Slipping Through -- People Believe What They Want To Believe

[gracie_musica]

Book cover by et_muse


Title: Slipping Through
Chapter Nine: People Believe What They Want To Believe
Date Written: 7/9/08
Rating: PG-13/T for innuendo
Word Count: 3,607
Fandom: FAKE/Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Dee/Ryo, Jack/Ianto, Team Torchwood
Spoilers: FAKE through to Volume 7, Torchwood up through Season 2
Warnings: Boys kissing, Jack being Jack and Dee being Dee.
Author Notes: Wow. Nine chapters and not even close to where we're going to end up. Chapter title is from Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule summed up nice and neat. *laughs* Also, a little tidbit about the Naofax -- if you'll notice, it's actually macro speak, "now facts" or "facts now". totally4ryo came up with it when we were impatiently waiting for Doctor Who torrents Saturday.


Slipping Through master list found here.


"I DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS!" Dee yelled as he stormed out of Jack's office, Ryo hot on his heels. Gwen, Tosh, Ianto and Owen swung their gaze from where the Laytner-MacLeans had fled the office to their Captain.

"Well, that went well," Jack deadpanned, his chair scraping along the floor as he pushed back from his desk.

They'd broken the news to Dee when they'd all gotten back: there had been no Rift fluctuations on the training grounds when they'd been out. Not a hiccup, not a blip. Jack had tentatively suggested letting Owen check him out, and Dee had exploded.

The team filed out of the office, watching as Dee yelled at Ryo. " -- The middle of fucking TORCHWOOD, for fuck's sake, being told that the FUCKING ALIEN I SAW ISN'T FUCKING REAL!"

Ryo, for his part, was taking it in stride. "Dee, just calm down." The younger detective flopped down on the couch, crossing his arms and obviously sulking. His husband moved to kneel in front of him, putting a hand on his knees. "Baby, how many times have we seen witnesses in our job who thought they saw one thing but really saw another?"

"This is England all over again," Dee said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "You don't believe me either."

"No, I believe that you saw something, baby. You don't lie about that sort of stuff." Ryo reached up to touch Dee's cheek. "But it wasn't there. I was there too, I didn't see anything."

"Sometimes you have to have a belief in something to see it, Ryo."

The half-Japanese man sighed. "Can you get Owen to take a look at you, just to make sure you're okay? I don't want to lose you."

Everyone saw the card Ryo was playing, but no one called him out on it. It was a low blow, but everyone could see that it worked on the younger detective. Dee took a deep breath, then nodded. "All right."

Ryo rocked up to his feet, leaning in to kiss him. "Thank you."

Owen was halfway down to the medical bay when the two Americans looked over at him. "C'mon crazy, let's get you checked out."

Dee growled a little, but obediently went down to join the doctor. Owen was shrugging on his coat, a clipboard already out on the tray next to the autopsy table. The others leaned against the railing around the bay, and Jack put a comforting hand on Ryo's shoulder. The anxiety coming off the half-Japanese man was nearly tangible; maybe the blow hadn't been quite so low.

"Right. There's the possibility that it was just a stress break," Owen started, motioning for Dee to sit down on the table. "There's the possibility that you're a nutter. Or there's a possibility that you did see something, and we just didn't pick it up."

"I did see something," Dee countered, gripping the side of the table, "and it was definitely alien!"

"What did you see?" Gwen asked, cocking her head to the side.

Dee flinched a little when Owen turned his head to face him, flashing a penlight in his eyes. "It had tentacles for arms."

"Tentacles?" Ianto asked from Ryo's other side.

"Yeah," he said, blinking rapidly when Owen moved the light away. "Tentacles. Like an octopus."

"Oh my God, you've been watching too much tentacle hentai," Ryo swore, burying his face in his hands.

As one, the team turned to look at Tosh, who laughed while turning a very pretty shade of pink. "Animated porn," she translated.

"Really?" Jack asked, crossing his arms across his chest. "Animated?"

