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madbottoms) wrote2012-08-29 08:40 pm
Born This Way - Chapter 28
Title: Born This Way 28
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, John, Gray, Owen, Toshiko/Tommy, Suzie, OCs
Rating: NC-17
Warnings/Contains: Supernatural themes, character death, drug references.
Summary: Sequel to Choices - Ianto Jones was born and raised in Hell, but he isn’t feeling as demonic as usual lately—thanks to Jack Harkness. But you can’t desert Hell without consequences and suddenly Ianto’s and Jack’s happily ever after may not be so happy.
Notes: Only a short chapter but it sure says a lot.
Chapter 28
*~*
My Soul to Keep
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Ianto
When I phase into my apartment, what I see nearly kills me. I feel my mostly brimstone heart being crushed by the weight of what I’ve let happen. In an instant, I’m across the room and on the bed, pulling Jack’s lifeless body to me.
I look to John, who hovers off the floor near the door in full angelic form, enormous double wings spread wide. He turns on the glow and glides toward us as I turn back to Jack. But just as I lean down to check if he’s breathing, I feel searing heat as a red blast of Hellfire lights up the room, followed instantly by a bolt of white lightning. Ozone overpowers the brimstone and nearly chokes me. My fingers touch Jack’s neck and I find that he barely has a pulse.
I expect John to help Jack, but when he glides past us, my eyes snap to the dark image enveloped in his white light: Lilith standing near the bookshelves, wrapped in King Lucifer’s leathery bat wings. An apparition. It must be, because it’s been eons since the king of Hell has ventured to Earth.
Lucifer leers at John. He pulls Lilith tighter to His steaming form, as though she’s His most prized possession.
“You know he belongs to me, John,” He rasps.
“Let him go,” John responds, edging closer.
I pull Jack tight to me, confused. That’s when I realise that, even though he’s alive, I don’t sense his essence. No currant and clove. His soul is gone from his body.
I’m too late.
Despair chokes me as I scoop Jack into my arms, willing him to live. Another blast of Hellfire takes out half the kitchen, but I barely notice except to shield Jack’s body from the flying debris.
John sends a bolt of white lightning sailing at Lucifer, where He’s backing toward the window with Lilith tucked behind Him. John’s bolt finds its mark, and Lucifer rears up and roars, the sound shaking the windows. He picks Lilith up, tucks her under an immense arm like a rag doll, and with one flap of His wings, He’s on the windowsill, shattering the remains of the already broken glass and splintering the wood with the talons of His webbed feet. He spreads His wings, ready to leap, and in a flash of white, John is across the room. He dodges Lucifer’s blast of Hellfire and grabs Him by a wing, swinging Him back into the room.
As Lucifer crashes into the wall near the bed, cracking the plaster and crumbling a section of the mural, I hear it.
Lilith’s voice starts low and strangled, as if she’s fighting to keep the words from coming out. “You don’t want me. Go back to Hell.”
When I see Lucifer pause, midstride, on His way to the door, I understand.
Jack.
I go suddenly cold with the realisation. Jack’s essence is in Lilith’s host body. I don’t know how it’s possible, but the terror in my core as I watch Lucifer skirt toward the door with His prize tucked under His arm tells me it’s true.
I lower Jack’s body gently to the bed and stand as John lunges, knocking Lilith out of Lucifer’s arms. John drags Lilith behind him, where she falls to the floor in a heap. I focus all the infernal power I can muster and send a blast of Hellfire at Lucifer. At the same instant, John unleashes a blinding bolt of lightning. Both hit Lucifer square in the chest in a crimson and white explosion, knocking Him through the wall into Elle’s apartment with a thundering crash.
Lucifer pulls Himself off the floor, and with an agonised roar and the sickening stench of brimstone, He vanishes in a puff of steam.
“Coward,” John mutters under his breath, turning down the glow, but there’s a shake in his voice. He turns toward Lilith and shifts back into human form as she pulls herself off the floor. When she speaks, it’s clear that Lilith is the one talking again.
“That celestial voodoo works only on demons, John. I’m no demon. Try it, and everyone—and I do mean everyone…,” she says with a meaningful glance at Jack’s body, “dies.”
John backs off a step. “Let him go.”
She turns to me, but then she pauses as her face contorts. “Leave him alone,” escapes from her mouth, sounding weak and choked.
I take a cautious step toward her, panic pushing my heart into my throat. “No, Jack. Don’t use your Sway for me. Make her let you go.”
