Fic: The Spectacular Catastrophe of Your Endless Childhood [Part 2]

[fictional]

Title: The Spectacular Catastrophe of Your Endless Childhood
Pairing/Characters: Ianto [Ianto/OFCs, Ianto/Lisa]
Authors: rm & kalichan
Rating/Warning: NC-17, het, pre-slash
Summary: The early education and adventures of Ianto Jones.
Wordcount: ~11,000 [posted in 2 parts]
Authors' Note: This is a prequel to our Jack/Ianto series, I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling. You don't have to read the rest of the series to read this though. However, if you are reading that, you should read this, as it will be useful/relevant later. It takes place pre-series, and ends just before Doctor Who 2x12: Army of Ghosts begins, i.e. right before the Battle of Canary Wharf. Next up, we return to the main story arc for two more stories which will conclude our series, although after it is done, we plan to return to the 'verse to fill in some gaps and pursue some digressions, such as Jack's childhood on the Boeshane Peninsula, Jack's time on the Valiant, and some interstitial Jack/Ianto adventures (sexual & otherwise!) during season 1 and post-season 2.
Authors' Note, part deux: Ianto's travels abroad clearly owe a great deal to our own, and also to those of faris_nallaneen who was generous enough to allow him to share some of the nuts and bolts of her German experience, since neither of us had ever been there.

The Spectacular Catastrophe of Your Endless Childhood, Part 1


He'd have liked to have said that he found the latter more disconcerting -- as it ought to have been in a proper romance, but in fact, he was still reeling from the whole alien thing and almost didn't notice her just at first.

When it happened, he was alone in a conference room; it was the last in a very long line of computer orientations, and he was starting to believe that this was not just a very expensive prank that someone was playing on him, but only just. All the other new staff had already moved on to the next room, but Ianto couldn't follow yet. He was just staring at the revolving holographic display, still somehow unable to believe that any of this was really happening.

"You all right there?" he heard a voice ask.

He turned and saw a girl standing there. "Yes. Of course," he answered mechanically, starting instinctively to sort through the stack of papers he'd been given -- all full of corporate bullshit about ALIENS.

"You seem a bit... shell shocked," she suggested. Advancing into the room, she asked, "Coffee? Might settle you."

"Are you crazy?" Ianto asked. "That's your suggestion? You think the answer to all this," he said gesturing to the moving display and the building at large, "is to be more wired?"

"You're worried about being over-caffeinated? Shouldn't you worry more about what I might put in the drink? Have you ever watched a movie?"

"Yeah, I studied film, thank you very much," Ianto said defensively, before registering the actual substance of her comment. "You are completely mad."

"Have to be a little bit crazy to work here, don't you think?" she asked with a friendly grin.

"You'd know better than me, I imagine."

"Probably about lots of things," she said tartly and winked at him.

Ianto stared at her. "What are... nevermind. I probably should be getting to my next... thing."

"Of course," she said. "Although you're already in trouble, probably. They don't like lateness here. I'm Lisa Hallett, by the way. I work in computer design and architecture." She shook his hand, firm and steady -- almost like a man's handshake.

"Pleasure," he said reflexively. "I'm Ianto Jones."

"I know," she said.

"How?" he asked.

"Psychic training," she said seriously.

"Pardon?" he asked.

"You heard me."

He stared at her, and then she began to laugh. She nodded down at his jacket; following her look, he saw his new ID badge dangling around his neck. "Oh," he said, and began to laugh with her, sheepishly.

"Better get going," she said, nodding towards the door.

"Right. Yes," he said. "Going."

"I'll be seeing you," she called after him.

When they actually told him about the psychic training, after a week of probation, Ianto couldn't stop himself from bursting into howls of helpless laughter. He was amazed they didn't fire him. He went and found Lisa's desk afterwards, and invited her out. For a cup of coffee, of course.

And when he discovered that they actually did have things they could put in your drinks, and it was best to be cautious, he knew with certainty for the first time something that he'd always wanted to believe and had never quite been able to: that stories were true, and he was living in one.

He liked it. And he liked Lisa even more.

And she, of course knew it, and was, like the rest of Torchwood, clearly hell bent on making sure he didn't get away with any of the things he normally did without even thinking about it. So she didn't fall into bed with him after coffee because neither of them had anything better to do, and she was obviously trying her best not to be amused when he caught up with her in the Institute cafeteria to tell he'd been moved from Communications to the Archives.

"This is really not a good thing," she said to him over another coffee in different coffee shop. It wasn’t good to have habits, she said, if you worked for Torchwood.

"Why? It's a great thing! No more Yvonne leering at me, no more Peter blaming me for assignments he never actually gave me because he thinks I'm somehow actually psychic, and seriously, you would not believe the things I have found down in those files."

