BTBD Challenge 55 - Sharing the load

[m_findlow]

Title: Sharing the load
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen, Jack, Ianto, Suzie
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,510 words
Content notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, a bunch of flowers" at fic_promptly and Challenge 55 - Pain at beattheblackdog
Summary: Owen is having a bad day, but he's not the only one.

It was just one of those days, Owen thought. One of those thoroughly, horribly shitty days when he wished he'd never even bothered to get out of bed. Not that he'd had much of a say in the matter, being called up at five am to come and help with a rift retrieval, only to show up and discover he'd drawn the short straw. The rest of the team were still tucked up in bed, and only Jack was standing there, looking fresh as a fucking daisy, wanting to know why Owen was so grumpy.

It was nothing compared to his mood after they'd finally located their newest arrival, having to coax it out from a storm water drain, Owen's shoes wet and squelching, stinking something awful that he didn't even want to think about, but which reminded him of rotting corpses. Even the undeniably cute demeanor of the pink fluffy ball of alien, sodden as it was, wasn't about to improve his outlook on the day as the rain came down, and Jack chatted amicably about its home world or some such, and something about bacon butties.

Naturally, the girls cooed and doted on the creature, giving him no sympathy whatsoever. Jack charged Ianto with giving it a bath and blow drying its tiny fur coat, meaning it was left to Owen to do the menial take of fetching breakfast for the team - out in the rain again.

His fun didn't end there, though. No sooner had he settled, wiping the brown sauce from his fingers, and at least grateful for the decent coffee, that Jack was hovering over him. Who the hell had dobbed him in this time about his unfinished reports? Probably the same sod that had just sighed disdainfully at the coffee rings on his desk - self righteous little twat. As if he needed more grief from Jack. It wasn't as if Suzie always did her reports on time, and that was to say nothing about Jack's own penchant for avoiding paperwork. Why did he always get singled out? It wasn't fair.

He carried the pile of manila folders down the stairs among to dump them on the table and start making inroads on them when he discovered his table wasn't nearly as empty as he'd remembered.

'Why the hell is there a giant alien corpse in my autopsy bay?' he yelled, spying the gift that had been left there.

'Well, it's an autopsy bay,' Jack replied, 'and the thing I picked up last night needs autopsying.'

'You didn't think to mention this at any point whilst we were picking up the fluffy car dice?' he said, giving the little pink creature the evil eye as it chirped gleefully at him, pottering about the hub like a new pet.

Jack just shrugged. 'Wasn't like you had time for it earlier.'

'Great,' he muttered surveying the body. It was a new species, no records in their database to help him figure out which bits did what or why. Autopsying a totally new species and logging all the data for the very first time would take hours. Sodding hell. And he was meant to be leaving early today!

He grumbled and grunted all afternoon, working up a healthy appetite of vitriol at the unfairness of life, flicking bits of green slime from his elbows, and cursing Jack.

'I want it done before you go home,' Jack ordered, as if to add insult to injury. 'I don't want it left here stinking up the hub.'

Another sting of curses kept him going for another hour before he was finally satisfied that he'd gathered as much information as he could on their newest species, and determining cause of death as having choked on a chicken bone. Anticlimactic really, having survived the rift, only to expire at the hands of Earth cuisine.

Looking at his watch, he cursed again. Worst day ever, he grimaced.

Strolling up the stairs he almost crashed into Ianto, who was standing at the top, waiting for him, a large bunch of peonies in his hand.

'I got these for you,' he said, holding them out.

'Wha?' Owen scrunched up his face, partly in confusion and partly in horror.

Ianto cleared his throat. 'I know you've been busy all day, and the florists close early, so you wouldn't have time to pick them up after work.'

'Huh?'

'Tosh mentioned it's Katie's birthday today, and that you would have wanted to leave early to go visit her and lay flowers, so I got you these. I heard they were her favourite.'

Owen felt incensed. It didn't matter that it was exactly what he'd been planning, it wasn't any of their bloody business. And he certainly didn't need Teaboy buying his goddamn flowers to take.

'I'm sorry,' Ianto apologised. 'I know it must still be painful.'

'Painful?' Owen scoffed. 'What they hell would you know about pain?' Owen yelled, suddenly fuming. 'Why don't you fuck off and take your sodding flowers with you?'

Owen shoved last him, practically pushing the flowers back in his face. Ianto looked shocked and hurt, but kept the majority of his feelings to himself, disappearing quickly from Owen's sight, taking the offending blooms with him.

Suzie leant over her desk, just metres away from their standoff, considering Owen.

'Do you practice, or does being the world's biggest arsehole come naturally to you?' she asked.

'Fuck off, Suze,' Owen said, feeling weary. 'I don't need a lecture from you.'

'He was trying to do something nice. You ought to try it some time.'

'Oh yeah, and you're mother fucking Theresa. Going to feed the orphans after work?' he jibed.

Suzie crossed her arms and looked hard at him. 'You know you don't have the market cornered on losing a loved one around here.'

'Don't know what you're talking about,' he replied, cocking his head to the side. He hadn't felt like talking to anyone, yet getting into an argument with Suzie was helping him burn off some anger.

Suzie got a glint in her eye as she stared at him. 'You really don't know, do you?'

'Know what?' he huffed, tiring of this guessing game.

'You do know what happened to Ianto, don't you? Before he came here, I mean.'

'He accidentally bought decaf?' Owen quipped.

Suzie rolled her eyes at him. 'You really are a Class A twat. Maybe you wouldn't be so quick to snap at people if you bothered to know anything about them.'

'So what is it that's so important that it's going to change my whole world to know about the kid who does the dishes, fetches to the food and snogs the boss?'

'His girlfriend was killed at Canary Wharf. Blown into dalek dust, or converted into some mechanical monster. You probably swept up bits of her in your dustpan when we cleaned the place, and incinerated the rest. At least your girlfriend was still human. At least you've got a body to lay flowers for. He probably never even got to say goodbye.'

Owen felt like he'd been slapped in the face. How did he not know that? More to the point, how did Suzie know? Owen had just assumed Jack had taken pity on the poor kid, and was easy on the eye for the boss. Probably the odd shag as well, thrown into the mix.

He'd never bothered to take a peak at his personnel file, assuming it was just as bland and boring as the rest of him. Owen had figured Ianto probably hadn't even been there when the shit had gone down in London, off on a sick day or something. He didn't look the sort to have survived anything like that when just about everyone else had died. He'd never bothered to ask, and Ianto was hardly the kiss and tell type. He just put his head down and got on with things, which suited Owen just fine. He could only take so much of Ianto being helpful before he was keen to tell him to sod off and go annoy someone else.

Owen didn't like to think about how Torchwood had claimed Katie's life, and how bitter he'd felt about it for months afterward, blaming Jack for not having done enough to save her. He didn't want to think that anyone else might share the same kind of pain he went through, being reminded every so often of what he'd lost, working for an organisation that he should have despised.

Suzie must have caught the expression on his face, and the fact that he hadn't said anything.

'I know you think you're above apologies, Owen, and maybe today isn't the day for it, but you really ought to think about someone other than yourself for once. You might find that you have more in common than you think. Now get a move on, or you're going to miss your train, assuming you're still going. You might even have time to say sorry to Ianto and thank him for the flowers.'

Comments

[jo02]

Ooo - really, really good.

[bk_forever]

Owen is still so sunk in his own grief that it doesn't occur to him that other people lose loved ones too. Maybe this is the wake-up call he needs, even though understanding that he's not the only one suffering won't make him a nicer person. Owen doesn't really do 'nice' but maybe he'll be a bit less of a bastard.

Thanks for the fill!