Torchwood: Fanfic: Left alone

[m_findlow]

Title: Left alone
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Tosh
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 642 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, wallowing in despair was a sport best enjoyed alone" at fic_promptly
Summary: Ianto is torn up over a seemingly innocent act of kindness.

Ianto stared down at the paper cup left on the desk as Tosh disappeared through the secret door without another word.

'No one ever gets you one.'

Because he didn't deserve it

He was still here - still alive - though he didn't know what that meant. Jack was livid with him and refused to speak to him. Everything Jack had said since the first moment Ianto had woken up this morning had been done with silent, icy blue gazes. Jack had the opportunity to kill him or to retcon him and dump him out in the streets, but he hadn't. Perhaps it was still coming, or perhaps he knew that the best way torture Ianto would be to let him have to keep turning up to work to face the team's wroth.

He felt miserable, or beyond miserable, if there were such a thing. Lisa was gone, forever. Up until yesterday there'd at least been some small hope that he could fix things. He knew it was a long shot, but he'd had to at least try. It had all gone terribly wrong, though. That evil cyberman thing had destroyed whatever was left of his Lisa, turning her into an unrecognisable monster. He didn't want to admit that Jack had done the right thing. He'd been too gutless to pull the trigger himself - not whilst there was even the tiniest fragment left of the woman he'd loved.

He couldn't face the others. He didn't want their eyes on him, their sympathies or their revulsion. He didn't even want to be here, but he had to. If Jack hadn't removed him, then there was still a job to do. He wasn't going to let Ianto walk away and mourn. This was the ultimate punishment. He just didn't want to be around anyone else whilst he suffered it. He needed time and space to sit here and wallow in misery and hopelessness, and he knew no one would come up here, assuming they wanted to see him at all. He wouldn't, if it were him, but then he'd know to leave a person alone to deal with their emotions.

The coffee was too much. Why did Tosh have to be so bloody nice? She'd come in with the tray of cups and he'd felt even more ashamed. She'd assumed he wouldn't be here, either to make coffee or even to be alive. Or maybe it was that they simply didn't even trust him to make them coffee anymore. He might poison it as revenge for them killing her. Perhaps both.

Having anyone care about him was more than he could cope with. He'd been doing this on his own for so long, invisible to everyone around him, that he'd gotten used to the idea that no one was coming to help him. Then when he had begged them for help, they'd turned their backs on him. That hurt more than he could say; that even in his most dire moment of need, he still wasn't important enough for them to care. And now here was Tosh, trying to make it up to him somehow. It wasn't his coffee. It hadn't been bought specially for him. There were four in the tray. One for each of the team. Just not him. He didn't make up the fifth. He was just a nobody.

He picked it up and sipped it. He didn't even have the energy to pass judgement on it. Everything felt bland and washed out. It probably wasn't the coffee at all. If he was lucky, maybe Jack had sent Tosh here on purpose to retcon him, sneaking it into the coffee, concealed as an act of kindness. Then he could drift away into oblivion and forget all the hurt and the pain. It was too much to hope that it was simple generosity.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Oh, this hurts my heart! Poor Ianto, but I'm still glad Tosh made that simple gesture of kindness, even if Ianto doesn't believe he deserves it.