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sga_santaTitle: The One with the Dinosaur
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
squeakyoflight
Recipient:eviljr
Pairing: Evan Lorne/Ianto Jones. background McShep
Rating: 14A for violence, coarse language and sexually suggestive scenes.
Disclaimer: Spoilers for: Season One and Two of Torchwood, specifically: "Countrycide," "Fragments" and "Exit Wounds."
Author's Notes: This story takes place in the Gifts AU
created by Spingwoof and Taste_is_Sweet, and takes place after the story Stricken (written by Squeaky and Taste_is_Sweet) now posted on the SGA BigBang! site. Cross-over with Torchwood.
I would very much like to thankspringwoof, taste_is_sweet and squeakyoflight for kindly letting me build a small castle in their sand-box.
Merry Christmas, Eviljr! Enjoy!
With great thanks to my beta Taste_is _Sweet for her amazing work
Summary: Major Lorne meets Mr. Jones - and a purple dinosaur.
"And Major Lorne," Elizabeth said, her eyes sparkling like a kid at Christmas, "this is Captain Jack Harkness."
"Pleasure," Captain Harkness said as Evan took his hand. The man was tall, almost a foot taller than Evan, with a firm handshake that echoed the strength hinted at by his broad shoulders. His hair was dark brown, his eyes a clear, piercing blue. His smile was enough to make Evan feel a pulse of hot desire in his groin.
"Likewise," Evan mumbled, forcing himself to not immediately pull his hand away. He hadn't felt so awkward since he was in junior high and had first realized that he might like the boys a bit more than the girls in his class.
The Captain's smile widened and Evan realized he was still holding his hand. Quickly, he loosened his grip, and felt the heat of himself blushing as Harkness released his hand slowly, as sensually as if they were lovers.
Evan had heard a lot of things about the Torchwood Three team, but somehow everyone had failed to mention that the Captain was like a walking orgy. No wonder Elizabeth couldn't take her eyes off him.
Evan clasped his still-tingling hand behind his back and took a step sideways, out of the way of the commotion that was building in the Gate room. A lot of people had come for the introduction of the famous Torchwood team. They were the ones responsible for finding Atlantis their new Healer, Tegan Blin, who had managed to help prevent all of Atlantis' Gifted from dying less than a month before. It had been a harrowing race against time to save everyone, and for a while, Evan was sure none of them were going to make it.
But most of them had, and Tegan had been instrumental. A lot of people felt they owed Torchwood a huge debt, and Elizabeth had invited them to come to a party on Atlantis in their honour as a way of saying thanks.
Evan had actually thought she was kind of kidding when she had said she'd sent off the invitation. He'd been sure that the SGC or the IOA would kibosh the whole idea the second the request landed on their desks. After all, who the hell would be willing to compromise the security of the SGC and Atlantis merely for the sake of an interplanetary shindig?
But clearly, he'd been wrong.
No one, it turned out, ever said 'no' to Torchwood. They were, in fact, an internationally-known collection of teams located in every corner of the commonwealth. They spent their time tracking down useful alien technology and neutralizing alien threats while hanging out in offices built over space-time rifts. Evan had learned all of this in the few minutes he'd spent walking from Elizabeth's office to the Gate room that morning, Rodney McKay spouting off in his ear the whole way.
Torchwood, McKay had pontificated as they walked, is well beyond the government. They do what they want, when they want because they're willing to make the tough calls for the benefit of the planet.
Evan had nodded, taking in Rodney's words. He hadn't realized until that moment that the SGC had more competition than just the Russians.
In fact, McKay had said, with that particular brand of smugness that Evan hated, I used to be a member of Torchwood Five, before I was asked to join the SGC.
Oh, Evan had said with studied blandness, and then chuckled inwardly when McKay had huffed off, clearly pissed that Evan hadn't asked him anything more about it.
Now, watching Harkness, the living sex bomb, Evan kind of wished he'd taken the opportunity to ask a bit more about the team. He figured he wouldn't get told much. McKay had made it clear that only he, Elizabeth, and General O'Neill were truly allowed in the Torchwood fan-club, but even after only five seconds with Harkness, Evan could tell that he was kind of a big deal. It would have been nice to know more.
Not that he'd get his chance, he mused, as he watched McKay nearly bust a gasket flipping out over the guy. Sheppard was there as well, and both he and McKay were hanging all over the Captain as if he was their triplet separated at birth. Elizabeth was practically giddy, and the three of them were just about wrapped all over Harkness as they walked him out of the room.
Evan's hand had stopped tingling, and it was at that moment that he realized that Harkness hadn't listed for him, and he frowned, wondering what might have gone wrong.
"Torchwood normally has that effect on people."
Evan startled, whirling towards the voice. The Gate room had efficiently emptied out in the wake of Harkness and the rest of the command team leaving, and he had assumed he was alone.
The tall, sandy-haired man with the light blue eyes standing just beside the Stargate showed he was wrong about that.
Evan eyed him, taking in the buffed black shoes, the well-tailored striped grey suit, the fuchsia shirt and the coordinated tie before leveling his gaze on his face. The man was handsome, in a bland way, and was smiling a sardonic grin that immediately made Evan think of Rodney McKay.
"You're from Torchwood, too?" Evan said, taking a step forward.
"How perceptive," the man said with a strong accent. He put out his hand. "Ianto Jones."
"Major Evan Lorne," Evan replied, shaking Ianto's hand. His Gift kicked in with satisfying swiftness, and Ianto was listed before Evan had to prolong the handshake to awkward levels. Evan liked to list everyone in Atlantis, even if they were only staying a short while. Knowing he could immediately tell if something was toxic to others made Evan felt his Gift was at least a little bit useful. Lord knew it hadn't been a help at all during the sickness they'd all had. There had been only one time that he knew of where it had actually saved someone's life.
"So, Major," Ianto said with those round vowels so typical of the Welsh. "From what I understand, this party isn't for at least three more days. And since my Captain has left me, I was wondering. Do you have any suggestions on what I might do to fill my time?" He raised one elegant eyebrow in a perfect expression of mild interest overlaid with mild boredom. But as Evan looked at his face, he saw a flicker of insecurity flash through those arresting blue eyes. Evan had met enough new recruits over his years as 2IC of Atlantis to know when someone was acting more confident than they felt.
"Your Captain just left you here?" Evan said, more for confirmation of what he already knew then out of real curiosity.
Ianto's smile faltered, his grip shifting on the handle of the leather overnight bag he held. "He forgot."
Evan tilted his head to the left. "And there're only two of you?" Somehow, McKay had given the impression that the team consisted of a vast number of highly-skilled operatives.
"There's three, actually," Ianto replied. "But our Police Liaison Officer decided to stay home with her man."
"Oh," Evan said for a lack of anything better. He felt really bad for the guy. Ianto had been abandoned by his only friend here in an alien city, and they both knew it. He thought of calling Elizabeth, to bring Harkness back to collect his teammate, but he stopped himself before his hand could go to his radio. It would be like paging some kid's parents in a mall or something, and would probably just make Ianto feel worse.
As the silence stretched between them, Evan wracked his brain for some bone to throw to the guy. Something he could do while he was waiting for Harkness to get his head out of his ass and come get him. He could go looking for him, Evan mused, under the guise of taking Ianto for a tour, but for all he knew, Harkness and the command staff had ended up in bed together. Trying to track them down without looking like he was trying to track them down was going to be difficult at best, and really embarrassing for Ianto at worst.
Evan flicked his gaze to the other man. Ianto was studying the Stargate with fierce intensity, and Evan didn't need to be an Empath like Elizabeth to know that he was dying inside from the humiliation of the situation.
"My team's leaving for a recon mission in about two hours," Evan said suddenly, startling himself with the statement. Under normal circumstances it would never have occurred to him to invite an untried civilian on an off-world mission. But as he thought about it, it made sense. They were going to check out some seismic readings on a planet that didn't seem to have any non-botanical life-forms bigger than a grasshopper, and Ianto was Torchwood, after all. According to what McKay had said, there was nothing this team couldn't handle. Ianto probably had more experience with this kind of shit in his little finger than Evan would have in his whole life. "Want to come?"
Ianto's face lit up with a genuine smile, and Evan felt his eyes widen as the angular plains of Ianto's face were completely transformed by that simple action. Ianto wasn't blandly handsome, he was gorgeous. And why had Evan not noticed that before?
"Yes, I would," Ianto said. And Evan found his own smile widening in return.
"Come on," Evan said, gesturing towards the exit. "I'll show you to your quarters."
It would be just his bloody luck to die because he was tying his laces.
Ianto knelt in the open field, feeling his breath rasp lightly in his lungs. His fingers were still on the laces of his borrowed boots, ready to finish the double-knot he had started. His head was down, one knee pressed onto the dry grass. He was keeping himself perfectly still, knowing with a terrifying certainty that even a slight change in position could mean his death.
"Don't move!" Evan hissed at him from somewhere to his right. Out of the corner of his eye, Ianto could see the three other members of Evan's team, standing like statues, guns raised at the ready.
The big, purple dinosaur however was not being still at all. Rather it was blowing and snorting beside him, it's hot, animal breath puffing on his skin and ruffling through his hair.
Less than two hours ago, on the way to the visitor's quarters, the Major had explained to Ianto that they were coming to this planet to identify the source of some seismic readings made by the remote-controlled MALP when it had gone through the Gate that morning. The readings had been random and full of fluctuations, which Dr. McKay had interpreted as being a hopeful sign of a powerful energy source, perhaps abandoned by the Ancients for being unreliable.
"On the other hand," McKay had joked as he had helped calibrate the hand-held recording device Dr. Parrish was to take on the mission, "it could just be some giant animal running around."
Unfortunately, Dr. McKay's flippant remark had been more accurate than he knew.
The dinosaur thing had come upon them when they were half-way across the open field that joined the forest leading from the Gate with some rocky cliffs beyond. It was as if it had been waiting for them to get fully into the open, somewhere where it would be difficult to run and hide--nearly impossible to escape.
Of course, Ianto had been too busy tightening the laces of his boots to realize that Sergeant Conroy's shouts of alarm had actually meant something significant.
Which was why he was now trapped in the middle of the field, being sniffed by a creature that looked like the older sibling of the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, except for the festive colouring.
He felt the tip of the creature's tongue flick gently against the back of his neck.
"Don't move!" Evan hissed again, and Ianto shifted his gaze the other way to just make out the Major taking another step towards him.
It was time, Ianto decided, to use his Gift.
He closed his eyes, and concentrated, searching for the answers to the questions he was forming in his mind. Within seconds he had them, and his eyes snapped open. Just in time to see Evan take another step towards him.
The Major's plan popped crystal-clear into Ianto's mind. "Wait!" He said, putting out his hands. "You don't need to! Don't--!"
Evan took a running leap and landed on the creature's nose. "Run!" he yelled, hands gripping the scaly skin.
"But--" Ianto started, standing.
"RUN!" Evan hollered, and Ianto bolted towards the rest of the team.
Conroy, Kemper and Parrish were running towards him, back across the field towards the Gate.
"Get outta the way!" Conroy shouted at him as he brought his gun up to bear.
"No!" Ianto cried, feeling his eyes grow wide. "No! You'll shoot the Major!"
"I'll shoot you if you don't get the fuck out of the way!" Conroy yelled. Ianto threw himself off to one side, landing heavily on the ground. The air exploded with the sound of gunfire.
The creature howled, and flung its nose upwards, tossing Evan off. With amazing dexterity, the dinosaur slashed out with one purple paw, swiping at him as he came down.
Evan rolled to a stop in front of Ianto, his pack gone, the front of his shirt a torn and bloody mess from his right shoulder to his left hip.
