Fic: Closer Together and Further Away. (6/11)

[the_silver_sun]

Ianto stumbled off the raft and stood swaying on the jetty, while Pon-Pel moored the boat.

“Are you all right?” Owen asked, as he gripped Ianto forearms, steadying him. “You look like hell.”

“Jack?” Ianto asked, feeling sick and dizzy, worry and cold threatening to overwhelm him. “How's Jack?”

“He's just the same.” Owen let go of Ianto's arms slowly, making sure he wasn't going fall over if he did. “Just stand there and don't fall in the lake while I help Pon-Pel get the crate.”

The raft bobbing away from jetty, the crate, now that it was no longer balanced with Ianto's weight, caused the deck to tip, threatening to pull Owen into the water should it go overboard. After seeing them struggling with the crate two Star-Chosen that Ianto didn't recognise, who had been checking one their own boats came over to help and eventually managed to get it off the raft and onto the safety of the jetty.

Pon-Pel, seemingly as unflappable as ever, pointed to Owen, then to Ianto and gestured towards the building where Jack and Cisca-Mar where, before talking to the other Star-Chosen. After a moment they picked up the crate between them and set off.

“Come on then,” Owen said, taking hold of Ianto's arm. “Let's get out of this rain. It's worse than Cardiff and I didn't think I'd ever say that.”

“Why were you outside?” Ianto asked leaning against him.

“I'd just come outside for break, clear my head for a minute and someone pointed out you were coming back, so I thought I'd hang about and see if you needed a hand.”

It was a totally reasonable explanation and Ianto felt stupid for expecting the worse. Keeping his head down against the rain, he allowed Owen to lead the way.

As soon as they were back inside Owen pulled Ianto towards the fire. “Now get your clothes off.”

“What?” Ianto stared at him, uncertain if he'd heard him correctly.

“I said get your clothes off, they're soaked.” Owen picked up a blanket and handed it to Ianto. “Then wrap this round yourself and sit by the fire until I tell you not to.”

Ianto nodded, being warm and dry sounded like the best idea in the world. The thick wool of his coat was saturated and it took several attempts to get the buttons undone. Beneath, the waistcoat was just as wet and his finger numb and clumsy from the cold struggled with the smaller buttons.

“Let me do it or we'll be here all afternoon,” Owen said pushing his hands out of the way. “Your hands are freezing. Seriously, why didn't you come back sooner? The weather is crap out there.”

“It took a long time getting out the ship. It was flooding, some of the corridors were completely underwater. I got through them as fast as I could.” He shuddered at the memory. “I hope the water didn't get in and ruin things.”

Owen gave him an irritated look and then crouched down to help him get his shoes and socks off. “I told you, no bloody stupid heroics, didn't I?”

“I just did what needed to be done,” Ianto said quietly, not wanting to think about it anymore if he could help it.

Owen looked round at where Pon-Pel and the other Star-Chosen who'd helped them at the jetty had brought the crate in and were opening it under Cisca-Mar's supervision. “Was it worth it?”

“I don't know what's in it,” Ianto admitted, starting to shiver worse now that he was actually warming up. “But there has to be something. Pon-Pel said it was like a survival kit. I should take a look, find out what we've got.”

“Oh no, you don't, you just sit there and don't move until you stop shaking,” Owen grumbled, sounding more worried than annoyed. “I can look in box without your help you know.”

Sat by the fire, Ianto watched Pon-Pel talked to Cisca-Mar and another Star-Chosen that he supposed was Rila-Bek, if the way Pon-Pel was looking at her was anything to go by. He hoped they would find some measure of happiness together, the universe needed more love and happiness and not less in his experience.

Owen looked through the crate, taking things out and piling them on the floor in two separate heaps. Once the last of it was emptied, he kicked the crate bad temperedly. “Well if we needed to build a shelter in the snow, send up a distress flare or repair an inflatable boat it would be great.”

