Very 21st Century (Torchwood fic)
Apr. 18th, 2015 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarVERY 21ST CENTURY
Summary: “I’ve been wanting to ask you a question,” Ianto says. “But I’ve decided against it. You’d only tell me how very 21st century I am.”
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Words: ca. 1,600
Rating: PG
Notes: Finally, my first foray into Torchwood fic! …And yes, I know I discovered this show about a decade too late to actively participate in the fandom. Sigh.
Set shortly after “Something Borrowed” (2x09).
In case you’re not familiar with Torchwood and want to read this story anyway, I’ll try to summarise the background... The Torchwood team protect the Earth from alien threats (or attempt to do so) from a not-so-secret base called the Hub, in Cardiff. They’re led by Captain Jack Harkness: omnisexual, immortal time traveller originally from the 51st century, renowned for flirting with anything that moves. Over the course of the show, Jack develops an increasingly serious relationship with teaboy-turned-field-operative Ianto Jones, but also has an intense (though unconsummated) attraction/affection with Gwen Cooper…even when Gwen marries her long-term, long-suffering boyfriend. Yes, Torchwood’s sexual politics are complicated.
Oh, and they have a pet pterodactyl.
My headcanon of Ianto and Jack’s relationship is probably one part canon, two parts![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
copperbadge’s stunningly good stories. I suggest reading all of them!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
VERY 21ST CENTURY
It is precisely the mid-point of the week that Gwen is away on her honeymoon.
Late in the evening, when Ianto has finally finished filing the paperwork on a rather messy bit of exploding alien tech the Rift coughed up that afternoon, he slips into Jack’s office and waits there. He slides into the most shadowed corner and leans against the wall, where perhaps he’ll manage to surprise Jack. Jack likes being surprised, since after so many decades alive there’s not much that can catch him unawares. And Ianto likes doing what Jack likes.
Ianto tries to think of that as a sign of his own fundamentally good nature, though he suspects it may just be a character flaw.
It’s pleasantly warm in Jack’s office. The bluish light is muted, seeming to radiate gently up out of the floor and the furnishings, not just from the ceiling. Ianto smiles to himself. Leave it to Jack – even his office lighting is alluring.
Knowing Jack may not be back for a while, Ianto settles in more comfortably against the wall. This room is a place Ianto associates with comfort, and not just because of the (admittedly countless) times they’ve got off together here, thank you very much. Ianto feels safe here because here is where Jack so often is. No complex psychoanalysis needed on that front.
At the moment, though, Jack is running down another lead on an unexplained disturbance they’ve been trying for two days to trace to its cause, with no luck so far. Jack himself isn’t content to let it lie, of course, but he told Owen and Tosh to take an early evening for once. He told Ianto to go home, too, but they both know Ianto only obeys Jack when it suits him.
Ianto casts his eyes over Jack’s desk, with its odd assortment of artefacts that seem to reshuffle themselves daily. Today Jack’s got a stoppered bottle of some vile, chartreuse liquid of presumably alien origin, several decks of playing cards in a variety of unusual styles, and a locked metal box Ianto suspects might hold photographs. Ianto has deliberately not learned how to pick locks, no matter how obvious a skill that might seem for a Torchwood operative. Jack’s life would offer too much temptation.
Ianto drags his eyes away from the box and listens to the steady hum of the Hub around him, the clicking and ticking of the computers, and somewhere up in her eyrie, Myfanwy gnawing on a dinosaur treat.
Even now, Ianto sometimes can’t believe the sentences he hears himself think out loud in his head.
The Hub has felt quiet, these last days, with Gwen away. Just Tosh tapping at her keyboard, Owen skulking around in the medical bay, and Jack being…well, Jack. That part never changes, at least. But the Hub without Gwen has less laughter, Ianto’s been realising, and he’s surprised he never noticed that lack in the days before she joined the team.
Then again, Ianto had other things on his mind in those days.
“Lurking, Ianto?”
