Fic: The Sloth of Castle Gate: Owen
Title: The Sloth of Castle Gate
Author: wynkat1313
Characters: Owen, Tosh, mentions of Jack/Ianto, reference to Andy
Rating: PG
Word count: 1937
Beta'd by the lovely temporal_witch
Author's Notes: Written for tw_lucky_7 , Sin number three: Sloth. POV: Owen
Summary: His thoughts churned. He was tired. So fucking tired. Working all day and night, never a break. No down time, nothing to do but pull birds with no brains - good for a quick fuck and better because they didn’t expect anything more from him. He had nothing else to give. He was wrung out. Had been for longer than he could remember. Running from one dead body to the next.
This is part of "The Sins of Castle Gate", part one is here
Sloth / Owen Harper
Owen!” Tosh’s voice broke through the wall of light and sound flowing from the computer, snapping Owen back to reality.
“Wh…what?” he asked, tossing the game controller onto the table and rubbing his eyes.
“Your machine’s been beeping for over ten minutes; didn’t you hear me calling you?”
“No, sorry. Be right down.” Owen rolled his neck on his shoulders and reached for his coffee mug, scowling when he realized it was empty except for a few sad, cold dregs. He slugged them down anyway.
“Aren’t they back yet?” he asked, coming down the stairs to stand behind Tosh and her glowing monitors. She shook her head, never taking her eyes off the insanely long stream of numbers and symbols scrolling across her screen. He watched her tap a few keys then study the screen again, her lips moving in silent meditation.
“What do you see in there, anyway?” he asked suddenly, driven by the curious pull of her lips and the dance on her monitors.
“Perfection,” she whispered.
“Ah… right. Forget I asked.” Owen shook his head. “Tea Boy? And Captain Charisma?”
Tosh looked away from her screens, startled. “Hmm?”
“The happy-dappy shag twins? When are they coming back?”
“Not sure. Jack mentioned something about taking Ianto out on a date.”
“Great. So no coffee.”
“There’s always tea,” Tosh offered, her eyes already sliding back to her computers.
“Yeah, thanks, I’ll pass.”
“Bloody Harkness and his ‘romancing the Tea Boy’, leaving the rest of us to do all the work,” Owen grumbled as he stomped down the stairs into the autopsy theater. Probably going to buy Tea Boy roses and perfume too; won’t that be a lark. Ianto’ll come in all poncey sweet and even more insufferably sure of himself tomorrow. Owen shook his head, half-horrified by the image and half-pleased, almost willing to reluctantly admit that Jack’s attention might actually be doing Tea Boy some good. The man was less nervous and reserved these days, more confident with folks and in speaking his mind about work. A fuckload more snarky too. But really, that only made the days go by quicker, so that was not a bad thing.
The scanner was beeping its incessant need for his attention, almost like he knew he was finally nearby.
“Alright! Alright! I hear you!” He stabbed the ‘off’ sequence into the machine and waited, foot tapping, while it spun through the release protocols and finally spat both the sample and its results back out at him.
“Huh,” he said, scanning the results. Hydrated magnesium silicate, acetyl ethyl tetramethyl tetralin,…what the hell? “Since when do aliens use posh talcum powder?”
Owen climbed back to the main level of the Hub. “Tosh? Where did Jack say he found this sample?”
“Hmm?”
“The sample Jack had me run for trace? Did he tell you where he found it?
“Nope,” she said, never looking away from her screen, though her voice hinted that she might be getting just a little sick of his questions. “Just said to have you run it. Something about being related possibly to those missing medical supplies you were complaining about the other day.”
“Yeah, great. Hahaha. There’s no way this has anything to do with that case. He’s just giving me extra work to do while he goes off and has a fun evening off. Wanker!”
“He did promise Ianto,” Tosh said, looking over her shoulder at him, her raised eyebrows blending with the arch of her glasses.
“Whatever.” Owen tossed the results on the stack of papers on his desk and turned towards the stairs to the Game room. “I’m sick of his crap. If Jack wants to know what’s in those bloody samples, he can do it himself.”
“Where are you going?”