"No," Ianto said as he scrambled to his feet. "No, no, no!" As gently as he could, he reached down and hoisted Evan to his feet, pulling one of Evan's arms over his shoulder. Evan groaned in pain, but helped the best he could, and Ianto was finally able to get him to his feet. Ianto could hear the bursts of gunfire behind him and the shouts of Evan's men as he half-dragged, half-pulled the Major away from the creature and towards the cliffs in front of them.
"Where you going?" Evan panted. "Gate's back that way!"
"Dinosaur's back that way!" Ianto gasped back. "We'll be safe here."
"How do you know?" Evan said, limping badly, but thankfully not fighting against Ianto to turn around and go back the other way.
"Because I do," Ianto said between gritted teeth. He always did.
He found the cave exactly where he knew it would be, at the base of the cliff just across the clearing. The entrance was narrow and so low that he and Evan had to squeeze through separately, nearly bent double. Evan had cried out in pain, but had gone through with only minimal help from Ianto.
He was sprawled in the dirt on the other side by the time Ianto made it in, lying on his back, clutching at the wounds on his chest.
"Fuck this hurts," he muttered. His face was grey.
"Come now," Ianto said, "it's not that bad." He had no idea if it was bad or not, actually. Visually, the wounds looked terrible: raw and bleeding with the flesh torn open in ragged cuts that were as deep as they were wide. Evan's heart rate and breathing had increased; Ianto could say with complete accuracy the breaths and beats-per-minute, but he didn't know how to interpret that information. He had always left the medical stuff up to Owen Harper, their doctor, who had died only a few months before. The pain of losing his friend stabbed through him. He'd give nearly anything for Owen to be with them now.
"Help me sit up," Evan said. Dutifully, Ianto slipped his arm behind Evan's shoulders, and with a lot of grunting, managed to help him get to a sitting position, leaning up against the cave wall. Evan closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He tapped the side of his face. "Fuck," he said again. "My radio's gone."
"You lost it when the dinosaur hit you," Ianto said, because that's exactly what had happened.
Evan's eyes opened to slits. "You saw that?"
Ianto held his gaze. "That's what happened."
"Huh," Evan said and closed his eyes again. Ianto took off the rucksack he'd been issued that morning along with a black t-shirt and green military-style pants. Evan had told him to be liberal with the sunscreen but to leave the jacket in his pack. The planet was as hot as the Caribbean, Evan had explained and Ianto had just nodded. He knew exactly how hot the Caribbean was, and he could recite the average summer and winter temperatures by island, if required. The fact he'd never been any further south than London didn't make a difference.
Ianto deftly pulled out the first-aid kit hidden in the second front pocket of the sack. He opened it, yanked out the wicked-looking pair of bandage scissors and gently began slicing away the remains of Evan's t-shirt.
Evan hissed as the blunt edge of the scissors ran over a cut.
"Sorry," Ianto said. The scissors revealed the chiseled planes of Evan's chest, the sculpted muscles gouged with four red marks, each as wide as Ianto's finger. Ianto winced in sympathy.
"Where are my men?" Evan asked. His face was twisted from the pain.
Ianto paused in his cutting, concentrating. "The dinosaur was chasing them," he said. "They were running towards the Gate." He finished cutting and the remains of the shirt fell to the ground. He put the scissors back in the kit, choosing instead a bottle of disinfectant and some gauze pads.
"God," Evan said. "I hope they made it back."
"They did," Ianto said. He liberally poured the disinfectant onto one of the pads and began cleaning Evan's wounds.
"Fuck!" Evan shouted. "Fucking hell!" His hands clenched, but he made no move to stop Ianto from what he was doing.
"Sorry," Ianto said again.
Evan was panting. "They made it back?" he repeated.
"Yes," Ianto said. He started again with another gauze pad. The flow of Evan's blood had slowed to an ooze, and Ianto let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. At least the Major wasn't going to bleed to death in front of him. The other issue could wait at least a little bit, he hoped.
He forced himself to not think of his friend, Toshiko Sato, dying from a bullet wound on the stairs in the Torchwood hub.
Evan's fingernails dug into the soil as Ianto cleaned another slash mark. "How do you know?" he said through clenched teeth.
"Know what?" Ianto said as he cleaned some dirt out of a particularly deep spot.
"Know they made it back!" Evan snapped. He groaned, there was almost no colour in his face.
"My Gift," Ianto said, looking at Evan before turning back to his first-aid. "You look like hell."
"Thanks," Evan muttered, and then, "Your Gift?"
"I'm a Cognitive," Ianto said, soaking yet another pad. The air in the cave was beginning to smell like a combination of alcohol and copper from the blood. "I know things." He smiled as he rubbed the wet gauze over another of the deep scrapes. "Only 57 of us on Earth." He removed the pad and dropped it on the pile lying on the ground. "All done."
"Thank God," Evan said on a moan. Ianto could see he was shivering even thought the air in the cave was only marginally cooler than it was outside. "Do you have any--"
"Here," Ianto said, handing him the canteen he'd just opened. "Don't drink it all. It's all we've got."
"Thanks," Evan murmured, taking the offered container.
Ianto took an emergency blanket out of his pack and gently slid it behind Evan's back, securing it gently over his shoulders.
"Thanks," Evan said again. He took another pull of the canteen, then handed it back. "You should've fucking ran."
Ianto blinked. "What?"
"The dinosaur. You should've ran when I told you to," Evan repeated. His eyes were closed; his head back against the cave wall. "You're shit at obeying orders."
"I told you not to jump on her," Ianto said, thinking of watching Evan being thrown into the air, the sound of the dinosaur's claws slicing into him, the way he landed in front of him in a bleeding heap of torn flesh. He forced his voice to stay even. "What did you expect her to do?"
"Her?" Evan said, and Ianto could clearly hear the disbelief in his voice.
"How the hell--?"
"My Gift, remember?" Ianto said. "My Gift let me know about her." He took his jacket out of the rucksack and placed it gently over Evan's chest. "She's rather intelligent, you know."
Evan made a face. "She tried to kill you!"
"No." Ianto shook his head. "She was merely trying to figure out what I was. From her perspective, she probably thought we were trying to kill her."
Evan shook his head and then groaned again. "She was going to eat you."
"No," Ianto repeated. "She's a vegetarian, actually. Not really fond of meat."
Evan stared at him. "You can communicate with her?"
"She's a dinosaur! Ianto made a face. "Her brain is the size of a marble! Of course I can't communicate with her! I got the answers I needed. It's my Gift!"
"So she never meant us any harm," Evan said. "Fuck." The Major closed his eyes again and a bead of sweat made its way from his temple to his chin. Ianto could see the pulse beating at the base of his throat.
"Actually, she is probably going to try to kill us now," Ianto said, forcing a conversational tone into his voice. "Since you jumped on her, she now sees us as a threat. Once she realizes she can't get to your men, she'll head back here."
"Great," Evan muttered. He opened his eyes and leaned forward. "We need to go."
"No." Ianto shook his head more vehemently, gently pressing Evan back down. "You're team will come back and rescue us. We're not going anywhere."
"Why not?" Evan asked. "You just said that dinosaur was coming back! We need to go!"
Ianto took a breath. "We can't Major," he said. "She poisoned you."
Evan blinked. Ianto's words made no sense. "What?"
"She poisoned you," he repeated. "Her claws can inject poison. Rather like a snake's venom through its teeth." Ianto took a breath. "I'm afraid you've been poisoned."
"Shit," Evan muttered. And now that Ianto had said something, Evan realized he could feel it, too. The cuts on his chest had hurt like a son of a bitch while Ianto was cleaning them, but now they didn't hurt at all. In fact, he felt kind of pleasantly muzzy, like he did after a few beers or a couple of Carson's really good painkillers. He swallowed. "How bad?"
Ianto concentrated, his eyes going unfocused for a second before coming back to their brilliant blue. "Bad," he said. "It's like a fast-acting narcotic, meant to keep her enemies happy and sleepy so she can get away. But--"
"I'm not dinosaur-sized," Evan finished for him.
Ianto shook his head. "As well-shaped as you are, no."
"So," Evan said, smiling a little at Ianto's compliment. "No going to sleep?" As soon as he said it, he realized it was going to be difficult to stay awake. He was feeling really drowsy already, a pleasant heaviness settling over his limbs.
"No," Ianto agreed. "Sleeping would be a very bad idea."
"Okay," Evan said. He closed his eyes.
"No!" Ianto shouted and Evan's eyes snapped open.
"You have to stay awake, Evan!" Ianto said fiercely. "If you fall asleep, you'll stop breathing!"
"Oh," Evan said. Not breathing sounded like a very bad thing, but he wasn't sure why at that precise second. He leaned his head against the wall, enjoying the floating sensation in his body. His mind began to drift...
"Evan!" Ianto was shaking his shoulder, which was sending an unpleasant stab of pain through his chest. He slapped at Ianto's hand.
"Quit it," he mumbled. "I'm awake."
Ianto drew down his eyebrows. "This isn't going to work." He stood, tugging at Evan's arm. "You need to stand up."
Evan started shaking his head, then realized it felt really good to just let it hang down. "I'm okay," he said, because he was. He felt fine. "I'll just stay..." he let his eyes slide shut.
"EVAN!" Ianto slapped his face. Evan's head came up with a jolt, his heart pounding from a combination of the pain and surprise.
"I'm awake!" he said, "honest!"
"You must get up," Ianto knelt beside him, "Please."
The bleak look in Ianto's eyes was heartbreaking. "Okay." Evan nodded. He shook his head, trying to get his brain to work. "I'll try."
"Good lad," Ianto said. He put Evan's arm over his shoulder and slid his arm around Evan's back. "Can you stand?"
Evan shook his head. "Maybe?"
"You can stand," Ianto said, and his voice held such confidence that Evan believed him. "On three, then. One, two..." and Evan was on his feet, the jacket Ianto had given him falling to the ground.
"Whoa," he said, as he swayed hard into the wall. He winced in reaction as his shoulder impacted the rough stone hard enough to tear the silver blanket and pull it off his shoulders, but he barely felt it. The poison from the dinosaur was still drugging him. "Dinosaur drug," he said, and snickered.
"You alright?" Ianto asked, and Evan could feel the other man tightening his grip around his waist. He could feel the skin of Ianto's arm on the bare skin of his back, the solidity of Ianto's body where he was pressed into his side. It felt really, really good.
Evan swallowed. "Yeah."
"Then let's start walking."
It was as if Evan's brain and his feet were no longer connected. Each step was a careening nightmare that had Evan staggering like a drunk on a ship. The poison was tugging on him, trying to pull him down and close his eyes. He felt himself sagging against Ianto, who grunted under his weight.
"Sorry," Evan breathed. He felt dazed and severely out-of-it. He just wanted to sit down...
"You can't sit down," Ianto said, making Evan wonder if he'd said it out loud. "You've only been walking for a few minutes, and your heart-rate isn't nearly high enough." He shook Evan, who felt his eyes fly open. He hadn't realized he'd let them close. "Stay with me!" Ianto commanded. "You need to move the poison to your liver as fast as possible, which requires your heart-rate to be elevated. You can't sit down!"
"You know a lot," Evan said. He was trying to sort out what Ianto had told him to do, but his mind kept focusing on the 'sitting down' part. He felt his knees start to sag.
Ianto hauled him upright. "My Gift," Ianto said. "I've told you."
"How?" Evan asked. He meant how does it work? but the rest of the sentence seemed too complicated.
"If something is knowable, I know it," Ianto said. "The answers just appear in my mind." He shrugged, which Evan could feel under his arm. "I'm not sure how."
Evan blinked, a slow process that left his eyes closed for a little too long. "You know everything?"
