Ianto starts cracking this chapter. This fic just keeps writing itself and I don't know if I want to be responsible for where it ends up...I think that counts as a waiver, read on at your own peril. :D


Ianto gets his own drink, given that Owen's not reliable on his feet yet, and wanders across to gaze out of the window at the view which sold Owen on the apartment in the first place. Everyone loves that view. Women think it's romantic. Owen thinks it's a chick-magnet. Attracts 'em. Doesn't keep them coming back, though, which is pretty much how Owen wants it.

Owen watches out of the corner of his eye, wondering what, if anything, to say. But the silence isn't a comfortable one, and if they're going for awkward, well, Owen's got quite a knack for awkward conversation, and it's preferable to this particular sort of quiet, which seems to have prickles.

"I'd have thought," Owen says, having decided to start from the basics, "You'd be champing at the bit to get back to Jack."

Ianto turns slowly, and there's a glint in his eye which doesn't bode well. "He needed to rest," he says, "Which was hardly going to happen if I was there, was it?"

"Too much info," Owen grumbles, when he's finished spluttering into his water.

Ianto grins, and it makes him look his real age for a moment. "You asked," he says and turns back to contemplate Cardiff By Night, victory shouting from the curve of his spine beneath the suit jacket he's still wearing.

Owen stops watching Ianto's backview and frowns into his water, wishing it was something stronger. The comment was amusing but not illuminating. Insight appears to be evaporating and he wonders if maybe he's sobering up already. Try another tack, he decides. Might try for another drink, too.

"Why do you do it?" Owen asks.

Ianto turns to face him again, leaning back against the window itself, which no-one ever does. "What?"

"Stay with Jack," Owen elaborates. "Put up with his crap."

Ianto looks back at him with the same smile as before, except for the addition of angling eyebrows, which somehow makes it look less real. "The mind-blowing sex, perhaps?" he suggests.

Owen's bullshit indicator pings. Ianto doesn't talk like this. Ianto specifically doesn't talk to Owen like this. The whole evening is rapidly approaching the limits of Owen's understanding, because if Ianto doesn't want to tell him whatever's tearing him up inside tonight, then why's he still here? Owen's surprised to find himself wishing for Tosh. She'd know what to say. Except, if Ianto was going to talk to Tosh like this, he'd have done it by now, which brings the burden firmly back onto Owen's shoulders. Bloody hell, Owen thinks. When did I become Torchwood's Dr Phil? And why exactly do I give a shit if Ianto's goes meltdown? Oh yeah, I'm his doctor, that's why. More water. Or more booze. Whatever produces less clarity is fine with Owen just at the moment.

"Pull the other one," Owen grunts, reaching for the water jug. His hands shake a tiny bit as he pours himself a refill, but Ianto doesn't react to the sound of the glass rattling against the lip of the jug. Doesn't react, certainly doesn't offer to help, not that Owen wants him to. The jug's almost empty anyway, so it doesn't splash enough to spill over onto the table. "If that's all you wanted," Owen continues "you'd be with him now. Or you'd be with someone who'd give you your jollies without all the grief. So what is it?"

Ianto shrugs, turns back to the window. "Usual reason, I suppose."

Owen shakes his head, and there's still enough alcohol in him to enjoy the way it makes his brain wobble. "No," he insists. "That's not it. You don't love him."

Ianto moves away from the window, and at the look on his face Owen realises he might have just made an appointment for himself with that right hook after all. Maybe Ianto's not here to talk. He could have stayed just to avoid being with Jack. Not only has Owen's got the wrong end of the stick, but he's poked it into the wrong place. That last line went too far, because there are rules to this game they play. In these secret hours they acknowledge the fear they share, sure, but it's supposed to be a wordless acknowledgement. It's the foundation of every unspoken truce that they don't call each other on it, and he's broken it.

Owen braces himself and wonders if he'll be coordinated enough to dodge, but Ianto merely raises an eyebrow. "Never said I did," he answers mildly.

Owen snorts with what might be triumph. Looks like he didn't have the wrong end of the stick, after all.

"Never said I didn't, either," Ianto counters, with what might be defiance. Or challenge.

Owen's eyes focus sharply, his head stabbing with the effort, and he leans closer. He's gone this far, why not push it rest of the way? Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Or punched, as the case may be.

"Which is it, then?" Owen asks intently. He's not merely making conversation anymore and he's not just trying to help Ianto, either. It'd be worth a fist if Ianto shares the secret. How does a bloke pathologically afraid of falling in love manage to have a relationship with someone as intense as Captain Jack Harkness and not fall over the edge? Especially while tottering on the edge of it, as Ianto is tonight.

