Disclaimers: I do not own Torchwood or any of its characters. I am making no money from this. This is purely for entertainment purposes.
Notes: Ianto Jones is a slave to a powerful wizard and takes drastic measures to protect himself.
Warning: I warn you now, I had to heavily edit this to make it compliant with the site's Terms of Service. I am sorry. If you'd rather read the entire part, feel free to visit my website. You can find the address in my profile.
Slave and Master
Contrary to popular belief, summoning a demon was not easy. Of course if it had been, then any person with a trivial grudge against their neighbor would have one and it would be raining fire every other day. It was better that it was complicated, weeding out the lazy or the truly ignorant. The ingredients alone took an age to gather unless you had a great deal of money or knew the right people.
Ianto Jones had no money. And he knew no one who could help him in his efforts to call forth a demon. At least, no one that he trusted. The one person he knew who could possibly help him, was the one man he couldn't risk finding out about this endeavor. Hells, he was the reason that Ianto found himself doing this in the first place.
He idly rubbed at his cheek, ignoring the throbbing ache the action brought. His master, the Wizard Harcourt was not a forgiving man. Nor was he particularly kind. Ianto had been purchased a scarce few months ago from a passing slave caravan. He was used to working in kitchens, so applying himself to serve a wizard with his various potions and such was no real difference. He had only to be careful with the vials and talismans and touch nothing he was told to keep away from.
He missed Madame Marietta. She had been his previous Master. She had been kind to him. He had come to her as a child, purchased as a playmate for one of her grandchildren. When her grandchildren weren't visiting, Madame Marietta had put Ianto to work in her kitchens. He was treated generally well by all the other slaves and the staff and by Marietta herself.
It had been a sad time for all when Madame Marietta had died. Her oldest son had taken over the house, moving his own entourage in and disposing of his mother's staff and slaves. It had seemed a good fortune when Ianto had been so quickly purchased by Lord Harcourt instead of awaiting purchase in the slave pens of the auction house. It was a month before he realized just why he'd been bought.
Being raised alongside Madame Marietta's grandchildren, Ianto had occasionally accompanied them to their schooling. He hadn't been expected to learn, and was in fact, ignored throughout each session, left to kneel in quiet supplication beside his young master. As a result, he'd picked up a few things; some arithmetic, a little geography and a bit of history. He'd even managed to learn his letters. Oh, he couldn't write himself, but if given time he could work out what other people had written.
That skill was what had led him to here.
He'd been cleaning his master's study when he'd noticed a stray bit of paper poking out of one of his master's spell books. He'd recognized some of the lettering as his own name. I-A-N-T-O. He'd noticed it before on bills of sale, and once on a parchment tag that had been pinned to the threadbare tunic he'd been allowed to wear in the slave caravan before Master Harcourt had purchased him.
With a wary, trembling hand, Ianto had flipped open the spell book to the page the bit of paper was marking. He was grateful that this was the day Master Harcourt went to town. For what, Ianto didn't know, but he would be gone the remainder of the day and come home smelling of smoke and drink and retire to bed immediately. Still, there were others who could catch him, servants who wouldn't bat an eye before tattling on him in the hope of gaining some favor from the frightening man.
He sounded out the words slowly and silently, eyes continually darting to the door for fear of being seen. He nearly dropped to the floor in shock when he realized what the spell was for. A spell of sacrifice and power, with Ianto's name written among the list of ingredients that was the bit of paper marking the page. Ianto was to die at the winter solstice in order for Master Harcourt to gain more power.
Hearing footsteps in the hall, Ianto quickly closed the book and went back to his cleaning. For the rest of the day, thoughts of his impending death plagued his mind. He couldn't sleep that night for the nightmares that were brought forth. When morning light came to signal the start of his working day, he had the inklings of a plan forming in the back of his mind. A dangerous and foolish plan that could easily backfire on him. But what was he risking really? He was already condemned to die. There wasn't much worse Master Harcourt could do to him.
When the next full moon came, Ianto stole out of his sleeping space in the storeroom behind the kitchen. He'd had to wait until now, he couldn't risk lighting a candle to guide his way through the dark corridors. With the moon at its brightest, he could see well enough without the aid of added light.