“You can do this, Jack,” John says, moving closer to Lilith, hope clear on his still glowing face.
But the confusion on Lilith’s face clears and she turns back to me. “He’s mine now.”
I’m on top of Lilith before I even realise I’ve moved.
“Let him go!” I roar as my hand wraps around her throat. I throw her into the wall, pushing my glowing fist into her face.
“I can’t,” she croaks. “You know what He’ll do to me if I don’t bring him back.”
And I do. Lilith is His queen, but that doesn’t mean He spares her His wrath. I’ve heard the rumours—and once, the screams. I glance to the hole in the wall and suddenly understand why He gave up so easily. He knows Lilith won’t dare give up His prize, and He’s left her to do His bidding.
John pulls me off her. “Stop, Ianto. You can’t kill her.”
I realise my grasp on her throat has tightened. I drop my hand and step back, unsure what to do. He’s right. I can’t kill her without killing the host and Jack too.
Just as I’m thinking it, the girl in front of me shimmers into Jack. He steps forward, reaching out to me.
A surge of debilitating desire rolls through my body like a tidal wave, knocking me back a step.
“Leave him alone, my arse. If I want him, he’s mine,” he says, and everything flickers out of focus as he reaches up and touches my cheek.
I hear John’s voice somewhere off in the distance, but I ignore it, because all that matters is Jack. I press into him, feel his body against mine, and explode in a burst of searing heat.
“That’s right,” he says, reaching up for my face and pulling me into a kiss.
His draw is voracious. I’m desperate to be closer. I gather my essence and seep through his open lips. But as my essence enters him, I’m shocked out of my lust-induced trance by Jack’s voice crying, “No!”
“It’s getting a little crowded in here, don’t you think?” Lilith’s voice interrupts. “Hot and sweaty. And you know how I like hot and sweaty, Ianto.”
I cringe, knowing that Jack is listening in on our internal conversation, but Lilith is right. I’ve never felt so claustrophobic in someone else’s body.
Lilith’s essence swirls, huge but shadowy and impossible to contain. I can feel the host body’s soul, dark and thick, cowering in the corners. A soul clearly already tagged for Hell, which is why Lilith was able to inhabit her body in the first place.
Then I feel Jack, his white opalescence swirling weakly around my glossy black. And aside from the obvious, there’s something terribly wrong. There’s no spark to his soul, as if he’s too exhausted to continue—spent. Panic chokes my thoughts. I only know I need to get him out of here.
“I could leave and take a few of these souls with me.”
“Not going to happen. My king wants you back. Of course, judging from the last time we were together, I’m thinking you won’t want to leave for long.”
Another wave of desire almost takes me under, but I channel it and turn it back on her. As my thoughts clear, it occurs to me that Lilith and I aren’t really that different. She’s a pawn in His game, just as I was. If I could make her see a way out…
“You don’t have to do this, Lilith.”
Her essence swirls thick around Jack and me, smoke streaked with crimson. “You know I do.”
“He’s just using you—all of us—in His twisted game. If He gets Jack, there’ll be no stopping Him.”
“There’s already no stopping Him. And besides, maybe I don’t want to stop Him. When He is the Almighty, things will be different.”
“Some things won’t change. The torture…what He does to you—”
“I need what He does to me. There’s nothing like His lust in the mortal world. I was hoping Gray’s would be enough, but…” She trails off. Even though her words are sharp, they’re driven by an undercurrent of fear that she can’t hide. And, in that statement, I see the difference between Lilith and me. I was born of sin. Lilith chose it. She literally made a deal with the devil all those millennia ago. Where I traded my immortality for love, she traded her mortality for lust.
“I can’t live without His lust,” she adds, sounding broken. “Jack felt it. He knows.”
Everything spins. Is that what happened to him, why there’s nothing left? What did He do to him? Guilt rips a hole right through me, leaving me cold and empty.
I let this happen.
I think of Jack’s sparkling sapphire eyes, how alive they were, and I want to die, knowing this is my fault. I wasn’t strong enough to deserve him—to protect him.
I call out to him with my mind and move slowly, encircling Jack’s shimmering essence with my own. I work to hide my doubt and insecurity, instead playing on Lilith’s. “With Jack by His side, do you really think He’ll still want you?”
“He has always wanted me, and He will always want me.” I feel her fury and fear swirl through us, the red streaks of her essence becoming thicker, more solid.
And then I do it. I blend my essence with Jack’s.
