Cursed

Jack tried to contain his disappointment.  For a moment, he had thought that maybe they could help him.  He sighed and forged ahead.  “So the vortex, the thing that brings me back when I die and helps me heal quickly when I’ve been injured - it takes the sting out of most spells that have been thrown my way.”

“Really?” Hermione asked.  “Like what?  Can you show us?”

“Hermione,” Harry protested with a chuckle.

“Knock yourself out,” Jack grinned.  He gently let go of Ianto’s hand and stood clear of the bed.

Hermione raised her wand.  “Stupefy!”

Jack felt a sort of denseness, like he was walking through gelatin, but then it cleared.

“Wow,” Ron enthused, his eyes wide.

Bill looked thoughtful.  “You said ‘most spells’.”

“The green abracadabra one works well enough, and the crucible one,” Jack shivered.

Bill nodded thoughtfully.  “I think maybe it’s the difference between spells and curses.  The vortex sort of shields you by absorbing the energy from regular spells.  But curses tap into whatever darkness they find.  They feed on our fears and insecurities.  That’s what makes them so insidious.”

Jack nodded.  It made sense, and he felt a strange comfort in the fact that it was a very human thing, to be vulnerable to curses.  The fact that his heart had not yet hardened to such a degree that he was impervious to fear was strangely reassuring, though it was deeply upsetting that the curses had been able to use him against Ianto.

He turned back to Ianto.  “Why isn’t he coming around?” he asked quietly.

Hermione walked closer and stood next to Jack, looking down at Ianto.  “He let us ask all of those questions, took all of that punishment, knowing he had already swallowed the poison.”

“He didn’t think you’d be able to help him,” Jack realized.

“I wonder how far we’ve gotten in the past, before turning on him,” she said sadly.

“Surely not this far,” Jack frowned.

“I wouldn’t think so.  But we can safely assume he wasn’t thinking clearly, anyway.”

“True,” Jack conceded.  “So he was stalling.”

“Yes.  And the Healers have taken care of the poison in his system, but they have ensured that he will stay out until he has had a chance to heal some, from the damage it did.”

“How long will that take?”

“At least overnight.  We can’t start on breaking the curses until he is strong enough.”

“It’s not going to be pleasant, is it?”

“Curse-breaking never is,” Bill said, joining their conversation.  “If he wasn’t suicidal, I’d be giving him a week or two to recover before starting the process.  But like we were talking about before, just as fear feeds the curses, so does despair.”  He shook his head.  “It would be more dangerous to wait, I think.”

“I agree,” Hermione nodded.  “You didn’t see him, Bill.  Talking so calmly about Torchwood giving his body to us so we could learn from the curses, after he was dead.”  She shuddered.

“Like he was talking about the weather,” Ron nodded, looking haunted.

“Look,” Bill said, interrupting their train of thought.  “Everyone go and get a few hours’ sleep.  We’ve mapped out our plan.  I’ll check my place for supplies, and stop for anything I don’t have on my way in tomorrow morning.  We’ll get started, first thing.”

“I’m not leaving,” Jack turned back to the bed and took Ianto’s hand, again.

“No one is asking you to, mate,” Ron said, “but you should try to get some sleep, yeah?”

“I don’t need much sleep,” Jack muttered.

In the end, they had no choice but to conjure a comfortable chair within easy reach of the bed and leave Jack to his vigil.

***

As Jack had guessed, breaking the curses was neither an easy process nor a pleasant one.  The first one, which Bill referred to as the capstone, was the strongest, and it did the most damage, before it could be broken.  Ianto screamed in agony as his skin was torn open faster than the Healers could mend him.

Jack held him steady, at one point climbing into the bed and holding him as still as he could manage as the others used various potions and tinctures and incenses and objects as they recited strange incantations.

After many hours of relentless effort, Ianto howled in pain as his chest was torn open, once more.  But rather than blood, something oily and black oozed from his wounds.  Being careful not to allow the substance to touch anything or anyone else, Bill cleared the remnants of the curse from Ianto’s body as he collapsed back against Jack.

“Jack,” he whispered, turning his head so he could see his lover.

“Ianto,” Jack replied, kissing the younger man’s sweaty brow.  At this point, Ianto was covered in every kind of bodily fluid except the fun kind.  The Healers were getting him cleaned up, mending his wounds and cleaning the blood and piss from the bed and his skin.  Next, they would dress him and move him to another bed, but it would be some moments before that could happen.

Jack took the opportunity to gently wipe the mucous and tears from Ianto’s face.  When he was done, Hermione took the handkerchief and handed him a cool cloth to run over the Ianto’s scorching skin.

“He’s burning up,” Jack muttered as Ianto raised a hand weakly to stroke Jack’s cheek.  Jack caught the elegant hand and held it to his face. 

“Jack,” Ianto said again, and it seemed he was barely hanging onto consciousness.

“What can I do, Love?” he asked, kissing the hand before releasing it.

“Please,” Ianto whispered, then licked his lips. 

Ron handed Jack a glass of water, and he helped Ianto to drink.

“Please?” Jack asked, wondering what Ianto needed.

