Fic: Rattle Snakes And Coffee Beans
Title: Rattle Snakes And Coffee Beans
Author Name: Anonymous
Original Prompt Number: 121
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto, Team
Summary: When kids start turning up dead, Jack and the team must work out how to put a stop to it, before one of their own suffers the same fate.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Torchwood and any known characters are not mine, I'm just borrowing them.
Warnings: Slight gore
Word Count: 5785
Author's Notes: This is the very first time I've ever done a prompt, so please don't be too harsh. The alien(s) Lamia(e) was something that I managed to pick out from a well known myth that can easily be found on Wikipedia.
Tommy Cutter was a good boy. Everyone told him so. For a ten year old, he was good at his sums. He was good with his pictures. His manners, though he wasn't quite sure what they were supposed to be, were good. Right now though, he was doing the one thing that he wasn't good at. He was running. He somehow knew that if he couldn't manage to run home as fast as he could, he'd be dead. Not the 'My Mam is going to kill me' dead either, but proper dead. Not coming back dead. He was so cold, his thick winter coat already wet from where he'd fallen in the snow while running through the park to get home. He never should've listened to his best friend Sammy Davids. He never should've gone so far and stayed out so late.
His foot caught on something beneath the snow and he barely had time to yelp out in surprise before he was lying face first in the snow, the soft white powder icy cold as it went up his nose and in his mouth, trying to choke him. Coughing and spluttering, Tommy rolled onto his back, wiping the snow from his face and spitting it from his mouth. He was exhausted, tired and scared out of his little mind. He didn't know how long he'd been running, he wasn't even sure if he'd been running in the right direction that would lead him home.
There! There was that sound again. Like a baby's rattle, only louder and quicker. Tommy whimpered, his heart pounding in his chest, his lungs trying to drag in more air even as hot tears scalded their way down his cold temples to disappear into his hair. Turning onto his front, Tommy pushed himself to his knees and looked up, his eyes searching for something, anything that would tell him what he was running from. There was nothing though. Only white snow blanketing the ground around him, some parts of it glistening in the odd patch of moonlight.
His breath fogged out in front of him as a choked sob escaped his lips. That rattling sound came again, this time though there sounded as though there were more of them, all rattling together in a hellish chorus. He blinked furiously at the tears that threatened to blind him and that was when he saw it. The snow around him, only a few yards from him, was moving. No, that wasn't accurate. The snow wasn't moving. Something in the snow was moving the white powder aside, like an invisible sled pushing its way through.
Turning around on his knees, he saw that the thing, whatever it was, wasn't just happening in front of him. He was surrounded by it. He counted the trails, four of them, as they glided through the snow, forming a circle and surrounding him. He couldn't run any more. He was trapped and he was only ten. What could he do against.. against whatever they were? "P-p-please... I-I j-j-just... wanna g-go home... t-t-to my M-m-mama," he whimpered, his teeth chattering badly from the cold as he begged whatever it was that he couldn't see.
He had a moment to see a stream of moonlight fall across the ground in front of him, before fangs, claws and sickly pale skin filled his tear filled vision and darkness swallowed him whole.
"His name's Thomas Cutter, but he was known to his friends as Tommy," PC Andy Davidson told his old partner, Gwen Cooper. "A jogger found him around five o'clock this morning and called it in. Though what idiot would be out in this weather in only a trousers and jumper I have no idea."
Gwen looked over the scene, the place was already cordoned off by yellow police tape, while a small white tent had been erected over what she knew would be the body. Ten minutes ago she'd finally managed to trudge through the thick snow to meet her old partner, Andy, and was now standing with a steaming hot polystyrene cup of mediocre coffee listening to what Andy had to give her.
"The thing is, Gwen," he told her, worry clear in his pale features. "This is the fifth kid to be found in as many days."
"I still don't see what this has got to do with us, Andy." She was trying very hard not to let her teeth chatter or her hands shake. She'd only been stood there for about ten or fifteen minutes, but already she could feel the cold seeping over the tops of her trainers.
With a nod from Andy, she followed him, ducking under the tape and making her way to the white tent. Andy pulled open one of the flaps and indicated with his head that she should go inside. Giving him a puzzled look, Gwen handed over her coffee, barely taking a step through the tent flaps before the stench hit her, burning up her nose and clogging in her throat. Coughing harshly, she held the sleeve of her coat over her mouth and nose while her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the tent.
Looking down though, her eyes widened in shock and disbelief. She swore, dragging in air and gagging at it. Stumbling back, Gwen turned and pushed through the tent flaps, hurriedly making her way outside into the fresh air, only just managing to reach the yellow tape before she lost the battle with her stomach. Planting her hands on her knees, she bent over as she brought up the quick breakfast she'd had before coming out. When there was nothing but dry heaves left, she wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket, accepting her now cool drink back and rinsing her mouth out as best as she could.
With a quick glance back at the tent, Gwen dug her mobile out of her back pocket. Using speed dial, she waited until the other end of the line was picked up before speaking.
"Jack, we have a situation in Bute Park."
Fastening his great coat up against the cold, Captain Jack Harkness strode through the ankle deep snow, heading straight for the small white tent and the yellow police tape that Gwen was stood by. Behind him followed Doctor Owen Harper, grey medical kit in hand even as he huddles inside his leather jacket against the cold. Hot on the doctor's heels came Toshiko Sato, the teams technical genius.
"What've you got for me Gwen?" asked Jack, ducking under the tape and holding it up for the others. When Owen and Tosh had entered the tent and Gwen still hadn't given him an answer, Jack looked at her sharply, his eyes narrowing as he took in her pale skin and slightly shaking fingers as she held onto a fresh hot drink. "Gwen? What is it?"
He watched is second in command shake her head and swallow hard, looking as if she were trying not to be sick. "He was just a little boy, Jack," she told him, her voice rough with restrained emotion.
Jack only had time to raise an eyebrow before Owen and Tosh came back out of the tent. Tosh didn't even manage to reach the tape before she was bent over, hacking and coughing, fighting against her gagging. Owen wasn't doing much better, dragging air in as quickly as he could, in a deep a gulp as he could. The pair of them looked sickened and shaking. Determined to find out what the Hell was sending his team into gagging fits, Jack barged through into the tent only to be brought up short by the smell.
Rotting meat, strong and foul, mixed in with something that burned his nose and caught at the back of his throat. Coughing against the stench, Jack pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and pressed it against his nose and mouth, blinking against the tears that blurred his vision. Looking down at the small form on the ground, Jack could taste bile, but fought to keep it down.
