Spook_me 2020 - Haunted - Chapter 11

[m_findlow]

Title: Haunted
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Gwen, Ianto, OCs
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M
Length: 50,847 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for spook_me 2020 Prompt - Ghost
Summary: The team investigate rumours of a haunted house in rural Wales.

Gwen looked bored as Jack stared across the room at her. With no further leads to follow on her graveyard full of dead souls until the morning, she looked without purpose. Idle hands are the Devil's playthings, as the old saying went.

‘Why don't you turn in for the night, Gwen Cooper. There's nothing much happening here. Take the master bedroom.’

She raised an eye at him, like she was searching his face for some ulterior motive. ‘What about you two?’ Her question left no doubt in his mind that she assumed this was just some ploy to get rid of her so that they could pick up where they'd left off earlier. Would that it were that simple. For all his aloofness, Ianto could be a slippery customer.

‘Ianto can take the other bedroom. I'll stay here and keep an eye on the equipment overnight.’ He didn't mind doing so, either. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was that bothered him, but he was sure if he stuck it out long enough, it would make itself apparent. That was the problem with having lived so long. Memories faded or blurred until some disappeared from his recollections altogether and others jumbled themselves into a tangled mess, like balls of yarn. Perhaps once the others were asleep he could take a walk outside to clear his head and check around the house. Maybe his vortex manipulator would pick up something their other equipment couldn't.

Ianto shook his head defiantly at Jack. ‘Oh, no. I'm not staying in that room. I don't care how fancy the bed is.’

‘Me either,’ Gwen agreed. ‘This place is freaky enough without spending time alone in a room by ourselves. And it'll be freezing up there. If you're staying here then that's where we're staying.’

Their opposition caught Jack off guard. These were people who had faced down deadly alien threats, put their lives on the line knowing what they had signed up for, but a big empty house had them clinging to each other for company. Maybe Jack wasn't the only one holding to closely guarded reservations. He did his best to play down any concerns. Fear was more contagious than anything. Instincts said one thing but their collective misgivings had them jumping at shadows.

‘I warn you, these chairs are solid leather and brass. Not exactly made for comfort.’

‘Don't care,’ came the blunt response from Ianto. ‘We'll steal the blankets and pillows, but I'm camping down here.’

And that was what they did, stripping down the bed of its jacquard and wool, pillows and cushions, carrying them downstairs. Gwen sat sideways in the wide armchair, letting her legs dangle over the side and laying the blanket over them. Ianto's blanket remained neatly folded on the end of the sofa, satisfied for the moment with staying awake and the warmth emanating from the fireplace.

Jack scrolled silently through the CCTV feeds from around the property. The only sounds punctuating the silence were the crackle of burning logs, the rustle of paper and the ticking of a large clock on the mantle that had incredibly kept perfect time despite the place being neglected for so long.

‘All this furniture and no TV,’ Ianto moped after a while.

‘Told you to always carry a book,' Gwen said, resting it up against her knees tucked under the blanket. She'd extracted a dog-eared paperback from her handbag and had picked up from where she'd last left off. Frantic as Torchwood often was, there were also long periods of waiting. Gwen had devoured the entire Da Vinci Code one night whilst Jack was diving in the bay, trying to convince an alien octopus that the waters off Norway were a lovely spot to take up residence. She'd actually shushed him even as he was dragging himself back over the side of their boat the following morning, exhausted and waterlogged, making him wait until she'd read the last three pages and then declared it was absolute rubbish and how had he gotten on?

‘I think I saw some books upstairs,’ Jack said. ‘There was a study up there, wasn't there?’

‘I'm good.’

A smile broke out on Jack's face at the terse response. ‘Scared to go up there and pick out a book?’ Jack teased. ‘I could go up there and pick one out for you.’

Ianto sat up straighter on the sofa. ‘On second thoughts, maybe I will go.’

Jack's reverse psychology worked a treat on Ianto. It was almost cruel to employ such a simple yet effective technique on such a highly intelligent man. ‘Has my dashing and heroic bravery stoked your resolve?’

‘No, I'm just worried that if I let you pick a book I'll end up with something horribly tiresome, like Proust.’

‘Hey, I never read Proust. He was a total jerk. Just listening to him would kill you.’ It hadn't exactly killed him, but he'd considered taking his own life several times just to end the misery of having to listen to him blather on about the drab injustices of his life. It was a pity he was such a good shag or Jack might have ended it far sooner than he had.

‘But the sex was good enough for you to carry on anyway.’

Jack was about to say something then paused and reconsidered. Gwen raised an eye, breaking from her book to bear witness to Jack's response. They both seemed to know what came next. There were times when he really wondered if he was that completely transparent. ‘I never said I was proud of it.’

‘As good an admission as any,’ Ianto replied, pushing off the sofa and disappearing towards the heavy stone staircase. He might have expected Ianto to agonise over a selection, but he returned almost as quickly as he'd left. Jack half wondered if he'd just grabbed the first book he found and hightailed it out of there. When he spied the title he almost burst out laughing. 'The Hound of Baskerville' was a strangely morbid choice, given their assignment. Ianto rearranged the cushions so that he was nestled sideways against Jack and settled in.

Jack was meant to be monitoring the output of the two dozen devices they had planted around the house from his laptop, resting open on the low mahogany table in front of him. Instead he found himself reading over Ianto's shoulder without him realising it. The only frustration was that Ianto read slightly faster than him, which meant Jack missed the last dozen lines of every second page and Ianto flipped it over before Jack could get to the end. It was mildly annoying but he had the general gist of the storyline and couldn't be bothered asking Ianto to pause for ten seconds before turning each page. He knew how the book ended, anyway.

Only when Jack began to catch up, finishing the page before Ianto turned it, did he realise that his page turner has slowed on account of sleepiness creeping up on him. Gwen had curled over and given in to sleep half an hour ago, abandoning her own book in favour of the comfort of the thick jacquard and embroidered cushion.

When Jack was finished reading the page well ahead of Ianto he reached over and plucked the book from Ianto's hands. ‘Time for bed,’ he said, knowing Ianto couldn't keep his eyes open much longer, judging by the current pace of his reading. Ianto didn't fight him on it, not even when Jack turned down the page and folded it, marking the place in the book - a thing which Ianto hated, along with Jack forcing books open too wide and snapping the spines, or licking his finger to turn the page. Ianto instead snuggled down, readjusting his pillow, even as Jack seated himself more sideways, allowing the pillow to nestle between his arm and his torso so that Ianto was lying somewhat alongside his body. Ianto pulled the blanket up and over his ears, leaving only his eyes and the top of his head uncovered. Jack pulled the rest across his lap and stomach, leaning his head sideways along the tall arm of the leather sofa so he could keep one eye on the computer screen.

A peace descended over the house, with even the fire beginning to burn low with only a gentle crackle and pop. With the three of them tucked up in here it felt cosy and safe. Perhaps people had talked it up too much, this haunting business. Didn't everyone want to believe an old house in the middle of nowhere was full of dark spirits of the long dead?

Next chapter...