Fic: Rules are Made for This, NC-17, Jack/Owen/Suzie
Title: Rules are Made for This
Author: nomorewords
Pairing: Jack/Owen/Suzie
Rating: NC-17 (language, sex)
Wordcount: 3,722
Warnings: pre-series 1, so copious amounts of brokenness and angst, and a bit spoilery for Suzie's story.
Notes: wonderful beta by kat_rowe
Summary:
He really has to admire the bastard's dexterity even as his future unfolds like a bloodstained map. "I won't promise that you'll save all of them. That's not how it works, Owen, Suzie. We do what we can for who we can."
The hospital, when they catch up with Owen, recommend a psychiatrist. It's a fairly easy matter for Jack to retcon the shrink, mentally choking all the desperate ramblings of his new doctor away.
The word DELUSIONAL on the file Jack carries as he steps into the sunlight would not have done Owen any good. He suspects Owen knows that, too. Owen figures he has nothing to lose. Jack's determined to prove the opposite.
Jack's method of kickstarting the healing process may be unorthodox - it may be fun - it may be agony. He never said he was any kind of saint.
He thinks of Owen's scent as he drives back to the Hub, foot to the mat. Fear and pain come off him in almost metallic waves, but buried beneath that, there's a young man who shared strawberries in the sun and made love to his fiancée on a smoky London balcony. The negative shit's gone and built up around that. Like a crust.
When Owen is split wide open, he can start to heal.
He did it with Suzie. He can smell her before he strides through the cog-door; draw in a flavourful with wonderful, evolved fifty-first century senses. Musk and that bitter chocolate she fights the pterodactyl for. They've just about got Myfanwy trained not to attack her whilst eating it, but Suzie refuses to be tamed for anyone. Even when she agreed to what he's planning to do - he got the feeling she was just playing along.
It makes loving her difficult, but not impossible.
Jack has bugged Owen's car, so he can watch the exact moment when - twelve minutes after he parked discreetly round a corner from the shrink's building having skived off work, no explanation - the little blue car dot violently jerks backwards, practically burning rubber in its effort to get away.
Owen slams in, even more big-eyed and crazy than usual. He's checking to see if this is real, Jack guesses.
He comes up behind the man in the medical bay, where he's pouring himself a shot of medicinal whisky.
"My office, now," he tells him, ignoring the yelp and smash of glass and the general blasphemies hurled at people who fucking creep up behind you like a fucking creepy son of a bitch psycho tosser freak.
"Leave it. Come here, Owen. Now."
---
A couple of months ago, on Jack's insistence, they'd gone out for a proper sit-down meal to discuss his 'progress'. And how well do you think you're settling in, employee? All that bollocks. Jack lets him pick the outlet and, just to see how far he can get on Jack's wick, he chooses the grottiest pub in Cardiff and probably all of Welsh Wales. Jack leads him past the bar, but the restaurant is little more than a fenced-off area where the resident pitbulls aren't allowed.
Oh, he knows Harkness is just trying to be nice. He's got shiny teeth enough for two (he's already getting funny looks from the dogs), but Owen feels like keeping him quite firmly where they are - literally, at arm's length. He doesn't know why the bloke's bothering with him. It's too early for that, arrogance crash-landed and stored in a fridge alongside Katie's brain.
So he sits and gulps alcohol and wishes the night was over already. He grunts monosyllables, letting Jack do all the work. Flash prat is the one who wants this, after all. In a way, maybe he even likes having this sick kind of power, able to deny the bloke his... his something.
Kicks? It's - better than that. A few more brain cells spin off into space, but that's not the reason he doesn't have a word for what exactly is going on here.
The booze is starting to turn sour. Owen realises he's been staring vacantly - a habit Katie laughed at - sniffs, and decides that, from the look in Harkness' eye, the dick doesn't give a flying shit about how well he's settling into anything other than the lack of sexual harassment policies at Torchwood.
The bottom of the bottle appears. Just to make sure that that sodding angel on his shoulder shuts its gob and keeps it shut for good, he immediately orders another.
Glancing up, he sees Jack watching him. The look in his eyes... neh, he really doesn't have a word for that. There's a dog going mental over by the fireplace, snout all aquiver and if he didn't know better, trembling for a sliver of the attention Harkness is lavishing on the top of his deliberately bowed head.
It's probably just an alien. Its owner, stumbling, takes it outside for a calm-down.
Owen feels his ears go hot. It's fucking embarrassing, happened ever since childhood. He doesn't blush - but his ears get red. It's the booze. Gotta be the booze.
He stares defiantly back at Jack. Hell, there's room for two in this game. Maybe he wants some of that attention. Maybe he knows he's more like the dog - aching for it, but watching on as it tumbled onto its unsuspecting victim instead. But that was stupid talk, that was the booze talking, because he wasn't unsuspecting nothing, okay? He didn't know what the fuck was going on here, and he certainly didn't care.
