A young Owen Harper slid his fingers over the carved, thick wooden designs on the armrest of the pew. He didn't hear much of the words being spoken by the priest. He could smell his mum's sticky perfume, which could never fully mask the stink of alcohol and nicotine. Maybe if she stayed home more and took care of him, he'd have grown more accustomed to the smell.
Owen tucked his short legs underneath the pew bench, hiding his ancient dirty shoes from the tithe collectors. He shot his mum a glance when she emptied a few bills into the collection tray. She glared back, and then twisted her lips into a mocking smile, a shadow of the loving mouth he saw in faded photographs at home. Owen stuck his lip out, pouting silently as the old man droned on.
He pushed his fingers into the wooden pew, eyeing the engraving of a dark blooming flower. The clothes he wore weren't even his. They were nicked from the coat closet in the hallway. The sleeves stopped inches before his wrists, white shirt bunching up around his skinny waist. He didn't have a belt to hold up the trousers, which were at least two sizes big on him.
Owen folded his arms over his thin chest, tucking his head down. He thought of the words his schoolteacher once told him, silly words about how to pray. Owen shut his eyes and mouthed the words, saying the only prayer he knew, wishing he knew how to pray for the service to end, or for things to go back to 'the good old days', the days his mum said died when Owen was born.
"Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread;" Owen whispered, trying desperately to remember what came next. Maybe if he just learned the rest of the prayer, God would finally hear him.
Owen jerked out of his daydream to see Ianto set a full coffee mug down on his desk. "Thanks." He mumbled, trying to shake the memories and nostalgic smells from his mind. Ianto seemed surprised by the verbalized appreciation. "You're welcome, Owen." He murmured, taking a moment longer than usual to turn and walk away. Owen stared after him, imagining he could see the weight of betrayal and desperate hope on Ianto's shoulders. Ianto hadn't been the same since Jack's disappearance. There was something in his eyes, something cold and chilling.
Owen shivered, pushing the sleeves of his lab coat down farther. It was unusual for him to pick up on something like that, in a person so accustomed to hiding their feelings from him. Owen picked up the warm mug as he stood, walking down into the med bay. It was about time he started dissecting the latest specimen.
Tosh leaned over the railing, watching as Owen slid the alien out of storage, setting up his instruments so he'd be ready to work once the body thawed out a bit. "Owen, there's a small rift spike, probably nothing unusual, but ever since I recalibrated the rift sensor, it's been jumping at even the slightest blip on the radar. You want to come check it out?" She asked.
Owen set the scalpel down, cocking his head as he looked at the shriveled up carcass on the autopsy table. "Can't you take Gwen?" He asked, swallowing the rest of his coffee in a few gulps. It burned his throat, but was definitely worth it. "She hasn't come in yet. Owen, I know you've been sleeping here some nights, but it doesn't give you the right to delegate every responsibility you don't enjoy to Gwen. Since when have you preferred working on cold bodies to fieldwork, anyway? It'll give you a chance to get out. It's not even raining today." Tosh went on.
Owen shrugged his shoulders, packing up the instruments he'd taken out. "Fine, tell teaboy we'll be back in an hour, keep his comm on." Owen shoved the body unceremoniously back into storage. He pulled his gloves off, lazily changing out of his white lab coat and into his leather jacket.
"Thank you, Toshiko, I'll have hot chocolate ready by the time the two of you get back." Ianto made a small smile, glad to have to place to himself for a little while. Maybe he could get a little cleaning done, focus on something besides how quiet it was without Jack here. "Oh, Owen believed me when I told him it's a nice day out. Has he even seen the snow out there? How many days have the two of you been living down here?" Tosh demanded to know. Ianto's face fell. "You know how many weevils have been out lately. We've had to stay here for the last week to keep an eye on the rift as well. You know what it's like without Ja-" Ianto caught himself.
He dropped his gaze, not wanting to see Toshiko's sympathetic expression. He felt her hand on his shoulder. "Sorry, Ianto." She let go, turning to go with Owen, leaving Ianto alone in the Hub.
"What the Hell, I thought you said it was a nice day! It's a bloody blizzard!" Owen snarled at Toshiko. She laughed, the sound muffled by her scarf. Owen hadn't even dressed properly for this weather. His face was red and speckled with snowflakes. The look he was giving her was definitely worth the cold.
"I pinpointed the site of the rift spike; it's just a couple blocks. We won't need the SUV, and I thought you could use the exercise." Owen could barely hear her through the ridiculous scarf covering half her face. "Tosh you know I can't understand a word you say when you're wearing that thing." Owen was jealous of the warmth, but wasn't about to put on the extra she had offered him. He wasn't going to compromise his pride for a bit of warmth.
It was two hours before they got back. Ianto was scrubbing the floor of the medbay with a combination of at least six different cleaning products. He'd seen Owen spill alien fluids all over the floor last night, and wasn't too keen on imagining all the different breeds of extraterrestrial bacteria that could be growing there. He straightened up when he heard the cog door open, Owen growling and spewing a few obscenities at Toshiko.
"…could've warned me these things sting you." "Owen it's a fucking Jellyfish, you're a doctor, couldn't you have figured that out yourself?" "Well if we'd brought the SUV we wouldn't be so bloody frozen, and I'd have had something to pick it up with besides my bare hands! Besides, it's a Jellyfish from another universe or some shit like that." "Well maybe if you hadn't been living in the Hub for the last month, you'd have been paying more attention to the weather! Or you could've put on gloves and a scarf when I told you to!" "I thought you said it was a fucking NICE DAY!" Owen roared, stomping down the steps to the med bay and dropping a two foot jellyfish onto the autopsy table.