It’s Jack who ends up surprising Ianto, of course, because Jack moves like a cat when he chooses. Ianto startles, but so imperceptibly no one but Jack would notice.
“Not lurking, sir. Merely waiting.”
Jack starts towards him, but he must see something in Ianto’s posture, because he thinks better of it and settles on the edge of his desk instead, looking over at Ianto. He slides his hands into his pockets, confident and easy. Ianto remains in the shelter of his dim corner. He’s quite liking the shelter of his dim corner.
“It’s been a long day,” Jack observes. “You could have gone home, instead of waiting for me.”
“I don’t mind,” Ianto says. The Hub is home to Ianto more than anywhere else is, as Jacks very well knows.
Jack nods, accepting this, and waits for Ianto to say what’s on his mind. He always knows when Ianto’s got something on his mind.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you a question,” Ianto says. “But I’ve decided against it. You’d only tell me how very 21st century I am.”
Jack studies him, then his mouth quirks in that terribly distracting way it has.
“I promise you,” he says, “I have no dishonourable intentions towards Gwen.”
“You? Dishonourable?” Ianto asks, and he can’t help but smirk. “Oh, I assure you, the thought never crossed my mind.”
“Well, I certainly hope you’re not going to accuse me of having honourable intentions.”
“Utterly inconceivable,” Ianto tells him, and Jack grins.
Then the set of Jack’s shoulders shifts just slightly – again, anyone but Ianto probably wouldn’t notice – and Jack says, “I hope this isn’t because I danced with Gwen at the wedding.”
“No,” Ianto says. That isn’t it, exactly, though there is something in there about how, when Jack danced with Gwen, the world around them so clearly fell away. And how, when Ianto came to cut in, Jack just smiled indulgently, like it was so 21st century of Ianto to need to claim his territory like that.
Nor did Jack’s pulse race – Ianto knows, since Jack held Ianto to his chest as they swayed to the music – to be embracing each other in such a public place for the first time, in a wedding hall in front of all of Gwen’s relatives.
Ianto knows he’s only one of many in Jack’s long life of lovers, and most days he’s fine with that. A mortal lifespan must seem so short on the scale of what Jack is, and the on-the-job fatality rate for Torchwood employees surely renders it shorter still. They must seem like brief little gasps of breath to Jack, all of them.
“All these years, and this era still baffles me,” Jack grumbles to himself. Then, louder, he says, “Talk to me, Ianto. Don’t make me guess what you’re thinking.”
Ianto tries – he wants to find the words Jack wants – but he can’t seem to do it. He wasn’t brought up that way, to bare his thoughts to anyone. The degree to which Jack can see right through him even when he doesn’t say a thing is already mildly alarming.
Jack tilts his head to one side, parsing.
“I suppose you want some sort of reassurance,” he says. “That this” – he waves a hand back and forth between the two of them – “does matter to me.” Then he frowns. “How is that not clear, though? I’m not trying to be a cad here, I just honestly don’t understand. Haven’t I shown that I care about you? Didn’t I tell you I came back for you?”
It’s true, Jack came back. Jack leaves, and it’s terrible, but he always comes back.
Ianto takes his time searching for the right words, digging deep for them. He wants Jack to understand him, but he wants Jack to see he’s trying to understand Jack, too. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” he says at last. “Most of us in this century just aren’t used to the idea of caring for so many different people at once.”
Jack shifts his stance, where he leans against the desk. He crosses his arms against his chest, tilts his chin down and fixes the full force of his penetrating gaze on Ianto. The Captain Pose, Ianto thinks.
“Look,” Jack says. “I love Gwen. I love you. I love all of you on the team, and I have also loved other people before you, because I’ve been alive far too damn long, Ianto. But each person I love is unique and irreplaceable. There will never be another Ianto Jones for me. I don’t know how to be clearer than that.”
Ianto nods. He knows this. It’s one of a long list of things that are so captivating about Jack, the way his affection knows no limits. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying to stand at the centre of that attention even part of the time. And the amount of time Ianto finds himself caught in that bright, breath-taking centre has been steadily increasing, there’s no doubt about that.