Crouching down, he dimly registered the breathing mack that Owen shoved into his hand before the doctor stepped around the body and crouched down on the other side. "What've we got?" asked Jack, holding the mask to his face. The body at their feet had obviously been a child, a boy at that. The skin of his face was almost as white as the snow around him, while a patchwork of blue veins stood out in stark relief beneath his skin. His mouth was open is what Jack though may have been a scream, while his eyes were wide and clouded with white, completely unseeing.
With a dark frown at Owen's sharp curse, Jack let his gaze travel down the small body to stop at where the stomach should be. Or rather where it would have been. Instead the mid drift of the small corpse had caved in, forming what might as well have been a bowel made from the ribs and pelvis, with skin around the sides. Again, Jack noticed the blue veins.
"From the looks of it," replied Owen, gasping through his mask a little even as he pulled back the remains of the boys clothes to prod at the belly with a finger. "He's missing his organs. No intestines, no liver, stomach. Nothing but soup. It's all gone." For emphasis, Owen picked out a scalpel from his case and sliced through the skin on the stomach. Instantly the stench intensified in the small tent and both men had to cough and splutter a bit in their face masks. From the small incision thick, brown liquid oozed out like thick puss. That was enough for Jack, who pushed himself to his feet and made his way out of the tent as quickly as he could, calling back over his shoulder at Owen to get the body into a bag as quick as he could.
"Jack, I think you should have a look at this," Tosh called to him. She'd moved to the other side of the tape, unwilling to go near the tent again, but Jack knew she would if he asked her to.
"What've you got Tosh?" he asked, removing the face mask and ducking under the tape. Once he was close enough, he looked down at the small hand held scanner that Tosh always carried around with her whenever they were out in the field.
"This whole area is covered with Rift energy," she told him, tapping at the blue swirls of her scanner. "However, if you look closely at it, you can see that there's a pattern. It's like something circled Tommy Cutter before killing him and what's more, there's more than one. They came at him from different directions."
Jack could see what she meant. Four blue lines of energy came from off the screen, each to come to the centre and converge in a circle, around what Jack knew to be Tommy Cutter's body.
"Okay, so we have four unknown hostiles in the area," Jack told his team as they sat down at the large table in the briefing room. "Is this the first time a kid's gone missing only to end up like this?"
"No," Gwen answered as she handed out sheets of paper to each of them. "I've spoken to the local police and they tell me that this one is the fifth kid to turn up dead. They didn't know about the missing organs until the coroner had done the autopsies. Even then they didn't think it was anything for us."
"Good old Cardiff police," muttered Owen sarcastically, earning himself a glare from Gwen as she continued.
"It was Andy that brought us in on this one. Said it looked like slug trails. Bloody big slug trails."
"They're from snakes actually," Owen piped up smugly as Ianto came in with a tray of coffee mugs.
"Snakes?" asked Jack a little disbelievingly even as he gave Ianto a grin of thanks for his drink.
"Yep, snakes." Standing up, Owen switched on the projector screen, zooming the image in until the scales came up clear. "When I found them, they were under Tommy's body. Wasn't sure at first what they were, but once the results came back I can definitely tell you they're snake related."
"I thought you just said they were from a snake?" asked Ianto as he sat down at the table.
"No, I said that the trails were from a snake. The only problem is that the scales I found are too big to come from any snake on Earth. It's definitely alien. I also found something interesting in the kid's blood work as well as this."
Owen handed Jack a sheet of paper with something printed out on it. As Jack's eyes landed on the paper, each one of them watched him visibly pale before he looked up sharply at Owen. "What was in the kid's blood?" he demanded before looking over at Gwen. "How many kids have turned up like that before Tommy?"
"Tommy was the fifth child to be found like this in five days. His Mam reported him missing around 6:30pm last night," Gwen repeated quickly with a glance down at her own paperwork that lay in front of her.
"Owen?" Jack reminded the young medic.
"Right, yes," Owen ran a hand through his hair, a sure sign that he was deeply bothered by whatever it was he was going to tell them. "His blood was swamped with a paralysis agent of some sort. The only problem is that it didn't just paralyse him." Owen swallowed hard before he carried on. "The chemical does two jobs. The first is to paralyse, while the second is to dissolve, like digestive acids. Those kids were still alive while their insides were being dissolved by digestive acids. Tommy Cutter died around two o'clock this morning after going through just over seven hours of agony. He couldn't do a damn thing except lay there and suffer through it until he died."
"Oh god, that's horrible," muttered Tosh, looking more than just a little pale.
"Right, we need to find what's doing this and quickly," Jack told his team as he stood up, taking the sheet of paper that Owen had given him. "We can't afford to let this go on any longer."
"What are they Jack?" Gwen asked quietly from her seat.
"Honestly? I don't know." Planting his hands on the table, Jack leaned forward and looked at each of his team in turn before he continued. "In 1908 there was an outbreak of murders. Kids would go missing and turn up dead a few hours later. Every day for almost a month a kid went missing. Then for no apparent reason it just stopped. What we've found so far is exactly the same as what they found a hundred years ago."
"So we're either dealing with something that can live a really long time, or we're dealing with the next generation of these things," Tosh piped up, already working through her laptop with the readings she'd taken from the scene, just as she had done from the minute she'd sat down at the table.
"Maybe they went into hibernation?" suggested Gwen, not entirely serious. When the others looked at her, she coloured slightly in embarrassment. "It was only a suggestion."
Jack's bark of laughter caused all of them to jump a little. He swiftly moved around the table to pull Gwen up from her chair and give her big hug, lifting her off her feet and swinging her around a little. "Gwen Cooper you're a genius!" he laughed, dropping her down into her chair before facing the others who were looking at him with odd expressions of surprise mixed in with 'I think you're crazy'.
"Toshiko, run this symbol through the computers. See if you can come up with anything, even if it's something that doesn't look important, let me know." Jack handed Tosh the printout of the black symbol that Owen had found on the body. "Owen, run the toxins through the machines again. Double check the results with whatever else you've got that dates back from 1900. Gwen, get onto the local police. Find out where exactly each of these kids have been found and where they think they were taken from." The three team members scattered to start on their tasks, leaving Ianto alone with Jack.
"Ianto," sighed Jack, sitting on the table besides Ianto.
Ianto frowned a little as he noticed the shadows in his lover's eyes. "What is it, Jack?" he asked quietly.
"These things, whatever they are," Jack told him seriously. "They were reported to have taken out five Torchwood operatives before they went underground or wherever they did go. We need to be careful here, or this team will be wiped out before we know it."
"We're better than that, Jack. Better equipped, better trained. You're the one who trained all of us." Standing and straightening his waistcoat, Ianto gave Jack a quick kiss on the lips, his heated cheeks worth the look of surprise on the Captain's face. "I'll go and check the archives for any mention of these things."