"This weighs a fucking ton." He complained, not even noticing that Ianto was still kneeling on the floor, scrub brush in his hand. Owen walked back to the stairs to shrug his coat off and nearly walked straight into him, Ianto's face awkwardly level with Owen's crotch. "Oh, 'scuse me mate, didn't see ya there." Owen sidestepped, throwing his coat at the stairwell, rubbing his cold hands together.
Ianto got to his feet, picking up the cleaning supplies. "I'll go heat up that hot chocolate. No sense in you trying to start on that before your hands warm up." Ianto remarked, walking away. Owen swore at the jellyfish, examining the raw, red marks from the stings its tentacles had left on his arms. He decided he didn't really need medical attention. He'd seen this species before, they weren't deadly or anything, just painful. And he'd been much too lazy to figure out any sort of ointment to give relief to Jack the last time they'd found fish like this.
Owen eyed up the cabinet filled with medications, wishing he could give himself just a little morphine to numb the pain. If only he wasn't expected to somehow pull this team together, he'd have set himself up an IV already. Instead he shoved the jellyfish carcass into a body bag and shoved it into storage, next to the alien he'd meant to dissect before he left.
Ianto marched back into the med bay, tossing Owen a blanket, setting coffee down on the step. "Rift's gone quiet again. Gwen called in sick. She says she can't get the door open anyways, what with all the snow. Part of the city's shut down. The weather report calls for more snow tonight." Ianto said, beginning to walk up the stairs. "It's getting late, so Toshiko's staying in. She's taken the bunk room, so that just leaves the couch." Ianto walked up the stairs.
Owen snatched up the blanket, wrapping himself in it, snagging the hot chocolate as he followed Ianto up the stairs. "Why didn't you tell me it was snowing?" Owen whined, not bothering to make up any response to Ianto's report, or thank him for the drink and blanket. "I thought you went home last night." Ianto lied. He was keenly aware of every night that Owen spent in the Hub. He wondered how long it had been since the medic had actually gone home to his flat. "You know the pub's been shut down since the last inspection they had. Something about standards and cleanliness and disturbing the peace."
Owen kicked his shoes off, sitting down at the furthest end of the couch, wrapping the blanket around himself, holding the hot chocolate close. It was making him drowsy. He put his feet up on the couch, leaning into it, facing Ianto. Ianto sat down on the other side of the couch, in a similar position, taking the time to unlace his shoes and take off his coat and pressed white shirt. He wrapped himself in his own blanket, turning to face Owen.
"You know I'm a bit hungry." Owen murmured, eyes half closed already, head resting against the couch. "You're an adult now, Owen. I'm not your mother." Ianto reminded him gently. Owen scoffed, eyes opening to meet Ianto's. "You're right about that." He agreed, smiling. He drank the hot chocolate, remembering there was some sugar cereal in his desk somewhere. He'd have to wait for morning to get up. No way was he leaving the warm couch and blanket to satisfy his growling stomach.
Ianto quickly changed from slacks into sweatpants, then stretched out on the couch, still sitting up, legs extending to Owen's side of the couch. Owen eyed him suspiciously. "I still can't believe you actually wear those things." He mumbled. "No sense in getting that suit wrinkled." Ianto said, watching Owen enjoy another drink of hot chocolate. He stared at the red marks, which twisted their way up the Londoner's arm. "That hurt?" He asked. Owen smirked in his drink, licking his lips as he set the mug down. "Bit more than a weevil bite." He remembered Jack dying and then coming back after being stung by a swarm of these alien jellyfish.
The two gradually became closer and closer as the night wore on, neither really comfortable nor tired enough to fall asleep still sitting up. Owen was the first to go, nodding off, face pressed into the cushion. He was slouched enough that his body lay almost parallel to Ianto's, their legs overlapping. Ianto relaxed, shutting his eyes, giving into the nagging exhaustion that came from too many hours of filing paperwork and cleaning the archives.
Ianto woke sometime in the middle of the night, hearing Owen's mumbling, sleepy voice from the other end of the couch. "Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…" Owen murmured, arms shaking. Ianto could almost sense his pain. "Thy Kingdome come, Thy will be done…" Owen shivered, trying to pull the blanket closer, but failing miserably as it was tangled up with Ianto's. "One earth as it is in heaven." Owen shut his eyes tight, gasping slightly as his arms spasm. He bit his lip, curling up, seeking comfort from the pain. He couldn't remember. Couldn't remember the words.
Ianto reached out, hand on Owen's hip, the farthest he could reach. Owen froze, still. "Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;" Ianto recited. Owen's eyes opened, confused, surprised. "And lead us not into temptation," Ianto's hand stayed on Owen's hip, refusing to wander anywhere, simply feeling that one bone, that edge of Owen that was closest to his hand. "But deliver us from evil." Ianto finished.
"Amen." Owen whispered. He sat up slowly, arm on fire with pain. "My parents raised me to be a devote Catholic." Ianto murmured. He knew every prayer by heart. Not that he ever said them anymore. Owen, hand trembling slightly, reached down to his own hip, hand resting on top of Ianto's. "Thank you." Owen said, sincerely. He'd never finished the prayer before. It'd gone unsaid his whole life. Some childish part of him finally believed that God might hear him now. And even if he didn't, at least Ianto was here now, hand promising to stay there through the night.