"I wouldn't go looking at things you don't need to look at down there," Lisa said, even though he could tell it was hard for her not to share his enthusiasm.

"God, why?"

"Well, for one thing, they already don't like your smart mouth. For another, information is dangerous. And third? Really? Don't you remember what happened when you found out about the aliens!"

"Come on, Lis, everyone freaks out about the aliens."

"Lis is it now?

Ianto shrugged. "I like you."

"And I'm still not going home with you."

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Did I ask? I don't think I asked."

Lisa just laughed.


She took to visiting him in the archives, although she said she didn't mean to, said it wasn't intentional, it was just that this, that or the other person really needed a file.

"They could call down for it," Ianto would always tell her blandly before pointing her to the requisition slips that were actually the proper manner of checking things out.

"Things get lost," was Lisa's excuse.

"Not in the archives," Ianto would tell her. "They just get forgotten."

"You're very grim."

Ianto would just shrug at that. So what if he was. It was Torchwood, and it was grim work. So much of what he filed was paperwork on the dead. So many of them clearly lost to things far outside the realm of natural causes. He didn't know if Lisa knew that and wasn't sure if he should tell her. Information was dangerous, she had said, and maybe, Ianto was starting to think, she was right.

"You just want a snog behind the file cabinets," he teased. It seemed like a good guess and didn't, upon reflection, sound like a bad idea.

She shook her head. "Oh no. None of that. No Torchwood office flings for me. Ask me out. For something better than coffee."

Ianto tilted his head at her and asked her out. To dinner. Somewhere nice.

"You know," he said as they lay in his bed together after they'd shagged for the first time after that very first date, "this all would have been a lot easier had you given me some clear instructions from the start."

Lisa smiled slowly. "So you're that type of boy, are you?"

Ianto laughed a little nervously. "I don't know. You'll have to find out."

"Getting involved inside of Torchwood is bad."

"Why? Everybody seems to do it."

"You don't see it, down there where you work. It's hard to be loyal to people. You're not supposed to be. Loyal to the institute, that's what they want. People will do anything to be sure that you'll break your promises if they need you to."

"Do you like it?" he asked, "Working here?"

Lisa shrugged. "I like my life. I like you. Can't be pulled apart now, can it?"

Ianto nodded. "It's like the apple."

"Hmmm?"

"The Devil relies on curiosity. So does our Institute, I think. I wouldn't quit. I like the files too much."

Lisa pouted. "And what about me?"

Ianto laughed and looked at the ceiling as she snuggled into the circle of his arms. "Suppose I tell you when you find out what type of boy I am?"

Lisa grinned, and Ianto was conscious of the fact that maybe she was just a little bit crazy and, probably, so was he.


On their second date, she got him drunk, and Ianto only caught on to the deliberateness of it when she pushed a finger up into him as she sucked his cock into her mouth, this time in her bed.

The alcohol made him slow and even more detail obsessed than usual -- the smell of the liquor, his sweat, her cunt and the laundry soap on her sheets, which were far nicer than his.

It was good, it was perfect, and in it he lost the moment to protest the intrusion, which he supposed he would have or should have out of some vague instinct. But by the time the idea of speech had finally come to him, all he had for her was praise, and when she crooked her finger just so, Ianto found he hadn't any words left at all.

After, he made her come twice, once with her kneeling over his face and when they were done, he’d curled up with his mouth still messily wet against her breast and told her about Jens and the stopwatch.

In trade she'd talked about her family and said that yeah, working for Torchwood did scare her. A lot, and that she was glad, really glad he was in the Archives. It seemed safer there, she said.


For Torchwood they kept it quiet, although that wasn't necessarily saying much. They didn't kiss in the building or even really touch, except in the accidental transfer of paper from one hand to another or in the crowding of a lift. Lisa brought him news of office politics and Ianto, in turn, memorized all the best information from the best files for her.


"So I had one today on a sex alien," he hissed in amusement, leaning over the table in the latest little French place she had insisted on.

"A what?" she laughed, equally eager.

"It's come to Earth to shag people."

"It has not!"

"It has! Or that's what the researcher thinks."

Lisa's eyes got big. "How are they researching it? Are they shagging it?"

Ianto nodded, and they both broke into uncontrollable and completely inappropriate laughter.


In the archives, Ianto had many tasks, both official and self-appointed. The first, of course, was to just do his damn job. The second was to find things to chat with Lisa about. The third was to discover those files that convinced him that working for Torchwood was, if not beautiful, then at least worth it.


"So do you know anything about the other Torchwoods?" Ianto asked one night, over curries.

Lisa shrugged. "A bit. Why?"

"Because I've found something very strange."

"Is this about the one that we lost?"

"What?"

"One of them's gone missing," she said with a wave of her hand.

"Oh. No. Well. I don't think so."

