Fic, FAITHFUL, 15/33?: The Helping Hand

[loveslashangst]

Story: Faithful
Author: Melinda Kitty melindakitty
Beta: the incredibly-tense ophymirage
Characters: Captain Jack Harkness, Captain John Hart, Ianto Jones
Rated: Adult for slash, bisexuality, mature content, language, violence, Weevil whoop-ass, and lots and lots of sex (multiple pairings/groupings)
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did there would be no doubt who Jack came back for, Gwen would stick with the man who loves her, we'd have regular doses of Unexpected!John, and everyone would cheer the f*** up.
Spoilers: AU. If you haven't seen the first two series of Torchwood, you WILL be spoilered. I like to mess with canon, especially when it pisses me off. The PROLOGUE takes place right after "Countrycide" in series 1. The rest of the story, from Chapter 1 on, takes place about three weeks after "Exit Wounds", the end of Series 2.
Summary: Torchwood OT3 ZOMG! Jack/John/Ianto. The Rift is active, the Weevils are acting weird, and Captain John Hart is back in town. Let the crack-tastic smut ensue. I think there's a happily ever after in here somewhere, but until then, enjoy the insanity.
Companion fanart for this piece by the awesome love_jackianto can be found here!

Okay, so here's the dealio...

I'll be up at PitchFest this weekend, peddling my ready-for-primetime work, so the next chapter of Faithful won't be up until Wednesday. I have to finish my fellowship app by Friday, so the best I can do is say that after the 13th, I'll try to have a second chapter in one week. We'll see how it goes.

The sheer love and support I get for my Whovian fic (esp. the Torchwood OT3 ZOMG!) is amazing. I haven't responded to most comments yet due to time restrictions, but know that I read and appreciate everything and I will get to you eventually. My fen make this worth doing, again and again. Thank you all for your enthusiasm and your patience.

And hells yeah, I'm lookin' forward to the "John gets laid lots to save the universe" scenes that are next on the docket. Methinks Ianto hath protested too much.

WARNING: I try to stay away from graphic violence, but there is a bit of squick in here. Apologies, but if you read my work you also know that I always try to infuse a bit of reality into these works of fantasy.

THANKS!!!

On with the show...

"I never miss a thing.
I've had the measles and the mumps.

"And every time I play an ace,
my partner always trumps.

"I guess I'm just a fool,
who never looks before he jumps.

"Everything happens to me..."
(Chet Baker)

(In which Ianto gives John a hand.)



The concussive wave shatters the air. Jack goes limp above Ianto, a sudden weight that presses him into the pitch. The force of the blast rattles Ianto's brain in his skull. He lays still for a moment. Breathes hard. Waits until his eyes can focus the blur before him. (Hart. Hart was at the centre of that explosion. Hart, who'd just had his...)

Ianto swallows hard against memories of blood spattering. "Gwen?"

She's face-down beside him, face toward him. He wriggles an arm out from under Jack. (Who will likely gasp his way back to consciousness in another minute.) The skin of Gwen's neck is slightly cold and clammy, but her pulse is steady and strong. He holds his hand before her lips. Steady, warm breath. She'll be all right.

(Hart was at the centre. Hart, who had some kind of grenade as a last resort. Hart, who fought like the wrath of God.) Ianto forces the panic back into a remote corner of his mind. Carefully rolls Jack off him. Presses a quick and grateful kiss to his forehead. Gets unsteadily to his feet. (Feels like he's just ridden the coaster at Pleasure Beach after downing a fifth pint of lager.)

Hart. The Kapo damn near ripped Hart in half with those arm spikes. An abdominal wound like that will bleed out quickly: too many exposed surfaces that aren't designed to be exposed. If the shock and blood-loss don't kill him, the contamination from all the bacteria in his gut will. (Intestines are closed organs for a reason.)

Ianto's only half aware of running across the pitch to the prone form that writhes in agony. His own body feels the bad kind of floaty, which means he's probably in shock too. The stench of blood and half-digested shit hits him in waves the closer he gets. Yup. Gut shot. Those are the worst.

(And Owen is gone. No doctor to talk him through whatever he's going to do to keep Hart from dying in his arms.)

Focus. Don't give in to panic. No point worrying about what can't be helped. Ianto summons what little knowledge of triage he's picked up over the years at Torchwood. (Torchwood 1 had a more coherent training program for field medicine, though -- in Jack's defence -- they also had more need of it. Come to think of it, those who pissed off Yvonne tended to find themselves on assignments for which there was no guarantee of any kind of aid in case of traumatic injury.)