He made his way back to his master's study and found the spell book that contained his doom. Starting with the first page, he scoured its spells for anything that could save him. When he found nothing in that book, he moved on to another. He kept at it until the moon was dangerously low and he could barely read the writing.
It was two full moons later that he found anything of use.
Winter's chill was already upon them and snow was softly falling in gentle flakes when Ianto first noticed the book. He wouldn't have noticed it at all if not for a curious shadow in the back of the bookcase when he had been putting his most recent book back. It had been shoved behind the other books, most likely forgotten. Ianto pulled it out and glanced at the tattered cover. It was an old book, its pages frayed, the spine broken with pages held together only by a bit of string that had been tied around it all.
Ianto untied the knot and carefully opened the cracked cover, setting it aside as he delicately turned each page. The writing was different than anything Ianto had read before, a different script than he was used to, but no less readable. The letters were still easily identifiable. It had been written by hand, a personal journal of some man, most likely long dead. There were few spells within, more a diary of life's events.
He perused it as quickly as his limited reading skills allowed, only taking the time to read a few lines of each page to understand what was written on them before moving on to the next. It wasn't until he came to the last few pages that he found anything of interest. As the man who had written the book had begun advancing in age, it seemed he had developed an obsession with escaping death. He had scoured the world attempting to prolong his own life and in so doing had discovered a spell to summon a demon to fulfill his every desire, to slave itself to him and grant him the everlasting life he so desired. The spell was the last thing written in the book. There was no notation saying whether it had succeeded or not, but at this point, Ianto was willing to try anything. There was so little time left before the solstice. He would be dead before the end of the month and it was already the eighth.
Ianto took the book with him when he left the study. He wrapped it in a scrap of cloth and hid it beneath a loose stone in the storeroom behind the kitchen, wanting to keep it safe and as close to him as possible. He spent the next week collecting the ingredients he needed. Well, he didn't so much collect them, as he did steal them from Master Harcourt's many jars and vials. Ianto was careful to take only what he needed. There was only one ingredient that Harcourt didn't have, but Ianto found that himself.
He was contemplating how to get his last ingredient, a petal from a moonflower, without Harcourt noticing its disappearance, when the Wizard entered his workroom unexpectedly. The sound of his voice calling Ianto to him, startled the slave and Ianto lost his grip on the jar he was holding. The beating he received was harsh, but at least Harcourt hadn't noticed that Ianto was stealing from him, or that Ianto had managed to wrap his hand around a handful of petals, as well as the broken glass that had torn into his skin. When he awoke on his pallet in the storeroom, the petals were still clutched in his fist. No one had seen to his injuries, they weren't expected to. He saw to them himself after placing the one undamaged and unbloodied petal he had held onto in the hollow beneath the loose stone along with the rest of the ingredients and the book.
When dawn came, he went to work, as was expected of him. His usual duties took longer to complete and Master Harcourt was already in a foul mood due to the loss of an expensive ingredient. Ianto tried to avoid him as much as possible. It was little better the next day.
However, the day after that, was the one Ianto had been waiting for. It was also his very last chance to save himself. Master Harcourt departed early in the morning on his weekly journey into town. Ianto went about his duties, as he did every other day, except that he carried around a wrapped bundle containing a stolen book and equally stolen potion ingredients in with his cleaning supplies.
As the day drew to a close, Ianto made his way up the stairs to clean his master's workroom, as he did every day at dusk. Only today, he did not stop climbing the stairs at the intended floor. Instead, he continued upward to the disused tower room.
It was a cold and drafty room, the highest room in the tower. There were no windows, but the roof was pitted with holes. A few pieces of furniture had been left abandoned up here. They'd been covered with heavy cloths, protected somewhat from the dust and weather, but not nearly enough. It was a forgotten place, and it was perfect for Ianto's uses.
He discarded his cleaning supplies by the door, leaving everything but the bundle he'd so carefully hidden among the rags he used for dusting and polishing. Holding it against his chest, he moved to the very center of the expansive room and knelt beside the medium-sized cooking pot he'd stolen from the kitchen and brought up here the day before. Mrs. Westlake hadn't been happy to find it missing, and Ianto had regretted taking it from the kindly older woman who would often sneak him scraps. But he had needed it.
