Title: Voices Carry
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: 3, 50ficlets
Prompt: 14, Whisper
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own Ianto Jones or the Tenth Doctor. Please do not sue.

***

"Doctor!" Ianto's voice was a whisper, cutting through the darkness that surrounded him. "Doctor, where are you?" He narrowed his eyes, searching the black night around him, but he couldn't see anything other than pitch blackness.

He couldn't sense the Doctor anywhere near, which worried him more than the fact that he couldn't actually see where the Time Lord might be. He could usually at least get a sense of where his lover was, but at the moment, there was nothing.

Maybe the Doctor was cloaking himself in some way. After all, these creatures they were running from had some way of tracking him down; they not only knew him by sight, but by sense. They knew if a Time Lord was around; the Doctor had told him that.

So it would make sense that his lover was using the sonic screwdriver to cloak himself from their pursuers in some way; but Ianto wasn't sure that he was doing so. After all, the Doctor wouldn't leave him unprotected.

The only thing he could do was whisper intermittently, below his breath, and hope that the Doctor could answer. He had no idea in which direction the Time Lord might be in, and he couldn't take any chance of giving away where he himself was by being louder.

Ianto didn't even know if the Doctor was here; the two of them had run out into the darkness, pursued by those creatures, and had somehow become separated. For all he knew, the Time Lord might have made hit back to the Tardis and be safely inside.

He fervently hoped that was what had happened; he didn't want to think of what those .... things might do to the other man if he was caught. They seemed to have a marked distaste for Time Lords; he could only imagine what might happen to the Doctor if he was captured.

"Doctor!" The whisper hissed through the young man's teeth; he didn't want to speak any louder, for fear that he might be heard by their pursuers. He knew that they couldn't make their way through the thick undergrowth without being heard, but he was taking no chances.

If the Doctor had been captured, he had to stay free so that he'd be able to rescue his love. He wasn't going to risk being caught himself; he might be the Doctor's only hope of getting away from this planet if the situation got worse.

There had to be some way to find the other man, some way of discovering if the Time Lord was nearby, or if he was somewhere further off. Ianto crouched close to the ground, closing his eyes, trying to attune his senses to the night sounds around him.

If only he could make his senses reach out and find the Doctor .... Keeping his eyes closed, Ianto tried to conjure up a picture of his lover in his mind, to feel the Doctor's presence somewhere near him. It had worked before; maybe it would work now.

He jumped and almost let out a yelp when fingers closed around his wrist; his eyes flew open, straining to see in the darkness. Had one of those creatures grabbed him? Was he going to be taken prisoner, without finding out if the Doctor was safe or not?

"Ianto, what are you doing?" The Doctor's voice was a barely audible whisper; Ianto had to strain to hear it, and at first, he wasn't sure that it was the Time Lord speaking to him. But after a few seconds, he managed to speak, keeping his voice as low as possible.

"I was trying to see if I could feel you somewhere near," he whispered, his relief evident in his tone. "I know it sounds silly, but I felt a bit disoriented, and I wanted to find you as quickly as possible ...." His voice trailed off as the Time Lord rested a finger against his lips.

"Shhh," the Gallifreyan intoned, keeping his voice to a whisper when he spoke. "Voices carry, Ianto. We don't want to be heard before we make it back to the Tardis. I think she's close." He pointed, though Ianto couldn't see anything ahead of them but pitch blackness. "I can feel her presence."

He nodded, feeling his spirits rise now that he'd found the Doctor. Together, they would make it back to the Tardis and get out of here -- though he had a feeling that his lover would want to come back at some point. He simply couldn't resist a challenge.

The Doctor would undoubtedly want to find out more about these creatures that looked to Ianto as though they'd come straight out of the old film Creature From the Black Lagoon -- and he was sure that the two of them would be here again.

As he grasped the Doctor's hand and let the Time Lord lead him through the leafy undergrowth in the direction of the Tardis, Ianto sincerely hoped that they wouldn't be back on this planet soon. He'd had enough of it to last him for quite a while.

***