Owen sighed and bit back a growl. It wasn’t Tosh’s fault he was stuck here. Jack had promised her a weekend of uninterrupted computer time, or as close to it as they ever got with the Rift in their back yard. Only problem was, Jack had also given everyone else but Owen the weekend off as well.
“Nowhere… as I’m on ‘duty’. Boss’s orders, remember?”
“Owen…”
“Don’t worry, Tosh, enjoy your computers. I promise I’ll behave - same way Jack does while on duty… Just - don’t call me unless the world is ending.” Owen turned on the stairs to look down at Tosh. “On second thought… don’t call me even if the world is ending. I’m sick of it trying to end on my watch.”
The cool, calming blue lights of the game were still pulsing from the monitor as Owen slid into his chair, his character still hovering at the last save point. He grabbed his controller and launched back into the fight, thoughts of alien goo and molecular oddities slipping into the background to stew at their own pace.
His thoughts churned. He was tired. So fucking tired. Working all day and night, never a break. No down time, nothing to do but pull birds with no brains - good for a quick fuck and better because they didn’t expect anything more from him. He had nothing else to give. He was wrung out. Had been for longer than he could remember. Running from one dead body to the next.
Katie.
Owen slammed his thumb down on the fire button, wiping out the enemy fleet and a face framed with soft blond hair.
There was no fucking point to it all any more, anyway. Aliens and humans were all alike in Owen’s mind. They all tried to kill themselves and each other and they all ended up on his bloody table.
Bloody table - that was funny.
Katie’s skull, open and bleeding.
He growled and raked a path of fire along a digital plain. Bursts of pixilated color filled his eyes, blotting out enemy ships and the broken body of the only woman he had loved.
And where the hell was Jack? Jack, who was supposed to be guiding them. Leading them, giving them insight and wisdom? Telling him how to go on with out Katie. Where the hell was he? He was off gallivanting around with Tea Boy.
Owen restacked his armaments and fired again, ignoring the tears on his cheeks.
If Jack was going to take the fucking day off, then Owen would bloody well do the same. Fuck the paperwork and the search parameters. There were plenty of aliens to kill in his game.
*****
“Shit!” Owen beat out a string of curses as the Hub’s emergency override system cut into his game and started shunting CCTV footage of Cardiff Castle across his screen. A stream of data flowed across the bottom, forwarding text chatter from the local constabulary. Owen threw his controller on the table and leaned in to catch the feed.
--Disturbance reported at Cardiff Tower. PC Davidson first on scene reported seeing a dark shape, approx seven feet in height, non-human form. Torchwood Op likely.--
Owen shook his head, wondering at how easily the locals had taken to blaming anything they didn’t understand on aliens and on Torchwood. Of course, around Cardiff and the Rift, aliens and Torchwood tended to be the right answer, but still, you’d think they’d go for something else once in a while. The Easter Bunny would be fun, a little chocolate with their running, was that too much to ask for?
He sighed and keyed up the details on the scene. The locals didn’t have much in the way of images yet. That was good if it was alien, but not so good in determining what was actually going on though. He tapped a few more keys and brought up the Rift activity scans. Sure enough, it had been spiking all week. Nothing major, and nothing big enough to fit the description that Andy had given, but still…
Owen stopped and scrolled back. There it was, four days ago, when Jack was on duty, of course. A Rift spike, big enough to bring a ten-foot-by-ten-foot alien across, had pegged the scanners on 03:03 Thursday. Jack had even made a note of it in the log, but there was no follow-up, no incident report. Damn thing was probably still sitting on Jack’s desk waiting for him to sign after Ianto wrote it up for him! Still, it didn’t explain why there had been not signs of interaction with the public since the spike. That was damn odd.
A new report popped up on the screen. The locals had finally closed the castle down, but three people were being taken to A & E with minor injuries. All of them reported seeing a giant lobster with tons of crazy eyes. Of course, crazy eyes, because all alien lobsters have lots of eyes and are crazy, Owen snorted.
“Right.” Owen pushed away from the computer. “Time to call in the big guns.” He slipped on his comm unit and dialed Jack’s cell phone. He tried not to be too happy about interrupting Jack’s evening.
“This had better be good, Owen,” Jack said, after the third time Owen called. Owen smirked; Jack was more than a little out of breath. Caught them doing something fun, had he?
