Title: 5 Times Jack Harkness Falls Sick (And the One Time He Gets Cuddled while He Pukes His Guts Out)
Rating: PG-13
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Jack Harkness, Gray, John Hart, The Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Alice Guppy, Ianto Jones; Jack/John, one sided Jack/Doctor, Jack/Ianto
Summary: What it says on the tin. Written for the LiveJournal schmoop_bingo prompt: sick in bed.
Warnings: Swearing, minimal dub con, not much schmoop
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all associated characters belong to BBC and RTD.
Gray has perfected looking adorable to art, but if Jack has to look at those wide, sad eyes one more time, he's liable to throw something at his younger brother. If he doesn't die first.
"But you promised," Gray whines.
"I'm sick, you chunta," he snaps. His throat is sore, and if he's further forced to respond to Gray's whinging, his voice would probably be gone by the end of the day. "I'll take you there another time," he promises, hoping that it will make his annoying brat of a younger brother happy enough to leave him alone.
Gray pouts, and actually has the audacity to wibble.
That's it. Jack is sick and tired of Gray and of being sick and tired. And besides, shouldn't he be the one wibbling and all, since he's stuck in bed with a temperature and a headache? "Go away or I'll puke on you," he threatens.
It takes pretending to gag to get Gray scuttling out of his room, flapping his small hands in horror and screeching.
The bunk is so narrow that when John slides in behind him, Jack finds his nose pressed against the hull. And while it's soothingly cool against his heated skin, he'd not wiling to entertain his partner right now.
"Fuck off, John."
"I'm bored," the other Time Agent whines. "You don't have to do anything, just lie there."
"If you need a fuck, find someone else."
John presses closer and Jack can feel his erection poke him in the small of his back. "You're all there is here, sweetheart. You, me, lube, the stars-"
"My fist in your face."
John starts running his tongue up behind Jack's ear, who, despite a throbbing ache throughout his whole body, feels himself slowly respond.
"You are an asshole, John."
"Ah, but a very sweet one, don't you think?"
The moment John has come in spurts between his thighs, Jack kicks him off the bunk and pulls the blanket over his head.
The sound of the door bursting open sends a burst of pain nailing through his skull and Rose's cry of "Jack!" as she hurls herself onto his bed just hammers it deeper.
Jack's first thought is to throw something at her but the nearest thing within reach is his wriststrap. A bit of searching reveals a tube of lube which he tosses over his shoulder in the hope that it will hit her, before burying his face under the pillow.
Tipped off by the lack of suggestion or innuendo following the lube that had thunked harmlessly onto the floor, Rose stops talking, and he feels the bed sink as she peers closer at him. Once she sees the faint orange dots marking his skin, she's out of the door with another crash that sends several more needles lancing through his head.
The Doctor isn't at all sympathetic.
"Just a case of Julaxian measles," he says off-handedly. Jack is annoyed. He's sick and possibly dying and he's covered in orange spots, for goddess' sake, which is not at all how he wants to look like when he's dying, and the Doctor's behaving like he's got nothing worse than a bruise. He would have preferred a few tears from Rose, and maybe a snog and a shag from the Doctor as a dying man's last wish.
"But don't worry," the Doctor continues, giving Jack a pat on the back. Which was nice, but a little more would be nicer. "The TARDIS has just the thing."
He comes back with a bottle on brown goop that he and Rose take great delight in forcing down Jack's throat. It tastes horrible, like the mucus of that alien he'd sucked off a year ago (he's never doing that again) but soon a rather soothing sensation spreads through his body.
"Ooh, look at this," the Doctor says to Rose, and shows her something printed on the bottle. "Side effects: may dampen sex drive."
Rose giggles and the Doctor grins manically, but before Jack can throw something at them, he falls asleep.
He thinks it's a hangover at first, but when the headache and nausea haven't disappeared by noon, he resigns himself to being sick for the first time since he's become immortal.
It's not all that bad, because the only part of him that hurts so far is his head, and he's content to snuggle down into the bed and just sleep for more than a few hours for once. Someone here to get him water or to give him a cool compress would be nice, but it's not all that urgent, and he's feeling too lazy and comfortable to get them himself.
For a moment, when he hears the sound of footsteps up the stairs, he thinks his wish has come true, but he soon recognizes Alice Guppy's soft, catlike tread and muffles a groan in his pillow. What was he thinking, hoping that something nice would happen to him on this shithole of a planet?
He doesn't bother to get up and open the door for her, just hides under his duvet as she pounds on the door and finally unlocks it with a skeleton key.
