Kryptonite | Chapter 10
Title: Kryptonite
Rating: M (NC-17). Strong mentions of sex, suicide, and other angst in a similar vein.
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Martha, Rhiannon, others may crop up as well.
Spoilers: Set after Exit Wounds
Summary: After 2,000 years buried beneath Cardiff, Jack's mind is crumbling. Ianto will do anything to avoid losing him again - but how do you fix a broken man when you are falling apart yourself?
Disclaimer: If I owned Torchwood, the long-lasting repurcussions of actions and events would be properly explored. Obviously, I do not own Torchwood. Hence...FanFiction.
The lyrics to the song "Kryptonite" belong to the band 3 Doors Down. The song can be found here
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Kryptonite
"If I'm alive and well…"
Jack's lips aren't smooth. They never have been. They are chapped, rough, scratching almost against the skin of Ianto's mouth, dragging hotly, wetly over his tingling flesh.
His spine rises up from the coarse sheets, bucking involuntarily under Jack's ministrations. Heavy hands plant on his stomach, holding him in place as those lips scratch against the nerves of his thigh, dark locks brushing against his groin with each movement. He can feel his cock straining against the constraints of his own skin as those teeth latch onto his inner thigh, the blood rushing to the surface of his skin beneath the ferocity of the attack.
His hands tangle in the Jack's hair, pushing his head down, the tight grip of his fingers conveying his sense of more-now-please.
Jack doesn't concede. Instead he raises his head, lips ever so slightly swollen, his eyes catching onto Ianto's, pupils swimming with such a myriad of emotion, of wickedness and lust and affection…
The screeching of his alarm punctured the fog of Ianto's mind, dragging his eyes open as he bolted upwards, his body like a released spring. There was sweat beading on his forehead; he could feel it trickling down onto his cheek, catching on the corner of his mouth, the salty taste lingering on his taste buds as he failed to resist the temptation of licking it away.
His hand came up to massage his temple, the pads of his fingers slick with the moisture of his skin. His breath was catching in his throat, scratching awkwardly the way it always did when he had been breathing far too hard for far too long. Flopping back against the headboard he kicked the duvet away from him, shivering as the cold air hit his overheated skin.
It wasn't so much the dream he had had, although that in itself had been enough to set his nerves jangling in a way they had not done for a long time. It had been so vivid; he could almost taste Jack's scent in the air, permeated by his own sweat; he could almost feel that rough tongue running its way tantalisingly over his quivering flesh.
No, what had struck him most was the fire in Jack's eyes, that look that was hard to comprehend and yet at the same time so beautifully simple.
Involuntarily, Ianto's hand came to stroke his swollen cock, his fingers shaking as they moved over his tingling flesh. He could see that look burning into the back of his eyes, that wicked grin that seemed to chase away every last vestige of lucidity from his brain. His hand pumped faster, wrist twisting as he worked his fingers breathlessly, his pulse becoming frenetic with each movement. All he wanted was that release, just that brief moment when he could blank out his mind to all that was happening. He wanted it now.
Actually, what he really wanted was Jack, but that wasn't going to happen. So, for now he would close his eyes and pretend that the ghostly Jack swimming across his eyelids was real, that it was Jack's hand gripping his erection, tugging at the flesh, and not his own sad, sorry self.
It wasn't particularly satisfying as he came; the phantom Jack of his dreams was no substitute for the real Jack, but it was all he had. He milked his orgasm for as long as possible, dragging out each wave, his fist clenching hard along with the muscles of his groin. He was going to enjoy this, dammit, he was going to take what he needed and then he was going to get up, clean the sheets, and go to work.
He couldn't have what he wanted. But, Ianto realised, he was just going to have to make substitutes because he couldn't spend the rest of his life wallowing. Instead of pretending that everything was fine, he had to face the truth; he was falling apart and he needed a little release. So, that's what he'd given himself, as best he could with only his own resources at hand - quite literally.
Lying back as he reached his limit, he grimaced at the mess pooling on his stomach, stretching his arms above his head as he began to reorganise his brain, ready for the day ahead.
Rhiannon had been right; he would always survive, the best he possibly could.
"Ianto, to the right!"
Gwen's shout caught him off guard, and he turned around before he her words had registered in his brain. Luckily, that was the effect she had been hoping for, as the Weevil shot past him, mere inches past where his face had been only a few moments before. Clenching his gun in his hand, and feeling the reassuring bulk of the sedative in his pocket, Ianto stumbled backwards, squaring his shoulders to face the Weevil.
He could feel Gwen behind him, gun drawn and arm outstretched as she kept an eye out for anymore assailants. He knew that Martha was back at the Hub, and he could hear her broken voice over the comms system, keeping up a constant stream of reassurance that they were still here, still going, still alive.
