Kryptonite | Chapter 4

Mar 27, 2010 17:44



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



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Kryptonite

"You stumbled in and bumped your head…"

"JACK!"

Before the horrified cry had even finished leaving Gwen's lips, Ianto was behind Jack, hooking his hands under the armpits of the older man to prevent him from falling. As he lowered him gently to the floor, he cast his eyes upwards, taking in the shattered remnants of his bedroom mirror, hanging limply from the dull frame and stained with a deep red colour that was only too familiar to all of them.

Jack's knuckles were a mess, the hanging skin drenched in blood as shards of glass seemed to embed themselves even deeper into the already shredded flesh. A deep cut was running along the length of his arm, the liquid oozing from it covering his flesh so completely that it seemed as though Jack was wearing a deep crimson coloured glove. Ianto felt his stomach do an uncomfortable flip as he gently reached down to Jack's arm to examine the damage, steadying Jack's back and head against his chest; this was more than just an superficial wound. Letting his head fall forward momentarily onto Jack's shoulder, partly through frustration and partly through exhaustion, Ianto could hear Jack's ragged breathing, the force of it causing his whole body to shudder.

Ianto heard a movement behind him, feeling Gwen's shoulder brush past his as she joined him in a crouching position beside their fallen Captain. The hitch in her breathing told him that she had assessed the severity of the wound, and a part of him wanted to push her away, to make her leave and then shut the door so that she couldn't possibly see their former-fearless-leader in the state he was in. Jack had waited for her to leave before breaking down, had kept his "Jack The Hero" persona until she was no longer present to be affected by the truth, and he had done that for a good reason. It all felt so - pointless - now that she was here, seeing it anyway.

A low moan, so feral and fraught it was barely human, brought Ianto's attention back to the man whose weight he was supporting. Shifting his body slightly so that he was able to lean his back against the edge of his bed, (he was too tired himself to be able hold Jack with just the strength of his spine) Ianto ran a gentle, yet quivering, hand across the chest of the older man. He could feel the heart thumping slowly beneath the skin, the beats seeming to get further apart with each breath as the blood slowly ebbed from his body.

"Jesus, Ianto…" there was a crack in Gwen's voice as she spoke. "Is this… is he…"

Upon hearing her voice, Jack's eyes opened and he managed to turn his head just a little, catching her eye.

"I'm sorry," he whispered gently, the breath scratching across his throat. "I didn't want you to see…"

"I know, love," Gwen forced a smile, her tears pooling in the corners of her mouth as the muscles of her face struggled to maintain the veneer. "Thank you." She reached out a hand, running soft fingertips down Jack's uninjured arm, swallowing hard to try and process the sight in front of her. Ianto turned his head away and rested his chin on Jack's sagging head, feeling his body becoming limp with blood loss.

Suddenly he felt a hand across his own, fingers entwining with his over Jack's heart. Shifting slightly, Ianto tilted his head to try and read Jack's expression; it was drawn and waif-like, but managed a broken smile. The younger man responded as best he could, catching tighter hold of Jack's hand and feeling that pulse recede to an almost imperceptibly slow rhythm.

Ianto and Gwen sat with Jack as his eyelids began to flutter, Ianto clutching him tightly to him and Gwen resting a hand gently on his arm. Both of them could feel the moment when Jack truly lost consciousness, could hear the breath scraping painfully across his throat and steadily quietening down. Neither of them spoke, or looked at one another, instead focusing on the fate of the man in front of them, the man they both felt connected to through ties of blood and love. Soon, the pulse thrumming in Jack's veins gave one last feeble attempt at life before settling.

They stayed with him for a while; Ianto rubbing small circles on the skin just above Jack's heart, and Gwen mimicking his hand movements on Jack's arm. It was always hard watching Jack die; even though they knew he was going to come back, each time a little bit of grief sank in their hearts. For the first time, Ianto realised, it felt as though he and Gwen fully understood one another, so alike in their grief, confusion and fear for the man they both loved that they didn't need any words between them.

Eventually, Ianto forced himself to unlace his fingers from Jack's, sliding his back further up the bed and bracing himself to support Jack's weight.