Reaching into the pot, he pulled out an armload of candles and began to set them up around the area. He hoped it wouldn't matter that they were mismatched in size and shape, or that some of them had been burned already. It hadn't been easy to get this many candles in the first place.
He was working against the fading daylight as he found an old chair among the forgotten pieces of furniture. He broke it into pieces and made a pile of it and surrounded it with a circle of loose stones. He was fortunate that the floor was made of stone as well, or else this room would not have been a good place for the needed fire. If he could have used Master Harcourt's workroom, he would have, but it was far too risky.
He started the fire with flint and steel, using strips of his cleaning rags for tinder. He lit one of the candles with the fire, then went around and lit the others with the first one. Beneath several of the holes and pushed up against the side of one wall where the wind had swept it, were piles of snow. Ianto filled his cooking pot with snow and placed it upon the fire. When it melted, it would be the water he needed to begin his potion. While he waited for it to boil, he procured the book and a piece of chalk from his bundle of stolen supplies. He copied directly from the book, drawing the symbols on the floor as he was told to. When the last line was drawn, he backed away, careful not to smudge any of the lines for fear of damaging the spell he intended to cast.
He returned to the fire and was pleased to find the pot of water boiling. Checking the book, he nodded to himself and began.
It was fully dark, the moon high in the sky, by the time he came to the last ingredient. He winced as he added it to the pot of thick, violet liquid. A puff of lavender smoke billowed up, followed by a brilliant flash of golden light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Ianto could only hope that no one downstairs had seen it. But that thought was cast aside and forgotten in the blink of an eye as he saw the fruits of his hard labor.
Standing within the circle Ianto had drawn upon the floor was a man. No, not a man, a demon. Just what Ianto had wanted. The beast was dressed as a man, wearing a fine pale tunic and a greyish blue cloak lined with fur. But there were signs of his other-worldliness. For one, no human had such beautiful blue eyes. Ianto's own couldn't compare to those. His skin had an almost golden hue to it, more than just tan. Then there were the horns protruding from his forehead, no longer than one of Ianto's pinky fingers, if that long at all, but wider than his thumb at the base. The skin around their base seemed cracked, as if the horns had broken through marble instead of rising through flesh. And lastly, there was the tail. Honestly, a tail. The same strange golden flesh-tone as the rest of the demon, long and slender, tapering to a rounded tip at the end.
That tail swished behind the demon now, the demon who was standing there staring at Ianto with arms crossed over his chest. "Why have you summoned me?" the demon demanded.
Ianto felt his courage wavering in the face of the demon. This was what he'd wanted, but faced with the reality, he was terrified.
"Y-You have to do my bidding, right?" Ianto questioned, fighting and failing to keep the waver from his voice.
The demon looked at him, his brow furrowing as he took Ianto in, raking his eyes up and down. "A slave? I've been summoned by a slave?" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "Oh, I'll never live this down."
Ianto was confused. Wasn't the demon supposed to be doing what he said? Maybe he had gotten something wrong. He read the pages in the book again, lips moving silently as he worked through the words.
"You know nothing about magic, do you?" the demon asked.
Ianto snapped his eyes up to him, watching as the demon raised a hand and touched one clawed finger to the barrier trapping him. The barrier glowed and fizzled with some unknown energy. "No. But I had to do something."
The demon scoffed. "What? You want freedom? You won't get that from a contract with a demon."
"No," Ianto snapped, irritated by all of the questions. "Why should I care about freedom. I've never known it, so I can't miss it. I just don't want to die."
"Displease your master? They don't generally kill slaves, just beat them." He shrugged. "Well, most of the time."
Ianto fiddled with the edges of the book. "My master is the Wizard Harcourt. On the eve of the winter solstice, he is going to sacrifice me to increase his own power." He looked down, fighting the shivers that were a mix of cold and fear.
He heard the demon's reply. "Ah," he said. Then fingers touched Ianto's chin, tipping his face upward. To his shock and horror, he was staring into the deep blue eyes of the demon. The demon smiled. "Then you've got yourself a problem."