Ianto left before Jack could form a reply. Jack watched him go, his look of worry still on his face. There'd been more operatives a century ago, so loosing even a dozen wouldn't have had a big effect on the Torchwood Cardiff base. A lot of things had changed since then. Jack was well aware that he was one of them.
"I still say this is a stupid idea," muttered Owen harshly even as he dragged his feet through the cold snot of the park.
"Its the only idea we've got!" replied Gwen, her voice touched slightly with annoyance. "Ianto couldn't find anything in the archives to actually tell us what these things are, and Tosh is still running the programs back at the Hub to find out what that symbol is."
"Ianto is still here, you know," came the deadpan interruption.
Both Owen and Gwen looked over to the younger man who was still walking besides them, his coat fastened up and a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. "Sorry mate," Owen told him, even as he swung his flash light about in front of him.
"Sorry Ianto," Gwen gave him a smile of apology as she nudged his arm with her shoulder. "Owen is sort of right though. We don't know what we're heading into and we're doing it in the pitch black of night."
"Which is why we need to be more alert than ever," Jack interrupted, coming to a halt and turning to face them. "This is a reconnaissance mission only. We keep our eyes open and we keep together. We find what clues or information we can at the spot that the last victim's body was found. No one is to engage in a fight, is that understood? We don't know what these things are and until we do we need to be on our guard."
"That's all very well Jack," Ianto told them, his voice sounding calm but for the edge of nervousness beneath it. "But can anyone else hear rattling?"
There was a moment when each of them froze, and then with whispered curses they drew out their guns. Though their light beams cut through the darkness of the night and shone off the white snow, none of them could see anything that might indicate they'd been followed or surrounded. There was nothing at all except...
"Um, Jack, you remember those slug tracks Andy found?" asked Gwen nervously.
"They were snake tracks," corrected Owen.
"Whatever they were," replied Jack before an argument could break out. "What've they got to do with... Oh, that's not good." He followed Gwen's torchlight and looked at the spot of snow a good ten feet in front of him. It had been pushed apart, as though an invisible boat had parted white sand.
When Owen and then Ianto suddenly cried out in pain, Jack spun around, his Webley aiming at nothing, before he looked back at them. Owen was clutching his left wrist against his chest while Ianto was holding onto Gwen's arm, the woman supporting him even as he clutched a bloody right thigh.
"What the Hell happened?!" demanded Jack just before something took his feet out from beneath him. He gave a yelp of surprise before cold snow buffeted him in the face, going into his mouth and up his nose. He pushed his hands beneath him to push himself up, only to to land face down in the snow again as a heavy yet soft body landed on top of his back.
"Sorry Jack!" gasped Gwen as she scrambled off him, managing to dig a knee into his left butt cheek as she did so.
With Gwen's help, he managed to make it to his feet. Looking over at the other two members of his team, he saw that Owen was trying his best to patch Ianto up, using the young Welshman's tie and a torn bit of cloth as a tourniquet and compress.
"We have to get out of here," rasped Ianto, seconds before he and Owen were snatched away from each other by their invisible attackers.
It took Jack a moment to realise why there was sudden light reflecting up from the carpet of white snow, and as her saw the clouds break and the moon shine through, he heard Gwen gasp. Whipping his eyes from the emerging moon to look at the more pressing matters of his colleagues' problems, Jack's eyes widened in surprise a second before he dug his gun from the snow besides him.
Both Ianto and Owen had their legs wrapped by what looked like large snake tails, pale and scaly with the familiar ridges of a snake's rattle on the end. Their arms were free and fighting, trying to hold off the attacks of sharp claws and long fangs. From the mid-section of the tail and upwards, Jack saw the bodies of women, chalky white with beaded scales for skin. There was no hair, only a cobra's hood that covered their heads. Jack's gun wavered slightly as he tried to decide who to help first. Ianto or Owen. Lover of friend. Archivist or medic.
A separate gun shot rang through the night, making the choice for him. Gwen lowered her weapon before moving quickly towards Owen to help him. Owen's attacker had barely gone down before Jack fired his own gun, sending a bullet straight through the temple of Ianto's attacker. The alien fell heavily onto Ianto, taking the younger man down with it into the snow. Scrambling over to him, it took Jack a moment before he realised three things. The first was that whatever aliens had been left had now gone. The second was that the silver light from the moon was now beginning to be hidden once more by the clouds. The third, and the one that made Jack worry the most, was that even as Owen and Gwen helped to unwrap the tail and push the alien corpse off Ianto, the young Welshman didn't move.
Owen practically tumbled down the steps through the opened black bars that surrounded the huge cog door, the main entrance to the Hub. Toshiko was instantly on her feet, the program searching for the symbol forgotten as she headed towards him. "I'm alright, I'm fine," Owen told her, his voice impatient as he headed towards the autopsy bay.
Hanging back a little, Tosh's eyes widened with surprise and dismay to see Gwen and Jack dragging Ianot's limp body between them. "What happened?" asked Tosh, following them down into the autopsy bay.
"We were attacked," replied Gwen as she stepped back to allow Jack to lay Ianto down onto the
hard medical table that served for Owen's autopsy table. "Ianto was bitten, just like Tommy and the other kids."
"Toshiko, have you got a result yet on that symbol?" demanded Jack, though he didn't look up at her as he spoke. He was too busy holding Ianot's left hand and frowning down at his young lover's expressionless face, Ianto's eyes staring up at nothing.
Before she could answer, Tosh heard the beeping coming from her work station. "I do now," she told them, already hurrying up the stairs to see her results.
"He'll be fine Jack," Owen told him, already taking swabs from the bite wound at Ianto's neck, though he couldn't hide the worry from his own voice.
"Jack!" called Tosh as she leaned over the railing to look down at them. "They're Lamiae!"
"They're what?"asked Jack, finally looking up at Tosh only to give her a puzzled frown.
"Lamiae. Half snake and half woman. They're gone throughout the centuries as nothing but a myth, tales told by poets and painters and such. They've been on Earth for centuries, not decades as we first thought." Toshiko explained.
"Sever the head from the neck," muttered Jack, before looking over at Gwen and then Tosh. "Toshiko, can you help Gwen bring the body in from the SUV?"
"Bring it straight in here," Owen told them, setting up the tests on the swabs he'd taken and then fixing on gauze to the side of Ianto's neck. "I'll need a direct, concentrated source of the poison that they use so I can make an antidote."
Pushing Jack out of the way a little so he could get to Ianto, Owen quickly loosened Ianto's tie and undid his shirt. With professional ease he'd hooked Ianto up to a heart and BP monitor by the time Gwen and Toshiko appeared at the top of the steps, the dead body of the alien that had attacked Ianto hanging between them. He'd just inserted the IV drip when the girls had finally dropped the corpse at his feet.
