bag out of the rucksack and stood to walk back to the gate. He kept the beam of the torch aimed low, and he saw its feet and one wing as he got up close; it was only a few feet back from the gate, perched awkwardly on the curved floor.
Ianto took out a couple of bars of chocolate, cracking them both so that the wrappers tore and let the smell out, then dropped them on the other side of the bars.
The pterodactyl gave a small, croaking cry.
"Still don't know if you've got serotonin levels," Ianto said, taking hold of the torch to free his mouth. "But you've had a bloody week, haven't you? Come and let me see."
There was nothing he could do for the ones who'd died because of him, for Dr. Tanizaki or for Annie or for Lisa herself. There was no more he could apologize to Gwen for what she'd been put through, to Owen and Tosh for the danger they'd been in. There was nothing he could say to Jack at all. But the pterodactyl hadn't asked to be used as a weapon, for all that Jack liked to call it their guard dog, and it was frightened, maybe hurt. This, at least, he could help.
It came forward, hobbling, and Ianto took an instinctive step back, flicking the torchlight higher. He watched the creature nose at the chocolate, a listless shadow of its familiar motion, and then its head jerked up suddenly. It let out a louder cry--almost literally stunning, in this echoing space--and Ianto froze like a rabbit as it rushed to the bars, narrow head slipping through, straining toward him.
It wasn't snapping at him, though. It wasn't trying to bite. It gave a smaller cry, pushing its whole body against the bars. It was hurting itself--Ianto could see the ugly gash just where the right wing joined its body--but still it pressed toward him. And it was sniffing, Ianto realized. He reached toward it and it keened, nose touching his wrist, hovering over the bleeding scrape on his hand.
Ianto stared at it. He had been bringing it chocolate on and off for months now, and it hadn't ever tried to eat him, or anyone. That was why he and Jack had had to concoct the sauce, to get it to recognize things as food...
Ianto jerked away from it, turning his back and stumbling to where he'd dropped the rucksack. It kept crying out behind him. It was hurt, and it was--somehow, in that dinosaur brain, somehow it was worried about him.
Or perhaps he'd finally lost what was left of his mind; perhaps he was anthropomorphizing a dinosaur now, in his desperation to believe that anyone at all cared whether he lived or died. Still, he'd come up here to try to help, and the creature was obviously hurt; that wound had likely become infected by local bacteria, which a sixty-five-million-year-old immune system would have no way to combat.
Luckily Savlon ought to do the trick.
The blue tube was at the bottom of the bag, along with some other first aid supplies. Ianto pulled it out and went back to the pterodactyl, dumping out the rest of the bag of chocolate on the ground just on his own side of the bars. The pterodactyl wasn't particularly distracted, but it didn't back away either, still sniffing at him and screeching. Ianto squeezed a gob of salve into his palm, and reached slowly toward the injured spot.
"I am sorry," he said, and if his voice was a bit choked it wasn't as if the pterodactyl would know what that meant. It was still carrying on, anyway; it could hardly criticize any failure of composure on his part. "She was only defending herself. You were only trying to chase down your supper. There, now. There."
The pterodactyl jerked away from his touch on the tender spot, but he did manage to smear a fair bit of salve onto the wound. He rubbed the rest over his own hands--it would help his own cuts just as well, he supposed.
He kicked some of the chocolate closer. The pterodactyl, seeming calmer, nosed at it and began to eat; the Savlon would be covering the smell of blood, now. And the poor thing had to be starving.
"Eat up, that's right." His voice was shaking, but that would just be nerves, adrenaline dropping off now he'd done it. He lowered himself to sit beside the bars and watched the creature gobbling up the chocolate, wrappers and all, like eating fruit with the skin on. He probably ought to eat something himself; it was past supper time, and he couldn't rightly remember if he'd stopped for lunch. There had been such a lot of cleaning up to do, and Jack had been watching him every second.
"Ianto," Jack said, right beside him. Ianto jerked, his eyes flying open.
Jack wasn't beside him. Jack's voice was coming through his comm, in his ear.
"Did you just feed the pterodactyl that entire bag of chocolate you brought in this morning?"
Ianto looked around; he hadn't really thought about this being a place he might be unobserved until he realized it wasn't. He couldn't see where the CCTV cameras were, but there had to be some.
"One at the mouth of the cave facing back, one ten feet behind the gate facing forward," Jack informed him smoothly. "I've been trying to pick which is your best side. I must say, phosphorus isn't really your color."
Night vision, of course. "I'll make a note of it, sir."
Jack snorted. "Did you, though?"
