Fic: Stress Overload
Title: Stress Overload
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Gwen, Rhys, Rhiannon.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Working for Torchwood is a stressful business, but right now the team’s stress levels are through the roof.
Word Count: 1240
Written For: Prompt 219 - Stress at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Having to save the world, or at least Cardiff, from invading aliens, dangerous tech, the resident Weevil population, and sundry other Rift-related threats on a semi-regular basis was a stressful occupation. In the past, the Torchwood Three team had each dealt with the stresses of their jobs in their own fashion: Owen by drinking too much and sleeping around, Tosh by burying herself in the logical and predictable world of computer code, Gwen by going home to cry on Rhys’ shoulder and watch trashy reality TV shows, and Jack and Ianto by Weevil hunting and shagging each other’s brains out. Different strokes for different folks, as the saying went.
Stress didn’t only come from their jobs, however. Sometimes, their usual source of comfort became an additional source of stress. Right now, Gwen was dealing with bickering between her parents and her in-laws, not helped by Rhys taking his mother’s side, which was causing further friction at home.
The latest version of Tosh’s translation program had developed a peculiar glitch that was causing it to translate everything into German, except for a certain dialect of Galactic Standard, which was being faithfully rendered into what appeared to be Swahili, a language which none of the team could understand. Despite going through the program’s code line-by-line five times, she still hadn’t found what was causing the problem, and she was about ready to tear her hair out.
Owen had decided to cut down on drinking due to the results of his most recent self-administered medical, which meant he was even more bad-tempered than usual, and Ianto, having agreed to let his sister and her family live at his house while repairs were carried out on their own, had run away from home three weeks ago when his houseguests became too much to deal with. He was living in Jack’s bunker now, and fully intended to stay there, with Jack’s blessing, until Rhiannon, Johnny and the kids moved out. He’d developed a haunted look, and he flinched every time his phone rang, knowing it would probably be Rhi, wanting to know where he was, or what to do about the latest disaster her husband had caused. He was beginning to wonder whether he’d still have a house by the time his sister and her family finally went home.
Jack seemed to be the only member of the team who wasn’t feeling the pressure, or was at least managing to deal with it better than the others. He had a warm Ianto to snuggle with every night, even if Ianto was unusually twitchy and restless, and coffee whenever he wanted it.
What everyone really needed was some downtime and the space to sort out their current issues. Unfortunately, what they were getting instead was an overactive Rift, spitting random items out at all hours of the day and night, meaning that on top of everything else, nobody was getting enough sleep, except for Jack, who didn’t need much anyway.
Things couldn’t carry on the way they were, but how could any of them deal with the stress they were under when just finding the time to grab a bite to eat was proving difficult enough? People, even experienced Torchwood agents, could only exist for so long on coffee, hastily re-heated slices of pizza and the occasional chocolate Hobnob. Owen had even suggested starting his teammates on anti-anxiety meds. Another week or two, and Jack thought he might be tempted to take the medic up on the idea, if only so that Ianto’s nightmares might go away. He’d lost count of how many times he’d been shoved out of bed over the last three weeks due to his lover’s frantic flailing.
The two women were better at disguising their bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes than Owen and Ianto, but they were all suffering, and Jack, although not overly stressed himself, was at a loss over how to help them. He was already doing as many of the Rift retrievals as he could, especially at night, but even he couldn’t be everywhere at once. He considered bringing in a couple of new field agents, but that might add to the problem instead of solving it, because new recruits would require training and supervision, and he doubted any of his team had the patience for that, never mind the time.
“What are we gonna do?” Ianto mumbled into Jack’s bare shoulder somewhere around one in the morning, when they’d finally fallen into bed after rounding up a couple of rambunctious adolescent Weevils. “The team’s falling apart. It wasn’t even this bad when you were gone with the Doctor. I caught Tosh sobbing into her keyboard earlier. Owen’s broken so much equipment in the last week we might have to take the cost of replacing it all out of his wages, and Gwen’s practically lost her voice from screaming at Rhys over the phone. I feel sorry for him. All he did was ask if she’d be home for dinner. Never seen her face turn that colour before. I thought she was going to burst a blood vessel.”
Jack knew what Ianto meant; he’d seen Gwen blush before, her cheeks flushing red with embarrassment, but puce really wasn’t her colour, and it had clashed horribly with the top she’d been wearing.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, rubbing one hand soothingly up and down Ianto’s back, trying to help his lover relax enough to sleep. “I wish I did. If the Rift would calm down, everyone might be able to deal with their other issues, but we’re barely getting a chance to catch our breath between alerts.”
As if in response to his words, the alarms started going off, and Ianto gave a pitiful groan. “For pity’s sake, not again! We only just got to bed!”
“You stay put, get some sleep is you can. Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it.” Jack kissed the top of Ianto’s head and slid out of bed, tucking the covers warmly back around the Welshman. Ianto was so worn out he didn’t protest.
“Just be careful, okay?”
“Aren’t I always?”
Ianto opened one eye to glare at him. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Mm, maybe not.”
“Wise choice.”
“I’ll be back before you know it. I promise.”
Twenty minutes later, Jack manhandled a large packing crate into the back of the SUV and drove back to base. Ianto appeared, looking dishevelled and exhausted, as he was dragging it from the underground garage into the main Hub.
“What is it this time?” he asked wearily. “Not something else I need to take care of, I hope.”
Jack smiled, prising the crate open with a crowbar he’d brought from the garage. “Just the opposite. Maybe the Rift heard us and decided to help out.”
Peering into the crate at the pile of white, furry, sausage-shaped things, Ianto frowned. “Are they alive?”
“Not exactly.” Jack plucked one out and passed it to Ianto. It immediately turned bright red. “They’re sort of the alien equivalent of stress balls, except they absorb stress.” Snatching up another one, he shoved that at Ianto as well. “Here, I think you’d better take two. They’re reusable. Just cuddle them until they turn black, then set them aside until they turn white again.”
Ianto squeezed the two fluffy objects against him and sighed, even managing a faint smile. He felt more relaxed already. Maybe things weren’t as bad as he’d thought.
The End