Damaged Souls - Part 13/?
Title: Damaged Souls - Part 13/?
Pairings: Teeny tiny hint of Jack/Ianto. (This chapter)
Word Count: 2,137
Rating: PG-13 (This chapter)
Status: Incomplete
Note: This is the third and final fic of a series I've begun. This story begins shortly after Buffy's Chosen.
Summary: BTVS crossover - When Ianto returns to Cardiff, Jack and the Torchwood team must figure out how to react to the changes in him, as well as how to react to the new friends this unfamiliar Ianto brought with him.
Note: Hey, come on. I know you guys are reading this (or at least I hope you are). Reviews make me happy and make me write faster. You guys don't want me to fall behind in posting do you? Because once I fall behind, I'll never finish this. =P
Previous Stories:
Story One: Moving On
Story Two: While You Were Gone
This Story:
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12
New Chapter:
Ianto revived with a gasp, body jerking as his heart restarted. He could feel the skin on his chest knitting back together and it took him a moment to remember how he’d died. Then it returned to him in a rush. The cemetery, Spike, Owen, the girl. The girl stabbed him.
That bitch stabbed him with his own stake!
Twice!
Ianto let himself exhale an annoyed and predatory growl. That was his stake. Giles had given it to him before he went on his first patrol in Sunnydale. That bitch stabbed him with Woody!
As his heart returned to a normal beating pattern, Ianto became more aware of his surroundings. Gone was the warm air and soft feeling of grass beneath him. The air here was cold and the ground was hard. He was strapped to something. Chains were wrapped around his chest, securing him to what felt like a thick wooden beam. He couldn’t move, his arms secure behind him. He sighed with relief when he felt no other injuries than the now-healed stab wound.
He took a deep breath before he began to survey his surroundings. The floor was dirt, packed and hard. No windows.
An underground basement.
Great. That was going to make escaping harder. He had no idea what was above him.
He looked up, breath catching as he saw the chains and hooks hanging from the ceiling. There was a refrigerator on one wall, dirty and bloodstained.
His heart damn near stopped when he looked at the door. Big, thick, and a tiny opening.
There was a hook lying near the door, just where he’d left it over a year ago when he’d been taken upstairs to be tenderized.
Oh, God.
---
Wrong. It was wrong.
Doesn’t die. Comes back.
Demon. Demon’s are wrong. Evil.
Demons have to die.
---
Ianto began shaking when the door creaked open. It wasn’t Evan Sherman-God, that thing’s name still made him shudder-and, at that, his heart slowed a margin. It sped up again when he saw the glint of a long knife clutched in the hand of his captor. He gulped silently, his heart hammering in his chest as his captor walked into what little light there was.
The girl from the cemetery.
He allowed himself a silent moment to wonder just how the hell did a girl half his size take him down, kill him twice, and kidnap him away from Owen. Then he gave himself another half-second to mentally groan when he realized that Spike would never let him live it down that he’d been taken by a girl that looked smaller than Dawn.
He sat straighter-or at least as much as he could, she tied these chains really damn tight-as she came closer, eyes hard and trying to mask the fear and panic he could feel bubbling in his stomach. “Who are you?” he asked, trying to sound confident while he prayed that the slight tremble in his body didn’t translate to his voice.
“Not right,” she said, almost in a hiss, “Not right. Unnatural.” She leaned in front of him, brown eyes ablaze, completely mad. “Must die.”
Then she raised the knife and the pain began.
---
Not natural. Doesn’t die.
Comes back.
Always comes back.
Can’t touch her.
Can touch it.
Kill it.
---
Ianto was mid-sob when he revived the fifth time since waking up in this godforsaken basement. His wounds were still there, knitting together as his captor stared at him, outraged.
“Not real. Keep coming back. Stop coming back!”
“Can’t,” he grunted, coughing a clot of blood from his mouth as his jugular came back together. He shivered against the cold, his shirt lying in blood soaked tatters on the red-muddy floor. His pants were destroyed, any hint of the once light washed denim gone. One of his boots lay feet away, discarded when she opened his femoral artery and decided to continue cutting down his calf and to his foot.
She cried out, thrusting the knife into his side and twisting.
He screamed, his throat burning as his vocal cords vibrated.
Blood leaked from the wound as she pulled the knife from him, the surrounding area throbbing. His heart sped up, trying to help his stressed body, but only making it worse as the blood left him faster. His vision swam as she cut into the inside of his left elbow, more blood spilling as black dots danced across his eyes.
He raised his gaze to the ceiling, tears making a thick blanket over his eyes. He blinked, the hot tears running down his cheeks and over the dried blood.
