m_findlow

Title: Drowning it out
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 970 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, getting drunk isn't a hobby, it's a lifestyle choice" at fic_promptly
Summary: Owen needs to get drunk for a reason

'Do you come here often?' Jack asked, as he slid onto the bar stool next to Owen, who was nursing a bottle of beer in his hand.

'Can't a bloke have five minutes peace from you?' he complained. 'I'm off the clock. If there's a weevil needs chasing down, go ask Ianto.'

'Nope,' Jack replied. 'No weevils. No end of the world. Just me.'

The girl behind the bar appeared in front of them. Owen had been trying to get her attention all night, enjoying her sharp blonde hair and sizable breasts that were only just barely contained by the skimpy black tank top. It annoyed him that she only had eyes for Jack.

'What are you having, love?'

'Just a water,' Jack replied, smiling that smile he always did.

'Would that be on the rocks or neat?' she replied, trying to be funny.

'Neat. Keep the olive.'

She smiled at him the entire time, undressing him with her eyes as she hovered the hose over the glass, filling it slowly. 'On the house,' she said, sliding it towards him, along with a napkin and a phone number. Jack tipped his glass to her, before she left to serve someone else. He slid the napkin over to Owen's side of the bar.

'Been trying to get her number all night and you just waltz on in like that,' he grumbled. 'Anything else you'd like to do to ruin my night, or are you done here?'

'Just thought I'd try to spend more time getting to know my employees in their natural habitat.'

Jack sipped his water and Owen stared at him, incredulous.

'You turn up at a bar and order a water. What's wrong with you?'

'The rift is unpredictable and I like to be ready. Gotta keep hydrated.'

'A beer will do that just as well,' he replied, taking another pull on his own. 'Don't you ever have days where you just want to go out and get drunk?'

A wistful expression passed over Jack's face. 'I haven't been drunk in a very long time,' he said.

'But you do drink, don't you?'

'Every so often, when the occasion calls for it. But I've put my drunken partying days behind me.' He cleared his throat. 'Like I said, you've gotta be ready.'

'Yeah, yeah. The twenty-first century is when everything changes, etcetera, etcetera. If the world decides to end, you'll know where to find me. I'll be right here getting absolutely shit-faced.'

Jack turned and looked at him. 'Why?'

'Two reasons. One, so whilst everyone is convinced the world is ending, that I feel completely fucking invincible; and two, so that after you lot have fixed everything so that the world isn't ending, I won't remember any of it.'

'You know,' Jack said, twirling the glass around in circles on the coaster, 'I've never understood why people drink to forget. I mean, if you're planning on having the wildest night of your life, wouldn't you want to be sober enough to remember it?'

'You're saying you've never gotten so drunk you couldn't remember the night before?'

'Oh, loads of times. But then I think of the times I was sober enough to remember, and,' he laughed, 'oh, those were some good times! There was this one time we were doing vodka shots with some acrobats from a Russian circus. You should've seen the way they could contort their bodies. Learnt quite a few new tricks from them that night.'

Owen sat up and stuck his finger in his ears. 'That's way too much information!'

Jack laughed again, finally settling down from his own amusement. 'So, are you drinking for a good time, or drinking to forget?'

'Neither. I'm just drinking to get drunk.'

'So this is a hobby,' Jack supplied.

'Getting drunk isn't a hobby, it's a lifestyle choice.'

'Oh, I see,' he said, but not understanding it. Choosing to hit the gym seven days a week was a lifestyle choice. Working until the wee hours of the morning and then coming back at six am to repeat it all over again was a lifestyle choice. Holing up at home with a good book or trashy TV, getting in the car and just driving anywhere, standing on a rooftop and staring out over the city. Those were lifestyle choices. Poisoning your body on a daily basis was flagellation of a different kind altogether.

Owen gave a mirth filled chuckle. 'You don't get it, do you, Jack?'

'No,' he confessed.

'There are whole days when I sit there and put up with listening to Gwen prattle on about that stupid boyfriend of hers, and watch you and Ianto making googly eyes at one another, and all I can think of is Katie, and how if maybe you'd come along sooner, I might have been able to do something to save her.'

Jack shuffled awkwardly on the stool, clasping his hand together. 'Owen, believe me, there was nothing anyone could have done.'

Owen grinned in a bitter way, swallowing down the remnants of his beer. 'Doesn't matter now though, does it? We're all still here and she's not. That's why I drink. So that for a few blissful hours, I can't feel a fucking thing.'

Jack looked hard at Owen, and for the first time he saw past all the bluster and the sarcasm and the bad temper. He was just a guy who was still hurting, even after all these years, because the love of his life was gone. And that was something Jack could understand.

He raised his hand to get the barmaid's attention and she swayed across, leaning suggestively over the counter, letting him eye off her cleavage. Instead of a phone number he slipped her a twenty pound note.

'Scotch. The whole bottle. And two glasses.'