With Jack away, doing… whatever it was he’d run off to do, leaving his team without so much as a goodbye, Owen was once again at a loose end, and bored almost to tears. It wasn’t that he didn’t have anything to do, more a case of not wanting to actually do any of it.

Gwen had put herself in charge after Jack’s mysterious disappearance, and she was nowhere near as good as their missing leader at motivating the troops, Owen in particular, never mind keeping him on track with his various responsibilities. Admittedly, that was mostly because he never bothered listening to her; he was still pissed off that she’d assumed leadership when he’d been with Torchwood way longer than she had, and should therefore outrank her. If Torchwood had ranks, which it didn’t, at least not officially. Where did she get off lording it over the rest of them?

Since he didn’t have anything interesting to cut up, and a pile of paperwork he didn’t even want to look at taking up most of his workstation, he’d snuck away to find Ianto in the archives and annoy him, an activity which usually proved entertaining. Well, maybe not for Ianto, who hated interruptions when he was filing, or cataloguing, or what have you, not that anyone cared, but Owen found it satisfying as a kind of petty revenge for Ianto shooting him.

“What is all this stuff anyway?” Owen picked up a weird triangular, blobby thing and put it down again on a different shelf. “Bet you don’t even know.”

Ianto reached past him and restored the object to its previous spot. “Stop moving things around.”

“Why? Am I messing up your precious cataloguing system?” Owen considered moving the thing again, but the texture of it had made his fingers itch, so he picked something else up instead, turning it upside down before putting it back. Even though Ianto hadn’t been looking in Owen’s direction, he immediately turned around and set the item right side up again. That was interesting; how had he known? Clever bastard probably knew what everything sounded like when it was moved.

Crossing to the shelves opposite the ones Ianto was reorganising, Owen poked about until he came to a shallow box containing half a dozen rubbery, greenish-grey ovoids. He picked one up and tossed it in the air, catching it easily. It fitted neatly into his palm and was surprisingly light, the surface textured, firm, but slightly spongy, making it comfortable to hold, so he picked up another, and then a third, and started juggling them.

Ianto glanced over at him and rolled his eyes. “Careful, you might do yourself a mischief messing around with those. You’re worse than Jack!”

“Do myself a mischief?” Owen snorted, continuing to juggle. He was quite good at it; after all, being a surgeon required considerable dexterity. “Who even says that anymore?”

“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ianto turned his back on Owen, ignoring him and continuing to sort and label the various alien artefacts and devices.

Owen was slightly annoyed that Torchwood’s self-appointed archivist wasn’t yelling at him and trying to snatch the egg-shaped objects away from him, or at least ordering him to put them down. It was always fun ruffling Ianto’s feathers, but the juggling was enough of a diversion to keep him occupied for the moment, and if Ianto wasn’t panicking, Owen figured it was safe to assume his new toys weren’t dangerous. He kept up the rhythm, tossing the ovals higher and higher, impressed with his own skill, until a slight misjudgement caused one of the eggs to hit a shelf support. It ricocheted off the corner, and smacked Owen right in the eye.

“Ow! Dammit!” Owen dropped the other two eggs and clutched at his eye.

“I did warn you,” Ianto said mildly. The bastard sounded completely unsympathetic as he leaned back against the shelves, folded his arms, and studied Owen critically. “Interesting new look. Not sure it suits you though.”

“What?” Owen took his hand away from his eye, suddenly aware of a weird prickly sensation spreading across his face and hands. He looked down, horrified to see dozens of tiny green and blue feathers sprouting from the backs of his hands. He scratched at his arms through his shirt sleeves as the prickling spread, then at his chest. “Fuck!”

“It does make me wonder what you were thinking about just now,” Ianto mused, smiling as Owen tugged his shirt off over his head, dropping it to the floor.

“What the fuck’s happening to me?”

“You played with something you shouldn’t have, and now you’re suffering the consequences.” Ianto smirked at Owen’s discomfort. “Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. The effects will wear off by themselves. Eventually.”

“I’ve got feathers!”

“Yes, I noticed. Hard not to. You’ll probably find yourself moulting in a few days.” Ianto pushed away from the shelves and stooped to retrieve Owen’s erstwhile juggling balls, gently replacing them in their box.

“What the hell are those things?” Owen scratched at his arse, feeling the pricking spread to his rear, and down his legs.

“I call them Mischief Makers.” Ianto turned one over in his fingers, studying it before putting it down. “They seem to operate telepathically, latching onto strong thoughts when they’re handled and… Well, you can see the results. Jack gave us both tentacles one time.” He smiled reminiscently. “That was a fun afternoon.”

“Do something!”

“Sorry, nothing I can do. Unlike Jack, I don’t have the skill needed to control the Mischief Makers. You could try holding one and willing it to make you reabsorb your feathers, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You might wind up with feathers growing inwards instead, which would be uncomfortable and possibly dangerous.” Ianto shrugged. “Twenty-first century humans haven’t developed the necessary psychic abilities to safely manipulate psychic technology, so you’ll just have to wait it out.”

“I’m covered in sodding feathers!”

“Be thankful you haven’t grown a beak. In all probability, it’s just cosmetic. Biologically, you’re still you underneath it all. Might make wearing clothing a bit uncomfortable, but I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I did, I said you might do yourself a mischief. Looks like I was right.”

Owen glared at Ianto through his sore eye and facial plumage. “Wait a second! You handled the bloody things too, so how come you’re not growing feathers?”

“Like I told you, they respond to strong thoughts, and prolonged handling amplifies the effects. When I have to touch them, I don’t think of anything in particular. Gives them nothing to latch onto.”

“And you couldn’t have told me that when I picked them up?”

Ianto raised an eyebrow. “Would you have listened?”

Owen opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, realising Ianto was right in assuming he would have ignored anything he’d said. “Fuck!”

“Very eloquent. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a lot to do down here.” Ianto turned his back and resumed his cataloguing, but Owen just knew the Teaboy was laughing at him.

Stooping to pick up his discarded shirt, Owen stomped away, trying to figure out what to do now. If he went back upstairs, Tosh and Gwen would laugh at his predicament too, but Ianto had said it could take days for his new plumage to fall out. Maybe he could speed things up by plucking himself. Pausing, he took hold of an arm feather and pulled it out, wincing in pain as a bright spot of blood oozed from the resulting wound. Then the blood dried and a new feather grew, replacing the one he was still holding. That put paid to that idea; even if he could bear the pair of pulling out hundreds of feathers, it wouldn’t do any good.

He pulled his shirt back on, fidgeting as it ruffled his feathers. Bugger. Now he understood where the Mischief Makers had got the idea. Although he was loathe to admit it, maybe it was a kind of poetic justice. With a tired sigh, he headed for the stairs to the main Hub. No point hiding in the archives all day, so he’d better just get this over with. If the girls laughed at him… Well, he’d get his revenge next time he gave them their quarterly medical. He wouldn’t warm his stethoscope the way he usually did, and he’d leave them standing around the med bay in their undies while he ran every uncomfortable test on them that he could come up with.

When he thought about it, this was all Harkness’ fault for running off and abandoning them. If he ever came back, Owen was never going to forgive him.


The End