His heart slowed and he sagged against his chains, head falling forward as she stabbed the knife into his chest and into a lung. He coughed, blood covering his teeth as it dripped onto his pants, further ruining the cut and stained denim.
He closed his eyes, as his heart beat once, twice more, and stopped.
---
Stop! Stop coming back!
Die!
Must die.
Have to find a way.
---
How did Jack do it? How?
Ianto revived for the seventh time, this time before his heart had completely repaired from the final stab wound she’d inflicted.
He looked up at her through blurry eyes, locking gazes before his heart failed.
She hadn’t even had to touch him.
---
It screamed loud.
Shouldn’t scream.
Demons deserve torture.
Demons deserve death.
---
“Please!” Ianto cried, tears pouring down his face as she cut another slice into his wrist. “Stop!”
“Demons have to die,” she muttered without looking up from her work. She stared at it with a sick admiration.
“Not,” he gasped, trying to breathe as a lung collapsed, “demon.”
“Not human.”
Blood pounded in his ears as he fell into darkness again, a sick blessing that he wouldn’t have to be conscious when his heart stopped for the eleventh time.
---
It bleeds clear from its eyes.
Not tears.
Demons don’t cry.
Demons have no reason to cry.
---
“Please,” Ianto whispered, his voice almost inaudible when he revived for the fifteenth time. “You don’t have to do this.”
“No.”
And with a mad grin, she pulled back and thrust the knife between his eyes.
---
Weapon won’t work.
Hands.
Demon will die.
Won’t hurt humans anymore.
---
She was already strangling him when he revived for the nineteenth time. He coughed, struggling to get any air in, but she was strong. Too strong for a girl her size, so thin and frail looking.
No more. Couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t be in this basement. Needed out. Needed friends. Needed Owen. Needed Spike. Needed Xander, Willow, Tosh, Gwen.
Needed Jack.
Ianto gave one last futile struggle before he sagged under her grip and stared blankly at the blood-his blood-splattered walls, any light extinguished long before he fell into death again.
---
It didn’t fight anymore.
Didn’t beg. Didn’t fight. Didn’t scream.
Its spirit was dead. The body still came back.
Only half done.
---
Ianto revived again. Twenty-three, a quiet voice in the back of his head mumbled, equally defeated.
Stab, slice, slit, strangle, snap.
Never ending.
In this basement for eternity.
She snapped his neck for the second time.
---
Boring now.
Miss the screams.
Demons make humans scream.
She wants to make it.
Won’t scream anymore.
No fun anymore.
---
Twenty-five.
He stared at her, unblinking, when she punched him and his head lolled to the side.
He didn’t have the strength or motivation to hold it up.
She dealt him one hard blow, breaking his nose in an upward punch that sent fragments into his brain.
And he fell into death number twenty-six.
---
Worthless.
Blank.
Half dead.
Make it all dead.
---
“It’s your fault, Jack!”
Jack bit his lip, closing his eyes as Gwen beat his chest with her tiny fists. He knew, knew that if he hadn’t kissed Ianto, he never would have been in that part of the cemetery when they were ambushed.
Three days. It had been three days since Ianto had been taken and they didn’t have anything. The girl had hijacked a car near the cemetery, a man fitting Ianto’s description slung over her shoulder as she forced the young couple from their Audi. She’d sped off, the car swerving every which way as she disappeared into the night. They’d enforced Torchwood jurisdiction and put out an order that they be contacted the second the car was spotted, but it hadn’t been seen since that night.
The girls had cried when they returned to the Hub without Ianto, each of them crowding around Xander, holding him close as tears spilled from his remaining eye. Willow had set to work, trying every locating spell she could get her hands on, but as strong as she was, none worked. Gwen had spent the entire first day driving, looking for that godforsaken Audi and came back crying when midnight rolled around without anything. Tosh herself was still in tears, memories of Ianto’s blood staining the grass clear in her head as she searched through hundreds of CCTV footage.
Xander just tried to hold them together and took on the responsibility of calling Buffy. She was livid that he hadn’t called her when Willow and Ianto died and Giles had taken the phone from her by the time he told her about Ianto’s disappearance. Buffy had been ready to get on a plane and fly out, but Giles had held her back, both of them explaining to her that she had responsibilities in Cleveland. He had a bitter feeling that Buffy hated him in that moment.
Owen and Spike had been shut up in the medical bay most of the time, Owen’s swears floating up as he cut into whatever alien he had in front of him. Spike had punched the stone wall, breaking four knuckles. Willow had needed to heal the injury before Spike’s muttered complaints drove Owen insane.
