Cursed

Jack dreamt of mongooses.  Or was it mongeese?  He could never remember.  Maybe it was both.  Or rather, either.  These thoughts were soon crowded out by the incessant hissing that followed him from his sleep, long after the multiplicity of mongoose-shaped mammals retreated, along with whatever the dream had been.  Only the strange sound remained.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked around, seeing Hermione, Ron, and Harry in a fierce, whispered argument.  He could feel Bill and Susan behind him, doubtless reading runes as they checked Ianto’s condition.

“Problem?” he croaked, rolling very slightly away from Ianto and sitting up on an elbow.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Hermione was now hissing at him.

“Huh?” he blinked, feeling a bit slow and stupid.  He sat up so he could flip open his vortex manipulator and saw that he had slept another two hours, and his vitals were stronger than they had been, before.

“Naked!” she seethed.

“Hermione,” Ron groaned.

“No, don’t ‘Hermione’ me,” she turned on Ron.  “You know his reputation.  What is he doing?  Neville is unconscious!”

“Actually,” Jack closed his vortex manipulator, giving a sigh of relief, “I think you’ll find that Ianto is asleep.  His body temperature has regulated, and he is resting far more comfortably than he was, before.”

Hermione looked from Jack to Susan, whose runes had just shimmered out of sight. 

“He’s right,” Susan smiled.  “That strange bout of shock seems to have passed.”

“Shock?” Jack looked at her as she stepped around to the foot of the bed so he could see her without twisting around.

“What do you remember, Captain Harkness?” Susan asked politely.

“Jack, please,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face.  In a rare show of modesty (or perhaps taking Hermione’s assumption of bad behavior to heart), he kept the sheet pooled in his lap but adjusted the blanket so it covered Ianto’s bare back and shoulder, not wanting his lover to catch a chill.

Bill handed him a glass of water, and once he drank, he described kissing Ianto, and the vortex flowing through him and into Ianto.  He described the shift he’d felt as Ianto reclaimed his magic.

“What else?” Bill asked gently.  “As soon as Ianto had his magic back, something shifted.  It went from you focusing the energy to Ianto taking control.”

“I don’t know,” Jack closed his eyes and shook his head.  “I mean, I know what it felt like, but you said you didn’t think there was anything…”

“…to be done about your immortality?” Bill finished for him, and Jack nodded miserably, still not daring to hope.  “What did it feel like?” he asked kindly.

“It was probably just that you were talking about windows and doors, and me realizing that my window had been made into what felt like a barn door.  But it felt like it… shrank.  Back down to the size of a small window, again.  And then…”

Bill handed Jack the water again, to give him a moment.  After he took the glass back, he prompted in a quiet voice, “And then…”

“And then the window closed.  I…  I felt Ianto’s hand on the sash, gently lowering it.”  He sighed.  “That’s when the kiss ended.”

“And how do you feel, now?” Bill asked.  Clearly, he had asked the others to let him lead this discussion, though Hermione seemed to be struggling not to ask more questions, herself.

Jack thought carefully.  “Shaky.  Off-balance.  Exhausted.”

“If it helps,” Susan said, grabbing Jack’s attention, “I think the exhaustion is a basic muggle response to all of the curses.  You were directly exposed, after all, and vortex or not, that takes a toll.  We’re all pretty worn out, too.”

Jack nodded, then looked back at Ianto, again.  Suddenly, he didn’t care what had happened to him.  “How is he?”

“I thought you knew,” Hermione snarked.

“What is your problem?” Harry challenged his old friend.

“Oh, so you think it’s appropriate that he got them both naked and in the same bed, while Nev… Ianto was unconscious?”

“Where I come from, we aren’t prudish about nudity,” Jack snapped, “and not all nudity is sexual.  Skin-to-skin contact is known to help settle the system.”  He gave her a glare before adding, “Believe it or not, I do find it inappropriate to have sex with an unconscious person.  I saw him shivering, and I knew I could help.  And as soon as I got in bed with him, he settled.”

Hermione had deflated.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “You’re right.  I’m just…  Susan’s right.  We’re all worn out.  And worried.”

“Worried?” Jack looked quickly back to Susan.

“As far as we can tell, he’s all right,” she assured him.  “He’s been impacted by… well, everything, so we need to assess him thoroughly, once he wakens.  But it does take us back to what he did for you.”

“What?  Why?”  Jack felt thoroughly confused.  “Look, it doesn’t matter what happened to me.  I was probably dreaming it, anyway, because of our earlier discussion.  Tell me what’s going on with Ianto, though.”

“We’re trying to,” she chuckled.  “I’ve told you he’s all right, so just try to hold onto that and be calm, all right?  Let us explain.”

Jack rubbed his face again, then nodded.

