gip AND fic

[letterblade]

Gipfic! Gipfic!

Ahem.

T: Point Alpha
F: Torchwood
R: NC-17
S: Jack and Ianto break things, mostly each other
P: 1/4-ish

This bit: starts during Countrycide, so gore warning, also spoilers. No sex yet. Will have to write the next scene or two for that. From there on, though, it's actually finished except for the last scene. Whee.

Ianto is uninjured, should be left until the scene is clear, if still in mobile action would be necessary to liberate him, should not be trusted with a weapon at the moment unless another combatant is absolutely necessary.

Ianto is a shaking mess, a ragged animal of a man. Terror point alpha, one of his old commanders in the Agency had called it. Delta is when fear instructs you, gamma is when fear threatens your operation and must be conquered, beta is when fear has won and drives you before it, alpha is when fear paralyzes you and removes your mind and that which makes you human.

*

Tosh has twiddled the signal, almost gotten through to the police at last, and Gwen and Owen are caught up looking at each other and shaking, even as Gwen's hand is on Jack's shoulder, as if still holding him back while his rage drains away.

"Fine," Jack mutters, flicks the barrel of his gun towards the bleeding villager--cannibal--and backs off, stands down, slowly. "Owen, secure him and the rest. Gwen, I want you to be the one to contact the police when Tosh raises them. You'll get your hour with him in a bit." He pauses, looks around.

They've done it again. They've all forgotten Ianto. He's fetal on the floor, still bound and gagged.

Jack holsters his gun, takes a long shaking breath, air all gunsmoke and copper-blood, lets it out. Not cleansing, but as close as he can manage. Ianto spasms and whimpers in fear at the sound of his footsteps, and from behind him he hears Gwen's guilty murmur--caught out at not thinking again. "God, oh god, Ianto, is he all right?"

"Stick with Tosh," Jack says, a little too harshly. Gwen backs towards Owen, who's barking at villagers and tying up wounds.

Jack crouches slowly, doesn't even try to touch him yet, and tries to drag his mind out of soldier mode. No, not even soldier mode--desperado mode. Time Agent mode. Switch off compassion, switch off regret. Reduce your fellow human beings to tactical equations, shields, information, meat. He could have tied down that man in the basement and carved every inch of skin off him, shown him the color of his marrow, listened to his screams, not felt a thing. Unless it was ineffective. Then merely the brief self-reprimand of a bad decision, wasted time, get on with it.

It should bother him, he thinks, that desperado mode is easier than it used to be.

Ianto is uninjured, should be left until the scene is clear, if still in mobile action would be necessary to liberate him, should not be trusted with a weapon at the moment unless another combatant is absolutely necessary.

Ianto is a shaking mess, a ragged animal of a man. Terror point alpha, one of his old commanders in the Agency had called it. Delta is when fear instructs you, gamma is when fear threatens your operation and must be conquered, beta is when fear has won and drives you before it, alpha is when fear paralyzes you and removes your mind and that which makes you human.

"Ianto," Jack says, as calmly as he can. "It's over. You're safe."

That takes a good minute to sink in, ease his violent trembling a little, and he takes that time finding the skeleton wrench on his keyring he uses to jimmy locks.

Ianto still thrashes like he's been shocked, a strangled scream through the gag, when Jack touches him. He holds the contact until Ianto slowly accepts it, uncurls, peeks up at him, whites all round his eyes.

"Easy. It's me. We've won." The words ring hollow; he catches Gwen out of the corner of his eye, going by to help Owen tie up another shattered kneecap, dark face haunted. Jack eases his hand up to the back of Ianto's neck, wrestles with the sweat-soaked knot--far easier to cut it, but a blade near him now would send him back towards point alpha again, he knows. Blood stains the rag they'd gagged him with, blood streaks his face, and if all that's his, he thinks, those fucking degenerates are going to--

Ianto chokes, bucks. Jack tries to hold him, soothe him, somehow. "Easy, Ianto, easy..."

No. No killing. He lets himself suppose that Gwen was right, cracks a thumbnail, pulls the knot free. Ianto's teeth are clenched tight, fear reflex, and Jack slowly coaxes the gag out, and Ianto coughs and spits blood and licks the raw corners of his mouth and finds voice.

"Jack?" Voice rough as asphalt, hoarse, cracked with emotion. Jack hasn't heard him like this since the Cyberman incident, and not ever before.