"Let's stay on topic, Harkness," Owen said, clicking his fingers together to get the team's attention again. He grabbed a scanner from the tray, activating it and running it over Dee's forehead.

Dee was proud of himself for waiting a full minute before sarcastically saying, "I feel like I'm in an old Trek episode." His husband snorted in amusement, and the dark-haired detective jerked a thumb at Owen. "He's dead, Jim."

"Oh ha ha, let's all have a laugh at the dead man," Owen said as the others laughed at the joke.

"That's for the crazy comment earlier," Dee replied easily.

Owen grinned a little, pulling back and looking at the readings running across the screen. "All normal," he said, looking up over his shoulder at Jack and Ryo.

"Tell me more about the alien," Jack said, watching Dee. "Besides the tentacles."

Dee frowned a little, looking down at his feet as he thought about what exactly he'd seen. "It looked human enough," he said after a long moment. "A round head, stood upright on two legs, had two pairs of arms. But the arms were tentacles. Its skin was green, and sort of translucent, I could see its veins."

Jack nodded. "Eyes?" he prompted. "Hair?"

"Sort of baby fine hair, really pale," Dee agreed, brushing his fingers past his ear in a silent description of length. "I didn't get to see its eyes."

The Captain nodded, his thoughts turning inward as he thought for a few moments. "That does sound like a humanoid alien race that Torchwood is aware of," he said, looking over to Gwen. "Naofax."

The Welshwoman nodded, going to Toshiko's computer station and started typing. Tosh, however, stepped down the tiled stair and handed Dee a handheld device. "That's a modified scanner," she explained. "If you see something like that again, just point this at it and press this button," she instructed, tapping the bright yellow button on the side. "We'll get an in-depth scan of the area, and we can go over it here."

Dee nodded, slipping the device into his pocket.

"While we're going over things," Owen said, jotting down notations on the clipboard, "I want to get your history."

Dee rolled his eyes. "Yearly psych evals for work all came back fine."

"With the occasional anger management recommendation," Ryo teased, giving Dee a little smile.

"Oh, and yours didn't," Dee said, holding up two fingers. "Twice."

Five pairs of eyes turned to look at the lighter-haired detective, who just shrugged in response.

"It really always is the quiet ones," Jack commented.

"Any other times when you've seen something others haven't?" Owen asked. "Besides the ghost in England, of course."

Dee shook his head a little, then paused. "Well, sort of. I guess." He sighed. "When I was younger I had, you know, invisible friends," he finally admitted, fighting down a blush and waiting for the laughter to come.

It never did. When Dee looked up, Owen was nodding to himself, scratching on the clipboard. "Not uncommon for children," he said finally, giving Dee a little bit of a grin. "Overactive imaginations with no outlet and a desire to not be lonely. Coupled with the fact that you grew up in a group home, I'd have been surprised if you hadn't."

"Got it," Gwen called out from Toshiko's work station. The others turned to the sound of her voice, heading over to the computer.

Jack crooked his finger at Dee, urging him up out of the medical bay. Dee took the stairs two at a time, and Jack put his hands on Dee's shoulders once he hit the landing. "Look at this, Dee, tell us if this is what you saw."

On the screens, in floating 3-D, was an image of an alien, humanoid in shape with two pairs of tentacle-like limbs at the bottom of the body and about halfway up the torso. The skin was a deep shade of grass green, and its razor sharp teeth were visible through its curled lips. The sockets where its eyes were supposed to be were grown over with flaps of skin.

Dee shook his head. "Close, but not quite," he said. "The one I saw didn't have teeth."

"How d'you know?" Owen asked.

"I just did. Its skin wasn't that color, it was more a neon-y shade, and it was more see-through." He looked over his shoulder at Jack. "I could see its heart beating."

Ryo took Dee's other hand, squeezing it. Jack took a deep breath. "Anybody?"

"Doesn't ring any bells," Tosh said, giving Dee an apologetic grin. "But there are a lot of things we don't know about yet."

"I'll take a look about the archives," Ianto agreed.

Dee took a deep breath, still looking at the alien on-screen. "That one. It eats people?"

