Yes, yes, I know. An update! What a shock! I've been incredibly busy and preoccupied lately—I'm gearing up the move into college, and having all my friends move away with the prospect of my imminent first time away from home has kind of eliminated all creative flow within me. But this is just a little update that's been hammering inside my head for a while, and even though it's not that great, I decided to let it out.

"Well?" Owen's face wore an expression of pure hope. "What d'you think?"

Ianto took a sip of the coffee, trying hard to ignore the blatant ridiculousness of the situation. A plaintive zombie was asking his opinion on his coffee. The fact that this particular zombie was Owen Harper—a man who, in his living years, had existed to torment Ianto—did not escape him at all.

But dealing with the ridiculous was all part of working for Torchwood, and if Ianto didn't know that by now then he figured he'd never learn.

"Pretty good," Ianto finally said after several long moments of careful consideration. Owen's face nearly broke into a smile at the approval, and Ianto fought back a wave of surprise at how much his opinion meant to Owen. He would honestly never have expected that in a million years. He raised an eyebrow. "I see you've taken my lessons to heart."

"God, you sounds like bloody Obi-Wan Kenobi," Owen said. Ianto sighed. He'd hoped that death might eliminate the doctor's caustic sarcasm, but that particular characteristic of Owen's seemed to have been too much for Death to handle. But then, so was the rest of Owen, it seemed.

"Don't knock it," Ianto told him, setting the cup down on the table. "I wouldn't these secrets to just anyone."

"I won't breathe a word," Owen said with a wry smile, beginning to fill the other mugs. He sorted them onto a tea tray. "Geddit? Breathe?"

"Oh, I get it," Ianto said. He watched the other man quietly. "Jack doesn't take sugar in his coffee, you know," he said. "And Gwen likes a dash of milk. And this time of day, Tosh'll be wanting tea. Earl Gray. No lemon."

He saw Owen's knuckles tighten as the doctor gripped the edges of the tray with all of his frustration and anger. Owen set the tray back down on the table with more force than necessary, sending scalding coffee slopping about and creating a deafening crash. Ianto didn't flinch—he just regarded the other man calmly.

"Everything okay up there?" he heard Jack call up from the Hub floor. He and Tosh had been peering at what looked for all the world like an alien frying pan for nearly two hours, shooting incomprehensible technological jargon back and forth at lightning speed.

"Everything's fine, sir," Ianto called back down to the Captain without taking his eyes off of Owen.

"Would you mind keeping it down, then?" Jack yelled. "We're trying to concentrate! Thanks!"

"No problem," Ianto said. He thought that he could hear the American muttering something about how he "never thought I'd have to tell Ianto to keep it down. Normally it's hard work just to get him to make a little whimper. I remember this one time—" But to Ianto's relief and Jack's probable disappointment, Tosh cut him off before he could finish the story.

Owen had begin to make Ianto's specified fixes to the coffee orders, rattling plates and cups with the same barely-contained anger that Ianto had come to associate with the young man.

"Why won't you yell at me?" Ianto finally asked him. "You'll barely even look at me. You've exploded at Tosh, Jack—everyone except me."

"What kind of a question is that?"

"A curious one." Ianto replied. "Is there an answer?"

Owen set down the spoon that he'd been using to stir Gwen's coffee and—somewhat to Ianto's surprise—actually seemed to be considering the question carefully. He ran the fingers of one hand—the bad hand, with the digits that he'd broken himself—along the outside of the coffee machine. Ianto felt almost mesmerized watching the bandaged hand move. He was transfixed by the thought of what it must have been like to snap his own fingers, especially if the experience evoked no sensation whatsoever.

To feel nothing. A year ago—after Lisa—the concept would have been the most desirable thing in the world. He'd have been able to escape the agony that drowned him every time he drew another breath, to find a way out. But it had been the little things that had pulled him through and kept him going—the little things that had saved him. The taste of fresh-brewed coffee. The feeling of the sun on his skin. The sensation of Jack's lips on his...

Owen would never feel anything like that ever again. Ianto blinked and looked back at Owen's face. The doctor was also staring at the bandages that wrapped his fingers.

"You don't treat me any different," he said slowly. He couldn't seem to meet Ianto's eyes. Ianto didn't blame him. This was the longest that they'd ever spent talking without the conversation degenerating into a horrible row.

"You're still you, Owen," Ianto said. "Just a bit...deader."

Owen snorted. "Yeah, well, they know that," he said, gesturing at the Hub. "That doesn't stop them from treating me like I've got some sort of contagious disease."

"I don't know," Ianto said. "You just act the same. You haven't changed."

"I act the same?" Owen asked incredulously. "I'm moody and angry and irritable and impossible to be around—"

"Sorry, are you listing those as differences?" Ianto asked. He was gratified to see a smile ghost across Owen's face.

"I insult people more than I did," Owen said. "I shout at them. I can't stand to be near them."

"See, those might be differences to Gwen and Tosh and maybe even to Jack," Ianto said with a lopsided smile. "But you've always constantly insulted me and shouted at me. And you've never been able to stand being around me."

Owen considered this for a moment. A grin broke across his face. "I guess I haven't," he said. "Sorry. I've been a twot, haven't I?"

"Don't you dare apologize," Ianto said. "Then I'll know that being dead has changed you and I'll start to tiptoe around you like the rest of the team." He wasn't worried. Owen's words were apologetic, but the expression on his face was anything but contrite.

"Please, don't," Owen said.

"Go ahead then—call me tea-boy and get back to work," Ianto prompted the other man.

"Right—what d'you think you're doing, standing about and chatting? You're just the tea-boy. Go...make tea!" He shot Ianto a quick smile. "How was that?"

"Could use some work," Ianto replied. "But you're getting there."

Yeah, not great, but I figured that I'd post it. We'll see if I get around to writing another part. I hope I do, but if I do it probably won't be for a while. I've got all that packing and moving in to do...gulp.