FIC: The Unwilling Observer (Reel Torchwood Submission)
I really did enjoy this ficathon, though god knows what with illness and Christmas reviews and interviews and all sorts of other bits and pieces I barely had time to write it. My epic had to be scaled back to one scene, which was fantastic fun to write (a new found love for Owen has been sparked for me in the making of this fic) and is apparently quite funny. Hope everyone enjoys.
Title: The Unwilling Observer
Author: Ginger (aka Gingerbreadlass)
Prompt: Four Weddings and a Funeral
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto
Rating: R
Warnings: Non-explicit sex, accidental voyeurism, minor anti-gingerism
Spoilers: nil poit.
Disclaimer for TW and the movie you are using: Torchwood is the property of the BBC, but god knows the fans should own it. Meanwhile, Four Weddings and a Funeral is all Richard Curtis', basically.
Summary: Owen thought his day couldn't get any worse. Well, it could. Bloody Harkness.
A/N: Though it's probably entirely unnecessary to point out, Owen's opinions aren't mine, and regrettably trying to write him IC somehow ended up involving a bit of red head bashing. As a proud ginger myself, I'm not going to apologise for it. I felt the need to warn in case anyone has a major issue, but otherwise enjoy. It's supposed to be funny, after all.
As Owen slumped his way across the Plass, hands thrust deep into his pockets against the cold, he considered that the evening had not quite turned out as he had originally planned it. He hadn’t found someone to go home with. Not unusual, but after the day’s calamities he’d been hoping for at least someone (anyone - even a ginger would have done!) to drag him to their place and into their bed. Even a ginger bloke -- and he didn’t consider that as an option particularly often. God, he was sinking low.
To make matters even worse, he couldn’t even make a call to his favourite slag and ask her if she was busy. As Owen could hardly be expected to remember numbers other than his mobile number which had more than three digits for any amount of time, let alone someone else’s address, he would have to leave it be for the moment.
Damn Jack Harkness and his phone-confiscating abilities.
“Uh-uh-uh, you do not get this back,” Jack had said, holding the phone up high in the air, at arms length. His freakish height made it impossible for Owen to jump and reach it, though he tried. His attempts met with titters from above, which Owen brought an abrupt end to by sticking his middle finger up in Gwen’s general direction.
“You’re not my dad Harkness, now give me the bloody phone!” Owen tried jumping for his mobile one last time, failed miserably and so decided to glower at his beloved captain, arms crossed over his chest like a petulant child.
“Go and do that autopsy and then you can have it back,” Jack said pointedly. “I don’t pay you to text people during work hours.”
“Look, if you were me, would you want to be up to your elbows in alien shite all afternoon? Especially if it tried to kill you earlier?”
“Depends on the situation,” he replied, with an unrepentant grin. Owen shuddered at the mental picture. “Ianto!”
“I’m not getting involved.” With customary swiftness, Ianto crossed the hub, pushed a cup of coffee into Jack’s hand and paused only briefly, to mutter “that’s completely unhygienic, sir” disgustedly in his ear, before descending into the archives. Owen sniggered. Bang went Jack’s source of entertainment for the afternoon.
To make a point, Jack had shifted sideways, holding the phone over the pool at the bottom of the water tower, raising his eyebrows in such a way to make him look thoroughly dangerous. “You wouldn’t…” Owen had said, through gritted teeth.
“Oh, I would. What’s the matter? Can’t remember your favourite shag’s phone number?”
“Of course I can!”
In hindsight, as he stepped into the Tourist Office, Owen considered that perhaps that had not been the wisest thing he’d said all year. Jack had taken the phone and put it in his top pocket, inside that ridiculous coat the ponce insisted on wearing, and now he had to get it back before he could have any fun. Owen’s mildly drunken reasoning followed along the lines of ‘Jack lives in the Hub, therefore, so does his coat, and he’s not going to notice if I sneak in there like a ninja, pickpocket him and leave as quietly as leaves on the breeze…’
Owen was, in fact, rather more drunk than he considered himself to be.
He stood in the lift and hummed tunelessly to himself, considering plans of action and where Jack hid his greatcoat. Unless Ianto felt the need to steal the coat for mending, or cleaning, it stayed on Jack or on the coat rack in his office. He could get to Jack’s office, no problem.