“Alien sighting at Cardiff Castle with three civilians already on their way to A & E and PC Andy on the scene telling everyone he thinks it might be a Torchwood Op. That good enough for you?”
“Damn.” There was a long pause and Owen was pretty sure he could hear cloth sliding and the heaving breaths he normally associated with rapid re-dressing. He thought he heard Ianto cursing in the background.
“Upload what you have to Ianto’s PDA,” Jack said a moment later. “We’ll go take a look.”
“What should I tell the locals?”
“What else?” Jack’s amusement was evident over the phone. “Torchwood is on the case.”
“Yeah, right,” Owen grumbled as he cut the connection and hit Andy’s speed dial number. Handy, that - having a copper on speed dial.
“I was wondering when you lot would be callin’,” Andy said as the line connected after just one ring. Efficient, this one, Owen thought with a tired grin.
“Yeah, well, since you so helpfully added our name to the incident report, we thought it was the least we could do.”
“’Almost put a complete description in the feed; would that have been better?”
“You saw it?”
“With my very two,” the PC replied enthusiastically. “Looked like a giant…”
“Lovely,” Owen cut him off. “Be sure to give Captain Harkness a full description when he arrives.”
“So you’re taking over then?” There was something very like adoration in the PC’s voice now. Bloody great, another one for the Harkness charm factory.
“Harkness and Jones are,” Owen said with a sigh.
“Oh! Brilliant!”
“We’ll be monitoring the situation from here,” Owen said, his mind moving on autopilot. “Just let our people have full access to the site and they’ll take care of everything from there.”
“Right, then. I’ll just wait for them by the main gate, shall I?”
“Yeah, fine.” Owen cut the connection before PC Eager Bunny could find something to chat his ear off about.
Owen slumped in his chair, closed his eyes and fought back a wave of nausea. God, he was tired. His head hurt. His body ached. Under it all, his heart was falling in a never-ending clatter of glass to a floor he couldn’t reach.
You lied to me, Jack. I can’t save enough people, not to make a difference, not to make the clawing, needing, demanding voices shut up. Not to make mine worthwhile. Not even here. Damn you.
Gluttony / Rhys Williams
Author: wynkat1313
Characters: Owen, Tosh, mentions of Jack/Ianto, reference to Andy
Rating: PG
Word count: 1937
Beta'd by the lovely temporal_witch
Author's Notes: Written for tw_lucky_7 , Sin number three: Sloth. POV: Owen
Summary: His thoughts churned. He was tired. So fucking tired. Working all day and night, never a break. No down time, nothing to do but pull birds with no brains - good for a quick fuck and better because they didn’t expect anything more from him. He had nothing else to give. He was wrung out. Had been for longer than he could remember. Running from one dead body to the next.
This is part of "The Sins of Castle Gate", part one is here
Sloth / Owen Harper
Owen!” Tosh’s voice broke through the wall of light and sound flowing from the computer, snapping Owen back to reality.
“Wh…what?” he asked, tossing the game controller onto the table and rubbing his eyes.
“Your machine’s been beeping for over ten minutes; didn’t you hear me calling you?”
“No, sorry. Be right down.” Owen rolled his neck on his shoulders and reached for his coffee mug, scowling when he realized it was empty except for a few sad, cold dregs. He slugged them down anyway.
“Aren’t they back yet?” he asked, coming down the stairs to stand behind Tosh and her glowing monitors. She shook her head, never taking her eyes off the insanely long stream of numbers and symbols scrolling across her screen. He watched her tap a few keys then study the screen again, her lips moving in silent meditation.
“What do you see in there, anyway?” he asked suddenly, driven by the curious pull of her lips and the dance on her monitors.
“Perfection,” she whispered.
“Ah… right. Forget I asked.” Owen shook his head. “Tea Boy? And Captain Charisma?”
Tosh looked away from her screens, startled. “Hmm?”
“The happy-dappy shag twins? When are they coming back?”
“Not sure. Jack mentioned something about taking Ianto out on a date.”
“Great. So no coffee.”
“There’s always tea,” Tosh offered, her eyes already sliding back to her computers.
“Yeah, thanks, I’ll pass.”
