Kryptonite | Chapter 7
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?
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
A/N: This story has a direction now, and the timelines have begun to speed up (those first few days needed closer inspection, I thought, and therefore there was less plot more interaction).
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Kryptonite
I feel there is nothing I can do…
A shrill beeping sound punctured into Ianto's consciousness, pulling him unwillingly out of sleep. Groaning softly, he raised his head from his hands, feeling the shoot of pain that streamed down the back of his neck at the movement. He rubbed his eyes roughly, wincing slightly as every muscle in his body screamed in protest with each movement.
He'd fallen asleep at Tosh's desk, his head resting in the crook of his arm and his forehead softly brushing the keyboard in front of him. With just three of them now, their working hours had been extended to an almost inhuman measure; with Jack incapacitated (a phrase which Ianto had coined himself to normalise his condition), the workload he and Gwen had had to undertake was immense. The last time Ianto had slept in his own flat had been with Jack…
Jack.
Jack himself was lying on the sofa a few metres way from Ianto, curled up protectively in a foetal position. Ianto craned his head to look at him, taking in the soft movement of his chest and the slackness of his body. He let out a grateful sigh as he realised that the sleep was peaceful.
It was a gamble, Ianto had learned, whether or not Jack would find the peace in his dreams that he didn't seem to find in wakefulness. Over the course of the last week, his sleep had been sporadic, some nights being spent in deep unconsciousness and some being split apart by wild nightmares. One of the more difficult things was the fact that it had steadily become more and more dangerous for Ianto to be there when these nightmares occurred. Jack's inability to recognise anyone in his panic to escape the dreams, his inability to separate the monsters of his sleep from the people of his reality, meant that he was violent and confrontational when he awoke. Ianto, and Gwen, had had to constantly to push the fear aside whenever they came near him; the fear that, in his terror, he would lash out just the little bit too violently. But the need to comfort him was always guaranteed to override that fear.
Jack needed them. That was enough incentive.
Jack's state of sleep had been at its very worst when he had slept in his own bed. On the nights he slept under his own sheets, the nightmares gripped him with an iron fist, shaking him relentlessly until he was a quivering shell. Ianto had realised very quickly that the reason for this was the location itself; residing in the smothering, underground blackness of the room was akin to being buried alive, and since that realisation the sofa had been Jack's permanent sleeping quarters.
He hadn't forgotten Ianto again, thank God, at least not for any extended periods of time. He didn't really allow himself out of Jack's sight for long enough to let that happen, ever since the incident with Gray and the autopsy bay; even so, the fear was there, even if it was unfulfilled. Ianto realised he should consider himself lucky given the circumstances, but he couldn't muster much optimism. The day when he would rejoice that his lover could actually remember his face was the day when he would have given up all hope that Jack could ever be returned. He had hoped with all his heart that continued exposure to his former life, to Gwen, to himself, would have helped him to reassert that wonderful Jack-ness that he had lost; but he seemed to remain stuck, not going forward, and not going backwards. The lack of progress was one of the more difficult things.
But it wasn't the worst part.
No, the worst part was the moments of lucidity; when Jack knew what was going on and understood that there was nothing he could do to stop it. Sometimes Ianto felt as though he and Gwen were parents to this new Jack, but it was in these moments that Ianto was forced into the role of comforter, psychiatrist and doctor, none of which he actually felt particularly proficient in. Sometimes all he could do was sit beside Jack and hold him, rubbing small circles into his back, hoping to chase away the fear of insanity that gripped his lover in an iron fist. He didn't say anything; he didn't know what the right thing was to say, so there was no real point in scrambling ineffectually for words.
Ianto yawned again, curling his fingers in his hair. He could feel it tangling beneath his fingers, slightly longer and not as clean-cut as he'd always made an effort at making it before. With the combined effort of looking after Torchwood and Jack, things like that had fallen by the wayside. His hair was untidy and wayward, and upon finding no clean suits in his wardrobe he had been forced to throw the remainder of his regular veneer by the wayside, instead substituting it for loose fitting jeans and a plain grey T-Shirt.
Ianto sighed, forcing himself to sit up straight in his chair. The world really was a very different place, he mused unhappily. And he didn't really have a choice but to go along with it. If he let himself be left behind, he knew he'd never catch up again.
The beeping sound echoed again, making him jump in his chair. He turned his head towards the sound, his exhausted state of mind causing him confusion as he searched desperately for the source of the noise; if it carried on much longer, was the only thought he could muster, it might wake Jack.
Finally locating the phone in his pocket (he made a mental note to kick himself later for not realising sooner) he pressed the "answer" button, allowing himself a brief moment of relief as Jack remained silent and unmoving, before putting the phone to his ear.
"Ianto Jones," he answered, trying to put as much strength into his voice as possible, despite the fact that it felt like a hive of bees had taken up residence in his skull.
"I was going to say I've been looking forward to hearing another Jones, but, honestly, you sound like shit."
"Martha?" Ianto felt a smile spread across his face at her voice. He'd not really spent much time with her when she'd been here, but she was a friendly voice and a breath of fresh air; as strong as his feelings were for Jack, and as close as he had grown to Gwen, they were the only real human interaction he'd had for far too long.
"I heard what happened," there was a sudden catch in Martha's voice, and Ianto felt the smile vanish as immediately as it had appeared. "It took UNIT a good while to get their arses in gear and tell me; they didn't really register the fact that I had connections to Torchwood; but it came up in a briefing. I rang as soon as I could."
