Fic: Sublimation. Jack/Owen.
So I managed to get one of my rounds-of-kink fics done, it's probably gibberish, I can't tell my brain is freid. I am now going to take my antibotics, painkillers and go to bed, and wish I didn't have to work in the morning.
Title: Sublimation.
Pairing: Jack/Owen
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: NC17/adult
Prompts: Collars, Kneeling, Floggers, Breaking somebody to tears.
Authors note: Very late for day 9. This isn’t exactly what I wanted it to be but between getting flu and having teeth out my brain has been kind of fried so far this month - I hope this isn’t too awful/incoherent. I will probably do a revised version of this when my brain works again.
It’s been brewing for a while now, the tension and the anger, the impotent rage at situations beyond his control and at the lives he couldn’t save.
Jack can see it in Owen’s stiff posture as he works, leaning over the autopsy table scalpel slicing into the weevil’s chest with a ferocity that even a corpse doesn’t deserve. He hears it in the way that his teasing is harsher than normal, more biting and hurtful in the way that it’s directed, until even Suzie had felt the need to call him on it.
He knows that if he lets it go on much longer there will be trouble, whether it will be an ill chosen word at the wrong moment or Owen arriving at the Hub still drunk from the previous night’s bender Jack doesn’t know.
What he does know is that it has to stop, and it has to stop right now.
Watching Suzie and Tosh leave for the night, Jack checks that Owen is still down in the autopsy bay before ducking back in to his office. Closing the door, he gives the systems one last check before switching Hub’s computers and messenger system to auto. Then, satisfied that they won’t be disturbed unless it is an emergency, Jack climbs down the hatchway behind his desk.
Pulling a trunk out from under his bed Jack spends a few minutes sorting through the contents. He knows that most people would, were they to see what the trunk contains, think that he had far more sex toys and fetish equipment than was reasonable for one person to have. The simple fact is that it’s been collected over a number of years, and Jack hates not having the right piece of kit on hand should he or the person he’s with want it.
Taking three floggers from the trunk, Jack runs the strands through his fingers, feeling the different weights and textures of them. A light weight one with wide, soft tails, a medium weight on that feels so familiar in his hand, its grip worn smooth use, and a heavier one, rarely used, its narrow tails made of plaited leather cord.
These are exactly what Jack needs. It’s been a few months since the last time he and Owen did this, and he knows that every time there’s a chance that it will be the last time, either because Owen will say no more or he will go the way of every other Torchwood operative that Jack has ever know.
For now though Owen is Jack’s responsibility, or at least that is how Jack sees it. It was him would had brought Owen into Torchwood and him who had first introduced Owen to this somewhat unorthodox method of stress relief.
Pushing the trunk back to under his bed, Jack returns to his office. Placing the floggers on his desk, he opens one of the drawers and removes a collar. It’s narrow, the black leather soft and pliable where he turns it slowly in his hands. The silver buckle glints slightly in the low lamp light of the office, a glint reflected in Jack’s eyes as he recalls how good Owen looks in it.
Owen naked but for the collar, kneeling on the floor in front of him, looking at him with those dark, defiant eyes. Jack palms himself through his trousers, damn but thinking about Owen like that didn’t make him hard.
Leaving the floggers in on the desk Jack goes to find Owen.
Owen has finished in the autopsy bay, all traces of blood and alien corpse have been removed, when Jack descends the steps.
“Owen.”
He doesn’t look up, just gives a committal grunt and finishes drying his hands.
“It’s not nice to ignore your boss, you know. Could get you into trouble.”
Owen still doesn’t look around, and his tone is irritable when he replies, “What do you want?”
Jack closes the distance between them until Owen is almost close enough to touch. “What I want is for you to remember that some things are out of your control.”
That seems to get Owen’s attention and he turns to face Jack, looking slightly startled to find Jack standing so close. “You going to teach me then?”
“I thought I’d offer a refresher course.”
Owen’s eyes flick over to the collar that’s held loosely in Jack’s hands, “And what makes you think I’ll say yes?”
