Archive of Our Own

One of the disadvantages of catching aliens for a living was the travelling, Owen had decided. Especially if you were trying to catch an icanah, a relatively small humanoid creature with an unfortunate tendency to hide in caves in the mountains where cars were entirely useless. So hiking it was, as much as Owen didn't like it. Especially right now, with his socks entirely soaked. They'd been caught in a storm for the past two hours and his boots had only held up against the rain for about thirty five minutes before the water had started seeping into his socks.

'Hold up,' Ianto yelled against the wind from behind him.

Owen stopped and turned around. Ianto was leant over his pda, a hand trying to protect it from the rain, which seemed to not be working as the water dropped from the hood and sleeves of his jacket directly onto the screen.

'Looks like we can skip the cabin tonight. The icanah isn't as far up the mountain as we thought. If we move fast, we might be able to catch it today.'

'Let me see.'

Ianto stepped closer and pointed a gloved finger at the blinking dot that indicated the electromagnetic signal of an icanahian communicator. Owen squinted. About two kilometres. That was doable.

'Change of plans then,' he decided. 'We find a dry place for our luggage and then go catch it. We'll be too slow with the backpacks if we have to chase it.'

'Alright,' Ianto agreed. After a quick look around, he pointed up to the left. 'Cave up there. We'll leave the stuff, dry our feet and equipment and then go.'

Owen nodded.

'Let's go.'

--

Climbing up the last bit to the cave turned out to be a bit more difficult than first anticipated, and the heavy backpacks pulling them down weren't helping, but they managed. The cave was relatively small, about six metres long and three metres wide and Ianto had to duck, if he didn't want to hit his head, but it was dry and that was all that mattered for the moment.

Owen threw his backpack onto the stone floor and sat down on top of it to unlace his boots. Ianto followed suit and a few minutes later they had settled the pda and a map of the area in between them, fresh pairs of socks on their feet and cups of slightly warmed tea from a thermos flask in their hands. Their boots were currently being dried by what they assumed was the alien equivalent of a hair dryer, a rift gift from a few months ago, that Ianto had thoughtfully brought along after checking the weather forecast for their trip.

'Alright, we'll need the sedative, the pda and one of the blankets to carry it on,' Ianto said. 'Icanahs are generally unarmed and peaceful unless they're frightened so we should be okay without any weapons.'

'Yeah,' Owen agreed. He sipped his tea and pulled a face at the lukewarm temperature. His eyes wandered and set on a tree outside, shaken from the storm raging in front of the cave. He took another sip and added slowly, 'Do you think the phone signal is working?'

'Don't know, why?'

'Cause I'm not sure if I want to carry the thing onto the next accessible road alone in this weather.'

Ianto shrugged, set his tea down and started rummaging in his backpack.

'You could try. But the only way the rest of the team could help is if they come with a helicopter and they'd have to find pilot willing to fly in this weather.'

'Right.'

It was silent for a minute, except for the low whirring of the hair dryer rift gift and the howling wind. Owen watched as Ianto carefully set aside their equipment and packed all of it into a bag. He'd just downed the last sip of his tea, when the rift gift switched off. With a sigh, he kicked Ianto's boots towards Ianto and pulled on his own.

--

It took them about fortyfive minutes to spot the icanah. It was huddled underneath a small tree, chewing on something neither of them could make out. Ianto wordlessly reached for the sedative and handed it to Owen. They approached the alien as quietly as possible and were about twenty metres away, when a loud crack from behind them stopped them dead in their tracks. Owen turned, saw Ianto pointing at a branch that was hanging loosely from a tree.

Another loud crack followed.

A pained yell.

Then a thump as Ianto's body hit the ground.

'Shit!'

It took Owen a second to process what had happened.

The icanah was armed.

It had tried to shoot Ianto.

It had succeeded to shoot Ianto.

Fuck.

Owen threw a quick glance towards Ianto, lying on the wet ground and clutching at his left shoulder, face scrunched up in pain.

'Try to get it!,' Ianto brought out between twoharsh breaths, 'I'll be fine.'

Owen turned, took a few quick steps towards the icanah and raised the gun with the sedative.

Shit.

There was no way in hell he was going to hit it.

He was a decent shot under normal circumstances, yes, but the alien was quite far away and jumping behind a group of trees to hide and his fingers were trembling from the cold and his teammate was injured and in need of medical attention which really didn't help his ability to focus.