"You do realise how bad this thing stinks, right?" asked Gwen. "Just like Tommy's body did when we got to him."
"That would probably be the stomach acids in that things guts doing that," smirked Owen, selecting a scalpel from one of his draws and crouching down besides the head of the dead alien. "Jack, I'm gonna need you to keep the mouth open and watch out for any teeth."
Giving Ianto's hand one last squeeze, Jack moved to crouch down opposite Owen. Carefully slipping his fingers into the alien's mouth, Jack pried its jaws apart. He almost let go when the two, inch long, razor sharp fangs sprung down from the roof of the mouth. "Just like a snakes," muttered Jack, watching with morbid curiosity as Owen began to cut away at the gums, digging the sharp blade around behind the fangs until he finally grunted in satisfaction.
"Gotcha!" crowed Owen as he pulled out a what looked to be a small yellow pouch the size of a golf ball.
"Venom sack?" asked Jack, releasing the mouth and wiping his hands on his trousers.
"Yep. I can synthesise an antidote straight from this," replied Owen, already springing to his feet and heading out up to the lab to do just that.
"Gwen, get onto the police and have the park cordoned off. Toshiko, get it out to the locals that there's a wild animal on the loose in the park and people are already working to round it up."
Having given his orders, Jack pushed himself up and moved back to Ianot's side. He gave Ianto's shoulder one last squeeze before heading up the steps. He was going to put an end to this tonight.
"How's this going to work again?" asked Gwen, as Toshiko handed her one of the cylinder devices.
"These came through the Rift about three years ago," Jack told her, switching on his own device that he held. "Basically what it does, is uses the light from the moon and magnifies it."
"And that helps how?" Gwen couldn't hide the nervousness from her voice as she looked out of the window of the SUV at the snow covered park.
"I can track the Lamiae with my scanner," Toshiko explained. "While I can do that, we still can't see them until they're hit by moonlight. It's like it weakens their defences, allows us to see them. If we can magnify the effects, we can incapacitate them and by ourselves enough time to deal with them."
"If the moon comes out," pointed out Gwen, glancing up at the cloud covered sky.
"It will, don't worry," Jack told them, opening his door and climbing out. Pulling his gun from it's holster, he cocked the safety off and began walking out towards the last place they'd encountered the aliens. Gwen and Toshiko scrambled out of the car to follow, Gwen arming herself and Toshiko making sure to stay in between the two of them.
Thy hadn't even reached the right place before Toshiko paused and looked down at the small screen in her hand. "We've got incoming!" she hissed in a whisper, looking up from the screen to look around them. "Three of them, coming in quick."
"Remember, head shots only," barked Jack, holding his gun and device outstretched. "Where are they Tosh?"
"One's straight ahead of you, another to the left. The last one's ñ No!"
Jack glanced over his shoulder to see Toshiko's scanner glowing gently in the snow a couple of feet to his right while Toshiko was holding a bloody hand against her chest. "They're closer than we thought then," Jack told them dryly.
"Jack, we can't do this if we can't see them!" gasped Toshiko, trying not to grimace as she pulled out her own gun and holding her lighting device in her injured hand.
"Then it's a good job that someone's on our side!" laughed Jack as he looked up to the clouds part, allowing the light of the full moon to shine down onto them.
The three remaining Lamiae shimmered into focus, their pale bodies pushing against the ground as they circled. "Now!"
At Jack's shout, Gwen and Toshiko held up their devices and aimed for their nearest targets. Beams of silver light shot out of the ends of their devices to land on the Lamiae. The effect was instant, and the aliens began to scream and writhe, caught in the intensified moonlight. Taking aim, Gwen and Toshiko let of a couple of shots each, both causing the heads of their targets to snap back while the back of the skulls exploded out.
Jack looked coldly at his target as it moved in agony in the light. "No one hunts on my turf," he muttered, his voice as ice cold as his gaze while he pulled the trigger of his gun. The alien seemed to freeze before it crumpled to the ground at Jack's feet. "No one and nothing touches my team,"
Once the clean up had been finished, Jack, Gwen and Toshiko had returned to the Hub to find hot mugs of coffee waiting for them on their desks. A quick glance around and they'd found Ianto sitting on the sofa by Toshiko's desk. With happy squeals Gwen and Toshiko had launched themselves at the still very pale Welshman. They gave him tight hugs and quickly updated him on what had happened, their coffees completely forgotten.
Jack had stood back, smiling fondly as the girls had their go at playing mother hen to Ianto. He barely startled when Owen tapped him on the shoulder. "He'll be fine," Owen told him. "He's gonna ache for a couple of days, but there's no lasting effects from the poison."
"Good, that's good. You may as well go home," Jack replied, then a little louder so that the others could hear. "You may as well all go home. It's finished and there's nothing more we can do. Just keep your mobiles on."
with quick hugs and pecks on Ianto's cheeks, Gwen and Toshiko gathered their things and headed out of the huge cog door, the sirens wailing and the lights flashing.
"No strenuous activity," warned Owen as he picked his coat up from the back of his chair at his desk. He gave Ianto a hefty pat on the back before heading out and waving over his shoulder. "Good to have you back Tea-boy!"
Jack laughed and shook his head at he watched Owen go, the turned back to see Ianto scowling. "You know he doesn't mean anything by it," Jack told him as he sat down besides Ianto and settled against him.
"It's not that," muttered Ianto, laying his head tiredly against Jack's shoulder.
"Oh? What is it then?"
"The little git needed an extra ingredient to make the antidote."
"And?"
"He used my special brand coffee beans! The expensive ones!"
Jack couldn't help it. It started as a low rumble in his chest and travelled up to explode into loud and rich laughter. Ianto sat up, back straight and a horrified expression on his face.
"It's not funny!" groused Ianto, giving Jack a weak punch on the arm.
Wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes, Jack reached out and pulled Ianto against his chest. "I'm sorry, I am," he told Ianto. "It's just, well to be honest, I'd have let him use all the coffee he'd wanted if it meant it brought you back."
Ianto leaned back a little to look up at Jack and seeing the honesty and tenderness in his eyes, Ianto gave the immortal a quick hard kiss before smiling slyly. "Well then, you'll just have to help me work off the energy."
Jack raised an eyebrow, a playful twinkle appearing in his blue eyes. "And how'd you figure that one out?"
"Well, with the amount of caffeine running through me right now, I'm practically buzzing with energy that needs to be use up," replied Ianto as he pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand to Jack.
"Then by all means, Mr. Jones," said Jack as he took Ianto's hand and stood, following when Ianto began to lead him towards his office. "Let's get your energy worked off."