He is not going to lose Hart. Not now. Not like this. (If you die on me now, Captain, so help me, I'll kill you.)

Ianto swallows the emotion. Takes off his coat, which hardly qualifies as sterile, but which may serve to stanch the flow of blood and gore. He turns the coat inside out. Folds it as he kneels at Hart's side. The Captain's eyes are dilated. He breathes in shallow gasps.

(... Darcy's blood splashing his face...Lisa's scream of agony as Myfanwy tore her apart... Tosh's half-smile as Jack held her for the last time...)

No. Not this time. Ianto presses the folded coat, firmly but gently, into the gaping wound. ("Piss poor first aid," Owen would have said.) The viscera give with a nauseating squish. He takes Hart's hand. Presses it against the coat. "Captain. I need you to talk to me. Do you know what's happened to you?"

"My... arm..." Hart murmurs. Blood runs from the corner of his mouth. "...my... arm..."

"It'll be all right." He's talking to reassure himself more than to the injured man -- he is NOT going to say "dying". Hart is not dying.

He'll think of something.

"...my.... arm..." Hart's voice is so soft it takes Ianto a moment to realize that his right arm is severed from the elbow down. More blood. More bleeding. (... and the hot shock of fresh blood hitting Ianto's black denim jeans as Darcy's scream went silent...)

He forces down the memories with a stern mental shake. Darcy is dead. Tosh is gone. Lisa couldn't be saved. Focus. Save this man. Here. Now. Forget the past. He loosens his tie. Loops it around the stump of John's arm. Jerks it tight to stay the unsettling gushes of blood.

Hart gasps. "My... arm..."

"I'm sorry, Captain" he says. "Lay still. Jack will be here in a moment." (... the odd little room where he'd stored the heavy equipment that kept Lisa alive, its air thick with the smell of her blood... the thick slickness of blood on his hands, like tangible guilt...)

"My... arm..."

Ianto swallows hard against the memories. "It's gone, Captain"

Hart manages an anaemic glare. "No... not 'oh God, my arm's off'..." He gasps hard. Presses the coat against his own ruined abdomen. "Go GET my arm..." He catches Ianto's eyes. Another breathless inhale. "Nanogenes."

"But your arm's off," Ianto says.

"No it isn't," Hart mutters with a fleeting smile.

"Yes it is." He cannot be having this conversation.

"It's only a flesh wound..." Hart sobers, his eyes still dilated. "The nanogenes... can reattach it..." The anaemic glare is stronger this time. "Will you... please shut up... and go get it... before I bleed to death?"

Relief a dizzying rush, Ianto stumbles to his feet. Forces his stomach not to rebel when he finds the severed limb, a few metres away on the grass. He picks it up gingerly by the wrist.

It's still warm.

He refuses to think too hard as he hurries back to Hart's side. The painful tension in his throat is not so much for the ones he lost as for this one -- the one he might yet save.

He's barely himself as Hart talks him through the complex sequence that opens the subdermal container. ("Count in three bumps on the top row..." "...second sequence like the first, only..." "...doing fine, Ifan, just one more to go...") Full shock sets in, which means all his movements feel bizarre and dreamlike, as though he's a passenger in someone else's body. (Though that obsessive-compulsive part of his mind does memorize the sequence, just on the chance they need it again someday.)

"Ifan." Hart's voice is calm. Reassuring. When he meets that level blue-grey gaze, Hart gives a half-smile. "I'm not going to die today, Ifan."

Nodding like he might actually believe him, Ianto presses the last subdermal switch. (Oh, the cooling flesh below the wrist is creepy. Somehow proper corpses are less disturbing.) When the golden cloud envelops them both, Ianto's ears thrum with the humming rush of blood. The world spins around him.

The sudden pain of Hart's hard fingers gripping his arm brings Ianto back to himself. "Stay with me, Ifan." Again, the look is level and soothing as the hand loosens. "I know I'm asking a lot of you, but I really need you not to faint."

He shakes himself. Nods. Blinks hard as the world makes one more unsettling revolution before the spinning stops. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Hart arches, spine bowing in pain, then collapses, panting. "Set the arm by what's left of my elbow," he says. "Little bastards will match the DNA and get a clue."

His hands shake violently as he lays the limb down. Within moments, a cloud of gold envelops it and the nanogenes begin their miracle. Ianto has to stop watching about the time that tendrils of half-formed bone and muscle pull the severed arm closer. He shuts his eyes and commands the contents of his stomach to remain where they are.

