Fic: How Owen Harper Got His Christmas Spirit(and his groove)Back-for galacticconman

[michele659]

Title: How Owen Harper Got His Christmas Spirit(and his groove)Back -Part 1 (lj wouldn't let me post the whole thing in one post!)
Author: michele659
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen Harper/Ianto Jones, the Team
Rating: PG 
Spoilers-AU
Notes: Written for mistletw promptathon for galacticconman The prompt was: Characters/Pairing: Owen, any of the others, but Owen as the main please.
Genre: Het/Gen/Slash/Fluff
Festive Theme: Tinsel (and other decorations), eggnog and the awful weather Cardiff has been getting at the moment.
Word Count: 5423

Summary:: Ianto helps Owen regain  the Christmas spirit; Odd things go on at  the  hub
Sexual innuendo, fluff, questionable Christmas decorations and flirting.
 I hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Torchwood ,and am not making any money from this.

*****


Owen Harper was in a foul mood.

The weather in Cardiff was often rainy, but over the last several days they’d been deluged with ice in addition to the rain.

Add freezing temperatures and wind and you had the perfect weather for catching the flu.

Owen scowled as he was elbowed into a puddle of water by some fool in a hurry to get to work.

He was most definitely NOT in the mood to go to work.  Dissecting some alien corpse was the last thing he wanted to do while having to deal with a hangover and wet clothes.

He remembered to use the “invisible lift” instead of the Tourist office entrance, since it had been flooded and was currently unusable.

Ianto had a fit when he saw that the office was flooded and mumbled something about the idiocy of building a secret base on a bay where they were at the mercy of the whims of nature (not to mention totally undefended if someone wanted to attack). Privately Owen agreed with Ianto, but he was too busy teasing him about the incident to offer any support.

Owen was shocked when he looked down at the Hub.

Everyone was - decorating?

Jack was putting up garland, Tosh was putting lights over the computer monitors, and Gwen was placing huge plastic reindeer and snowmen around.

And Ianto was on a ladder putting tinsel on a Gigantic Christmas tree!

What shocked Owen even more was that Ianto was singing Christmas carols!

“Where the hell am I?  A secret base or the lobby of John Lewis' department store?”

Everyone looked up at him and grunted a hello; they were too engrossed in their work to talk to him.

Ianto continued singing “Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, so if you’ve no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

“It’s finally happened, hasn’t it Ianto? You’ve gone mad.”

“Oh come on, Owen. It’s Christmas! Get into the spirit!”

“My clothes are soaking wet, I have a headache, and you’re singing off key. Don’t tell me to get into the spirit!” Owen said, irritably.

Ianto threw some tinsel down on his head.

“I am not singing off key! You just have no ear for music. And don’t try that headache excuse again! I know you’re hung-over.” Gwen and Tosh laughed at that, and Owen made a face at them too.

Picking the tinsel off his head he said, “Ianto, I would be nice to me if I were you. After all, I’m the one next to the ladder you’re standing on.”

“Ha- you wouldn’t dare! Who’d make your coffee for you?”

Owen had nothing to say to that. He was well aware that he was addicted to Ianto’s coffee.

Ianto smirked at Owen and offered him some tinsel for the tree. “Come on then. Help out.”

Owen pushed the tinsel away. “I have to change my clothes first. Then I’ll come back and help if I must.”

***

“Ianto, where are my clothes?” He yelled when he came up from the locker room.

“They are where you left them, I suppose. Owen, why would you think I’d know where you keep your clothes?”

He hadn’t. He just hoped Ianto would have them or know where they were like he seemed to know where everything else was.

“I thought you knew everything,” Owen muttered.

“The location of your clothes wouldn’t be included in things Ianto has to know, Owen,” Tosh said, smiling at the tone in Owens’s voice.

“Oh, let me help him,” Ianto sighed and got down off the ladder. “He’ll just use his lack of dry clothing as an excuse not to help if I don’t.”

Owen stuck out his tongue at him.

“Don’t flash that thing if you don’t intend to use it,” Ianto whispered.