He thinks about all the secrets Jack keeps. He remembers the chill wind sweeping across the grassy expanse of Flat Holm and shivers. Gwen knows a fraction of Jack’s secrets. Ianto knows a fraction more than that. Ianto wonders if it’s enough, and decides it probably is.
“So stick around a while, would you, Ianto?” Jack says quietly. “I’m getting used to having you around.”
Ianto has no illusions about the potentially fatal nature of this job – well, for anyone but Jack, anyway. When he first joined Torchwood Three, it didn’t matter, it was about protecting Lisa at all costs. These days it doesn’t matter, but for different reasons. Because this is who Ianto is and what he does. Because this is home. And he has no illusions about the wildly divergent nature of his life and Jack’s life, nor about the fact that this emphatically can’t last forever, this undefined yet surprisingly resilient thing between them.
But he’s here now. And Jack’s here now.
Ianto uncurls himself from the wall. Jack uncrosses his arms and extends one hand straight towards Ianto, the peremptory sort of gesture of which Jack is so fond. But his eyes are gentle, and wholly focused on Ianto, and unmistakeably kind. At the focus of Jack’s gaze is a good place to be.
Ianto smiles, and crosses the room to Jack.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Summary: “I’ve been wanting to ask you a question,” Ianto says. “But I’ve decided against it. You’d only tell me how very 21st century I am.”
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Words: ca. 1,600
Rating: PG
Notes: Finally, my first foray into Torchwood fic! …And yes, I know I discovered this show about a decade too late to actively participate in the fandom. Sigh.
Set shortly after “Something Borrowed” (2x09).
In case you’re not familiar with Torchwood and want to read this story anyway, I’ll try to summarise the background... The Torchwood team protect the Earth from alien threats (or attempt to do so) from a not-so-secret base called the Hub, in Cardiff. They’re led by Captain Jack Harkness: omnisexual, immortal time traveller originally from the 51st century, renowned for flirting with anything that moves. Over the course of the show, Jack develops an increasingly serious relationship with teaboy-turned-field-operative Ianto Jones, but also has an intense (though unconsummated) attraction/affection with Gwen Cooper…even when Gwen marries her long-term, long-suffering boyfriend. Yes, Torchwood’s sexual politics are complicated.
Oh, and they have a pet pterodactyl.
My headcanon of Ianto and Jack’s relationship is probably one part canon, two parts
copperbadge’s stunningly good stories. I suggest reading all of them!~ ~ ~ ~ ~
VERY 21ST CENTURY
It is precisely the mid-point of the week that Gwen is away on her honeymoon.
Late in the evening, when Ianto has finally finished filing the paperwork on a rather messy bit of exploding alien tech the Rift coughed up that afternoon, he slips into Jack’s office and waits there. He slides into the most shadowed corner and leans against the wall, where perhaps he’ll manage to surprise Jack. Jack likes being surprised, since after so many decades alive there’s not much that can catch him unawares. And Ianto likes doing what Jack likes.
Ianto tries to think of that as a sign of his own fundamentally good nature, though he suspects it may just be a character flaw.
It’s pleasantly warm in Jack’s office. The bluish light is muted, seeming to radiate gently up out of the floor and the furnishings, not just from the ceiling. Ianto smiles to himself. Leave it to Jack – even his office lighting is alluring.
Knowing Jack may not be back for a while, Ianto settles in more comfortably against the wall. This room is a place Ianto associates with comfort, and not just because of the (admittedly countless) times they’ve got off together here, thank you very much. Ianto feels safe here because here is where Jack so often is. No complex psychoanalysis needed on that front.
At the moment, though, Jack is running down another lead on an unexplained disturbance they’ve been trying for two days to trace to its cause, with no luck so far. Jack himself isn’t content to let it lie, of course, but he told Owen and Tosh to take an early evening for once. He told Ianto to go home, too, but they both know Ianto only obeys Jack when it suits him.