“So that's it? There's nothing we can do?” Ianto said bleakly, wondering how having failed could hurt so much when everything else felt numb. “Maybe I missed something,” he said, thinking out loud. “I could go back, try again, there has to be something there. We can't give up on him.”

“No.” Owen crossed the distance between Jack's bed and the fire almost before Ianto could register than he'd moved. Putting his hands onto Ianto's shoulders Owen pushed him back onto the seat. “Don't be so bloody stupid. You're freezing, if you go back out there and you're risking hypothermia.”

“But Jack...”

“Jack needs you to stay well. You'll be no use to anyone if you get sick too,” Owen said sounding more worried than angry. “Look I can probably use some of the stuff you brought back. The scalpels type things in there are a lot better than any of the knives they've got here and there are some bandages and dressings that once I've given them a wash might still be of use.”

“Knives?” Ianto asked, feeling slow and stupid. “Why would we want those?”

Owen sighed, his grip on Ianto's shoulders changing from something designed to keep him in place to something more comforting. “Because I'm going to try and cut the infected bits out, pack it with a saline dressing and hope like hell it works.”

Ianto hung his head. He trusted Owen to do the right thing, as while he'd sometimes made mistakes, it had only ever been due to over confidence or preoccupation with something else. But cutting pieces out of Jack's leg seemed more desperation rather than a plan. “Are you sure?”

“As I can be, leaving the infected tissue isn't helping him and he's not going to be able to heal with it there. So it's got to go. And don't look at me like that, like you think I'm talking crap,” he grumbled. “I know what I'm doing. And before you ask it's called a wet to dry dressing, the idea is to keep the wound clean and every time you change it to take away any manky bits that might be forming. It's not ideal and I'd like to have a shed load of antibiotics and painkillers to back it up with, but I haven't, so I'm going to do the best I can with what I've got.”

“Is there anything in there you could give him? Pon-Pel seemed to think that there should be medical supplies in there.” Ianto looked over at where Pon-Pel was sitting with Rila-Bek, talking and occasionally leaning in to whisper something in her ear. “Maybe I could get her to tell me what they say, the translator doesn't see work when things are written down.”

“The stuff has been there for years, even if it was suitable for humans, which isn't very likely, it's going to be so far past its expiration date that I wouldn't chance it. I go dosing Jack up with who knows what and it could kill him faster than that hole in his leg.”

“Will it still work if you can't give him anything?” Ianto asked, scared and hopeful at the same time.

“I don't know, but if it doesn't the only thing I've got left to try is cutting the damn thing off,” Owen said angrily, then looked towards Jack, a guilty expression on his face, worried that he might have heard and understood. He sighed, then added quietly, “I wasn't joking the other night, you know. If the infection spreads much more it's going to be too dicey to keep cutting round the edges. Better to take the thing off while he's hopefully still strong enough to survive it.”

“Oh.” Ianto hunched over, wishing that Owen hadn't mentioned it again.

Owen shook his shoulder. “Oi, don't you go falling apart on me. I need you here.”

“What do you need me to do?” Ianto said voice weak and shaky, barely rising above a whisper. He knew, though, as long as he was needed he'd somehow be able to keep going. It's what he always did.

“Nothing right now. You get warm. I'll sort out what we need and get the scalpels cleaned and get some salt water on to boil so I can soak some bandages in it.” He gave Ianto's shoulder a squeeze. “Later on you get to fetch and carry for me, and when I start cutting you're going to have to help hold Jack's leg still. I don't want to go cutting out any more than I need to.”

It took Owen some time to be happy with the preparations and Ianto watched as he checked and re-checked everything, until finally he went over to Jack and applied a hand full of the numbing paste to the area around the wound.

“I'm going to try leaving it on for about half an hour,” Owen said by way of an explanation when he saw Ianto was watching him. “Then I'll wash it off and get started. Are you going to be all right to help?”

Ianto nodded. He still felt cold, the chill seeming to have settled deep in his bones, but Ianto knew he could function. He'd worked feeling a lot worse in the past, pushing himself on until he'd barely been able to stand. He took a few deep breaths then got up and retrieved his clothes that had been left to dry by the fire. He was ready, he told himself, he had to be.