“Bloody Harkness and his ‘romancing the Tea Boy’, leaving the rest of us to do all the work,” Owen grumbled as he stomped down the stairs into the autopsy theater. Probably going to buy Tea Boy roses and perfume too; won’t that be a lark. Ianto’ll come in all poncey sweet and even more insufferably sure of himself tomorrow. Owen shook his head, half-horrified by the image and half-pleased, almost willing to reluctantly admit that Jack’s attention might actually be doing Tea Boy some good. The man was less nervous and reserved these days, more confident with folks and in speaking his mind about work. A fuckload more snarky too. But really, that only made the days go by quicker, so that was not a bad thing.
The scanner was beeping its incessant need for his attention, almost like he knew he was finally nearby.
“Alright! Alright! I hear you!” He stabbed the ‘off’ sequence into the machine and waited, foot tapping, while it spun through the release protocols and finally spat both the sample and its results back out at him.
“Huh,” he said, scanning the results. Hydrated magnesium silicate, acetyl ethyl tetramethyl tetralin,…what the hell? “Since when do aliens use posh talcum powder?”
Owen climbed back to the main level of the Hub. “Tosh? Where did Jack say he found this sample?”
“Hmm?”
“The sample Jack had me run for trace? Did he tell you where he found it?
“Nope,” she said, never looking away from her screen, though her voice hinted that she might be getting just a little sick of his questions. “Just said to have you run it. Something about being related possibly to those missing medical supplies you were complaining about the other day.”
“Yeah, great. Hahaha. There’s no way this has anything to do with that case. He’s just giving me extra work to do while he goes off and has a fun evening off. Wanker!”
“He did promise Ianto,” Tosh said, looking over her shoulder at him, her raised eyebrows blending with the arch of her glasses.
“Whatever.” Owen tossed the results on the stack of papers on his desk and turned towards the stairs to the Game room. “I’m sick of his crap. If Jack wants to know what’s in those bloody samples, he can do it himself.”
“Where are you going?”
Owen sighed and bit back a growl. It wasn’t Tosh’s fault he was stuck here. Jack had promised her a weekend of uninterrupted computer time, or as close to it as they ever got with the Rift in their back yard. Only problem was, Jack had also given everyone else but Owen the weekend off as well.
“Nowhere… as I’m on ‘duty’. Boss’s orders, remember?”
“Owen…”
“Don’t worry, Tosh, enjoy your computers. I promise I’ll behave - same way Jack does while on duty… Just - don’t call me unless the world is ending.” Owen turned on the stairs to look down at Tosh. “On second thought… don’t call me even if the world is ending. I’m sick of it trying to end on my watch.”
The cool, calming blue lights of the game were still pulsing from the monitor as Owen slid into his chair, his character still hovering at the last save point. He grabbed his controller and launched back into the fight, thoughts of alien goo and molecular oddities slipping into the background to stew at their own pace.
His thoughts churned. He was tired. So fucking tired. Working all day and night, never a break. No down time, nothing to do but pull birds with no brains - good for a quick fuck and better because they didn’t expect anything more from him. He had nothing else to give. He was wrung out. Had been for longer than he could remember. Running from one dead body to the next.
Katie.
Owen slammed his thumb down on the fire button, wiping out the enemy fleet and a face framed with soft blond hair.
There was no fucking point to it all any more, anyway. Aliens and humans were all alike in Owen’s mind. They all tried to kill themselves and each other and they all ended up on his bloody table.
Bloody table - that was funny.
Katie’s skull, open and bleeding.
He growled and raked a path of fire along a digital plain. Bursts of pixilated color filled his eyes, blotting out enemy ships and the broken body of the only woman he had loved.
And where the hell was Jack? Jack, who was supposed to be guiding them. Leading them, giving them insight and wisdom? Telling him how to go on with out Katie. Where the hell was he? He was off gallivanting around with Tea Boy.
Owen restacked his armaments and fired again, ignoring the tears on his cheeks.
If Jack was going to take the fucking day off, then Owen would bloody well do the same. Fuck the paperwork and the search parameters. There were plenty of aliens to kill in his game.
