Author Devylish
Fandom Torchwood
Title Reciprocity
Words 1164
Chap. 2 (of 3 or 4) Way Too Many Eyes
Pairing Tosh/Owen maybe some Jack/Ianto
Rating (K+) PG
Spoilers If you've seen season one you're golden.
Warning Language
Disclaimer Don't own it. Wish I did. Please don't sue me.
Author's Note Unbeta'd
Author's Note2 First venture into Torchwood Fic … use me kindly!

TOTOTOTOTOTOTOTO


"Are you going to eat the rest of your chips?" Owen's voice broke into the silence.

"Hmm? Oh, no." Tosh handed the greasy bag to Owen and buried her head back into her laptop.

They were seated in the dark, on the second floor of a parking structure overlooking the shipping yards. Moonlight reflected off of the water and cast strange shadows on the wharf.

Owen and Tosh cocooned in the Torchwood truck were each consumed in their own reflective shadows.

Ostensibly, they were both focused on the task Jack had set before them: watching the wharf for any signs of Daeph Orbs. Yeah… ostensibly, that's what each of them was doing, but reality is often far… far away from 'ostensible'.

Tosh had one eye on her laptop, which was monitoring the wharfs' temperature readings, and one eye on the research data she'd managed to scrape up on Daeph Orbs….

And she miraculously had yet another eye on Owen. On Owen's short kicky hair, his dark come-hither broody eyes, his perfectly quirky mouth….

Owen, on the other hand, was spreading his eyes between observing the bumblefuck boring wharf, reading the football magazine he'd brought with him, and watching the quiet movements of Toshiko Sato.

He found himself realizing that the car was filled with her fragrance. She had a soft, earthy, cherry aroma…. The scent of almonds. He was betting the scent came from her hair; that dark flowing shield.

All and all, in the confines of the dark truck that night, there were far too many eyes doing things that they 'shouldn't' be doing.

TOTOTOTOTOTOTOTO

Tosh scrolled lower to scrutinize the information on the webpage she was reviewing. Or rather, the webpage she was trying to review. Seriously, ignoring Owen was next to impossible; it was like trying to ignore the night. It was all around her… unavoidable.

But she had to avoid it… ignore it. Ignore him. Or she'd definitely get lost.

"So, yeah, this officially sucks." Owen broke into the silence again.

"Rather." She smiled in his direction before forcing herself to turn back to her computer.

'Rather'? 'Rather'?! 'That's it? Where was the babbling, blushing Tosh?' Owen didn't know how much more of this 'new Tosh' he could take. Patience had never been his strong point and now… now…. He shook his head and cleared his mind.

Beer. A beer would be good now; a nice dark ale. Owen closed his eyes; he could almost taste the brew. He settled back in his seat and imagined himself sitting at the worn, wooden bar of a local pub; watching the pretty girls come through the doors, sitting at tables, walking past him with a smile. He could see the wave of their dark hair flashing as they moved through the room. He could even envision catching their eyes, their dark beautiful eyes; set in flawless, smooth, nutmeg buttery skin. Skin very much like Tosh's.

"Owen?!" Tosh pressed his shoulder lightly.

"Hmm… yeah?"

"I was asking if you wanted to maybe sleep in turns?" She eyed him carefully. Owen definitely wasn't acting normally. He was more distracted than usual. Distracted… or bored. 'Oh bloody hell', she was boring him!

The thought hit her in the gut.

It wasn't as if she was normally all that exciting or… or vibrant. She wasn't like Gwen. All shocking blues and reds and yellows. No. Toshiko Sato was anything but neon. She was grey and tan and the faded edges of all of the mixed colors in the world. She knew this. And she was comfortable with the fact. Most of the time. But today, tonight, damnit, she wanted to be more. Or at least, she didn't want Owen to think of her as 'less'. And boring was less. Definitely less.

Owen watched a play of emotions race across Tosh's face; they moved so quickly he was unable to label them. They flitted through her eyes one after the other until they all just stopped and he was left facing something akin to anger from Tosh.

"Sorry, eh, sure, we can sleep in rounds. Umm, why don't you take first shift?"

"Maybe in a bit, I'm not actually tired yet."

'I'm done chasing him. But I'm not going to just let him think that Gwen or Diane or any of the others are more 'brilliant' than me, just because they're shinier.' Tosh closed her laptop and pushed it on to the dashboard. Unbuckling the seatbelt that she hadn't bothered to remove when they'd arrived at their stakeout an hour or so ago, she shifted in her seat so that she was facing Owen.

"It's not true you know."

"Huh?" Suave Owen, very, very suave.

"I said, it's not true."

"Okay." He quirked his eye at her, "and we'd be talking about… what?"

"That glasses make girls unattractive."

"Did I jump into the middle of a conversation without knowing it?"

Tosh reached up and pulled off her glasses. "A lot of men find women in glasses to be quite attractive." She ran her fingers along one stem. "I remember when I was at university, I had these horribly unfashionable thick rimmed glasses. I really only needed them for reading purposes; probably could have worn contacts, but finances being what they were… glasses were my only option." She folded her eyeglasses and tucked them into the V of her black button-down shirt.

Owen followed the movement of her hands with his eyes. 'That shouldn't be sexy. Tosh folding away her glasses shouldn't be… sexy.' He dragged his eyes back up to her lips.

"Anyway, I felt horrible about them. Absolutely certain that no man would be… interested in a girl who wore clunky, black glasses. But I didn't give up; I let a few friends talk me into going to a pub with them one night; it had been a long, long week and a little alcohol was more than called for."

She flashed a small smile at him.

"I wasn't at the bar with the girls for more than twenty minutes before a cute bloke came up to our table. I admit, I thought he was going to hit on Lee, or Ahna, but no…." The smile was thrown at him again.

"He asked me to dance…. It was a slow… jazzy… sexy song. I've always loved music, but I'd never thought of any songs as being particularly 'sexy'. That song however… mmmmmm." Tosh stretched in her seat, recalling the sounds, the sensations.

Owen swallowed hard and shifted in his seat, which was suddenly, not so comfortable.

"Before the song was done, he'd kissed me. Really, really kissed me." She looked Owen in the eyes. "I went home with him that night. One of the best evenings of my life..." she added with a slight giggle, "I kept my glasses on too."

'I may not be neon, but I CAN shine,' she thought with a grin.

Owen breathed deeply as Tosh gave him a 'you'll-never-know-how-good-it-is' smile. 'What.The.Fuck!'