Down on the ground it was just blood and spit and the soles of shoes on his on face and his chest. It was toe caps digging into his ribs and the cool grit of the street under his cheeks and his hands. It was skinned palms and sprawled legs and hate, a ball of white hot hate in his stomach, growing up so big it was hard to swallow, which he had to do to breath past the blood.

Dylan Griffith, Robert Jenkins and Tristan Smith. They hated Ianto for a reason he could never figure out and Ianto hated them back for a reason he thought was perfectly obvious and so, once a week or so, they hunted him down and beat him into the ground.

Ianto grabbed at Dylan's ankle, pulling him off balance and hoping he'd fall to the ground. He didn't. Tristan just kicked him in the ribs again for the trouble. In the same spot, Ianto thought miserably, hiding his face in his arms and trying his hardest to make himself as small as possibly. How do they always know to kick you in the same spot?

"Hey! What's going on here?"

Dylan and Robert took a hesitant step away from him and Ianto peaked up in time to see Tristan get pulled back by the hood of his sweatshirt.

"Leave him alone!" The voice was male, American and sounded surreal against the thudding of Ianto's heartbeat in his ears. Dylan and Robert backed away, raising their hands in surrender.

"We weren't..." Dylan started.

"Sure," the man said, shoving Tristan towards them and moving to stand between the trio and Ianto.

"We were just..."Dylan started again.

"Whatever," the man said, scowling at them. "Just get the hell out of here, okay?"

The boys looked to each other in confirmation, then all took off down the street, ducking into the safety of an alley as soon as humanly possible. The man turned back to Ianto and looked down at him.

"You okay?" he asked.

Ianto didn't speak. He was focusing very hard on breathing, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees and then slowly moving into a seated position. He brought his hand to his nose, grimaced, then drew it away to calculate the amount of blood on his fingers. It was a lot. The other hand went to his temple and gently prodded the beginnings of a bruise.

Something white fluttered into his view and Ianto winced away from it before realizing it was a handkerchief. The man was squatting in the street, his big blue coat fluttering in the wind, and stretching his arm out cautiously, as though Ianto were a wild dog.

"Thank you," Ianto managed, accepting the handkerchief and applying it to his nose. He tilted his head back, feeling the throb in his head shift minutely as his neck flexed.

"Are you okay?" the man repeated.

Ianto groaned in the affirmative.

"Do you need medical attention?"

"Huh?"

"Hospital? Ambulance?"

"What? No! No, no, no. I'm fine," Ianto said frantically, attempting to rise and coming back down hard as a wave of dizziness overtook him.

"Alright kid, calm down," the man said, putting a hand firmly on Ianto's shoulder. "Just sit there for a minute."

Somewhere under the pain, there was a small, uncomfortable flare of excitement at receiving attention from a handsome older man. Ianto jerked his shoulder away and looked somewhere else.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," the man said.

"Ianto Jones," Ianto muttered.

"Is there anything I could do to help?" Captain Harkness said.

"Really, I'm fine."

Captain Harkness rose, putting his hands in his pockets and nodding understandably.

"This sort of thing happen a lot?"

Ianto nodded, pulling the hankerchief away and folding the blood out of sight before offering it back. Captain Harkness raised a hand to stop him.

"Keep it," he said.

"Thank you," Ianto said.

He looked down, away from Captain Harkness's heavy gaze and began methodically wiping the blood off his hands. Ianto hoped, against all odds, that he'd be able to sneak up to his room and change his dirty clothes without running into his father. His mum was usually understanding and could be relied on to keep a secret, but his father would just look at him with so much pity that Ianto would want to scream with frustration.

Ianto sighed.

"It gets better," Captain Harkness said abruptly.

Ianto looked up at him, squinting a little as Captain Harkness had chosen to stand directly in front of the setting sun. "What does?"

Captain Harkness shrugged. "Everything, I guess. It all gets better."

The stared at each other for a long moment, then broke gaze and looked in opposite directions and nearly the same time.

"Well, thanks again," Ianto said after a quiet moment. He clambered to his feet uneasily, feeling every bump and bruise.

"You're welcome." Captain Harkness gave him a funny, half-smile that jolted a blush all the way to the tips of Ianto's ears.

"So," Ianto said, ducking his head and taking a tentative step backwards.

"See you around, Ianto Jones," Captain Harkness said, turning so that his coat billowed away from his body and walking away into the sunset.

"Yeah," Ianto said, absently. He looked to the retreating man, then down at his hands clutching the bloody handkerchief. "See you."