*****
“Shit!” Owen beat out a string of curses as the Hub’s emergency override system cut into his game and started shunting CCTV footage of Cardiff Castle across his screen. A stream of data flowed across the bottom, forwarding text chatter from the local constabulary. Owen threw his controller on the table and leaned in to catch the feed.
--Disturbance reported at Cardiff Tower. PC Davidson first on scene reported seeing a dark shape, approx seven feet in height, non-human form. Torchwood Op likely.--
Owen shook his head, wondering at how easily the locals had taken to blaming anything they didn’t understand on aliens and on Torchwood. Of course, around Cardiff and the Rift, aliens and Torchwood tended to be the right answer, but still, you’d think they’d go for something else once in a while. The Easter Bunny would be fun, a little chocolate with their running, was that too much to ask for?
He sighed and keyed up the details on the scene. The locals didn’t have much in the way of images yet. That was good if it was alien, but not so good in determining what was actually going on though. He tapped a few more keys and brought up the Rift activity scans. Sure enough, it had been spiking all week. Nothing major, and nothing big enough to fit the description that Andy had given, but still…
Owen stopped and scrolled back. There it was, four days ago, when Jack was on duty, of course. A Rift spike, big enough to bring a ten-foot-by-ten-foot alien across, had pegged the scanners on 03:03 Thursday. Jack had even made a note of it in the log, but there was no follow-up, no incident report. Damn thing was probably still sitting on Jack’s desk waiting for him to sign after Ianto wrote it up for him! Still, it didn’t explain why there had been not signs of interaction with the public since the spike. That was damn odd.
A new report popped up on the screen. The locals had finally closed the castle down, but three people were being taken to A & E with minor injuries. All of them reported seeing a giant lobster with tons of crazy eyes. Of course, crazy eyes, because all alien lobsters have lots of eyes and are crazy, Owen snorted.
“Right.” Owen pushed away from the computer. “Time to call in the big guns.” He slipped on his comm unit and dialed Jack’s cell phone. He tried not to be too happy about interrupting Jack’s evening.
“This had better be good, Owen,” Jack said, after the third time Owen called. Owen smirked; Jack was more than a little out of breath. Caught them doing something fun, had he?
“Alien sighting at Cardiff Castle with three civilians already on their way to A & E and PC Andy on the scene telling everyone he thinks it might be a Torchwood Op. That good enough for you?”
“Damn.” There was a long pause and Owen was pretty sure he could hear cloth sliding and the heaving breaths he normally associated with rapid re-dressing. He thought he heard Ianto cursing in the background.
“Upload what you have to Ianto’s PDA,” Jack said a moment later. “We’ll go take a look.”
“What should I tell the locals?”
“What else?” Jack’s amusement was evident over the phone. “Torchwood is on the case.”
“Yeah, right,” Owen grumbled as he cut the connection and hit Andy’s speed dial number. Handy, that - having a copper on speed dial.
“I was wondering when you lot would be callin’,” Andy said as the line connected after just one ring. Efficient, this one, Owen thought with a tired grin.
“Yeah, well, since you so helpfully added our name to the incident report, we thought it was the least we could do.”
“’Almost put a complete description in the feed; would that have been better?”
“You saw it?”
“With my very two,” the PC replied enthusiastically. “Looked like a giant…”
“Lovely,” Owen cut him off. “Be sure to give Captain Harkness a full description when he arrives.”
“So you’re taking over then?” There was something very like adoration in the PC’s voice now. Bloody great, another one for the Harkness charm factory.
“Harkness and Jones are,” Owen said with a sigh.
“Oh! Brilliant!”
“We’ll be monitoring the situation from here,” Owen said, his mind moving on autopilot. “Just let our people have full access to the site and they’ll take care of everything from there.”
“Right, then. I’ll just wait for them by the main gate, shall I?”
“Yeah, fine.” Owen cut the connection before PC Eager Bunny could find something to chat his ear off about.
Owen slumped in his chair, closed his eyes and fought back a wave of nausea. God, he was tired. His head hurt. His body ached. Under it all, his heart was falling in a never-ending clatter of glass to a floor he couldn’t reach.
You lied to me, Jack. I can’t save enough people, not to make a difference, not to make the clawing, needing, demanding voices shut up. Not to make mine worthwhile. Not even here. Damn you.
Gluttony / Rhys Williams