“Experience.” Jack keeps his gaze cool and indifferent as he hands Owen the collar, “Put it on. Then go to the firing range, strip and wait for me.”
Owen glares at Jack but he takes the collar from him without hesitation, turning it slowly in his hands, fingertips considering the smooth, soft leather. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you hand it back to me right now and you get the hell out of here. You go and go whatever you have to to get by. But I want you back here tomorrow morning still functioning, have you got that?”
Owen gives a short, bitter laugh, “We both know that’s not going to happen.”
Jack doesn’t push for clarification, he doesn’t need it, he knows Owen far too well for that. Instead he watches impassively as Owen slowly puts the collar around his neck and fastens the small sliver buckle.
Once it’s done Jack places a hand on Owen’s shoulder, “Good. Now go down to the firing range and wait for me. I’ll be…” He checks his watch although he already knows how exactly how long he’s going to give Owen to get ready, “…ten minutes.”
There is a flicker of something in Owen’s eyes as he leaves, something that is as much excitement and anticipation as it is trepidation as to how far their session will go this time.
Jack watches Owen on the CCTV as he makes his way down to the firing range.
The firing range is as good a place as any, it has plenty of space, a well stocked medical kit if anything were to go horribly wrong and is, when the door is closed, as private a place as they are likely to get in the Hub.
Jack doesn’t need those ten minutes to get ready or to gather his toys; he’s already done that. No those minutes are to be spent observing Owen, reading his body language as he strips, trying to gauge how far and how hard a session this will need to be for Owen to get any benefit from it.
The first time that they’d done this Jack had talked Owen through it, had explained it all in advance, had agreed with him words and signals that he was use if it became more than he could take or was comfortable with.
Words and signals that Jack rapidly discovered Owen didn’t use, even when Jack was sure that they were on the edge of taking it places that he was confident Owen wouldn’t want to go. It was for that reason, and that reason alone, that Jack had ordered Owen not to do this with anybody other than him. It wasn’t about jealousy, or making Owen his, it was about saving him from himself and preventing anybody else getting caught up in one of Owen’s self destructive episodes.
Whether Owen’s inclination towards self-destruction was in fact some incredibly complex and twisted passive aggressive game that he was playing with him, or that Owen really had no sense of self-preservation when he got into his darker moods, Jack didn’t know. If he was honest with himself maybe he doesn’t want to know, things are complicated enough between them as it is without over analysing what is and isn’t going on in Owen head.
Tonight Jack can see the barely suppressed rage and hurt bubbling just below the surface. It’s in the way that Owen moves, all sharp actions. The way he strips off his clothes, throwing them on the floor without a second thought. The fact that Owen somehow even manages to make taking off his socks look aggressive tells Jack that tonight Owen will be looking for a hard session.
It was exhausting playing dom to somebody with almost no concept of when they’d had enough, yet somehow it made it all the more of a rush because Owen was truly putting his life in Jack’s hands. It’s a trust that Jack would never betray as in these sessions Owen was giving him something special: complete trust.
Eventually Owen is naked except for the slim leather collar, and damn if he doesn’t look every bit as hot as Jack remembers.
With Owen ready Jack picks up the floggers from his desk and goes down to the firing rage to meet him.
Jack’s sure that Owen looks even better in person than he does over the CCTV. Lean and wiry there seems to be nothing that isn’t essential for survival, everything pared down to the minimum.
There’s no softness, no kindness or preamble in Jack’s tone as he curtly says, “Face the wall.” He knows that it’s not necessary, that it would ruin what they are playing out here, and that is something that neither of them want.
Owen’s eyes meet Jack’s. It’s an unspoken challenge, the need to be forced to surrender control. It doesn’t surprise Jack, this is how it always starts, a battle of wills.
“I said face the wall.” Jack keeps his expression grim as he steps in close and trails the flogger down Owen’s cheek. There is barely any pressure, yet Owen shudders, half fear half excitement. Jack’s smile is predatory as he leans in, “Now are you going to face the wall or do I have to make you?”