"Harkness!" she bellows, despite the fact that she just has to cross the bedsit to reach him.
Maybe if he keeps very, very still, she'll think he's not here and leave.
Who's he kidding? A moment later, the duvet is pulled away, exposing him to the rather chilly elements, and Alice's angry glare.
"Get up, you lazy bastard."
Not today. He's in no mood to pander to those bitches today. "I'm taking sick leave."
"Ooh," she remarks, and he can hear genuine surprise and curiosity in her voice. "The freak does get ill."
Dying doesn't get rid of the headache, and it takes ages to get the blood out of the sheets.
Everything hurts. Every single part of body, from his toes to his scalp, every single fucking cell, even his fucking hair hurts. His bones throb and his muscles ache and the Master must have inserted microscopic Toclafane into his head because his brain feels like it's full of white hot needles. He wants so badly to curl into a ball and die but he can't even do that because he's a fucking immortal and chained up like some fucking animal.
He can't even feel Tish's hand stroke his cheek, through all the pain.
"Kill me," he whispers, each word making his mouth feel like it's full of glowing coal. "Please kill me."
But she cannot, because at any sign of insubordination, the Master will kill her, or worse. Only he gets to play with his 'pet'.
"He's going to infect Singapore tomorrow. Then the whole of South-East Asia, any place he hasn't burned." Tears run down her cheeks, and to take his mind of the pain, Jack focuses on them, and how much he hates it when she cries.
"Don't worry," he mumbles, trying to move lips and tongue as little as possible, slurring his words in the process. "They'll die quick. Jus' me, hanging 'round."
She presses her lips to his forehead, but he can't feel them. "I wish I could find a way to kill you," she whispers, "and bring you back once everything is over."
It's amazing that she still has hope. Sometimes Jack thinks this will never end, that he will suffer and die and suffer and die and suffer and die until the end of time.
"You never told me you could fall sick."
"I haven't done so in a while."
"Still, it would have been nice to know that you've never had chicken pox before."
"I've been inoculated against it."
"The 51st century version, maybe. Not our puny 21st century virus."
"I-" A wave of nausea slams into him and he claps a hand over his mouth, holding out long enough for Ianto to grab the basin from the bedside table and thrust it into his hands. As he vomits for the third time that day, he feels one of Ianto's hands snake around his waist, and the other rub soothing circles on his back.
"You're not supposed to throw up with chicken pox," Ianto muses, as his lover continues to gag and spit.
"Different... immune... system... different reaction, " Jack gasps through heaves that get drier.
"But how can it be that you've spent over a hundred years here but not had it once?"
Jack, accepting a glass of water, tries to look away but Ianto has already caught the look on his face. "You have had it, haven't you."
Jack starts to nod, then thinks better of it, wanting not to aggravate his nausea further. "Twice."
"So what did you do?"
"First time, my boss shot me. Second time, I did it myself."
He feels Ianto's arms tighten around him. "You're not shooting yourself this time, Jack."
Jack doesn't want to either, but he can't deny that the thought has passed through his mind. It would be easier, faster. If he's going to let it run its course, he'll be off duty for at least a week.
Ianto must have read his mind or at least read something of his thoughts on his face because his mouth turns down in a very severe line and in a decidedly final tone he orders, "You are not going to kill yourself, and no one is going to kill you. End of discussion." He gets up to clear away the vomit and Jack flops back bonelessly on the bed.
He's watching the streams of sunlight coming through the blinds catch on tiny motes of dust in the air when Ianto comes back with another glass of water and a washcloth.
Jack must admit that it's nice to just lie back and let Ianto wipe him gently down, then dab cool calamine lotion on the itchy spots. "I miss your coffee," he mumbles as Ianto tackles the rash on his back and bum. "And sex."
"You can have all the coffee and sex you want after you get better."
"Really?"
Ianto rolls his eyes. "Really. But with limits on the sex, I want to be able to walk after."
Jack buries his face in the pillow that under the smell of sweat and vomit, still has traces of Ianto. "I can't believe I have rash on my penis."
"A tragedy indeed."
Jack elbows up and turns around to glare at the younger man. "It is!"
"You'll live. Now get some rest or you'll spend even more time in bed without sex and coffee."
"Stay with me?"
"Okay." Ianto's bare arms feel cool against his overheated skin. "You're lucky I've already had chicken pox. Imagine Owen had to take care of you."
"Urgh. No way, he's not as cuddly as you are."
"Cuddly? Jack, are you saying I'm fat?"
fin