Ianto looked down at the floor. Every bit of the chocolate was gone; the pterodactyl was sitting on the other side of the gate, wings awkwardly splayed. Watching him, maybe. Probably waiting for more chocolate.
"No, sir," Ianto said. "Not everything. Some of it is in your second desk drawer."
There was a long pause; Ianto closed his eyes and tried to count how long it would take Jack to open the drawer and see and formulate a response. He'd been trying for most of the day not to think of what the response might be. It wasn't--couldn't be--an apology, but it could hardly be seen as anything else just now, and a pathetically feeble apology at that.
After a very long time, Jack said, "Ianto, I don't believe I ever told you that Dairy Milk Peanut Butter is my favorite and I can't ever find it."
"Because it's not actually sold in Wales, sir." Ianto kept his eyes closed, his hands curled between his knees. This could be going worse, he supposed.
"And no, you didn't tell me. Suzie said something, once. I extrapolated."
"And then you bought me chocolate from..." Jack sounded almost confused, which was possibly a species of accomplishment on Ianto's part.
It wasn't exactly his job, but Ianto did plenty of things that weren't exactly his job, or shouldn't have been at any rate. It had been amusing, at the time; he'd enjoyed the thought of seeing Jack surprised, pleased with him. But the package had come today of all days.
"From Canada, sir. It's very easy, over the internet. I could arrange for you to have a regular supply if you like."
There was another long silence.
"No," Jack said, but he sounded a bit like he was talking with his mouth full. "No, it wouldn't be as exciting if it were always available."
"No, sir," Ianto agreed.
"And of course I have to watch my girlish figure," Jack added.
That was Ianto's cue to fight a smile, but he won without a shot fired, tonight. "Yes, sir."
"Ianto," Jack said, his voice gone suddenly gentle. Ianto flinched as he wouldn't have from a shout. "Don't stay up there all night, okay? There isn't a single spot in there that's actually comfortable for a human to sit for long."
Ianto tried not to wonder how Jack knew that. It wasn't any of his concern. Jack was a monster, and if he wanted to spend a night in a cave, that was his concern--but then Ianto was apparently in the habit of tending to monsters.
And feeding them chocolate.
"Tell me when you're ready to come down," Jack said. "We can't have you falling."
"No, sir," Ianto obediently replied.
He looked toward the cave mouth, the bright emptiness outside. Somehow it hadn't occurred to him until Jack said it, that he could come up here and jump. He rolled the idea around for a moment, but it didn't actually appeal; if he'd wanted anything in that line badly enough, he could have put a gun to his head whenever he liked. Even if living meant working for the man who'd executed her, still he wanted to live.
"It's my turn to catch you, anyway," Jack added.
Ianto squeezed his eyes shut again, shuddering as he remembered: Jack falling toward his own open arms, and Jack rolling them clear as the pterodactyl fell. That breathless moment, lying full length on Jack and laughing, and then not laughing anymore. He'd been thinking of Lisa then. He'd needed this job for her sake, been willing to offer whatever was necessary to get it.
Only just at that moment, that traitorous moment, he'd realized he wanted it for himself--wanted someone with a warm, strong body, someone who laughed while a pterodactyl flew away with him. Wanted this smiling man he was about to betray, for the sake of the broken woman he loved.
"Yes, sir," Ianto whispered. He leaned his head against the bars and listened to the silences of his monsters, telling himself he dared not fall.
He dozed uneasily, and dreamt of flying.
Thanks to mojokid for Brit-pick and iuliamentis for beta, and to strangecobwebs and missmollyetc for not divorcing/defriending me at any point in the last three weeks, for reasons I do not fully comprehend.
Ianto, gen. Post-Cyberwoman (and post-Fragments). 2,084 words.
The thing in the dark was what he'd come for, and he had not come empty-handed.
Amends
The first few hundred feet of the trip were easy enough, just one more of the Hub's wrought-iron spiral staircases. Ianto climbed quietly, shod in rubber-soled hiking boots, rucksack scarcely a perceptible weight on his back. The hard part would come right at the end, the sideways scramble over the crumbling brick wall that formed the nearer side of the pterodactyl's lair.
He let himself pause for a second, just to catch his breath, before he tackled it. The only sound in the Hub was the soft constant rushing of the water. Everyone had gone home for the night; even Jack seemed to have left off watching Ianto's every move. Ianto didn't mistake it for forgiveness, but he had other things to worry about. It had been two full days now, and the pterodactyl hadn't come out into the Hub since...
Since. Since Lisa. Since Lisa had fought it off; since Lisa had killed and been killed.