Ianto jumped back, out of reach, the book falling from his fingers. He looked over to the barrier, then back to the demon who had somehow escaped from it. "How did you get out? That was a barrier!"
The demon shrugged. "A demon barrier, yes. But I'm not exactly a demon." He bent and gathered up the scattered pages of the book, fitting them together and carefully turning the pages until he found the spell Ianto had used.
"What? But-" He cut himself off, not sure what to say. If he wasn't a demon, then what was he? The tail, the eyes, the claws and horns, didn't they all say demon?
"I'm more a cousin really. Not human, not a spirit, not quite a demon. I'm a little something different." He quirked that maddening grin again, and pointed a clawed finger at the page he was looking at. "Ah, I see where you went wrong."
Ianto backed up as the creature made to step toward him. "S-Stay back."
The beast raised an eyebrow. "You're afraid of me? I won't hurt you." He sighed, looking put out. "How about if I looked like this?"
The air around the creature blurred as a golden glow encompassed him. Within the blink of an eye, there was no longer a demon standing in front of Ianto holding the journal. Instead, there was the most beautiful man Ianto had ever laid eyes on. It suddenly dawned on him though, that those beautiful eyes were the very same shade as the creature's. This was the creature in human form.
The creature ignored his shock and approached, his eyes on the book as he showed it to Ianto. "See. Here." He pointed at one of the drawings, and then to one of the symbols Ianto had drawn on the floor. "You've inverted the design. It doesn't say 'demon' anymore."
Ianto saw that it was true. He had mistakenly turned the drawing. Fear curdled in his stomach. "What does it say?" he asked, meekly.
The creature leaned in close enough to whisper and breathed a single word. "Incubus."
Ianto gulped and tried to back away again, only to collide with an old dresser that had been put up here so many years ago. He'd made a mess of things and he didn't know what to do anymore. Maybe he should have just accepted his fate and let Master Harcourt bleed him dry. Tears collected in his eyes and fell, he didn't have the energy to try and stop them.
"That's why the barrier didn't work, see?" He looked up and noticed Ianto's tears. "Oh, hey now, don't cry. I still have to do your bidding."
Despite his depression, Ianto scoffed. "Oh, wonderful! What use is a sex beast going to be?"
"Well-"
"No! I don't want to know," Ianto squeaked.
The Incubus grinned again. "I'll do anything you want me to. Just as soon as we get the virgin sacrifice out of the way."
"What?" Ianto swallowed loudly. "The what?"
"Virgin sacrifice." The Incubus showed him the book again, pointing out a line of writing that ended in an illegible smudge. "So, where is she? Or he? You know, the person whose blood you used for the summoning potion."
Ianto pressed himself back against the dresser, fighting the warmth that was creeping up his neck and into his cheeks. Oh, how could anything possibly get any worse?
It seemed that it could, however, when the Incubus looked around. Seeing nothing, he began to sniff at the air, slowly turning in Ianto's direction. A warm, disbelieving laugh rumbled out of him. "Oh, you didn't." He slid closer and caught one of Ianto's hands in his grip. Raising it, he sniffed at Ianto's palm, then took a delicate lick at the slice Ianto had inflicted to his own finger. "You used your own blood," he observed.
Ianto only nodded, not able to get his voice working.
The Incubus quirked an eyebrow at him. "You really should work on your reading skills," he observed, then began to lick at Ianto's injured finger again.
Ianto tried to draw his hand away, but failed. "Let me go," he whispered.
"Sorry, I can't."
Perfect. Fucked to death. He supposed there were worse ways to go. He hoped that having his life drained away by a creature that lived off of sexual energy wasn't a painful way to die.
His heart was thumping away in his chest, a too fast staccato that wouldn't calm. "Please," Ianto whispered, shivering terribly. "Please, don't let it hurt."
"Never, you will never feel a moment of pain," the creature promised.
Lips pressed against his and Ianto opened his mouth in invitation, accepting the peaceful death this beast promised. Far better than bleeding to death on an altar of stone.
With that first kiss, Ianto knew he would never be satisfied with just the one. He would crave them for the remainder of his life, no matter how short it turned out to be. The beast obliged him, tongue teasing and toying with his own, drawing him into a sinful dance he never wanted to end. Eventually he was forced to break away to breathe and blinked his eyes open to find himself staring at the ceiling. Blinking again, he cast his gaze around and saw that he was on a bed, the cloth that had once been covering it was thrown to the floor.