"So, what has you so excited?"

Ianto lowered his voice and leaned over even farther, holding his tie back from winding up in the curry. "Captain Jack Harkness."

Lisa started laughing and couldn't stop.

"What?" Ianto asked, worried that he'd stumbled into another horrible Torchwood in-joke which had been planted to pique his interest but had no actual basis in reality.

"You... you and half the institute!" Lisa finally managed.

"Huh?"

"Wants to fuck him!"

"What? No. Do you know how old he is?"

"I don't know. Late-thirties? Forty? Met him for half a second once. What are you talking about?"

"I found his service records from World War II."

"Temporal shift?" she offered, still chuckling.

"Twice."

Lisa chewed at her lip. "Huh. Tell me more. Yvonne hates him."


And Ianto hated Yvonne. Because Yvonne was unpleasant and arrogant and always felt a little bit dangerous, and Lisa’s idea of making him feel better about it was to suggest that she just wanted him under her desk.

“As a foot rest?” Ianto had asked in a moment of incredulous naivete.

Lisa shook her head and laughed. “I haven’t heard anything about her liking her toes sucked. You’ll have to let me know.”

Ianto stared at her in horror as she smirked at him and then took another sip of wine.

“Has she started critiquing your suits yet?” she asked. “That's when you're really in trouble.”

“That's sexual harassment,” Ianto had said, finally finding his equilibrium.

“It's Torchwood. Who're you planning on complaining to? Anyway, she does it to all the pretty boys. Take it as a compliment.”

Ianto grinned. “You think I'm pretty, do you? Guess you should take a number.” Lisa tackled him at that. The night, all things considered, ended rather well. Ianto bore the marks of it for weeks, and he smiled every time he hit a sore spot.


Lisa planned an evening in for them after Ianto passed his three month probation.

"I have a surprise for you," she’d said, pushing Ianto down onto the bed, in such a manner that he almost fumbled his drink all over her sheets.

He laughed.

"Close your eyes."

He did, waiting and listening and occasionally complaining about how long she was taking with whatever it was while he continued to nurse his vodka. He wanted to be inside her and wanted her over him and wanted them laughing.

He was loosening his tie when she finally said he could look, and he couldn't help but gape a little and wonder if it was all right to laugh as she stood there, naked and hand on hip wearing some sort of harness and a fake cock and looking at him hopefully.

"You're not kidding, are you?"

"Do you want me to be?" she asked, sounding younger and more lost than Ianto had ever heard her before.

He shook his head and set his drink down on the floor, and then slid off the bed and onto his knees. After that it seemed easy somehow to reach his arms up to wrap around her waist as he sucked the dildo into his mouth. And while he wished it hadn't tasted like chemicals and had been as warm as her (maybe he could shove it up into her next time first), all he could think was that this was perfect and so was she, and that Torchwood and all its murderers and aliens were worth it if it contained mysteries like this.

Lisa dragged her fingers softly through his hair and chuckled warmly. “Have you ever done this before?”

He shook his head, and gave her a muffled no.

“Have you wanted to?” she asked, and he pulled off her and sat back on his heels, realising they were going to have to discuss this, at least a little.

“Yeah,” he said looking up at her. “But I hadn’t imagined this.”

She nodded, and Ianto wondered briefly if she hadn’t got his meaning or just didn’t care.

“Probably easier if you get back on the bed,” she offered with a crooked smile.

Ianto grabbed his drink, took another sip and set the glass down on her night table. “Probably’ll help if I get undressed too.”

Lisa laughed and watched him carefully as he did.

“Mmmm, my Ianto, nice and hard,” she said, grabbing his cock, once he’d gotten naked.

And he’d wanted to laugh and ask her what she expected. She was beautiful and he was getting to lose his virginity twice. Of course he was hard, even if he was a little scared and felt also some small, terrible aching guilt for Jens.

“Still with me?” she asked, and Ianto nodded, working hard to look her in the eye as he tried to recall if he had slipped his stopwatch into his suit jacket pocket or into his briefcase at the end of the work day. He always remembered everything, and yet suddenly couldn’t think of it now.

She told him to kneel and how to arch his back and pour himself across the bed to make it easier for them both, and she murmured to him and smoothed a hand over the small of his back, and kissed his thighs as she pushed her fingers slick with lube into him over and over again until he didn’t know either her name or his own.

The dildo at first seemed too hard, too large, strange and foreign and unkind, but she was stroking his cock, and saying “let me,” and encouraging him to be lost, her hand on the back of his neck, and then she was right up against him and he couldn’t move or breathe. He was the world broken open and poured into this girl’s hands.

It seemed ridiculous, to realize he had waited his whole life for this one perfect type of silence.