“You don’t have it in you.” His tone is confident in his assertion, yet the look in Owen’s eyes suggests that he believes that Jack does, that he thinks that there is nothing that Jack’s not capable of given the right provocation or motivation.
Jack taps the flogger lightly against Owen’s jaw, “Scared?”
“Of you?” It’s something close to a sneer, yet still his eyes betray him, “Don’t make me laugh.”
“This won’t be more than you can take.”
“You don’t know what I can take.”
“I know what you can’t,” Jack says softly, his lips nearly touching Owen’s ear, “Now turn and face the wall.”
Owen gives a barely perceptible nod before turning slowly away from Jack to face the concrete wall in front of him. A wall that is featureless but for a narrow rail that runs across it at waist height.
“Good. Now hold the rail and kneel.” Jack knows that Owen’s not keen on kneeling, it makes him feel small, vulnerable. But right now that just how Jack needs Owen to feel, it makes what they are going to do easier, easier for Owen to get into the right mindset.
“No.”
Jack doesn’t need to be able to see Owen’s face to know the look of defiance that will be there. Owen always does this, tries to goad him, make him angry. It makes Jack wonder sometimes if Owen really understands what it is that they are really doing, that none of the blows that Jack will land on him in these session will ever be done in anger. Jack knows the day he actually gets angry doing this is the day he walks away from it, anything less would be a betrayal of Owen’s trust, even if Owen didn’t see it that way.
Placing a hand on Owens shoulder Jack keeps the pressure light, not forcing, just reminding. “I don’t like repeating myself. Now I told you to kneel. So either you kneel and you do it now, or I walk away.”
Owen makes a noise that could be a grunt or could be a mumbled swear word, but takes hold of the rail. Then with a slowness that’s more about still showing defiance than any real unwillingness, he kneels.
Speaking is over now. Jack pats Owen’s shoulder, a reassurance before they begin.
Jack knows that it’s as much as about the sound of the flogger cutting through the air and anticipation of the blows as it is the sting of the leather against skin.
It’s an art, Jack thinks, as he begins. Knowing to start light, where to strike, where not to. Owen’s body is a canvas, the blows telling a story that mere words never could.
It’s a story that Jack reads well, knowing when to pause and when to strike harder or in a different place.
The first blow of the heavy flogger gets a reaction. A sharp gasp as Owen’s hands tense on the rail. The thinner strands quickly raising thin welts on the already reddened skin.
The first sob that escapes Owen is almost inaudible, the sharp crack of the flogger against his skin muffling it. Yet Jack hears. Holding off the next blow he trails the tails of the flogger over the raised and reddened marks that criss-cross Owen’s shoulders and arse.
The next sob is clearer, although Jack knows that even now Owen will probably be fighting against letting go. Cracking the flogger in the air close to Owen’s ear Jack watches as the last of Owen’s resolve crumbles.
Laying the flogger down Jack runs his hands over the marks he’s made across Owen’s skin, feels the heat and texture of them, feels Owen shudder and tremble.
Jack’s hands close over Owen’s, gently uncurling his fingers from the rail as he helps him to stand. Owen sags against him, shaking and shuddering through tears that seem to threaten to tear him apart.
“Just let it go, let it all go,” Jack says calmly, holding Owen loosely in his arms, the other man’s head tucked in under his chin.
Owen’s tears are quiet and despite everything brief. Jack wonders sometimes what sort of life it was that Owen lived before Torchwood, what kind of life had made Owen who he was. He doesn’t though, he just waits until Owen’s breathing returns to something approaching normal before asking, “Any better?”
Owen nods, lips pressed together in a thin, tight line, as if not trusting himself to speak. Scared he’ll reveal too much, says things that cannot be unsaid.
Jack smiles and presses a kiss to Owen’s forehead, “Good, now lets get you home.”
Owen nods again, tired and pliable in Jack’s arms.
Jack will take him home now, back to his flat. There he’ll carefully check and soothe the bruises that will inevitably form. He’ll speak soft endearments in Owen’s ear, ones that won’t be returned or ever mentioned later. And sometimes they’ll have sex, and sometimes they won’t. Either way they’ll spend the night together in Owen’s bed, Jack holding Owen until the sun rises across the Bay and floods the apartment with light.