Eventually, Owen did manage to make his way to Jack’s desk, despite getting temporarily distracted by the screensaver on Tosh’s computer. He ripped his eyes away from the swirling image, full of pretty colours, and tottered along to Jack’s office, fingers itching. His mobile phone was here somewhere, he knew it must be. He could feel it in his fingers… and his toes. Wait, no. That was Wet Wet Wet.
“Always hated that bloody song,” he muttered to himself irritably, as he looked around the small, dingy room. At least he hadn’t found Jack in here.
That said, he hadn’t found the coat either. Fuck.
Jack could not have left the Hub. Jack, in his own, special way, was like Pluto. He had his own little underworld of Weevils and aliens, and therefore he wasn’t allowed to leave the Hub. Not with that coat, anyway. Not as far as Owen saw it. He had to be here so Owen could take his mobile and go home and call her, his current flavour of the month.
He walked around the room, merely to make sure that the walls were not chewing the coat. You never knew with the Hub. The Dragon might have moved or something and -
Behind him, the proximity alarm went off, blaring loudly through his addled mind as the cog door opened. He clutched at his head in pain and turned around.
Dear god. Jack, poncy RAF greatcoat and all, was snogging the tea boy against his desk. That was quick, Owen considered, watching in alarm as Jack began to brush aside the paperwork Owen hadn’t got around to yet, presumably to give Ianto space to sit on the wood.
“No,” Ianto said firmly, seeing exactly what Jack was doing and steering him away from it. Owen breathed a sigh of relief.
“Don’t you want revenge?” Jack asked, kissing down his neck. “He’s a bastard to you.”
“There are better ways to do that,” Ianto replied simply, lifting his chin to give Jack better access, smiling in pleasure. “Decaf, for instance.”
Jack laughed, and licked up his neck. Ianto’s breath hitched. Owen wasn’t sure whether he should be watching, but Jack was wearing the coat and, in addition, he could see the bulge of his phone in the pocket of Jack’s trousers. Well, perhaps it wasn’t his phone… still, it was something. He watched, fascinated, as Jack began to fiddle with Ianto’s tie, and manoeuvred them both in the direction of Jack’s office.
Wait, he was in Jack’s office.
Shit!
Owen looked around for somewhere to go. Under the desk? No, it looked like they were angling for the desk, that would be both foul and decidedly uncomfortable. Behind the filing cabinet? No, he’d be spotted immediately.
There was only one option. He would have to go into the hole in the floor, wherever it might take him. Owen sat down with a bump and put his foot into the gloom, found a metal rung of a ladder and, confidence settling around him like a heavy blanket, stumbled down it to a concrete floor. Lacking anywhere to hide, he stood behind the ladder, breathing heavily.
Above him, he could hear fumbling, a little laughing, the abrupt shunt of Jack’s desk as weight was put on it, scraping against the floor, the flurry of material as it was removed and dropped, or draped. Jack’s voice, whispering. Ianto’s quick breathing.
“Come and see what I have downstairs,” Jack said wickedly from above, and before Owen could move, his feet were on the top rung. Owen dropped to the floor and curled up in a ball, eyes tight shut.
“I hate to think,” Ianto replied, his voice quiet from above.
“I have a bed.”
“You did not manage to get a bed down that hole.”
“Well, camp bed. Whatever. Come on down.” Jack’s feet hit the floor, and a set of more tentative steps sounded on the metal ladder, reaching the floor. “This is my hidey-hole.”
“I’m sure it’s lovely,” Ianto replied, a hint of sarcasm to his tone. Dear god, was he looking around? Owen mentally panicked. Ianto had sharp eyesight. If Ianto spotted him, Jack could get pissed off on his behalf. If Jack spotted him, it might be easier to laugh it off.
“I prefer being down inside you, actually.”
“Thought so.” Jack chuckled, and there was a soft noise as they began to kiss again, a creak as they fell back onto what Owen could only assume was Jack’s bed, and a laugh along with the fumbling of material. Owen winced, and realised he had completely sobered up. There was now no excuse for when he was inevitably caught. Jesus.
In the darkness, Owen could only hate to think what they were doing. Clothing was tossed thereabout everywhere - or Ianto’s clothing was, anyway, by the sounds of it.
“Careful with your coat,” Ianto said warningly, through a moan - and then a slight hiss in the dark. His accent had thickened. Owen shuddered. He could just about deal with Ianto’s accent normally, but if he was going to have to sit here and listen to it in the throes of passion he would have to leave quickly. Phone be damned.