He heard Ianto's smirk. "I try not to ask too many questions."
I don't understand, Evan tried to say. It came out as "huh?"
"I only get answers to questions I've asked, either out-loud or in my mind," Ianto said. "If I don't ask too many questions, I don't know too much."
That made more sense. They walked a half-circle through the dirt of the cave floor, Evan's uneven footsteps kicking up small clouds of dust with each step. "Must be hard," Evan said finally. He hadn't realized he was going to speak.
Ianto's steps faltered for a moment. "It can be, actually," he said slowly. "But most people don't see that."
Evan smiled, turning his head so he could see Ianto's profile. "People like answers."
He could see Ianto's lips curve up, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. "Yes."
They walked a few more steps, and Evan could feel his energy fading. It was so hard to lift his boots off the ground, to keep his body upright. He felt his eyes closing against his will, his legs collapsing underneath him.
"Evan!" Ianto shouted. "Get up!"
He had landed on his knees, his head sagging forward and his fingers brushing against the soft earth of the cave floor. "Go," he said, feeling the words thick and heavy in his mouth. "Get out of here."
"Not without you," Ianto said tersely. "Here, chew these, they might help." Evan felt the familiar round shapes of two glucose pills pushed into his mouth. All Gifted people in Atlantis carried glucose pills with them, since using their Gifts took a lot of energy. Sometimes the pills were the only thing between a Gifted person and certain death from severe hypoglycemia. He started chewing automatically, making a face against the pasty fruit flavour.
The rush of energy helped, and he slowly staggered to his feet, leaning heavily against the cave wall, still chewing the last bits of the tablets.
Something pinged in his head.
"Huh," he said, opening his eyes all the way. "My Gift's just gone off."
"What?" Ianto asked. He was standing in front of him, hands just under Evan's rib-cage, as if helping to hold him up. Evan found himself looking right into Ianto's face, noting the anxiety in the tightness around his eyes, the way he held his lips. Like McKay, Evan thought. Ianto looked the way McKay did when McKay was scared and trying not to show it. Scared for me,Evan thought, and the idea made him smile.
Evan let his gaze roam over Ianto's well-shaped cheekbones, the symmetry of his eyes, the way his ears angled into his jaw. There was nothing bland about Ianto's face at all, and Evan couldn't remember why he'd ever thought there was. Ianto's thumbs moved against his side, and he felt a ripple of desire. He couldn't remember what Ianto was asking him about.
"What?" Ianto said again, but this time his voice was barely a whisper.
Evan leaned in and kissed him.
Ianto's mouth was firm and warm, the lips moving expertly against his own. Evan kissed him deeply, letting his tongue roam the other man's mouth. Ianto tasted sweet and sharp, like sugared wine. It was nearly as intoxicating as the dinosaur's poison. Evan moved his palms up and under Ianto's black t-shirt, letting his hands explore Ianto's skin like his tongue was his mouth. Ianto was lean and well-shaped, his muscles easy on the fingertips and wonderful to feel. He moved his hands up the shallow 'v' of Ianto's spine, down his shoulders, over his sides, and onto the rough cloth of the Atlantis-issue pants covering Ianto's hips and then his ass as he pressed Ianto into him. Evan's cock was hard and uncomfortably trapped by his clothes.
"Careful," Ianto breathed as he moved back half a step. "Your chest--"
"Can't feel it," Evan murmured, kissing Ianto again. He could feel his heart beating faster, and it was as if his head was clearing with each beat. His chest was being to hurt, but at this point he couldn't really care.
Ianto's hands were on his belt, expertly flicking the buckle open.
Which was the exact second that the cave reverberated with the loudest roar Evan had ever heard.
"Bloody hell!" Ianto cried as he and Evan immediately broke apart.
He found himself back up against the cave wall, eyes wide and mouth open, looking at one huge eye surrounded by purple scales neatly pressed up to the cave entrance.
The dinosaur was so large that she was nearly blocking out all the light.
"Jesus Christ," Evan breathed. "She found us."
"She can't get in though," Ianto said quickly. "She's far too big! And your team will be here shortly. We'll be fine!"
"Is that your Gift?" Evan asked, "do you know that from your--"
The dinosaur stuck one of her wickedly clawed front-feet in through the narrow crack and pulled. The side of the cave entrance broke off with a sound like crumbling concrete.
"Oh shit!" Evan yelled. "She's getting in! You said she couldn't get in!" There was a note of panic in the Major's voice. At least his heart-rate's up, Ianto thought. He might survive the poison--if they survived the dinosaur.
Evan was moving along the wall of the cave, running his hands over it's surface, clearly looking for somewhere else for them to go. The cave Ianto had found was long but shallow. A distance of only a few metres stood between them and the entrance. If the dinosaur broke through, she'd be on them in seconds.
"I wasn't using my Gift!" Ianto shouted back. "There's no way out," he continued, hearing an echoing note of panic in his own voice. "We're trapped!"
"What?" Evan cried. "You led us into a cave with only one exit? Are you crazy?"[D1]
"I had to get you to safety!" Ianto said hotly. "There was a dinosaur after us!"
"Not then!" Evan kept shouting, "she was after Parrish and the others! We had time!" Evan crossed in front of Ianto and began searching the other side
"I'm sorry if I was too busy trying to save your life to think about exits!" Ianto retorted.
There was another ripping sound as the dinosaur tore a chunk out of the other side of the door, stuck her arm through and swiped menacingly at Ianto, missing by only half a metre.
"Fuck!" Ianto swore, pressing himself back tightly against the rough stone.
The dinosaur howled in frustration and went back to the door.
Evan glanced quickly over his shoulder, and continued searching. "You wanna help me here?" he asked tersely. "We don't have much time."
"I'm sorry, I--" Ianto swallowed, feeling his heart pounding so hard it hurt. He hadn't been this frightened since he was trapped in a cellar with a pile of butchered bodies and the certainty he was next.
"Fucking hell!" Evan shouted. "Figure something out, Ianto! Use your Gift!" He reached into the rucksack and popped two glucose tablets into his hand, shoving them into Ianto's mouth before bending back to the bag. "Torchwood's the best there is!" he spat. "Think!"
"I've never been attacked by a dinosaur before!" Ianto said through a mouthful of glucose. Which wasn't precisely true, but the pterodactyl he and Jack had captured about two years before seemed small and almost tame in comparison. "I don't know what to do!"
"What?" Evan asked incredulously. "But you're Torchwood! He was tearing through the rucksack, clearly looking for something useful. "You guys do shit like this every day!"
"What?" Ianto felt his eyes grow wide at both Evan's ludicrous statement and the snarling dinosaur nose part-way through the entrance. "We never do shit like this! Who told you that?"
"McKay!" Evan shouted as he continued to pull items out of the pack.
"Well, McKay is wrong!" Ianto shouted back. "We deal with alien threats in Cardiff! Cardiff! Not dinosaurs on other planets!"
"So you've never done this before?" Evan asked. He was clearly so stunned at this information that he was staring at Ianto, pack forgotten.
"No!" Ianto yelled. "I've never been off-world before!"
As if to punctuate his statement, the dinosaur roared again, poking her nose through almost up to her eye sockets.
"Jesus!" Evan jumped, focus back on the dinosaur and then back on the bag. "Damn it!" Evan slammed his fist into the ground. "There's nothing in here!" He stood, pulling his sidearm out of its holster. "Do you think my gun will work on her?"
"No," Ianto said immediately. "It will just make her more angry."
The dinosaur roared, and yet another chunk of wall went flying.
"I'm going to shoot her in the eye!" Evan said, taking aim. "If she just turns her head--"
"Wait!" Ianto grabbed Evan's wrist. "Wait! When you ate the glucose before, you said your Gift went off! Your Gift is to taste things that might be toxic to others, yes?"
Evan was still sighting down his gun, clearly looking for his shot. The dinosaur was too busy making a dinosaur-sized hole in the wall to oblige. "Yeah," he said. "So?"
"What made it go off?" Ianto said. Evan made a face. "Tell me!"
"The dinosaur!" Evan snapped. "The fucking dinosaur pinged on the glucose tablets! Happy?"
"Yes!" Ianto said. "Give me your knife!"
"What?" Evan demanded. He re-holstered his gun and stared at Ianto. Ianto had the exact-same expression on his face as Dr. McKay always got when he was about to pull their ass out of the fire. He took his knife out of his pack and handed it to him. "Why?"
"Get some more tablets," Ianto said, and then to Evan's horror, sliced deeply into his left arm.
"What the hell are you doing?" Evan cried, reaching for the knife.
"I'll explain in a moment!" Ianto said, grimacing. He had moved to kneel on the ground, and was systematically milking his wound to cause blood to drip onto the dirt. "Give me the glucose! Now!"
Evan scooped up the packs, popping several pills into his hand. "Where?"
The dinosaur stuck her arm through again, the claws of her hands snagging over Evan's boot before she withdrew. "Jesus!" he gasped.
"Here! Quicky!" Ianto pointed to the small, blood-filled depression.
Evan dropped the pills in, and immediately Ianto crushed them into the dirt and blood and then rolled the mixture into a ball. He handed it to Evan. "Throw it to her," he said. "I think you're aim is better than mine."
Evan nodded, and tossed it towards the opening. It landed a foot from the entrance, then rolled to a stop mere inches from the door.
The dinosaur stopped tearing at the wall and stuck her nose in. Evan and Ianto moved so their backs were against the stone, the cold roughness unpleasant on Evan's bare skin.
The dinosaur's nostrils flared and she made an obvious sniffing sound. Her tongue extended in a strangely dainty movement, licked the mud-ball, then curled around it and took it into her mouth. She started chewing.
"Oh thank God," Ianto breathed beside Evan.
"What's going to..." Evan let his voice trail off as the dinosaur roared and spat out the macerated ball with enough force that it splattered into the wall above Evan's head.
The dinosaur reared back and shook her head, tongue protruding from her enormous jaws and shaking off giant beads of saliva. In one large and graceful movement, she turned and loped away from the cave, head still shaking. It reminded Evan so much of his mother's dogs after they'd been force-fed medicine that he laughed.
"You did it!" Evan crowed, slapping Ianto on the shoulder. He felt weak with relief.
"It was your Gift," Ianto said. "I did nothing." But he was smiling.
"She thinks we're poisonous now, doesn't she?" Evan said. He was grinning so hard he thought his face might split. He carefully slid down the wall so that he was sitting on the dirt floor, letting the last vestiges of adrenaline drain out of his system. He could feel his heart slow back to a comfortable rhythm. His chest was aching.
"That she does," Ianto said as he moved to sit beside Evan. He let out a heavy breath. "Time for us to head back."
"Yeah," Evan said. He felt tired. Really tired, like the attempt to flee the dinosaur had been actual combat. He let his head fall back, coming to rest against the stone. His eyes drifted shut.
"Wake up!" Ianto screamed.
Evan opened his eyes. Ianto was kneeling right in front of him, his hands on his shoulders, still shaking them. "You're still being affected by the poison!"
"Oh," Evan said. The word seemed to take a long time to get out of his mouth. He felt his head loll to one side.
"Evan!" Ianto shook him again. "We need to get you out of here!"
Evan tried to open his eyes, but the lids were too heavy. His whole body was too heavy, weighted with fatigue.
"Stay with me," Ianto said. "Evan!" There was pressure on the side of his jaw, and Evan obligingly let his mouth fall open. He felt Ianto place yet another glucose pill in his mouth, and he started chewing automatically. The rush of sugar made him feel marginally better, although he felt the dinosaur ping again and he made a face.