He was so loud as she fucked him, he was surprised the neighbors didn’t complain. And after she held him as he clung to her, sore and humming happily. She didn’t even have to ask him if it was good, and that, he thought with a distant chuckle, was confidence he could admire.

She had laughed delightedly when he told her as much and then asked him about which celebrity blokes he fancied.


They had been dating for four months -- four months, and three days, to be precise; Ianto had always had a head for extraneous, irrelevant specificities -- when he got a call from his mother to come home. Her voice was weaker than he remembered, and there was a note of pleading in it that he'd never heard before.

Even though he knew the truth the moment he heard the phone call, it was still a shock to see her. She'd lost startling amounts of weight, her face drawn and thin. She looked like a caricature of herself.

Ianto sat at her bedside quietly, holding her hand in his, and he made lists in his head of all the things he couldn't do (ransack Torchwood for some mysterious alien cure, go back in time and be a better, more attentive son, never have taken the job in London, so he could have spent these last few months with her, just to name a few).

She didn't smile at him, but the nurses told him that she seemed easier now that he was here, and that she'd refused to ring him up until the end was close. He spoke with the doctors about pain medication, he kissed her forehead and told her she was stubborn, and she told him, in a cracked, weak voice that, after all, he'd got it from somewhere.

He told her that he thought he'd finally found work that he liked, a place in the world, and a girl that he thought he might love; he showed her a picture of himself and Lisa, taken by a tourist near the British Museum; she nodded at that, and looked at him approvingly, he thought.

And when she died, four days later, Ianto knelt by her bedside and tried to pray, like she would've wanted, but the world seemed cold and empty, and he was very, very tired.

When he spoke to Lisa on the phone, she offered to come down for the funeral. He refused -- what was the point? He'd have liked to have introduced her to his mother, but standing beside the corpse for all the neighbors to gawk at didn't appeal to him -- and her voice was kind when she said, "Come home soon, Ianto."

Home. Ianto didn't know if the planet contained any such thing for him. Not anymore.

He spent a day packing up the house and putting boxes and furniture in storage, spoke to an estate agent, and handed over the keys. What would he do with a house in Cardiff? His life wasn't there any more, and he was sure it would never be again.

When he got back to London, Yvonne Hartman told him that it was good he'd returned as they couldn't have held the job for him much longer. He restrained himself, somehow, from wondering out loud how essential it could possibly be to file things that no one ever wanted to look at anyway.

"It's her way of telling you she likes you," Lisa informed him, when he was sitting at her flat that evening, telling her all about it.

"I wish she didn't."

"Useful, though," she remarked. "Onwards and upwards. Promotion and all that."

"There's only one position for which Yvonne would be willing to put up with my mouth and that's because she thinks it'd be too busy for conversation there --"

Lisa choked with laughter.

"What?" Ianto said. "You're the one who told me that, and after careful observation, I am forced to agree."

She looked at him levelly. "Are you all right, Ianto?"

"No," he said. "It... I thought the world had rewritten itself enough when my father died. But this... I know it happens to everyone. But I wasn't... I'm not ready. Not for this."

"No one ever is," she said.

"I feel... unharnessed. Like there were these strings keeping me here, and now they've all got untied. And I keep crying, and I hate it."

"I know," she said, and she looked like she wanted to say a million things, and couldn't find the words for any of them. He loved her for that just a little more -- that she hurt for him enough that she couldn't mouth platitudes, and he cried again that night while he was buried inside her, and she only petted his hair, but didn't give him words.

She asked him to move in with her, a couple of months later, and Ianto looked around at his uncomfortable one room flat, smiled up at her and said, "Yes, please."

And so there again, he found home, and they bought sheets from Marks and Spencer, and put up shelves together; they even drove to Cardiff with a removal van, and picked up a few things from the old house to put into her flat. They argued over what kind of dishes to buy and her odd predilection for seventies era prints, and his enormous collection of CDs.

The world continued to move on in its new pattern; when he thought about it, he was grateful for how separate it felt from any of his life before. It was nice to have a role to play, and to know what that role was. He was comfortable with the papers and codes; research puzzles that came down in beautifully organized little folders whose neatness disguised the death and pain that was described inside them. They hardly seemed real to Ianto.

Real was Lisa and their flat and the nights spent watching telly and making love and drinking red wine; real was reading aloud to her (she liked poetry -- Dylan Thomas, Gwendolyn Brooks and Yeats -- and children's books and non-fiction about quantum physics), dressing up and taking her to fancy restaurants, going to the art museum, and the arcade and making her play old video games with him, which she approached with a serious intensity that tickled him immensely.

He knew he'd never make a field operative, and he liked it that way. This way, the folders could remain stolen secrets for him to lay at Lisa's feet -- and not the blood and guts that he knew they actually were.

