osprey_archer | Tea and Sympathy: The Shower Scene

Title: Tea and Sympathy: The Shower Scene
Author: osprey_archer
Pairing: Owen/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Sequel to: Tea and Sympathy, Tea and Sympathy, part 2, and Tea and Sympathy, part 3
Disclaimer: Still don't own them.
Summary: “Oh no. I am not letting you give me a shower.”

“You need a shower,” says Ianto.

Owen groans and presses his arm over his eyes as Ianto tears about Owen’s flat letting in sunlight. “Why are you here?”

“I said I’d come back.”

“At six in the morning?” Owen had stayed up late waiting for Ianto and fallen asleep sulking when he didn’t arrive.

“Seven, actually. Rise and shine.”

“You cannot possibly be this perky.”

“It will go away,” says Ianto. He’s wearing a t-shirt. Owen didn’t even know Ianto owned any t-shirts. “I was up all night watching the monitors for Rift activity.”

“It drove you bonkers, did it?”

Ianto rips the covers off Owen’s bed and wrinkles his nose. “You really need a shower. Come on.”

Owen’s already shivering from the chill cutting through his boxers and t-shirt. “Oh no. I am not letting you give me a shower.”

“You’re going to scare aliens away just with the strength of your smell,” says Ianto, tugging Owen’s bony toothpick arm.

“That’s a good thing,” says Owen. Ianto shows no signs of returning the covers. “I’m not giving you free rein to feel me up all over.” At least not without an argument to keep up appearances.

“It will be completely non-sexual,” Ianto says.

“Uh huh. Because you don’t have any sexual feelings for me of any kind. The tongue kissing is platonic.”

Ianto considers this. “Pretty much.”

“You need therapy,” Owen moans, trying to hide under his pillow. Ianto pulls him right out of bed and pins Owen’s arms to his sides. Ianto is wonderfully warm. Owen wriggles in a half-hearted attempt at escape. “Let me go. The shower’s going to give me hypothermia.”

“I’ll make it nice and hot,” Ianto says right into Owen’s ear.

Owen feels dizzy. “That was an innuendo,” he protest.

Ianto carries Owen to the shower. “That was a factual statement about the water temperature,” Ianto says. He’s holding Owen (trembling, from cold and because he hates being picked up) with one arm and fiddling with the shower controls with the other. “This will feel better if you relax,” he adds.

The water roars down on Owen’s face as painful as a tattoo. “We’re showering still dressed?” bleats Owen.

“I thought you were complaining about the innuendos?” says Ianto. He starts rubbing Owen’s back and Owen shrieks and jumps away. “It’s just soap,” says Ianto, waggling the bar in front of Owen’s face. “You use it to get clean.”

Ianto’s giving him an actual shower. Only Ianto would do something so perverse and cruel. “I hope Myfanwy eats you,” gasps Owen.

“Is personal hygiene really so awful?” says Ianto, pulling Owen into a hug and rubbing the soap into Owen’s back. Owen tries to ignore him; he stands up straight, as far from Ianto as he can get, he tries to pay attention to the blasting water and his headache and his sore throat, not Ianto’s chest, or, worse, Ianto’s hands lathering his back.

“Don’t touch me like that,” Owen whispers, almost soft enough that the pounding water drowns it out.

“You don’t seem to mind,” Ianto says.

Ianto’s hands feel wonderful. Owen can’t stand it. Any moment he’s going to collapse and Ianto will cuddle him. Owen doesn’t cuddle. No, that’s a flat-out lie that even Owen can’t believe. Owen cuddles other people, he doesn’t let himself be cuddled, except by Diane and look how that turned out.

“Have you got the water on at fire hose level?” he complains, trying to reestablish some distance. “I’m going to drown. Are you trying to soap my shirt right off my back?”

Ianto lets him go. Owen misses the warmth and comfort of Ianto’s chest; he feels suddenly like he’s drowning in the steam and the cacophony of water on tile. Ianto’s shirt and boxers cling like they’re painted on (God, Owen’s not even thinking about that). The water runs seductively along the slope of his back. Not thinking about that. Let the water drown out his thoughts.

Ianto shampoos Owen’s hair. Owen squeaks and shies away and slips on the tile, and Ianto pulls him close again. Owen giggles from nerves and arousal. “What kind of shampoo is that?” Owen babbles. “Is it something flowery? I can hardly smell. It feels flowery.” Ianto laughs and massages it into Owen’s scalp.

“Shhh,” says Ianto, sliding one hand out down Owen’s cheek. “You’re getting yourself hysterical.” The shampoo stings Owen’s eyes and he closes them. Ianto breathes on his face, his breath cool compared to the shower steam, and Owen tenses and wants Ianto to kiss him and wishes he had never agreed to this shower, never.

Ianto kisses him. Owen opens his eyes, because God knows what Ianto will do unwatched, just in time to get an eyeful of water as Ianto pulls him under the showerhead to wash the shampoo out of his hair. He’s holding Owen so tightly that their t-shirts will meld at any moment. “I have soap in my eyes,” Owen complains breathlessly. “My eyes hurt and the water hurts and it’s way too hot.”

“A cold shower might be more useful now anyway,” Ianto says wickedly. He toys with the shower control, the filthy tease. Owen bats his hand away. Ianto spins Owen, like they’re dancing, and Owen clings to him dizzy and confused as Ianto rubs the washcloth over Owen’s sides, digging his thumbs into the white cotton clinging to Owen’s bony shoulders. “Relax,” he murmurs again.