Owen could use that secret. Armed with it, he might actually man up and answer the questions in Tosh's eyes. He's not blind. He sees what Tosh doesn't say, hears what she doesn't ask, and ignores it, because it's easier that way. And he's gotten skilled at pretending it went right over his head on the rare occasions Tosh manages to squeeze one of the invitations out through her mouth. Pool tournament is Owen's best deflection to date, and it must've worked, as she hasn't come up with anything new since then.

Yeah, Owen's a coward and he's not sober enough to deny it. It's not fair to Tosh, what he's doing. He knows he should either tell her straight out it's not going to happen, or take her up on it. Thing is, he can't bear the thought of the first and he's too much of a coward for the second.

Tosh would take him over the edge, if he ever had the guts to follow. Owen tells himself she wouldn't be good for him, that he wouldn't be good for her, that it would never work, and most of the time, without the vodka stripping away the layers of self-deceit, he believes it.

Ianto hasn't punched him, at least not yet, or not with his fist. That glare packs its own punch, though. It occurs to Owen that the odd feeling around his mouth comes from the fact that he's grinning like an idiot at cracking the stone-face. Another point to Harper, if anyone's keeping score.

"I'm hardly going to tell you, am I?" Ianto says distantly, discomfited enough to finally take refuge in his scotch. Owen knows he's rattled, because Ianto's had a great gulp of a brand of scotch Owen wouldn't clean his drains with. His mum sent it for Christmas. Owen wondered at the time why she'd bought it, and concluded one of her neighbors must have foisted in on her, and she'd been glad to get rid of it. The 'don't go there' alert flashes, so Owen focuses his attention back on his guest. Just in time.

"Especially not before I've told him," Ianto continues vaguely. He must be registering what's in the glass now, his tongue flapping while his mind is busy analyzing the liquid on his tongue. So much for multi-tasking. Owen can clearly see the way Ianto's teeth sink into his lip at the slip. Ianto didn't mean to say that. Another point to Harper. He can stop trying to keep score now, 'cause he's won. Or he's lost count. Or because it doesn't really matter who wins when they're both such losers anyway.

But after a moment Ianto merely shrugs. "You won't remember this tomorrow," he notes, almost to himself, and takes another deep, steadying sip of his scotch. At which he'd have spluttered, if he was the type. "This is crap," he says accusingly.

Owen grins again. "It's the stuff I bring out when I'm not sharing it. Or for people I don't like." He pauses to savor the moment before delivering the rest of the line. "This qualifies for both, don't you think?"

"Arsehole." Ianto puts the glass onto the coffee table with a clatter. Doesn't even find a coaster first. Seriously rattled, then. "I don't have to stay here to be insulted. You can do that at work."

They both laugh at that, and things wobble back onto an even keel.

"The good stuff's in the kitchen," Owen announces, waving a regal arm. "On the highest shelf over the sink."

Ianto loads their glasses and whatnot onto the tray and carries it all into the kitchen. Over the rattling of glassware there's a metallic trickle as the cheap scotch makes its way into the drain, followed by the sweeter sound of crystal chiming as Ianto pours himself a refill. Of course he'd use the good glasses for the good booze. Quality deserves quality.

Owen waits for the musical clinking to repeat, but it doesn't. "What about me?" he calls plaintively.

There's a sniff in response. A disapproving one.

"I've had all the water," Owen argues. And he has. Ianto took the empty jug into the kitchen with him. Owen's as re-hydrated as he's going to get and even if he makes it to bed tonight he won't get much sleep between all the trips to the bathroom. "And I haven't even thrown up once," he adds virtuously.

"So you'd like to change that, would you?" Ianto calls back. Owen glowers at the sound of the cap being screwed back onto the bottle. Self-righteous little prat.

"I'll have you know," Owen says, with as much authority as he can muster, "that the 'hair of the dog' method of treating hangovers has a factual basis."

"They're your brain cells," Ianto calls back. "If you want to kill what's left of them, who am I to stop you?" But when he returns there's a second glass resting on the tray, with the bottle between them.

Things get a bit hazy after that. Who'd have thought Teaboy was such a good drinking buddy? But oh yeah, this isn't Teaboy, it's Ianto, and they're mates.

Mates. Not in the biological sense of course. Hmmmm. There's a thought.


One chapter left, I think. Hope you're still enjoying it.