“You really do like my coat, don’t you?”
“I don’t like fixing or cleaning it unnec-” another hiss. “Not on my neck, sir. We agreed.”
“I like your neck.”
“I’m sure you do, but I don’t want questions ask - oh, yes…” A shuffle of blankets preceded a slight squelch. Owen shuddered. He was in the room. Oh, this was wrong.
Jack chuckled. “I’ve just realised I’ve got Owen’s phone in my pocket. Want to have some fun with it?”
“We don’t know where’s that’s been.” Owen felt mildly affronted at that remark. However, with the noise of something suspiciously phone-like against the concrete floor, Owen felt a flash of sudden hope. He could get out of this, get the phone while he still could and get out…
Stealthily, he lowered himself onto his stomach and began to crawl as quietly as he could across the room, snakelike, trying to ignore the noises from the bed. Slopping and moans and grunts and nothing he could say he particularly wanted to hear from the bloody Teaboy and Jack ‘shag me’ Harkness himself going at it like rabbits or gerbils or whatever the phrase was. Especially when Owen wasn’t getting any. If there was a god, He really was doing a good job of spitting on Owen that day.
Ianto had begun to swear quietly in various languages by the time Owen had inched his way across the floor to the bed, patting around surreptitiously for the phone. Jack panted with exertion, leaving very little to the imagination. Suddenly, something hit the wall, and the lights flickered on from where Jack had apparently whacked the switch. Owen froze, horrified, the phone barely two inches from his outstretched hand.
Thankfully, Jack’s attention was directed elsewhere, bending down to Ianto to kiss him really quite passionately. As Owen carefully picked up his mobile, he wondered whether Jack put that façade on for everyone he screwed. Jack had to have a long list of one night stands, and surely Teaboy was merely the latest one of many. Thankfully, he couldn’t see much of either of them - rather a relief - but he did have to get through quiet groaning and a loud shout respectively. How pleasant.
Courteous as ever, Owen gave the pair thirty seconds or so to recover before he made his move.
“Found it,” he announced, allowing himself a well earned smirk. Both men looked around. Ianto grabbed for a blanket in an attempt to keep some modesty and Jack merely looked surprised, as Owen waggled his phone in their general direction and decided it was time to leg it.
Title: The Unwilling Observer
Author: Ginger (aka Gingerbreadlass)
Prompt: Four Weddings and a Funeral
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto
Rating: R
Warnings: Non-explicit sex, accidental voyeurism, minor anti-gingerism
Spoilers: nil poit.
Disclaimer for TW and the movie you are using: Torchwood is the property of the BBC, but god knows the fans should own it. Meanwhile, Four Weddings and a Funeral is all Richard Curtis', basically.
Summary: Owen thought his day couldn't get any worse. Well, it could. Bloody Harkness.
A/N: Though it's probably entirely unnecessary to point out, Owen's opinions aren't mine, and regrettably trying to write him IC somehow ended up involving a bit of red head bashing. As a proud ginger myself, I'm not going to apologise for it. I felt the need to warn in case anyone has a major issue, but otherwise enjoy. It's supposed to be funny, after all.
As Owen slumped his way across the Plass, hands thrust deep into his pockets against the cold, he considered that the evening had not quite turned out as he had originally planned it. He hadn’t found someone to go home with. Not unusual, but after the day’s calamities he’d been hoping for at least someone (anyone - even a ginger would have done!) to drag him to their place and into their bed. Even a ginger bloke -- and he didn’t consider that as an option particularly often. God, he was sinking low.
To make matters even worse, he couldn’t even make a call to his favourite slag and ask her if she was busy. As Owen could hardly be expected to remember numbers other than his mobile number which had more than three digits for any amount of time, let alone someone else’s address, he would have to leave it be for the moment.
Damn Jack Harkness and his phone-confiscating abilities.
“Uh-uh-uh, you do not get this back,” Jack had said, holding the phone up high in the air, at arms length. His freakish height made it impossible for Owen to jump and reach it, though he tried. His attempts met with titters from above, which Owen brought an abrupt end to by sticking his middle finger up in Gwen’s general direction.
