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[personal profile] m_findlow

Title: Biding time
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Mandy the barmaid
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (mentions suicide)
Length: 2,193 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Big Finish audioplay "Broken"
Author notes: Written for juliet316's prompt "Any, any, nick of time" at fic_promptly
Summary: Ianto is in a bad way and Mandy isn't sure if she's going to reach him in time.

Mandy raced up the stairs of the shabby apartment block as quickly as they'd take her. The pace she maintained surprised her. She wasn't exactly young anymore and her knees had never been much good after she hit thirty five. They clicked and cracked, never turned when the rest of her body wanted to change directions, leaving her with a painful jarring. All those long hours of stranding behind the bar, drifting from one end to the other and back again probably didn't help, nor did the trips down to the cellar to change over the drums of lager. Now though, there was no amount of protesting from her knee joints that was going to stop her.

Ianto's phone call had frightened her. She knew he was in a bad place and doing it tough. Most people who spent their nights hanging around at their local watering holes were doing it tough. It was just a shade less embarrassing than drinking alone in the comfort of your own home. That just made you a pathetic drunk. Not that she minded. More patrons filtering through her doors meant more profits, and the more down and out people that came to cry over her bar in particular was even better. It wasn't their pints that were bringing in the money, it was their problems and what happened after they'd finished telling them all to her.

This little side deal she had going with that alien Savior was working out well for her. He didn't even seem to mind that perhaps it was taking her a little bit longer each time to bring him someone. It wasn't easy after all. You couldn't just stick up a poster and advertise that you had an alien in the cellar with a portal that could take you places. These people had to be carefully selected, primed for the proposition, and desperate enough to believe it without asking questions. They also had to be people who wouldn't be missed, or who had every reason for going missing.

The first couple had been tricky, but she'd gotten better at it. That school teacher drowning in overdue credit cards and a mortgage worth more than her entire pub had taken some convincing. She'd been the principled sort, the kind that didn't like to walk away from her debts but who also didn't know how the hell she was going to pay them off. Her fiancé had dumped her, leaving her with the house, and him with his well-paid stock broker job. He'd also left her with his share of that ten thousand pound trip to the Caribbean they'd just come back, from racked up on her credit card, because his was apparently restricted for work use only, or so he claimed. 'Complete utter bastard,' Mandy had agreed with her as she refilled the glass of white wine for the fourth time that evening. A primary school teacher's salary just wasn't going to cut it. She shouldn't even be here wasting what little money she had on cheap house wine, but Mandy had assured her that she was only charging her for every second glass, given how down and out she was, the poor thing.

By the time Mandy had worked her up, earning the title of angel, it wasn't that hard to push for the final leg. An angel and a savior. What more could a girl want? With her purse stuffed full of her remaining cash, enough to get her started on the other side, Mandy assured her, she'd stepped through with such a beatific aura glowing around her, finally relieved of everything that had been weighing her down in this world. For the first time in a long time, she was genuinely happy.

Then there'd been that kid Bobby. Now he was a mess. Just perfect for what she needed. She'd found him out by the back of the pub one night, sprawled in between the bins with a black eye and a generous dribble of blood seeping from his nose down the front of his t-shirt. He'd been desperate for his next hit, but his heroine dealer was still waiting for payment of the last. When Bobby had called him and promised he had enough money to cover both yesterday's hit and today's, it had been a lie. He begged and grabbed fistfuls of the dealer's shirt, swearing he'd make it up if he could just get himself sorted. No one would give him a job right now because he looked too strung out. Once he was high again, he'd be able to clean himself up enough to pass himself off as reliable. Unimpressed by this act of desperation, the dealer's sidekick had given Bobby exactly what he deserved for lying and wasting their time.

Mandy had taken him inside, offered him a damp towel to clean himself up and two free glasses of whiskey to calm his frayed nerves. By the time he'd told her everything, including how his sometimes maybe girlfriend was probably going to dump him as well, he was ready to do anything. It was almost too easy this time around. Who would miss a washed up junkie kid? They'd probably assume he topped himself somewhere, or gotten so high he'd stumbled down the embankment and drowned in the river.

She could have promised him a fresh start, just as she'd promised all the others, but she went for the direct approach instead. What if there was somewhere where you didn't have to pay for drugs, because they were free and available to everyone? In fact, you didn't have to pay for anything, not food, rent, cars. Everything is free. Bobby didn't even question how that could be possible. 'I'd get cleaned up, I promise,' he said. 'Just a couple of hits to wean myself off and then I'd start over.' Sure he would, Mandy thought. In a world where the drugs flowed freely, he'd be in a permanent state of ecstasy, at least until he took it too far and overdosed. Either way, he was dead, and either way, this utopia of free drugs didn't even exist. At least this way, he'd finally be useful to someone. He was throwing himself through that portal without so much as a thank you.