"Can you help me get him to the bathroom?" he asked gently, barely meeting Gwen's eyes for fear of what he would see in them. Gwen had miraculously managed to remain as the only member of the team who had retained at least some of her innocence, but he feared that this, coupled with the explosions and the deaths of the night before, would be the final straw that sucked her completely into Torchwood.

She nodded in reply, moving around to take hold of Jack's legs, waiting for Ianto to haul himself to his feet with Jack's limp body hanging on the strength of his arms. Without a word, they managed to carry Jack's dead weight into the bathroom, Ianto guiding them to prop him against the bath before leaning over to begin running the water. Leaning back, Gwen leant against the sink and wrapped her arms around her knees, allowing her face to crumble now that Jack couldn't see her.

"Jesus, Ianto…" she choked on her words, swallowing hard before carrying on. "What happened to him?" Ianto turned to look at her, one hand remaining in contact with Jack's body protectively at all times.

"I don't know," he answered, the truth coming out before he could think of an explanation, something to bring about some semblance of control on his part. "After you left he…he shot himself, and when he woke up he was…broken."

Steam was rising from the bath, hanging in the air gently and creating an almost dream-like atmosphere around them as they both allowed Ianto's words to sink in. Broken. It was the only real word to explain it.

"What do you mean?" her voice was barely a whisper as she asked, the regret at having to put the question to him evident, but her determination to know winning out in the end. Ianto ran a hand through his hair, aware that Jack's blood, which was staining his fingers, was being smeared through his dark locks, but not able to summon up enough energy to care.

"When he woke up he didn't recognise me," he began, determined that the quicker he got it out, the quicker it would be out, and the quicker he could begin to work on some kind of solution. "But then he remembered…so I got him back here…and he was so broken, there was no light in his eyes…and he could remember me but not how to…"

He trailed off, swallowing heavily as he averted her gaze. This was a particular detail he was not willing to divulge further; what had happened between him and Jack last night had been more intimate than anything he could remember doing with Jack, and he knew that Jack would not want anyone to know how helpless and innocent he had been. He didn't want to bring Jack any further down than he had already come.

Gwen seemed to understand, nodding slowly and using the bowl of the sink to pull herself up, the exhaustion of the previous forty-eight hours catching up with her limbs.

"D'you have any cloths, or anything?"

Ianto nodded, indicating towards the kitchen. Gwen left the bathroom, promptly returning with a few tea-towels and helping him to apply the cloths to Jack's wounds. Ianto quickly took over, cleaning the worst of the blood from the now-healing gash on Jack's arm. Gwen paused, taking in the sight of Jack clutched in Ianto's grasp, the younger man cleaning the wounds on his arms tenderly; his eyes were so old, filled with more pain and dark wisdom than she could identify with. She could see the look that he was giving Jack, and she could see that this was something that he wanted, needed, to do on his own, and she remembered something that Jack had told her a long time ago when she was still a new recruit to Torchwood; Don't let it drift. Realising that this was something Jack did not want her to be tainted by, something that Ianto needed to do on his own to take control of an anarchic situation and make it his own, Gwen leant forward to brush a quick kiss against his forehead, hooking a finger under his chin to make him look her in the eye.

"I meant what I said last night," she whispered gently, a stern look coming into her eyes. "You make sure you look after yourself too."

And with that, she was gone, leaving him to do whatever it was he needed to do.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, and keeping a watchful eye on the state of the bath, Ianto tightened his arms around Jack and buried his face in Jack's neck, his new-found isolation allowing him a second of wonderful weakness before he pulled himself together again. All he wanted to do was break down and cry, to scream and shout and rail angrily against the world and every damned person in it. But he couldn't. Not until Jack was better. He knew he had the strength to hold on - he had remained stoic and reserved, unbreakable almost, right up until the point of Lisa's discovery, knowing that he couldn't afford to be anything other than solid. Lisa had needed him. And now Jack needed him too.

With a jerk forward, Jack sprang back into life, his forehead bumping messily against Ianto's jaw and causing his head to jerk back against the bath. A shoot of pain went through Ianto's brain, and he bit his lip with the effort of fighting both the sensation and Jack's panicked thrashings.

"Jack!"

