The First Sick Day
Most people assumed that Jack Harkness never slept. This was patently false. Jack slept. Jack slept quite well, thank you very much. The problem was that Jack only slept under three very distinct circumstances: (1) he had just died; (2) he had just had a mind-blowing (read: Ianto-induced) orgasm; and (3) he downed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. Now, Jack hadn’t stolen Owen’s pills (though he did frequently move them just to fuck with the medic. Nothing important mind, just simple things like aspirin or Owen’s favorite condoms), and he certainly hadn’t had a Ianto-induced orgasm (and damn Ianto for pulling the “I have a headache line”. Everyone knew that was a blatant cop-out. And now Jack was wondering why Ianto didn’t want to have sex with him. Everyone wanted to have sex with him!). And, last but not least, Jack hadn’t died in a week. He was thinking of hanging one of those date boards in the Hub - “No Jack Deaths in ------ Days”.
And so, for some unknown reason that Jack certainly couldn’t fathom, he had been randomly asleep. This hadn’t happened in nearly a hundred and fifty years. Yet, there he was, wiping sleep from his eyes, blearily staring at the text message on his mobile and wondering how the hell he had been asleep in the first place, while damning to eternal hell whoever it was that woke him from this surprising slumber. It was Ianto. He took back the eternal damnation. Then he read the message and was suddenly completely awake. Two words, two small words that Ianto had never, in the year he had worked for Torchwood 3, ever used.
‘Sick Day.’
And now Jack felt like an ass. Here he was, convinced that his legendary sex status had somehow failed him all while Ianto was legitimately sick. Unless he was lying and this was just a mental health day. If anyone deserved it, it was Ianto. But Ianto didn’t take mental health days. Ianto didn’t even take real sick days. After a particularly bad stretch of weevil sightings in the middle of a wet Cardiff winter, Ianto had insisted on coming into work despite the full-blown pneumonia. Jack had had to sneak up behind him and inject him with a sedative. Which, of course, didn’t go over well once Ianto woke. Jack smirked as he remembered the black eye. Ianto had been surprisingly strong for a man who could barely breathe.
All this was, of course, going through Jack’s mind as he silently (or, rather, not so silently considering that he resorted to breaking the window) broke into Ianto’s house with a rather hung-over Owen behind him. Jack knew Ianto would do anything not to call out of work. If he was sick enough for a sick day, it was likely he was on the bed (don’t think of him on the bed, dammit! Head in the game, Harkness!) with Ebola or the Plague.
Rushing up the stairs with a staggering Owen behind him, Jack ran straight to the bedroom, his favorite room in all of Ianto’s home. Ianto wasn’t there. Neither was the duvet. And a pillow was missing. Then he heard the retching from the ensuite bathroom.
Throwing open the bathroom door, Jack stared at his teaboy-cum-lover. Ianto had sagged against the tub, wrapped in the duvet and a pillow on the floor by his hip. The pillow was wet, probably with the sweat dripping from Ianto’s forehead and turning his hair’s dark fringe black. But it was Ianto’s face that made Jack stop breathing. He had seen that face too many times. He’d seen it in 1918, he’d seen it in the trenches in Bastogne. Skin so pale it was grey, blue lips dry and brittle like sandpaper, pink splotches on cheeks indicating the body cooking itself by trying to burn off the sickness, and eyes, glassy and unseeing, like blue beads. And the smell of sick, permeating the air.
Owen, of course, hung-over medic that he was, retched himself at the smell. Luckily he’d made it to the toilet. Jack refused to clean up after him, and Ianto could barely keep himself upright, staring longingly at the pillow, but debating the coolness of the tub’s porcelain over the dampness of the cotton pillowcase.
Jack hurried to Ianto’s side as the young man seemed to suddenly decide horizontal was better than vertical.
“Ianto?” Jack asked, wiping the hair from Ianto’s face and cradling the young man in his arms. “Ianto? Wake up for a sec, ok? Owen’s gonna check you over.”