Mandy rounded the top of the stairs searching for the door numbered 412. Ianto had been incoherent on the phone, but she'd managed to get an address out of him. She forced the door open, never once considering it might be locked. If it was locked, she'd have to call 999. She wasn't strong enough to break down a door. Fortunately, she didn't have to. Inside the apartment was dark. Only a tiny nightlight plugged into a wall socket gave off any light, just enough for her to make out the edges of furniture and other obstacles.

'Ianto?' she called out. She repeated his name again, flicking on lights as she found them, praying she didn't trip over his unconscious body lying somewhere. The living room had been empty, and the hall. She tried the bedroom and bathroom but both were equally empty. Only as up she came back and into the kitchen, switching on the last of the lights, did up she find him slumped on the floor, leaning back against the cupboards and the dishwasher. On the floor next to him was half a bottle of scotch and a white plastic bottle of sleeping tablets.

'How many did you take?' She grabbed his face and shook him hard as his eyes opened and looked up at her, glazed and distant. 'How many?' she demanded. 'You tell me right now, Ianto Jones!'

'One,' he sobbed, his face twisting and contorting in disgust and despair. 'I only took one. Didn't even have the guts to kill myself.'

'That doesn't take guts, you idiot!' she scolded, falling onto those old painful knees of hers and hugging his head to her breast. He babbled uncontrollably, things that didn't make sense to her. Blood, people, killing. She couldn't tell if he was reliving something from the past something that had happened today, or if it was all just some mental breakdown.

She shushed him, rubbing circles on his back as he continued to sob against her. This hadn't been part of the plan. Ianto was the longest she'd had to work at someone so far. He was clearly troubled, the people at his work were doing nothing at all to make life easier for him, and he was wallowing in his own self pity without really doing anything to drag himself back out of the mire, no matter how many suggestions she made. But she knew something else. He was far smarter than the rest of them, even if he was pitifully blind to some things. Oh, to be that young and stupid again, she thought. Ianto was going to take some real convincing if she was going to hand him over to the Savior.

This however, she hadn't expected. Ianto was down and out, it was true, but she hadn't thought he was the type to want to go and kill himself. She hadn't seen this coming. He'd been rather bright the last time they'd spoken, chatting about how he was going to get to go out with the team on a job. 'Out in the countryside, that'll be nice,' she mused. 'Lots of fresh air and green. Like a mini holiday.' God but she could do with one of those herself. When was the last time she'd done anything nice for herself? She was lucky if she got a soak in a hot bath on a Sunday morning after another hellish Saturday night trade.

'That's it, let it all out, sweetheart,' she crooned, holding him tight. She could do it tonight perhaps, she thought. Once he got a hold of himself. There'd never be a better time. He was clearly looking for a way out but too scared to commit to it. She could reassure him; tell him she had a place he could go for a bit, take a few days off work because God knew he deserved it. He was vulnerable enough to go along with it, she was sure. She was glad he'd called her. She gotten here in the nick of time to stop him from doing something stupid. All her time and efforts would have been wasted if he'd gone and killed himself. She needed him alive. A dead slave was no good to her. Savior wouldn't pay her a brass razoo for the time she'd invested.

Ianto finally pulled away from her, wiping his arm across his face, removing a mixture of tears and snot. Mandy lifted up the bottle and held it in front of him. 'Go on,' she said, 'it'll make you feel better.'

Reluctantly he took the bottle, unscrewing the lid with a shaky hand before tipping it up to his lips and taking a few solid swallows. She took one herself, letting it burn happily down into her stomach. She took both of her hands in his, about to tell him that he should get up and come with her. She studied the agony in those blue eyes as she thought about what she'd do with the money - new carpets, a fresh lick of paint, a little bit left over for a new TV at home.

When she looked into those eyes again however, all of that dropped away. Ianto was broken, defeated. Something was hiding behind that suit he always wore when he showed up at her bar, something she hadn't been able to draw out of him despite their months of conversations shared over pints of beer and water. He wasn't like the others. They lead simple lives, had simple problems that had no solution. Their lives didn't have any value beyond what she could bargain them for. There was something about this young man that she just couldn't put her finger on. Tonight's behaviour was too out of the blue, too unreasonable. With a guilt ridden weight settling in her stomach she knew she couldn't do it, not tonight in any case. Ianto was volatile now. Who knew what unpredictable behaviour he might exhibit if she suddenly confronted him with aliens and portals.

She passed the bottle back to him and made him drink again, pocketing the bottle of sleeping tablets just in case he got any ideas. He took another long swig, leaving barely an inch of amber liquid in the bottom of the bottle, before letting his head fall back against the cupboards. That sleeping pill was kicking in. He'd have one hell of a hangover in the morning, Mandy knew, but at least he'd be alive.

'Come on, Ianto,' she said wrapping an arm around his middle. 'Let's pop you into bed.'

Maybe tonight wasn't the night, but she'd keep an eye on him. She knew now for certain that at least some small part of him wanted out of this existence. All she had to do was wait, serve him drinks each night and keep listening.

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