And so it went, through the Christmas night that she was called in to work on emergency programming for a missile strike on a Sycorax ship, and the time that he misplaced a file, and Yvonne hauled him in to shout at him for twenty minutes straight, and his long stint at helping to archive the searches for UFO activity that Torchwood kept blocking (sometimes with software, and sometimes through installing people in psychiatric wards) and the time where Robert and Patrick made fools of themselves by getting drunk and stealing some alien tech and trying to terrorise a local shop.

That was Ianto's first experience with administering the drug they called Retcon; even after all this time, the name still made him laugh, and he was grateful for it, even if it seemed like a kind of theft he wasn't altogether comfortable with. Still, it kept Torchwood from killing people, and he supposed that was a good thing since gross stupidity, while annoying, wasn't exactly cause for a death sentence. Most days, anyway.

Things continued normally – for Ianto's new definition of normal anyway, which he had become very fond of. There were outlets for everything now: Torchwood had found uses for his rage and curiosity and detachment, and it fed his need for secret corners and dark places. And it was in Torchwood that he'd found Lisa, who was the first person to see all of this, and love him not in spite of, but because.

Then the ghosts arrived.

He hadn't even thought he missed them so much, his parents -- they belonged to a life that was dead and gone -- and that was what convinced him that they were really there. That, and the smell of his father's pipe, and the cloth of his jacket, his mother's perfume and the indefinable sense of their presence. And he found himself overwhelmed with thankfulness for the fact that it was true, that his mother had been right, that there was something after death.

He was thankful too that his parents could see the flat he shared with Lisa, the home that they'd built together, and that his father could finally be eased of his fears, that his son had become a man and the kind of man that he understood at that.

For the first time, Ianto truly felt like all of his pieces had come together into a pleasing whole, and as they clustered around him Lisa remarked on how closely the ghosts clung to him, saying his parents must have loved him very much; Ianto, who had never been as certain of that as he would have liked to be, until now, smiled with pride.

It was strange having all these gaps suddenly filled, and raw places soothed -- some of them he hadn't even known were there. Ianto, who'd always felt so restless, dreamed now of peace, and although he found it odd, he also found it pleasant.

In his spare time he found himself stopping by jewelers' shops and looking at rings in the window. As he did, he thought of Paris and Rome and imagined taking Lisa there and looking at all his old haunts with new eyes that were no longer so alone.

And then one day, a couple of months later, just another ordinary day, in a long string of ordinary, contented days, Lisa stopped by the Archives, and perched on his desk for their regular mid-morning gossip.

"So, did you hear about Adeola and Gareth?"

"Lis, everyone's heard about that."

"You mean real live people actually speak to you? I thought they stuck you down here where there was no possibility of that happening."

"You're here," Ianto remarked dryly. "And you're also sitting on that folder. Which I need. To do actual work? You've heard of that?"

"Whatever. I heard they were trying to keep it under wraps. Not be just another Torchwood fling."

"No wonder everyone's heard about it. Didn't you use that line on me?"

Lisa grinned at him and leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. "And now you're putty in my hands."

"Very true," he said. "You can prove it to me later tonight, if you want."

"It's a date."

"Good. Now, get lost. I've loads to do."

She hit the side of his head gently, and disappeared through the door.

It was only a few hours later that she came back, when he was well in the thick of trying to get several bins of assorted objects back into the shelving areas they belonged to, but everything was jumbled together and he was increasingly certain the mess was going to have him working overtime.

"What is it now, Lisa?" he asked, turning a small object that looked like some sort of alien electric shaver or lockpicking device or something over and over in his hands. "I'm really busy today."

"You'll never believe it."

"As much as I love chatting about the sex lives of our co-workers --"

She laughed. "I've got real news this time."

"Okay, what?"

She lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's him. The Doctor. He's IN the building."

"Oh come on, Lisa. Someone got you with that one? You've been here longer than me. Someone's always saying that, and it's never true."

"No, really. Don't you want to come see?"

"I can't, really, Lis. I'm in up to my head today.”

“Just… come on,” she said tugging on him.

“I can’t. We can’t leave these out. You know –“

Lisa shoved the bin at Ianto’s feet into a storage locker and slammed the door before glaring at him expectantly.

He held up the device. That still needed its home and more now than later.

She took it out of his hands and shoved it into his pocket. Then she kissed him. “Come on. Live a little. Break the rules. Once in a lifetime.”

Ianto rolled his eyes. “Just like you,” he muttered under his breath.

“Of course,” she said. “You coming?”

“As if there was ever any doubt,” he said and smiled at her, standing in front of him, slim and straight and full of focus.

As he looked at her, Ianto thought, as he often did, that it was so comforting to see her and know without the shadow of a doubt that this was the silhouette that gave shape to all the formless future that lay ahead, that gave meaning to everything that he did. One shape, to define a life. And what a life it was.