He let the gun sink again. No use in wasting the sedative and he couldn't chase the alien right now either. Ianto needed help as soon as possible and Owen would risk getting hurt himself and they really could do without that.

In a few quick steps, Owen was back at Ianto's side and sank to his knees next to him, ignoring the mud seeping through his jeans.

'Unarmed my arse,' he mumbled, pulling the emergency kit out of Ianto's bag, 'come on, let me see.'

Ianto loosened the grip on his shoulder, clearly biting back a groan of pain as he did, and let Owen cut and peel off the layers of bloodsoaked clothes on his shoulder.

'Looks like it only grazed and didn't shoot through.'

'Fantastic,' Ianto said, voice dripping with sarcasm. He swallowed. 'That makes everything better.'

'It does. Means you won't lose mobility in your shoulder. Can you bend your arm?'

Ianto swore under his breath as he tried and nodded. Owen could feel the fingers of Ianto's free hand pinch into his hand.

'Move your fingers?,' Owen added.

Ianto nodded again.

'Alright, probably no nerve damage. Worst thing that could happen now is that this gets infected.'

After wiping the wound as good as possible, Owen pressed a clean compress onto it while his free hand checked for a pulse at Ianto's neck and left arm.

'Listen, I don't think it hit any big blood vessels but I need to take a proper look at this somewhere drier and cleaner.' He paused for a second. 'Do you think you can manage until we're back at the cave?'

Ianto took a deep breath. Blinked slowly.

'Don't really have a choice, eh?'

Right. Sometimes, Owen forgot how much self control Ianto had. The last time Ianto had been shot he hadn't even said anything until everyone else had been taken care of.

Owen offered Ianto a sympathetic halfsmile.

'C'mon on then. I'll put a makeshift bandage on this and we'll go.'

--

The walk back was almost entirely silent except for occasional groans and hisses of pain from Ianto. Owen offered to stop a few times but Ianto just shook his head and grit his teeth, until they had made it back into the cave where he immediately collapsed onto his backpack.

With a few quick movements Owen had spread out one of their blankets on the floor and arranged all the medical equipment he could find and deemed useful.

'Jacket and shirt off and lie down,' he instructed Ianto, 'I'll boil some water that we can give your shoulder a proper clean.'

Just this morning he had complained about how unnecessary it was that they carried a camping cooker and a pot around instead of just stocking their hideouts properly. Now he was thankful for it, considering that boiling it was currently their only way to get their water (which they'd also been carrying around) clean.

Christ, this day was really going to shit.

'You know, Owen,' Ianto said, voice tight with pain, 'there are easier ways of getting me naked than this. Less painful ones, too.'

Owen snorted.

'In your dreams, tea boy.'

He fumbled around with the cooker, filled the pot with water from one of their bottles and set it to boil. Then he got the rescue blanket out of the packaging and spread it over Ianto.

Ianto just raised an eyebrow.

Honestly, Owen had no idea how he managed to look so unaffected when he had to be in a lot of pain.

'Can't have you getting hypothermia, can we?,' Owen explained.

'You're still wearing your wet clothes, not me.'

'Yeah, but you're the one losing considerable amounts of blood.' Owen found the pills he was looking for, popped one out of the blister and held it out to Ianto, who took it. 'For the pain. Best thing we have at the moment. I'll try to call the others, tell them what happened so that they can send help as soon as possible. I'll be back in a second.'

Ianto nodded.

--

There was no possibility for the rest of the team to come to help quickly, just as Ianto had suspected earlier. Which meant that Ianto and Owen would be stuck in the cave until the weather cleared or at least until the other team members had managed to climb up the mountain as well, which meant that they were going to spend the night in the cave. They were going to bloody freeze.

After patching Ianto up as best as he could, Owen laid out the two blankets they had on top of the rescue blanket (Ianto had insisted that it would help with keeping the cold from their backs) and tried his best to get them set for the night.

By the time it was getting dark (no way to see the sunset in the still pouring rain), they were sat against the wall of the cave with fresh tea and sandwiches. Both of them had changed and their wet clothes and shoes were drying in the back of the cave. When the sandwiches were eaten, Owen leant over to light the small lamp that had thankfully stayed dry enough that the water hadn't ruined the electronics.

With the light on, Owen could definitely make out a layer of sweat on Ianto's forehead that he hadn't noticed before.