“What? What did you just say?” Owen asked, following Ianto down to the lockers in confusion.

“Hmm, nothing. Just joking around with you,” Ianto replied in a distracted tone, looking for Owen’s clothes.

Owen didn’t want to let it drop. “I could’ve sworn you said not to flash that thing if I didn’t intend to use it.”

“Did I? Oh, yes. I was joking, Owen.” Ianto smiled, but there was a gleam in his eye that Owen would have sworn was sexual.

Well, he would have if it had been anyone else but Ianto looking at him.

“Are you drunk?” he wondered.

Ianto picked up some clothes out of the laundry bin. “Aha! Here they are.” Ianto shook his head. “Trust you to put your clean clothes in the laundry bin.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Are you drunk?”

Ianto laughed. “Of course I’m not drunk.” He winked at Owen.

“What- what the hell was that? What are you up to, Jones?”

Ianto threw the clothes at Owen.” Nothing,” he said “You should take a shower. Then have some eggnog and stop acting like Scrooge!”

“I’m not a Scrooge!” Owen said, indignantly.

“Yes, yes you are. Scrooge and the Grinch all rolled into one!”

“Alright! I’ll be cheerful! “Owen snarled.

“Oh, very convincing.” Ianto smirked at him.

As Owen passed by he said, “I’ll make you some coffee to warm you up.”

Owen was very confused. He couldn’t figure out what was going on with Ianto.

He was being, for lack of a better word, flirtatious with him.

***

When Owen came out of the shower, he was surprised to find a mug of coffee waiting for him.

He drank it gratefully since not even the hot shower had taken the chill out of his bones, and the towel wrapped around his waist wasn’t doing enough to warm him.

“I put your clothes in the dryer,” he heard a voice behind him say.

He turned around to see Ianto standing there, lounging against the wall.

“Thanks. And thanks for this,” he said, indicating the coffee cup.  “It’s delicious, and it’s nice and hot. I can’t believe how soaking wet I got on the way over here!”

“Yes, well it might have helped if you’d taken an umbrella.”

“I hate those things,” Owen said.”One gust of wind and they fly away, taking you with them. Or, they fight with you to stay in place.” He put the coffee cup down to dry his hair.

“Would you like help with that?” Ianto asked

“With what? Drying my hair? What are you on today, Ianto?”

“Nothing! Just trying to be helpful. You’re still shivering. I thought it would be good if you could finish your coffee now.”

“Oh, well thanks, but no. I’ll be ok.”

Ianto sighed and said, “Suit yourself. “I’ll see you upstairs.”

Owen shook his head. He had no idea what was going through that crazy Welshman’s mind.

***

When he got upstairs he blinked at the level of brightness in the normally dimly lighted Hub.

There were lights all over the walls and doorways; Tosh and Gwen were putting out still more plastic reindeer and snowmen.

He had to cover his eyes when he saw the Rudolph the red nosed reindeer in the center.

It’s very red nose was lit, and it was twinkling!

“Oh come on, that’s enough isn’t it? When we have a blinking reindeer in the Hub it pretty much ruins out credibility, doesn’t it?”

Ianto laughed. “Credibility with whom?  The only people who come down here get retconned anyway.”

“Well, you don’t know. We might get a call to work with the Police or Downing Street, and how would it look?”

Jack walked by holding up what Owen desperately hoped wasn’t a blow up Santa Claus doll and absently patted Owen on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Those people are party animals.”

“See Owen? No need to worry! “Ianto smirked.

“Why don’t you search this place for a spot with no decorations and see how many you can squeeze in?”

“Why don’t you, Owen?” Ianto asked, and threw fake snow at him.

Gwen and Tosh laughed as Owen grumbled and made threats of bodily harm to Ianto.

“I told you Gwen, Tosh. He’s a Scrooge and the Grinch!” Ianto said. “You’re getting nothing but coal in your stocking this year! ‘No toys for you!” he continued cheerfully, as he gave Owen that same look that confused and turned him on at the same time.

Meanwhile Gwen and Toshiko were nodding their heads at Ianto’s words.