He felt the bulge in his pocket, and thought, well, why not? A loan – a theft of nothing but a little time. No one would ever have to know.

“I'm right behind you,” he said, and followed her out the door.

end

Continue to There Are Some Men Who Should Have Mountains To Bear Their Names To Time

Comments

[demotu.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

Very nicely done. This half was especially sad, but at the same time it felt like Ianto was still waiting, even with Lisa, which makes me think of the line in... To Learn This Holding... which went something like ''Do you think of me?'' ''Before I even knew you.'' Even as a prequel this still fits so well into the bizarre but wonderful romance you're telling. I loved the touching on Ianto's sexuality in an understated and not-too-fraught way, and Lisa's easiness with it, and Ianto's half-realized regrets about Jans. I love him spilling to the professor who hooks him up with Torchwood, and the ridiculous hiring procedures. (And I hope he went and told the prof he was still alive post the battle, because damn, he must be feeling guilty about that!)

Overall, it really conveys the theme of waiting, from the first sentence through to the last, there's this hint of potential for something else in Ianto, that he knows about but doesn't understand, and that's what makes it for me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

which makes me think of the line in... To Learn This Holding... which went something like ''Do you think of me?'' ''Before I even knew you.''

Yes yes yes. Thank you!

I sort of hate calling this a prequel, even though yes, that's what it is. Because we've placed it here in the arc so people can go... wait.... We have a lot of little dangling pieces in this story that seem like random thoughts and throwaway romantic remarks, but they're all sort of part of a whole, that's hopefully at least marginally readable in any order, but will certain fit together (tightly, we pray) once the concluding two stories are posted.

[marvola.livejournal.com]

This was amazing.

You've created a beautifully complex Ianto here. I agree with demotu about the waiting theme. All through this, there's a sense that Ianto is missing something - that he's not yet fully defined or that he's still waiting to come into focus. He's still recognisable as the Ianto we know but he's a bit less.

[electro-club.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with that.

[electro-club.livejournal.com]

And when you think there is nothing else you two could possibly do to be even more delightfully impressive...

I'm tempted to say this has been my favorite part up until now. I've loved all the others, and I think the sort of behind the scenes story you have been creating for Jack and Ianto is absolutely brilliant. But even brighter than giving their relationship all those meanings and reasons and happenings, is building up two characters so that they can meet and just seem right. The last few parts have been about what makes them who they are, why is it that they stand as they stand and for what. They had lives before all this, and it takes a lot of imagination and insight to build the road that has taken them to the place they are now.

I'm not very fond of Jack, and Jack has a lot more background than Ianto, so maybe this is why I loved this part so much. You've taken all the things we know about him and gave it a reason, or an origin. That was fantastic! Not to mention how lovely his relationship with Lisa was portrayed. They were ordinary people, doing ordinary things, working for a not-so-ordinary place. It was also very sad. =/ But anyway... I loved it. I loved your Lisa and I loved the way you've plugged them together. Working for Torchwood doesn't really have to mean everything about his life was alien. I don't know, I tend to think many people would do the same thing Ianto did for her, if only they had the same knowledge and possibilities he had in hands when he realized he was about to lose the one person he loved he still had in his life. I don't think he was all that crazy, perhaps desperate and blindsided to the point of becoming unreasonable, but really just... human. But whatever, that's just what I think.

This is Ianto. My favorite character in the show. Thank you very much.

Loved the bits about Yvonne. For some reason. Go figure.

And I can't believe we're going back to the regular timeline! Yay! But that means we're close to the end. =/ Though with the spin-offs later on. So yay again!

(Btw, I don't know if this is just me, but the link to the part two at the end of part one was sending me back to the top of part 1.)

(I apologize for my English =/)

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the note on the link! I've corrected it. ;-)

This is such a lovely compliment. It is great to know that we did your favorite character justice. Rach and I were just noting to each other that Jack's story is too big to ever be compassed by a single narrative; even with our shifting points-of-view, Ianto is very much our entry into this story, so it's fabulous to know that it worked for you.

I think he's a bit crazy. But frankly, so am I, and also is everyone I know and care about. So that's not a bad thing, per se.

We're excited about getting back to the regular timeline too! Eeep! Thank you again; your comments always make us smile.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

This is so lovely. It has this sprightly sort of cadence that makes it feel youthful and fresh and alive, and it makes all kinds of sense. You two write so well together.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Writing this has definitely been a learning experience for us, in lots of ways, and we are having the most amazing time with it, so that means a lot. It was a new tonal quality for this 'verse, and I'm really glad it felt alive!

[kaimu.livejournal.com]

Can this be submitted to RTD as canon Ianto's backstory? Because this has everything I love about Ianto, and the past I desperately want him to have (slept with several people before Lisa and Jack, bored and never really applying himself, and a fleshed out, non-vanilla relationship with Lisa).

