"If You Pass Go, Do Not Collect £200", Torchwood, Owen/Ianto
{ix}
Owen shifts uncomfortably on his chair. “You are fucking this up,” he complains.
Ianto resists the urge to snap something cruel at him, because Owen’s skin is beaded with sweat and the open wound on his ribs that Ianto is attempting to stitch closed is oozing in a particularly nasty, infected way.
“Shut up,” he says. “You were the one who taught me to do stitches, if I’m crap at this then you’ve only got yourself to blame.”
Owen makes a small noise of pain in response, and Ianto decides to stay quiet for the moment. Owen looks ghastly; pale and sweating from a fever, his whole body shaking from pain and sickness. He was knifed a few days ago; without decent medical attention the wound has got infected and Ianto thinks this might be a whole new level of self-destructive for Owen that he’s never considered before.
“Why are you doing this, Ianto?” Owen rasps after a while, when Ianto is dabbing more antiseptic on the stitches - thank God for the medical kit Jack provided him with - and hoping he hasn’t done a piss-poor job of sewing Owen back together. He’ll have a fucking ugly scar, but some things can’t be helped. He’ll hopefully be alive, which is the important part.
“Well,” Ianto responds steadily, carefully peeling the backing off a sticky pad of gauze to cover the wound with, “Jack will be vastly unimpressed if I bring back your corpse.”
Owen flinches when Ianto sticks the pad in place. “Right,” he says, “He’ll never let you out on field work again; you’ll have to stay in the archives putting coloured labels on things forever.”
“Exactly,” Ianto replies, with a hint of a smile. He sits back on his heels.
“If I were you I’d let me die,” Owen mutters. “You must hate me.”
He’s flushed from the fever and the sooner they start giving him antibiotics the better.
“I don’t hate you,” Ianto tells him. “I’m angry with you, yes, but then that’s not really anything new.” He carefully pushes himself to his feet. “Why didn’t you come to me, Owen? I’d have helped you.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Owen mumbles; he looks slightly sheepish.
“Not everyone’s you, Owen,” Ianto sighs. “Come on, let’s get you into bed without popping those stitches.”
It takes a while to get Owen over to the bed and to put him into a clean nightshirt Ianto has brought from his house. Owen is skinnier than ever and Ianto spends a moment studying the scars that litter his chest. There’s the round hole of the gunshot wound that Ianto inflicted himself, the ugly scrapes from the time Owen tried to get himself eaten by a Weevil, and the mark above Owen’s hip from the time John shot him. There’s also a brand new scar on Owen’s other shoulder; still pink around the edges and painfully raw looking. Ianto thinks about asking, but decides he doesn’t want to.
“When you’ve finished perving over just how damaged I am, it’s fucking cold in here,” Owen grits.
Ianto pulls the nightshirt over his head and lies him down, wrapping Owen in the blankets. He lifts Owen’s head up and helps him swallow some antibiotics and some painkillers; all that he’s got, and he hopes it’ll help. Owen is still shivering but his eyelids are drooping, and he looks sick and vulnerable, not at all like the man with the animal in his eyes who crushed a man’s hand under his boot.
“You’re going to be ok, Owen,” he says quietly, brushing Owen’s matted hair off his forehead. His skin is too hot under Ianto’s palm. “I know you’re trying not to be, but you will be.”
He moves back; Owen’s hand comes out from the blankets and catches Ianto’s wrist.
“You won’t go, will you?”
Ianto looks around the dingy room, at the pile of bloody bandages still on the table - Owen did a crap job of patching himself up, considering that he’s an actual doctor - at the battered furniture, and then pictures Owen stuck here.
“I won’t go,” he promises, taking Owen’s limp hand and tucking it back beneath the covers.
Owen’s smile is genuine as his eyes slip closed. “Fucking pushover, teaboy,” he mutters drowsily.
“Oh, I know,” Ianto sighs, and watches him fall asleep.
{x}
“I don’t see why you won’t come home with me,” Ianto tells Owen a week later, when he’s pulling the stitches out and Owen is pretending determinedly that it doesn’t hurt.
“Because I haven’t exactly escaped the notice of the law,” Owen snaps, teeth gritted against the pain, “And the last thing we need is for us both to be arrested and hung. Jack will not see the funny side, and - Jesus, Ianto, you really are shit at this.”