“J’ck?” Ianto slurred, opening his eyes briefly and sighing. “N’t t’night Jack. Tired.” His head lolled onto Jack’s shoulder, and Jack shuddered at how hot the skin felt.
“I know you’re tired, Ianto. But Owen’s…” Jack glared at his medic, who decided to finally make his way from the toilet to Ianto’s side, “Owen’s gonna check you out and give you some of the good drugs, yeah?”
Owen started his investigation, listening to lungs, taking Ianto’s temperature, and drawing blood.
“Don’ need Owen. Flu. J’st the flu. Need t’sleep,” Ianto answered.
“Just the flu, eh? You work for an organization that hunts aliens and hangs out underground. How do you know this isn’t the alien version of the chickenpox?”
“Chickens?” Ianto asked. “No chickens here. It’s the city.”
Jack glanced at Owen and raised an eyebrow. Owen shrugged.
“Yeah, I know it’s the city. I didn’t say chickens, I said chickenpox.”
“Box of chicken? Get a take-away.”
“Riiiiiight, teaboy,” Owen muttered. “Haven’t even given him the drugs yet. If he’s like this now, imagine what he’ll be like then. We should sell tickets.”
“Have to advertise,” Ianto muttered, his eyes sliding closed. “Secr’t organization. Can’t advertize. SUV has the name, though. Why an SUV?” That question was directed at Jack.
Jack was, of course, confused and answered with a ‘Huh?”
“In a city. Too big for parking spaces. Can fit lots of chickens, though. Empty boxes in the Office. Too small for chickens. Myfanwy’ll eat chickens. Can we get a dog?”
“Um, no, Ianto, I don’t think a dog is a great idea.”
“Always wanted a dog. Never had one.”
“What’s goin’ on, Owen?” Jack asked.
“Like teaboy said, Captain, probably just the flu. I’ll double check the blood, but it’s been going around. And Ianto doesn’t exactly have the strongest immune system.”
Jack turned back to the now-almost asleep Ianto. “Told you that you needed more vegetables. But do you ever listen to me?”
Ianto blinked. “Bee? No bees here. Found those alien bees before. They went home.” Ianto looked over at Owen for the first time. “Owen?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Listen, try not to get the flu on a Thursday next time, yeah? I was having a great night.” Owen looked back up at Jack. “Put ‘im to bed. Make ‘im stay there for the weekend. He’ll be fine in a few days. I’ll run the labs, but them I’m going back to bed.”
Owen collected his supplies, handed Jack packets of compazine and aspirin, and, with a quick nod to Jack, left with the SUV, effectively stranding Jack at Ianto’s. “Huh. Guess the Chief Medical Officer decided to give me a long weekend. Good thing we’ve got your Mini just in case, huh?”
Ianto snored.
“Right,” Jack drawled. “Nice to know you’re paying attention. Don’t know about you, but my ass is going numb.” Jack pulled Ianto to his feet and swung the younger man up into his arms. “If you were awake, this would be incredibly romantic.” Then Jack looked down at the dry flakes of sick crusted on Ianto’s shirt. “Not so romantic then.”
It was only a few steps from the ensuite to the bedroom, and for once, Jack was grateful that Ianto was thin. Dead weight was a bitch.
Once he settled Ianto on the bed and pulled the sheet up around his shoulders, Jack returned to the bathroom to wet a towel with cool water. He wiped down Ianto’s face, hoping that small act would soothe Ianto’s troubled sleep. He woke Ianto for a moment and made him swallow the pills with some water. He then sat by Ianto, running his fingers up and down Ianto’s arm, drawing meaningless words on his skin. Meaningless, that is, until Jack realized he was drawing ‘Ianto’ and ‘Jack’ over and over. Which, had anyone (Owen) known, would have led to endless renditions of ‘Jack and Ianto sitting in a tree’. Jack knew firsthand that absolutely nothing could be comfortably done in a tree. He’d had the broken bones to prove it.
