"No, it's just me. Jack will be back around 5am." Fuck. He wanted to say soon, why couldn't he say soon? He closed his eyes and mentally swore to himself. "The cameras are on though, anyone can look at any time from home." No one ever did but hey, maybe tonight was the night someone felt like testing the system or getting off on watching him do boring chores around the office.
"You looked like you were -- I thought you were having a seizure. You're not." Obviously. "So I should leave." For both of their sakes.
"It's just nightmares. I have them a lot. Sam would know." Of course Sam would know. Barty's chest hurt again as he was hit by the all too vivid memory of Sam soothing him after a nightmare. That feeling of being cared for. Being safe. Being loved. He'd give anything just to feel that again.
"Do you have nightmares, Ianto? What are they like? You should share. I'm nice to talk to." Maybe it would make Ianto feel a bit better if he thought it was an easy conversation.
"Yes. All the time. Not like you. I think so, anyway." He was just sharing, like that, no way to stop himself. These powers sounded scary in concept but the total lack of control made them truly unsettling in practise. It was like he had no ability to control himself at all, it was like being totally wrecked on alcohol and yet being sober at the same time. It wasn't pleasant at all. "Mostly, they're about my ex. She died."
Quite gruesomely too, it was lodged into his mind. It was hard to forget. "I don't want to talk about it, don't make me talk about it."
"You seem very tense, Ianto. You don't have to be. Relax." Barty gestured to the ground. Not as if there were chairs. "Sit with me. I'm not going to make you talk about your ex. I'm not a monster."
So there, Sam. He had empathy. "I'm sorry about your ex. Loss is hard to deal with. I'm a person, I know about that."
Ha.
"But now you are in love with that Harkness bloke. Tell me what's that like, Ianto. Let's gab."
Ianto sat on the floor, unable to fight against it, unhappy to be on the floor in this place of all places. He looked at Barty and wondered if he was just going to toy with him like this for a short while or a long time.
He didn't want to admit to liking Jack, even if Jack knew it and he knew it, it wasn't something he wanted to talk about. And he tried, he really did try. The effort alone made him shudder as his barriers were knocked down without warning.
"It's terrible and amazing. It hurts in all the right ways and I can't ever be his but it feels so good to be close to him." Shit. He flinched, turning his head away. "Stop it."
"Shh. It's fine. If you let it happen, it's easier." He didn't want to hurt him. Not really. Well, a little, because of how much he hated Jack. But not really, because of Sam. On the other hand, Sam had hurt him recently, so... "Why can't you ever be his?"
What was up with that? "Non-committal? You should tell me about that. What makes Jack so special?"
Just a casual chat. "Tell me how much access you have to ongoing cases. Truthfully. You seem resourceful."
"He's immortal. No connection can last. It has to be a fling or it's too painful." Ianto theorised aloud, hoping Jack could forgive him for this idiocy. What was he supposed to do? He shook his head as best he could but the urge was there to just tell him everything, working entirely against how his brain wanted it to. Maybe he could let it happen but he had to fight.
How did Sam date a guy like this? It was such a violation.
"I can get full access. I haven't looked but I know all the passcodes to the computers." He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose. Fuck.
"But you'd look for me now, wouldn't you?" Of course he would. "Although you don't really understand what I'm looking for." What a dilemma. Barty certainly didn't feel like sharing too much of his own thoughts.
"Let me out of this cell. I promise I'll go back in later." He already had a few thoughts of how to play this, glancing at the camera. "Out of curiosity, tell me truthfully: Could you delete camera footage? Edit it?"
He wasn't sure whether he cared to keep this secret or not, but it couldn't hurt to know whether he could.
"Okay, I will." He got to his feet without any control of his own and came over to the keypad, inputting his code and using his card so the glass slid open. And Barty was out. He had let him out. After all Jack had done, he'd undone it so swiftly just because of a nightmare of all things. "I don't know if I can, I've never tried. You can erase it but then they'd know footage was missing."
He had never tampered with the cameras before and maybe it wouldn't be too hard but he didn't feel like upselling his skills right now.
"Just considering my options. Sam will be angry with me over this, but apparently it never matters what I do or don't do anyway because of how much he hates me, so why would it matter?" Childish, perhaps, but he was feeling very slighted. He stepped out of the cell and next to Ianto. "Lead the way, Ianto. Up the stairs, right? I want access to all files, so take me to whatever computer offers that."
He loosened his shoulders and yawned lazily, then decided to continue their little gab session. "I assume you don't know Sam well. No one ever does. Only me." He didn't doubt that for a moment. "But you know of him. I bet you've talked about him too, with Jack and the others. So... Tell me if he has been dating. I'm curious."