"I…thank you," Ianto swallowed hard, not really sure how to react. He was certain Martha wouldn't expect him to break down; it hadn't been a long acquaintance, but she'd seen enough to know that open emotion was not something he did willingly. She wouldn't push him, he was certain of that.
"I'm so sorry, Ianto. How are the three of you holding?"
"Well…" he paused, deciding to be as honest as possible without divulging the whole truth. "It's tough. Gwen's finding it difficult, especially as she hardly sees Rhys anymore, and I've not left the Hub in days. I'm trying to catch up with Tosh's work, but she was a genius and I'm not, so I can't even begin to get my head aorund the basic systems we need to run the place. Plus we have no doctor, so now there's only three of us on mission and a heightened chance that irreparable damage will be done. Everything's just...really, really fucked up." There, he'd said it. Things had gone to the shit; he'd been denying it for far too long. They couldn't go on like this. He found himself rubbing his temples as he spoke, subconsciously trying to ease the misbehaving imps from out of his tired brain.
Misbehaving imps? I need to get out more…or at all.
"And Jack?" his heart sank again. "He didn't ring me to let me know…is he okay?"
Ianto swallowed hard, opening his mouth but finding his brain unwilling or unready to come out with a satisfactory lie. He paused for just long enough to cause Martha to worry.
"Ianto…he's okay, isn't he? Tell me he's okay," she stuttered slightly, panic rising in her voice as Ianto's silence grew deeper. "He's as tough as nails; he's survived so much…you can't tell me he's not okay."
Ianto couldn't stand the choke that he could hear as she tried to reassure herself.
"Martha, I…."
A sudden whimper, followed by a thud, interrupted him, and he turned around to face the noise.
Jack's face was contorted, twisted into a mask of fear. His hand was splayed flat on the wall behind the sofa as if he were trying to dig his nails into the tiles; he had obviously flung his arm out to protect himself against something, and Ianto could almost see the bruise forming along his wrist at the impact with the wall.
Forgetting that the phone was still in his hand, he rose quickly from his seat to Jack's side, crouching down tentatively next to him. The noise coming from Jack's lips was pitiful, like a wounded animal calling for help. The nightmares of the older man were completely different to his own; in real life, Jack was stereotypically the loud one, but in sleep it was Ianto who often woke screaming whilst Jack's anguish was quieter, more pitiful. It was heartbreaking to see such a confident, brash individual reduced to a whimpering mess, helpless and vulnerable. At least Ianto could take some comfort in the fact that no one outside of Torchwood knew - if anyone, UNIT for example, discovered the truth, then Torchwood could be compromised and, more importantly, Jack himself would be in more danger than he'd ever been in before.
In the past, however dangerous, Jack had been able to defend himself. Now, all he had was Ianto and Gwen, and they didn't know how long their own strength could last.
His hand stroked smoothly across Jack's forehead, pushing his tangled and unkempt hair behind his ear. The man was twitching uncomfortably, the muscles in his arm and hand tensing uncontrollably as he grappled with the wall, his panic obviously rising as he struggled to get some sort of grip.
"Please…" he whimpered, repeating the word like a mantra. "Please…pleasepleaseplease…"
Ianto carded his hand through Jack's hair, debating whether or not to wake him.
"Jack?" he whispered softly, moving his hand to rest gently on Jack's heart, subconsciously readying himself for any reaction from his volatile lover.
"Please…no…" Jack whimpered again, his hand sliding from the wall and forming into a fist by his head. Before Ianto could register the movement, the arm had been pulled back and forced towards him, catching him just at the bottom of his jaw and snapping his head backwards.
"Ianto? What's going on?" the young man could hear Martha's frantic voice, tinny over the phone as it spun away from him. Pain shooting through his jaw, he followed the phone with his eyes, reaching out with his spare hand to reach for it. Sudden frustration gripped him with an illogical force, and he just wanted to hear a voice other than Jack's, no matter how panicked that voice may be.
He didn't have a chance to reach it, however, as Jack sprang from his position on the couch and gripped him by the neck.
"NO, I WON'T LET YOU!" he screamed, his eyes glazed as he pulled Ianto towards him.
"Jack, stop," Ianto choked, feeling the nails of Jack's hand digging into the sensitive skin of his neck. "I'm not who you think…listen to me…"
The Captain yanked the young Welshman closer towards him, some colour appearing to return in his eyes as he was able to study him more closely. Ianto struggled to remain as calm as possible, but it was difficult when his body was struggling automatically to gather some sort of air into his lungs.
"Jack…let go…please."
The pleading tone in Ianto's voice seemed to soften Jack, and he loosened his grip, realisation and recognition dawning. Before Ianto could catch his breath, however, he found himself pulled into a stifling hug, Jack burying his face into his hair as he clung to him. A sob escaped his lips, his whole body heaving as he gripped the younger man in his arms, as tightly as he possibly could without crushing him. Ianto went limp, letting himself be held, even if the grip was slightly painful; whatever Jack needed to do.
"I'm sorry," Jack choked, his voice still pitiful, but more there than it had been in sleep. "I thought you were…I didn't know…"
His words were lost as the phone that had skidded away began to ring again, and he lifted his head to stare accusingly at it. Extracting himself from Jack's grip, Ianto allowed his fingers to run quickly through the hair of the older man, cupping his cheek for a split second to reassure him, before turning away to reach for the phone.
He didn't even have to look at the caller ID to know who it was. There was no one else it could possibly be.
"Ianto?" Martha's voice was slightly shaky, but firm, as she spoke before he could utter a word. "I'm coming to you."
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See? Plot. I told you.
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