"How's that?" Ianto asked. Evan opened his eyes to see Ianto looking intently at him, his captivating blue eyes full of anxiety. "Do you think you could stand?"
"No," Evan said, knowing it was the truth. It was as if his limbs were tied to the floor of the cave, impossible to lift. "Go," he said, trying to convey the importance of Ianto leaving him, of going back to Atlantis where he wouldn't be found by a different purple dinosaur. With a supreme effort, he lifted one hand to let it slide down Ianto's cheek and then land heavily on the floor. "S'alright," he breathed, "go."
"I'm not leaving you." There was a tremor in Ianto's voice.
Evan shook his head, slow and ponderous. "Shit at following orders," he mumbled. "Go." His eyes were only open a slit, Ianto's face blurring under half-closed lids. He felt his body shift to one side, sliding him closer to the floor.
"Get up!" Ianto shouted, shoving at his shoulder, but Evan knew he was a dead weight at this point. Ianto was taller than he was, but Evan weighed more.
"Sorry," Evan breathed. It was so hard to stay awake.
"Ianto!" A voice boomed by the entrance, and Evan opened his eyes more fully.
Captain Jack strode in, his blue coat billowing out behind him like the hero of a corsairs' movie. In three big strides, he was beside Ianto, and had pulled the other man standing into his arms. "Thank God you're okay!" Then he kissed him, with so much longing and passion that Evan let his eyes close, not wanting to watch. He hadn't realized this, when he'd kissed Ianto. Hadn't realized...
"Major!" That was Parrish, and he could hear Kemper and Conroy as well. It was so good to know his team was alright.
"Help him!" he heard Ianto order as if from very far away. "He's been poisoned!"
"On it, Mr. Jones," a woman's voice replied in nearly the exact same accent as Ianto's, and Evan smiled, realizing that it must be Tegan, the Healer Torchwood found for Atlantis.
And then everything became very distant, and very, very dark.
Ianto tugged the hem of his vest, adjusted his necktie and ran a smoothing hand over his impeccable hair. He had spent entirely too long getting ready for the party that evening, but it had been a long time since he had given more than a perfunctory interest in how he dressed. When one's wardrobe was as elegant and organized as Ianto's was, it was easy to truly throw something on, and still look well pulled-together.
He didn't feel pulled together tonight, however. In fact he felt as jittery and novice as the first day he'd started at Torchwood One. But Evan had been released from the infirmary that afternoon, and they still had a few things to discuss. "In for a penny," he muttered, and rang the chime for the door.
It opened with gratifying suddenness.
"Oh, hey, Ianto," Evan said with a slight narrowing of his beautiful blue eyes. "Come in."
Ianto nodded in thanks and stepped into the Major's quarters. They were sparsely furnished with the only furniture being a bed, a desk under the window and a couch pushed up against the far wall beside an over-full bookcase. But there were definitely touches of home in the room. Photos and paintings hung on the walls, and there were several flowering plants scattered throughout.
Evan noticed the direction of his gaze. "They're from David, Dr. Parrish," he explained, then smiled. "I think he said I needed the oxygen."
"And the paintings?" Ianto asked, raising his eyebrows in question. The artwork was quite good--rather exceptional, actually. His Gift immediately supplied the answer as to who made them, but he still waited for Evan's response.
"Some are mine, some are my mothers," he said, and was he blushing? "Nothing much."
"They're wonderful," Ianto said. He turned and looked at Evan. "You have a rare talent."
Evan shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with the praise. He smiled and gestured at the couch. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
Ianto moved towards the couch, thought about sitting, then changed his mind. He clasped his hands behind his back. "I came to apologize, actually," he said in a rush. "I'm sorry."
Evan blinked. "Sorry? Why?"
"That I failed to mention my inexperience with off-world missions. Well, being off-world at all, actually," Ianto continued quickly. "If I had realized that Sgt. Conroy was attempting to warn me, I wouldn't have put myself or you in danger." He smiled ruefully. "I am shit at following orders."
Evan's smile was equally as apologetic. "I kind of assumed a lot about your background myself," Evan said. "I should've asked."
Ianto took a step closer to him, feeling intensely relieved that Evan wasn't angry. "Well, we all came back in one piece, so, no harm done?"
"Yeah, we're good." Evan's expression turned quizzical. "How's your arm?"
"Fine," Ianto said, "healed actually, courtesy of that big Danish fellow."
"Sergeant Johansen." Evan smiled. "Our other Healer." He rubbed one hand along the front of his long-sleeved t-shirt. "He fixed my chest."
Ianto smiled. "Good to hear. Those were nasty cuts."
"Yeah," Evan smiled back. But then his expression sobered. "I'm sorry I kissed you," he said suddenly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't know that you and..."
"Something else I may have failed to mention," Ianto said with a smirk. He sighed. "Things with Jack are..." He paused, thinking. "Complicated."
Evan sat down on the couch and raised his eyebrows. "Should I ask?"
"I love him," Ianto blurted, "and he loves me. But I'll never have him." He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the familiar rush of hurt. "I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "You don't need to hear this."
Evan looked at him, his expression determined and his eyes kind, and suddenly Ianto understood how fine an officer he must be. "Sit."
Ianto sat.
Evan nodded. "Go on."
Ianto paused a moment, then to his surprise, started talking. "Jack," Ianto said, then swallowed and spoke again: "Jack is not of this world." At Evan's look, he continued. "He's an alien, actually, and probably hundreds--possibly thousands--of years old."
Evan tilted his head. "He's immortal?"
"Yes and no," Ianto explained. "He can die, but he doesn't stay dead. He's become part of the time-line," Ianto continued at Evan's disbelieving look. "His existence is tied in to the existence of the universe. He will live for as long as the universe does."
Evan sat back. "Whoa."
"Very much so," Ianto agreed. "But as you can imagine, his perspective on things is rather...different."
"I bet."
Ianto smiled. "So, the constraints of relationships make no sense to him. After all, what's the point of limiting oneself to one partner when they are finite and you are infinite?"
Evan raised one eyebrow. "That's a very pretty way of saying he sleeps around."
Ianto blinked. "It's not like that!"
"Sure it is," Evan said. "He's not faithful because he can't see the point in it." He paused, holding Ianto's gaze. "But you can, right?"
Ianto swallowed. "I love him."
"I get that," Evan said. "He's a great guy, and you love him. But he kinda forgot you in the Gate room when you first arrived, and he kinda forgets you when he's with someone else. Am I right?"
Ianto looked down. "Yes."
"Well," Evan said, "I'm not trying to get in the way of a beautiful thing, but I wouldn't do that. To you, I mean." Ianto looked up to see Evan smiling at him, blue eyes lit with warmth and desire. "Just throwing it out there."
"You barely know me," Ianto said, but he found he was unable to break Evan's gaze.
Evan's eyes narrowed. "Use your Gift," he said. "You'll see how I feel."
Ianto felt his mouth go dry as his heart started hammering in his chest. Evan's expression was firm, his eyes fierce in their intensity. Evan wanted him, cared about him, was perhaps even a little bit in love with him. And Evan certainly knew what he wanted.
The true question, Ianto realized, was: what did he want?
And that was a question his Gift couldn't answer.
"I love him," Ianto said softly, mesmerized by Evan's eyes, his mouth. "I can't promise--"
"I live in another galaxy," Evan said. "I'm not looking for promises." He put his hands on either side of Ianto's face, pulled him close, and kissed him.
The kiss was hard and deep. He closed his eyes, letting his mouth absorb the impact of Evan's need. He felt himself responding, affection blossoming inside him alongside desire. Evan wasn't Jack, but this felt right, like an answer to a question that Ianto didn't even know he was asking.
They ended up arriving very late to the party.
"I'm going to miss you," Evan said quietly as he and Ianto walked together towards the Gate room.
Evan was carrying Ianto's leather bag, his other hand holding Ianto's. It was a very public display of affection in a place where discretion was usually the better part of valour, but right at that moment Evan couldn't care.
He'd had only two real days with Ianto. The one day in the cave, and then the night and day after his discharge from the infirmary. It was barely enough time to get to know someone, let alone know someone long enough to think about a relationship, but somehow it had happened.
And this parting was going to be tough.
"I'm going to miss you, too," Ianto said. He gave Evan's had a gentle squeeze before letting it go as they walked into the Gate room.
Captain Harkness was already there, clearly saying his good-byes to Sheppard, McKay and Elizabeth. He was holding both of Elizabeth's hands in his, looking deeply into her eyes. She was blushing prettily, and obviously affected by his leaving. McKay was looking equally sad at the Captain's departure, while Sheppard just looked relieved.
It was kind of hard to have your boyfriend so evidently crushing on someone else, Evan thought, then glanced at Ianto. Not that he would know.
"Ianto!" Jack called, as if reading Evan's thoughts. He put his hand out, and Ianto obligingly went to him and grasped it. Evan forced down a stab of envy as he walked over and handed Ianto his bag.
"It's been wonderful, really great," Jack said, smiling at everyone. "Thanks again for inviting us."
"You're very welcome." Elizabeth smiled. "And I truly hope you'll come visit soon."
"Totally, absolutely!" McKay chimed in. "Come back!"
"You could always come to Cardiff," Jack said to McKay, smiling so that a dimple showed in his cheek. "You know how much we'd love to have you."
"Um, no," Sheppard said easily, stepping forward to shake Jack's hand. "He's too valuable here." And his expression made it clear how valuable McKay really was.
Jack laughed. "Point taken." He turned to Ianto. "You ready?"
"Yes." Ianto nodded, and Evan sighed inwardly. Ianto hadn't even looked at him when he'd said it. "Just one thing..."
And before Evan could even react, Ianto had stepped away from Jack and taken him in his arms, kissing him thoroughly and with unmistakable possession in front of the entire Gate room.
"Oh my," he heard McKay mutter behind him, as Ianto slowly let him go.
"Wow," Evan breathed, too overwhelmed to think about the implications of a huge public display of affection in front of his commanding officer. That kiss was just too damn good.
Ianto cupped his cheek. "Take care."
Evan nodded. "You, too."
Elizabeth signaled Chuck to open the wormhole, and seconds later, they were gone.
The Gate room was silent in the aftermath of the wormhole closing. Sheppard cleared his throat.
"So," he said conversationally, almost not looking at Evan out of the corner of his eye. "Don't you have some leave coming up?"
Evan felt himself begin to smile. "I might."
"Well, if I had it on my desk by tomorrow, I might be able to approve it for, say, next week?" Sheppard's one raised eyebrow spoke volumes.
"I hear that Wales is beautiful this time of year," McKay said as they headed out of the Gate room. "You might want to visit."
Evan was grinning. "Yeah."
Sheppard clapped him on the back as they walked. "Just no more purple dinosaurs, okay?"
"There are no dinosaurs in Wales!" McKay exclaimed, then paused. "Well, okay, there's one. But at least she's not purple."
Evan laughed out loud.
-- end --
[D1]I love this exchange.
Author:
squeakyoflightRecipient:
eviljr Pairing: Evan Lorne/Ianto Jones. background McShep
Rating: 14A for violence, coarse language and sexually suggestive scenes.
Disclaimer: Spoilers for: Season One and Two of Torchwood, specifically: "Countrycide," "Fragments" and "Exit Wounds."
Author's Notes: This story takes place in the Gifts AU
created by Spingwoof and Taste_is_Sweet, and takes place after the story Stricken (written by Squeaky and Taste_is_Sweet) now posted on the SGA BigBang! site. Cross-over with Torchwood.
I would very much like to thank
springwoof, taste_is_sweet and squeakyoflight for kindly letting me build a small castle in their sand-box. Merry Christmas, Eviljr! Enjoy!