Title: Sublimation.
Pairing: Jack/Owen
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: NC17/adult
Prompts: Collars, Kneeling, Floggers, Breaking somebody to tears.
Authors note: Very late for day 9. This isn’t exactly what I wanted it to be but between getting flu and having teeth out my brain has been kind of fried so far this month - I hope this isn’t too awful/incoherent. I will probably do a revised version of this when my brain works again.
It’s been brewing for a while now, the tension and the anger, the impotent rage at situations beyond his control and at the lives he couldn’t save.
Jack can see it in Owen’s stiff posture as he works, leaning over the autopsy table scalpel slicing into the weevil’s chest with a ferocity that even a corpse doesn’t deserve. He hears it in the way that his teasing is harsher than normal, more biting and hurtful in the way that it’s directed, until even Suzie had felt the need to call him on it.
He knows that if he lets it go on much longer there will be trouble, whether it will be an ill chosen word at the wrong moment or Owen arriving at the Hub still drunk from the previous night’s bender Jack doesn’t know.
What he does know is that it has to stop, and it has to stop right now.
Watching Suzie and Tosh leave for the night, Jack checks that Owen is still down in the autopsy bay before ducking back in to his office. Closing the door, he gives the systems one last check before switching Hub’s computers and messenger system to auto. Then, satisfied that they won’t be disturbed unless it is an emergency, Jack climbs down the hatchway behind his desk.
Pulling a trunk out from under his bed Jack spends a few minutes sorting through the contents. He knows that most people would, were they to see what the trunk contains, think that he had far more sex toys and fetish equipment than was reasonable for one person to have. The simple fact is that it’s been collected over a number of years, and Jack hates not having the right piece of kit on hand should he or the person he’s with want it.
Taking three floggers from the trunk, Jack runs the strands through his fingers, feeling the different weights and textures of them. A light weight one with wide, soft tails, a medium weight on that feels so familiar in his hand, its grip worn smooth use, and a heavier one, rarely used, its narrow tails made of plaited leather cord.
These are exactly what Jack needs. It’s been a few months since the last time he and Owen did this, and he knows that every time there’s a chance that it will be the last time, either because Owen will say no more or he will go the way of every other Torchwood operative that Jack has ever know.
For now though Owen is Jack’s responsibility, or at least that is how Jack sees it. It was him would had brought Owen into Torchwood and him who had first introduced Owen to this somewhat unorthodox method of stress relief.
Pushing the trunk back to under his bed, Jack returns to his office. Placing the floggers on his desk, he opens one of the drawers and removes a collar. It’s narrow, the black leather soft and pliable where he turns it slowly in his hands. The silver buckle glints slightly in the low lamp light of the office, a glint reflected in Jack’s eyes as he recalls how good Owen looks in it.
Owen naked but for the collar, kneeling on the floor in front of him, looking at him with those dark, defiant eyes. Jack palms himself through his trousers, damn but thinking about Owen like that didn’t make him hard.
Leaving the floggers in on the desk Jack goes to find Owen.
Owen has finished in the autopsy bay, all traces of blood and alien corpse have been removed, when Jack descends the steps.
“Owen.”
He doesn’t look up, just gives a committal grunt and finishes drying his hands.
“It’s not nice to ignore your boss, you know. Could get you into trouble.”
Owen still doesn’t look around, and his tone is irritable when he replies, “What do you want?”
Jack closes the distance between them until Owen is almost close enough to touch. “What I want is for you to remember that some things are out of your control.”
That seems to get Owen’s attention and he turns to face Jack, looking slightly startled to find Jack standing so close. “You going to teach me then?”
“I thought I’d offer a refresher course.”
Owen’s eyes flick over to the collar that’s held loosely in Jack’s hands, “And what makes you think I’ll say yes?”
“Experience.” Jack keeps his gaze cool and indifferent as he hands Owen the collar, “Put it on. Then go to the firing range, strip and wait for me.”
