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Are gathering around me/Like starlings in the wind
Dark shapes gather round
Voices like my brother's/Are whispering to me
But I don't know these others/Who want to set me free
- Duran Duran, "Chains"
Jack woke in a cold sweat. He had a pounding headache and his stomach was in knots. He brought his right hand up to rub over his face and moved to wrap his left around his waist. When it didn't move he began to panic.
Not again, not again, not again, not again, not again.
He tugged again and his arm slipped from under the heavy weight and he heard a sleepy, "hmmm?" from his left.
Jack fell back against the pillows, his head spinning, his stomach getting worse. Ianto had rolled over onto his arm, nothing more. Nothing sinister. Nothing he couldn't get free from.
He flexed his hand as circulation returned and that horrid pins and needles sensation shot through him. His stomach lurched as he remembered being electrocuted as he hung from chains again.
Jack rolled off the bed and dragged himself to the bathroom, barely getting the door closed behind him before he began retching into the toilet. His arm still throbbed and his head was pounding and his legs were beginning to jelly. He was only vaguely aware of Ianto shouting through the door, probably asking if he was okay. He tried to find the strength and breath to holler back that he'd be fine in a minute, but found himself sagging against the wall and sliding to the floor.
Everything was demanding his full attention at once. His grief over Tosh and Owen. His anger, his relief, his profound misery over Grey. The knowledge that the remnants of his team – including Ianto who was still hollering through the door for him, and starting to sound a bit hysterical – needed him to be strong. So much. So much pain and loss and confusion and fear in the time since he'd returned from being with the Doctor. Not that that had been a picnic either. His brain bounced between memories of being chained by the Master and the chained by John like psychotic ping-pong ball.
Distantly he heard the toilet flush and the tap go on and off. He sagged towards the floor, but was caught by a pair of strong hands and when he was finally allowed to continue his slide to horizontalness, he found his head resting on Ianto's lap. Ianto gently sponged off Jack's face and neck before tossing the flannel into the sink and running his fingers through Jack's sweat-soaked hair. "Anything else I can do?" he asked softly.
Jack just curled his hand around Ianto's thigh next to where his cheek rested. After a minute he was finally able to mutter, "Just bad dreams. Memories… whatever. I'm okay."
Ianto chuckled silently and Jack could feel it against the back of his head. Ianto sniffled. "Neither of us are going to be okay for a while. You keep telling me that's okay."
Jack nodded against the warm cotton of Ianto's pajama pants. "Yeah, I guess."
Jack wasn't used to being on the receiving end of comfort and he wondered how long Ianto would be content to sit there on the cold tile of the bathroom floor and hold him. Because he was starting to feel enough like the immediate emotional crisis had passed and curling up right there on Ianto's lap and going back to sleep was starting to sound very appealing.
Ianto must have felt the shift in him, because he pet Jack's head and said, "Let me know when you're ready for me to help you back into bed."
Moving seemed highly over-rated, but it wasn't fair to keep Ianto stuck on the cold floor just because he couldn't find the motivation to crawl back into bed. "One more minute," Jack told him.
Jack took several long breaths, steeling himself for the ordeal of walking the twelve or so meters back to the bed. "Okay," he finally whispered as he pushed himself up off Ianto's lap. Ianto stood and reached a hand down to help Jack up.
Jack stretched his hand out, but when Ianto wrapped his fingers around his wrist he flinched and scrabbled a few feet back across the tiles.
"Jack?!" Ianto knelt next to him. "Did that hurt? What happened?"
Jack sat rubbing his wrist. It had long, long ago healed from the electric shocks John had sent through him. The torn muscles in his shoulders from holding his weight had repaired and the little spot inside his cheek that he'd bitten through had long ago sealed up. But for just a moment, every part of him screamed in phantom pain. He forcibly brought himself back to the present and looked up at Ianto who squatted in front of him, hesitating to touch him again.
"Sorry. You didn't hurt me. I just… I'll tell you in the morning. John…" Jack sighed and leaned back on the wall opposite Ianto had found him against. "Remember when I came back and I couldn't stand having anything around my wrists?"
Ianto nodded. It had been a tell-tale sign that Jack was starting to get tired at the end of the day. When he got to a place where he couldn't wear his watch or his leather wrist strap because they reminded him too much of iron manacles, Ianto knew Jack was ready for sleep. In an awful way it had reminded him of toddlers who insistently rubbed at their eyes to keep them open all the while insisting that they weren't tired. Jack would insist that he was fine, but for months Ianto had seen the shadows in Jack's eyes that told him how much Jack was lying to him.
"John brought back some pretty fucking awful memories and added a few of his own," Jack told him weakly before adding, "I'm okay. I just… I just want to get back to bed. I'm sorry I woke you," he added, suddenly feeling abashed for making all of this just that much more difficult for Ianto.
Ianto moved around to Jack's side, sliding a hand around Jack's waist and helping him stand that way instead. "You've done no less for me," was all he said as he got Jack standing again. "Here," he said, stopping Jack next to the sink. He rinsed the cloth out with warm water and washed Jack's face again before taking each hand and carefully swiping the cloth over Jack's wrists and hands. "Okay?"
Jack nodded and leaned against Ianto, both arms around Ianto's ribs. "Thank you."
They made it back to the bed without letting go of each other. Once settled with Ianto curled around Jack's back and the blankets pulled to their ears, they both let out great sighs.
"I've never doubted you'd be here to help me through all of this, Jack. I just need to know that you'll let me be here for you too," Ianto whispered into his hair.
Jack rolled over and squeezed Ianto tightly. He thought briefly about kissing him, but then realized he hadn't brushed his teeth since barfing. He kissed Ianto's forehead instead. "I'll try. I promise."
Ianto nodded against him. "Get some more sleep. I'll be right here."
Jack settled against Ianto. Sometimes it was easy to fall into self-pity. Poor Jack who'd been alive nearly two-hundred years. Who had faced and been killed by Daleks. Who'd lived in centuries from the nineteenth to the fifty-first and seen several dozen others on dozens of worlds. No one could ever understand the magnitude of his burden. Poor immortal Jack.
But somehow at that moment he finally realized that it didn't matter if Ianto could sympathize, because he sure as hell could empathize. His whole world had come down around him at Canary Wharf. He'd lost Lisa in so much the same way as Jack had lost Grey – death and destruction all around. And all throughout, he'd wanted nothing more than to save her, to forgive her and have her back. Like Jack wanted to save Grey.
They were both in the level seven vaults now.
And Ianto was here with him. And Ianto understood what he could, and more importantly wanted to understand the rest.
With that thought, Jack finally found the peace he'd begun to wonder if he'd ever know again. He snuggled closer to Ianto, whose deep even breathing told Jack that he'd drifted back off. "I love you," he whispered hoping he'd have the courage to say it in the stark light of day.