With great thanks to my beta Taste_is _Sweet for her amazing work
Summary: Major Lorne meets Mr. Jones - and a purple dinosaur.
"And Major Lorne," Elizabeth said, her eyes sparkling like a kid at Christmas, "this is Captain Jack Harkness."
"Pleasure," Captain Harkness said as Evan took his hand. The man was tall, almost a foot taller than Evan, with a firm handshake that echoed the strength hinted at by his broad shoulders. His hair was dark brown, his eyes a clear, piercing blue. His smile was enough to make Evan feel a pulse of hot desire in his groin.
"Likewise," Evan mumbled, forcing himself to not immediately pull his hand away. He hadn't felt so awkward since he was in junior high and had first realized that he might like the boys a bit more than the girls in his class.
The Captain's smile widened and Evan realized he was still holding his hand. Quickly, he loosened his grip, and felt the heat of himself blushing as Harkness released his hand slowly, as sensually as if they were lovers.
Evan had heard a lot of things about the Torchwood Three team, but somehow everyone had failed to mention that the Captain was like a walking orgy. No wonder Elizabeth couldn't take her eyes off him.
Evan clasped his still-tingling hand behind his back and took a step sideways, out of the way of the commotion that was building in the Gate room. A lot of people had come for the introduction of the famous Torchwood team. They were the ones responsible for finding Atlantis their new Healer, Tegan Blin, who had managed to help prevent all of Atlantis' Gifted from dying less than a month before. It had been a harrowing race against time to save everyone, and for a while, Evan was sure none of them were going to make it.
But most of them had, and Tegan had been instrumental. A lot of people felt they owed Torchwood a huge debt, and Elizabeth had invited them to come to a party on Atlantis in their honour as a way of saying thanks.
Evan had actually thought she was kind of kidding when she had said she'd sent off the invitation. He'd been sure that the SGC or the IOA would kibosh the whole idea the second the request landed on their desks. After all, who the hell would be willing to compromise the security of the SGC and Atlantis merely for the sake of an interplanetary shindig?
But clearly, he'd been wrong.
No one, it turned out, ever said 'no' to Torchwood. They were, in fact, an internationally-known collection of teams located in every corner of the commonwealth. They spent their time tracking down useful alien technology and neutralizing alien threats while hanging out in offices built over space-time rifts. Evan had learned all of this in the few minutes he'd spent walking from Elizabeth's office to the Gate room that morning, Rodney McKay spouting off in his ear the whole way.
Torchwood, McKay had pontificated as they walked, is well beyond the government. They do what they want, when they want because they're willing to make the tough calls for the benefit of the planet.
Evan had nodded, taking in Rodney's words. He hadn't realized until that moment that the SGC had more competition than just the Russians.
In fact, McKay had said, with that particular brand of smugness that Evan hated, I used to be a member of Torchwood Five, before I was asked to join the SGC.
Oh, Evan had said with studied blandness, and then chuckled inwardly when McKay had huffed off, clearly pissed that Evan hadn't asked him anything more about it.
Now, watching Harkness, the living sex bomb, Evan kind of wished he'd taken the opportunity to ask a bit more about the team. He figured he wouldn't get told much. McKay had made it clear that only he, Elizabeth, and General O'Neill were truly allowed in the Torchwood fan-club, but even after only five seconds with Harkness, Evan could tell that he was kind of a big deal. It would have been nice to know more.
Not that he'd get his chance, he mused, as he watched McKay nearly bust a gasket flipping out over the guy. Sheppard was there as well, and both he and McKay were hanging all over the Captain as if he was their triplet separated at birth. Elizabeth was practically giddy, and the three of them were just about wrapped all over Harkness as they walked him out of the room.
Evan's hand had stopped tingling, and it was at that moment that he realized that Harkness hadn't listed for him, and he frowned, wondering what might have gone wrong.
"Torchwood normally has that effect on people."
Evan startled, whirling towards the voice. The Gate room had efficiently emptied out in the wake of Harkness and the rest of the command team leaving, and he had assumed he was alone.
The tall, sandy-haired man with the light blue eyes standing just beside the Stargate showed he was wrong about that.
Evan eyed him, taking in the buffed black shoes, the well-tailored striped grey suit, the fuchsia shirt and the coordinated tie before leveling his gaze on his face. The man was handsome, in a bland way, and was smiling a sardonic grin that immediately made Evan think of Rodney McKay.
"You're from Torchwood, too?" Evan said, taking a step forward.
"How perceptive," the man said with a strong accent. He put out his hand. "Ianto Jones."
"Major Evan Lorne," Evan replied, shaking Ianto's hand. His Gift kicked in with satisfying swiftness, and Ianto was listed before Evan had to prolong the handshake to awkward levels. Evan liked to list everyone in Atlantis, even if they were only staying a short while. Knowing he could immediately tell if something was toxic to others made Evan felt his Gift was at least a little bit useful. Lord knew it hadn't been a help at all during the sickness they'd all had. There had been only one time that he knew of where it had actually saved someone's life.
"So, Major," Ianto said with those round vowels so typical of the Welsh. "From what I understand, this party isn't for at least three more days. And since my Captain has left me, I was wondering. Do you have any suggestions on what I might do to fill my time?" He raised one elegant eyebrow in a perfect expression of mild interest overlaid with mild boredom. But as Evan looked at his face, he saw a flicker of insecurity flash through those arresting blue eyes. Evan had met enough new recruits over his years as 2IC of Atlantis to know when someone was acting more confident than they felt.
"Your Captain just left you here?" Evan said, more for confirmation of what he already knew then out of real curiosity.
Ianto's smile faltered, his grip shifting on the handle of the leather overnight bag he held. "He forgot."
Evan tilted his head to the left. "And there're only two of you?" Somehow, McKay had given the impression that the team consisted of a vast number of highly-skilled operatives.
"There's three, actually," Ianto replied. "But our Police Liaison Officer decided to stay home with her man."
"Oh," Evan said for a lack of anything better. He felt really bad for the guy. Ianto had been abandoned by his only friend here in an alien city, and they both knew it. He thought of calling Elizabeth, to bring Harkness back to collect his teammate, but he stopped himself before his hand could go to his radio. It would be like paging some kid's parents in a mall or something, and would probably just make Ianto feel worse.
As the silence stretched between them, Evan wracked his brain for some bone to throw to the guy. Something he could do while he was waiting for Harkness to get his head out of his ass and come get him. He could go looking for him, Evan mused, under the guise of taking Ianto for a tour, but for all he knew, Harkness and the command staff had ended up in bed together. Trying to track them down without looking like he was trying to track them down was going to be difficult at best, and really embarrassing for Ianto at worst.
Evan flicked his gaze to the other man. Ianto was studying the Stargate with fierce intensity, and Evan didn't need to be an Empath like Elizabeth to know that he was dying inside from the humiliation of the situation.
"My team's leaving for a recon mission in about two hours," Evan said suddenly, startling himself with the statement. Under normal circumstances it would never have occurred to him to invite an untried civilian on an off-world mission. But as he thought about it, it made sense. They were going to check out some seismic readings on a planet that didn't seem to have any non-botanical life-forms bigger than a grasshopper, and Ianto was Torchwood, after all. According to what McKay had said, there was nothing this team couldn't handle. Ianto probably had more experience with this kind of shit in his little finger than Evan would have in his whole life. "Want to come?"
Ianto's face lit up with a genuine smile, and Evan felt his eyes widen as the angular plains of Ianto's face were completely transformed by that simple action. Ianto wasn't blandly handsome, he was gorgeous. And why had Evan not noticed that before?
"Yes, I would," Ianto said. And Evan found his own smile widening in return.
"Come on," Evan said, gesturing towards the exit. "I'll show you to your quarters."
It would be just his bloody luck to die because he was tying his laces.
Ianto knelt in the open field, feeling his breath rasp lightly in his lungs. His fingers were still on the laces of his borrowed boots, ready to finish the double-knot he had started. His head was down, one knee pressed onto the dry grass. He was keeping himself perfectly still, knowing with a terrifying certainty that even a slight change in position could mean his death.
"Don't move!" Evan hissed at him from somewhere to his right. Out of the corner of his eye, Ianto could see the three other members of Evan's team, standing like statues, guns raised at the ready.
The big, purple dinosaur however was not being still at all. Rather it was blowing and snorting beside him, it's hot, animal breath puffing on his skin and ruffling through his hair.
Less than two hours ago, on the way to the visitor's quarters, the Major had explained to Ianto that they were coming to this planet to identify the source of some seismic readings made by the remote-controlled MALP when it had gone through the Gate that morning. The readings had been random and full of fluctuations, which Dr. McKay had interpreted as being a hopeful sign of a powerful energy source, perhaps abandoned by the Ancients for being unreliable.
"On the other hand," McKay had joked as he had helped calibrate the hand-held recording device Dr. Parrish was to take on the mission, "it could just be some giant animal running around."
Unfortunately, Dr. McKay's flippant remark had been more accurate than he knew.
The dinosaur thing had come upon them when they were half-way across the open field that joined the forest leading from the Gate with some rocky cliffs beyond. It was as if it had been waiting for them to get fully into the open, somewhere where it would be difficult to run and hide--nearly impossible to escape.
Of course, Ianto had been too busy tightening the laces of his boots to realize that Sergeant Conroy's shouts of alarm had actually meant something significant.
Which was why he was now trapped in the middle of the field, being sniffed by a creature that looked like the older sibling of the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, except for the festive colouring.
He felt the tip of the creature's tongue flick gently against the back of his neck.
"Don't move!" Evan hissed again, and Ianto shifted his gaze the other way to just make out the Major taking another step towards him.
It was time, Ianto decided, to use his Gift.
He closed his eyes, and concentrated, searching for the answers to the questions he was forming in his mind. Within seconds he had them, and his eyes snapped open. Just in time to see Evan take another step towards him.
The Major's plan popped crystal-clear into Ianto's mind. "Wait!" He said, putting out his hands. "You don't need to! Don't--!"
Evan took a running leap and landed on the creature's nose. "Run!" he yelled, hands gripping the scaly skin.
"But--" Ianto started, standing.
"RUN!" Evan hollered, and Ianto bolted towards the rest of the team.
Conroy, Kemper and Parrish were running towards him, back across the field towards the Gate.
"Get outta the way!" Conroy shouted at him as he brought his gun up to bear.
"No!" Ianto cried, feeling his eyes grow wide. "No! You'll shoot the Major!"
"I'll shoot you if you don't get the fuck out of the way!" Conroy yelled. Ianto threw himself off to one side, landing heavily on the ground. The air exploded with the sound of gunfire.
The creature howled, and flung its nose upwards, tossing Evan off. With amazing dexterity, the dinosaur slashed out with one purple paw, swiping at him as he came down.
Evan rolled to a stop in front of Ianto, his pack gone, the front of his shirt a torn and bloody mess from his right shoulder to his left hip.
"No," Ianto said as he scrambled to his feet. "No, no, no!" As gently as he could, he reached down and hoisted Evan to his feet, pulling one of Evan's arms over his shoulder. Evan groaned in pain, but helped the best he could, and Ianto was finally able to get him to his feet. Ianto could hear the bursts of gunfire behind him and the shouts of Evan's men as he half-dragged, half-pulled the Major away from the creature and towards the cliffs in front of them.
"Where you going?" Evan panted. "Gate's back that way!"
"Dinosaur's back that way!" Ianto gasped back. "We'll be safe here."
"How do you know?" Evan said, limping badly, but thankfully not fighting against Ianto to turn around and go back the other way.
"Because I do," Ianto said between gritted teeth. He always did.
He found the cave exactly where he knew it would be, at the base of the cliff just across the clearing. The entrance was narrow and so low that he and Evan had to squeeze through separately, nearly bent double. Evan had cried out in pain, but had gone through with only minimal help from Ianto.