Author Name: Anonymous
Original Prompt Number: 121
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto, Team
Summary: When kids start turning up dead, Jack and the team must work out how to put a stop to it, before one of their own suffers the same fate.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Torchwood and any known characters are not mine, I'm just borrowing them.
Warnings: Slight gore
Word Count: 5785
Author's Notes: This is the very first time I've ever done a prompt, so please don't be too harsh. The alien(s) Lamia(e) was something that I managed to pick out from a well known myth that can easily be found on Wikipedia.
Tommy Cutter was a good boy. Everyone told him so. For a ten year old, he was good at his sums. He was good with his pictures. His manners, though he wasn't quite sure what they were supposed to be, were good. Right now though, he was doing the one thing that he wasn't good at. He was running. He somehow knew that if he couldn't manage to run home as fast as he could, he'd be dead. Not the 'My Mam is going to kill me' dead either, but proper dead. Not coming back dead. He was so cold, his thick winter coat already wet from where he'd fallen in the snow while running through the park to get home. He never should've listened to his best friend Sammy Davids. He never should've gone so far and stayed out so late.
His foot caught on something beneath the snow and he barely had time to yelp out in surprise before he was lying face first in the snow, the soft white powder icy cold as it went up his nose and in his mouth, trying to choke him. Coughing and spluttering, Tommy rolled onto his back, wiping the snow from his face and spitting it from his mouth. He was exhausted, tired and scared out of his little mind. He didn't know how long he'd been running, he wasn't even sure if he'd been running in the right direction that would lead him home.
There! There was that sound again. Like a baby's rattle, only louder and quicker. Tommy whimpered, his heart pounding in his chest, his lungs trying to drag in more air even as hot tears scalded their way down his cold temples to disappear into his hair. Turning onto his front, Tommy pushed himself to his knees and looked up, his eyes searching for something, anything that would tell him what he was running from. There was nothing though. Only white snow blanketing the ground around him, some parts of it glistening in the odd patch of moonlight.
His breath fogged out in front of him as a choked sob escaped his lips. That rattling sound came again, this time though there sounded as though there were more of them, all rattling together in a hellish chorus. He blinked furiously at the tears that threatened to blind him and that was when he saw it. The snow around him, only a few yards from him, was moving. No, that wasn't accurate. The snow wasn't moving. Something in the snow was moving the white powder aside, like an invisible sled pushing its way through.
Turning around on his knees, he saw that the thing, whatever it was, wasn't just happening in front of him. He was surrounded by it. He counted the trails, four of them, as they glided through the snow, forming a circle and surrounding him. He couldn't run any more. He was trapped and he was only ten. What could he do against.. against whatever they were? "P-p-please... I-I j-j-just... wanna g-go home... t-t-to my M-m-mama," he whimpered, his teeth chattering badly from the cold as he begged whatever it was that he couldn't see.
He had a moment to see a stream of moonlight fall across the ground in front of him, before fangs, claws and sickly pale skin filled his tear filled vision and darkness swallowed him whole.
"His name's Thomas Cutter, but he was known to his friends as Tommy," PC Andy Davidson told his old partner, Gwen Cooper. "A jogger found him around five o'clock this morning and called it in. Though what idiot would be out in this weather in only a trousers and jumper I have no idea."
Gwen looked over the scene, the place was already cordoned off by yellow police tape, while a small white tent had been erected over what she knew would be the body. Ten minutes ago she'd finally managed to trudge through the thick snow to meet her old partner, Andy, and was now standing with a steaming hot polystyrene cup of mediocre coffee listening to what Andy had to give her.
"The thing is, Gwen," he told her, worry clear in his pale features. "This is the fifth kid to be found in as many days."
"I still don't see what this has got to do with us, Andy." She was trying very hard not to let her teeth chatter or her hands shake. She'd only been stood there for about ten or fifteen minutes, but already she could feel the cold seeping over the tops of her trainers.
With a nod from Andy, she followed him, ducking under the tape and making her way to the white tent. Andy pulled open one of the flaps and indicated with his head that she should go inside. Giving him a puzzled look, Gwen handed over her coffee, barely taking a step through the tent flaps before the stench hit her, burning up her nose and clogging in her throat. Coughing harshly, she held the sleeve of her coat over her mouth and nose while her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the tent.
Looking down though, her eyes widened in shock and disbelief. She swore, dragging in air and gagging at it. Stumbling back, Gwen turned and pushed through the tent flaps, hurriedly making her way outside into the fresh air, only just managing to reach the yellow tape before she lost the battle with her stomach. Planting her hands on her knees, she bent over as she brought up the quick breakfast she'd had before coming out. When there was nothing but dry heaves left, she wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket, accepting her now cool drink back and rinsing her mouth out as best as she could.
With a quick glance back at the tent, Gwen dug her mobile out of her back pocket. Using speed dial, she waited until the other end of the line was picked up before speaking.
"Jack, we have a situation in Bute Park."
Fastening his great coat up against the cold, Captain Jack Harkness strode through the ankle deep snow, heading straight for the small white tent and the yellow police tape that Gwen was stood by. Behind him followed Doctor Owen Harper, grey medical kit in hand even as he huddles inside his leather jacket against the cold. Hot on the doctor's heels came Toshiko Sato, the teams technical genius.
"What've you got for me Gwen?" asked Jack, ducking under the tape and holding it up for the others. When Owen and Tosh had entered the tent and Gwen still hadn't given him an answer, Jack looked at her sharply, his eyes narrowing as he took in her pale skin and slightly shaking fingers as she held onto a fresh hot drink. "Gwen? What is it?"
He watched is second in command shake her head and swallow hard, looking as if she were trying not to be sick. "He was just a little boy, Jack," she told him, her voice rough with restrained emotion.
Jack only had time to raise an eyebrow before Owen and Tosh came back out of the tent. Tosh didn't even manage to reach the tape before she was bent over, hacking and coughing, fighting against her gagging. Owen wasn't doing much better, dragging air in as quickly as he could, in a deep a gulp as he could. The pair of them looked sickened and shaking. Determined to find out what the Hell was sending his team into gagging fits, Jack barged through into the tent only to be brought up short by the smell.
Rotting meat, strong and foul, mixed in with something that burned his nose and caught at the back of his throat. Coughing against the stench, Jack pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and pressed it against his nose and mouth, blinking against the tears that blurred his vision. Looking down at the small form on the ground, Jack could taste bile, but fought to keep it down.
