Fffc Regular Challenge r18.09 - Cure all

[m_findlow]

Title: Cure all
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,022 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Regular Challenge r18.09 - Herbs at fffc
Summary: Jack had a special shopping trip in mind.

'What are we doing here?' Ianto asked, as Jack wove his way through the crowded city streets of the planet they'd just arrived on.

'We're here for supplies,' Jack declared, not slowing his pace one bit, forcing Ianto to jog after him, jostling a few people along the way.

'We have enough food and water for months,' he yelled back over the din. 'What else could we possibly need?'

'Medical supplies,' Jack replied, finally slowing and pausing to scrutinise several of the shops that lined the narrow cobblestone streets. None of them looked like any sort of pharmacy Ianto had ever seen. It was as more like a Moroccan bazaar, wild animals being hurried around in packs and cages, stall holders calling out their wares, cloths and containers of everything imaginable hanging from the eaves and spilling out into the streets. Jack stopped at one that had huge burlap sacks, some as big as a man, overflowing with powders, seeds and strange herbs.

'This is what we came here for,' Jack said, perusing the contents.

'Are you sure?' He felt very skeptical. Anything that didn't come in a bottle or a pill, sealed inside a box didn't count as medicine. What did Owen used to call it? Alternative homeopathy garbage.

Jack didn't waste any time in selecting various things, haggling over the price of something that looked more like something some of his teenager friends back in Cardiff would have rolled up and smoked. He really hoped that wasn't what Jack had in mind.

'What is that?' Ianto asked.

'Good for headaches and sore throats,' Jack replied, pointing to a handful of something else and asking a question in the local language.

'Well, with you around we'll certainly be needing it for headaches,' Ianto quipped. 'Do they not have pharmacies in the wider universe?' Most of what he'd seen so far had been whizz bang and high tech. Buying medicines from some local witch doctor seemed at odds with everything he'd experienced thus far.

'This is the pharmacy, Ianto. Not everywhere is as advanced as Earth, or even more so. Most places things are a lot simpler. This is as good as anything pressed into a pill. Besides, where do you think modern medicines come from, anyway? This is just how they look before you boil them down and grind them up. Herbs and other plant products are the basis for all medicines.'

'Some would call it witchcraft,' he teased. 'Got any eye of newt, there?'

'Whatever works,' Jack replied, going back to selecting other things. He had two large sacks full of different things by the time he was done, none of which looked appealing. Ianto thought he'd need to be mightily ill before he could be convinced to take any of them, in whatever form.

 

Back on board their ship, he watched as Jack started laying out the bags and vials of various things. The ranged in colour and texture, and most could have been mistaken for something that went in a curry rather than something that might be considered an antibiotic.

'I don't get it Jack. I'm all for having something in the cabinet to sort out a runny nose or a chest cough, but we do seem to have a lot of stuff here. Do we really need it? It's not like either of us can die.'

Jack turned to give him a strange look, somewhere between annoyed and angry. 'And that makes it okay?'

'I didn't say that.' He knew the subject of death was a sore spot between them. Funny how it had been much less of an issue when it had just been Jack. Now that it was both of them, Jack took any jokes about death and dying quite personally.

'You see this?' Jack said, angrily picking up a bag of orange coloured leaves. 'Steeped in water and drunk, these will absorp about forty of the most poisonous toxins and venoms in  the universe. It costs more than diamonds.'

He felt shocked by the admission. 'Jack, why on earth would you spend that kind of money?' Our money, he felt like saying.

'Because death is not the worst thing. I don't want to ever have to watch you suffer for days slowly and painfully. I know you wouldn't want that for me, not if there was something you could do.'

'That's true, but,'

'But what? Who cares about the money? I can stop you from walking out into oncoming traffic, or not to touch certain plants, but I can't stop bugs from biting, or exposure to half  a hundred different things you might not even know you're allergic to yet. And that's to say nothing of the kinds of things that go on out in the universe. You think terrorism back on Earth is bad? There's whole races of aliens out there who get a kick out of letting off chemical and biological agents on unsuspecting planets. I can't protect you from any of that. All I can do is try to have things on hand that might help to cure them, or at least ease the symptoms and effects.'

He adored Jack for his concern. He supposed he was right in that there were a great many times he'd had to watch Jack suffer agonising pain before death finally and mercifully claimed him. It was all he could do sometimes not to want to end it for him with a bullet or a suffocating pillow. It broke his heart to watch Jack suffer like that. He could suddenly appreciate that Jack might feel exactly the same way of their roles were reversed.

'Well, you're going to have to teach me what all of these do, then. You might not be in a state to explain it later if I need to use them.' He picked up one small vial of dried purple flowers.  'What are these for?'

'Oh, they're not medicinal at all,' Jack replied. 'They're for a bit of fun later.'

Ianto set the vial down. 'Enough said, then,' he said, knowing exactly what kind of fun Jack might be referring to.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Good for Jack, making sure they'll be able to treat just about anything my might get exposed to. There are worse things than dying.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Suffering is more than either of them can bear the other going through. Medicinal herbs are worth stocking up on. You just never know what you might encounter in the vastness of space.