He was sprawled in the dirt on the other side by the time Ianto made it in, lying on his back, clutching at the wounds on his chest.
"Fuck this hurts," he muttered. His face was grey.
"Come now," Ianto said, "it's not that bad." He had no idea if it was bad or not, actually. Visually, the wounds looked terrible: raw and bleeding with the flesh torn open in ragged cuts that were as deep as they were wide. Evan's heart rate and breathing had increased; Ianto could say with complete accuracy the breaths and beats-per-minute, but he didn't know how to interpret that information. He had always left the medical stuff up to Owen Harper, their doctor, who had died only a few months before. The pain of losing his friend stabbed through him. He'd give nearly anything for Owen to be with them now.
"Help me sit up," Evan said. Dutifully, Ianto slipped his arm behind Evan's shoulders, and with a lot of grunting, managed to help him get to a sitting position, leaning up against the cave wall. Evan closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He tapped the side of his face. "Fuck," he said again. "My radio's gone."
"You lost it when the dinosaur hit you," Ianto said, because that's exactly what had happened.
Evan's eyes opened to slits. "You saw that?"
Ianto held his gaze. "That's what happened."
"Huh," Evan said and closed his eyes again. Ianto took off the rucksack he'd been issued that morning along with a black t-shirt and green military-style pants. Evan had told him to be liberal with the sunscreen but to leave the jacket in his pack. The planet was as hot as the Caribbean, Evan had explained and Ianto had just nodded. He knew exactly how hot the Caribbean was, and he could recite the average summer and winter temperatures by island, if required. The fact he'd never been any further south than London didn't make a difference.
Ianto deftly pulled out the first-aid kit hidden in the second front pocket of the sack. He opened it, yanked out the wicked-looking pair of bandage scissors and gently began slicing away the remains of Evan's t-shirt.
Evan hissed as the blunt edge of the scissors ran over a cut.
"Sorry," Ianto said. The scissors revealed the chiseled planes of Evan's chest, the sculpted muscles gouged with four red marks, each as wide as Ianto's finger. Ianto winced in sympathy.
"Where are my men?" Evan asked. His face was twisted from the pain.
Ianto paused in his cutting, concentrating. "The dinosaur was chasing them," he said. "They were running towards the Gate." He finished cutting and the remains of the shirt fell to the ground. He put the scissors back in the kit, choosing instead a bottle of disinfectant and some gauze pads.
"God," Evan said. "I hope they made it back."
"They did," Ianto said. He liberally poured the disinfectant onto one of the pads and began cleaning Evan's wounds.
"Fuck!" Evan shouted. "Fucking hell!" His hands clenched, but he made no move to stop Ianto from what he was doing.
"Sorry," Ianto said again.
Evan was panting. "They made it back?" he repeated.
"Yes," Ianto said. He started again with another gauze pad. The flow of Evan's blood had slowed to an ooze, and Ianto let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. At least the Major wasn't going to bleed to death in front of him. The other issue could wait at least a little bit, he hoped.
He forced himself to not think of his friend, Toshiko Sato, dying from a bullet wound on the stairs in the Torchwood hub.
Evan's fingernails dug into the soil as Ianto cleaned another slash mark. "How do you know?" he said through clenched teeth.
"Know what?" Ianto said as he cleaned some dirt out of a particularly deep spot.
"Know they made it back!" Evan snapped. He groaned, there was almost no colour in his face.
"My Gift," Ianto said, looking at Evan before turning back to his first-aid. "You look like hell."
"Thanks," Evan muttered, and then, "Your Gift?"
"I'm a Cognitive," Ianto said, soaking yet another pad. The air in the cave was beginning to smell like a combination of alcohol and copper from the blood. "I know things." He smiled as he rubbed the wet gauze over another of the deep scrapes. "Only 57 of us on Earth." He removed the pad and dropped it on the pile lying on the ground. "All done."
"Thank God," Evan said on a moan. Ianto could see he was shivering even thought the air in the cave was only marginally cooler than it was outside. "Do you have any--"
"Here," Ianto said, handing him the canteen he'd just opened. "Don't drink it all. It's all we've got."
"Thanks," Evan murmured, taking the offered container.
Ianto took an emergency blanket out of his pack and gently slid it behind Evan's back, securing it gently over his shoulders.
"Thanks," Evan said again. He took another pull of the canteen, then handed it back. "You should've fucking ran."
Ianto blinked. "What?"
"The dinosaur. You should've ran when I told you to," Evan repeated. His eyes were closed; his head back against the cave wall. "You're shit at obeying orders."
"I told you not to jump on her," Ianto said, thinking of watching Evan being thrown into the air, the sound of the dinosaur's claws slicing into him, the way he landed in front of him in a bleeding heap of torn flesh. He forced his voice to stay even. "What did you expect her to do?"
"Her?" Evan said, and Ianto could clearly hear the disbelief in his voice.
"How the hell--?"
"My Gift, remember?" Ianto said. "My Gift let me know about her." He took his jacket out of the rucksack and placed it gently over Evan's chest. "She's rather intelligent, you know."
Evan made a face. "She tried to kill you!"
"No." Ianto shook his head. "She was merely trying to figure out what I was. From her perspective, she probably thought we were trying to kill her."
Evan shook his head and then groaned again. "She was going to eat you."
"No," Ianto repeated. "She's a vegetarian, actually. Not really fond of meat."
Evan stared at him. "You can communicate with her?"
"She's a dinosaur! Ianto made a face. "Her brain is the size of a marble! Of course I can't communicate with her! I got the answers I needed. It's my Gift!"
"So she never meant us any harm," Evan said. "Fuck." The Major closed his eyes again and a bead of sweat made its way from his temple to his chin. Ianto could see the pulse beating at the base of his throat.
"Actually, she is probably going to try to kill us now," Ianto said, forcing a conversational tone into his voice. "Since you jumped on her, she now sees us as a threat. Once she realizes she can't get to your men, she'll head back here."
"Great," Evan muttered. He opened his eyes and leaned forward. "We need to go."
"No." Ianto shook his head more vehemently, gently pressing Evan back down. "You're team will come back and rescue us. We're not going anywhere."
"Why not?" Evan asked. "You just said that dinosaur was coming back! We need to go!"
Ianto took a breath. "We can't Major," he said. "She poisoned you."
Evan blinked. Ianto's words made no sense. "What?"
"She poisoned you," he repeated. "Her claws can inject poison. Rather like a snake's venom through its teeth." Ianto took a breath. "I'm afraid you've been poisoned."
"Shit," Evan muttered. And now that Ianto had said something, Evan realized he could feel it, too. The cuts on his chest had hurt like a son of a bitch while Ianto was cleaning them, but now they didn't hurt at all. In fact, he felt kind of pleasantly muzzy, like he did after a few beers or a couple of Carson's really good painkillers. He swallowed. "How bad?"
Ianto concentrated, his eyes going unfocused for a second before coming back to their brilliant blue. "Bad," he said. "It's like a fast-acting narcotic, meant to keep her enemies happy and sleepy so she can get away. But--"
"I'm not dinosaur-sized," Evan finished for him.
Ianto shook his head. "As well-shaped as you are, no."
"So," Evan said, smiling a little at Ianto's compliment. "No going to sleep?" As soon as he said it, he realized it was going to be difficult to stay awake. He was feeling really drowsy already, a pleasant heaviness settling over his limbs.
"No," Ianto agreed. "Sleeping would be a very bad idea."
"Okay," Evan said. He closed his eyes.
"No!" Ianto shouted and Evan's eyes snapped open.
"You have to stay awake, Evan!" Ianto said fiercely. "If you fall asleep, you'll stop breathing!"
"Oh," Evan said. Not breathing sounded like a very bad thing, but he wasn't sure why at that precise second. He leaned his head against the wall, enjoying the floating sensation in his body. His mind began to drift...
"Evan!" Ianto was shaking his shoulder, which was sending an unpleasant stab of pain through his chest. He slapped at Ianto's hand.
"Quit it," he mumbled. "I'm awake."
Ianto drew down his eyebrows. "This isn't going to work." He stood, tugging at Evan's arm. "You need to stand up."
Evan started shaking his head, then realized it felt really good to just let it hang down. "I'm okay," he said, because he was. He felt fine. "I'll just stay..." he let his eyes slide shut.
"EVAN!" Ianto slapped his face. Evan's head came up with a jolt, his heart pounding from a combination of the pain and surprise.
"I'm awake!" he said, "honest!"
"You must get up," Ianto knelt beside him, "Please."
The bleak look in Ianto's eyes was heartbreaking. "Okay." Evan nodded. He shook his head, trying to get his brain to work. "I'll try."
"Good lad," Ianto said. He put Evan's arm over his shoulder and slid his arm around Evan's back. "Can you stand?"
Evan shook his head. "Maybe?"
"You can stand," Ianto said, and his voice held such confidence that Evan believed him. "On three, then. One, two..." and Evan was on his feet, the jacket Ianto had given him falling to the ground.
"Whoa," he said, as he swayed hard into the wall. He winced in reaction as his shoulder impacted the rough stone hard enough to tear the silver blanket and pull it off his shoulders, but he barely felt it. The poison from the dinosaur was still drugging him. "Dinosaur drug," he said, and snickered.
"You alright?" Ianto asked, and Evan could feel the other man tightening his grip around his waist. He could feel the skin of Ianto's arm on the bare skin of his back, the solidity of Ianto's body where he was pressed into his side. It felt really, really good.
Evan swallowed. "Yeah."
"Then let's start walking."
It was as if Evan's brain and his feet were no longer connected. Each step was a careening nightmare that had Evan staggering like a drunk on a ship. The poison was tugging on him, trying to pull him down and close his eyes. He felt himself sagging against Ianto, who grunted under his weight.
"Sorry," Evan breathed. He felt dazed and severely out-of-it. He just wanted to sit down...
"You can't sit down," Ianto said, making Evan wonder if he'd said it out loud. "You've only been walking for a few minutes, and your heart-rate isn't nearly high enough." He shook Evan, who felt his eyes fly open. He hadn't realized he'd let them close. "Stay with me!" Ianto commanded. "You need to move the poison to your liver as fast as possible, which requires your heart-rate to be elevated. You can't sit down!"
"You know a lot," Evan said. He was trying to sort out what Ianto had told him to do, but his mind kept focusing on the 'sitting down' part. He felt his knees start to sag.
Ianto hauled him upright. "My Gift," Ianto said. "I've told you."
"How?" Evan asked. He meant how does it work? but the rest of the sentence seemed too complicated.
"If something is knowable, I know it," Ianto said. "The answers just appear in my mind." He shrugged, which Evan could feel under his arm. "I'm not sure how."
Evan blinked, a slow process that left his eyes closed for a little too long. "You know everything?"
He heard Ianto's smirk. "I try not to ask too many questions."
I don't understand, Evan tried to say. It came out as "huh?"
"I only get answers to questions I've asked, either out-loud or in my mind," Ianto said. "If I don't ask too many questions, I don't know too much."
That made more sense. They walked a half-circle through the dirt of the cave floor, Evan's uneven footsteps kicking up small clouds of dust with each step. "Must be hard," Evan said finally. He hadn't realized he was going to speak.
Ianto's steps faltered for a moment. "It can be, actually," he said slowly. "But most people don't see that."
Evan smiled, turning his head so he could see Ianto's profile. "People like answers."
He could see Ianto's lips curve up, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. "Yes."
They walked a few more steps, and Evan could feel his energy fading. It was so hard to lift his boots off the ground, to keep his body upright. He felt his eyes closing against his will, his legs collapsing underneath him.
