Cursed

Ianto grabbed his wand and cried, “Stupefy!” 

It had no effect.  Or rather, it did.  Gwen was very clearly out of commission.  But whatever alien was inhabiting her was now using her as a mode of transport.  But whereas before, Gwen had been driving the taxi for the passenger, now it was as though the passenger was driving.  From the backseat.

It was grotesque.  Gwen’s movements were awkward and clumsy as she staggered towards them like an extra from a bad zombie movie.  For a moment, all they could do was stare.  Strangely, it was Owen who remembered himself, first.

“What the actual fuck is going on here?”

Ianto snapped out of his daze and waved his wand.  “Levicorpus!”

Owen yelped as Gwen was hauled up in the air as though a giant, invisible hand had grasped her by one of her ankles.  Her arms swung wildly, but she remained suspended as strange, guttural sounds were expelled with each breath.  Due to the effects of the first spell that Ianto had sent her way, Gwen was not conscious to be aware of tiring; so the alien continued to struggle.

Ianto leaned his head back and sighed, exhausted.

“Are you alright?” Toshiko asked.

“Just need a minute,” Ianto replied, not wanting to alarm them.  He’d never felt so… depleted.  And it felt as though the very marrow in his bones ached.  It wasn’t like the pain from the changes made to his appearance, but it was something he knew it would be unwise to ignore.  It was why he had reached out to Luna.  He’d known as soon as he picked Jack up that he’d overdone it.

He blinked, realizing he’d zoned out as Toshiko explained everything to Owen.  They stayed well away from Gwen as they talked, keeping an eye on Ianto while trying not to let it look like they were doing so.

Ianto was sat on the sofa with Jack cradled in his arms, taking deep breaths and trying to find the wherewithal to get through the next bit.  He leaned down and rested his head against Jack’s, hoping he’d revive, soon.  The panic had not really settled much, though Ianto was beginning to realize that the panic was merely a reaction to the howling emptiness of the silent bond.  Ianto, who usually had a great appreciation for silence (and darkness, for that matter), felt it almost as an assault.  It was the difference between wrapping oneself in a warm, cozy blanket and being violently smothered by one.

“Come on, Love,” he said, his voice low.  “Come back to me.  This hurts rather badly, you know.”

“What?  What hurts?” Owen asked, concerned.

“Nothing physical,” Ianto said.  “Which is a nice change of pace, actually.”  He lifted his head and took another breath.  “When Jack wakes, I’ll have him help explain it.”

“Were you really in pain all the time?” Tosh asked.  Jack had explained to them about the curses, particularly the ones that had changed Ianto.  They had been appalled that he had been in constant pain, and they hadn’t noticed.  He shrugged a shoulder, not really loving the idea of talking about it.  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice quiet and her words attempting to offer sympathy for his pain as well as apology for not seeing it.

“You don’t owe me an apology,” Ianto said, as though he’d read her mind.

“We should have seen,” Owen said, surprising Ianto.  “I should have noticed.”

“You weren’t meant to, and that’s on me,” Ianto replied.  “And even if you had noticed, I couldn’t have told you what was going on.  And your scans couldn’t have picked up the compression, because the scanners don’t know how to look for magic.”

“What’s done is done, then?” Owen asked.  An olive branch.

“What’s done is done,” Ianto nodded, hoping they could draw a line under his deception and their negligence.

In the next moment, Jack drew in a deep, gentle breath and exhaled slowly.  Another breath, and he opened his eyes.  “Ianto,” he sighed.  His eyes grew warm with happiness for the moment it took him to realize something was really off.  The smile faded as a frown formed.  “Ianto?”

“Jack!” Ianto sobbed, pulling his lover close and burying his face in his neck.

“What are you doing here?” Jack’s arms wrapped around Ianto and shifted so he could return the embrace, albeit awkwardly, and felt the younger man shaking in his arms.  He looked up at Owen, the question obvious on his face.

Owen shrugged.  He blew out a breath and then flapped his arms.  “He just bloody appeared!  Out of nowhere!”

“It’s called apparition.  You knew witches and wizards could do that,” Jack frowned, confused.

“Yeah, but knowing that’s not the same as having the Teaboy just pop by with half his flat, is it?” Owen defended.

“Half his flat?” Jack frowned.  He pulled out of Ianto’s embrace and sat up, turning so he could pull his wizard back into his arms.  Ianto allowed the move but wrapped his arms back around Jack as soon as he was resituated.  Looking around, Jack realized that he was sitting on Ianto’s sofa, and there were a lot of familiar items from his flat strewn about on the ground.  “What the hell?”

A loud pop had Owen cursing, his volume increasing as another five pops followed in quick succession.  Luna had arrived, but with her came Ginny and Harry, Ron and Hermione, and George.  They all looked at one another in confusion.

“Ianto texted me,” Luna said, frowning.

“Yeah, about that,” George said, pocketing his wand and looking around.  “I made each of our names into a group on his phone.  Now if he texts one of us, he texts all of us.”

“Wait.  What?” Ianto asked, frowning.

“Just until you’re back on your feet,” George said. 

“What’s going on?” Ginny asked, looking around.  Hermione was approaching Gwen.

“Wait!” Ianto warned.  “Don’t let her… it… touch you!”

“Is this your levicorpus?” Hermione asked.

Ianto vaguely wondered who the hell else’s she thought it could be, but he answered, “Yes,” ignoring the knowing grin Harry was throwing his way.

“What happened here?” Luna asked, looking around.

“Jack and the team were weevil hunting,” Ianto explained, slumping back against Jack, who wrapped an arm around him.  “Jack and Toshiko were working on a way to contain Gwen, who seems to have taken an alien onboard.  I assume Gwen got Jack killed so the alien could take advantage when he revived.  I felt him die, so…”

“Wait!” Owen exclaimed as Toshiko gasped.  “You what?”