Owen glared. “The two of you look like a couple of bobble headed dolls. Why don’t you join Ianto in looking for a bare spot somewhere? After all, we can’t have a single spot without decoration now, can we?”

They looked at each other and repeated,” A Scrooge and the Grinch!”

“Someone needs to loosen up,” Ianto said as he tacked a cut out of Santa and the eight reindeer on the wall.

“Yes, good idea, Ianto. Let’s put some rum in the eggnog!”

“He didn’t say that!” Owen looked at the normally quiet Toshiko and wondered what the hell happened to his colleagues in the time before he got to work.

But Ianto had already hammered the final tack in the hideous cutout and was briskly walking to the liquor cabinet, saying, “You’re right, Toshiko! He needs to loosen up. Time to put a little rum in the eggnog!”

Owen walked over to Toshiko and Gwen.”Do you notice anything different about Ianto today?”

They looked at each other and shrugged. “He’s in an exceptionally good mood. I guess he has the Christmas spirit.” Gwen replied.

“Yes, Ianto certainly has gone all out with the decorations and the tree. He got some of these decorations from the archives!” Toshiko exclaimed.

“Aha! That explains it! Some of these ornaments must be alien and it’s making him all odd.” Owen paused for a moment. “Well, odder than he usually is,” he amended.

“No, these are not alien ornaments.” Gwen shook her head. “They’re just antiques-or some of them are, anyway.”

“Some of them he just bought,” added Toshiko.

“Well that shows there’s something wrong, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What IS your problem today?” Gwen asked.

He leaned in close to Tosh and Gwen and said,”Ianto has been flirting with me. At first I thought it was some alien thing gone wrong, but now it seems like it might be real. I think he fancies me!”

The women looked at each other and then at him and simultaneously started laughing.

“What’s so funny about that?” he asked. “You don’t think I’m attractive enough for someone to flirt with?” He eyed both of them critically. “If I remember correctly you both seemed to find me attractive at one time.”

“Yes, well,” Gwen cleared her throat.”That might have been alien influence.”

Toshiko agreed. Then she giggled again. “Frankly Owen, I find it hard to imagine Ianto being interested in you.”

Gwen snorted as she untangled yet another set of lights.

“Ok,” Jack said cheerily as he returned from the front of the Hub. “Mr. Claus is in place, now we just have to find Mrs. Claus.”

“Oh God, there are more of them?” Owen moaned.

“Let’s take a break from not working and have some eggnog!” Ianto brought out a huge punchbowl filled with eggnog and waved them over.

****

Owen took a healthy swig of the eggnog and gasped “Ianto, there’s more than a little rum in here!”
Ianto’s eyes twinkled as he handed out the glasses. “What’s wrong, Owen? Don’t tell me you can’t hold your liquor all of a sudden?  What’s a little rum in the eggnog to a hard drinking man like you?”

The rest of the team laughed and Owen gave Ianto his best squinty glare. “A little rum? There’s so much rum in that eggnog that if you put a match to it the whole thing would burst into flames!”

Jack laughed. “Someone is being a bit of a lightweight in the drinking department.”

“Oh, ok fine. I’ll drink you all under the table!” Owen drained his glass and walked over to the table and got another drink.

“Can we toast before we start the drinking competition?” Ianto asked.

Owen sighed. “Alright then. Who wants to make a toast?”

Jack cleared his throat to begin.

“Oi, not you Jack!” Owen groaned.” We‘d like to start drinking before midnight if you don’t mind!”

Jack pouted and Gwen and Tosh laughed. Ianto smirked before schooling his face into an impassive expression.

“Well, then you can just do it yourself.” Jack said.

‘Um, I hope everyone has a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year!” Owen blurted out.

“Oh, that was brilliant!” Jack huffed, still put out by not being the one to make the toast.

“I was blindsided!” Owen shouted. “I didn’t expect that!”

“Then you should have let Jack make the toast,” Ianto pointed out.

“Oh…shut up,” Owen replied.

“What a comeback!  I’m in awe of your wit!” Ianto teased.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just drink.” Owen raised his glass and the others joined him.

TBC in Part 2