There wasn't an element about this story, or Ianto that I didn't love. His kleptomaniac tendencies and gifting them to the women (especially stealing the stories for Lisa), his wandering around, his love for Paris and Rome, his apathy in Paris, Dr. Morgan calling him a "Jack of all trades, master of none" so appropriate for Ianto at that time.

And his relationship with Lisa, while reading this part I kept on thinking back to his conversation with Gwen from "In Our Bedroom After War", and how even back at Torchwood 1 he was aware of how non-normal (not quite the term I want to use but I can't think of one that works) Torchwood is and that it wasn't some great revelation that came after losing her. Ianto/Lisa is definitely one of my favorite pairings, and I love their story here.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad this worked. I know a lot of people view Ianto as a more innocent figure, and there's also the jossing we know we're in for as more leaks come out about Series 3, but this was teh truth for Ianto we entered this project with, and I'm so glad it transltes outside of our own heads.

[valancy-joy.livejournal.com]

there are so many little truths in this great big fic...

so many levels.

if I were the eloquent person I wish to be I would be able to say more...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. "Just because it isn't real, doesn't mean it's not true" is our mantra around here, so this compliment is particularly near and dear.

[celzmccelz.livejournal.com]

Yes. This is Ianto.

I love you guys, your fics never disappoint me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[rabecka.livejournal.com]

Have to tell you, it took me several minutes after seeing the post to actually click on the link. That's cause I was too busy jumping up and down going "oh boy, oh boy, oh boy"... And, of course, you don't disappoint.

"Do you think of me?" "Before I even knew you."
Oh, yes. That's gorgeous, and way better than any attempt I could make to say something similar.

But it made him indignant, really, all these people who expected him to help them figure him out, like it should somehow be easy for them when it wasn't for him
This really resonated for me. It's not only describing Ianto, but also goes a long way toward explaining how he relates to Jack. Unlike Gwen (who wants answers NOW damnit!) Ianto doesn't expect Jack to hand him everything on a platter, doesn't expect it to be easy. And the types of questions he asks are fundamentally different than the type Gwen asks. (Ex: not "Who are you?" "Where were you?", but "Why are we helping him?", "Would you go back to your own time if you could?")

without managing to trip over what seemed like fourteen different cats or, perhaps, just the one cat who had mastered the art of teleportation
ROTFL. OK, I'm a cat person. I just couldn't let that line pass without commenting.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's always lovely to hear of anticipation (a kink I at least share with Jack).

The cat(s) came out of "Did Ianto encounter aliens before Torchwood?" which we thought was a crucial question we needed to answer in the story. A lot of Torchwood fic has Ianto as a bit charmed, a bit of a changeling -- maybe he's an empath, maybe he had an alien encounter as a child. And a lot of these fics I really love, but what if Ianto is special simply in the way any of us are? Sure, he's resilient as fuck, and smarter than the average and a little bit kinked and too cute for his own good, but those are, ultimately, the mortal charms of mortal boys.

So Andrew and the cat(s) -- maybe there is something more to it, but maybe it's just how cats are (I have two, Kali knows them, etc.). Ultimately, it doesn't matter, except in the opportunity it provided to show Ianto's whimsy towards the things that annoy him a bit (the way he gives dangerous artifacts terrible rhyming names).

SO thank you for being the first to note the cat(s) of awesome!

[rhianona]

This is a really fantastic back story for Ianto. It feels very organic as it unfolds. I like your take that TW gives him a grounding for whatever it is he is looking for. Wonderful description of what he does as he looks for meaning; love the hint of violence that simmers within him; the reckless behavior he engages in; and how solitary he is. The way he just doesn't give a damn about anything and anyone, not really, that he's just looking for something and someone to give him meaning. great relationship you develop between Ianto and Lisa; very bittersweet, and yet so fun and lively.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! We're glad the violence came through -- that got worried over in edits a lot, because we felt it really needed to be clear, and I'm glad you felt it had energy under all that sadness.

[thrace-adams.livejournal.com]

This second half was really well done. I really liked the dynamic you created between Lisa and Ianto - he seems so free and easy with her. Lovely story!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad it worked. We worried a lot about the balance between Ianto's crazy and dark and the fact that he _is_ happy here.

[exbentley]

oh, oh. Ianto and his girls, and his ghosts. I loved seeing what is an adult sarcasm and isolation in its teenage form, as rage and angst and black nailpolish; I thought you captured the essence of being a teenager, (particularly an intelligent, bisexual teenager) quite well. obviously the setting was pretty spot-on, but it stands outside of that, you've caught the universal-ness of floundering your way through life.

