A/N- My god, my 20th story. But almost all of them are one shots. Anyway, set after the Lisa shebang, and Ianto is going mad. I can't help but be cruel to him, just because he's my favourite and is so strong so I have to push him. It's not very long, but my work tends to be that way. Hopefully its quality, not quantity. Or its a short amount of drivel that you're reading! Probably the latter, XD. Let me know what you think, I'm not sure if I like this one...
The night times the worst. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, slowly going insane. The clock ticks, the only thing proving that I'm still alive and that the world's still turning. The hours, the endless hours until the light peeps around the curtains and a new day has begun. A new day, that will be exactly the same as the one before and the one that will come after it. A new day that I don't care if I see or not, yet I still drag myself out of bed and force myself to face the light.
I get up. I get dressed. I go to work. I make coffee. I file. I make coffee. I go home. I go back to bed. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
I'm still invisible. They look straight through me, never noticing that I'm dead inside, and becoming that way on the outside. I can't remember the last time I ate. Or drank anything. Or shaved. And I can't bring myself to care. One day, the clock will stop ticking and there will be an end to this madness. Or is that just wishful thinking? I don't know what else I can do to make it end, apart from doing something stupid and even then they might be able to save me. It would be just my luck. If I did, they would notice something was wrong and that's the last thing that I want.
The pain never ends. It keeps rhythm with the clock. The never ending throb, with the insistent agony that lies just below the surface. You could prick me with a pin and it would flow forwards, a dam bursting, a sea of darkness that could kill. Then it would be gone from me, and possibly it wouldn't hurt any more. The trouble is, I can't find a pin.
Today, I thought I'd found the cure. Jack rested his hand on my shoulder, and for one shining moment it stopped. Everything froze. For the first time in months, I didn't feel anything. No pain, no aching, no fear. Just numbness, with a tinge of something that felt unfamiliar. It wasn't until afterwards that I realised it was the beginnings of happiness. But then I did something really stupid. Physical contact is found easiest in one form, and I thought that was all that I needed so I went and got laid with the first girl that was willing. But it didn't stop. There wasn't the same freeze, the same moment when everything was fine when we touched. Now I just feel dirty, used. The kind of dirt that soils the soul, not the skin. No amount of scrubbing will erase it. I want that stillness back, the silence in the screaming. Yet the man who gives it is the one who started it. The irony isn't lost on me.
It's become a craving, a deep engraved need that fills every cell in my body. I want to, no, need to collapse into his arms and revel in the silence. I need to stay there, like an animal basking in the sunlight until I've forgotten why I'm there in the first place. Then he will kiss my head, rub my back and tell me to flick the machine on, and everything will go back to normal. But I'll know that he's there, and can make it go away whenever I want it to, even if it's just for a while. But it's from the man that I'm supposed to hate with every part of me. It's the knowledge that will give me the courage to carry on, and beat the ticking.