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Owen never set out to systematically work his way through the Torchwood collection of alien sex toys. It just sort of happened anyway. There was a side of him - the side that went through med school and actually studied, that got him to university early, and god help him liked it - a side that thought his new state freed him up for the important things in life. No more eating, no more sleeping, no more being distracted by sex. Just pure cerebral activity, twenty four hours a day. He could actually catch up on his reading. He could start experiments he'd never had the time for before, the fiddly kind that needed checking twice an hour and running longer than mere mortals could stay awake. He knew the rift would still interrupt, but hey, in theory... But then that side of him never had been the loudest. So what experiments did he run? The systematic testing of one hundred thirty years worth of accumulated devices some former Torchwood employee had decided was a sex toy.
He soon learned to be wary of anything labeled by JH.
And even more wary of anything JH had never touched. Whichever person had thought the thing that leaked acid was for 'marital purposes' needed counseling. And this was Owen saying so.
Still, there was some interesting stuff in the depths of the archives. The best bits, of course, had long since been checked out to go in somewhere else. But the assortment of things that buzzed, pulsed, hummed or simply gave a little while being interesting shapes was pretty damn astonishing.
And he learned a lot from it. Like: he had a far better chance sensing a vibrator than a dildo. Textures did nothing for him, a barely known increase in resistance, however rough. Movement, any movement, and he was in with a chance. Give him something shaking him right to his bones and it was almost like feeling it again. Almost.
There were a whole subcategory of things meant for nerve stimulation. Mostly that meant electricity. He'd not felt that with a fist shoved into the mains; no wand was going to do much of anything. Some of the more exotic stuff, the alien bits where they weren't sure how they worked, seemed worth a try. Most of them, he wasn't sure the batteries even still worked. One of them gave him a pervasive sense of smelling cinnamon. With his skin. Which he wasn't really sure it was supposed to, but it was interesting while it lasted. One of them, for a whole five minutes and thirty three seconds, made his left hand feel like fire. He realised how badly off he was when he caught himself seriously considering trying it again.
It was like hunger, was the problem. Skin hunger. He'd never really realised before, when he could feed it any time he wanted. But now he was sitting there in dead skin with a very living brain that just kept reaching for it, for anything, for some spark of actual feeling...
He marked the damn thing 'NOT FOR USE' and updated the paperwork. Found he'd memorised the archive number. Did his best not to think about it.
So that was that for peripheral stimulation. But it wasn't the end of the category.
They did say sex was 90% mental. And the biggest sex organ was still the brain. And that, at least, still worked.
And as long as he left it be it would continue to work.
... Owen Harper, playing it safe? No.
But he did do the reading. A few category labels and a tick box report wasn't anything to risk important body parts on, let alone that much. There were mind altering substances, but without a working circulation or digestive system none of them were going anywhere. Besides which he wasn't sure he was, strictly speaking, chemical any more. And there was nothing in there that hadn't been tried before. By someone. Who might have added notes signed OH.
... it wasn't like too much time on his hands was a new problem.
The recreational uses of the mind probe were a bit of an eye opener. It's all in the settings, apparently. But then the most notes on that line of enquiry were by a BSJ who stopped abruptly. And explosively, according to other files. That blood pressure problem wasn't unique to non humans then. Probably not something he'd have to worry about, given the givens, but... no.
So he sorted through, discarded most, gave careful priorities to the remainder. From the 'mostly harmless' collection he found one that seemed worth a try. Took a bit of setting up though. Had to use the autopsy bay. Bit public, if it worked.
Jack wandered past at one point, stopped to stare vaguely. "Set kind of high, for a human."
"Am I human?" Owen asked.
Jack ducked his chin, just a little. Crossed his arms. Got ready for a whole conversation.
Owen flipped the dial down to nearly zero. "Better?"
Jack nodded, then stopped, eyes unfocused, and grinned. He tapped his ear. "Be right up." Looked back at Owen. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Right." As if that ruled anything out. Owen watched him grab his coat and hurry away, grimaced sourly, and turned the dial back where it had been. Then up a notch. Hell with it anyway.