Ianto led the way up the stairs, a horrible feeling of dread in his stomach. "I don't know if he's dating right now. He was with a girl before but I don't know how long for. They broke up, that's all I know. He doesn't talk about himself. The only ex he talks about is you and we only learned that recently."
Sam didn't talk much about Barty, all they knew was that he was in a long term relationship and unable to escape Barty during it. "He goes out a lot to do things, might have a girlfriend. He doesn't like sharing stuff."
"Well, that's a big load of bollocks then, isn't it? He's clearly not over me." Barty did feel slighted - and not just a little - but he didn't want Ianto to think he was too much of a clingy loser, so he tried to play it off a little. He was frowning, however. Fuck that. Stupid Sam.
"Tell me about Bill then. What did you do to my Bill, you lot?" His Bill. Take that, Sam. He breathed out as they reached the top of the stairs, following Ianto still. "Don't be so tense, by the way. I'm not allowed to hurt you."
"You're in my head, it hurts. I don't want it." Ianto pointed out but despite his protest, his body relaxed as he came out and walked over to the computer, wasting no time to put his passcode into the computer. "Jack interrogated him and used some leverage he had on the boy, he got a little overwhelmed and let some details slip so we could find out where you were. It was nothing too bad, some use of his criminal records and some childhood info. Jack called them pressure points."
He entered his password into the admin system and started to look around for the current case files. "He got quite upset, he punched Sam when he was trying to help him get to London and ran off. I didn't-- We didn't do anything bad. We just did have we had to do to get the answers we needed."
"Pressure points, yeah. That's how he got Sam to work for you too." Easy enough to figure that one out. "Making great use of an innocent boy, just because you want to get at me. Do you think that's not anything bad either? Tell me, do you think whoever you work for wants me for any good reason?"
Barty laughed and waited for Ianto to open the files he needed, then he sat down by the computer. "Turn around, Ianto, I don't need you watching me. Makes me nervous."
He looked through the files, absently talking as he did so. "If you think me in your head right now hurts, I could really do a lot more. So many ideas to put into your little mind."
"I believe Jack will always do things for the greater good. He has to make hard decisions, it's not his fault. He knows where he has to end up." So no, he wasn't going to relent to Jack being a bad person. Jack was complicated but good, it was just that people didn't understand him.
He turned around and looked off at nothing, wondering if he could reach for his phone. He slowly moved his hand into his pocket and tried to pull free his phone slowly.
"I assure you, I don't want to know what any of them are."
Barty glanced back for just a moment. This was, obviously, far from the first person he had kept under his control like that. "Put your phone down on the desk and stay away from it."
He tsked, shaking his head as he looked back at the computer screen again. "Kids these days. You are all just addicted to your phones, aren't you? No more funny business, Ianto. You will be a good boy for me. Feel free to run with your interpretation of what that means."
Barty's intent, anyway. That should cover his bases. "Can you imagine having my powers? Tell me what you would do with them."
He set his phone aside with a longing glance, only just managing to get Jack's number up before he had to put his phone down. He put his hands loosely by his side, not sure what being a good boy meant but he took it to mean 'don't disobey' so he avoided touching the phone or playing with anything that could get him into trouble.
"I can't imagine it. No one ever does anything I ask." If they did, the place would be much cleaner and everyone would keep a comprehensive log of work activities. "I wouldn't want to use them, it's too much power." He couldn't think off the top of his head what he would do. Who he would command. "Might make Owen clean his desk but otherwise, no. I think it's too much."
"It's not about wanting, Ianto. You don't understand." Of course not, how could he? "Sure, I can do that. Make someone punch themselves in the face for a laugh. Make someone smile at me. Get Sam to not be tense for just one bloody minute, that miserable sod." What a stubborn bastard. Whatever.
"But they didn't have enough with that. They enhanced it, didn't they? It's my intent. It's all around me. I can't stop it. I can't control that. That's what Sam says, that I'm not a person. Just a mess he wants to clean up. Just a monster he wants to slay, because he's a hero."
He swirled around in his seat and looked at Ianto. "I love him. I really, truly love him. You believe me, right? Tell me."
"I believe you." He didn't. It was clear he didn't, the effort it took to speak those words and the way his eye twitched made it clear that he was just saying it, just fighting the impulse and failing. He had seen Sam in the aftermath of seeing Barty again and he doubted it could be love if one side felt like that. He was sure that Barty was obsessed but in love? He wasn't so sure if he could love.