“You’re welcome,” Ianto replies tiredly, removing the last stitch. The gash has mercifully healed and is no longer leaking infected fluids, and Owen is taking antibiotics daily so his fever has gone. All in all, he kinds of feels they’ve dodged the bullet, and if they can keep themselves alive for another twenty days then they can go home. “Well, Owen, you do seem to have fucked yourself over here.”
“How was I supposed to know you were coming for me?” Owen demands. “I was here for four months before you turned up with your judgemental eyes and your ‘Oh My God, Owen, those poor people’ schtick.”
“You should have known we wouldn’t have given up on you,” Ianto responds, wiping antiseptic over Owen’s wound again, just to be sure.
“Why?” Owen asks. “None of you actually like me, as is becoming increasingly clear.”
“Owen,” Ianto sighs, standing up, “I have come here day after day and sat by your bedside while you hallucinate and scream, I have slept on more than one occasion on a shitty wooden chair listening to mice run around inside the walls, I have done everything I can to make this just a little easier for you.”
“Yeah, ‘cause Jack won’t shag you any more if you come back and say you’ve killed the team doctor,” Owen responds.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Owen,” Ianto snaps, “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” Owen echoes. A crooked little smile steals across his mouth. “What I want, Ianto, is to put on a pair of jeans and a shirt that isn’t filthy, and go to a bar near the Hub and drink some alcohol that doesn’t taste like it’s been made in the landlord’s back garden and has all the pigeon shit in it that that implies, and then I want to chat up a person and go back to their flat and fuck them, and then I want to sneak out the next morning without saying goodbye and stagger into the Hub and have you bring me a latte made exactly how I like it and some painkillers without even being asked, while you look at me with that judgemental expression and also that look you get, like you kind of want to save me and might make it your project once you’ve finished cross-referencing the archives, only you never will because you secretly want me dead.”
“Oh,” Ianto says, and processes this for a while. “I don’t actually want you dead,” he adds eventually.
He’s angry with himself, because he thinks he might have forgiven Owen for everything he’s done simply because he looked so fragile when he was dying. And Ianto knows that Owen will have done worse things to people than what was done to him, but this is Torchwood and somehow they always look out for their own.
“Nice to know,” Owen replies, and his face is shuttered. Ianto wonders exactly what response Owen wanted from him, because he’s getting the feeling he hasn’t given it.
“I think you’ll be all right,” Ianto offers, for lack of anything else to say, “No lasting damage.”
Owen shrugs. “Good,” he says.
He’s so impassive and doesn’t seem to care that he nearly got himself killed that Ianto can’t keep himself from saying: “So you can go straight back to the streets and get back to slitting people’s throats.”
Owen sighs. “Oh, fuck off, Ianto,” he says, his tone heavy and weary. “Really, I’m grateful you didn’t leave me to die in here, ‘cause that would have been particularly shit, but you should go away now. I’ve made my bed, I’m lying in it, there’s no need to piss all over me.” He glowers at Ianto, and then adds: “Oh, and for your information, teaboy, I’ve never slit anyone’s throat.”
“Right,” Ianto says brightly, “Because that would be cruel and undignified.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Owen snaps. “I can’t get out now because I am in too deep. I’ve got to stay where I am and tread water until we get out of here; if I leave now they will kill me. There are people who will find me and kill me and then you really will be in the shit with Jack. So fuck off back to your mansion and leave me here to rot, since you’re obviously itching to get away.”
The disdain in Owen’s tone stings, really stings, and Ianto lashes out without thinking: “God, I bloody wish I had left you to die.”
He tries to leave but Owen storms after him and catches his wrist, pulling him back into the room. His grip is too tight and Ianto is horribly aware that Owen would definitely win any fight they might have; he could beat him to death with his bare hands and there’d be nothing Ianto could do about it.
“What do I have to do?” Owen asks, voice low and rough, one hand tight around his wrist and the other one clenched on Ianto’s shoulder. “Tell me what I have to do to make you happy, Ianto, because I am fucking tired and I cannot do this any more. I just can’t.” His eyes are wild and his voice is cracking. “Tell me, because you’re all that I’ve got to convince me that I’m not some psychotic cunt who’s always lived in this time period. I’m scared, Ianto, and if you keep walking away from me then I don’t think I’ll make it until we can go home. I’m too fucking close to breaking, you must know that.”
His grip is hurting; Ianto can feel where it’ll leave bruises later. “I don’t know, Owen,” he says quietly. “I don’t know, ok?”