Next thing he knew it was six hours later, the Hub was coming into focus only very very slowly, and all he really remembered was a vague impression of 'Shiny!'
Not massively helpful, then.
Lower settings gave him rainbow borders and a feeling like a summer Sunday afternoon. Mellow. Didn't suck.
Didn't really help much.
What he wanted... what he wanted was a night on the pull, finding the right bar, the right bird, the right line to get back to hers. Stripping off, clothes everywhere, skin to skin, stroking, touching, sliding in and in and in until she's all noise and sensation. And the fact he could still have all of that except actually bloody feeling it did not help at all. What he wanted... just feeling. Something. Again.
So he sorted patiently. Until he found it.
The notes said it was cold, really cold, until locked around the neck, and then it ran at fever heat for the duration. Owen only knew it was heavy, for the size of it. Slim, silver, and ornate, it sat across his hands with more than expected demand, arm muscles tensed to keep it there. A training collar, they'd called it. A lot of euphemisms in the write up, enough you knew what they'd really meant, a hundred years ago. A device that made it feel very good to do exactly what you were told.
"First time for everything, Harper," he told himself.
Pulled across his left hand it caught hard on the bandage. Rough then. No reports of getting too sore in the files, but he couldn't really risk it. Not with cumulative damage to beware of. And then there's the little problem that it was JH, for once, who both gave this thing a category and marked it NOT FOR USE... After the first user wore it for a full year. After a year of getting on with their work. He'd marked it down as addictive. Owen wrapped it around his fist and pressed in hard. "Life's bloody addictive, and I kicked that." Never mind he was still looking for the methadone. He went to fetch some supplies, a scalpel, his sewing kit. Found a good bit of leather, worn supple, and a strap. Ended up with something that looked a little more fashionable, or recreational, at least. Held to his own neck, it went around just right. Still never tight enough to feel it, but wide enough to feel when he moved.
He lowered it again. Tidied up. Still one last problem. Or not a problem, if he worked it right. After all, what he was missing was never as good when done alone. So the only question was, who did he really want to obey?
... Okay, so that was a bad question, because, you know, nobody. But then it wouldn't work.
Who could help him use this? Who could make it work?
Start with people who want to make him feel good, and there was Tosh. But this thing with Tosh, this non-thing never a thing they hadn't had, this wouldn't really mix with that. He could imagine it - he could imagine a great many things, some of them involving Ms Sato and those incredible high heels, a mortar board, maybe a cane... but he hadn't been imagining much lately, with her. Get close to that, to some of the things she'd said, things he'd maybe known... he bounced off like a magnet on the wrong pole, moved right around it. Like when he thought about what he'd really be asking, if he asked her to do this. And he would have to ask. Lets face it, Tosh, even on her best day, was not in the habit of snapping out orders.
Gwen, on the other hand... Gwen Cooper, recent head of Torchwood, at least when Owen hadn't argued it... Given the right circumstances... And, yeah, Gwen Cooper-Williams might reckon it would never, ever, be the right circumstances again. He'd got that loud and clear long since. But a bit of the Harper charm... And was he seriously thinking of 'charm' with someone so ex they were past pretending not to think about it and well into not actually remembering, much, day to day? No. Been there, done that, not looking for a repeat. Besides, Rhys was alright. Saved Gwen. (When Owen couldn't.) Leave be.
Ianto wasn't even on the list. Maybe to wear the thing... though Jack seemed to have that well in hand.
And there: Jack. Captain Jack Harkness. The problem. And...
"Gwen, get out there and get statements. Ianto, go with her, hand out tea and retcon. Toshiko, do a little rewriting history, once we've got a copy. And Owen..." Jack stuck his head around the wall, checking. "We've got a cold one already at the hospital. Get over there."
If the problem was how to get orders? Jack was the solution.
And he wouldn't ever have to ask.
He got. After packing up the new collar.