"I'm sorry they made it worse but maybe we can make it better. We could reduce what they did to you and it might help. You just have to do some tests."
Then maybe he could be someone who could live in the world without danger.
"Don't fucking lie to me!" Fuck, but he was pissing him off. "I told you to tell me, I didn't tell you to... Ah, right. Good boy." Did good boys lie? Sam never did. But he supposed not everyone's idea of a good boy was Sam Tyler. Made some amount of sense. Barty sighed and he tried and force himself to calm down again. "You are a government organisation. Ianto, don't be so naive. No government would ever want me to be less. They just want me to work for them."
It was fairly obvious. "Anyway. Thank you. I think I got what I need out of you." Even if he'd pissed him off and made him hurt more. Mixed bag, honestly.
"It's not a lie, I'm not lying." That was what Sam had been pushing for and Jack... Jack wouldn't do anything that bad, would he? He wanted to neutralise Barty, he had to assume that meant nuking his powers. There was no way to use Barty, he was impossible to control. Wasn't it better to fix than keep. Either way, he looked at Barty, clearly uneasy.
"You said you would go back to your cell. You promised." Just a little hope he had that maybe this would all end nice and easy. Yes, it was unfortunate and Barty had looked through the files but no one had been hurt. As far as this could have gone, not the worst? Even if Jack might yell at him.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll go back." Barty rolled his eyes and got up, but then he hesitated. He paused. "Have you ever killed someone, Ianto? You were so worried I'd hurt you. So, tell me. Who have you hurt? Who's been scared of you?"
Pressure points, huh? He could pay that back in kind. No one hurt someone under his protection and got away with it.
"Yes. I did. Once. It wasn't-- I didn't do it on purpose." He had been trying to save his girlfriend, he hadn't meant to hurt anyone. It was an accident. And then there was Jack. He killed Jack before but did that even count? Was it cruel to not let it count. "I hurt Jack. He hurt me. I tried to kill him. And of course, Jack knows. He forgave me." And it didn't matter if he forgave himself, that was between himself and his conscience.
"Why are you asking?" It was to get under his skin, wasn't it? "What are you after? Dirt? Because Jack knows everything." So there, that little plan failed. Ianto had to smile, a small victory.
"Do you forgive yourself?" He wondered. Sam never did that. Sam was always too harsh on himself. Sam was too harsh on the whole world, honestly. But that wasn't important right now. "Did you know that I can make you forget things? I'm good at that. Sometimes they never remember again. I can also make you remember things. Make you remember things that never happened."
Barty leaned forward, wondering how far he'd go here. But then he thought of Jakobus. Of his brother, of the boy with the wide eyes that looked frightened so often. The one they might be trying to track now, even though he should be kept out of all of this. "Remember the little boy you held down. The one who was locked up and who only wanted to be happy with his mommy and his daddy. And you held him down to experiment on him. Remember that. Remember how scared he was. He screamed. He just wanted to be loved. Remember how you didn't care."
"No... No, that's not-- I didn't. Why would I do that?" Ianto fought against it because it didn't make sense to him. It was there now, like a clear image in his head, but he had never hurt a child in his life. Not once. He knew that, he knew it as a fact, so why was this so clear in his head. "Don't put stuff in my head..."
He never forgave himself, of course he didn't, there was no way. He didn't even like upsetting Bill and now this. He closed his eyes and tried to push it away from his mind. "Why would I lock up a boy?"
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"You looked like you were -- I thought you were having a seizure. You're not." Obviously. "So I should leave." For both of their sakes.
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"Do you have nightmares, Ianto? What are they like? You should share. I'm nice to talk to." Maybe it would make Ianto feel a bit better if he thought it was an easy conversation.
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Quite gruesomely too, it was lodged into his mind. It was hard to forget. "I don't want to talk about it, don't make me talk about it."
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So there, Sam. He had empathy. "I'm sorry about your ex. Loss is hard to deal with. I'm a person, I know about that."
Ha.
"But now you are in love with that Harkness bloke. Tell me what's that like, Ianto. Let's gab."
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He didn't want to admit to liking Jack, even if Jack knew it and he knew it, it wasn't something he wanted to talk about. And he tried, he really did try. The effort alone made him shudder as his barriers were knocked down without warning.
"It's terrible and amazing. It hurts in all the right ways and I can't ever be his but it feels so good to be close to him." Shit. He flinched, turning his head away. "Stop it."
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What was up with that? "Non-committal? You should tell me about that. What makes Jack so special?"