Hart bites back a muffled scream. "Fucking regeneration," he snarls. "God, I forgot how much I hate feeling my guts knit." He presses the coat harder against his belly. "Hurry up, you sodding bast--" Eyes wide, he loses the rest in a painful gasp. "Oh, now that was just vindictive."

Even as his vision blurs in and out of grey, Ianto prays silently to a God he no longer believes in. (Please let this work. Please don't let him die.)

"Jack!" Gwen's voice startles him out of his thoughts. He glances away from Hart just long enough to see her lean over Jack. Sure enough, at that moment Jack gasps painfully back to consciousness.

"Gwen?" Ianto lets her name ask all the questions for him.

She darts him a glance. Smiles slightly. Nods. "Fine. How's Vera?"

"John," says Hart tersely. "My fucking name is John and oh SHITMOTHERFUCKGODDAMMIT THAT HURTS!" He kicks the grass with one booted heel. "Igors, you lying -- next time I see you I'm going to shove your malfunctioning merchandise up your--!" the rant dissolves into a very theatrical groan, "oh, SHIT!" Ianto leans over him, pressing the coat against a wound that no longer squishes quite so unsettlingly.

He looks across to Gwen again. "Vera's been better."

The arched eyebrow says it all. She helps Jack sit up. Jack shakes himself. Glances over at Ianto. All the blood drains from his face when he sees Hart.

Ianto smiles reassurance, though the repairs to Hart's ruined arm are still a bit too graphic to watch. "He's alive."

Jack moves faster than Ianto's ever seen. Kneels at Hart's side. "John."

"Hi, honey," says Hart darkly. "Bad day at the office." He pulls the coat away long enough to check the wound. Grimaces. "Eugh."

Jack is a helpless mix of his trademark grin, near-tears and hands that can't seem to stop touching Hart's chest and shoulders. "You always have to look, don't you?"

"You know me..." Hart groans again, though not as painfully as last time. "Glutton for punishment." Pain blunts the edge on the mocking smile. "It's why I fell for you."

Jack glances up, all business. "Gwen. With me."

"But..." She gestures at the prone Weevils around them and the lowing ones across the pitch.

"They'll keep." There is no room for argument when Jack takes that tone. "With me."

With a helpless shrug to Ianto, Gwen jogs after Jack.

Hart pulls the coat away again. Looks. "Actually, that's kind of neat to watch."

When Hart displays the half-healed laceration, the red of his living viscera still visible, the world spins around Ianto and goes black.

It must only be a few minutes until he comes to. Hart is gently patting his cheek, crooning to him.

"Sorry," he manages. Hart's close to him. Bending over him. Holding him. "Your... arm?"

Hart holds up his right hand, which is now very much attached and alive and moving and the world spins around him again.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Hart says. "Stay with me, Ifan. Stay..."

He clings to Hart's shoulder. Hart pulls him onto his lap. Alive. He's alive. In spite of the blood and the gore and the pain, he's alive.

"I ruined your jeans." Hart actually sounds sorry. "Shirt too. And -- shit, now I -- I'm sorry about the tie. It was a nice tie."

He stares at Hart. (He can't have just apologized for ruining clothing while his body's still half-healed and they both reek of--.) Ianto begins to laugh. Laughs until laughter turns to tears. Pulls Hart down. Kisses him so hard Hart's arms tighten around him in surprise.

And Ianto tastes him until he begins to forget where he ends and Hart begins.

They part only long enough for him to enunciate, "Fuck the laundry, Captain."

"Whatever turns you on." Hart is smiling as they resume the snog.

He fights Hart for control. Overpowers him. Presses Hart back onto the grass. Straddles his hips. Presses his wrists (including the reattached one, which would be utterly creepy if he thinks too hard about it) to the sod. Possesses his mouth. Abandons all pretence that this is anything other than relief and lust and need and the kind of raw sex that comes of having just survived impossible odds.

When he pulls back, Hart is looking at him with a curious kind of tenderness. "I love you too."

He's holding the man down like he hasn't just fought his way back from the brink. Blushing, Ianto lets Hart's hands go. Braces himself on his forearms. Leans down. Kisses Hart again, more gently this time. Hart's hands are firm at his back. Testing at first. More insistent as Ianto abandons whatever sanity he has left.

Eventually, Hart cups his face in his hands. Pulls him gently away. Caresses his cheeks with his thumbs.

And something in Ianto's chest hurts in a good way.

"Performing a little CPR?" The light tone of Jack's voice only barely covers the scathing rebuke underneath.

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Link to previous Faithful!Verse stories

Crossposted to jackxianto, torchwoodslash