He finishes as many shots of voddy as his slight frame will hold and falls asleep in Jack's big car on the way home. He dreams of dogs, wearing coats, broody old army coats, but not big enough to hide their big purple balls hanging out. It isn't a very nice dream - but he isn't a very nice person, right? Okay?
He pushes Harkness away when they get to his flat. Owen's pissed enough to not notice or care that Jack has only drunk, will only drink cold, still mineral water.
Jack knows not to push back. He dematerialises into the shadows.
The push isn't hard enough to hurt. It's a token gesture more than anything else, or maybe he really is just too uncoordinated from the pints swishing around his belly and it was accidental. As the freak with the military fetish's silhouette slides back to the car, he's on the stained ground scrabbling helplessly for his keys. And he wishes Jack was there.
Since when he had become 'Jack'? Gratefully, shoving the key into the lock (scratched from too many drunken misses already, and he's only lived here, what - a month?), he blames the whole bloody thing on the booze and, gasping like he just spent an evening swimming with sharks - and one particularly toothsome one - Owen collapses before he gets to the bedroom.
---
Before or possibly some time during his work with the Agency, back when he was a rookie and the word time suddenly opened up cans of man-eating worms and you kept checking for dinosaurs around each new corner, he'd learnt that the best nights out were sober. Keeps the body hydrated - all the important bits under control - and, hell, someone had to be the designated Chula driver, after all.
---
Jack's like nothing's out of the ordinary about their relationship, not in the least bit weird. Weird in itself. He starts inviting That Freaky Bird with the funny name - aka his new co-worker, Suzie Costello - along to their drinking evenings. Or, technically, Owen drinks, Suzie plays with curly straws, rips beer mats into intricate designs, sips a cocktail on occasion, and Jack - Jack sticks to good ol' H20.
Wanker.
---
Half the time they don't even talk. He's pretty sure his two employees shag a couple of times in a couple of pub restrooms, which Suzie simultaneously likes and loathes because Owen's generally too hungover to remember it in the morning. Jack's attempts at casual flirting are still met with dead sarcasm or insults, or both.
Jack shrugs, and Jack watches silently - they're both important. To him, if not to themselves.
He doesn't know why. Owen, the doctor, is nothing like the Doctor. Suzie is only like Rose in her fits of childlike wonder. And even they're slower and harder to come by these days. He hides a sigh in his steamed-up water glass.
Time to take them both home.
---
But he's only human, as the saying goes. Jack Harkness forgets to keep an eye on just how much his damaged-goods doctor drank that night and so finds himself in a rather awkward tussle at Owen's front door. Owen's eyes are closed, his lips are wet and he reeks of alcohol. If you can ignore that, he's a damn good kisser, but this isn't what he needs, not yet - so Jack returns the kiss firmly - but chastely. Owen pushes him harder than usual, seems to remember where he is, looks absolutely horrified and slams the door in his face.
---
He doesn't show up at work the day after.
---
Or the day after that. Jack finds it interesting that the morning he does choose to come in is the one scheduled for firearms training, though.
He's frighteningly bolshy with it, throwing his ninety-percent alcohol weight around, mucking around with the guns, carefully. With the care of a man who has something - he doesn't know what, but something to lose. C'mon, then. Yes! he seems to say. Dare you. I don't know what you want or rather I do and I don't care, so why don't you just try it on?
Wet lips, dark eyes. Strawberries and gun smoke. The groping's practically compulsory. This is Torchwood, Jack justifies, wondering about the day when that isn't going to be enough.
Then Owen stalks away.
Jack thinks: he'll be back.
---
"How are you doing?"
Was he fucking serious?
"They're coming to take me away, ha-ha?" Owen answers snidely. That Suzie bird's lips twitch.
"Cute," Jack tells him. "Honest answer, Owen?"
"Fine - as you can see."
"Jack - " Suzie begins, and Harkness shuts her up with a glance. God, his eyes shine blue. Probably coloured contacts and all. Wanker. Twat.
He doesn't trust folk with eyes like that.
"Shitty day," he shrugs, trailing off. "Shitty week, shitty month..."
"Better," Jack nods. "This one shittier in particular?"
"Nah, not really." He stares Harkness in the eye. "My wedding's off, by the way." What? They've read his file. Probably with popcorn. He hurts. He wants everyone to know.
"I'll bet you just want to scream about it, huh?"
Okay, that was unexpected.
"You can scream until you turn purple. If you scream your head off, we'll stick it back on for you."
Holy -
"And then we'll fuck."
"And then you'll sleep."
"It helps, Owen. Jack can see what's carved on your heart. God knows," she gives that scornful breathy laugh, acceptance and the purest contempt reigning side by side, "I didn't want to believe him, either. But then I slept in his arms and, no, Owen, I didn't come easy, just like you aren't going to do."
