Short: "You'll Do"

[cyus]

Title: You'll Do
Characters/Pairing: Ianto Jones, Owen Harper
Type/Setting: Gen
Rating: G
Length: 990
Summary: Filling the gaps
Notes: set post-End of Days, thanks for title help to invisible_lift

"My roof."

The words carry to the straight angle where the building plunges to the ground. Ianto half-turns on the narrow ledge, hands in the pockets of his slacks, and shrugs. "It doesn't have a property sticker that I can see."

Owen shrugs, and Ianto turns back to watch Cardiff's night activity below. It is fairly passive.

"You're going to jump?"

Squelching steps move close. Tips of index and middle finger hooked around the edge of knee-high stones, Owen pulls himself forward far enough to catch a look down the side of the building.

"I'm not thirteen." Ianto shifts his weight from one foot to the other, glancing from the back of Owen's head to the cars and traffic lights below.

"Should have when you were thirteen, then." Owen draws up spit and opens his mouth. It dangles from his open lips for a few seconds, the wind pushing the string about, until it drops and gets lost in the height. "Think I hit someone?" Grinning, he runs the back of his hand over his lips and glances up at Ianto, strings of spit down his chin.

Ianto snorts and huddles deeper into his suit jacket. Weight on one foot, he toes the edge of the stone, the way Owen's fingertips do. If his toes were loose, they would be falling now.

Owen whistles a Doors song, then drums his fingers on wet stones, a deliberate tap-tap. "Miss it that much? I could give you a cock up your arse." He turns to sit on the ledge, his back to the free fall.

Ianto smiles. "I could give you a bullet to your head, too." It's a lie in the analogy. He balances one foot over the edge; it would take half of him with it.

"You realize that the waking-from-the-dead isn't part of the Torchwood membership deal, right?"

"What, you care?"

"Ah, piss off." It lacks rancour.

The sour undertone only registers with Ianto when more spit drips from Owen's mouth and disappears down the side of the building.

"That's disgusting." Ianto nudges Owen's shoulder with his shiny shoe.

"Really? Should try it sometime then, would suit you just fine."

Ianto swallows the laughter, and it turns into a cough on the way. Far from existential and important, this is bloody cold, and he feels less the hero and more the bedraggled tin dog.

"You're not really going to jump, are you?" Sly, like the words, fingers close around his ankle.

"If I was now I'd take you with me." Ianto lowers himself into a crouch, balancing on the balls of his feet. "My rudimentary knowledge stemming from psychology 101 I skipped more often than not suggests you are harbouring a death wish."

Owen's fingers open from around Ianto's ankle like burnt, and he shoves his hand deep into the pocket of his jeans. "Tosser."

Ianto steps off the ledge and sits next to Owen, his suit-trousered arse soaking up the rain that had fallen around his shoes. The wind slides under his jacket and if he spread his arms and fell backward he honestly believes he would be flying.

"Don't know how he does it," Owen mutters, crossing his arms in front of his chest, hunching over. He presses closer to Ianto when another gust of wind blows rain into their faces.

Ianto, in turn, closes his eyes to the rain and tastes it on his outstretched tongue. "I suppose he takes the stairs like every other person."

"Up, at least," Owen snorts.

Ianto cracks a smile that even lasts for a few seconds before it falters.

"Freezing my bloody balls off." Heels thrust against the ledge, Owen stands. The cardboard tears under the soles of his trainers as he turns to look out at the night, and down the side of the building. "He'd be more impressive if this was New York bloody City."

Ianto shrugs.

"He ever shag you up here?"

Ianto snorts, shaking his head.

"No that's it- you're here because your arse is lonely and-"

"Piss off."

"Need his sweet cock drilling into you day and night and-"

"What does it for you then?" He leans forward, hands on his knees. "Is it 'You did this. Get out' or the 'I forgive you' that makes you cream your pants?"

The punch connects with Ianto's jaw before his brain sees it coming. For that one first moment it is the free fall off the building. Then his back hits the soaked cardboard covers of the roof, and with the rain below and the stars above, the relief plunges into his stomach and he turns, retching up coffee bile.

"You have no right."

Owen's trainers wriggle just inside Ianto's field of vision. The pointing index finger is outside it, but still clearly audible.

Ianto pushes up and rubs his mouth on his shoulder. "Neither do you."

Owen takes a few steps back as Ianto pulls himself up to lean against the ledge, arms wrapped tight around himself against the wind, now that the water has drenched his suit.

"It's called an apology, that thing you offer at moments like this," Ianto comments, tongue inching for the small cut in his lip, worrying at it.

"As bloody if." Owen fidgets. Every shift of weight pools water around his trainers from the cardboard, and air bubbles burst with every wave. "He's a bastard."

Ianto drops his head back against the ledge, staring up. Rain splatters on his face. He shrugs, then pulls himself to his feet and steps back up onto the ledge looking out at the world like he owns it, and it only doesn't know it yet. The cut on his lip burns, but it's something real, at least.

Owen steps up next to him. "You lack the dramatic posture and coat, you know," he says from the corner of his mouth.

Ianto chuckles. "And you lack the size, but it will do."

Comments

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Glad it works for you. It seemed they must have reached some kind of agreement at some point about the state of things.