He doesn’t say I don’t even know if you can make this better, because he’ll never be that cruel.
Owen lets go of him and steps away; he’s shaking. “Go, then,” he mutters, his voice thick. “Just go, and don’t fucking bother coming back.”
“Owen,” Ianto says, with no idea how to articulate anything at all. Owen won’t turn around; his shoulders are trembling. “Owen.”
But Owen doesn’t say anything and Ianto can’t make himself walk across the room and touch him. He leaves, repeatedly glancing over his shoulder, but Owen doesn’t move.
{xi}
Ianto doesn’t get out of bed for a couple of days; his maids keep coming in with trays of food, anxious little expressions on their faces.
“I think I’m going mad,” Ianto tells one of them. “It’s the only possible explanation.”
She frowns. “Right, sir,” she says. “Would you like me to send for the doctor?”
Ianto considers this. “Do you think he’ll be able to help?”
She looks doubtful. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Well, shall we leave off calling him for now?” Ianto suggests.
He refuses the food and she bobs a curtsey and leaves him to it. He thinks about doctors for a while; wonders exactly what Victorian doctors do for mad people. He wonders if it’ll involve leeches, and decides he should’ve paid better attention in GCSE history.
After a while, he starts wondering if he’s made up the whole thing; if he’s just an ordinary man who’s gone crazy and started hallucinating a weirdly vivid futuristic world. His life has never exactly been normal, has it, and there’s no way that could be real. No way in the world. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been locked up earlier, really. Ianto dozes restlessly and dreams of women made of metal.
He’s woken at some point by a soft tapping at his door.
“Come in,” he calls. His butler appears, looking irritated.
“There’s a man downstairs, sir,” he says. “He appears to be inebriated and is most insistent on seeing you; I really think I should send for the constabulary.”
Ianto thinks about this and then thinks about getting Owen hung, which is pretty much inevitably what will happen.
His butler looks expectantly at him and Ianto doesn’t know what to tell him. In the silence, Ianto can hear banging sounds coming through his open window; it sounds rather like Owen is attempting to break his front door down, which will not end well at all.
“Tell him I’m coming down,” Ianto sighs.
His butler stiffly inclines his head and leaves, a deeply judgemental expression etched on his face. Ianto lies still for another moment, and then goes to find some clothing.
When he gets downstairs, Owen is standing in the hall looking around, and there are no members of staff to be seen, which is probably just as well.
“What are you doing?” Ianto demands. “My butler was about to call the police!”
Owen stares at him with unfocused, swollen eyes; it looks like he’s been crying. His top hat his lopsided and he’s swaying a little on his feet; Ianto doesn’t want to know what he’s been drinking.
“I don’t care,” he says. “I don’t fucking care, Ianto. I think I’ve gone mad.”
Ianto sighs. “Well, you’re no madder than I am,” he says, and smiles a little at the look Owen gives him. “Yeah, not exactly a comforting thought, is it?” He walks over, and takes Owen’s arm. “Come on, you need to sleep this off.”
As they stumble up the stairs, Owen frowns at him: “Won’t your mini-Iantos be pissed?”
“If you refer to my servants as mini-Iantos again I’ll throw you back on the streets,” Ianto warns. “And no, not really. They think I’m eccentric, which means I can get away with all kinds of things.”
“Am I a thing?” Owen asks, as Ianto pushes him into his bedroom.
“Very possibly,” Ianto replies, pushing Owen over to the bed and helping him to unlace his grubby boots. He offers him a smile. “There’s something reassuring about you turning up at my house, pissed, expecting me to solve all your problems. It’s familiar, at least.”
Owen scowls. “I don’t do that!”
“You really do,” Ianto responds. “Now shut up and go to sleep.”
He removes Owen’s top hat for him and pushes him until he’s lying flat; just as he draws away, Owen grabs Ianto’s wrist. Ianto tenses immediately, but all Owen does is press a kiss to the centre of Ianto’s palm, before letting him go and falling asleep.
“I’ve definitely gone mad,” Ianto mumbles, and leaves Owen sleeping to go and try to make plausible excuses to his servants.
{xii}
When Owen starts showing signs of waking up, Ianto has the servants bring up enough hot water for a bath and then gives them all the afternoon off.
“Jesus,” Owen sighs, looking hungover and sheepish, “I wish I’d got here with more money than God.”