Ianto gritted his teeth and pulled himself up onto the narrow iron rail, grabbing at the hard-edged bricks to pull himself over. There was a dizzy moment with his feet in the air, when he was balanced on his belly with the bricks scraping him through his shirt. He felt his center of gravity inexorably shifting--and then he pulled, thrashed, and was over, falling to the curved stone floor a foot from where it dropped off. He prodded at his own ribs for form's sake, and noticed when he took his hand away that he was leaving small smears of blood. He'd got a couple of gashes on his fingertips and a scrape on one palm, all bleeding sluggishly, filthy with brick dust.
"Brilliant," he murmured, staring at his hands. "Well begun, Jones."
There was a small sound from further back in the tunnel, beyond the gate, and his head whipped around to face it. His heart was pounding suddenly, typical prey-animal response to the thing moving in the dark.
But the thing in the dark was what he'd come for, and he had not come empty-handed. Ianto brushed his hands off on his jeans--thinking even as he did that he'd have to remember to wash them quickly, if he wanted the blood out--and rolled to his knees, shrugging the rucksack off.
"Hello there," he said softly. "Brought you something."
It was hard to tell, with the brightness of the Hub behind and the dark before him, but he thought he saw movement; it hadn't retreated far. Ianto got the torch out first, switched it on and put it in his mouth, then reached in and pulled the carrier bag out of the rucksack and stood to walk back to the gate. He kept the beam of the torch aimed low, and he saw its feet and one wing as he got up close; it was only a few feet back from the gate, perched awkwardly on the curved floor.
Ianto took out a couple of bars of chocolate, cracking them both so that the wrappers tore and let the smell out, then dropped them on the other side of the bars.
The pterodactyl gave a small, croaking cry.
"Still don't know if you've got serotonin levels," Ianto said, taking hold of the torch to free his mouth. "But you've had a bloody week, haven't you? Come and let me see."
There was nothing he could do for the ones who'd died because of him, for Dr. Tanizaki or for Annie or for Lisa herself. There was no more he could apologize to Gwen for what she'd been put through, to Owen and Tosh for the danger they'd been in. There was nothing he could say to Jack at all. But the pterodactyl hadn't asked to be used as a weapon, for all that Jack liked to call it their guard dog, and it was frightened, maybe hurt. This, at least, he could help.
It came forward, hobbling, and Ianto took an instinctive step back, flicking the torchlight higher. He watched the creature nose at the chocolate, a listless shadow of its familiar motion, and then its head jerked up suddenly. It let out a louder cry--almost literally stunning, in this echoing space--and Ianto froze like a rabbit as it rushed to the bars, narrow head slipping through, straining toward him.
It wasn't snapping at him, though. It wasn't trying to bite. It gave a smaller cry, pushing its whole body against the bars. It was hurting itself--Ianto could see the ugly gash just where the right wing joined its body--but still it pressed toward him. And it was sniffing, Ianto realized. He reached toward it and it keened, nose touching his wrist, hovering over the bleeding scrape on his hand.
Ianto stared at it. He had been bringing it chocolate on and off for months now, and it hadn't ever tried to eat him, or anyone. That was why he and Jack had had to concoct the sauce, to get it to recognize things as food...
Ianto jerked away from it, turning his back and stumbling to where he'd dropped the rucksack. It kept crying out behind him. It was hurt, and it was--somehow, in that dinosaur brain, somehow it was worried about him.
Or perhaps he'd finally lost what was left of his mind; perhaps he was anthropomorphizing a dinosaur now, in his desperation to believe that anyone at all cared whether he lived or died. Still, he'd come up here to try to help, and the creature was obviously hurt; that wound had likely become infected by local bacteria, which a sixty-five-million-year-old immune system would have no way to combat.
Luckily Savlon ought to do the trick.
The blue tube was at the bottom of the bag, along with some other first aid supplies. Ianto pulled it out and went back to the pterodactyl, dumping out the rest of the bag of chocolate on the ground just on his own side of the bars. The pterodactyl wasn't particularly distracted, but it didn't back away either, still sniffing at him and screeching. Ianto squeezed a gob of salve into his palm, and reached slowly toward the injured spot.
"I am sorry," he said, and if his voice was a bit choked it wasn't as if the pterodactyl would know what that meant. It was still carrying on, anyway; it could hardly criticize any failure of composure on his part. "She was only defending herself. You were only trying to chase down your supper. There, now. There."
The pterodactyl jerked away from his touch on the tender spot, but he did manage to smear a fair bit of salve onto the wound. He rubbed the rest over his own hands--it would help his own cuts just as well, he supposed.
He kicked some of the chocolate closer. The pterodactyl, seeming calmer, nosed at it and began to eat; the Savlon would be covering the smell of blood, now. And the poor thing had to be starving.