Crouching down, he dimly registered the breathing mack that Owen shoved into his hand before the doctor stepped around the body and crouched down on the other side. "What've we got?" asked Jack, holding the mask to his face. The body at their feet had obviously been a child, a boy at that. The skin of his face was almost as white as the snow around him, while a patchwork of blue veins stood out in stark relief beneath his skin. His mouth was open is what Jack though may have been a scream, while his eyes were wide and clouded with white, completely unseeing.
With a dark frown at Owen's sharp curse, Jack let his gaze travel down the small body to stop at where the stomach should be. Or rather where it would have been. Instead the mid drift of the small corpse had caved in, forming what might as well have been a bowel made from the ribs and pelvis, with skin around the sides. Again, Jack noticed the blue veins.
"From the looks of it," replied Owen, gasping through his mask a little even as he pulled back the remains of the boys clothes to prod at the belly with a finger. "He's missing his organs. No intestines, no liver, stomach. Nothing but soup. It's all gone." For emphasis, Owen picked out a scalpel from his case and sliced through the skin on the stomach. Instantly the stench intensified in the small tent and both men had to cough and splutter a bit in their face masks. From the small incision thick, brown liquid oozed out like thick puss. That was enough for Jack, who pushed himself to his feet and made his way out of the tent as quickly as he could, calling back over his shoulder at Owen to get the body into a bag as quick as he could.
"Jack, I think you should have a look at this," Tosh called to him. She'd moved to the other side of the tape, unwilling to go near the tent again, but Jack knew she would if he asked her to.
"What've you got Tosh?" he asked, removing the face mask and ducking under the tape. Once he was close enough, he looked down at the small hand held scanner that Tosh always carried around with her whenever they were out in the field.
"This whole area is covered with Rift energy," she told him, tapping at the blue swirls of her scanner. "However, if you look closely at it, you can see that there's a pattern. It's like something circled Tommy Cutter before killing him and what's more, there's more than one. They came at him from different directions."
Jack could see what she meant. Four blue lines of energy came from off the screen, each to come to the centre and converge in a circle, around what Jack knew to be Tommy Cutter's body.
"Okay, so we have four unknown hostiles in the area," Jack told his team as they sat down at the large table in the briefing room. "Is this the first time a kid's gone missing only to end up like this?"
"No," Gwen answered as she handed out sheets of paper to each of them. "I've spoken to the local police and they tell me that this one is the fifth kid to turn up dead. They didn't know about the missing organs until the coroner had done the autopsies. Even then they didn't think it was anything for us."
"Good old Cardiff police," muttered Owen sarcastically, earning himself a glare from Gwen as she continued.
"It was Andy that brought us in on this one. Said it looked like slug trails. Bloody big slug trails."
"They're from snakes actually," Owen piped up smugly as Ianto came in with a tray of coffee mugs.
"Snakes?" asked Jack a little disbelievingly even as he gave Ianto a grin of thanks for his drink.
"Yep, snakes." Standing up, Owen switched on the projector screen, zooming the image in until the scales came up clear. "When I found them, they were under Tommy's body. Wasn't sure at first what they were, but once the results came back I can definitely tell you they're snake related."
"I thought you just said they were from a snake?" asked Ianto as he sat down at the table.
"No, I said that the trails were from a snake. The only problem is that the scales I found are too big to come from any snake on Earth. It's definitely alien. I also found something interesting in the kid's blood work as well as this."
Owen handed Jack a sheet of paper with something printed out on it. As Jack's eyes landed on the paper, each one of them watched him visibly pale before he looked up sharply at Owen. "What was in the kid's blood?" he demanded before looking over at Gwen. "How many kids have turned up like that before Tommy?"
"Tommy was the fifth child to be found like this in five days. His Mam reported him missing around 6:30pm last night," Gwen repeated quickly with a glance down at her own paperwork that lay in front of her.
"Owen?" Jack reminded the young medic.
"Right, yes," Owen ran a hand through his hair, a sure sign that he was deeply bothered by whatever it was he was going to tell them. "His blood was swamped with a paralysis agent of some sort. The only problem is that it didn't just paralyse him." Owen swallowed hard before he carried on. "The chemical does two jobs. The first is to paralyse, while the second is to dissolve, like digestive acids. Those kids were still alive while their insides were being dissolved by digestive acids. Tommy Cutter died around two o'clock this morning after going through just over seven hours of agony. He couldn't do a damn thing except lay there and suffer through it until he died."
"Oh god, that's horrible," muttered Tosh, looking more than just a little pale.
"Right, we need to find what's doing this and quickly," Jack told his team as he stood up, taking the sheet of paper that Owen had given him. "We can't afford to let this go on any longer."
"What are they Jack?" Gwen asked quietly from her seat.
"Honestly? I don't know." Planting his hands on the table, Jack leaned forward and looked at each of his team in turn before he continued. "In 1908 there was an outbreak of murders. Kids would go missing and turn up dead a few hours later. Every day for almost a month a kid went missing. Then for no apparent reason it just stopped. What we've found so far is exactly the same as what they found a hundred years ago."
"So we're either dealing with something that can live a really long time, or we're dealing with the next generation of these things," Tosh piped up, already working through her laptop with the readings she'd taken from the scene, just as she had done from the minute she'd sat down at the table.
"Maybe they went into hibernation?" suggested Gwen, not entirely serious. When the others looked at her, she coloured slightly in embarrassment. "It was only a suggestion."
Jack's bark of laughter caused all of them to jump a little. He swiftly moved around the table to pull Gwen up from her chair and give her big hug, lifting her off her feet and swinging her around a little. "Gwen Cooper you're a genius!" he laughed, dropping her down into her chair before facing the others who were looking at him with odd expressions of surprise mixed in with 'I think you're crazy'.
"Toshiko, run this symbol through the computers. See if you can come up with anything, even if it's something that doesn't look important, let me know." Jack handed Tosh the printout of the black symbol that Owen had found on the body. "Owen, run the toxins through the machines again. Double check the results with whatever else you've got that dates back from 1900. Gwen, get onto the local police. Find out where exactly each of these kids have been found and where they think they were taken from." The three team members scattered to start on their tasks, leaving Ianto alone with Jack.
"Ianto," sighed Jack, sitting on the table besides Ianto.
Ianto frowned a little as he noticed the shadows in his lover's eyes. "What is it, Jack?" he asked quietly.
"These things, whatever they are," Jack told him seriously. "They were reported to have taken out five Torchwood operatives before they went underground or wherever they did go. We need to be careful here, or this team will be wiped out before we know it."
"We're better than that, Jack. Better equipped, better trained. You're the one who trained all of us." Standing and straightening his waistcoat, Ianto gave Jack a quick kiss on the lips, his heated cheeks worth the look of surprise on the Captain's face. "I'll go and check the archives for any mention of these things."
