Torchwood: Fanfic: Bad patient

[m_findlow]

Title: Bad patient
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,030 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "any, any, the antiseptic smell of a hospital" at fic_promptly
Summary: There's one place Ianto just won't go.

Ianto didn't want to go. End of discussion.

'You have to,' Owen confirmed.

'But you're a doctor. Why can't you just sort it out?' he complained. He didn't like complaining. It was beneath him to carry on like a petulant, spoilt child. That's what he had Jack for.

'I'm not a surgeon. And even if I were, they're much better placed than I am. Have you ever seen an operating room? There's four people at a minimum for even the most basic procedure.'

'And you're not better than four people?' He knew the answer, but he was going to dig his heels in just the same.

'Blow my trumpet some other day Teaboy, you're going.'

'What if a weevil had come along and tried to rip my appendix out?' He winced from the pain in his lower right abdomen. He was starting to feel a bit nauseous.  

'Then you'd be bleeding to death instead. That I can fix. Look, it's straightforward. You go in, within two hours they'll have you prepped for surgery, and you'll be awake in the morning ready for egg and toast soldiers.'

'I've got the car ready,' Jack said, coming over and placing a hand on his elbow. 'Let's just go.'

'I don't want to go. Just fix it!'

'Mate, the longer we stand here arguing about it, the more chance it bursts before we can get it removed. D'you know what happens then? You body gets filled with infectious matter and bacteria gets into your bloodstream where it can kill you.'

Ianto didn't get a chance to respond. A massive wave of nausea rose inside him and he buckled over, emptying his stomach onto the floor.

'Right, that's it. Get him in the car.'

He didn't really remember much of the trip. He vaguely recalled being in the back seat with Jack, curled up in a ball. The pain pretty much trumped everything else at this point. Jack had basically carried him from the car into A&E, and half an hour later the pain was happily drifting away, or maybe it was him that was happily drifting away.

 

 

Waking up in a bit of a haze was an occupational hazard. You pretty quickly got to grips with figuring out where you were, and if you were still in some sort of immediate danger.

He was in a bed. The sheets were white and the blanket pale blue. In fact most of the room was white. There was a beeping nearby.

Then it hit him. He knew exactly where he was. The smell. That horrible smell. Antiseptic. He scrunched his nose at it.

He liked the smell of clean and tidy. Freshly mown grass, furniture polish, the zingy lemon of cleaning spray, or the soft soapy smell of laundry straight out of the tumble dryer. But antiseptic smelled like death.

He knew it was illogical. It was the opposite of death, and he'd smelled death plenty of times before, but this was worse. It was the smell of hospitals. And hospitals reminded him of death.

No one had good memories of hospitals. No one remembered hospitals for the happy moment of a newborn baby. It was where you went to see people who were sick or dying.

He'd spent plenty of time doing just that. Sitting in wards for hours with his dad, silent, not knowing what to say. They never knew what to say to each other. But still he came.

He hated it. Every time you stepped through the front doors, that smell assaulted your senses. Every time you smelled it, each and every memory associated with it came flooding back. It was the worst smell on earth.

He lay there and stared at the roof. Would he have a scar, he wondered. He could add it to his collection. Jack's lips and hands always lavished special attention on them, as if worshipping them. Each had its own little story. This was from the time we saved those Arcateenians from their burning spaceship. That one was that night we took on four weevils, just the two of us.

This scar would be positively boring. And still that disgusting smell was there.  

Just when he thought he couldn't feel any lower, a new smell came wafting towards his nose. It was like dark chocolate and rich coffee, fresh baked bread, summer rain, vanilla and musk, and something else that didn't have a name. He knew that smell too. It was the best smell on earth. Jack.

'How's our patient doing? You were in a pretty bad way when we brought you in.'

'Better.'

Having Jack here made everything better. Painkillers could take a hike when Jack was in the room.

'Doctors said it went well. A few days rest and you should be good to go home. Another week after that and you'll be back making coffee and chasing down weevils.'

'A few days?'

'Three or four. Depending on how it heals and if there's any infection. I thought I'd bring you this,' he said, showing him the tablet. 'Might kill a few hours while I'm not here.'

Ianto took the proferred tablet and began tapping away at it.

'What are you doing?'

'Hacking into their systems and arranging for my discharge.'

Jack swiped the tablet from his hands, and killed off whatever programs he was running.

'Hey!'

'Oh, no you don't. Owen is up to his eyeballs in autopsies and overdue mission reports as it is. The last thing he needs is an excuse not to do them. Besides, you've got twenty four hour care here.'

'It's the NHS, not a five star hotel. The surgery is done, they're only keeping me here to rest. I can do that back at the hub.'

'It's only for a few days. Then you can come home. Believe me, no one misses having you around more than me.'

Ianto groaned in acquiescence.

Jack held out the tablet temptingly. 'You can have it back if you promise to stay here and eat all of your vegetables.'

'Fine,' he grumbled, snatching it back.

'Maybe you can reorganise their patient records system. Owen's always complaining about it.'

'You're very funny.'

Comments

[jo02]

' Maybe you can reorganise their patient records system... '

Now that's exactly what Tosh would do if she were stuck in hospital. At least with a tablet Ianto will be able to order in his own food rather than eat hospital food :)

[bk_forever]

Poor Ianto, I sympathise, I don't like the way hospitals smell either, but I have chemcal intolerances and some nice smells don't agree with me either.

Ianto will be glad when he's alllowed to go home.