"A Naofax is a scavenger, it eats up whatever it can find," Jack told him. "Plants, animals, people, anything. It's got a quick metabolism so it's constantly hungry."

"I was by an alien that could eat me," Dee said, blinking a little.

"It's a little staggering for all of us the first time we realize it," Gwen said, taking Dee's other hand and guiding him over to the beat-up couch.

Jack frowned. "He wasn't like that with Janet earlier."

"There was a barrier between him and the Weevil, idiot," Owen muttered, going over to his desk to start going through Ryo and Dee's medical readings.

Ianto nodded a little in agreement before stepping down to the kitchen area and fixing a round of coffee for everyone.

"So what are we going to do with them tonight?" Toshiko asked, looking up at Jack.

Jack laughed a little. "They're grown men."

"In a foreign city all by their lonesome. Might as well turn two toddlers out on the streets."

"Okay. What did you have in mind?" Jack asked, looking over at her.

"I thought it might be nice -- if they wanted to -- for them to come over to my place for dinner tonight," Tosh said, fighting back a hint of a blush.

"You just want them to cook for you," Jack teased.

"Ryo does seem to enjoy a kitchen, yes," she argued, blushing a little more. "I thought a home-type environment might be good for them right now."

"Oooh, you just want to put them in your pocket and keep them forever," Jack teased again, laughing at the telling blush that resulted. "Too late. They're coming out with me tonight anyway."

"Says who?" Gwen asked, stepping into the conversation. Ianto was handing over coffee to a suddenly shell-shocked Dee and a soothing Ryo, so she'd left them in peace. "I was going to invite them over for dinner with me and Rhys, and they wouldn't even have to cook."

"I get to pull rank," Jack replied, putting his hands in his pockets. "Ianto and I will take them out tonight, and then you two get to squabble over them tomorrow night."

"Good Lord, just draw up a rota," Owen grumbled from his desk.

-----

"So, what looks good to you?" Jack asked conversationally, looking down at his menu.

Ryo couldn't fight down his smirk. "The steak and chips sound good."

They were sitting in Bistro 10, the actual one where the Doctor had taken Margaret Blaine on her last dinner meal. Ianto had been the one to suggest it since it was down in Mermaid Quay, just a walk away from the Information Booth entrance and one the team frequently went to for lunch when things were slow at the Hub. Both Ryo and Dee had been fighting down laughter ever since they'd seen the modern art on the pale yellow walls.

"I hear it comes highly recommended," Dee agreed.

Jack looked over at Ianto. "I think we're missing something," he deadpanned, grinning at the resulting sarcastic look the young Welshman gave him.

Ryo chuckled. "Tell me, Jack," he said, taking pity on him. "Does the phrase 'Dinner in bondage' ring any bells?"

The immortal's eyebrows furrowed and Dee pulled his hand across his forehead as if he were unzipping something. The clue clicked and he grinned. "Margaret Blaine."

"You mean the Slitheen mayor?" Ianto asked, looking over his menu at the two New Yorkers.

"She asked for one last meal, and the Doctor took her here." Ryo grinned.

"I never liked her," Ianto said. "She was a tad overeager for power."

"Well, she was planning on blowing up the nuclear plant so she could get out of town," Jack replied. "Overeager is an understatement."

The table fell quiet for a few moments as they looked over their menus until Jack broke the silence again. "So this John Barrowman guy you mistook me for. Is he hot?"

Dee laughed at the eyeroll Ianto gave. "Looks just like you," he agreed.

"I'd like to meet him."

"I'm sure he'd be delighted to introduce you to his husband," Ryo said.

Jack pouted, making both Laytner-MacLeans laugh. "Now Gareth David-Lloyd," Dee said, pointing at Ianto. "Plays you. And he's straight."

"More's the pity," Ryo teased. "But he's got a great sense of humor. He fronts a band, actually."

"Ooooh?" Jack said, grinning at Ianto.

"Don't even think of it, Jack," the younger Welshman said.

"Oh, c'mon, Ianto."