Ianto left before Jack could form a reply. Jack watched him go, his look of worry still on his face. There'd been more operatives a century ago, so loosing even a dozen wouldn't have had a big effect on the Torchwood Cardiff base. A lot of things had changed since then. Jack was well aware that he was one of them.
"I still say this is a stupid idea," muttered Owen harshly even as he dragged his feet through the cold snot of the park.
"Its the only idea we've got!" replied Gwen, her voice touched slightly with annoyance. "Ianto couldn't find anything in the archives to actually tell us what these things are, and Tosh is still running the programs back at the Hub to find out what that symbol is."
"Ianto is still here, you know," came the deadpan interruption.
Both Owen and Gwen looked over to the younger man who was still walking besides them, his coat fastened up and a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. "Sorry mate," Owen told him, even as he swung his flash light about in front of him.
"Sorry Ianto," Gwen gave him a smile of apology as she nudged his arm with her shoulder. "Owen is sort of right though. We don't know what we're heading into and we're doing it in the pitch black of night."
"Which is why we need to be more alert than ever," Jack interrupted, coming to a halt and turning to face them. "This is a reconnaissance mission only. We keep our eyes open and we keep together. We find what clues or information we can at the spot that the last victim's body was found. No one is to engage in a fight, is that understood? We don't know what these things are and until we do we need to be on our guard."
"That's all very well Jack," Ianto told them, his voice sounding calm but for the edge of nervousness beneath it. "But can anyone else hear rattling?"
There was a moment when each of them froze, and then with whispered curses they drew out their guns. Though their light beams cut through the darkness of the night and shone off the white snow, none of them could see anything that might indicate they'd been followed or surrounded. There was nothing at all except...
"Um, Jack, you remember those slug tracks Andy found?" asked Gwen nervously.
"They were snake tracks," corrected Owen.
"Whatever they were," replied Jack before an argument could break out. "What've they got to do with... Oh, that's not good." He followed Gwen's torchlight and looked at the spot of snow a good ten feet in front of him. It had been pushed apart, as though an invisible boat had parted white sand.
When Owen and then Ianto suddenly cried out in pain, Jack spun around, his Webley aiming at nothing, before he looked back at them. Owen was clutching his left wrist against his chest while Ianto was holding onto Gwen's arm, the woman supporting him even as he clutched a bloody right thigh.
"What the Hell happened?!" demanded Jack just before something took his feet out from beneath him. He gave a yelp of surprise before cold snow buffeted him in the face, going into his mouth and up his nose. He pushed his hands beneath him to push himself up, only to to land face down in the snow again as a heavy yet soft body landed on top of his back.
"Sorry Jack!" gasped Gwen as she scrambled off him, managing to dig a knee into his left butt cheek as she did so.
With Gwen's help, he managed to make it to his feet. Looking over at the other two members of his team, he saw that Owen was trying his best to patch Ianto up, using the young Welshman's tie and a torn bit of cloth as a tourniquet and compress.
"We have to get out of here," rasped Ianto, seconds before he and Owen were snatched away from each other by their invisible attackers.
It took Jack a moment to realise why there was sudden light reflecting up from the carpet of white snow, and as her saw the clouds break and the moon shine through, he heard Gwen gasp. Whipping his eyes from the emerging moon to look at the more pressing matters of his colleagues' problems, Jack's eyes widened in surprise a second before he dug his gun from the snow besides him.
Both Ianto and Owen had their legs wrapped by what looked like large snake tails, pale and scaly with the familiar ridges of a snake's rattle on the end. Their arms were free and fighting, trying to hold off the attacks of sharp claws and long fangs. From the mid-section of the tail and upwards, Jack saw the bodies of women, chalky white with beaded scales for skin. There was no hair, only a cobra's hood that covered their heads. Jack's gun wavered slightly as he tried to decide who to help first. Ianto or Owen. Lover of friend. Archivist or medic.
A separate gun shot rang through the night, making the choice for him. Gwen lowered her weapon before moving quickly towards Owen to help him. Owen's attacker had barely gone down before Jack fired his own gun, sending a bullet straight through the temple of Ianto's attacker. The alien fell heavily onto Ianto, taking the younger man down with it into the snow. Scrambling over to him, it took Jack a moment before he realised three things. The first was that whatever aliens had been left had now gone. The second was that the silver light from the moon was now beginning to be hidden once more by the clouds. The third, and the one that made Jack worry the most, was that even as Owen and Gwen helped to unwrap the tail and push the alien corpse off Ianto, the young Welshman didn't move.
Owen practically tumbled down the steps through the opened black bars that surrounded the huge cog door, the main entrance to the Hub. Toshiko was instantly on her feet, the program searching for the symbol forgotten as she headed towards him. "I'm alright, I'm fine," Owen told her, his voice impatient as he headed towards the autopsy bay.
Hanging back a little, Tosh's eyes widened with surprise and dismay to see Gwen and Jack dragging Ianot's limp body between them. "What happened?" asked Tosh, following them down into the autopsy bay.
"We were attacked," replied Gwen as she stepped back to allow Jack to lay Ianto down onto the
hard medical table that served for Owen's autopsy table. "Ianto was bitten, just like Tommy and the other kids."
"Toshiko, have you got a result yet on that symbol?" demanded Jack, though he didn't look up at her as he spoke. He was too busy holding Ianot's left hand and frowning down at his young lover's expressionless face, Ianto's eyes staring up at nothing.
Before she could answer, Tosh heard the beeping coming from her work station. "I do now," she told them, already hurrying up the stairs to see her results.
"He'll be fine Jack," Owen told him, already taking swabs from the bite wound at Ianto's neck, though he couldn't hide the worry from his own voice.
"Jack!" called Tosh as she leaned over the railing to look down at them. "They're Lamiae!"
"They're what?"asked Jack, finally looking up at Tosh only to give her a puzzled frown.
"Lamiae. Half snake and half woman. They're gone throughout the centuries as nothing but a myth, tales told by poets and painters and such. They've been on Earth for centuries, not decades as we first thought." Toshiko explained.
"Sever the head from the neck," muttered Jack, before looking over at Gwen and then Tosh. "Toshiko, can you help Gwen bring the body in from the SUV?"
"Bring it straight in here," Owen told them, setting up the tests on the swabs he'd taken and then fixing on gauze to the side of Ianto's neck. "I'll need a direct, concentrated source of the poison that they use so I can make an antidote."
Pushing Jack out of the way a little so he could get to Ianto, Owen quickly loosened Ianto's tie and undid his shirt. With professional ease he'd hooked Ianto up to a heart and BP monitor by the time Gwen and Toshiko appeared at the top of the steps, the dead body of the alien that had attacked Ianto hanging between them. He'd just inserted the IV drip when the girls had finally dropped the corpse at his feet.