"Evan!" Ianto shouted. "Get up!"
He had landed on his knees, his head sagging forward and his fingers brushing against the soft earth of the cave floor. "Go," he said, feeling the words thick and heavy in his mouth. "Get out of here."
"Not without you," Ianto said tersely. "Here, chew these, they might help." Evan felt the familiar round shapes of two glucose pills pushed into his mouth. All Gifted people in Atlantis carried glucose pills with them, since using their Gifts took a lot of energy. Sometimes the pills were the only thing between a Gifted person and certain death from severe hypoglycemia. He started chewing automatically, making a face against the pasty fruit flavour.
The rush of energy helped, and he slowly staggered to his feet, leaning heavily against the cave wall, still chewing the last bits of the tablets.
Something pinged in his head.
"Huh," he said, opening his eyes all the way. "My Gift's just gone off."
"What?" Ianto asked. He was standing in front of him, hands just under Evan's rib-cage, as if helping to hold him up. Evan found himself looking right into Ianto's face, noting the anxiety in the tightness around his eyes, the way he held his lips. Like McKay, Evan thought. Ianto looked the way McKay did when McKay was scared and trying not to show it. Scared for me,Evan thought, and the idea made him smile.
Evan let his gaze roam over Ianto's well-shaped cheekbones, the symmetry of his eyes, the way his ears angled into his jaw. There was nothing bland about Ianto's face at all, and Evan couldn't remember why he'd ever thought there was. Ianto's thumbs moved against his side, and he felt a ripple of desire. He couldn't remember what Ianto was asking him about.
"What?" Ianto said again, but this time his voice was barely a whisper.
Evan leaned in and kissed him.
Ianto's mouth was firm and warm, the lips moving expertly against his own. Evan kissed him deeply, letting his tongue roam the other man's mouth. Ianto tasted sweet and sharp, like sugared wine. It was nearly as intoxicating as the dinosaur's poison. Evan moved his palms up and under Ianto's black t-shirt, letting his hands explore Ianto's skin like his tongue was his mouth. Ianto was lean and well-shaped, his muscles easy on the fingertips and wonderful to feel. He moved his hands up the shallow 'v' of Ianto's spine, down his shoulders, over his sides, and onto the rough cloth of the Atlantis-issue pants covering Ianto's hips and then his ass as he pressed Ianto into him. Evan's cock was hard and uncomfortably trapped by his clothes.
"Careful," Ianto breathed as he moved back half a step. "Your chest--"
"Can't feel it," Evan murmured, kissing Ianto again. He could feel his heart beating faster, and it was as if his head was clearing with each beat. His chest was being to hurt, but at this point he couldn't really care.
Ianto's hands were on his belt, expertly flicking the buckle open.
Which was the exact second that the cave reverberated with the loudest roar Evan had ever heard.
"Bloody hell!" Ianto cried as he and Evan immediately broke apart.
He found himself back up against the cave wall, eyes wide and mouth open, looking at one huge eye surrounded by purple scales neatly pressed up to the cave entrance.
The dinosaur was so large that she was nearly blocking out all the light.
"Jesus Christ," Evan breathed. "She found us."
"She can't get in though," Ianto said quickly. "She's far too big! And your team will be here shortly. We'll be fine!"
"Is that your Gift?" Evan asked, "do you know that from your--"
The dinosaur stuck one of her wickedly clawed front-feet in through the narrow crack and pulled. The side of the cave entrance broke off with a sound like crumbling concrete.
"Oh shit!" Evan yelled. "She's getting in! You said she couldn't get in!" There was a note of panic in the Major's voice. At least his heart-rate's up, Ianto thought. He might survive the poison--if they survived the dinosaur.
Evan was moving along the wall of the cave, running his hands over it's surface, clearly looking for somewhere else for them to go. The cave Ianto had found was long but shallow. A distance of only a few metres stood between them and the entrance. If the dinosaur broke through, she'd be on them in seconds.
"I wasn't using my Gift!" Ianto shouted back. "There's no way out," he continued, hearing an echoing note of panic in his own voice. "We're trapped!"
"What?" Evan cried. "You led us into a cave with only one exit? Are you crazy?"[D1]
"I had to get you to safety!" Ianto said hotly. "There was a dinosaur after us!"
"Not then!" Evan kept shouting, "she was after Parrish and the others! We had time!" Evan crossed in front of Ianto and began searching the other side
"I'm sorry if I was too busy trying to save your life to think about exits!" Ianto retorted.
There was another ripping sound as the dinosaur tore a chunk out of the other side of the door, stuck her arm through and swiped menacingly at Ianto, missing by only half a metre.
"Fuck!" Ianto swore, pressing himself back tightly against the rough stone.
The dinosaur howled in frustration and went back to the door.
Evan glanced quickly over his shoulder, and continued searching. "You wanna help me here?" he asked tersely. "We don't have much time."
"I'm sorry, I--" Ianto swallowed, feeling his heart pounding so hard it hurt. He hadn't been this frightened since he was trapped in a cellar with a pile of butchered bodies and the certainty he was next.
"Fucking hell!" Evan shouted. "Figure something out, Ianto! Use your Gift!" He reached into the rucksack and popped two glucose tablets into his hand, shoving them into Ianto's mouth before bending back to the bag. "Torchwood's the best there is!" he spat. "Think!"
"I've never been attacked by a dinosaur before!" Ianto said through a mouthful of glucose. Which wasn't precisely true, but the pterodactyl he and Jack had captured about two years before seemed small and almost tame in comparison. "I don't know what to do!"
"What?" Evan asked incredulously. "But you're Torchwood! He was tearing through the rucksack, clearly looking for something useful. "You guys do shit like this every day!"
"What?" Ianto felt his eyes grow wide at both Evan's ludicrous statement and the snarling dinosaur nose part-way through the entrance. "We never do shit like this! Who told you that?"
"McKay!" Evan shouted as he continued to pull items out of the pack.
"Well, McKay is wrong!" Ianto shouted back. "We deal with alien threats in Cardiff! Cardiff! Not dinosaurs on other planets!"
"So you've never done this before?" Evan asked. He was clearly so stunned at this information that he was staring at Ianto, pack forgotten.
"No!" Ianto yelled. "I've never been off-world before!"
As if to punctuate his statement, the dinosaur roared again, poking her nose through almost up to her eye sockets.
"Jesus!" Evan jumped, focus back on the dinosaur and then back on the bag. "Damn it!" Evan slammed his fist into the ground. "There's nothing in here!" He stood, pulling his sidearm out of its holster. "Do you think my gun will work on her?"
"No," Ianto said immediately. "It will just make her more angry."
The dinosaur roared, and yet another chunk of wall went flying.
"I'm going to shoot her in the eye!" Evan said, taking aim. "If she just turns her head--"
"Wait!" Ianto grabbed Evan's wrist. "Wait! When you ate the glucose before, you said your Gift went off! Your Gift is to taste things that might be toxic to others, yes?"
Evan was still sighting down his gun, clearly looking for his shot. The dinosaur was too busy making a dinosaur-sized hole in the wall to oblige. "Yeah," he said. "So?"
"What made it go off?" Ianto said. Evan made a face. "Tell me!"
"The dinosaur!" Evan snapped. "The fucking dinosaur pinged on the glucose tablets! Happy?"
"Yes!" Ianto said. "Give me your knife!"
"What?" Evan demanded. He re-holstered his gun and stared at Ianto. Ianto had the exact-same expression on his face as Dr. McKay always got when he was about to pull their ass out of the fire. He took his knife out of his pack and handed it to him. "Why?"
"Get some more tablets," Ianto said, and then to Evan's horror, sliced deeply into his left arm.
"What the hell are you doing?" Evan cried, reaching for the knife.
"I'll explain in a moment!" Ianto said, grimacing. He had moved to kneel on the ground, and was systematically milking his wound to cause blood to drip onto the dirt. "Give me the glucose! Now!"
Evan scooped up the packs, popping several pills into his hand. "Where?"
The dinosaur stuck her arm through again, the claws of her hands snagging over Evan's boot before she withdrew. "Jesus!" he gasped.
"Here! Quicky!" Ianto pointed to the small, blood-filled depression.
Evan dropped the pills in, and immediately Ianto crushed them into the dirt and blood and then rolled the mixture into a ball. He handed it to Evan. "Throw it to her," he said. "I think you're aim is better than mine."
Evan nodded, and tossed it towards the opening. It landed a foot from the entrance, then rolled to a stop mere inches from the door.
The dinosaur stopped tearing at the wall and stuck her nose in. Evan and Ianto moved so their backs were against the stone, the cold roughness unpleasant on Evan's bare skin.
The dinosaur's nostrils flared and she made an obvious sniffing sound. Her tongue extended in a strangely dainty movement, licked the mud-ball, then curled around it and took it into her mouth. She started chewing.
"Oh thank God," Ianto breathed beside Evan.
"What's going to..." Evan let his voice trail off as the dinosaur roared and spat out the macerated ball with enough force that it splattered into the wall above Evan's head.
The dinosaur reared back and shook her head, tongue protruding from her enormous jaws and shaking off giant beads of saliva. In one large and graceful movement, she turned and loped away from the cave, head still shaking. It reminded Evan so much of his mother's dogs after they'd been force-fed medicine that he laughed.
"You did it!" Evan crowed, slapping Ianto on the shoulder. He felt weak with relief.
"It was your Gift," Ianto said. "I did nothing." But he was smiling.
"She thinks we're poisonous now, doesn't she?" Evan said. He was grinning so hard he thought his face might split. He carefully slid down the wall so that he was sitting on the dirt floor, letting the last vestiges of adrenaline drain out of his system. He could feel his heart slow back to a comfortable rhythm. His chest was aching.
"That she does," Ianto said as he moved to sit beside Evan. He let out a heavy breath. "Time for us to head back."
"Yeah," Evan said. He felt tired. Really tired, like the attempt to flee the dinosaur had been actual combat. He let his head fall back, coming to rest against the stone. His eyes drifted shut.
"Wake up!" Ianto screamed.
Evan opened his eyes. Ianto was kneeling right in front of him, his hands on his shoulders, still shaking them. "You're still being affected by the poison!"
"Oh," Evan said. The word seemed to take a long time to get out of his mouth. He felt his head loll to one side.
"Evan!" Ianto shook him again. "We need to get you out of here!"
Evan tried to open his eyes, but the lids were too heavy. His whole body was too heavy, weighted with fatigue.
"Stay with me," Ianto said. "Evan!" There was pressure on the side of his jaw, and Evan obligingly let his mouth fall open. He felt Ianto place yet another glucose pill in his mouth, and he started chewing automatically. The rush of sugar made him feel marginally better, although he felt the dinosaur ping again and he made a face.
"How's that?" Ianto asked. Evan opened his eyes to see Ianto looking intently at him, his captivating blue eyes full of anxiety. "Do you think you could stand?"
"No," Evan said, knowing it was the truth. It was as if his limbs were tied to the floor of the cave, impossible to lift. "Go," he said, trying to convey the importance of Ianto leaving him, of going back to Atlantis where he wouldn't be found by a different purple dinosaur. With a supreme effort, he lifted one hand to let it slide down Ianto's cheek and then land heavily on the floor. "S'alright," he breathed, "go."
"I'm not leaving you." There was a tremor in Ianto's voice.
Evan shook his head, slow and ponderous. "Shit at following orders," he mumbled. "Go." His eyes were only open a slit, Ianto's face blurring under half-closed lids. He felt his body shift to one side, sliding him closer to the floor.
"Get up!" Ianto shouted, shoving at his shoulder, but Evan knew he was a dead weight at this point. Ianto was taller than he was, but Evan weighed more.
