SUMMARY: Ianto and Owen spend some quality time together. Set during the period that Jack is away with the Doctor. RATING: G/PG
WARNING: None

A/N: Wrtten for Redisourcolor Challenge #13 on LJ- Theme: Fate/Destiny; prompts: doff, dexterous, escalator, "If you look closely, you'll be able to see a pattern."

"I always knew we'd come to this," Owen said as he nursed his ninth beer.

"What? Lonely, pathetic drunks?" Ianto was on his seventh pint, though he wouldn't say he was drunk. Not really.

"Oi, who are you calling pathetic? You're sulking because Jack's done a runner, now that's just sad."

"Oh and you bemoaning the loss of a women who was never meant to be in this space or time, that's so much more ennobling," Ianto retorted.

"Guess not." Owen sighed as he tossed back the last of his beer.

"Owen, why are we the ones who are always left behind? Are we predestined to be losers our whole lives?"

Owen chuckled. "Nah, I don't believe in the fates, or luck or whatever you call it. You won't find your future in tea leaves, or coffee beans, or palm readers. You make your own luck you know."

Ianto had no idea what Owen was talking about. "If you made your own luck, it wouldn't be called luck," he said standing up slowly as the room spun a bit around him.

"Easy mate," Owen said grabbing Ianto by the arm to steady him. "What I mean is that a lot of what we call luck isn't really luck at all. Things happen to us that seem random but they're really not."

Ianto stumbled over to the large windows of the hotel bar. From that height, Ianto could see all of Cardiff spread out below him. The night was clear and the stars twinkled in the dark. "Not written in the stars, then?" Ianto asked.

Owen shook his head 'no' and led Ianto out after paying the tab.

The hotel was only a short walk from the Hub, but neither of them wanted to go back there to get their cars. Owen knew that Ianto was too intoxicated to drive and he was a little unsure about his own level of sobriety.

They rode the escalator down to the hotel lobby in silence. The doorman flagged down a taxi and helped Owen get Ianto safely into the back seat. Owen gave the doorman a fiver for his help and was surprised when the man doffed his hat in thanks. "Yeah, whatever," Owen muttered.

Getting into the other side of the back seat, Owen gave the driver Ianto's address. He couldn't say he was surprised, when Ianto picked up the conversation right where they'd left it.

"But how can you say that there's no such thing as luck? Look at Gwen. Nothing bad ever happens to her. And then look at us. Bad things always happen to us. It's not bloody fair."

Owen sighed. This was a conversation he really didn't want to have with Ianto, drunk or sober.

"We act in ways that cause things to happen. And if you look closely, you'll be able to see a pattern. Take you; you always fall in love with an unobtainable person. First a cyber-chick, then Jack. Could either of those relationships ended in anything else but a broken heart for you? No. And your next object of your affection will be someone equally unobtainable, like Helena Bonham Carter or Bruce Springsteen."

"But you do the same thing," Ianto protested.

"Never said I didn't. I at least know that I'm doing it, which is a step in the right direction. You, on the other hand, seem to do the same thing over and over."

"Fine. We're just a bunch of losers then," Ianto said as the taxi pulled up to his flat.

Though Ianto protested, Owen insisted on helping him up to the apartment. Owen offered to make some coffee for both of them, but Ianto insisted that he'd make it. Ianto was not his normal dexterous self and managed to spill some of the beans onto the floor before Owen was able to wrest the bag from him.

"Go sit in the lounge, while I finish this up," Owen ordered as he pulled the grinder toward the front of the counter.

Ianto stumbled out of the kitchen and Owen heard him swear as he bumped a shin on the coffee table.

When Owen came into the lounge ten minutes later with two mugs of strong black coffee, Ianto was asleep on the sofa. Owen put the mugs down and pulled off Ianto's shoes, loosened his tie and took the gray afghan draped over the back of the couch and spread it over Ianto.

He grabbed a sip of coffee and headed to the door. Looking back at Ianto, Owen shook his head in disbelief. Eight Friday nights now. Eight Friday nights he had taken pity on Ianto and dragged him out for 'just one drink.' Eight Friday nights they'd both had too much to drink, and had the 'why do bad things happen to us' conversation. Eight Friday nights he had made sure Ianto had arrived home safely, brewed him coffee, only to find him passed out on the settee.

"Shite, I really have to stop doing this. Really not doing either one of us any good."

Truth was he'd watch Ianto all the following week scurry around the Hub like a mouse trying to escape attention. Tosh would look concerned and Gwen would badger Ianto, asking whether he was eating and sleeping enough and did he feel alright. Ianto would stop and look so bewildered by the questions that Owen wanted to slap some life back into him. Or maybe hug him and tell him that everything would be ok. Or maybe both.

By Friday he'd feel so bad about snarking at the Tea Boy all week he'd end up asking Ianto out for a friendly pint or two. Again. Not at his usual haunts. He'd made that mistake early on only to discover that Zombie Ianto was the ultimate chick repellent. But at the hotel bar, with its constant turnover of clientele, he could assuage his guilty conscience in a place as private as a confessional.

As he shut Ianto's door behind him, he sighed. "It's like being in that Groundhog Day movie or a time loop or I don't know what."

One thing Owen knew for sure; sometimes it didn't really pay to look too closely at the patterns of your own life.