"But then you slept in my arms - "
"And I screamed, and - "
"Okay, just stop it, all right, just fucking stop it!"
"Oh, Captain. I think we're on the right lines."
Owen is two seconds from punching her right on the smirk.
"Sit down, Owen. We aren't finished here yet."
"Fuck you," he mutters.
"I'm asking you to sit down. That's an offer; it's not an order, or a requirement."
"No, Jack? It actually sounded like an order."
"Okay, so it's an order. Sit yourself down. We're not done with you yet."
"Look, fucknuts, if you got blue balls and this is the only way you know to get your jollies, get a room, will ya? I bet young Suzie slut's up for it." He lashes out suddenly, as vicious and cruel as he knows how. It makes him feel invincible. His mouth draws a virtual bubble in the air around him as he turns to the door, and no-one - not even Jack fucking Shark-Tooth Harkness - should wish to penetrate it.
"Too fucking right she is, Harper," Suzie Costello answers, pronouncing the 'g' delicately in that creepy little-girl voice of hers. Like this place protects her from the frightening adult world outside.
He can't blame her.
The evil ping-ping ball of blame bounces around the office instead, richocheting off Owen's bubble, repelled by Suzie's voice, cracking over Jack Harkness' head.
"I don't need this, Jack. Really, really not in the mood."
"Wrong answer."
"Look, just what the fuck exactly is your game?"
He spins on his heel, rocking with fury, and Harkness and Costello are both bare stark naked.
---
Suzie laughs. "God, Jack. I said this'd scare him off."
"Don't underestimate him. Right, Owen?"
They are both... attractive people, without clothes. Oh fuck it, they're steaming hot dressed for winter. Owen mentally garrotes his brain before it can lead him any deeper into mischief and glares - hard.
"Look," Suzie continues. "Look. He loves us. My tits and your dick, Jack. He's afraid now, but he's going to love us."
"How come that sounds familiar?"
She laughs again, and it sounds like a toy wound up too far. "I was young. Younger. Stupid, even for me."
Jack gently biffs her on one elegant shoulder, twisting a black curl around his finger. He is maybe half-hard. Owen doesn't have a lot of experience with other blokes, not since college.
"I don't want to hear that," he rebukes her, teasing and concern all shook up together. "You were so into it."
"Like Owen's going to be, Captain, oh my Captain?"
"Too damn right Owen's going to be."
They're both certifiable. And naked. Why is he not running, again? Owen sucks in an indignant breath.
---
Then they're entwined around him like a second skin.
"What if I'm not into threesomes?" he whispers.
Jack chuckles and his hand flattens against Owen's stomach, a heat wave even through his t-shirt. Trails of icy fire trickle down his skin as fingers lightly scrape down his back, scratching the small in the way that always makes him shiver. His balls are high and needy against his groin.
He's been like this ever since he can remember. Wound up tight enough that he can come from a single touch. It's all about the sensation for him, and he's no fool; knows that sex is pretty much all in the mind.
Someone's lips fasten over his earlobe. The rush of wet heat almost breaks him. Long, strong fingers paw insistently inside his jeans and boxers, and he's suddenly so raw down there, aching for it, silently begging, hasn’t had a shag since she -
Do it. Just fucking do it, all right?
He pushes the hand away. "Don't want this."
"You want us, Owen," Jack answers, steady and calm and so very sure, for a man whose hand glistens with his furious young doctor's pre-come.
"I want you to fuck off," Owen snarls, spit-flecked on tight lips, "and I want you to do it now."
"You don't make the rules here. You don't have to say that you're going to follow mine or even be pleasant about it, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm always gonna be here. Without question or judgment. Not my place. Follow my rules and heal, Owen," Jack breathes, hot against his neck.
"You don't get to decide when to leave the world," Suzie adds.
"Because I'm going to make it so fucking good that you won't want to, Owen." Grin. Teeth. "Ever."
Owen hisses through his lips. "You think you can pull me around like some little fucktoy - " - he smacks empty air - " - 'cause my brain's in my dick, innit, and you've got that wrapped around your little finger."
"You're bigger than that, Owen." Smirrrrk. "Ring finger, at least."
"You are both perverted," he tells them flatly.
"And you underestimate us." Suzie laughs, delicately clutching Jack's pinky like an anchor.
Owen's had enough (so he yells at himself) and heads for the door.
"No, Owen," Suzie coos, "Jack says you're not allowed to finish just yet."
Owen mutters something uncomplimentary about Jack's mother. He slouches standing up with his best fuck-off attitude. It's a bit harder with the drumbeat in his pants and the slick, damp spot growing, he just knows it's going to stain through his jeans in a minute and won't Harkness bloody love that, but he tries his best.
If he honestly thought Jack was going to let him leave, he'd be home by now. The thought of it sends a scorch through his crotch.
"Good man," Harkness murmurs.
"Fuck off," he answers pleasantly.
