The first choked words out of Jack's mouth were, "The hand, Ianto… please."
"It's here, Sir. I've already sorted it." Ianto moved the
new jar closer to his boss where he lay, broken, at the bottom of the
steps, so that Jack could reach out his fingers and touch the glass.
His breath of relief was almost heartbreaking, given the
circumstances. "Thank you." His eyes closed again.
"Thank you."
The breaking of the preservation jar had been an accident, Ianto knew
it. Jack might try to kill himself on a regular basis, when - he
supposed - the abandonment just became unbearable, but he would never,
ever purposely put the animated severed hand in harm's way. To
put it in a new jar was the first thing Ianto had done when he'd
arrived at the hub in the early hours of the morning to find Jack dead
at the base of the metal stairs.
"You've made a bit of a mess this time, Sir," Ianto told him
quietly. "What did you do?" Jack looked up and Ianto
followed his gaze into the rafters. It took a moment for him to
realise, "You jumped?!" Kneeling down, he put one hand against
the side of Jack's head, sticky with drying blood. "Jack…."
"I should move…." He could hear the pain in the voice and it was hardly surprising.
"No, I think you should stay where you are for the moment." His
head was rested at an angle on the concrete floor, but it was the only
part of him that was. His neck was hanging off the bottom step
from where his shoulders were pinning him in place, his feet were five
steps up and Ianto's first guess was that he'd thrown himself down the
steps headfirst. But he hadn't. He'd landed like that, on
his back on the unforgiving metal. His spine must have broken in
several places with a fall from such a height. "You have multiple
compound fractures of your legs and arms and I think there might have
been internal bleeding." He was covered in his own blood, mainly
from the places where broken bones were sticking out through his
clothing. "I'm going to have to splint these breaks, Sir, to
allow them to heal cleanly. And it's going to hurt."
Jack's attempt at laughing simply spilt fresh blood out over his lips
and chin. Ianto wiped it away. "You think… the fall… didn't
hurt?"
"Then why do it?"
"I thought… if I broke my neck…."
"Isn't being alive but being paralyzed worse?" Jack didn't answer
him. "I need to get some splints and bandages. Don't move."
Ianto stroked his thumb over Jack's cheek and drew his hand back, only to have Jack reach for it. "Ianto… thanks."
He nodded; it was the only answer he had, because to say it was all
right would have been lying. It wasn't all right. He hated
seeing Jack like this, and this was far from the worst. The first
time, the back of his head had been splattered like some gruesome
modern artwork all over the wall of his office. Ianto had
screamed like a girl when he'd seen it, he didn't mind admitting,
didn't have much choice as Jack had told him not to be such a drama
queen and to get a cloth. The second time had been less bloody
but no less messy - coke and absinthe, both in huge amounts. The
stink of vomit and shit hadn't been easy to cover up before
morning. The third time he'd seen coming, knew Jack was going to
do it and hadn't bothered to try and stop him. In fact,
he'd stood in the shadows of the Hub and watched him strip, cover
himself in Barbecue sauce and release Myfanwy from her cage. The
pterodactyl's attack had been brutal and Jack hadn't made any attempt
to fight her off. Except once, except when he was lying bleeding
on the ground, flesh torn from him, and she'd gone for his
testicles. Ianto had covered his eyes then and eventually, when
his hunger for revenge was sated and he was convinced Jack had suffered
as much as, probably more than Lisa, at the end of that sharp beak,
he'd fetched the dart gun and shot a tranquiliser into the dinosaur's
neck. Jack had been nothing but a ravaged carcass, nothing to
distinguish him as human, never mind the man he was. Ianto had
sat on the ground with Jack's bloodied head in his lap and waited for
the worst of the external injuries to start to scar over before
covering him in a blanket and waiting most of the night for him to take
his first agonised, startled breath.
He was as gentle as possible in setting the broken bones. But
although Jack couldn't die the pain was just as bad without the
fear. He clamped his teeth into the wooden and rubber bit Ianto
had put into his mouth and let the tears flow unheeded across his face
until it was over. Only then did Ianto move him from his
uncomfortable position down the steps until he was lying on his back on
the cold floor, a cushion under his healing head.
At was times like these when he needed his rest. Only at times
like these it seemed. Ianto sat and stroked his fingers through
Jack's hair, slowly, rhythmically, silently; looking only to relax and
comfort him.
"How long have you been doing this for?" He asked after a long,
long time; so quietly he thought Jack wouldn't hear him. But he
did. As he'd said once, he never slept.
He didn't open his eyes, just replied, "Years, on and off.
Sometimes I'll get a breakthrough, like finding the hand, and I won't
hurt myself for weeks, months even. Then something happens, like
Estelle, and it reminds me how alone I am."
Ianto knew from experience that pity, understanding, empathy weren't
what Jack was looking for. The only things he wanted were answers
Ianto didn't have. "I'm sorry she had to die."