"Sorry," Evan breathed. It was so hard to stay awake.
"Ianto!" A voice boomed by the entrance, and Evan opened his eyes more fully.
Captain Jack strode in, his blue coat billowing out behind him like the hero of a corsairs' movie. In three big strides, he was beside Ianto, and had pulled the other man standing into his arms. "Thank God you're okay!" Then he kissed him, with so much longing and passion that Evan let his eyes close, not wanting to watch. He hadn't realized this, when he'd kissed Ianto. Hadn't realized...
"Major!" That was Parrish, and he could hear Kemper and Conroy as well. It was so good to know his team was alright.
"Help him!" he heard Ianto order as if from very far away. "He's been poisoned!"
"On it, Mr. Jones," a woman's voice replied in nearly the exact same accent as Ianto's, and Evan smiled, realizing that it must be Tegan, the Healer Torchwood found for Atlantis.
And then everything became very distant, and very, very dark.
Ianto tugged the hem of his vest, adjusted his necktie and ran a smoothing hand over his impeccable hair. He had spent entirely too long getting ready for the party that evening, but it had been a long time since he had given more than a perfunctory interest in how he dressed. When one's wardrobe was as elegant and organized as Ianto's was, it was easy to truly throw something on, and still look well pulled-together.
He didn't feel pulled together tonight, however. In fact he felt as jittery and novice as the first day he'd started at Torchwood One. But Evan had been released from the infirmary that afternoon, and they still had a few things to discuss. "In for a penny," he muttered, and rang the chime for the door.
It opened with gratifying suddenness.
"Oh, hey, Ianto," Evan said with a slight narrowing of his beautiful blue eyes. "Come in."
Ianto nodded in thanks and stepped into the Major's quarters. They were sparsely furnished with the only furniture being a bed, a desk under the window and a couch pushed up against the far wall beside an over-full bookcase. But there were definitely touches of home in the room. Photos and paintings hung on the walls, and there were several flowering plants scattered throughout.
Evan noticed the direction of his gaze. "They're from David, Dr. Parrish," he explained, then smiled. "I think he said I needed the oxygen."
"And the paintings?" Ianto asked, raising his eyebrows in question. The artwork was quite good--rather exceptional, actually. His Gift immediately supplied the answer as to who made them, but he still waited for Evan's response.
"Some are mine, some are my mothers," he said, and was he blushing? "Nothing much."
"They're wonderful," Ianto said. He turned and looked at Evan. "You have a rare talent."
Evan shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with the praise. He smiled and gestured at the couch. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
Ianto moved towards the couch, thought about sitting, then changed his mind. He clasped his hands behind his back. "I came to apologize, actually," he said in a rush. "I'm sorry."
Evan blinked. "Sorry? Why?"
"That I failed to mention my inexperience with off-world missions. Well, being off-world at all, actually," Ianto continued quickly. "If I had realized that Sgt. Conroy was attempting to warn me, I wouldn't have put myself or you in danger." He smiled ruefully. "I am shit at following orders."
Evan's smile was equally as apologetic. "I kind of assumed a lot about your background myself," Evan said. "I should've asked."
Ianto took a step closer to him, feeling intensely relieved that Evan wasn't angry. "Well, we all came back in one piece, so, no harm done?"
"Yeah, we're good." Evan's expression turned quizzical. "How's your arm?"
"Fine," Ianto said, "healed actually, courtesy of that big Danish fellow."
"Sergeant Johansen." Evan smiled. "Our other Healer." He rubbed one hand along the front of his long-sleeved t-shirt. "He fixed my chest."
Ianto smiled. "Good to hear. Those were nasty cuts."
"Yeah," Evan smiled back. But then his expression sobered. "I'm sorry I kissed you," he said suddenly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't know that you and..."
"Something else I may have failed to mention," Ianto said with a smirk. He sighed. "Things with Jack are..." He paused, thinking. "Complicated."
Evan sat down on the couch and raised his eyebrows. "Should I ask?"
"I love him," Ianto blurted, "and he loves me. But I'll never have him." He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the familiar rush of hurt. "I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "You don't need to hear this."
Evan looked at him, his expression determined and his eyes kind, and suddenly Ianto understood how fine an officer he must be. "Sit."
Ianto sat.
Evan nodded. "Go on."
Ianto paused a moment, then to his surprise, started talking. "Jack," Ianto said, then swallowed and spoke again: "Jack is not of this world." At Evan's look, he continued. "He's an alien, actually, and probably hundreds--possibly thousands--of years old."
Evan tilted his head. "He's immortal?"
"Yes and no," Ianto explained. "He can die, but he doesn't stay dead. He's become part of the time-line," Ianto continued at Evan's disbelieving look. "His existence is tied in to the existence of the universe. He will live for as long as the universe does."
Evan sat back. "Whoa."
"Very much so," Ianto agreed. "But as you can imagine, his perspective on things is rather...different."
"I bet."
Ianto smiled. "So, the constraints of relationships make no sense to him. After all, what's the point of limiting oneself to one partner when they are finite and you are infinite?"
Evan raised one eyebrow. "That's a very pretty way of saying he sleeps around."
Ianto blinked. "It's not like that!"
"Sure it is," Evan said. "He's not faithful because he can't see the point in it." He paused, holding Ianto's gaze. "But you can, right?"
Ianto swallowed. "I love him."
"I get that," Evan said. "He's a great guy, and you love him. But he kinda forgot you in the Gate room when you first arrived, and he kinda forgets you when he's with someone else. Am I right?"
Ianto looked down. "Yes."
"Well," Evan said, "I'm not trying to get in the way of a beautiful thing, but I wouldn't do that. To you, I mean." Ianto looked up to see Evan smiling at him, blue eyes lit with warmth and desire. "Just throwing it out there."
"You barely know me," Ianto said, but he found he was unable to break Evan's gaze.
Evan's eyes narrowed. "Use your Gift," he said. "You'll see how I feel."
Ianto felt his mouth go dry as his heart started hammering in his chest. Evan's expression was firm, his eyes fierce in their intensity. Evan wanted him, cared about him, was perhaps even a little bit in love with him. And Evan certainly knew what he wanted.
The true question, Ianto realized, was: what did he want?
And that was a question his Gift couldn't answer.
"I love him," Ianto said softly, mesmerized by Evan's eyes, his mouth. "I can't promise--"
"I live in another galaxy," Evan said. "I'm not looking for promises." He put his hands on either side of Ianto's face, pulled him close, and kissed him.
The kiss was hard and deep. He closed his eyes, letting his mouth absorb the impact of Evan's need. He felt himself responding, affection blossoming inside him alongside desire. Evan wasn't Jack, but this felt right, like an answer to a question that Ianto didn't even know he was asking.
They ended up arriving very late to the party.
"I'm going to miss you," Evan said quietly as he and Ianto walked together towards the Gate room.
Evan was carrying Ianto's leather bag, his other hand holding Ianto's. It was a very public display of affection in a place where discretion was usually the better part of valour, but right at that moment Evan couldn't care.
He'd had only two real days with Ianto. The one day in the cave, and then the night and day after his discharge from the infirmary. It was barely enough time to get to know someone, let alone know someone long enough to think about a relationship, but somehow it had happened.
And this parting was going to be tough.
"I'm going to miss you, too," Ianto said. He gave Evan's had a gentle squeeze before letting it go as they walked into the Gate room.
Captain Harkness was already there, clearly saying his good-byes to Sheppard, McKay and Elizabeth. He was holding both of Elizabeth's hands in his, looking deeply into her eyes. She was blushing prettily, and obviously affected by his leaving. McKay was looking equally sad at the Captain's departure, while Sheppard just looked relieved.
It was kind of hard to have your boyfriend so evidently crushing on someone else, Evan thought, then glanced at Ianto. Not that he would know.
"Ianto!" Jack called, as if reading Evan's thoughts. He put his hand out, and Ianto obligingly went to him and grasped it. Evan forced down a stab of envy as he walked over and handed Ianto his bag.
"It's been wonderful, really great," Jack said, smiling at everyone. "Thanks again for inviting us."
"You're very welcome." Elizabeth smiled. "And I truly hope you'll come visit soon."
"Totally, absolutely!" McKay chimed in. "Come back!"
"You could always come to Cardiff," Jack said to McKay, smiling so that a dimple showed in his cheek. "You know how much we'd love to have you."
"Um, no," Sheppard said easily, stepping forward to shake Jack's hand. "He's too valuable here." And his expression made it clear how valuable McKay really was.
Jack laughed. "Point taken." He turned to Ianto. "You ready?"
"Yes." Ianto nodded, and Evan sighed inwardly. Ianto hadn't even looked at him when he'd said it. "Just one thing..."
And before Evan could even react, Ianto had stepped away from Jack and taken him in his arms, kissing him thoroughly and with unmistakable possession in front of the entire Gate room.
"Oh my," he heard McKay mutter behind him, as Ianto slowly let him go.
"Wow," Evan breathed, too overwhelmed to think about the implications of a huge public display of affection in front of his commanding officer. That kiss was just too damn good.
Ianto cupped his cheek. "Take care."
Evan nodded. "You, too."
Elizabeth signaled Chuck to open the wormhole, and seconds later, they were gone.
The Gate room was silent in the aftermath of the wormhole closing. Sheppard cleared his throat.
"So," he said conversationally, almost not looking at Evan out of the corner of his eye. "Don't you have some leave coming up?"
Evan felt himself begin to smile. "I might."
"Well, if I had it on my desk by tomorrow, I might be able to approve it for, say, next week?" Sheppard's one raised eyebrow spoke volumes.
"I hear that Wales is beautiful this time of year," McKay said as they headed out of the Gate room. "You might want to visit."
Evan was grinning. "Yeah."
Sheppard clapped him on the back as they walked. "Just no more purple dinosaurs, okay?"
"There are no dinosaurs in Wales!" McKay exclaimed, then paused. "Well, okay, there's one. But at least she's not purple."
Evan laughed out loud.
-- end --
[D1]I love this exchange.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2009-12-17 10:47 pm (UTC)But I really want to read about the meet up with Jack and Rodney!!!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-01 03:55 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for your comment!
Squeaky
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Date: 2009-12-18 11:14 pm (UTC)I never would have pictured Lorne/Ianto but this was sooo sweet, and perfect. Thank you so much!
I didn't read the precursor fic but you did a great job detailing it enough that I could figure out what was going on, for the most part. lol I should go and read it at some point I guess.
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Date: 2010-01-01 04:00 pm (UTC)This was actually the first fic I wrote in response to your SGA Secret Santa request, and I was hoping it would make you happy. I love Torchwood myself.
And the Gifts 'Verse is pretty cool (even if I did help to write the last story for SGA BigBang myself! ;->) if you wanted to check it out.
Happy New Year!
Squeaky
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Date: 2010-01-01 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 11:00 pm (UTC)Your obvious happiness has made every moment of my fic-writing angst worthwhile...
And the virtual milk and cookies was wonderful! Thanks for being so incredibly thoughtful and so clearly appreciative. You have totally made my first participation in SGA Secret Santa a good one.
All the best,
Squeaky
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Date: 2009-12-25 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-01 04:00 pm (UTC)I had a blast writing it. :)
Happy New Year!
Squeaky
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Date: 2009-12-28 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-01 04:02 pm (UTC)I'm a big fan of your stuff, so knowing you liked it is high praise, indeed!
Happy New Year!
Squeaky
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Date: 2010-01-01 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 01:06 am (UTC)And thanks for reading both my stories :)
I hope you enjoy the Gifts!Au! Leah and Springwoof did an amazing job on the first two stories in the series.
Have a great New Year!
Squeaky