Ianto casts his eyes over Jack’s desk, with its odd assortment of artefacts that seem to reshuffle themselves daily. Today Jack’s got a stoppered bottle of some vile, chartreuse liquid of presumably alien origin, several decks of playing cards in a variety of unusual styles, and a locked metal box Ianto suspects might hold photographs. Ianto has deliberately not learned how to pick locks, no matter how obvious a skill that might seem for a Torchwood operative. Jack’s life would offer too much temptation.
Ianto drags his eyes away from the box and listens to the steady hum of the Hub around him, the clicking and ticking of the computers, and somewhere up in her eyrie, Myfanwy gnawing on a dinosaur treat.
Even now, Ianto sometimes can’t believe the sentences he hears himself think out loud in his head.
The Hub has felt quiet, these last days, with Gwen away. Just Tosh tapping at her keyboard, Owen skulking around in the medical bay, and Jack being…well, Jack. That part never changes, at least. But the Hub without Gwen has less laughter, Ianto’s been realising, and he’s surprised he never noticed that lack in the days before she joined the team.
Then again, Ianto had other things on his mind in those days.
“Lurking, Ianto?”
It’s Jack who ends up surprising Ianto, of course, because Jack moves like a cat when he chooses. Ianto startles, but so imperceptibly no one but Jack would notice.
“Not lurking, sir. Merely waiting.”
Jack starts towards him, but he must see something in Ianto’s posture, because he thinks better of it and settles on the edge of his desk instead, looking over at Ianto. He slides his hands into his pockets, confident and easy. Ianto remains in the shelter of his dim corner. He’s quite liking the shelter of his dim corner.
“It’s been a long day,” Jack observes. “You could have gone home, instead of waiting for me.”
“I don’t mind,” Ianto says. The Hub is home to Ianto more than anywhere else is, as Jacks very well knows.
Jack nods, accepting this, and waits for Ianto to say what’s on his mind. He always knows when Ianto’s got something on his mind.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you a question,” Ianto says. “But I’ve decided against it. You’d only tell me how very 21st century I am.”
Jack studies him, then his mouth quirks in that terribly distracting way it has.
“I promise you,” he says, “I have no dishonourable intentions towards Gwen.”
“You? Dishonourable?” Ianto asks, and he can’t help but smirk. “Oh, I assure you, the thought never crossed my mind.”
“Well, I certainly hope you’re not going to accuse me of having honourable intentions.”
“Utterly inconceivable,” Ianto tells him, and Jack grins.
Then the set of Jack’s shoulders shifts just slightly – again, anyone but Ianto probably wouldn’t notice – and Jack says, “I hope this isn’t because I danced with Gwen at the wedding.”
“No,” Ianto says. That isn’t it, exactly, though there is something in there about how, when Jack danced with Gwen, the world around them so clearly fell away. And how, when Ianto came to cut in, Jack just smiled indulgently, like it was so 21st century of Ianto to need to claim his territory like that.
Nor did Jack’s pulse race – Ianto knows, since Jack held Ianto to his chest as they swayed to the music – to be embracing each other in such a public place for the first time, in a wedding hall in front of all of Gwen’s relatives.
Ianto knows he’s only one of many in Jack’s long life of lovers, and most days he’s fine with that. A mortal lifespan must seem so short on the scale of what Jack is, and the on-the-job fatality rate for Torchwood employees surely renders it shorter still. They must seem like brief little gasps of breath to Jack, all of them.
“All these years, and this era still baffles me,” Jack grumbles to himself. Then, louder, he says, “Talk to me, Ianto. Don’t make me guess what you’re thinking.”
Ianto tries – he wants to find the words Jack wants – but he can’t seem to do it. He wasn’t brought up that way, to bare his thoughts to anyone. The degree to which Jack can see right through him even when he doesn’t say a thing is already mildly alarming.
Jack tilts his head to one side, parsing.
“I suppose you want some sort of reassurance,” he says. “That this” – he waves a hand back and forth between the two of them – “does matter to me.” Then he frowns. “How is that not clear, though? I’m not trying to be a cad here, I just honestly don’t understand. Haven’t I shown that I care about you? Didn’t I tell you I came back for you?”
