TITLE: Entwined Exile (1/5)
AUTHOR: Emma
CHARACTERS: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones
DISCLAIMER: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?
SUMMARY: Ianto dreams…
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is pure crack. People shouldn't go around daring me...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: These are Nagas, the great temple guardians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Naga182.JPG
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is written for the Long Live Ianto Cliché Bingo. The prompt is: Exile

Some nights – those nights when he falls asleep waiting for Jack – Ianto dreams of home. He swims through rainbow-colored seaweed forests, gathering the most delicate fronds to plait into crowns for his mothers and sisters. Above him he hears the squeaks and blips of the air-breathers as they return from their breeding grounds. Soon there will be babies, which means rich thick milk from the mothers whose little ones are lost to the hunters. He has already seen them, the hunters, black-and-white bodies darting lightning fast, powerful jaws snatching at the small and the feeble, trailing blood and grief in their wake. Soon the Harvesters will arrive. They will sing the grieving mother to sleep, and empty her breasts, and because the Great Rule commands the People to return gifts in kind, they will send sweet healing visions into her dreams.

The dream shifts and he is coiled on a warm rock, hood outspread, watching the full moon rise over the water. From his perch he can see the houses of the two-legged ones. It amuses him to know that even their most sharp eyed ones can't see him, as the color of his scales blend perfectly with the mossy green, browns, and reds of the rock. From here he can also see the narrow strip where the sea floor is low enough to allow the floating houses to return home safely. If one were to appear he would have time enough to Shift; all the two-legged ones would see was another two-legs. But in the meantime he can enjoy his moon bath.

But instead of light the dream goes dark and he finds himself in the place of the dead. He can’t call it home anymore. Lava buries the streets and gardens, encasing bodies in hard shells that froze them at the moment of death. Centuries later he learned that the explosion had been registered as far north as Siberia. His family compound was too close the mouth of the volcano; for him there was nothing left, not even bodies. It’s not until his first grief has spent itself that he wonders why the canopies failed. He searches for the remains of the detectors. Finally he finds one with an intact canister. He opens it and nearly vomits at the stench of rotting flesh. He forces himself to examine the smell, tongue flickering rapidly in the water, and he finds his answer in the faintly metallic aftertaste. Someone had failed to clean the canisters properly and the sensing worms had been poisoned by their own excretions.

And the dream shifts again, and he is wandering in the depths, searching for survivors. It takes him several years to admit there are none. He is the last of his kind, forever exiled from their company in life and death. Grief chokes off his breath, and he lashes out blindly, thrashing, Shifting, suddenly drowning as his human lungs fill with water…

“Hush, cariad. It’s only a dream.”

The big, strong hands stroke down his sweaty skin, bringing him back to the now, to Jack’s arms. Bringing him home.