"Eat up, that's right." His voice was shaking, but that would just be nerves, adrenaline dropping off now he'd done it. He lowered himself to sit beside the bars and watched the creature gobbling up the chocolate, wrappers and all, like eating fruit with the skin on. He probably ought to eat something himself; it was past supper time, and he couldn't rightly remember if he'd stopped for lunch. There had been such a lot of cleaning up to do, and Jack had been watching him every second.
"Ianto," Jack said, right beside him. Ianto jerked, his eyes flying open.
Jack wasn't beside him. Jack's voice was coming through his comm, in his ear.
"Did you just feed the pterodactyl that entire bag of chocolate you brought in this morning?"
Ianto looked around; he hadn't really thought about this being a place he might be unobserved until he realized it wasn't. He couldn't see where the CCTV cameras were, but there had to be some.
"One at the mouth of the cave facing back, one ten feet behind the gate facing forward," Jack informed him smoothly. "I've been trying to pick which is your best side. I must say, phosphorus isn't really your color."
Night vision, of course. "I'll make a note of it, sir."
Jack snorted. "Did you, though?"
Ianto looked down at the floor. Every bit of the chocolate was gone; the pterodactyl was sitting on the other side of the gate, wings awkwardly splayed. Watching him, maybe. Probably waiting for more chocolate.
"No, sir," Ianto said. "Not everything. Some of it is in your second desk drawer."
There was a long pause; Ianto closed his eyes and tried to count how long it would take Jack to open the drawer and see and formulate a response. He'd been trying for most of the day not to think of what the response might be. It wasn't--couldn't be--an apology, but it could hardly be seen as anything else just now, and a pathetically feeble apology at that.
After a very long time, Jack said, "Ianto, I don't believe I ever told you that Dairy Milk Peanut Butter is my favorite and I can't ever find it."
"Because it's not actually sold in Wales, sir." Ianto kept his eyes closed, his hands curled between his knees. This could be going worse, he supposed.
"And no, you didn't tell me. Suzie said something, once. I extrapolated."
"And then you bought me chocolate from..." Jack sounded almost confused, which was possibly a species of accomplishment on Ianto's part.
It wasn't exactly his job, but Ianto did plenty of things that weren't exactly his job, or shouldn't have been at any rate. It had been amusing, at the time; he'd enjoyed the thought of seeing Jack surprised, pleased with him. But the package had come today of all days.
"From Canada, sir. It's very easy, over the internet. I could arrange for you to have a regular supply if you like."
There was another long silence.
"No," Jack said, but he sounded a bit like he was talking with his mouth full. "No, it wouldn't be as exciting if it were always available."
"No, sir," Ianto agreed.
"And of course I have to watch my girlish figure," Jack added.
That was Ianto's cue to fight a smile, but he won without a shot fired, tonight. "Yes, sir."
"Ianto," Jack said, his voice gone suddenly gentle. Ianto flinched as he wouldn't have from a shout. "Don't stay up there all night, okay? There isn't a single spot in there that's actually comfortable for a human to sit for long."
Ianto tried not to wonder how Jack knew that. It wasn't any of his concern. Jack was a monster, and if he wanted to spend a night in a cave, that was his concern--but then Ianto was apparently in the habit of tending to monsters.
And feeding them chocolate.
"Tell me when you're ready to come down," Jack said. "We can't have you falling."
"No, sir," Ianto obediently replied.
He looked toward the cave mouth, the bright emptiness outside. Somehow it hadn't occurred to him until Jack said it, that he could come up here and jump. He rolled the idea around for a moment, but it didn't actually appeal; if he'd wanted anything in that line badly enough, he could have put a gun to his head whenever he liked. Even if living meant working for the man who'd executed her, still he wanted to live.
"It's my turn to catch you, anyway," Jack added.
Ianto squeezed his eyes shut again, shuddering as he remembered: Jack falling toward his own open arms, and Jack rolling them clear as the pterodactyl fell. That breathless moment, lying full length on Jack and laughing, and then not laughing anymore. He'd been thinking of Lisa then. He'd needed this job for her sake, been willing to offer whatever was necessary to get it.
Only just at that moment, that traitorous moment, he'd realized he wanted it for himself--wanted someone with a warm, strong body, someone who laughed while a pterodactyl flew away with him. Wanted this smiling man he was about to betray, for the sake of the broken woman he loved.
"Yes, sir," Ianto whispered. He leaned his head against the bars and listened to the silences of his monsters, telling himself he dared not fall.
He dozed uneasily, and dreamt of flying.