It’s true, Jack came back. Jack leaves, and it’s terrible, but he always comes back.
Ianto takes his time searching for the right words, digging deep for them. He wants Jack to understand him, but he wants Jack to see he’s trying to understand Jack, too. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” he says at last. “Most of us in this century just aren’t used to the idea of caring for so many different people at once.”
Jack shifts his stance, where he leans against the desk. He crosses his arms against his chest, tilts his chin down and fixes the full force of his penetrating gaze on Ianto. The Captain Pose, Ianto thinks.
“Look,” Jack says. “I love Gwen. I love you. I love all of you on the team, and I have also loved other people before you, because I’ve been alive far too damn long, Ianto. But each person I love is unique and irreplaceable. There will never be another Ianto Jones for me. I don’t know how to be clearer than that.”
Ianto nods. He knows this. It’s one of a long list of things that are so captivating about Jack, the way his affection knows no limits. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying to stand at the centre of that attention even part of the time. And the amount of time Ianto finds himself caught in that bright, breath-taking centre has been steadily increasing, there’s no doubt about that.
He thinks about all the secrets Jack keeps. He remembers the chill wind sweeping across the grassy expanse of Flat Holm and shivers. Gwen knows a fraction of Jack’s secrets. Ianto knows a fraction more than that. Ianto wonders if it’s enough, and decides it probably is.
“So stick around a while, would you, Ianto?” Jack says quietly. “I’m getting used to having you around.”
Ianto has no illusions about the potentially fatal nature of this job – well, for anyone but Jack, anyway. When he first joined Torchwood Three, it didn’t matter, it was about protecting Lisa at all costs. These days it doesn’t matter, but for different reasons. Because this is who Ianto is and what he does. Because this is home. And he has no illusions about the wildly divergent nature of his life and Jack’s life, nor about the fact that this emphatically can’t last forever, this undefined yet surprisingly resilient thing between them.
But he’s here now. And Jack’s here now.
Ianto uncurls himself from the wall. Jack uncrosses his arms and extends one hand straight towards Ianto, the peremptory sort of gesture of which Jack is so fond. But his eyes are gentle, and wholly focused on Ianto, and unmistakeably kind. At the focus of Jack’s gaze is a good place to be.
Ianto smiles, and crosses the room to Jack.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-04-20 01:06 am (UTC)A new face in TW is very welcome these days when we are so few in numbers now.
I enjoyed this very much. I liked the tone of it and the way you didn't pit Ianto and Gwen against each other for Jack's affections; Jack does love them both, and his quiet explanation here works for me as well as Ianto - thank you.
I hope you will be writing more stories for TW.
no subject
Date: 2015-04-20 02:12 am (UTC)Yup, I think Jack's heart is big enough to hold everybody, and I really enjoy his dynamic with Gwen - even while totally shipping his relationship with Ianto. Dating him must be quite a strange thing to get used to, though...but I think Ianto is up to the challenge. :-)
Thank you for reading and commenting!
Week in Review - week ending 19th April 2015
Date: 2015-04-20 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-21 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-24 12:17 am (UTC)And honestly, Series 2 reads to me like Jack himself is still trying to figure this stuff out. In S3, he and Ianto are explicitly, canonically established as a "couple," but in S2 their relationship is less defined, and Jack also seems to be figuring out how to feel the way he feels about Gwen – and yet let her go. Indeed, there are quite a few points when he probably could have "chosen" Gwen over Ianto, but he decided not to – all through "Something Borrowed" he's clearly signaling his decision not to – and the fact that he makes that decision says something, too. (Not that I *like* how dismissively he talks about Ianto in "Something Borrowed"...but I choose to take it as being part of an arc of Jack Figuring His Shit Out.)
no subject
Date: 2015-07-13 07:40 pm (UTC)A very thought-provoking piece, and very well-written.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-14 12:35 am (UTC)