Writer in a drawer round 3: Choices made.

[silver_sun]

 

Title: Choices Made
Spoilers: Series 1
Rating: PG

Prompts for this were: Physical superpowers, a book and less than 400 words.

Ianto finds the vial in the archives, on one of the long nights he spends working there, too fearful about Lisa’s health and the risk of discovery to go home and rest.

It’s small, plain, and seemingly insignificant, yet the silvery liquid it contains seems to glow in the dim light. With it is an old, leather bound journal, its pages yellowed with the passage of time. It details the work carried out on the substance in the eighteen-eighties by one time Torchwood operative Professor Percival Chown. Who had, after extensive study, concluded that the substance was ‘fantastical in origin and bestowed the imbiber with both strength and senses the like of which God never meant man to possess.’

After reading it and smiling at the man’s overly florid language, Ianto places it back on the shelf, but not before adding his own note to the vial: ‘superman in a tin.’ Laughing, Ianto returns to Lisa, wondering if sleep deprivation has finally stripped him of what little sense he had.

It isn’t until after the events of Brynblaidd, when Ianto once more wanders the archives at night, trying to outrun sleep and its inevitable nightmares, that he notices it again.

Tempting, seductive, it offers him power, the strength to protect his friends, to never again be helpless in the face of such horror as that village or Canary Wharf, the strength to stop it from ever happening again.

He doesn’t though, he can’t, there’s too much to lose, his friends, his life, Jack.

The temptation remains, and three days after Jack’s disappearance, when the Hub is finally empty, exhaustion having driven Owen, Tosh and Gwen home, Ianto takes it.

Sitting on Jack’s bed, more tired, scared and alone than he will admit, even to himself, he drinks it. The effect is instant and it burns through his veins, changing him, and he cries out, although no one is there to hear him.

Eventually it abates and he lies there panting, listening to the sounds of the Hub and of the city far above him. Sounds that normally he wouldn’t be able to hear, and he knows that it has worked.

Smiling faintly, Ianto wonders if this is the stupidest thing that he’s ever done, before deciding that it really doesn’t matter, because this isn’t about him. He’ll keep them safe, protect them until Jack returns, and that is enough.

Comments

[midori-marmotte.livejournal.com]

O-ok. Now... WHERE IS THE CONTINUATION??? ;-) Sorry, but you got me all worked up for what could be a very nice AU with Super!Ianto and you stop abruptly... please, would you write more?

[silver_sun]

It would be an interesting AU and I may do something more with it one day. The reason it's so short is that was written for round two of writerinadrawer and was limited to 400 words maximum.