“It does help,” Ianto says with a soft smile. “Now get in; I don’t have the means to keep the water hot.”
Owen obediently strips and stumbles over to the tub, sinking into the warm water with a look of delight. Ianto rummages through the case he keeps under his bed, until he finds some shower gel. It’s sort of amusing and sort of devastating watching just how reverently Owen treats the shower gel, after months and months on Victorian soap. Finally, he’s washed all the dirt off, and scrubbed clean and pale it’s even more evident just how scrawny he’s got.
“Where are the mini-Iantos?” Owen asks curiously, when he’s wrapped in a big white towel and looking a little more human.
Ianto thinks I will throw you naked out onto the streets, but knows he’d never act on it.
“I gave them the afternoon off,” he replies. “I told them all you were my disreputable brother.”
Owen arches an eyebrow and Ianto shrugs; they both burst out laughing.
“That’s slightly disturbing,” Owen says. Then the smile fades. “Ianto, I’m losing it. I keep thinking: what if Torchwood isn’t real? What if it’s just this crazy thing I made up because I spend all my time hurting people and my brain needs somewhere else to go?”
“Well,” Ianto points out reasonably, “If your brain was creating a happy place, I don’t think it would create Torchwood. You hurt people there too, you know.”
Owen scowls at him. “Oh fucking thanks,” he snaps. “I’ll definitely come to you whenever something’s bothering me.”
Ianto shrugs. “Being sympathetic isn’t in my job description,” he says, “Which is rather strange, since practically everything else is.”
“It’s ‘cause you’re a robot,” Owen responds, looking almost cheerful. “A little robot teaboy trundling about serving hot drinks and passing judgement on people.”
“‘Little’?” Ianto echoes. “I’m taller than you, Owen.”
“Just for once, Ianto, it would be nice if you didn’t get caught up on the tiny details and saw the bigger picture,” Owen sighs, but without any real venom.
“If I looked at the bigger picture I’d have killed myself by now,” Ianto responds quietly. “You know that as well as I do.”
Owen doesn’t reply, which Ianto takes to mean he agrees, however reluctantly.
The house is too quiet, and Owen is sprawled on his bed, damp and scarred. They’ve got just over a fortnight before they leave here, and Ianto finds himself wondering if they can make it that far without either killing each other or having nervous breakdowns. It all seemed so simple when he was sitting in the Hub getting his vaccinations; find Owen, hang around, go home. He didn’t think about just how long three months really is; he didn’t think about what Owen might have done to himself in that space of time.
“Do you really believe Jack will get us out of here?” Owen asks eventually, slowly, like he doesn’t actually want to hear the answer.
“I have to,” Ianto replies.
“Yeah,” Owen sighs. He covers his face with his left hand, kneading his eyes as though they hurt, then lets his arms fall heavily down at his sides again. He looks at Ianto for so long that it starts making him feel uncomfortable. “I’m glad it was you,” Owen says at last.
Ianto frowns. “You said it yourself; I’m not qualified, I’m far too disdainful-”
“But you’ll take me home,” Owen interrupts. “After what I’ve done, Tosh and Gwen would leave me here.”
“Jack wouldn’t leave you here,” Ianto says.
“No,” Owen agrees. A trace of a smile flickers over his lips. “He’d probably sodding join in.”
Ianto opens his mouth to defend him, but there’s no point; not any more. He sighs. “Yeah, he probably would.”
“I’m pretty sure Jack could put anything I’ve done to shame,” Owen muses. “The man’s a sociopath, after all.”
“If he wasn’t, we would never have found you,” Ianto points out. “Having tracking chips installed in all of us might be bloody scary but it did come in handy.”
“It did,” Owen agrees. His face screws up in confusion and he pushes himself upright. “Shouldn’t you be threatening to brain me for speaking ill of your boyfriend?”
Ianto thinks through a dozen permutations of a reply and settles on: “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Owen looks genuinely surprised. “Oh,” he manages.
“I don’t particularly want to talk about it,” Ianto says.
Owen smiles. “I’ve got all kinds of stories,” he offers.
“I’m sure you have, but I’m also fairly sure that they’ll all either be about the various kinds of violence you’ve inflicted on random people, or they’ll be about your desperate pursuit to contract syphilis before we leave here,” Ianto replies tiredly.