Jack had been up and down with each passing day. He’d called everyone back to the Hub immediately after Ianto had been taken, barking at them the entire night to work faster, harder. And when that search had turned up nothing and the others had worked themselves to exhaustion and curled up on the bunks a floor down, unwilling to leave should Tosh’s computer make the slightest beep, only then had he allowed himself to go into his bunk with a bottle of finely aged whiskey. He’d drank it straight from the bottle, his head leaned back against the wall as tears blurred his vision and his free hand stroked the sheets where Ianto’s body had appeared after his revival.
The second day he’d still been nursing a hangover, his orders to hurry up still rushed, but a decibel or two lower than before. He was giving up hope by the third, speaking only once to ask if anyone had come up with anything, and at their echoing no, he had leaned against the wall, eyes closed as he called on the memory of Ianto’s awakening, wishing that if he concentrated hard enough on the feeling of Ianto’s arms around him, it would bring him back.
Gwen stopped hitting him when her phone rang, wiping her tears and sniffling loudly as she rushed to her work station and answered. She paled, gasping as her knees buckled and she fell against her desk. With a quick thank you to whoever was on the other end, she slammed the receiver down, literally sprinting the five feet to Tosh, speaking at a speed Jack was amazed the Japanese woman could understand but clearly could as she worked at pulling up whatever Gwen wanted.
“Gwen,” Jack said, trying to get her attention. When he got no reply he raised his voice, “Gwen!” Nothing. “PC Cooper!”
“What’s going on?” Xander asked, coming up behind them, a teary Willow attached to his arm. He glanced back at Owen and Spike emerging from the medical bay, shrugging when Owen asked what the bloody hell is going on.
Tosh began shaking her head, hands over her mouth as she whispered, “No, no, no, no, no.” It turned into a quiet chant as Gwen pulled her against her chest, her chin resting on Tosh’s head as she looked at Jack with frightened eyes.
“Gwen, what’s going on?” Jack asked, his voice a mixture of fear and annoyance at not knowing what was going on.
“They…they found the car,” she whispered. They wouldn’t have been able to hear her had each of them not been holding their breath. Even Myfanwy was silent.
“Where?” Jack stressed, his chest clenching when Tosh turned her head to face him and breathing in shakily once spoke the words that he was sure stopped his heart.
“The Brecons.”
TBC
Story 3: Damaged Souls - Part 14 >>
Pairings: Teeny tiny hint of Jack/Ianto. (This chapter)
Word Count: 2,137
Rating: PG-13 (This chapter)
Status: Incomplete
Note: This is the third and final fic of a series I've begun. This story begins shortly after Buffy's Chosen.
Summary: BTVS crossover - When Ianto returns to Cardiff, Jack and the Torchwood team must figure out how to react to the changes in him, as well as how to react to the new friends this unfamiliar Ianto brought with him.
Note: Hey, come on. I know you guys are reading this (or at least I hope you are). Reviews make me happy and make me write faster. You guys don't want me to fall behind in posting do you? Because once I fall behind, I'll never finish this. =P
Previous Stories:
Story One: Moving On
Story Two: While You Were Gone
This Story:
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12
New Chapter:
Ianto revived with a gasp, body jerking as his heart restarted. He could feel the skin on his chest knitting back together and it took him a moment to remember how he’d died. Then it returned to him in a rush. The cemetery, Spike, Owen, the girl. The girl stabbed him.
That bitch stabbed him with his own stake!
Twice!
Ianto let himself exhale an annoyed and predatory growl. That was his stake. Giles had given it to him before he went on his first patrol in Sunnydale. That bitch stabbed him with Woody!
As his heart returned to a normal beating pattern, Ianto became more aware of his surroundings. Gone was the warm air and soft feeling of grass beneath him. The air here was cold and the ground was hard. He was strapped to something. Chains were wrapped around his chest, securing him to what felt like a thick wooden beam. He couldn’t move, his arms secure behind him. He sighed with relief when he felt no other injuries than the now-healed stab wound.
He took a deep breath before he began to survey his surroundings. The floor was dirt, packed and hard. No windows.
An underground basement.
Great. That was going to make escaping harder. He had no idea what was above him.
He looked up, breath catching as he saw the chains and hooks hanging from the ceiling. There was a refrigerator on one wall, dirty and bloodstained.
His heart damn near stopped when he looked at the door. Big, thick, and a tiny opening.
There was a hook lying near the door, just where he’d left it over a year ago when he’d been taken upstairs to be tenderized.
Oh, God.
---
Wrong. It was wrong.
Doesn’t die. Comes back.
Demon. Demon’s are wrong. Evil.