"Yeah, it's me. Ianto." He steadies his shoulders. "Ianto, can you look at me?"

The wide rolling green-hazel eyes finally settle on him, focus properly. Good, Jack thinks, he's coming out. Point alpha overwhelms the senses, the data processing; he wouldn't even have realized until now that it's him.

"Jack--" Ianto sputters, fear-drunk. "You made it--"

"We made it," Jack says firmly. "We all did. Ianto, I'm going to get the cuffs off now, okay?"

He gurgles something incoherent; there's blood sliding from his nose. Jack wipes it away with the back of his hand almost without thinking, and Ianto jerks from the touch like an animal.

"Sssh, easy..."

He reaches for the cuffs, Ianto's body all up along his, and he hears him moan with pressure to his gut--they must have worked him over good, those...

Ianto's hands are swollen, purple. Jack grits his teeth, slides the wrench in the keyhole, jiggles. The cuffs pop; Ianto groans at the pins and needles, groans again and louder as his limp arms slide back from where they've been wrenched behind him. Jack knows that burn, that frozen ache in the shoulders, holds him, keeps holding as fear goes through him in spasms like electric shocks as it leaves.

"Jack," Ianto croaks. "Oh, god, Jack, they--" He stops; his eyes roll to the cleaver that had fallen in front of him, where Jack had kicked it out of the way.

"I know." One quick check for Gwen--she's out of earshot. She wants to hear it from the horse's mouth, fine. "I know everything."

Ianto manages to move his arms enough to find a grip on Jack's coat. "They--they said--they were going to--"

"Not any more. It's not going to happen. Not ever."

*

Three nights later: Jack stands shirtless in the Torchwood shooting range at half past eight, practices emptying a clip into a single bullet-hole; paces back and forth with UNIT personnel profiles and stares at old group photos, laughing boys playing cards, man half in the frame in the corner, scientific advisor; skims the first suspect interviews coming out of the Brecon Becons case and doodles absently in the margins, ribbed Chula stern, quantum circuit, mass of crystals catching the sun on Woman Wept two thousand years from now reduced to chickenscratch, cause after all this time he still can't draw; pours himself brandy and makes the stemmed cut crystal sing with a fingertip; fiddles with an upgrade for Tosh's computer; plays ten-deck solitaire on his wrist-comm; kills time; blinks as Ianto slinks out of cold storage with a mop.

"I suppose there's no point in saying you shouldn't be here?"

Ianto twitches a bit at the sound of his voice, turns and squares his shoulders with a bit of that Welsh-puppydog-stare Jack is growing oddly fond of.

"I suppose I could ask you the same, sir?"

There's a hint of a shadow under his eyes, Jack notices. Nothing else different, nothing else even faintly out of line; this is Ianto, so perfectly composed, it's almost like he wants nobody to notice anything's wrong.

"Hey, I'm the boss. If I want to stay here all night, ain't nothing you can do. Besides, I hate the commute." Old line, still works.

Ianto frowns slightly. "Shouldn't you be sleeping, sir?"

Jack folds his thumbs into his belt loops, draws himself up. "I'll have you know that I can go a week without sleep without a problem." He cocks his eyebrow, meaningful. "Don't think you can."

Ianto blinks, gives a miniscule shrug, and pads off to put the mop away.

Jack cocks his head, worries a minute, and strides off after him.

"Ianto." He's wringing out the mop, hanging it up, looks over his shoulder with a bit of surprise. "I consider myself a keen observer of human behavior." Jack lowers his head, wags his finger. "I have had many years to hone this talent and it never, ever fails me." There's almost fear in Ianto's eyes at that. "And right now, my observational skills inform me that you are a man in desperate need of a drink."

Ianto relaxes a little, secures the mop, turns. "I suppose I could be convinced, then."

Jack cocks his thumb towards his office, marches off, Ianto in his wake.

"A question," Ianto starts, "since my own powers of observation are rather less honed: did the weevils get your shirt?"

Jack grins. "Of course. It was a long and terrible battle. After all, I would never willingly surrender my shirt."

Comments

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

*grabs and holds*

It's been...one of my things, in writing, that I do a lot. Not as much as some others, but still. Not often from the outside, and that is harder, you're right.

Thanks you. As for the drink, I belatedly propose tea...?