Ianto's voice was firmer than he'd intended it to be, his frustration and fear leaking through the sealed emotional compartment in his brain and into his speech patterns. Even so, it seemed to have the right effect on Jack, as the older man quietened almost immediately, his weight sagging against Ianto and his head resting gently on his shoulder. Taking a breath, forcing the newly replenished blood through his veins, Jack seemed to be willing his body to remain still, holding the panic within himself rather than letting it out.

"I'm sorry…" he whispered, his voice quiet with the effort of holding onto his lucidity.

"Don't," Ianto reached over, keeping Jack steady against him as he switched off the dripping taps. Running one hand through the water, the warmth of it sending a soothing wave rippling through his aching muscles, with the other he took a firm hold of the crook of Jack's elbow.

"D'you think you can stand?"

Jack nodded, the movement so small that Ianto barely registered it, allowing himself to be hauled to his feet and guided gently into the steaming bath. Shedding his clothes as quickly as possible, Ianto slipped in quickly behind him, drawing Jack back to lean against him. The older man seemed to relax slightly as the calm warmth of the water, coupled with the heartbeat he could hear beneath his head, swept slowly through his body, washing away the blood on his skin. Licking his lips tentatively, Jack opened his eyes and raised his chin slightly; Ianto took this to mean that he had something he wanted to say, but couldn't quite find the words.

"Jack…" he began, only to be cut off abruptly.

"I could see myself, Ianto," Jack's voice was hurried, catching against his throat as he tried to force the words out faster than they would come. "I hated it, I hated myself, I just wanted to make everything go away. I thought that if I…if I got rid of the reflection, what I could see, then everything would go back to normal." Jack swallowed hard.

"They're really gone, aren't they?"

Ianto bit his lip, pulling Jack tighter against him, not sure whether to comfort or be truthful. Closing his eyes, he nodded once, brushing his chin against Jack's hair. Tears gathered in the corners of Jack's eyes as his muscles began to tense against Ianto's body.

"I'm broken, Ianto" he whispered, the resignation in his voice sending a shiver of fear through Ianto's spine; the Jack Harkness he knew never gave up. "It's like I'm clinging on to the edge of my sanity and someone keeps stepping on my fingers. Holding on hurts so much, it just feels easier to fall."

The tears slipped from Jack's greyish-blue eyes, trailing down his face and mingling with the reddish colour of the bathwater. Ianto bit the inside of his cheek harder, tasting the copper tang of blood on his tongue, using the distraction to divert the building lump in his throat. Swallowing back the cry that longed to burst from his chest, he spun Jack around as gently as he possibly could, so that his face hovered in front of Ianto's, they're eyes virtually level. The older man's mind was fragile, ready to shatter at any moment, and it was difficult to combine the fragility of his mind with the hardness of his body. The way Ianto saw it, every single inch of Jack was as fragile as glass, no matter how strong he seemed physically.

"I'm not going to let you break," his hand came up to cup the back of Jack's neck, leaning forward so that their foreheads were touching. It was a strange experience; such intimacy with Jack and yet a distinct lack of sexuality. In any other situation, with their bodies bare, lips a hair's-breadth apart and hardly any skin on their bodies that wasn't touching the other man, the results would have been inevitable. But they both knew that the world had shifted dramatically in the past forty-eight hours; the definition of "normal" had changed.

Ianto took another deep breath, mustering as determined a smile as he possibly could.

"We're going to catch you Jack," he whispered firmly. "I promise."

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Once again, thank you for reading. I've been nice today and not left it on an evil cliffhanger; one must have a quota on these things.

If you see any mistakes, or have any concrit, please let me know.

Also, I am trying to write Gwen here as the character that I feel she had the potential to be, had certain writers not got their hands on her; I had very little connection with the canon-Gwen, but there were some moments when I truly liked her, and these are the traits I have focused on in my portrayal of her. A strong, compassionate woman knows when to leave well alone, and this is what the Gwen I am portray here is like. This is the Gwen I would have loved deeply, and I hope you feel the same way about her too; she's not a different character, just portrayed in a different way.

kryptonite, ianto jones, jack/ianto, gwen cooper, jack harkness, slash

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