Lips were kissing his bare shoulder and his attention returned to where it should have been. Teeth lightly nibbled at his neck, then soothed the faint scraping with tongue and lips, tasting and sucking. Ianto threw his head back with a groan, his hands twitching at his sides. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. Should he touch back? Or did the creature have to initiate everything?
A knee pressed between his thighs, nudging his legs apart and Ianto threw his hands out, slamming them against the solid shoulders of the Incubus. "Your name!" he shouted, fearful.
Blue eyes flashed, then softened. "I don't understand."
Ianto swallowed, and tried to make sense of his own desires himself. "Your name. Do you have one? Can I know it? I-I would like to know the name of my first, and only lover."
A warm smiled curled the Incubus' human face. He leaned in, pressing a chaste kiss to Ianto's lips. "My name is complicated, unpronounceable to humans. You can call me Jack, if it pleases you."
"Jack," Ianto said, trying out the name. He licked his lips. "C-Can I touch you, too?"
"Absolutely," Jack replied, obviously delighted by this prospect.
Ianto, with trembling unsure hands, touched Jack's shoulders. He slid his fingers up along the human neck, touching the place where his heart pulsed quickly under his skin. He ran his thumb across faintly parted lips, feeling a flash of pleasure as his tongue darted out to taste the pad of the digit, then trailed his moist thumb down to the edge of his chin, feeling the cleft.
Jack took his hand and kissed his palm, a wide grin on his handsome face. With loving care, Jack stripped away his own clothing, then Ianto's sparse garment. He paused, a frown coming to his face as he surveyed Ianto's torso. "You're hurt," he announced, fingering one of the many bruises that darkened pale flesh.
"I broke a jar," Ianto murmured, feeling uncomfortable under the scrutiny. "I thought for sure that Master Harcourt had caught me stealing. But he hadn't noticed."
"He'll pay," Jack muttered darkly.
Ianto didn't know why it mattered since Jack was only going to be killing him anyway. But then it didn't matter once Jack began to kiss him again. And his own name might as well have been forgotten when Jack's hands began to caress him.
He'd never known his nipples were so sensitive until Jack began to toy with them. Then Ianto was covering his mouth with one hand to keep his moans quiet, writhing under the onslaught of fingers and tongue, the toying bite of tenderly applied teeth and the suck of Jack's far-too-talented mouth. Jack was chuckling merrily as he abandoned the stiff nubs and began to trail his attention lower, pressing the softest of kisses to every dark patch of skin he met along his way.
Warning: This scene has been edited heavily for content to comply with Terms of Service. You can find the complete story on my website. The address is on my profile page. Sorry for the inconvenience.
When he was spent, Jack withdrew. Ianto was already halfway to sleep, wondering if this was what it felt like for his life-force to slip away. If it was, it was an easy death, and he didn't mind so much. At least it had felt good - no, far better than good - for a little while.
Jack cuddled up behind him, bringing the discarded cloth to cover them like a blanket. He hummed, pressing a kiss to the back of Ianto's neck. "There, you're sacrificed," Jack mumbled into Ianto's shoulder.
"What?" Ianto blinked his eyes open, certain that he had heard wrong. He rolled in Jack's embrace, just enough to see him.
Jack pulled back, his grin firmly fixed on his face. "Well, you're not a virgin anymore. That was sacrificed. Congratulations, you are now the owner of one very contented Incubus. So what's your first order, my master?"
Ianto laughed. He rolled over and threw his arms around Jack. "First ... first, I think I'd like to sleep and worry about tomorrow later."
"A brilliant plan." He kissed Ianto, holding him close. "I look forward to many long years of service."
Ianto snuggled into the warm chest of his lover. "As do I," he replied, already succumbing to the tempting lure of sleep. It had been a long time since he'd had a future to look forward to.
The End
I am sorry about the editing. I'd rather not be banned from the site, as I've been a member for so very long now, so all of my fiction will be edited from now on. Rest assured though, everything will be posted on my own site with all the good bits intact.