"Okay," Jack agrees, mild as a tiger who knows its prey doesn't want to escape. When that hand slowly but persuadingly unzips and unbuttons his pants this time, the kiss is initiated by one Owen Harper, Fuck-Up in the Extreme, screwing around with his boss of one week and a possibly sociopathic co-worker, and he feels something hard and dark and twisted begin to uncurl inside his chest.
When they tumble onto the floor in a tangle of hot limbs, he puts up the token struggle, and they kiss and nuzzle his collarbone until he's quivering. Suzie rasps bitter words out of pretty sun-snogged lips. Jack shuts her up with a sweet, tender bite. Apparently something tried and tested, for she goes trembling, ears brushing against Jack's chest, and Owen scrambles to join them and experiences his first three-way kiss.
It's odd, and there's teeth and he's not quite sure who's kissing whom. It doesn't matter as Jack firmly guides their bodies together, giving Suzie the circling rough flicks she adores, giving Owen the leg-room to rub against a palm. Jack's shaft swells with pride all on its own.
"I can't promise to save you," Jack admits, crooking a finger in and out of Suzie's entrance and teasing Owen's aching balls simultaneously. He really has to admire the bastard's dexterity even as his future unfolds like a bloodstained map. "I won't promise that you'll save all of them. That's not how it works, Owen, Suzie. We do what we can for who we can."
Suzie's on his back now, grasping his shoulder as she grinds herself against his hip in warm, slippery circles. A humph slips out between his lips at her daring.
"Think about it, Owen. I know it's a little hard when I'm rubbing you out like this," a pained gasp, "and this," and the silky fingers around his cock loosen, and the ache bursts into pleasure, and he feels hot come rise and has to clench down hard, fist clashing with Jack's for possession.
One drop of salty fluid makes Jack's hand shine, but the bloke knows his shit when making his partners work for it. It's almost a disappointment. It's almost the best thing that ever happened to him.
"Think it through. We needed you, Owen, and that's why we found you."
Bullshit. Gasp. Clench.
"And we always look after our own, Owen."
"Suzie," she murmurs.
---
Back in the future, they teach this nice little trick at the Time Agency. It's why so many Agents have thoroughly non-existent good reputations, or possibly because of it; it was a long time ago and he's forgotten the reasons but not the simple, undetectable mental nudge. Jack feels himself come, writhes under the influence of each of his new team's orgasms, three sides now, hot and slick over his hands.
---
Owen's still here - that's a good sign - and he's blinking at the ceiling. What in the hell did I just agree to, no doubt, and the bastards played me all along, and from the slight frown creasing his eyes, that tough decision as to whether he cares enough to run away.
Suzie's afterglows tend to be drawn out. She always did feel things too deeply. One wrinkled nipple brushes Jack's bare shoulder. She doesn't like having her hair touched, but a post-orgasmic foot-rub generally either pushes her into another come or a coronary.
Not tonight, though. He swoops gently, pressing a kiss to his young doctor's sweaty forehead. Bruisingly intense lips collide warm and soft with his. There even look to be the sparkle of unshed tears.
We'll get to them next time.
"C'mon, people," he says quietly, running hands down thighs, listening for twin sighs. They're there - abeit with reluctance. "We fucked, and now we'll sleep."
"Jack, are you going to stay with us?" Suzie asks drowsily, hair spilling half-under his desk.
"It's my office," he grins, squeezing Owen's shoulder.
"Ohh... fuck off," the younger man grunts, leaning in for another kiss.
---
Jack gives Suzie the sofa and makes up a blanket bed for Owen. It's painfully apparent that his new doctor hasn't slept in way too long, and he hadn't noticed during the sex(we-ell, he had; but he just hated to ruin the mood) how his hip-bones jut up.
We'll fix that, too. We'll fix everything.
Sex always leaves him optimistic. A job well done.
He gives Suzie her cocoa and retcon. It isn't even enough to forget - just enough to transform the past night into a blur. Her request. He feels he owes her that much. Jack looks her in the eye as she falls asleep. Presses a kiss to her shoulder and frowns as she sighs, shifting and murmuring a word - pig-back? Pilgrim? Privilege?
He'll ask in the morning. Possibly.
Owen's still awake when he crouches down beside him. Hair ruffled, big brown eyes bloodshot, strawberries replacing the metallic scent just a little, he's too spiky to be adorable but having a damn good try.
"Want a goodnight kiss?" Jack asks, half-awkward now. It's not a feeling he's used to. This one is going to be interesting.
Owen scowls. "In your sad fucking sticky wet dreams, Harkness." He leans up on his elbows and kisses Jack, hard.
Jack blinks.
"Feel better now, huh?"
A sleepy grunt, and the wire-topped walls crumble and this look of pure stillness steals over the younger man's face.
"Sleep well," Jack whispers. Standing up, wincing as his back pops, he moves quietly back towards the office. He's so old tonight. "I'll see you both in the morning."