"He gets up on stage," Dee said, leaning over the table to talk a little more intimately with Jack, "in these tight black jeans, nice tight tee, studded belt." He looked at Ianto and grinned. "Hey, you do own a black studded belt."

Ianto raised his eyes and gave Dee a look that clearly said so not happening.

Ryo grinned at Jack. "But I'm the fanboy."

"Hey, I can appreciate too," Dee argued as Jack laughed.

"Yes, yes dear," Ryo replied off-handedly, catching Ianto's eye and winking a little.

Dee caught Ryo's hand in his, threading his fingers through his husband's. "They're both hot, but you're hotter."

"Hey, right here!" Jack protested.

They all shared a laugh, letting the tension break a little. "I'm feeling dangerous tonight, I'll go with the Doctor's recommendation," Dee said, setting his menu aside.

"Steak and chips it is, hold the Rift storm please," Ryo said, placing his menu atop of Dee's.

"What about you, Ianto?" Jack asked, leaning over into the Welshman's personal space to look at his menu. "The usual for you?"

"Since everyone's getting steak and chips, I thought we could make it a round four," Ianto replied, giving a smile. Jack normally ordered the steak, and would let Tosh and Gwen steal chips off of his plate and act outraged when he caught them.

"I don't know, that fish was pretty good the last time we got it," he said, his voice dropping a little to murmur the last of the sentence into his ear. Ianto subconsciously licked his lips as he remembered what had happened. Ianto and Jack had gotten their dinner take-away and gone back to the Hub. Jack had been in a playful mood, begging for a bite of Ianto's food. The younger man had refused, waiting to see how far Jack would go, and had ended up across the conference table with Jack's lips around his dick.

The waitress came by, greeting both Jack and Ianto by name and taking their orders (two steak and chips, two grilled mackerel). When she left, Ryo sat back in his chair, while Dee fiddled with the corners of his napkin.

"So," Jack drawled. "This isn't awkward at all."

Both detectives grinned a little. "Ask," Ryo said.

"We dare ya," Dee teased with a wink.

"We know you want to," Ryo said, reaching for his wine glass.

"So how hard and fast is this whole marriage thing?" Jack asked, his trademark smirk on his face.

Ryo choked on a mouthful of wine. Dee's eyebrows shot to his hairline and he actually blushed just a little.

Jack grinned over at Ianto. "Got 'em."

"You are incorrigible, Jack," Ianto scolded.

"But you love me," he said, turning back to the couple across from him. He missed the flicker of -- something -- cross Ianto's face, but the other two didn't. "I'm not quite sure what to ask you," he said finally. "Time lines and all that."

"If we can't tell, we won't," Dee said.

"As hard as it will be," Ryo agreed.

Jack traced the rim of his glass of water with a finger, thinking of something to ask. Ianto looked over at Jack curiously. He knew what he wanted to ask -- about what Jack did with the Doctor during those missing months. He'd asked Jack about it just once, but the immortal had looked like he'd been stricken and they'd dropped the subject.

"All right," Jack said after a long moment. "Here's one that Ianto knows, since it's down in the archives. Who were the Torchwood agents that recruited me?"

"Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd," Ryo answered immediately. "Fandom calls them the Torchwood lesbians."

Jack threw his head back and laughed so hard that the rest of the restaurant turned to look at him. Ianto nodded to himself. "Fits the profiles from what I read," he agreed. Once Jack had gotten control of himself and everyone was back to their own conversations, he asked, "How did Owen end up in, well, his present condition?"

"He was shot by Aaron Copley, head of the Pharm," Ryo said, crossing his legs at the knee. "Jack used the second Resurrection Gauntlet to bring him back to life."

"The Risen Mitten," Dee corrected.

"Ianto likes his alliteration," Jack agreed, patting Ianto's hand.

"Seems the program is fairly accurate," Ianto agreed.

"Ask him about the Doctor," Dee said, jerking a thumb at Ryo. "He can tell you stuff about his lives before you met him, Jack."