Just a casual chat. "Tell me how much access you have to ongoing cases. Truthfully. You seem resourceful."
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How did Sam date a guy like this? It was such a violation.
"I can get full access. I haven't looked but I know all the passcodes to the computers." He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose. Fuck.
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"Let me out of this cell. I promise I'll go back in later." He already had a few thoughts of how to play this, glancing at the camera. "Out of curiosity, tell me truthfully: Could you delete camera footage? Edit it?"
He wasn't sure whether he cared to keep this secret or not, but it couldn't hurt to know whether he could.
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He had never tampered with the cameras before and maybe it wouldn't be too hard but he didn't feel like upselling his skills right now.
"Why?"
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He loosened his shoulders and yawned lazily, then decided to continue their little gab session. "I assume you don't know Sam well. No one ever does. Only me." He didn't doubt that for a moment. "But you know of him. I bet you've talked about him too, with Jack and the others. So... Tell me if he has been dating. I'm curious."
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Sam didn't talk much about Barty, all they knew was that he was in a long term relationship and unable to escape Barty during it. "He goes out a lot to do things, might have a girlfriend. He doesn't like sharing stuff."
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"Tell me about Bill then. What did you do to my Bill, you lot?" His Bill. Take that, Sam. He breathed out as they reached the top of the stairs, following Ianto still. "Don't be so tense, by the way. I'm not allowed to hurt you."
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He entered his password into the admin system and started to look around for the current case files. "He got quite upset, he punched Sam when he was trying to help him get to London and ran off. I didn't-- We didn't do anything bad. We just did have we had to do to get the answers we needed."
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Barty laughed and waited for Ianto to open the files he needed, then he sat down by the computer. "Turn around, Ianto, I don't need you watching me. Makes me nervous."
He looked through the files, absently talking as he did so. "If you think me in your head right now hurts, I could really do a lot more. So many ideas to put into your little mind."
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He turned around and looked off at nothing, wondering if he could reach for his phone. He slowly moved his hand into his pocket and tried to pull free his phone slowly.
"I assure you, I don't want to know what any of them are."
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He tsked, shaking his head as he looked back at the computer screen again. "Kids these days. You are all just addicted to your phones, aren't you? No more funny business, Ianto. You will be a good boy for me. Feel free to run with your interpretation of what that means."
Barty's intent, anyway. That should cover his bases. "Can you imagine having my powers? Tell me what you would do with them."
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"I can't imagine it. No one ever does anything I ask." If they did, the place would be much cleaner and everyone would keep a comprehensive log of work activities. "I wouldn't want to use them, it's too much power." He couldn't think off the top of his head what he would do. Who he would command. "Might make Owen clean his desk but otherwise, no. I think it's too much."
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"But they didn't have enough with that. They enhanced it, didn't they? It's my intent. It's all around me. I can't stop it. I can't control that. That's what Sam says, that I'm not a person. Just a mess he wants to clean up. Just a monster he wants to slay, because he's a hero."
He swirled around in his seat and looked at Ianto. "I love him. I really, truly love him. You believe me, right? Tell me."
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"I'm sorry they made it worse but maybe we can make it better. We could reduce what they did to you and it might help. You just have to do some tests."
Then maybe he could be someone who could live in the world without danger.
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It was fairly obvious. "Anyway. Thank you. I think I got what I need out of you." Even if he'd pissed him off and made him hurt more. Mixed bag, honestly.
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"You said you would go back to your cell. You promised." Just a little hope he had that maybe this would all end nice and easy. Yes, it was unfortunate and Barty had looked through the files but no one had been hurt. As far as this could have gone, not the worst? Even if Jack might yell at him.
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Pressure points, huh? He could pay that back in kind. No one hurt someone under his protection and got away with it.
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"Why are you asking?" It was to get under his skin, wasn't it? "What are you after? Dirt? Because Jack knows everything." So there, that little plan failed. Ianto had to smile, a small victory.
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Barty leaned forward, wondering how far he'd go here. But then he thought of Jakobus. Of his brother, of the boy with the wide eyes that looked frightened so often. The one they might be trying to track now, even though he should be kept out of all of this. "Remember the little boy you held down. The one who was locked up and who only wanted to be happy with his mommy and his daddy. And you held him down to experiment on him. Remember that. Remember how scared he was. He screamed. He just wanted to be loved. Remember how you didn't care."
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He never forgave himself, of course he didn't, there was no way. He didn't even like upsetting Bill and now this. He closed his eyes and tried to push it away from his mind. "Why would I lock up a boy?"
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