“Please,” Ianto said, the water making his voice a bit less scratchy.  “Please, just kill me.”

“Oh, Ianto,” Jack pulled him closer, ignoring the protests of the Healers.  “Please don’t give up,” he whispered.  “We’ll get you through this, and I’ll be with you every second.  And you’ll be so glad you endured.  It will be worth this pain.  I’ll make sure you don’t regret it.”

Ianto let out a sob.  “’m so tired, Jack.  And it hurts, so much.”

“I know, Love.  I know it does.  But it’s going to be okay.”

Ianto had gone very still.  He looked up into Jack’s eyes.  “I don’t think you should call me that, Sir,” he said composedly, but his too-calm voice was belied by his haggard expression.  “May give me the wrong idea.”

Jack frowned.  “What?”

“Just…” Ianto wheezed as the effort of speaking became too taxing.  “Is jus’ sex…  You’ll nev’r feel disway ‘bout me,” he closed his eyes and rested his head against Jack’s chest.

“What way, Ianto?” Jack asked gently, ignoring Hermione’s hiss and Harry’s protest.  “Like you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something, given the years I’ve lived and the places I’ve been?”

Ianto’s eyes flew open and he leaned back to stare at Jack, startled.

“Like all of time and space couldn’t compete with the chance to come back here and get closer to you?”

Jack smiled.  He remembered it being harder.  Like being skinned alive, as he’d recalled.  That’s why he hadn’t done it, in so long.  But not this.  This was easy.  Nothing had ever been easier than rekindling that spark of hope in his lover’s eyes.

Why had he resisted this, for so long?

He could blame the curse, but he knew it was his own fear and foolishness. 

So much wasted time…

He sniffed.  “Like one day you’ll leave me and I’ll have to figure out how to live in a world without comfort or beauty or light?”

“Jack,” Ianto reached up and caught one of Jack’s tears, brushing it away with a trembling thumb.

“Don’t let today be that day, Ianto,” Jack’s whisper didn’t hide the pleading in his tone.  “Please don’t leave me.”

“’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.  Just know you don’t have to do this alone.  I’m here.”

“So tired, Jack.”

“I know.  You rest, now.  Your friends have got this all figured out, and you’re going to feel better, sooner than you think.  You just need to hold on.”

“’ll try,” Ianto muttered, garbling his words as he fell asleep speaking them.

Jack looked up at the others.  “Tell me I didn’t just lie to him.”

Bill was casting charms to read Ianto.  He shook his head and gave a tired smile.  “You didn’t.”

Hermione smiled, as well.  “Didn’t you notice?  He asked for something.”

“He asked for me to kill him,” Jack said, glaring at her.

“And you didn’t lash out, nor did you oblige him,” she said, and they all shared a smile of realization and relief.

Bill put his wand away.  “He’s exhausted and extremely weak.  Let the Healers get him cleaned up.  Hopefully he’ll sleep and can manage some food, when he wakes.  Like Hermione said, the capstone is gone.  We can take care of all the in-between ones tomorrow, and after more rest we can tackle the binding.”

Once the Healers cleaned Ianto up, put him in fresh robes, and settled him into a new bed, Jack sat and simply watched him until Bill and Hermione convinced him to step across the room to have some food.

“Jack, you need to think of the long game, here,” Bill admonished.  “He’s going to be okay, but it will take time.  He’s going to need you, and if you wear yourself out now, you won’t be of any use to him, as he recovers.”

As they ate, Hermione broached the next subject.  “I think we should wait until all of the curses have been broken and the binding has been lifted and he recovers a bit before we tell his grandmother that we’ve found him.”

“He’s always spoken of her with such fondness,” Jack said.  Then he looked around the table they were crowded around.  “What?”

“That woman is one of the most terrifying witches you’ll ever meet,” Ron chuckled.

“She can be... intimidating,” Hermione admitted.

“He never told me what happened to his parents,” Jack said quietly.  “I know it wasn’t good, though, and I know that she raised him.  Despite the effects of the curse, he loves her dearly.  I know he’ll be glad to see her.”

The four friends exchanged looks for what seemed to Jack to be a long, extended moment.  Ron nodded enthusiastically, Harry shrugged, and Bill gave a small nod after a long moment’s thought.  Hermione sighed, realizing she had been elected to explain.

After a few questions, she determined that Jack knew a good deal about the First Wizarding War and had even known some members of the Order of the Phoenix.  He had met Frank and Alice Longbottom but hadn’t known them well.  He knew that death eaters had caught them, but Hermione explained the full horror of their fate.

“They’re actually here, at St. Mungo’s,” she explained.

“And they probably haven’t let him in to visit them, because no one recognized him,” Jack shook his head sadly.  “I know that has hurt him, just by how he speaks of them, how he says he misses seeing them.  I never understood why he missed his family so, when it was clear they were still alive.”

“Bloody C…” Hermione slapped a hand over Ron’s mouth and hissed at him to not say their names, yet.  He looked abashed as she removed her hand, but he finished his thought.  “They took everything from him, didn’t they?”

Harry nodded.

***