m_findlow

Title: Mystery ingredients
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Tosh, Ianto, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,225 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Inspired by drabble_weekly Prompt 34 - Allergies
Summary: Tosh has been laid low by something at the hub.

Tosh's gagging behind the toilet door stopped for a moment. Ianto let out a breath he'd been holding onto and used the opportune interval between bouts of vomiting to ask her if she was okay.

'I'll be fine,' she replied, though she sounded anything but.

'Just let me know if you need anything,' he said, staying leant up against the stall door. At least it wasn't like he was invading here. Torchwood didn't do separate ladies and gents. Jack said it was to respect visiting aliens who didn't associate with either specific gender. Ianto suspected the truth was more along the lines that Torchwood had simply never thought about it. They'd probably started with a gents and when female operatives came along they'd never bothered to rectify the situation. Besides which, these days they all practically lived in each other's pockets. Sharing the loo was the least of their worries. They'd shared a lot more than that over the years.

Tosh began another series of retching and Ianto's stomach churned in sympathy. He'd feared it was food poisoning, and was waiting for the other others to barge into the bathrooms in quick succession, keen to empty their own stomachs, however no one else seemed to be suffering. He certainly wasn't feeling at all nauseous himself and they'd all eaten the same things, as was wont a team that barely had time for proper meals. It had just come on so suddenly, Tosh fine one minute and covering her mouth and dashing for the toilets the next, that it seemed the most plausible explanation. Then again, if none of the rest of them were feeling unwell maybe it was just some kind of stomach bug - one of those twenty four hours things that came and went without explanation. It could have just been someone in her apartment block lift that sneezed without covering their mouth, sharing whatever germs they were carrying.

Still, it hadn't stopped them from worrying. When you were regularly exposed to alien artifacts and organisms, nothing was ever taken for granted, especially an illness that came on suddenly and without any cause. Owen already had samples running, somehow deftly taking saliva swabs in between Tosh's desk, where the first stomach emptying moment had occurred right into her bin, and the trip to the toilets, with Ianto following Tosh, bin in hand, lest she not make it there in time for round two. Owen had relieved him of the bin as well, no doubt testing the contents, a job that no one envied.

'Ianto?' came Tosh's voice, out of breath. 'You couldn't wet a bit of towel, could you?'

'Of course.' He was quick to respond, grabbing some from the wall dispenser and tearing it away, soaking it carefully in cool water from the sink. 'I'll pass it under the door,' he warned her.

'Just open it,' she replied. 'Not like you haven't seen worse.'

He gently pushed until the magnetic clasp gave way, careful not to hit her with the bottom corner of the door. As expected, she was knelt beside it, resting an elbow on the seat as he handed her the towel. She looked pale and clammy and his heart went out to her.

She wiped her mouth with the damp towel, and cleaned the rim of the bowl with it afterwards, flushing away it and the contents. Ianto offered her a second towel, which she pressed against her forehead and cheeks. 'Thanks. Using toilet paper on your face just never feels right.'

'On that we're agreed.' He handed her his clean handkerchief. 'Anything else I can get you to make your stay in Torchwood's finest bathroom facilities a little more pleasant?'

'A glass of water would be great just to get rid of the taste,' she replied, leaning back against the wall of the stall. 'Or coffee if I thought I could stomach it.'

'I'll go fetch one. Water, that is. I'm not sure my coffee can fix everything.'

'Not for lack of trying,' she replied, managing a weak smile.

'I'll be back as quick as I can.'

'No,' she said, pushing weakly up from the toilet. 'I think I'm okay to make it back downstairs. There can't be anything left from lunch that I haven't thrown up already.'

The external door creaked loudly as Owen blustered through it with a distinct sense of purpose.

'I think you'll have to wait until Captain Bligh has a word first,' Ianto muttered, reaching a hand under her armpit and keeping his voice low as he took in the sight of Owen. In the crook of his arm Owen had his tablet computer and on his face was a look of violent annoyance. 'Have you figured out what's wrong?' Ianto asked, unable to understand why Owen looked so mad.

'Chitinase,' he declared. 'Tosh's samples are full of it.'

'And what's that?' he asked, helping Tosh to her feet.

'Something she's allergic to, as if you didn't know. Bananas are bloody full of the stuff. Even you're not so stupid as to know Tosh can't have banana without getting sick.'

Ianto frowned. 'But we haven't had anything banana, and even if we had, Tosh wouldn't knowingly eat it.'

'You're right,' Owen replied. 'Not knowingly. Only if some idiot gave her food that had banana in it. Those muffins you bought for lunch were packed with banana. I'm not talking cross contamination, they were forty percent banana flesh.'

'They were chocolate!' Ianto protested. 'Double Dutch chocolate, in fact. There was absolutely no mention of banana.'

'Well there was.'

'I didn't taste any, did you?'

'Doesn't matter.'

Ianto sighed. The café he usually picked up lunch from had gone all hipster when he wasn't looking. Their menu had changed from basic bacon butties and egg salad sandwiches to wholegrain loaf and quinoa salads. Everything in the place was now a combination of gluten free, nut free, salt free, dairy free, and one supposed, probably flavour free. He'd made the best of a bad lot, thinking salad sandwiches was not the worst thing for their waistlines, and compensating it with the choice of chocolate muffins. A pity that for all the signs they now had espousing what was free and good for you, they'd neglected to mention that they'd substituted ingredients that were actually more detrimental for Tosh's health than a stick of butter and a few heaped tablespoons of sugar might have been.

'I'm so sorry, Tosh. I had no idea. Honestly.'

'It's okay,' she replied, leaning her weight feebly against him. 'You couldn't have known. I was enjoying the muffins, actually.'

'Up until the point up they decided to upend your guts,' Owen said, dispensing with any politeness. 'I can give you some epinephrine, but I'm guessing you probably got rid of most of it the old fashioned way. This'll just keep the rest of it down.' He handed her an Epi pen, leaving her to administer it. 'And as for you,' he said, turning his ire back towards Ianto, 'it'd be nice if you could manage to feed us without killing us. Stick to pizza from now on. I'd rather run the risk of us all contracting mad cow.' He huffed and left without further discussion.

Ianto gripped Tosh a little tighter around her waist. 'Some might argue some of us already have it.'