“We, ummm,” Ianto looked around helplessly at Jack.

“When the curse that had Ianto spellbound was broken, his magic came loose.  While he was getting it under control, he… helped me.  He made me less… eternal.  And in doing so, we became… joined.  Bonded, I suppose.”  Jack was smiling as he explained, but he pulled Ianto closer, almost defensively, in the face of their incredulous expressions. 

“And that’s… good?” Toshiko asked.

“It’s very good,” Jack assured her with a soft, genuine smile she hadn’t seen before, and she beamed at them.

“Yeah, okay, so you’ve bonded,” Owen said, still focused on what Jack had said.  “And that means he feels it when you die, now?”

“Just like I’d feel it, if he did,” Jack replied, quickly explaining that they were both going to be immortal for the next ten thousand years, or so.

“Jesus, Teaboy,” Owen muttered.  “Nothing by halves.”  Then he shook himself, getting back on track.  “So you felt him die,” he prompted Ianto.

“And I panicked.  It’s… not a good feeling,” he confessed, and Jack pulled him closer and kissed his temple.  “Jack had told me where you were, so I apparated here.”

“But you were afraid of splinching,” Luna sat on the arm of the sofa and put a hand on Ianto’s shoulder.

“And what the hell is that?” Owen asked, doing his best not to freak out.  He was quickly realizing that he had an awful lot to learn if he was going to be a wizard’s doctor, now.

“If a wizard tries to apparate and isn’t completely focused,” Hermione began.

“Or hasn’t done it in a really long time,” Ron put in.

“They can leave part of themselves behind,” Hermione finished, nodding at her husband.

“I splinched one time, during the war,” Ron said, pulling the sleeve of his t-shirt up to show a nasty scar on his upper arm and shoulder.  “Would’ve bled to death, if Hermione hadn’t packed a great deal of Dittany.”

“Jesus,” Owen said, staring at the scar.

“But that didn’t happen here,” Luna said, looking around.  Then she let out a giggle.

“What did happen?” Jack said, watching as the tips of Ianto’s ears turned pink.

“Do you know what you did?” Hermione asked, making a valiant attempt at hiding her grin.

“I was pretty sure I was going to splinch, so I just gathered as much magic towards me as I could manage before I tried apparating.”

“And rather than leaving something behind, you brought a few things along, instead,” Harry said, trying not to laugh.  George, Ron, and Ginny had no such scruples.

“An anti-splinch!” George exclaimed.

“You try doing something so complicated after not having done anything in so long,” Ianto groused.

“Actually, you did very well, Smoke,” Luna assured him, sending a cross look to the others.  “But I imagine it took a lot out of you.”

Ianto closed his eyes and nodded.

“Then what happened?” Ginny asked.

I got Jack away from Gwen and brought him over here,” Ianto said, but Luna cut in.

“Wait.  You carried him?” she asked, then shook her head when he answered in the affirmative.  “Smoke,” she chided.

“And then Gwen went a bit mad,” Toshiko added, wondering why they were all looking at Ianto with such concern, now.  “Came screeching at us.”

“I used stupefy, and it knocked Gwen out, but the alien took over and kept her coming at us, so…”

“So you used levicorpus,” Hermione nodded.  “Good thinking.  And solid spell-casting.  That’s not going to weaken anytime soon.”

“That’s a lot of magic when you’re so depleted, Smoke,” Ginny said, her voice holding a gentle reproach.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Ianto replied.  “The panic didn’t really start to subside until Jack revived, so I was mostly just operating on instinct.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jack said, his voice soft as he kissed Ianto again.

“Better, now,” Ianto answered as he rested his face in the crook of Jack’s neck, utterly unselfconscious in front of the others.  Tosh and Owen exchanged a look.  Ianto took a few deep breaths before sitting back and looking at the others.  “Right.  Since you’re all here – George, Harry, and Ron, can you help Owen get the weevils into the boot?  Excellent.

“Now…  No, Jack, you stay here with me.  You’re still a bit wobbly.  Nag, come sit with us.  Bunny?  I think we need you and Hermione to help see if there’s any way to get that thing out of Gwen.”

Jack had been about to argue, but he did feel wobbly, which he would have ignored, but Ianto very clearly did not want him to move, and that was fair.  He was well aware how much Gwen convincing him to stay had hurt Ianto, and even though it had been unwittingly done, he was still filled with sorrow and remorse for the pain he had caused.  He pulled his lover closer and held him as Luna and Hermione cast spells in Gwen’s direction.

In the next moment, Luna cried, “Hermione, no!” just as Hermione incanted.

“Legilimens!”

Luna cast a shield charm in front of Hermione, and almost instantly something bounced off of the shield with a loud crack.  Almost at once, something black and tar-like extruded from Gwen and sped towards Hermione.  Ianto and Ginny joined in, wrapping the thing in more layers of shielding as Hermione did the same and the others came running back.  Soon the thing was encased in seven layers of charms.

“Hermione, what were you thinking?” Luna asked in an uncharacteristic fit of pique.

“I was trying to…”

“You were trying to read an alien that is able to attack and feed on memories.  You’re damned lucky it didn’t invade your mind through the spell!”

“It… could have done that?” Hermione asked, looking rattled. 

“It was trying to do that, but I got the shield in place in time, so it came at you physically, instead.”

“Thank you, Luna,” Hermione said, looking suitably chastised and entirely grateful.

“Bloody Aurors, thinking they know everything and stomping around, trying to get their brains eaten,” Luna muttered, stepping around the shielded creature and towards Gwen.

“I can hear you, you know,” Hermione grumbled.

“Yes,” Luna said, her voice abstracted.  Ginny and Ianto grinned at one another. 

***