Author: nomorewords
Pairing: Jack/Owen/Suzie
Rating: NC-17 (language, sex)
Wordcount: 3,722
Warnings: pre-series 1, so copious amounts of brokenness and angst, and a bit spoilery for Suzie's story.
Notes: wonderful beta by kat_rowe
Summary:
He really has to admire the bastard's dexterity even as his future unfolds like a bloodstained map. "I won't promise that you'll save all of them. That's not how it works, Owen, Suzie. We do what we can for who we can."
The hospital, when they catch up with Owen, recommend a psychiatrist. It's a fairly easy matter for Jack to retcon the shrink, mentally choking all the desperate ramblings of his new doctor away.
The word DELUSIONAL on the file Jack carries as he steps into the sunlight would not have done Owen any good. He suspects Owen knows that, too. Owen figures he has nothing to lose. Jack's determined to prove the opposite.
Jack's method of kickstarting the healing process may be unorthodox - it may be fun - it may be agony. He never said he was any kind of saint.
He thinks of Owen's scent as he drives back to the Hub, foot to the mat. Fear and pain come off him in almost metallic waves, but buried beneath that, there's a young man who shared strawberries in the sun and made love to his fiancée on a smoky London balcony. The negative shit's gone and built up around that. Like a crust.
When Owen is split wide open, he can start to heal.
He did it with Suzie. He can smell her before he strides through the cog-door; draw in a flavourful with wonderful, evolved fifty-first century senses. Musk and that bitter chocolate she fights the pterodactyl for. They've just about got Myfanwy trained not to attack her whilst eating it, but Suzie refuses to be tamed for anyone. Even when she agreed to what he's planning to do - he got the feeling she was just playing along.
It makes loving her difficult, but not impossible.
Jack has bugged Owen's car, so he can watch the exact moment when - twelve minutes after he parked discreetly round a corner from the shrink's building having skived off work, no explanation - the little blue car dot violently jerks backwards, practically burning rubber in its effort to get away.
Owen slams in, even more big-eyed and crazy than usual. He's checking to see if this is real, Jack guesses.
He comes up behind the man in the medical bay, where he's pouring himself a shot of medicinal whisky.
"My office, now," he tells him, ignoring the yelp and smash of glass and the general blasphemies hurled at people who fucking creep up behind you like a fucking creepy son of a bitch psycho tosser freak.
"Leave it. Come here, Owen. Now."
---
A couple of months ago, on Jack's insistence, they'd gone out for a proper sit-down meal to discuss his 'progress'. And how well do you think you're settling in, employee? All that bollocks. Jack lets him pick the outlet and, just to see how far he can get on Jack's wick, he chooses the grottiest pub in Cardiff and probably all of Welsh Wales. Jack leads him past the bar, but the restaurant is little more than a fenced-off area where the resident pitbulls aren't allowed.
Oh, he knows Harkness is just trying to be nice. He's got shiny teeth enough for two (he's already getting funny looks from the dogs), but Owen feels like keeping him quite firmly where they are - literally, at arm's length. He doesn't know why the bloke's bothering with him. It's too early for that, arrogance crash-landed and stored in a fridge alongside Katie's brain.
So he sits and gulps alcohol and wishes the night was over already. He grunts monosyllables, letting Jack do all the work. Flash prat is the one who wants this, after all. In a way, maybe he even likes having this sick kind of power, able to deny the bloke his... his something.
Kicks? It's - better than that. A few more brain cells spin off into space, but that's not the reason he doesn't have a word for what exactly is going on here.
The booze is starting to turn sour. Owen realises he's been staring vacantly - a habit Katie laughed at - sniffs, and decides that, from the look in Harkness' eye, the dick doesn't give a flying shit about how well he's settling into anything other than the lack of sexual harassment policies at Torchwood.
The bottom of the bottle appears. Just to make sure that that sodding angel on his shoulder shuts its gob and keeps it shut for good, he immediately orders another.
Glancing up, he sees Jack watching him. The look in his eyes... neh, he really doesn't have a word for that. There's a dog going mental over by the fireplace, snout all aquiver and if he didn't know better, trembling for a sliver of the attention Harkness is lavishing on the top of his deliberately bowed head.
It's probably just an alien. Its owner, stumbling, takes it outside for a calm-down.
Owen feels his ears go hot. It's fucking embarrassing, happened ever since childhood. He doesn't blush - but his ears get red. It's the booze. Gotta be the booze.
He stares defiantly back at Jack. Hell, there's room for two in this game. Maybe he wants some of that attention. Maybe he knows he's more like the dog - aching for it, but watching on as it tumbled onto its unsuspecting victim instead. But that was stupid talk, that was the booze talking, because he wasn't unsuspecting nothing, okay? He didn't know what the fuck was going on here, and he certainly didn't care.