“You’re not my dad Harkness, now give me the bloody phone!” Owen tried jumping for his mobile one last time, failed miserably and so decided to glower at his beloved captain, arms crossed over his chest like a petulant child.
“Go and do that autopsy and then you can have it back,” Jack said pointedly. “I don’t pay you to text people during work hours.”
“Look, if you were me, would you want to be up to your elbows in alien shite all afternoon? Especially if it tried to kill you earlier?”
“Depends on the situation,” he replied, with an unrepentant grin. Owen shuddered at the mental picture. “Ianto!”
“I’m not getting involved.” With customary swiftness, Ianto crossed the hub, pushed a cup of coffee into Jack’s hand and paused only briefly, to mutter “that’s completely unhygienic, sir” disgustedly in his ear, before descending into the archives. Owen sniggered. Bang went Jack’s source of entertainment for the afternoon.
To make a point, Jack had shifted sideways, holding the phone over the pool at the bottom of the water tower, raising his eyebrows in such a way to make him look thoroughly dangerous. “You wouldn’t…” Owen had said, through gritted teeth.
“Oh, I would. What’s the matter? Can’t remember your favourite shag’s phone number?”
“Of course I can!”
In hindsight, as he stepped into the Tourist Office, Owen considered that perhaps that had not been the wisest thing he’d said all year. Jack had taken the phone and put it in his top pocket, inside that ridiculous coat the ponce insisted on wearing, and now he had to get it back before he could have any fun. Owen’s mildly drunken reasoning followed along the lines of ‘Jack lives in the Hub, therefore, so does his coat, and he’s not going to notice if I sneak in there like a ninja, pickpocket him and leave as quietly as leaves on the breeze…’
Owen was, in fact, rather more drunk than he considered himself to be.
He stood in the lift and hummed tunelessly to himself, considering plans of action and where Jack hid his greatcoat. Unless Ianto felt the need to steal the coat for mending, or cleaning, it stayed on Jack or on the coat rack in his office. He could get to Jack’s office, no problem.
Eventually, Owen did manage to make his way to Jack’s desk, despite getting temporarily distracted by the screensaver on Tosh’s computer. He ripped his eyes away from the swirling image, full of pretty colours, and tottered along to Jack’s office, fingers itching. His mobile phone was here somewhere, he knew it must be. He could feel it in his fingers… and his toes. Wait, no. That was Wet Wet Wet.
“Always hated that bloody song,” he muttered to himself irritably, as he looked around the small, dingy room. At least he hadn’t found Jack in here.
That said, he hadn’t found the coat either. Fuck.
Jack could not have left the Hub. Jack, in his own, special way, was like Pluto. He had his own little underworld of Weevils and aliens, and therefore he wasn’t allowed to leave the Hub. Not with that coat, anyway. Not as far as Owen saw it. He had to be here so Owen could take his mobile and go home and call her, his current flavour of the month.
He walked around the room, merely to make sure that the walls were not chewing the coat. You never knew with the Hub. The Dragon might have moved or something and -
Behind him, the proximity alarm went off, blaring loudly through his addled mind as the cog door opened. He clutched at his head in pain and turned around.
Dear god. Jack, poncy RAF greatcoat and all, was snogging the tea boy against his desk. That was quick, Owen considered, watching in alarm as Jack began to brush aside the paperwork Owen hadn’t got around to yet, presumably to give Ianto space to sit on the wood.
“No,” Ianto said firmly, seeing exactly what Jack was doing and steering him away from it. Owen breathed a sigh of relief.
“Don’t you want revenge?” Jack asked, kissing down his neck. “He’s a bastard to you.”
“There are better ways to do that,” Ianto replied simply, lifting his chin to give Jack better access, smiling in pleasure. “Decaf, for instance.”
Jack laughed, and licked up his neck. Ianto’s breath hitched. Owen wasn’t sure whether he should be watching, but Jack was wearing the coat and, in addition, he could see the bulge of his phone in the pocket of Jack’s trousers. Well, perhaps it wasn’t his phone… still, it was something. He watched, fascinated, as Jack began to fiddle with Ianto’s tie, and manoeuvred them both in the direction of Jack’s office.
Wait, he was in Jack’s office.
Shit!
Owen looked around for somewhere to go. Under the desk? No, it looked like they were angling for the desk, that would be both foul and decidedly uncomfortable. Behind the filing cabinet? No, he’d be spotted immediately.