"I'm sure the Torchwood archives are about as thorough," the half-Japanese man argued, blushing a little.

"But minus the prejudice," Jack chuckled, looking back down at his drink. He took a deep breath before asking, "Rose. Is she okay?"

Dee and Ianto both turned to look at Ryo. The older detective weighed his words carefully before answering with, "She's safe."

"Safe and okay can mean two different things," Jack pointed out, still staring into his glass.

"Jack," Ryo sighed. "She lost her world when she lost the Doctor. But she has her family, both parents and a new sibling, Mickey." He gave a soft smile. "She has people who love her. She'll be okay."

The immortal nodded a little to himself, looking back down into his glass. Ianto carefully reached out to put a gentle hand on the older man's forearm. Jack smiled a little, covering Ianto's hand with one of his own and rubbing the back of the younger man's hand with his thumb.

The waitress chose that moment to come up with their food. Jack sat back, pulling Ianto's hand off his arm. He turned the hand over and pressed a gentle kiss against the palm, giving his younger lover a soft smile. Ianto just smiled back.

Ryo grinned over at his husband, reaching to set his glass on the table. Dee just winked back.

-----

Dinner went fairly well, dispite it's rough start. By the time the waitress came around with the bill, all four of them were laughing and joking as if they had known each other for years. Jack started a little when his mobile went off and he excused himself from the table to answer his call as Ianto, Ryo and Dee argued over the bill.

Ianto won. Ryo complained until the younger man promised he could pay the next time. Dee rolled his eyes so much he got a headache.

Jack came back, giving an apologetic smile. "Sorry guys, but duty calls." He looked down at Ianto. "I can handle it. You go on to your flat, okay?"

The younger man looked like he was about to protest, but finally just nodded. "Call if you need anything."

"I will," Jack told him, before leaning in to steal a kiss in front of Ryo and Dee. "Walk you out to your car?"

Ianto nodded, standing and taking Jack's offered hand. "G'night gentlemen," he said, nodding to Ryo and Dee.

"Nos da!" they both intoned, waving a little.

Ianto paused, looking at both of them. The Laytner-MacLeans, in turn, gave twin angelic smiles.

"I know that one," Jack teased, squeezing Ianto's hand. "That's good night."

"Very good, Jack," ianto said sarcastically. He turned to Ryo. "Not too bad," he complimented before looking at Dee. "Could use some work."

Ryo laughed as Dee made a noise of protest. Jack laughed as well, waving over his shoulder as he put an arm around Ianto's waist.

Dee settled back against his chair, scooting a little closer to Ryo and putting an arm around the older detective's shoulders. "We just had a double date with Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones."

"Oh, the fangirls will be jealous," Ryo said with a laugh, finishing off the last of his wine. He settled in closer to Dee, the two falling into a comfortable silence, watching the waitresses set their areas for closing. "They'll be kicking us out soon."

The dark-haired detective tilted his husband's chin up to kiss him softly. "How about we head back to our room?"

"Brilliant idea, Mr. Laytner-MacLean," Ryo teased, pulling back and standing.

Dee stood as well, pushing his chair in and draining the last of his glass. Something on Jack's chair caught his eye when he set the glass back on the table. "Hey, look. Jack forgot his jacket."

Ryo laughed a little, plucking it off the back of the chair. "You're right. We should stop off at the Hub before we go home."

Dee smirked. "Actually..." He took the greatcoat out of Ryo's hands and pulled it over his shoulders. "C'mere Tea Boy," he teased, wrapping an arm around Ryo's waist and pulling him close.

"Ooh, you're a naught one, Captain," Ryo laughed, wrapping an arm around Dee's neck. "Let's get outta here."

Comments

[cjharknessgirl.livejournal.com]

I loved the double date, brilliant!

Jack loves that coat far to much to just leave it behind, I think he did it on purpose so Ryo and Dee could have a little fun...

[gracie-musica.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Yup! Double date with Jack and Ianto. Sounds like a fangirl's dream, no?

[cjharknessgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! Is there a queue to get in to sign up?