He finishes as many shots of voddy as his slight frame will hold and falls asleep in Jack's big car on the way home. He dreams of dogs, wearing coats, broody old army coats, but not big enough to hide their big purple balls hanging out. It isn't a very nice dream - but he isn't a very nice person, right? Okay?
He pushes Harkness away when they get to his flat. Owen's pissed enough to not notice or care that Jack has only drunk, will only drink cold, still mineral water.
Jack knows not to push back. He dematerialises into the shadows.
The push isn't hard enough to hurt. It's a token gesture more than anything else, or maybe he really is just too uncoordinated from the pints swishing around his belly and it was accidental. As the freak with the military fetish's silhouette slides back to the car, he's on the stained ground scrabbling helplessly for his keys. And he wishes Jack was there.
Since when he had become 'Jack'? Gratefully, shoving the key into the lock (scratched from too many drunken misses already, and he's only lived here, what - a month?), he blames the whole bloody thing on the booze and, gasping like he just spent an evening swimming with sharks - and one particularly toothsome one - Owen collapses before he gets to the bedroom.
---
Before or possibly some time during his work with the Agency, back when he was a rookie and the word time suddenly opened up cans of man-eating worms and you kept checking for dinosaurs around each new corner, he'd learnt that the best nights out were sober. Keeps the body hydrated - all the important bits under control - and, hell, someone had to be the designated Chula driver, after all.
---
Jack's like nothing's out of the ordinary about their relationship, not in the least bit weird. Weird in itself. He starts inviting That Freaky Bird with the funny name - aka his new co-worker, Suzie Costello - along to their drinking evenings. Or, technically, Owen drinks, Suzie plays with curly straws, rips beer mats into intricate designs, sips a cocktail on occasion, and Jack - Jack sticks to good ol' H20.
Wanker.
---
Half the time they don't even talk. He's pretty sure his two employees shag a couple of times in a couple of pub restrooms, which Suzie simultaneously likes and loathes because Owen's generally too hungover to remember it in the morning. Jack's attempts at casual flirting are still met with dead sarcasm or insults, or both.
Jack shrugs, and Jack watches silently - they're both important. To him, if not to themselves.
He doesn't know why. Owen, the doctor, is nothing like the Doctor. Suzie is only like Rose in her fits of childlike wonder. And even they're slower and harder to come by these days. He hides a sigh in his steamed-up water glass.
Time to take them both home.
---
But he's only human, as the saying goes. Jack Harkness forgets to keep an eye on just how much his damaged-goods doctor drank that night and so finds himself in a rather awkward tussle at Owen's front door. Owen's eyes are closed, his lips are wet and he reeks of alcohol. If you can ignore that, he's a damn good kisser, but this isn't what he needs, not yet - so Jack returns the kiss firmly - but chastely. Owen pushes him harder than usual, seems to remember where he is, looks absolutely horrified and slams the door in his face.
---
He doesn't show up at work the day after.
---
Or the day after that. Jack finds it interesting that the morning he does choose to come in is the one scheduled for firearms training, though.
He's frighteningly bolshy with it, throwing his ninety-percent alcohol weight around, mucking around with the guns, carefully. With the care of a man who has something - he doesn't know what, but something to lose. C'mon, then. Yes! he seems to say. Dare you. I don't know what you want or rather I do and I don't care, so why don't you just try it on?
Wet lips, dark eyes. Strawberries and gun smoke. The groping's practically compulsory. This is Torchwood, Jack justifies, wondering about the day when that isn't going to be enough.
Then Owen stalks away.
Jack thinks: he'll be back.
---
"How are you doing?"
Was he fucking serious?
"They're coming to take me away, ha-ha?" Owen answers snidely. That Suzie bird's lips twitch.
"Cute," Jack tells him. "Honest answer, Owen?"
"Fine - as you can see."
"Jack - " Suzie begins, and Harkness shuts her up with a glance. God, his eyes shine blue. Probably coloured contacts and all. Wanker. Twat.
He doesn't trust folk with eyes like that.
"Shitty day," he shrugs, trailing off. "Shitty week, shitty month..."
"Better," Jack nods. "This one shittier in particular?"
"Nah, not really." He stares Harkness in the eye. "My wedding's off, by the way." What? They've read his file. Probably with popcorn. He hurts. He wants everyone to know.
"I'll bet you just want to scream about it, huh?"
Okay, that was unexpected.
"You can scream until you turn purple. If you scream your head off, we'll stick it back on for you."
Holy -
"And then we'll fuck."
"And then you'll sleep."
"It helps, Owen. Jack can see what's carved on your heart. God knows," she gives that scornful breathy laugh, acceptance and the purest contempt reigning side by side, "I didn't want to believe him, either. But then I slept in his arms and, no, Owen, I didn't come easy, just like you aren't going to do."
"But then you slept in my arms - "
"And I screamed, and - "
"Okay, just stop it, all right, just fucking stop it!"