Demons have to die.
---
Ianto began shaking when the door creaked open. It wasn’t Evan Sherman-God, that thing’s name still made him shudder-and, at that, his heart slowed a margin. It sped up again when he saw the glint of a long knife clutched in the hand of his captor. He gulped silently, his heart hammering in his chest as his captor walked into what little light there was.
The girl from the cemetery.
He allowed himself a silent moment to wonder just how the hell did a girl half his size take him down, kill him twice, and kidnap him away from Owen. Then he gave himself another half-second to mentally groan when he realized that Spike would never let him live it down that he’d been taken by a girl that looked smaller than Dawn.
He sat straighter-or at least as much as he could, she tied these chains really damn tight-as she came closer, eyes hard and trying to mask the fear and panic he could feel bubbling in his stomach. “Who are you?” he asked, trying to sound confident while he prayed that the slight tremble in his body didn’t translate to his voice.
“Not right,” she said, almost in a hiss, “Not right. Unnatural.” She leaned in front of him, brown eyes ablaze, completely mad. “Must die.”
Then she raised the knife and the pain began.
---
Not natural. Doesn’t die.
Comes back.
Always comes back.
Can’t touch her.
Can touch it.
Kill it.
---
Ianto was mid-sob when he revived the fifth time since waking up in this godforsaken basement. His wounds were still there, knitting together as his captor stared at him, outraged.
“Not real. Keep coming back. Stop coming back!”
“Can’t,” he grunted, coughing a clot of blood from his mouth as his jugular came back together. He shivered against the cold, his shirt lying in blood soaked tatters on the red-muddy floor. His pants were destroyed, any hint of the once light washed denim gone. One of his boots lay feet away, discarded when she opened his femoral artery and decided to continue cutting down his calf and to his foot.
She cried out, thrusting the knife into his side and twisting.
He screamed, his throat burning as his vocal cords vibrated.
Blood leaked from the wound as she pulled the knife from him, the surrounding area throbbing. His heart sped up, trying to help his stressed body, but only making it worse as the blood left him faster. His vision swam as she cut into the inside of his left elbow, more blood spilling as black dots danced across his eyes.
He raised his gaze to the ceiling, tears making a thick blanket over his eyes. He blinked, the hot tears running down his cheeks and over the dried blood.
His heart slowed and he sagged against his chains, head falling forward as she stabbed the knife into his chest and into a lung. He coughed, blood covering his teeth as it dripped onto his pants, further ruining the cut and stained denim.
He closed his eyes, as his heart beat once, twice more, and stopped.
---
Stop! Stop coming back!
Die!
Must die.
Have to find a way.
---
How did Jack do it? How?
Ianto revived for the seventh time, this time before his heart had completely repaired from the final stab wound she’d inflicted.
He looked up at her through blurry eyes, locking gazes before his heart failed.
She hadn’t even had to touch him.
---
It screamed loud.
Shouldn’t scream.
Demons deserve torture.
Demons deserve death.
---
“Please!” Ianto cried, tears pouring down his face as she cut another slice into his wrist. “Stop!”
“Demons have to die,” she muttered without looking up from her work. She stared at it with a sick admiration.
“Not,” he gasped, trying to breathe as a lung collapsed, “demon.”
“Not human.”
Blood pounded in his ears as he fell into darkness again, a sick blessing that he wouldn’t have to be conscious when his heart stopped for the eleventh time.
---
It bleeds clear from its eyes.
Not tears.
Demons don’t cry.
Demons have no reason to cry.
---
“Please,” Ianto whispered, his voice almost inaudible when he revived for the fifteenth time. “You don’t have to do this.”
“No.”
And with a mad grin, she pulled back and thrust the knife between his eyes.
---
Weapon won’t work.
Hands.
Demon will die.
Won’t hurt humans anymore.
---
She was already strangling him when he revived for the nineteenth time. He coughed, struggling to get any air in, but she was strong. Too strong for a girl her size, so thin and frail looking.
No more. Couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t be in this basement. Needed out. Needed friends. Needed Owen. Needed Spike. Needed Xander, Willow, Tosh, Gwen.
Needed Jack.
Ianto gave one last futile struggle before he sagged under her grip and stared blankly at the blood-his blood-splattered walls, any light extinguished long before he fell into death again.
---
It didn’t fight anymore.
Didn’t beg. Didn’t fight. Didn’t scream.
Its spirit was dead. The body still came back.
Only half done.
---
Ianto revived again. Twenty-three, a quiet voice in the back of his head mumbled, equally defeated.
Stab, slice, slit, strangle, snap.
Never ending.
In this basement for eternity.