If he'd had time to think about it, he could almost have pretended that this was a normal hunt; the singing adrenaline in his veins, that beauteous shiver of pure fear running down his spine, that sense of camaraderie that the hunts never failed to inspire. It was simple, primal, so alike his own solitary wank that morning, but at the same time so wholly different.
But, of course, this was not the time to think. So Ianto didn't. It was instinct, training; they did what they had to do and they did it well.
A bullet whistled past his ear as Gwen fired at the Weevil, the shot deflecting from the padded shoulder of its boiler suit. The creature snarled, obviously angered by the attack. Good. Somehow, since Gray's attack, the Weevils seemed to have found some sort of sense within them, growing trickier with each hunt. That bullet was enough to knock whatever train of thought off the tracks, to reignite that pure, primal instinct that drove these creatures to attack and kill. It was a dangerous tactic, but it was the only one they had.
Gwen bolted to the side as soon as her finger squeezed the trigger, heading into the shadows and making her away around to the back as the Weevil advanced on Ianto. She cast a look at him as she went, the reassuring confidence in his eye spurring her on; she holstered the gun, reaching to her back pocket to pull out a brown cotton sack that was thick enough to blind the creature they were facing. Gwen had to admit, bringing down Weevils in this way sometimes made her feel like a Steve Irwin wannabe, but, without a true leader, it was a method they had drawn together themselves.
Ianto nodded slowly as she came within inches of the Weevil's back, keeping eye contact with the creature to distract it as best he could. He could feel his heart hammering, his blood singing in his veins. The sedative in his hand was steady, even though every nerve ending was on fire. The creature quivered with unregulated rage as the blood seeped from the wound on its shoulder, and he braced himself, tensing every single muscle to prepare for the movement that was surely to come.
Everything seemed to blur into one. Within a fraction of a second, the Weevil lunged forward, jaw dislocated in order to open his mouth as wide as it possibly could; Gwen moved with it, the coarse sack in her hand outstretched over the wrinkled head, forcing the bag over its eyes; Ianto's hand came up, the syringe in his hand prepared and ready as it sank into the flesh of the Weevil's neck.
Before the sedative could take hold, however, the alien lashed out, the bag over its eyes not calming it the way that would usually work. That mouth opened again, the head whipping past Ianto's body; he felt a sharp pain penetrating his shoulder, just along from his neck, and he let a short cry force its way from his lips as he struggled to complete the task. The smarting of his shoulder began to ring through him, but he gritted his teeth and forced the syringe deeper, fingers pushing determinedly at the plunger.
As suddenly as the scuffle had begun, it ended; the Weevil flopped to the side, body becoming limp under the force of the industrial strength sedative Ianto had administered. It was Gwen's grip on the sack around its head the kept it from falling on top of Ianto, and the moment it stopped twitching she hauled it to the side so that she could examine her wounded colleague. She had heard his cry, as much as he had tried to muffle it, and she had seen the drops of blood that flew away from him with the Weevil's attack.
She was worried.
Ianto propped himself against the wall, one hand coming to his shoulder, applying pressure to try and stem the flow of blood. The wound was deep, and as the adrenaline began to ebb away from his system he could feel his head begin to swim. Gwen's arm came around to steady him, fingers peeling away at the material of his shirt to expose the sliced skin; as the cold air hit it Ianto sucked in air between his teeth, fingers gripping onto Gwen's arm tightly, but it was better than getting any of his clothing fibres caught in his flesh.
Gwen touched her comm, brushing a lock of hair away from Ianto's face and smiling reassuringly as she did so.
"Martha? We need you."
"You will hold still, won't you?"
Ianto gave Martha a withering look, the best he could whilst fighting through the pain shooting up his arm.
"I'll take that as a yes."
Wincing as the syringe pierced the skin around the wound, Ianto kept a tight hold onto the corner of the table he was seated on, his fingernails beginning to ache as they hit cold stone. Eventually, though, he felt a wave of numbness ebb through his arm, the sudden lack of feeling causing him to exhale gently through his nose, his grip on the table loosening as his arm went pleasantly heavy.
Martha began to clean the wound methodically and carefully, ensuring that the ripped flesh was sterilised to kill any germs that could be transferred from the creature's bite. Taking a hold of the needle and thread on the table beside the medical slab, she began to stitch the broken skin together, as intricately and delicately as if she were adding to an exquisite tapestry.
"So…where did you go, when Gwen sent you away?"
Ianto glanced up from where he had been transfixed by Martha's handiwork.
"I went to see my sister."
"Oh? I didn't know you had a sister."
"I try not to bring her into it too much - she's got two kids and her husbands not got many brain cells to rub together, so I try and leave her out of it."