"You do realise how bad this thing stinks, right?" asked Gwen. "Just like Tommy's body did when we got to him."
"That would probably be the stomach acids in that things guts doing that," smirked Owen, selecting a scalpel from one of his draws and crouching down besides the head of the dead alien. "Jack, I'm gonna need you to keep the mouth open and watch out for any teeth."
Giving Ianto's hand one last squeeze, Jack moved to crouch down opposite Owen. Carefully slipping his fingers into the alien's mouth, Jack pried its jaws apart. He almost let go when the two, inch long, razor sharp fangs sprung down from the roof of the mouth. "Just like a snakes," muttered Jack, watching with morbid curiosity as Owen began to cut away at the gums, digging the sharp blade around behind the fangs until he finally grunted in satisfaction.
"Gotcha!" crowed Owen as he pulled out a what looked to be a small yellow pouch the size of a golf ball.
"Venom sack?" asked Jack, releasing the mouth and wiping his hands on his trousers.
"Yep. I can synthesise an antidote straight from this," replied Owen, already springing to his feet and heading out up to the lab to do just that.
"Gwen, get onto the police and have the park cordoned off. Toshiko, get it out to the locals that there's a wild animal on the loose in the park and people are already working to round it up."
Having given his orders, Jack pushed himself up and moved back to Ianot's side. He gave Ianto's shoulder one last squeeze before heading up the steps. He was going to put an end to this tonight.
"How's this going to work again?" asked Gwen, as Toshiko handed her one of the cylinder devices.
"These came through the Rift about three years ago," Jack told her, switching on his own device that he held. "Basically what it does, is uses the light from the moon and magnifies it."
"And that helps how?" Gwen couldn't hide the nervousness from her voice as she looked out of the window of the SUV at the snow covered park.
"I can track the Lamiae with my scanner," Toshiko explained. "While I can do that, we still can't see them until they're hit by moonlight. It's like it weakens their defences, allows us to see them. If we can magnify the effects, we can incapacitate them and by ourselves enough time to deal with them."
"If the moon comes out," pointed out Gwen, glancing up at the cloud covered sky.
"It will, don't worry," Jack told them, opening his door and climbing out. Pulling his gun from it's holster, he cocked the safety off and began walking out towards the last place they'd encountered the aliens. Gwen and Toshiko scrambled out of the car to follow, Gwen arming herself and Toshiko making sure to stay in between the two of them.
Thy hadn't even reached the right place before Toshiko paused and looked down at the small screen in her hand. "We've got incoming!" she hissed in a whisper, looking up from the screen to look around them. "Three of them, coming in quick."
"Remember, head shots only," barked Jack, holding his gun and device outstretched. "Where are they Tosh?"
"One's straight ahead of you, another to the left. The last one's ñ No!"
Jack glanced over his shoulder to see Toshiko's scanner glowing gently in the snow a couple of feet to his right while Toshiko was holding a bloody hand against her chest. "They're closer than we thought then," Jack told them dryly.
"Jack, we can't do this if we can't see them!" gasped Toshiko, trying not to grimace as she pulled out her own gun and holding her lighting device in her injured hand.
"Then it's a good job that someone's on our side!" laughed Jack as he looked up to the clouds part, allowing the light of the full moon to shine down onto them.
The three remaining Lamiae shimmered into focus, their pale bodies pushing against the ground as they circled. "Now!"
At Jack's shout, Gwen and Toshiko held up their devices and aimed for their nearest targets. Beams of silver light shot out of the ends of their devices to land on the Lamiae. The effect was instant, and the aliens began to scream and writhe, caught in the intensified moonlight. Taking aim, Gwen and Toshiko let of a couple of shots each, both causing the heads of their targets to snap back while the back of the skulls exploded out.
Jack looked coldly at his target as it moved in agony in the light. "No one hunts on my turf," he muttered, his voice as ice cold as his gaze while he pulled the trigger of his gun. The alien seemed to freeze before it crumpled to the ground at Jack's feet. "No one and nothing touches my team,"
Once the clean up had been finished, Jack, Gwen and Toshiko had returned to the Hub to find hot mugs of coffee waiting for them on their desks. A quick glance around and they'd found Ianto sitting on the sofa by Toshiko's desk. With happy squeals Gwen and Toshiko had launched themselves at the still very pale Welshman. They gave him tight hugs and quickly updated him on what had happened, their coffees completely forgotten.
Jack had stood back, smiling fondly as the girls had their go at playing mother hen to Ianto. He barely startled when Owen tapped him on the shoulder. "He'll be fine," Owen told him. "He's gonna ache for a couple of days, but there's no lasting effects from the poison."
"Good, that's good. You may as well go home," Jack replied, then a little louder so that the others could hear. "You may as well all go home. It's finished and there's nothing more we can do. Just keep your mobiles on."
with quick hugs and pecks on Ianto's cheeks, Gwen and Toshiko gathered their things and headed out of the huge cog door, the sirens wailing and the lights flashing.
"No strenuous activity," warned Owen as he picked his coat up from the back of his chair at his desk. He gave Ianto a hefty pat on the back before heading out and waving over his shoulder. "Good to have you back Tea-boy!"
Jack laughed and shook his head at he watched Owen go, the turned back to see Ianto scowling. "You know he doesn't mean anything by it," Jack told him as he sat down besides Ianto and settled against him.
"It's not that," muttered Ianto, laying his head tiredly against Jack's shoulder.
"Oh? What is it then?"
"The little git needed an extra ingredient to make the antidote."
"And?"
"He used my special brand coffee beans! The expensive ones!"
Jack couldn't help it. It started as a low rumble in his chest and travelled up to explode into loud and rich laughter. Ianto sat up, back straight and a horrified expression on his face.
"It's not funny!" groused Ianto, giving Jack a weak punch on the arm.
Wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes, Jack reached out and pulled Ianto against his chest. "I'm sorry, I am," he told Ianto. "It's just, well to be honest, I'd have let him use all the coffee he'd wanted if it meant it brought you back."
Ianto leaned back a little to look up at Jack and seeing the honesty and tenderness in his eyes, Ianto gave the immortal a quick hard kiss before smiling slyly. "Well then, you'll just have to help me work off the energy."
Jack raised an eyebrow, a playful twinkle appearing in his blue eyes. "And how'd you figure that one out?"
"Well, with the amount of caffeine running through me right now, I'm practically buzzing with energy that needs to be use up," replied Ianto as he pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand to Jack.
"Then by all means, Mr. Jones," said Jack as he took Ianto's hand and stood, following when Ianto began to lead him towards his office. "Let's get your energy worked off."