"Oh, Captain. I think we're on the right lines."
Owen is two seconds from punching her right on the smirk.
"Sit down, Owen. We aren't finished here yet."
"Fuck you," he mutters.
"I'm asking you to sit down. That's an offer; it's not an order, or a requirement."
"No, Jack? It actually sounded like an order."
"Okay, so it's an order. Sit yourself down. We're not done with you yet."
"Look, fucknuts, if you got blue balls and this is the only way you know to get your jollies, get a room, will ya? I bet young Suzie slut's up for it." He lashes out suddenly, as vicious and cruel as he knows how. It makes him feel invincible. His mouth draws a virtual bubble in the air around him as he turns to the door, and no-one - not even Jack fucking Shark-Tooth Harkness - should wish to penetrate it.
"Too fucking right she is, Harper," Suzie Costello answers, pronouncing the 'g' delicately in that creepy little-girl voice of hers. Like this place protects her from the frightening adult world outside.
He can't blame her.
The evil ping-ping ball of blame bounces around the office instead, richocheting off Owen's bubble, repelled by Suzie's voice, cracking over Jack Harkness' head.
"I don't need this, Jack. Really, really not in the mood."
"Wrong answer."
"Look, just what the fuck exactly is your game?"
He spins on his heel, rocking with fury, and Harkness and Costello are both bare stark naked.
---
Suzie laughs. "God, Jack. I said this'd scare him off."
"Don't underestimate him. Right, Owen?"
They are both... attractive people, without clothes. Oh fuck it, they're steaming hot dressed for winter. Owen mentally garrotes his brain before it can lead him any deeper into mischief and glares - hard.
"Look," Suzie continues. "Look. He loves us. My tits and your dick, Jack. He's afraid now, but he's going to love us."
"How come that sounds familiar?"
She laughs again, and it sounds like a toy wound up too far. "I was young. Younger. Stupid, even for me."
Jack gently biffs her on one elegant shoulder, twisting a black curl around his finger. He is maybe half-hard. Owen doesn't have a lot of experience with other blokes, not since college.
"I don't want to hear that," he rebukes her, teasing and concern all shook up together. "You were so into it."
"Like Owen's going to be, Captain, oh my Captain?"
"Too damn right Owen's going to be."
They're both certifiable. And naked. Why is he not running, again? Owen sucks in an indignant breath.
---
Then they're entwined around him like a second skin.
"What if I'm not into threesomes?" he whispers.
Jack chuckles and his hand flattens against Owen's stomach, a heat wave even through his t-shirt. Trails of icy fire trickle down his skin as fingers lightly scrape down his back, scratching the small in the way that always makes him shiver. His balls are high and needy against his groin.
He's been like this ever since he can remember. Wound up tight enough that he can come from a single touch. It's all about the sensation for him, and he's no fool; knows that sex is pretty much all in the mind.
Someone's lips fasten over his earlobe. The rush of wet heat almost breaks him. Long, strong fingers paw insistently inside his jeans and boxers, and he's suddenly so raw down there, aching for it, silently begging, hasn’t had a shag since she -
Do it. Just fucking do it, all right?
He pushes the hand away. "Don't want this."
"You want us, Owen," Jack answers, steady and calm and so very sure, for a man whose hand glistens with his furious young doctor's pre-come.
"I want you to fuck off," Owen snarls, spit-flecked on tight lips, "and I want you to do it now."
"You don't make the rules here. You don't have to say that you're going to follow mine or even be pleasant about it, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm always gonna be here. Without question or judgment. Not my place. Follow my rules and heal, Owen," Jack breathes, hot against his neck.
"You don't get to decide when to leave the world," Suzie adds.
"Because I'm going to make it so fucking good that you won't want to, Owen." Grin. Teeth. "Ever."
Owen hisses through his lips. "You think you can pull me around like some little fucktoy - " - he smacks empty air - " - 'cause my brain's in my dick, innit, and you've got that wrapped around your little finger."
"You're bigger than that, Owen." Smirrrrk. "Ring finger, at least."
"You are both perverted," he tells them flatly.
"And you underestimate us." Suzie laughs, delicately clutching Jack's pinky like an anchor.
Owen's had enough (so he yells at himself) and heads for the door.
"No, Owen," Suzie coos, "Jack says you're not allowed to finish just yet."
Owen mutters something uncomplimentary about Jack's mother. He slouches standing up with his best fuck-off attitude. It's a bit harder with the drumbeat in his pants and the slick, damp spot growing, he just knows it's going to stain through his jeans in a minute and won't Harkness bloody love that, but he tries his best.
If he honestly thought Jack was going to let him leave, he'd be home by now. The thought of it sends a scorch through his crotch.
"Good man," Harkness murmurs.
"Fuck off," he answers pleasantly.