Owen shudders and shakes his head—it feels too good, Ianto’s hands and the hot water—he wishes Ianto would just cut to the point. He doesn’t want to be part of Ianto’s weird soap fetish.

Ianto turns Owen so Owen’s back is pressed to Ianto’s chest. Ianto hums in Owen’s ear as soaps Owen’s front, rubbing Owen’s shoulders, murmuring “Relax, relax,” so softly that it blends in with the water. Ianto crosses his arms over Owen’s chest and kissing his neck and the side of his face.

It’s all too much. Owen panics and jerks out of Ianto’s arms and and ends up sitting on the tiles with his knees hunched to his chest wishing he could die, because this is so embarrassing. God, that was stupid. God, he wishes Ianto had just been planning straight-forward if absurdly tidy-minded sex instead of this orgy of attention and affection.

“I’m sorry,” Ianto mumbles. He looks like he wants to jump out of Owen’s windows. “I’m sorry. I’ll, um…” and Ianto flees the scene. Owen’s afraid Ianto will abandon him again but there’s a stream of Ianto noises from the other room. Owen’s teeth are chattering so loudly that he can hear them over the water. Perhaps he ought to move.

Suddenly Ianto reappears, still dripping, carrying a mug of coffee. Owen tilts his head to look up at Ianto. Perhaps he ought to stand up. Sitting in this fetal crouch is absurd. But he’s too cold to move. “Did you drip all over my apartment?” he asks.

Ianto bobbles the mug. “Sorry,” he mutters, as if Owen’s apartment is in any fit state for a few drips to matter. He stands uncomfortably for a minute, then hands Owen the coffee.

Owen watches the shower spray patter on the surface of the coffee. His hands are trembling so he can’t hold the cup steady.

“Perhaps you ought to dry off,” says Ianto, squatting next to him.

“No,” says Owen.

“Hypothermia,” says Ianto, taking the coffee away from Owen and grasping his arm to pull him out. Owen grips Ianto’s forearm and yanks him into the shower. Ianto hits his head on the wall.

“Sorry,” Owen mutters, scooting over and petting Ianto’s hair clumsily.

Ianto gets his hands under Owen’s armpits and drags them both upright into the cascading water. Owen burrows into Ianto, trembling still, but it’s the cold, just cold, he’s not nervous.

“Right then,” mutters Ianto. He starts washing Owen’s face. Owen shivers again and pushes his face into Ianto’s shoulder. “Right then, your face can remain filthy,” murmurs Ianto. He shifts his grip—somehow he’s holding Owen even tighter—and starts soaping Owen’s hips. Owen whimpers and bites Ianto. “Are you all right?”

“Shut up,” mutters Owen. Ianto obediently quiets and caresses soap over Owen’s thighs, knees, shins, feet. He strokes the arch of Owen’s foot and threads his fingers between Owen’s toes. Owen can taste his heartbeat like a butterfly in his throat, fluttering in fright and excitement.

“You like that?” says Ianto.

“Yes,” Owen says, voice muffled in Ianto’s shoulder and drowned by the water. Ianto kisses his throat and runs his hand up Owen’s leg and down the other.

“Hmm?”

“Ngh.”

Ianto kneads the small of Owen’s back, his buttocks. Owen is making absurd little kitten noises against Ianto’s shoulder. He bites Ianto’s shirt to drown them out, the weak wet cotton tearing in his teeth. Ianto’s hands are firm and sure and he smells of heat and soap.

Owen bites harder, because otherwise he’s going to cry out. He wants Ianto’s skin and Ianto’s mouth and oh, God, he doesn’t want to say Ianto’s name, he doesn’t want to give the bastard the satisfaction, but he’s gasping it around his mouthful of shirt: Ianto, Ianto, Ianto.

Ianto slides one hand under Owen’s shirt and the other up Owen’s boxers, and murmurs, “Owen?”

So he has an excuse, at least, to be choking Ianto’s name as he comes.

Owen crumples against Ianto, content and embarrassed, but Ianto strokes his hands over Owen, head and back and chest and hips, running over him like water. Owen lulls into half-consciousness, warm and sleepy and floppy as Ianto finishes washing him, the roaring water like a lullaby.

Then Ianto shuts the water off, and the silence is horrid. Owen snaps back to reality, where Ianto will never let him forget this pathetic collapse, and tenses in horror as Ianto removes him from the shower and dries him with a towel the size of a bed sheet.

Owen revives enough to stop Ianto from undressing and redressing him like a doll—“Go away,” he says, clutching the towel around him to protect the tattered remains of his dignity. “Go make more coffee. Go bother someone else.”

Ianto is still heavy-lidded with self-satisfaction as he leaves, but as mortifying as it is Owen admits Ianto deserves that expression.

Owen takes a long time dressing, to make absolutely damn sure that Ianto is decent by the time Owen sees him again.

Ianto is mostly dressed when Owen reenters the bedroom—he’s short his coat and tie—but he’s sprawled, enticing and asleep (the night watching the Rift must have caught up to him), on Owen’s bed. Which has fresh sheets. And he made coffee and toast and eggs.

Owen considers waking Ianto up to complain about the eggs (sunny-side-up?) but he’s just as happy not to have to speak to him right now (because it would be so awkward). Besides, Ianto is making a hedgehog face and his breath is all whistle-y, which Owen could surely use as counter-blackmail.

So Owen sits, leaning against Ianto and picking at the toast. He meant to stay awake, he did, but Ianto is warm and his breath, whistle and all, is soothing, and Owen falls asleep.