Owen shrugs. “Actually, I haven’t shagged anyone,” he replies. When Ianto arches an incredulous eyebrow, Owen adds: “No, really. Birth control at the moment is shit and an abortion is not only illegal but a death sentence, and the last thing I need to do is start fathering random children in this time period.”
Ianto is privately impressed by Owen’s logic, but doesn’t show it. “You could have shagged guys,” he points out casually.
“I really don’t want syphilis, Ianto,” Owen tells him. “Besides, I think I’ve broken enough laws as it is, don’t you?”
“If the law do catch up with you they’ll probably be more interested in prosecuting you for various kinds of murder, violence, theft and extortion than for the whole homosexuality thing.”
Owen smirks. “Yeah, but the papers’ll love it: Evil Murderous Sodomite. You get the idea.”
“It has a certain ring to it,” Ianto offers. “Maybe I’ll make that your new nickname.”
“I can hurt you,” Owen reminds him.
“Oh, I know.”
Owen’s smirk goes crooked and awkward, and Ianto goes to see if he’s got some clean clothes that will do for Owen. When Owen is dressed and adjusting the angle of his hat, he glances back uncomfortably over his shoulder at Ianto.
“Thank you.”
“What for?” Ianto asks.
“For not making this worse than you had to,” Owen replies.
“I’ve been a shit to you,” Ianto points out.
“Because I deserve it,” Owen says. “But you could have made this worse, and we both know it.” His smile almost becomes a grimace. “And thank you for coming for me.”
Ianto thinks about saying I didn’t do this for you, but it would be a lie. He came for Owen because he couldn’t bear to think of him lost and he will take him back to the Hub and discreetly get him to a therapist and won’t tell Jack any more than he has to, no matter how angry with Owen he is.
“You’re welcome,” he says. “Whatever that’s worth; I just wish I’d got here earlier.”
“I don’t think it would have made much difference,” Owen tells him.
It stings, but Ianto manages: “I’m going to hope it would.”
Owen looks tired and worn and not at all insane, not at all capable of the things Ianto knows that he’s done.
“Thank your mini-Iantos for me,” Owen tells him.
“I don’t think I’ll mention you to them ever again, actually,” Ianto replies.
Owen shrugs. “Fair enough. I’ll see myself out.”
He looks thoughtful for a moment, and then holds out his hand. Ianto wants to stay strong, but Torchwood swallows your morals whole and in any case they’ve all fucked up. He takes Owen’s hand and shakes it; his firm grip telling him that, somehow, they’ll be ok.
Owen smiles, something like relief in his eyes, and then leans forward and kisses Ianto; gentle and hesitant and so unlike the arrogant, vicious Owen that Ianto has come to know that it floors him completely. Before he can do anything more than be surprised, though, Owen pulls away and lets go of his hand.
“See you soon,” he says, and then he’s walking away.
Ianto thinks he’s probably meant to stop him, but he really doesn’t know what to say.
{xiii}
A spate of nights later finds Ianto waiting outside Owen’s house, cold night air seeping into his skin, and he doesn’t want to know what his teammate is doing because there are just some things it’s easier not to have to think about. People who pass him give him wary looks; no one knows who he is but Ianto’s learning to project an air of dangerous, and anyway enough people have seen him with Owen to judge him clinically insane by association.
When Owen finally comes down the street, his shoulders are hunched and his jaw is clenched and he’s radiating pure menace in a way that’s truly unsettling. He doesn’t even have to hurt anyone any more to make a point; there’s a threat in every step he takes, every flash of his dark eyes. It’s impressive, if nothing else.
“Ianto,” he says, and there’s a sliver of surprised in his voice, though it’s tempered quickly. His voice is the rough, low scrape that he uses out in public; Owen Harper stripped bare because it’s so much scarier that way.
“Going to invite me in?” Ianto asks.
Owen gives him a careful, calculating sort of look and then nods.
“All right.”
The moment the door to Owen’s room closes behind them Ianto pushes him up against it, less hesitant than he thinks he should be, given that Owen’s got to be one of the most dangerous men in London.
“Are you sure about this?” Owen asks. His voice is normal again, a little hoarse, a little confused.
“No,” Ianto replies, and then thinks about it. “Yes.”
A smile spreads across Owen’s mouth, a real one, and he kisses Ianto first, all heat and desperation, thin fingers scrabbling at the buttons of Ianto’s coat. They stumble a step away from the door, then two, and Ianto reaches to knock Owen’s top hat onto the floor, clenching his fingers in Owen’s over-long hair. It’s a little too much like anger, this, but it isn’t and there’s no way they’re going to be able to function around each other ever again unless they do this.