Please, Jack. Please come back to me.
“Isn’t that sweet,” Lilith says, all bitterness and hate. “But it’s too late. He would have willingly given himself to our king if you hadn’t so rudely interrupted.”
Jack’s essence burns and swirls, stronger every second. I bask in it, feeling my own essence swell as his becomes more spirited. His anger surges, black pepper in my nose, and then I hear his voice, faint at first but becoming stronger as his lucidity grows. It sounds like a chant, and as it grows louder, I’m able to decipher the words in the rhythm. It becomes strong enough that Lilith’s lips start to move and she says it out loud.
“Let me go. You don’t want me. Let me go. You don’t want me.”
Hope washes through me. I keep my essence blended with Jack’s and send him all my strength. Lilith groans and I use the little bit of control I have to force her host body to stay still when she tries to run. Lilith struggles to hold on to Jack, and I feel Jack’s resolve falter as Lilith floods us with dark ideas—blood, lust, death.
“No, Jack, don’t listen,” I say, and start chanting with him. “Let me go. You don’t want me. Let me go.”
I feel a different sort of surge in Jack, and his essence flows stronger. I draw on his strength and send it back, swirling the tempest inside.
“Ianto?” It comes from somewhere deep inside him, accompanied by a burst of warm chocolate.
“Focus,” I say, struggling to do the same. “Let me go. You don’t want me.”
He picks it back up, stronger.
I feel Lilith waver. Her smoky essence ebbs for just an instant, but it’s enough. Relief washes over me as I feel Jack’s soul swirl—taste his currant and clove. And then he’s gone.
I gather my essence and start to seep out of this body, between Lilith’s lips, but a feral cry rips through her. I feel a sick tug and realise I’m tethered here by some force.
“No! I can’t go back without at least one of you,” Lilith cries.
Lilith spins on Jack, where John is perched over his body on the bed. He’s got one hand on his chest and another on his head. He glances up, the panic in his eyes triggering crushing dread in my heart. “You’re on your own, dude,” he says, and presses his lips to Jack’s, breathing for him. “Come on, Jack,” he says.
I’m nearly helpless in Lilith’s body as she charges at Jack, determined to get him back. But just before we reach him, John raises his hand, and white lightning shoots from his palm, coursing through us.
Lilith screams and drops to the floor, and it’s everything I can do to stifle my own scream. But as painful as that was, I know John was holding back or Lilith’s host body would be dead. She’s not, but the blast is enough to break Lilith’s focus.
I think of Jack, of the person he made me, of all the good he brings out in me, and I feel my strength swell. I push with everything I have. Lilith groans as she fights through the pain to hold me. But she can’t, and my essence shoots from her body like a stone from a slingshot.
The force with which I enter my human shell almost knocks me unconscious. I struggle to get my head straight and pull myself off the floor.
Lilith picks herself up, and with one glance back at John, she staggers for the door. She opens it and runs square into Owen, standing in the hall. Owen’s eyes bulge at the sight of Elle emerging, bloody, from my apartment.
“Hey, honey,” Lilith says.
And then everything happens in a blur.
She drapes herself over Owen. The next instant, Lilith’s body goes limp and hits the floor in a heap, and Owen is running full speed down the hall.
A strangled, choking wheeze sounds behind me, and I wheel around to find Jack cradled in John’s arms, clawing at his throat and gasping for air.
John looks up at me. “Owen,” he barks with a jerk of his head toward the door.
I pause for one more second, fighting my need to run to Jack, to touch him and make sure he’s okay, before stepping over the unconscious brunette who used to be Lilith on my way to the stairs. As I slam through the door to the car park, an engine roars and I hear a car bottom out on the curb. I run to the street and catch a glimpse of the taillights of an old black hearse turning the corner.
Naburus. Damn!
I wait at the curb a moment longer, then sprint back up the stairs to Jack.
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Cheers for all the comments in a row.
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And yes, Ianto is my hero, his love is so strong that he can defeat much evil. But now it is up to Jack to forgive Ianto and move on. But I am afraid there is still more that needs to be sorted.
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But Jack will be ok after all of that?
Next chapter is a Jack/Ianto reunion? Will be romantic? They need a minute for themself in the middle of all this madness.
Yes, I'm anxious...I'll find out when a great new chapter arrives!
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I hope Jack's okay after that. Being ripped out of your body and accosted by Lucifer had to hurt like hell, but hen I guess that was the point.
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