Owen glares at Jack but he takes the collar from him without hesitation, turning it slowly in his hands, fingertips considering the smooth, soft leather. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you hand it back to me right now and you get the hell out of here. You go and go whatever you have to to get by. But I want you back here tomorrow morning still functioning, have you got that?”
Owen gives a short, bitter laugh, “We both know that’s not going to happen.”
Jack doesn’t push for clarification, he doesn’t need it, he knows Owen far too well for that. Instead he watches impassively as Owen slowly puts the collar around his neck and fastens the small sliver buckle.
Once it’s done Jack places a hand on Owen’s shoulder, “Good. Now go down to the firing range and wait for me. I’ll be…” He checks his watch although he already knows how exactly how long he’s going to give Owen to get ready, “…ten minutes.”
There is a flicker of something in Owen’s eyes as he leaves, something that is as much excitement and anticipation as it is trepidation as to how far their session will go this time.
Jack watches Owen on the CCTV as he makes his way down to the firing range.
The firing range is as good a place as any, it has plenty of space, a well stocked medical kit if anything were to go horribly wrong and is, when the door is closed, as private a place as they are likely to get in the Hub.
Jack doesn’t need those ten minutes to get ready or to gather his toys; he’s already done that. No those minutes are to be spent observing Owen, reading his body language as he strips, trying to gauge how far and how hard a session this will need to be for Owen to get any benefit from it.
The first time that they’d done this Jack had talked Owen through it, had explained it all in advance, had agreed with him words and signals that he was use if it became more than he could take or was comfortable with.
Words and signals that Jack rapidly discovered Owen didn’t use, even when Jack was sure that they were on the edge of taking it places that he was confident Owen wouldn’t want to go. It was for that reason, and that reason alone, that Jack had ordered Owen not to do this with anybody other than him. It wasn’t about jealousy, or making Owen his, it was about saving him from himself and preventing anybody else getting caught up in one of Owen’s self destructive episodes.
Whether Owen’s inclination towards self-destruction was in fact some incredibly complex and twisted passive aggressive game that he was playing with him, or that Owen really had no sense of self-preservation when he got into his darker moods, Jack didn’t know. If he was honest with himself maybe he doesn’t want to know, things are complicated enough between them as it is without over analysing what is and isn’t going on in Owen head.
Tonight Jack can see the barely suppressed rage and hurt bubbling just below the surface. It’s in the way that Owen moves, all sharp actions. The way he strips off his clothes, throwing them on the floor without a second thought. The fact that Owen somehow even manages to make taking off his socks look aggressive tells Jack that tonight Owen will be looking for a hard session.
It was exhausting playing dom to somebody with almost no concept of when they’d had enough, yet somehow it made it all the more of a rush because Owen was truly putting his life in Jack’s hands. It’s a trust that Jack would never betray as in these sessions Owen was giving him something special: complete trust.
Eventually Owen is naked except for the slim leather collar, and damn if he doesn’t look every bit as hot as Jack remembers.
With Owen ready Jack picks up the floggers from his desk and goes down to the firing rage to meet him.
Jack’s sure that Owen looks even better in person than he does over the CCTV. Lean and wiry there seems to be nothing that isn’t essential for survival, everything pared down to the minimum.
There’s no softness, no kindness or preamble in Jack’s tone as he curtly says, “Face the wall.” He knows that it’s not necessary, that it would ruin what they are playing out here, and that is something that neither of them want.
Owen’s eyes meet Jack’s. It’s an unspoken challenge, the need to be forced to surrender control. It doesn’t surprise Jack, this is how it always starts, a battle of wills.
“I said face the wall.” Jack keeps his expression grim as he steps in close and trails the flogger down Owen’s cheek. There is barely any pressure, yet Owen shudders, half fear half excitement. Jack’s smile is predatory as he leans in, “Now are you going to face the wall or do I have to make you?”
“You don’t have it in you.” His tone is confident in his assertion, yet the look in Owen’s eyes suggests that he believes that Jack does, that he thinks that there is nothing that Jack’s not capable of given the right provocation or motivation.