The Victorian clothes are hard to fumble their way out of; too many buttons and unfamiliar fabrics and Ianto wishes fervently for jeans and t-shirts and electric light and the myriad of other things that would make this all a little bit easier. Owen’s hands are everywhere, his tongue claiming possession of Ianto’s mouth and Ianto wonders just how long Owen has wanted this.
“The standard Torchwood medical kit comes with condoms,” Ianto informs him a little breathlessly.
“I know,” Owen replies, his voice half a snap. Then he frowns, and a different expression entirely crosses his face. “Have you brought them with you?”
“I came over here to fuck you,” Ianto responds without hesitation, and feels Owen shudder against him.
“Jesus,” Owen says, “You really have been shagging Jack for too long.”
Ianto smirks at him. “Want to do something about that?”
Owen tips his head to one side. “If you’re just doing this because we’re stuck here and Jack is nearly a hundred and fifty years away-”
“None of this is about Jack,” Ianto tells him. “Some things aren’t about him, you know, and this is one of them.”
He can’t read Owen’s expression; it’s too dark in here and anyway the man can be downright inscrutable when he wants to be. There’s a breathless pause and Ianto wonders if this is the moment when he gets his neck broken, because Owen’s just too damn lost.
“Oh bloody hell, Ianto,” Owen says roughly, kissing him again, teeth tugging at Ianto’s lower lip. It’s want and it’s need and it’s too much and it’s not enough and Ianto manages to drag at a few more buttons and then Owen is practically falling out of his clothes; Ianto wonders if the floor will fill their feet with splinters and then can’t bring himself to care.
Owen’s mattress is considerably crap and Ianto wonders if he’ll return to the twenty-first century with a fucked-up back as well as a broken open mind, but then Owen gasps, trapped on his back with one of Ianto’s knees on either side of his hips and suddenly Owen’s spine doesn’t really matter all that much, in the scheme of things.
Ianto traces a line of bites up Owen’s neck, kisses his way back to Owen’s reddened mouth, tries not to count ribs under his hands because Owen is too thin and God knows just how far Owen has fallen and whether this will make it worse or better.
“Go on,” Owen breathes, curling one leg over Ianto’s hip, laying himself open and vulnerable and there was a time, nearly a year ago, when Ianto was lying in a crumpled heap on the Hub floor with his teeth tasting like blood because Owen had kicked him down, when he thought Owen could never be vulnerable and he wanted him dead, and Jesus, how things can change in such a small space of time.
Occasionally, Ianto thinks he shouldn’t really work for an organisation that provides condoms and three different kinds of lubricant in its standard medical kit for all field operatives - or maybe it’s just Jack; there’s really no way of telling - but at times like this he’ll admit it comes in useful. Owen makes an incredibly keening noise when Ianto pushes his legs apart and curls his fingers inside him; Ianto can hear his breath coming in harsh pants as he stretches Owen open.
One of the most dangerous men in London is lying open beneath Ianto and begging for it like a whore and Ianto’s not going to say that that doesn’t intrigue him, doesn’t make a line of heat uncoil low in his stomach.
“Please, Ianto,” Owen rasps, mouth quivering around the words and Ianto swiftly slicks up his cock, bending Owen’s knees towards his chest and slamming into him with very little preamble. Owen’s head tips back and he howls, chest heaving, and Ianto is about to tell him to shut up because this is something they really don’t need someone walking in on - it is illegal, after all - when he reflects that people will just think Owen’s killing someone in here.
“Fucking move,” Owen grits, his eyes glittering in the half-dark. Ianto obeys, half pulling back only to shove straight back in, wrenching another groan out of Owen. It’s too fast and too angry and Ianto has to keep reminding himself that he doesn’t want to hurt Owen; in spite of all of it he doesn’t want to hurt him.
After all, they work for Torchwood; this is how they deal with their problems.
Owen is breathlessly repeating his name until it sounds like a curse, nails digging into Ianto’s shoulders, bony knees digging into his sides. Ianto can’t breathe and doesn’t want to, barely able to keep up with the pace he’s set, fucking Owen so hard he doubts he’ll be able to walk in the morning. He props himself over Owen on one elbow, reaching between them to curl one hand around Owen’s cock and jerk it in time with his thrusts. There’s nothing about this that isn’t too hard and too brutal and Ianto thinks he should slow it down but he can’t, he can’t, and when Owen comes he clenches impossibly tight around Ianto’s cock, spilling hot between them and mangling fuck, Ianto between his teeth.
