Ficlet: Someone Who Cares
May. 29th, 2025 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Someone Who Cares
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Team, Tosh.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 624
Spoilers: Set a few weeks after End of Days.
Summary: With Jack gone, Ianto has even more work to do than he had before. Not that the rest of the team seem to notice.
Written For: elisem’s prompt ‘any, any, I saved this for you’, at
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Sometimes, in fact probably most of the time, Ianto thinks, the rest of the team takes him for granted. They expect all their messes around the Hub, the empty takeaway containers they scatter around, the spillages, the dirty crockery and so forth, to be cleared up, the rubbish to be sorted and disposed of, their paperwork to be checked and filed, all of which he supposes is in his job description as General Support Officer, but it doesn’t end there. They seem to think their dry cleaning miraculously does itself, with no effort or attention on their part whatsoever, and that food and coffee will simply appear out of nowhere whenever they’re hungry or thirsty, and it’s only become worse since Jack swanned off to parts unknown without bothering to tell anyone.
Now, he’s still expected to carry out all of his former duties, plus most of Jack’s routine tasks, since no one else knows what to do, or how it should be done, and on top of that, since they’re a man down, he’s been seconded into field work. Which, to be honest, he wouldn’t mind so much if the others showed even a smidge of appreciation for his efforts. But of course they don’t. Who do they think keeps the place running, House Elves?
He’s got a good mind to give himself a raise, or a day off, or something. He more than deserves it, because they sent him out to get lunch for them, demanded coffee as soon as he got back with the food, and then when the Rift alarm went off just as he was handing out the hot drinks, before he’d taken so much as a sip of his own, they’d told him it was his turn to go and fetch whatever came through… alone. Like he wasn’t just as hungry and tired as the rest of them were. Probably more so, since guess who gets to monitor the Rift every night, after the rest of them go home to their beds?
The retrieval wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle by himself, and it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for; the hardest part was negotiating the one-way system there and back; but all of that isn’t the point. What gets him is that by the time he returns to the Hub, he discovers all the food he’d fetched earlier is gone except for crumbs and a few stray crusts from the pizza, well nibbled by whoever had eaten the rest of the slices.
It’s enough to make a grown Torchwood agent cry, and he might well have done so, if it wouldn’t have been misconstrued as the pathetic Teaboy crying over Jack leaving, because that would just have led to Owen mocking him again, which seems to be the medic’s favourite pastime. So instead, he just gives a resigned sigh and starts cleaning up the mess. It’s not as if anyone else will do it, they’ll just leave it for the general dogsbody, as they always do. He’ll have to get himself something later, if he can spare the time from his other tasks; he still has the cells to muck out and the residents to feed. Looks like everyone gets to eat except him. Typical. If he’s lucky, there might be a few biscuits left in the tin to tide him over.
Then someone touches his elbow, and he turns to find Tosh beside him, holding out several slices of pizza on a plate, just reheated in the microwave, and a bag containing the last Danish. She smiles up at him. “I thought you’d be hungry when you got back, so I saved this for you.”
If he weren’t so weak with hunger, he might have hugged her, but it’s probably best if he eats before the next crisis comes along, otherwise he might not get the chance, so he simply returns her smile and thanks her for her thoughtfulness. It looks like he won’t have to risk starving to death after all, and it comes as quite a surprise to realise that even with Jack gone, there’s still one person on the team who cares about him enough to make sure he doesn’t go hungry. Maybe he should give Tosh a raise as well.
The End
Now, he’s still expected to carry out all of his former duties, plus most of Jack’s routine tasks, since no one else knows what to do, or how it should be done, and on top of that, since they’re a man down, he’s been seconded into field work. Which, to be honest, he wouldn’t mind so much if the others showed even a smidge of appreciation for his efforts. But of course they don’t. Who do they think keeps the place running, House Elves?
He’s got a good mind to give himself a raise, or a day off, or something. He more than deserves it, because they sent him out to get lunch for them, demanded coffee as soon as he got back with the food, and then when the Rift alarm went off just as he was handing out the hot drinks, before he’d taken so much as a sip of his own, they’d told him it was his turn to go and fetch whatever came through… alone. Like he wasn’t just as hungry and tired as the rest of them were. Probably more so, since guess who gets to monitor the Rift every night, after the rest of them go home to their beds?
The retrieval wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle by himself, and it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for; the hardest part was negotiating the one-way system there and back; but all of that isn’t the point. What gets him is that by the time he returns to the Hub, he discovers all the food he’d fetched earlier is gone except for crumbs and a few stray crusts from the pizza, well nibbled by whoever had eaten the rest of the slices.
It’s enough to make a grown Torchwood agent cry, and he might well have done so, if it wouldn’t have been misconstrued as the pathetic Teaboy crying over Jack leaving, because that would just have led to Owen mocking him again, which seems to be the medic’s favourite pastime. So instead, he just gives a resigned sigh and starts cleaning up the mess. It’s not as if anyone else will do it, they’ll just leave it for the general dogsbody, as they always do. He’ll have to get himself something later, if he can spare the time from his other tasks; he still has the cells to muck out and the residents to feed. Looks like everyone gets to eat except him. Typical. If he’s lucky, there might be a few biscuits left in the tin to tide him over.
Then someone touches his elbow, and he turns to find Tosh beside him, holding out several slices of pizza on a plate, just reheated in the microwave, and a bag containing the last Danish. She smiles up at him. “I thought you’d be hungry when you got back, so I saved this for you.”
If he weren’t so weak with hunger, he might have hugged her, but it’s probably best if he eats before the next crisis comes along, otherwise he might not get the chance, so he simply returns her smile and thanks her for her thoughtfulness. It looks like he won’t have to risk starving to death after all, and it comes as quite a surprise to realise that even with Jack gone, there’s still one person on the team who cares about him enough to make sure he doesn’t go hungry. Maybe he should give Tosh a raise as well.
The End