“I don’t think there’s any other way to say this, Jack,” Bill began.  “I believe your perception of what happened is correct.  You’re no longer channeling the vortex.”

Jack’s eyes snapped to Bill.  “What does that mean?” he asked.

Bill sighed.  “It means that you are no longer… endless.”

“So… the immortality is gone?”

“Sort of,” Bill answered.  At Jack’s look of confusion, he added, “You’re still filled to the brim with vortex, rather than having just a spark.  So you’re still mostly immortal.  Just… not as immortal as you were.”

“What?” Jack’s head was spinning, now.

Bill sat at the foot of the bed, next to Jack’s feet.  “Look, you had the vortex continuously running a circuit through your body.  It poured in through the expanded window, circulated through your system, then back out again.  An endless loop, an endless supply.”

“And now?”

“Now you are full of the energy, still running a loop, but it’s a closed loop.  There’s no endless source.  All that’s there in your body is all there is.  So if you die, you’ll continue to revive, but only until it’s used up, because it can no longer replenish itself.”  Bill hesitated before adding, “Given how much there is, that will take a pretty long time.”

Jack was looking at Bill, unable to hide the raw hope in his eyes.  “How long is ‘a pretty long time’?”

“Depends on how often you die,” Bill answered.  “At the rate you’ve been aging, I’d estimate at least a myriad, maybe a bit more.”

“Ten thousand years,” Jack muttered, shaking his head, almost disappointed at the size of that number.  But then he blinked, realizing he was no longer facing forever.  No longer billions of years.  It was… still a really long time, but it wasn’t endless.  But… 

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“You had unlimited access to the vortex, and you established a connection with Ianto.  Once he had his magic, he kept the connection open.  The vortex continued to pour through you and into him.  Before he closed your window, both of you were, for lack of a better way of saying it, filled up.”

“You mean, he’s like this too, now?” Jack felt a bit sick.

“Jack, it is very clear that he knew precisely what he was doing.  He may not have known exactly what the consequences would be, but he knew enough, and he accepted that, to do this for you.”

“But…”

“No buts,” Hermione said, reaching out and taking his hand, her earlier annoyance forgotten.  “He couldn’t have healed and then closed your window accidentally.  He knew what he was doing.  And he’s a smart enough man and talented enough wizard to know there will be consequences.  Clearly, he accepted them, because he went through with it, anyway.”

“On the plus side, he can’t be suicidal, anymore,” Ron smiled.

Jack just looked at him.  “Shall I tell you how many times I killed myself, how creative I got in my attempts, simply trying to find a way to make it stick?  If anything, this is worse, as far as that goes.”

“We will help him with that,” Susan assured him.  “He was suicidal because he despaired of ever being free of the curses.  But now he’s free, so we just need to help soothe the damage from the trauma and despair.”

“That easy, is it?” Jack asked sharply.

“I don’t see any point in apologizing for the physiology of wizards being more amenable to such cures,” Susan rejoined, her tone both firm and gentle.  “I hope you can take some comfort in our ability to ease some of his suffering.”

“Of course,” Jack sighed.  He felt exhausted.  “But we were supposed to be helping him,” he frowned.  “How did this become about me?”

“He probably heard us talking about the vortex,” Harry shrugged.  “And this was the only possible moment something like this could have happened.”  He looked from Bill to Hermione.  “Right?”

They both nodded.

“What does that mean?” Jack asked.

“The only time you could have been healed was while there was a direct and active connection between you and someone who knew how to do it.  The vortex would have to be flowing between you,” Bill replied.  “And his magic would have to be unmoored, which makes it wilder and more dangerous, but also more powerful.  His magic didn’t fully anchor until you joined him in the bed.”

Jack nodded, beginning to understand.  “So how did he do it?”

“Through the connection you established,” Hermione said.

“Wait.  That I established?”

“Ah,” Bill nodded.  “You didn’t realize, did you?  You were just pouring vortex energy towards him.  But he grabbed onto it, like a rope.  And he held onto it.  Used it to backtrack to the source, and do the healing.  It…” he hesitated.  “It’s still there.  The connection.”

Jack nodded.  He could feel it, a lovely, thrumming, aliveness that connected him to Ianto.  It was beautiful and terrifying, and he wanted nothing more in that moment than to talk to Ianto about it.

“Is it dangerous?” he asked.  “To Ianto?”

Bill shook his head.  “No, of course not.  It’s made up of the purest and strongest parts of you both.  It looks like strands of magic and vortex, braided together.  It’s quite beautiful, actually.”

“How does it… work?” Jack asked.  At their blank looks, he tried again.  “If we’re tied together, can we move apart, at all?”

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest, but Bill chuckled, replying, “You’re not physically tied to one another, no.  You can both move freely, independently of one another.  I imagine if you were so inclined, you’d never have to see one another again, and the connection would just be there, but it wouldn’t interfere.”

***