"I'm sorry I lied to her, sorry I kept myself from her all these
years. I don't know how to do any differently." It wasn't
the whole truth, something else Ianto knew from these post-suicide,
late night conversations. "I think she probably knew, somewhere
inside her, who - what - I was. But she never said a word, never
thought I could love her as I did when she was young. And you
know? I didn't. Because for me, a million years, a thousand
adventures and a hundred lifetimes have passed since then and I still
don't know what it is to be in love. I don't think I want to
know."
Jack shifted position slightly, tensing when the still broken bones
screamed in protest. "Lie still." Ianto moved his hand down
to Jack's throat, pausing there for a moment or two before resuming the
stroking of his hair. "You've proved you can't die, why do you
carry on doing it?"
"Because I'm hoping one day… I won't come back."
Ianto had known that would be his response. However much it
saddened him, however sharp the pain Jack's admission caused, his own
feelings didn't matter, not now. Jack didn't want them or need
them. "Then you won't be immortal anymore. But you'll be
dead. How will that help anyone?" He hesitated. "And
what would I tell the Doctor when he comes looking for his hand?"
He considered himself an expert in the fine art of surprise.
Jack's eyes snapped open, hard, pupils like black pinpoints in blue
pools nailing him in place. "I'm the only one who knows, I
haven't said a word. When I was at Torchwood London, I worked
with a man called Alex Klein. He was our Government liaison but
during the invasion last Christmas he was Harriet Jones' aide. He
was taken on board the alien spacecraft with Harriet and he saw the
fight between the Sycorax leader and the Doctor. He saw the
Doctor's hand get taken off in the sword fight and he saw it grow
back. When I saw you had that… I just put two and two
together." Jack was still staring at him. "What was he to
you, Sir? A friend? More?"
For a moment the hard set of Jack's face, even from upside down, was a
greater threat than any of the numerous times he'd had a gun held to
his head and he thought what was coming would be worse than a
bullet. But instead the raw response was directed elsewhere.
"The love of my life. The only man who has ever trusted me when
he had less than no reason to, gave me somewhere to belong when he
could have left me to die in a situation of my own making, convinced me
that I wasn't a coward. And then left me to die."
Bastard. Ianto put his other hand on Jack's shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologise for him. One day I'll find him, or he'll find
me, and he can do that himself." He watched Jack gingerly shift
his left leg, then his right. "I think I've healed, well enough
to get up off the floor at any rate."
One hand on his arm, Ianto instructed, "Just take it easy, Sir."
He sat up, hand going to the back of his neck. "My head hurts."
It was always the same after an incident like this; he'd get a migraine
that apparently felt like a dagger in the back of his spine and which
eventually would lead to him throwing up anything he'd eaten in the
last twelve hours. Ianto sat up behind Jack and put his hands on
his shoulders. "If I may, Sir, I dated a masseuse once."
Jack glanced over his shoulder at him and nodded, smiling
briefly. "Me too. A wonderful man… big, powerful…
hands."
There was no better reward than stopping Jack Harkness from
talking. Ianto pressed his thumbs into the tight muscles at the
base of Jack's skull, gently at first, until the skin warmed and the
tautness started to give. Jack didn't speak as he worked, but
after a time he did lean back into the touch, shoulder blades rubbing
against Ianto's chest. Moving from the base of Jack's skull to
his shoulders, he kept the pressure firm through the stained white
T-shirt, warming and loosening the muscles before working them into
true submission. Sometimes he wished he could do the same with
Jack, and sometimes, like when he found Jack shattered after the last
suicide attempt, he really didn't want to.
But for some reason, tonight he felt different. Jack had made a
mess of himself, and it scared him to think this was becoming routine
but it wasn't as horrific as some things he'd seen in recent
months. In a strange way, it was just Jack, and he liked
Jack. Very much. Something about the mystery of the man
drew him like a moth to light.
He followed the line of Jack's spine with his thumbs, working around
each vertebra, being gentle, being careful. By the time he
reached the small of his back, he was making love to Jack with his
fingers. And Jack apparently knew it. As he straightened,
backed off by a couple of inches, and found hard blue eyes locked with
his own.
"Do you want this? Or was it simple proximity?" Ianto felt
like laughing, and for once he gave into an urge of his. He hoped
it wouldn't offend; this sound as it bubbled up softly from inside
him. And to his relief, Jack smiled. "It's good to hear you
laugh."
Ianto pulled himself together. "I want this." Before Lisa's
death, before they found out about her living in the basement - if you
could call it living - before he and Jack had squared off over a loaded
gun, he would never have been so bold. But on that day,
everything had changed. "I'm just not sure I want it right now."
Jack nodded, understanding, it seemed. "Then, could I push my
luck, be really cheeky, and ask for another service from you?"
He hadn't lied; Jack didn't sleep, but he rested and sometimes his
subconscious took over and his daydreams became nightmares.
Ianto's arms provided a safe haven that night, keeping away the demons
and the faeries.
fin
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