She snapped his neck for the second time.
---
Boring now.
Miss the screams.
Demons make humans scream.
She wants to make it.
Won’t scream anymore.
No fun anymore.
---
Twenty-five.
He stared at her, unblinking, when she punched him and his head lolled to the side.
He didn’t have the strength or motivation to hold it up.
She dealt him one hard blow, breaking his nose in an upward punch that sent fragments into his brain.
And he fell into death number twenty-six.
---
Worthless.
Blank.
Half dead.
Make it all dead.
---
“It’s your fault, Jack!”
Jack bit his lip, closing his eyes as Gwen beat his chest with her tiny fists. He knew, knew that if he hadn’t kissed Ianto, he never would have been in that part of the cemetery when they were ambushed.
Three days. It had been three days since Ianto had been taken and they didn’t have anything. The girl had hijacked a car near the cemetery, a man fitting Ianto’s description slung over her shoulder as she forced the young couple from their Audi. She’d sped off, the car swerving every which way as she disappeared into the night. They’d enforced Torchwood jurisdiction and put out an order that they be contacted the second the car was spotted, but it hadn’t been seen since that night.
The girls had cried when they returned to the Hub without Ianto, each of them crowding around Xander, holding him close as tears spilled from his remaining eye. Willow had set to work, trying every locating spell she could get her hands on, but as strong as she was, none worked. Gwen had spent the entire first day driving, looking for that godforsaken Audi and came back crying when midnight rolled around without anything. Tosh herself was still in tears, memories of Ianto’s blood staining the grass clear in her head as she searched through hundreds of CCTV footage.
Xander just tried to hold them together and took on the responsibility of calling Buffy. She was livid that he hadn’t called her when Willow and Ianto died and Giles had taken the phone from her by the time he told her about Ianto’s disappearance. Buffy had been ready to get on a plane and fly out, but Giles had held her back, both of them explaining to her that she had responsibilities in Cleveland. He had a bitter feeling that Buffy hated him in that moment.
Owen and Spike had been shut up in the medical bay most of the time, Owen’s swears floating up as he cut into whatever alien he had in front of him. Spike had punched the stone wall, breaking four knuckles. Willow had needed to heal the injury before Spike’s muttered complaints drove Owen insane.
Jack had been up and down with each passing day. He’d called everyone back to the Hub immediately after Ianto had been taken, barking at them the entire night to work faster, harder. And when that search had turned up nothing and the others had worked themselves to exhaustion and curled up on the bunks a floor down, unwilling to leave should Tosh’s computer make the slightest beep, only then had he allowed himself to go into his bunk with a bottle of finely aged whiskey. He’d drank it straight from the bottle, his head leaned back against the wall as tears blurred his vision and his free hand stroked the sheets where Ianto’s body had appeared after his revival.
The second day he’d still been nursing a hangover, his orders to hurry up still rushed, but a decibel or two lower than before. He was giving up hope by the third, speaking only once to ask if anyone had come up with anything, and at their echoing no, he had leaned against the wall, eyes closed as he called on the memory of Ianto’s awakening, wishing that if he concentrated hard enough on the feeling of Ianto’s arms around him, it would bring him back.
Gwen stopped hitting him when her phone rang, wiping her tears and sniffling loudly as she rushed to her work station and answered. She paled, gasping as her knees buckled and she fell against her desk. With a quick thank you to whoever was on the other end, she slammed the receiver down, literally sprinting the five feet to Tosh, speaking at a speed Jack was amazed the Japanese woman could understand but clearly could as she worked at pulling up whatever Gwen wanted.
“Gwen,” Jack said, trying to get her attention. When he got no reply he raised his voice, “Gwen!” Nothing. “PC Cooper!”
“What’s going on?” Xander asked, coming up behind them, a teary Willow attached to his arm. He glanced back at Owen and Spike emerging from the medical bay, shrugging when Owen asked what the bloody hell is going on.
Tosh began shaking her head, hands over her mouth as she whispered, “No, no, no, no, no.” It turned into a quiet chant as Gwen pulled her against her chest, her chin resting on Tosh’s head as she looked at Jack with frightened eyes.
“Gwen, what’s going on?” Jack asked, his voice a mixture of fear and annoyance at not knowing what was going on.
“They…they found the car,” she whispered. They wouldn’t have been able to hear her had each of them not been holding their breath. Even Myfanwy was silent.
“Where?” Jack stressed, his chest clenching when Tosh turned her head to face him and breathing in shakily once spoke the words that he was sure stopped his heart.
“The Brecons.”
TBC
Story 3: Damaged Souls - Part 14 >>