BTBD Challenge 57 - Itchy

[m_findlow]

Title: Itchy
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,335 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 57 - Scratch at beattheblackdog
Summary: Jack needs something to distract him from the itching

Ianto stood there and stared down at the dejected looking man lying in bed. Immortal and undying, yet taken down by the most mundane of maladies. And he was having a bad time of it, no doubt about it. It almost seemed cruel.

'I still can't believe that in all these years you've never had chicken pox,' Ianto said, perching on the edge of the bed, looking sadly down at Jack. 'How is that even possible? It's about the most contagious thing there is.'

Jack scratched his arm hard, wincing at his compete inability to ease the irritation.

'Don't scratch,' Ianto said.

'I had the Spanish flu, twice actually. That wasn't fun either, but at least I didn't have these wretched itching spots!' he replied, viciously reaching for a patch of skin and scratching it desperately.

It wasn't working very well. Ianto had given him mittens to deter him from scratching the offending spots, but it hadn't worked. Once Jack got annoyed enough, he tore the mittens off so that his fingernails could do the job properly. That had lead to Owen bandaging his hands to keep them at bay, but Jack would not be deterred, using whatever friction he could to continue to ease the frustration.

The bandages were now covered in streaks and spots of red where he'd broken the skin with his efforts. Perhaps Owen should have bandaged him from head to toe instead, Ianto thought to himself. At least Tosh wasn't complaining. She was the only one other one who wasn't  immune, having never contracted it as a child, but at least she was resting peacefully at home, and had the good sense not to make things worse by scratching. Jack was always the very worst kind of patient.

'Argh, just shoot me already!' Jack cried, wrestling with his bonds to get at the spots.

'Don't scratch, cariad,' Ianto repeated, sounding very calm. 'You'll only cause them to scar.'

'It'll fix itself next time I die.'

'And once again you've missed the point entirely,' Ianto said, sighing and rolling his eyes.

He tutted as Jack's efforts sent a other patch of pox into a bloody mess, leaving for the bathroom to return with a damp cloth and water.

'Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!' Jack whined as Ianto cleaned the fresh wounds, letting the antiseptic in the water replace itchiness with stinging.

'You're your own worst enemy, Jack. I'm going to have to get the handcuffs out soon, and not in the good way. You need to resist the urge to scratch.'

'You have no idea how much this is driving me crazy, Ianto.'

'Oh, I really do,' he assured him. 'We've all had chicken pox before.'

He squeezed out the flannel and started on another patch. 'You don't have anything like this back where you're from?' he asked.

'Not really,' Jack said, hissing and wincing at Ianto's touches, gentle as they were. 'There's a firebeetle that has a really itchy sting but it's the fever that's the worst part. Gray got bitten once and he was in bed for a week. Mum was so panicked that she had the doctor there every day to make sure he was okay. I've never seen her so scared.'

'I'll bet,' Ianto said. 'No parent can think straight when their child is sick. At least your fever seems to have gone down,' he said, reaching up a hand to feel Jack's forehead, remembering how hot and flushed Jack had been not two days ago. Then he'd been the worrying parent, unsure what could possibly have made Jack so sick all of a sudden. It must've been that rift retrieval down at one of the local primary schools. Some kid must've still been contagious. 'The worst of it is over,' he added.

'You're kidding, right?' Jack replied, incredulous. 'How can this not be the worst part? I itch in places I don't even think I can scratch! And that's saying something!'

Ianto studied Jack's torso. It was true he had a lot of spots, more than he remembered having himself when he was a kid, and they covered every inch of skin, chest, arms, legs, face. It couldn't be pleasant. Luckily, Owen had come to his aid, or Ianto's, depending on how you looked at it.

Once the worst of the spots were cleaned of the blood that had caked over them from Jack's scratching, whilst he wriggled and squirmed, trying to get at a few more, Ianto pulled out the tube of cream Owen had given him. It was his own invention, part antiseptic, part anesthetic. The hope was that it would temper some of the irritation.

'What's that?' Jack asked.

'For your spots.'

'No, please don't touch them, I can't take anymore, they're itchy enough!'

Ianto wanted to roll his eyes. The great Captain Jack Harkness reduced to a pile of mushy petulance by a few chicken pox. Would wonders never cease?

'Try and focus your thoughts on something else then,' he suggested.

'Like what?'

'I don't know. Why don't you try reciting all the names of planets you can think of that start with the letter A? Then move to the letter B.'

'That's boring.'

'Well, we're going to be here a while, and the spots are not going away for a few days yet, so you'd better come up with something,' Ianto said, dabbing some cream on the first spot.

'Would you sing?' Jack asked, sounding hopeful.

'I don't sing,' he replied bluntly. 'Not in public.'

'We're not in public. We're in our bedroom, just you and me. Please? I love hearing those Welsh vowels. That would definitely distract me.'

Ianto sighed with vexation. He didn't even sing in the shower. He had Jack for that. 'What if I hummed? Would that be okay? Saves me trying to remember all the words.'

'Okay,' Jack agreed happily.

The things he did in the line of duty, he thought.

He started humming the first thing that came into his head, which surprised him, since it was the last thing he expected would pop into his head. Still, Jack didn't make any comment on his rather eclectic repertoire as he dabbed at the spots with the cream. There were grungy rock songs from his rather troubled teenage years, Europop from the years before that, the odd show tune he'd inherited from Jack's own repertoire, and a couple of hymns he remembered from church. An odd mix by anyone's account.

There were a few flinches and hisses along the way, but for the most part, the cream seemed to be doing the job, dulling whatever it was that made the urge to scratch so tempting. He probably should have worn gloves, he realised, feeling the tip of his finger going a bit numb where it was massaging the cream into some of the reddest, nastiest looking spots. He pulled down the covers to find Jack's legs equally red and spotted, calves pock marked with angry red scars where Jack had used his feet to do the scratching as well. Should've put socks on, Ianto thought.

He found both the act of tending to the spots and the gentle humming quite soothing, words drifting in and out of his mind in time with the tune. Even Jack had gone a bit limp underneath him, eyes closed, no longer fighting him, trying to sneak in the odd scratch here and there.

It wasn't until he heard the distinctly nasally sound of Jack's snore that he realised he had fallen completely asleep on him. Part of him felt indignant - was he really that boring? - but the larger part felt grateful. At least asleep he wouldn't try to scratch. Perhaps Owen should have just given him a sedative and been done with it. Then again, if he'd known his humming  would send Jack to sleep, he'd have tried it ages ago. He tucked it away for later reference. No doubt he could use that secret weapon again some time.

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Comments

[bk_forever]

Poor itchy Jack! I sympathise - I think anyone who's ever endured chicken pox would.