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On his better, braver days – and at Torchwood most days had to be better and braver by definition -- Ianto rarely questioned the sincerity of Jack's affection for him. The flirting didn't trouble him, the fucking around was hardly just Jack's department, and the being put in the line of fire? That was Jack telling him he was worth more than a good suck.
But being sent on an overnighter to some middle of nowhere Welsh town in late summer when the countryside was largely absent of adorable lambs and filled instead entirely with mosquitos? That could make Ianto question things between them, just a little. Maybe.
And being sent on said overnighter with Owen? Certain proof Jack loathed him and possibly wanted them both dead.
*
"How big is Wales, anyway?" Owen asked, pausing to kick at a tree root.
Ianto shrugged.
"Thought you knew everything."
"Only about the Hub."
"A disappointment you are," Owen said. "Your readings any closer to useful?"
Ianto shook his head. "Anomaly's the same distance away it's been since this morning."
"Well that's lovely. Think maybe we're walking parallel to it?"
"We're walking a grid, Owen."
"Could be moving then," he offered.
Ianto paused and put his hands on his hips. "Well, fuck." Sometimes Torchwood made them all stupid.
*
Ianto crouched against a tree, poured the last of the coffee into the thermos' attached cups and passed one to Owen.
"Still walking that grid, you think?" Owen asked in a tone that was more do you still fuck your mother? than actual professional inquiry.
Ianto sighed. "No. Obviously. Unless someone stole my car, at least two oak trees, a dirt road and the dairy farm up the top of the hill that's also missing."
"Right. So, back to the inn?" Owen asked, snickering bitterly.
"Someone stole that too."
"Fucking Harkness," Owen muttered.
In response, Ianto's first thought jammed somewhere between I wish and never again.
*
"Okay, inventory time," Owen said, emptying his pockets.
As Ianto did the same he found himself surprisingly relieved that someone else had decided to take charge now that it was apparent they were going to have to spend the night in the not-quite-right woods.
"A lot of help you are," Owen said, prodding at the half-eaten energy bar, spare button, dead mobile phone, apparently useless alien scanner, and the stopwatch that made up the contents of Ianto's pockets.
"You're the one with a lighter and no cigarettes," Ianto retorted.
"Heat and light. Be grateful."
"You have no idea how much," Ianto said, and he was sincere, even if he sounded bitter.
"All right. You collect rocks, I'll collect wood, and then at least we won't freeze to death."
"More's the pity."
*
"What's the plan?" Owen asked as they sat back against a particularly large oak and stared into the fire.
"Why am I only in charge when you're bored or out of ideas?"
"Do you really want an answer to that?"
"No."
"So?"
"Wait 'til morning. Hope we're less stupid and the anomaly is less active."
"And that Jack and girls are more prone to rescuing us?"
"Yeah, that too," Ianto said sullenly, thinking that were it working Jack would probably have rung him on his mobile by now to taunt him about phone sex.
"Are you freaked out, out here. I mean, because of the --"
"The cannibals?"
"Yeah."
"The odds of two disparate groups of --"
"Right," Owen said, like he didn't really believe him and also didn't really care. "This is really boring."
"It is."
"Where's your stopwatch?"
"Why?"
"Gambling."
"What?"
"Bet you twenty quid you can't go five minutes without sighing in irritation at me."
Ianto fished in his pocket and tossed the watch to Owen.
"I bet if you keep taunting me," he threatened, even as his heart wasn't quite in it, "I won't let you live through the night."
In the fire-lit dark, Owen grinned in response.
Ianto grinned back.