There was only one option. He would have to go into the hole in the floor, wherever it might take him. Owen sat down with a bump and put his foot into the gloom, found a metal rung of a ladder and, confidence settling around him like a heavy blanket, stumbled down it to a concrete floor. Lacking anywhere to hide, he stood behind the ladder, breathing heavily.
Above him, he could hear fumbling, a little laughing, the abrupt shunt of Jack’s desk as weight was put on it, scraping against the floor, the flurry of material as it was removed and dropped, or draped. Jack’s voice, whispering. Ianto’s quick breathing.
“Come and see what I have downstairs,” Jack said wickedly from above, and before Owen could move, his feet were on the top rung. Owen dropped to the floor and curled up in a ball, eyes tight shut.
“I hate to think,” Ianto replied, his voice quiet from above.
“I have a bed.”
“You did not manage to get a bed down that hole.”
“Well, camp bed. Whatever. Come on down.” Jack’s feet hit the floor, and a set of more tentative steps sounded on the metal ladder, reaching the floor. “This is my hidey-hole.”
“I’m sure it’s lovely,” Ianto replied, a hint of sarcasm to his tone. Dear god, was he looking around? Owen mentally panicked. Ianto had sharp eyesight. If Ianto spotted him, Jack could get pissed off on his behalf. If Jack spotted him, it might be easier to laugh it off.
“I prefer being down inside you, actually.”
“Thought so.” Jack chuckled, and there was a soft noise as they began to kiss again, a creak as they fell back onto what Owen could only assume was Jack’s bed, and a laugh along with the fumbling of material. Owen winced, and realised he had completely sobered up. There was now no excuse for when he was inevitably caught. Jesus.
In the darkness, Owen could only hate to think what they were doing. Clothing was tossed thereabout everywhere - or Ianto’s clothing was, anyway, by the sounds of it.
“Careful with your coat,” Ianto said warningly, through a moan - and then a slight hiss in the dark. His accent had thickened. Owen shuddered. He could just about deal with Ianto’s accent normally, but if he was going to have to sit here and listen to it in the throes of passion he would have to leave quickly. Phone be damned.
“You really do like my coat, don’t you?”
“I don’t like fixing or cleaning it unnec-” another hiss. “Not on my neck, sir. We agreed.”
“I like your neck.”
“I’m sure you do, but I don’t want questions ask - oh, yes…” A shuffle of blankets preceded a slight squelch. Owen shuddered. He was in the room. Oh, this was wrong.
Jack chuckled. “I’ve just realised I’ve got Owen’s phone in my pocket. Want to have some fun with it?”
“We don’t know where’s that’s been.” Owen felt mildly affronted at that remark. However, with the noise of something suspiciously phone-like against the concrete floor, Owen felt a flash of sudden hope. He could get out of this, get the phone while he still could and get out…
Stealthily, he lowered himself onto his stomach and began to crawl as quietly as he could across the room, snakelike, trying to ignore the noises from the bed. Slopping and moans and grunts and nothing he could say he particularly wanted to hear from the bloody Teaboy and Jack ‘shag me’ Harkness himself going at it like rabbits or gerbils or whatever the phrase was. Especially when Owen wasn’t getting any. If there was a god, He really was doing a good job of spitting on Owen that day.
Ianto had begun to swear quietly in various languages by the time Owen had inched his way across the floor to the bed, patting around surreptitiously for the phone. Jack panted with exertion, leaving very little to the imagination. Suddenly, something hit the wall, and the lights flickered on from where Jack had apparently whacked the switch. Owen froze, horrified, the phone barely two inches from his outstretched hand.
Thankfully, Jack’s attention was directed elsewhere, bending down to Ianto to kiss him really quite passionately. As Owen carefully picked up his mobile, he wondered whether Jack put that façade on for everyone he screwed. Jack had to have a long list of one night stands, and surely Teaboy was merely the latest one of many. Thankfully, he couldn’t see much of either of them - rather a relief - but he did have to get through quiet groaning and a loud shout respectively. How pleasant.
Courteous as ever, Owen gave the pair thirty seconds or so to recover before he made his move.
“Found it,” he announced, allowing himself a well earned smirk. Both men looked around. Ianto grabbed for a blanket in an attempt to keep some modesty and Jack merely looked surprised, as Owen waggled his phone in their general direction and decided it was time to leg it.