“Jack,” Owen said crouching down next to him. “I'm going to have sort out your leg. It's going to hurt, but I'll be as quick as I can and hopefully you'll start feeling a bit better soon. Do you understand?”

“That's good,” Jack said, words slurring together as he stared at a point somewhere over in the corner of the room. “Like flowers in the sky, so pretty. I miss them all.”

Owen stood up and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “At least he's not likely to remember this.”

Ianto found it was small comfort though as Cisca-Mar and Owen washed the herbal paste from Jack's leg, revealing how much the wound had degraded. The puncture wound ran parallel to the surface of Jack's leg for part of its length. The skin above it was white, bloodless in places, and stretched and shiny in others, while around the ragged entrance to the wound it was red and swollen.

“There's not much feeling left in the dead bit,” Owen said, picking up the knife. “It's when I start getting close to the bits that aren't that he's going to feel it. So get ready to hang on tight.”

Ianto couldn't imagine how agonising it must be for Jack with nothing more than the insufficient painkilling effect of the herbal paste.

Jack sobbed and whimpered, breathless broken pleas spilling from dry and cracked lips as he begged for them to stop, that he would do anything they wanted if they'd just stop hurting him. It broke Ianto's heart to hear him and if the look in Owen's eyes was anything to go by it was tearing him apart as well.

A cry of pain tore free from him as Owen cut deeper and Ianto closed his eyes as he held Jack's leg tighter. It was too many of his nightmares. It was knives and blood and pain. It was everything that reminded him of the Cybermen's conversion units or the charnel house of a kitchen in the farmhouse in Brynblaidd. He could feel cold sweat beading on his forehead, sickness rolling in his stomach and burning the back of his throat.

Ianto was only vaguely aware of Owen finishing cutting, only when he spoke, asking Cisca-Mar to pass him the bandages did he open his eyes.

The wound on Jack's leg was far larger, a raw weeping mess of open flesh and Ianto staggered back, hand covering his mouth, uncertain whether passing out or throwing up was more likely. “I've got to...”

“Just go,” Owen said waving him away. “I've nearly...”

Whatever else Owen said Ianto didn't hear as fled the house. Hurrying past surprised looking Star-Chosen, he only just managed to get to the nearest jetty before dropped to his knees and retched into the water.

There was nothing much to bring up and Ianto felt weak and wretched as he sat, knees drawn up to his chin on the edge of the jetty. Numb to anything but his own perceived failure, the everything going on around him faded to a dull buzz.

The sun was setting, low and brilliant on the horizon when Cisca-Mar pressed a beaker of hot, spiced drink into his hand and put a blanket around his shoulders. He nodded and mumbled his thanks, grateful but unable to muster energy or will to do anything more.

Holding the drink until it grew cold in his hands, Ianto sat hunched in the blanket as the evening turned into night. Clear and dry now, the twin moons rose high in the cloudless sky and the small firefly like creatures that appeared on the lake once darkness fell skimmed across its surface.

Ianto blinked, uncertain of what had jolted him out of the numb state he'd managed to fall into.

“Hey, you listening to me?” Owen said prodding his arm again. “Are you asleep?”

“No. I'm sorry,” Ianto said without looking round. “I shouldn't have run out.”

“Yeah, well I probably shouldn't have asked you to do it really,” said Owen sitting down beside him. “Don't 'spose you want to share a bit of that blanket if you not coming back inside yet?”

Ianto held out the blanket so that Owen could sit shoulder to shoulder with him on the edge of the jetty.

“I guess that's a no to coming back inside then.”

Going back into the house, spending another night listening to Jack rave and cry, was more than he could face. “I can't do it, Owen. I can't see him like that. I can't watch him die bit by bit.” He wrapped his arms about himself, only vaguely away of the fact he was shivering again.

“You can't stay out here all night.”