This was how Jack spent the night and the next day. Sitting by a sleeping Ianto, washing his face with cool water, giving him pills, pleading with him to drink something, anything, and generally either (1) getting yelled at as Ianto was apparently a horrible patient, or (2) laughing at an incoherent Ianto trying to string words into sentences which could only make sense in Ianto’s mind. It wasn’t until Saturday morning when Ianto, the real Ianto, finally woke without a fever.
“J’ck?” he asked, his throat raw from frequent vomiting sessions. “Why’re you here?”
“Don’t you remember?” Jack asked softly, all too aware of Ianto’s headache. “I came over yesterday when you were sick.”
Ianto looked confused. “Ok then,” Jack said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I…..I was sick. I took a sick day. I was…looking for a box for chickens?”
Jack chuckled. “Sort of. Remind me to tape the next time you get sick. Or take drugs. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I’ll watch that on a rainy day.”
“S’always rainy in Cardiff,” Ianto grumbled. “But why’re you here?”
“I was…taking care of you.”
Ianto shifted. “M’not a child. Don’need to be taken care of.”
“Yeah, I remember. We had this discussion after the Beacons. Real man, blah blah blah. From where I’m sitting, it’s either I take care of you, or you spend two days on the bathroom floor not knowing your own name.”
Ianto rolled his eyes. “M’fine. Just the flu.”
Jack’s eyes softened as he looked down at Ianto and ran his fingers through the man’s hair. “Yeah. Just the flu. Just the flu that can kill people.”
Ianto sighed. “M’not dying. M’fine.” Then Ianto seemed to realize just what day it was. He sighed again, running his hand through the stubble on his chin. “I need a shower.”
Jack grinned. “A bath, I think. Don’t think you could stand up on your own yet.”
Ianto sat up slowly, pleasantly surprised that his stomach didn’t rebel and the world stayed the right side up. “Bath sounds good. But should you be here? You could get sick.”
“Nah,” Jack scoffed. “Nothing in the 21st century can break through my 51st century immune system. Besides, what’s it gonna do, kill me?”
Ianto rolled his eyes as Jack helped him up. He glanced towards the floor and saw the bathroom trash can. He looked back at Jack.
“You were pretty much dead weight. Thought it was easier to bring it out here rather than carrying you in there every time you were sick.”
Jack frowned as he saw Ianto’s face go slightly green. Ianto looked away and cleared his throat. “Just…just throw the can away, ok? I…uh….think I should go to the bathroom now.”
Jack quickly guided him over to the toilet, grimacing as Ianto painfully dry heaved and sank back into his arms. “Guess you’re not over it yet, huh?”
Ianto just shook his head, resigned to being sick for a few more days. “You don’t have to stay here, Jack. I’ll be fine in a couple of days. You should go.”
“Nothing doing, Ianto. I’m here unless the world decides to end.”
Ianto turned his head to look at Jack. He watched as Jack reached into his back pocket and pulled out a toothbrush. Jack went the brush from a small waterbottle by the side of the toilet and motioned for Ianto to make use of his efforts. Ianto was surprisingly touched by the gesture. As he brushed, Jack set about running a bath. He helped Ianto strip, and gently washed the remains of the past few days from his skin and hair. Not once did he make a lewd comment. Didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking them, but he had enough sense to know that now was SO not the time.
Four days later, as Ianto was holding Jack up by the side of the toilet, watching as Jack dry heaved (Ianto snickered at the so-called 51st century immune system), it was the toothbrush and bath that he remembered. He wasn’t fully over his own flu, but no one else dared come over (Owen jokingly decided to put a ‘quarantine’ sign on the house door). And, to be honest, Ianto didn’t want anyone else over. He sighed as Jack once again asked Ianto to just kill him already, but he was smiling inside. Somehow, he and Jack had gone from fuck buddies to…well…in a relationship was too naïve. But here they were, on the bathroom floor, holding each other up. Next time Owen called him a part-time shag, he’d know the truth. Maybe threatening Owen with bodily harm would stop the taunts. He’d have to see. Maybe tomorrow. For now, it was just him, Jack, and the toilet.