'Ianto? How are you feeling?'

'Exhausted, mainly. Why?'

'No pain in your shoulder? Or heat?'

Ianto shot him a look. Owen looked right back, unimpressed. Ianto was too reckless with himself, which could make being his doctor bloody annoying, but Owen wasn't going to let that stop him.

'Listen, you're sweating and it's cold here so you probably have a fever, which means the wound might be infected and that isn't good,' he explained.

After a moment of hesitation, Ianto bit his lip.

'It is kind of warm. Feels inflammated.'

'You're a lousy patient, you know that? Should have told me this earlier.'

'It might surprise you but I haven't been shot often enough to know what a bullet wound is supposed to feel like. And it's not like you've got the best bedside manner of every doctor on this planet.'

Owen rolled his eyes.

'Let me take a look, yeah?'

A noncommittal grunt was the answer. Still, Ianto didn't protest when Owen carefully pulled his jacket and shirt aside and removed the bandage. As Owen had expected, the skin around the wound was red and hot, leaving no doubt that it was in fact infected. Ianto sucked in a harsh breath when Owen gently poked the skin.

'And?'

'Definitely infected.'

'Great.'

Owen didn't reply. This wasn't good. They didn't have anything he could use to fight the infection, and who knew for how much longer they'd be stuck in the cave.

'Now what?'

'Don't know,' Owen said. He reapplied the bandage. 'Keep an eye on it and hope that the fever doesn't rise and kill you.'

'Is that even possible?'

'Technically yes. Highly unlikely, though.'

'Not exactly how I imagined my life to end.'

'That's Torchwood for you, mate.'

'Yeah. That's Torchwood.'

It was silent for a few seconds. Ianto sighed, rubbed at his chin.

'C'mon. We should sleep.'

Owen groaned.

'I'm gonna freeze to death.'

'You won't.'

'I will.'

'We can zip the sleeping bags together.'

Owen raised an eyebrow.

'I swear to God, Jones, if you try something...'

Ianto rolled his eyes. He took a sharp breath when he got up, let the air out slowly. He was still clearly in pain.

'Shut up and help me.'

Ten minutes later, they were lying in their sleeping bags, the light turned off and lying with the PDA, the tablets, in case Ianto needed another one, and their weapons in reach.

Owen could feel the heat radiating from Ianto's body through his thin layer of clothes. He closed his eyes, tried to ignore that the blankets underneath them were doing shit from keeping his hip digging into the hard stone floor and took a deep breath.

'Dont wake me unless you're dying or the world is ending,' he mumbled.

Ianto hummed an agreement.

--

It was still pitchblack when Owen woke up. He checked the PDA for the time. 3:27 am. And no word from the rest of the team.

Great.

Ianto was a bloody furnace next to him. Without a thermometer, Owen couldn't tell if his fever had risen more, but it certainly felt like it. Wriggling a bit to get more comfortable, Owen mentally ran through everything in his medical kit that could possibly help bring Ianto's fever down a bit. But the intended use of the kit was just to make sure that the injured person didn't die on their way to the hospital, and not to deal with the possible aftermath of the injury. Owen was debating the benefits of a cold compress (he'd have to make do with whatever he could find) when Ianto turned.

'Ow'n?'

Ianto's voice was raspy, and he seemed still half-asleep.

'Go back to sleep, Ianto.'

'Owen.'

Ianto sounded a bit more urgent now, and Owen's concern grew. He propped himself up on one elbow as best as he could inside the sleeping bag.

'What is it?'

''T hurts.'

'I know, mate.'

Owen pulled an arm out of the sleeping bag and searched until he felt the foil of the blister under his fingers.

'Ianto?'

'Mhm?'

'Tablet against the pain?'

'Yeah.'

Owen found Ianto's hand and gave him the pill that he could take it.

'I'll give you the good stuff when where back at the hub.'

Ianto mumbled another 'yeah.' He scooted closer to Owen, rested his head against Owen's shoulder. Owen didn't protest. He'd usually have, or at least make a joke to get a rise out of Ianto, but Ianto was tired and hurt and Owen wasn't as much of an asshole as Ianto sometimes thought he was. Also, it was admittedly sorta nice to have a personal heater, even if Owen rather wanted Ianto's fever to go back down again.

'Get back to dreamland, tea boy.'

'Alright.'