“Do you remember I said I'd see him suffer and die once?​” Ianto said quietly, ignoring what Owen said. Those words spoken months ago had come back to him again and again since Jack had got hurt, the irrational guilt that he was somehow to blame slowly filling more and more of his thoughts. “It was after he'd set Myfanwy on Lisa.”

“Yeah, but we all say stuff we don't mean.”

“But I did mean it.” Ianto closed his eyes, feeling tears burning behind the lids. “When I said it I really meant it. I hated him then, but afterwards I couldn't because he was only trying to keep us all safe, and he forgave me when I still can't forgive myself. And I'm so sorry for all of it, but it's never going to get any better. It only ever gets worse.”

“Oh for fucks sake, don't start crying,” Owen said, sounding like he was barely hanging on himself. “Ianto, please. I can't look after him on my own. I need you here being your 'stupidly calm in the face of a world of crap' self, because somehow that makes it all right.”

“Well I can't,” Ianto snapped, eyes opening and tears running down his face. “I can't do it anymore. I've had enough of being the one everybody leans on, of being the one who has to keep on going regardless of the all shit that life throws at me. Because I can't, because it's killing me and I...”

“Shush.” Owen put one finger to Ianto's lips, the other hand grabbing the front of Ianto's open coat. Then, pulling Ianto close he kissed him.



The initial shock was short lived and Ianto responded kissing him back. Eager and desperate. The need for someone, anyone to care about him and drive away the abject fear and loneliness that was consuming him driving out any other concerns he might have had.

“Any better?” Owen asked, releasing Ianto's coat.

Ianto shook his head, feeling colder now that Owen had pulled back from him. “Not, really no.”

“Good.”

“What?” Ianto looked at him baffled and a little hurt. “Why did you kiss me then?”

“It's good because you're not lying and pretending to be fine when you're not.” Owen took Ianto's hand in his. “And I kissed you because you needed to know somebody cares about you and I thought it was pretty good way of showing it.”

“And that's it?” Ianto asked surprised that Owen would even consider his feelings, despite what Pon-Pel had said about how he looked at him.

“Well that and I wanted to, so there didn't seem any point wasting the opportunity.”

Ianto sighed. He'd seen Owen bounce from short term partner to partner with the occasional affair in between. He hardly fitted into the category of a one night stand though, there was no way they could avoid each other after this. “Why are you doing this really?”

“Because you aren't the only one who can't deal with this alone. I need somebody too and unlike you, I don't do suffering in silence. I do something about it.” He grabbed the front of Ianto's clothes again and pulled him close. “We need this. Something to hold on to. I know you still have a thing for Jack and if, when, he gets better you'll probably going to want to be with him rather than me, and that's okay. This doesn't have to be more than tonight.”

“Just tonight,” Ianto repeated, vaguely offended that Owen would think he'd just drop him as soon as Jack was well and confused by the fact that he found himself open to the idea of it being something longer term.

“Yeah.” Owen looked at him something desperate and vulnerable in his eyes. “Ianto, please.”

Ianto licked dry nervous lips, knowing he'd feel guilty later. He wasn't with Jack and never had been, if he was honest, with him in any form of committed relationship. What they'd shared before he'd left had been little more than what Owen was offering now, a little bit of kindness and affection in an otherwise desperately lonely life. He'd loved him then and still did and the idea that he could be finding comfort with Owen while Jack was suffering was almost more than he could bear.

As much as they needed this, he told himself, they couldn't leave Jack alone. What if he needed something or if he got worse. “We shouldn't, Jack needs us.”

“Cisca-Mar is watching him. She pretty much ordered me out of there to go and find you. She can explain an awful lot just by glaring at you and pointing. ” Owen's hand which had been gripping Ianto's coat moved, slipping inside it, holding onto him. “It doesn't have to be the whole night you know, just a little while.”

“All right,” Ianto said softly, not quite believing that he'd actually agreed.

“Come on then, it freezing out here. Pon-pel showed me somewhere we can go,” Owen said, helping Ianto to his feet.

Link to part seven