Jack taps the flogger lightly against Owen’s jaw, “Scared?”
“Of you?” It’s something close to a sneer, yet still his eyes betray him, “Don’t make me laugh.”
“This won’t be more than you can take.”
“You don’t know what I can take.”
“I know what you can’t,” Jack says softly, his lips nearly touching Owen’s ear, “Now turn and face the wall.”
Owen gives a barely perceptible nod before turning slowly away from Jack to face the concrete wall in front of him. A wall that is featureless but for a narrow rail that runs across it at waist height.
“Good. Now hold the rail and kneel.” Jack knows that Owen’s not keen on kneeling, it makes him feel small, vulnerable. But right now that just how Jack needs Owen to feel, it makes what they are going to do easier, easier for Owen to get into the right mindset.
“No.”
Jack doesn’t need to be able to see Owen’s face to know the look of defiance that will be there. Owen always does this, tries to goad him, make him angry. It makes Jack wonder sometimes if Owen really understands what it is that they are really doing, that none of the blows that Jack will land on him in these session will ever be done in anger. Jack knows the day he actually gets angry doing this is the day he walks away from it, anything less would be a betrayal of Owen’s trust, even if Owen didn’t see it that way.
Placing a hand on Owens shoulder Jack keeps the pressure light, not forcing, just reminding. “I don’t like repeating myself. Now I told you to kneel. So either you kneel and you do it now, or I walk away.”
Owen makes a noise that could be a grunt or could be a mumbled swear word, but takes hold of the rail. Then with a slowness that’s more about still showing defiance than any real unwillingness, he kneels.
Speaking is over now. Jack pats Owen’s shoulder, a reassurance before they begin.
Jack knows that it’s as much as about the sound of the flogger cutting through the air and anticipation of the blows as it is the sting of the leather against skin.
It’s an art, Jack thinks, as he begins. Knowing to start light, where to strike, where not to. Owen’s body is a canvas, the blows telling a story that mere words never could.
It’s a story that Jack reads well, knowing when to pause and when to strike harder or in a different place.
The first blow of the heavy flogger gets a reaction. A sharp gasp as Owen’s hands tense on the rail. The thinner strands quickly raising thin welts on the already reddened skin.
The first sob that escapes Owen is almost inaudible, the sharp crack of the flogger against his skin muffling it. Yet Jack hears. Holding off the next blow he trails the tails of the flogger over the raised and reddened marks that criss-cross Owen’s shoulders and arse.
The next sob is clearer, although Jack knows that even now Owen will probably be fighting against letting go. Cracking the flogger in the air close to Owen’s ear Jack watches as the last of Owen’s resolve crumbles.
Laying the flogger down Jack runs his hands over the marks he’s made across Owen’s skin, feels the heat and texture of them, feels Owen shudder and tremble.
Jack’s hands close over Owen’s, gently uncurling his fingers from the rail as he helps him to stand. Owen sags against him, shaking and shuddering through tears that seem to threaten to tear him apart.
“Just let it go, let it all go,” Jack says calmly, holding Owen loosely in his arms, the other man’s head tucked in under his chin.
Owen’s tears are quiet and despite everything brief. Jack wonders sometimes what sort of life it was that Owen lived before Torchwood, what kind of life had made Owen who he was. He doesn’t though, he just waits until Owen’s breathing returns to something approaching normal before asking, “Any better?”
Owen nods, lips pressed together in a thin, tight line, as if not trusting himself to speak. Scared he’ll reveal too much, says things that cannot be unsaid.
Jack smiles and presses a kiss to Owen’s forehead, “Good, now lets get you home.”
Owen nods again, tired and pliable in Jack’s arms.
Jack will take him home now, back to his flat. There he’ll carefully check and soothe the bruises that will inevitably form. He’ll speak soft endearments in Owen’s ear, ones that won’t be returned or ever mentioned later. And sometimes they’ll have sex, and sometimes they won’t. Either way they’ll spend the night together in Owen’s bed, Jack holding Owen until the sun rises across the Bay and floods the apartment with light.