"That's fair…" Martha changed her angle, eyes barely leaving Ianto's shoulder as she continued to work. "Gwen says you hadn't been home since all this started, since the night when…well…y'know…"
Ianto looked sheepish, lowering his head as he did so, deliberately averting his gaze away from her. Somehow, though, she managed to bore her eyes into Ianto's own, as well as keeping her focus set on the task in front of her. He could feel the gentle tugging at his skin, growing slightly more violent as she continued.
"Apart from that night…she said you took Jack home…"
Ianto swallowed heavily, a blush creeping onto his cheeks.
"Martha…"
"Ianto."
The Welshman clamped his mouth shut, teeth clanging against each other as her look silenced him.
"What happened? Gwen says that when she arrived in the morning, he was naked and you were barely just dressed. You fucked him, didn't you?"
"Martha, please…"
"Why, Ianto? He's so fragile, there's barely any sanity left in him, and you had sex with him? What made you think, in your wildest dreams, that that would be a good idea?"
"No, it wasn't what you…"
"He's been through so much, he's seen so much, his brain just can't hold it anymore. He needed reassurance, gentle looking after, not fucking. Jesus, Ianto, buried for 2,000 years, and then he wakes up to submit himself to yet another person, to be taken advantage of? Who knows what damage that might have done?"
Ianto raised his eyes, meeting her own searchingly.
"You don't think that…that it made it worse?"
That protective fire in Martha's deep, brown irises began to fade as she took in the softened look of Ianto's face, that weary, panicked expression that was now searching her own with sheer terror.
"You don't think that I…?"
"I don't know, Ianto," her voice was soft, the flames watered down by her sudden compassion for this scared young man who was trying so desperately to hold himself together for the people he loved. "I can't make any medical judgements, because there's no precedent - there's no other person like Jack. Can you just tell me…what happened?"
"He was fine…as fine as he could possibly be. But he was still Jack, as much as he was hurting he held himself together, because that's what Jack always does. We did what we have to do, because that's what we've always done…only…" Ianto breathed in, heavily, his breath catching as Martha could almost see the memories dancing across his eyelids.
"When Gwen left, he shot himself. And then when he came around he was gone. There was just something that wasn't there. It took him ages to recognise me, and he was so…vulnerable…I couldn't just leave him. I had to get him away so I took him back to my flat. I didn't want anything, I just wanted to know he was here, but he wanted it - he'd been buried for so long, Martha, he just wanted to feel again. I didn't enjoy it - I didn't want to do it - but I had to."
Ianto didn't realise that he'd been babbling, that the words had been spilling out of him, until Martha laid a gentle hand onto his arm, thumb gently caressing the newly-stitched wound. He looked at her sharply.
"I didn't make it worse. It was what he wanted. He's Jack, he doesn't talk, you know he doesn't."
Martha smiled sadly.
"I know. And, for the record, I have no idea what effect fucking him will have had. Probably none. I was just worried that you'd…"
"Taken advantage of him?"
"Yes," Martha sucked in a breath, her fingers working quickly as she began to add a gentle dressing to the line of Ianto's injury. "Please don't be offended, it's not you. It's just…did he ever tell you what happened in the time he was away, the time when we met?"
"No, he didn't. I know it was longer for him…time travel, and all that…and that something bad happened. But I never asked, and he never said. The more you push it with Jack, the more he hides away…I gave up trying to force anything out of him a long time ago."
"That's probably for the best," with one final snip of her scissors, Martha finished applying the dressing, rolling a bandage once, twice, and taping it in place. "But, you should know that something bad did happen. I'm not going to tell you, because I think that's Jack's story to tell, but he was…taken advantage of."
She watched Ianto flinch ever so slightly, a movement so tiny it would have been missed by someone less observant than herself. She nibbled at her bottom lip, stepping closer to hand Ianto his shirt.
"I just think it's right you know that I think this goes back further than you think. You deserve to know before you dig yourself in any deeper."
Ianto smiled, easing the ripped shirt back over his head, wincing as it brushed the bandaged wound.
"Thank you," he adjusted his clothing, nervously, something shining in his eyes that Martha just couldn't place. He raised his gaze to meet hers, sliding himself off of the table and straightening himself as best he could with his heavily swathed shoulder. Sighing heavily, he began to ascend the stairs, only stopping to turn and flash her a sad smile.
"The problem is: I think I've dug myself in too deep already."
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A/N: Thank you once againt to my reviewers, and all those who read my fictions. I hope I live up to your expectations. This fiction seems to have begun to spiral completely away from what I originally intended, and will probably end up a lot longer than I intended. I have a basic plan, as I must do, and a resolution, but I'm allowing myself to go where the muse takes me. These last few chapters have placed a major focus on Ianto, Gwen and Martha, but I promise that there will soon to start to be a lot more Jack - I feel it has been more effective, up until now, to give the outside perspective, the views of his carers rather than the experience of Jack himself.
Thank you once again for reading. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve, please don't hesitate to leave a comment.