Ianto keeps pounding into him, while Owen lets out little breathless whimpers every time Ianto catches his prostate, the aftershocks making him weak, until Ianto finally feels his own release building and he roars it into Owen’s skinny shoulder against the scar he shot through it all those months ago.
It takes a long moment before he can pull out, and the silence seems far too oppressive as they both pant, trying to regain some perspective on the situation.
“Fucking hell, Ianto,” Owen breathes at last.
“Yeah,” Ianto murmurs, “That pretty much sums it up.”
They lie in silence for another moment, before Owen says: “Are we insane?”
“Yes,” Ianto decides. “Yes, very probably.”
Owen considers this, and then laughs. “Shit, if the sex stays like that, I don’t care.”
{xiv}
“What if we can’t get back?” Owen asks, the day before they’re due to be rescued. Hopefully. If Jack pulls through.
“Well,” Ianto sighs, “We’re going to have to leave here anyway, before the law catches up with you.” He smiles. “I’ve still got some money, where would you like to run to?”
Owen frowns. “You’re taking this really calmly,” he observes.
“The last thing either of us need right now is for me to have a panic attack,” Ianto points out. “I’ve got to stay calm or I will lose it completely.”
They’re walking through a crowded market place; people yelling and running about and arguing with each other and it’s too much humanity. Ianto wants to go back to the quiet of the Hub, to the coffee machine and the computers and the hours and hours and hours spent in the safety of his own head.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ianto catches sight of someone, and smiles.
“Wait here,” he tells Owen, and hurries through the crowds of people until he catches up with Artful Dodger.
“I’m leaving London tomorrow,” he says. “I wanted to thank you for all your help.”
The boy shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, mister.” He glances past Ianto, and apparently sees Owen. He grimaces. “You really like him, don’t you?”
Ianto shrugs. “Apparently,” he says.
“He’s a monster,” the boy asserts.
“Sometimes,” Ianto agrees. “But then I think sometimes we’re all monsters.” He looks down at the little boy, and realises that there’s still one thing he doesn’t know. “What’s your name?” he asks.
Artful Dodger looks at him for a long moment, narrowing his eyes in calculation, before he says: “Thomas Jamieson.”
“Really?” Ianto asks. “That’s definitely your name?”
Thomas glowers. “Yes.”
Ianto glances around them. “Look, you’ve been good to me while I’ve been here. You’ve helped me a lot when you didn’t have to, so I’m going to help you.”
The boy continues to look warily at him. “What?” he asks.
“Use the word ‘Torchwood’ a lot in public places,” Ianto tells him. When Thomas frowns, he adds: “Trust me.”
“All right,” the boy says finally. “I will.”
Ianto tips his hat. “Best of luck, Mr Jamieson.”
“You too,” Thomas says, and Ianto walks away without looking back.
“What was all that about?” Owen asks, when Ianto returns to his side. “Who was that?”
“That?” Ianto smiles. “That, Owen, was the founding member of Torchwood Three. He was the first man to get sent down to Cardiff to investigate the Rift; he was Torchwood’s golden boy.”
“Bloody hell,” Owen remarks.
Ianto smiles, and wonders if he’s wrecked the future or set history in motion. “Bloody hell indeed,” he agrees.
{xv}
“He’s not coming,” Owen says.
“Shut up,” Ianto replies.
“Your fucking boyfriend’s not fucking coming,” Owen hisses, ugly panic and fury spread across his face.
“Shut up,” Ianto snaps. “Just shut up, Owen.”
It’s been all day and his machine has been silent; no one has opened up a window to the past. It’s starting to look increasingly like they’ll never get home, and Ianto can’t think about that because it makes his insides turn to ice.
Owen is opening his mouth, presumably to yell more obscenities, when the device clenched too tight in Ianto’s hand starts bleeping.
“Oh thank God,” he breathes.
Owen looks at him, anger melted into something that looks a little like panic. “You won’t tell Jack, will you?”
Ianto shakes his head. “He won’t hear it from me,” he promises.
He holds out a hand and Owen takes it; Ianto thumbs the button on the device and the world explodes into blinding white, as all around them the past dissolves into the future.