"Okay," Jack agrees, mild as a tiger who knows its prey doesn't want to escape. When that hand slowly but persuadingly unzips and unbuttons his pants this time, the kiss is initiated by one Owen Harper, Fuck-Up in the Extreme, screwing around with his boss of one week and a possibly sociopathic co-worker, and he feels something hard and dark and twisted begin to uncurl inside his chest.
When they tumble onto the floor in a tangle of hot limbs, he puts up the token struggle, and they kiss and nuzzle his collarbone until he's quivering. Suzie rasps bitter words out of pretty sun-snogged lips. Jack shuts her up with a sweet, tender bite. Apparently something tried and tested, for she goes trembling, ears brushing against Jack's chest, and Owen scrambles to join them and experiences his first three-way kiss.
It's odd, and there's teeth and he's not quite sure who's kissing whom. It doesn't matter as Jack firmly guides their bodies together, giving Suzie the circling rough flicks she adores, giving Owen the leg-room to rub against a palm. Jack's shaft swells with pride all on its own.
"I can't promise to save you," Jack admits, crooking a finger in and out of Suzie's entrance and teasing Owen's aching balls simultaneously. He really has to admire the bastard's dexterity even as his future unfolds like a bloodstained map. "I won't promise that you'll save all of them. That's not how it works, Owen, Suzie. We do what we can for who we can."
Suzie's on his back now, grasping his shoulder as she grinds herself against his hip in warm, slippery circles. A humph slips out between his lips at her daring.
"Think about it, Owen. I know it's a little hard when I'm rubbing you out like this," a pained gasp, "and this," and the silky fingers around his cock loosen, and the ache bursts into pleasure, and he feels hot come rise and has to clench down hard, fist clashing with Jack's for possession.
One drop of salty fluid makes Jack's hand shine, but the bloke knows his shit when making his partners work for it. It's almost a disappointment. It's almost the best thing that ever happened to him.
"Think it through. We needed you, Owen, and that's why we found you."
Bullshit. Gasp. Clench.
"And we always look after our own, Owen."
"Suzie," she murmurs.
---
Back in the future, they teach this nice little trick at the Time Agency. It's why so many Agents have thoroughly non-existent good reputations, or possibly because of it; it was a long time ago and he's forgotten the reasons but not the simple, undetectable mental nudge. Jack feels himself come, writhes under the influence of each of his new team's orgasms, three sides now, hot and slick over his hands.
---
Owen's still here - that's a good sign - and he's blinking at the ceiling. What in the hell did I just agree to, no doubt, and the bastards played me all along, and from the slight frown creasing his eyes, that tough decision as to whether he cares enough to run away.
Suzie's afterglows tend to be drawn out. She always did feel things too deeply. One wrinkled nipple brushes Jack's bare shoulder. She doesn't like having her hair touched, but a post-orgasmic foot-rub generally either pushes her into another come or a coronary.
Not tonight, though. He swoops gently, pressing a kiss to his young doctor's sweaty forehead. Bruisingly intense lips collide warm and soft with his. There even look to be the sparkle of unshed tears.
We'll get to them next time.
"C'mon, people," he says quietly, running hands down thighs, listening for twin sighs. They're there - abeit with reluctance. "We fucked, and now we'll sleep."
"Jack, are you going to stay with us?" Suzie asks drowsily, hair spilling half-under his desk.
"It's my office," he grins, squeezing Owen's shoulder.
"Ohh... fuck off," the younger man grunts, leaning in for another kiss.
---
Jack gives Suzie the sofa and makes up a blanket bed for Owen. It's painfully apparent that his new doctor hasn't slept in way too long, and he hadn't noticed during the sex(we-ell, he had; but he just hated to ruin the mood) how his hip-bones jut up.
We'll fix that, too. We'll fix everything.
Sex always leaves him optimistic. A job well done.
He gives Suzie her cocoa and retcon. It isn't even enough to forget - just enough to transform the past night into a blur. Her request. He feels he owes her that much. Jack looks her in the eye as she falls asleep. Presses a kiss to her shoulder and frowns as she sighs, shifting and murmuring a word - pig-back? Pilgrim? Privilege?
He'll ask in the morning. Possibly.
Owen's still awake when he crouches down beside him. Hair ruffled, big brown eyes bloodshot, strawberries replacing the metallic scent just a little, he's too spiky to be adorable but having a damn good try.
"Want a goodnight kiss?" Jack asks, half-awkward now. It's not a feeling he's used to. This one is going to be interesting.
Owen scowls. "In your sad fucking sticky wet dreams, Harkness." He leans up on his elbows and kisses Jack, hard.
Jack blinks.
"Feel better now, huh?"
A sleepy grunt, and the wire-topped walls crumble and this look of pure stillness steals over the younger man's face.
"Sleep well," Jack whispers. Standing up, wincing as his back pops, he moves quietly back towards the office. He's so old tonight. "I'll see you both in the morning."