I love the sense of the first part, which is richly detailed yet so brief, as though you were focussing on handfuls of detailed minutae which gave the impression of what the bigger picture was like.

Uni, when it started, disappointed him -- just another place to be treated like a child and learn things he didn't care about, about things he did care about, which made everything in his head feel even more confused.

what an utterly perfect description of university! and Europe, Europe, you make it captivating and real — I want to go! it was like reading a John Irving novel, you never feel like it's fictional because it's not afraid to show you the dark places.

speaking of, I love the fact that you give Ianto his own wickedness, too, and his own sense of self outside Jack, and flesh and faces to all the people who wandered through his life. especially Lisa, who is much more than the caricature she's usually painted as. all the Torchwood references are marvellous, and I caught my breath when he brought up Captain Jack. there were quite a few times where I felt like Ianto was on the verge of a secret.

I've said it before; you take the little facts Torchwood drops to build background and help suspension of disbelief and turn them into a compelling story, one which sews up the dark gaps between a television show and what the real world is like. never before was Ianto's shoplifting and uni-experience more than casual facts, but you've managed to make them life experiences, things which shaped him, and their detail in turn helps me understand your Ianto that little bit more.

I confess, I'm falling almost more in love with your side stories and backstory than the main body of the Jack/Ianto. very well done, ladies.

edited for grammar, somewhat.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think what's funny is most of the place Ianto went aren't places I've been -- I'm not sure about Kali -- although we've both traveled a lot, often alone. The Rome stuff was personal for both of us, I know. And I studied in Australia for a while, and that disconnect of living out of a hostel and yearning all the time what what I tried to bring to the piece.

I'm glad you're liking the side- and back- work as I think a lot of people are frustrated with it to a given degree (Jack/Ianto -- happysigh!), but this is nice to hear, as there's a Jack backstory piece that is not part of the main arc about his childhood that we're going to do eventually, and that I'm particularly emotionally bound up in.

[cruentum.livejournal.com]

Hah, hmm- I'm feeling ambiguous about this one, curiously enough.

I enjoyed the details of Ianto's relationships and how the small things that appear to be central to Ianto's character and his portrayal both on the show and in your main storyline, are explored in this installment. The stopwatch- what's not to love about that idea. Ianto having other people before Lisa or Jack, the passing enthusiasm and utter cluelessness for things significant, or beautiful, or interesting, at least for a while? Loved that. The strap-on sex with Lisa? Hot, and nicely done.

Ambiguous, because I think your choice of style for this piece didn't work for me, personally. I would have liked to feel more of a connection with Ianto and Ianto's emotions and felt the pure narrative for long parts of this installment (which did make it sound very backstory-ish, no doubt) didn't transport his emotions as well as select explicit scenes of dialogue and interaction would have.

Or maybe I missed the abyss-like depth and darkness that your characters have in the rest of the series, which is, given Ianto is a teenager without death and destruction in his past, understandable and well-done, and in that case maybe it makes sense that his sadnesses and regrets and experiences don't resonate as much as those of Ianto in Torchwood 3 do.

As I said- ambiguous about this one. I liked it, and your writing can't manage to be bad, I don't think, but just based on personal preference I didn't quite enjoy the style of this as much as I do that of the other pieces, and it didn't connect with me as much as other pieces did.

(But then, I'm one of the people who don't connect to Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye -- and maybe there are parallels, now that I think about it...)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Can I just say I'm actually relieved for this comment? This pace/tone/style of this (and it is confined to this piece) is really different, and while we feel we needed it to be, we also felt pretty sure it would, and even should, be a problem for some people. I now feel like we're not fucking batshit insane.

I haven't read Catcher in the Rye since I was probably 13, but my hazy memory does see your point.

I'm glad to hear about the details you liked (I want to do Ianto AU to this where he and Jens hook up, I really do! and glad the strap on thing worked) and about the stuff you missed.

Thank you!

[adjovi.livejournal.com]

wow...while the first part felt wandering, in the right way, there was just this impending sense of *doom* you were able to infuse throughout this entire chapter--like i couldn't read of any of the happy times thinking this is what defined ianto as a person, made him whole, and how soon this would all be stripped away, leaving a shell. and a place for jack and all of his fucked up baggage. aw. just wonderful.

They argued over what kind of dishes to buy and her odd predilection for seventies era prints, and his enormous collection of CDs.

me and my boyfriend, not even a month ago, had this very same arguments about what to bring while moving into together. i tend toward the funky side of the force with prints and he has like a jillion cds and dvds. heh.

[rm.livejournal.com]

We do doom. Heh.

Okay, and I think it's hilarious you've actually had that argument, because when we were writing this I was like "70s prints? Really?" but, ha, there it is!

Thank you so much.

[alba17.livejournal.com]

Very excited to see this. Love Ianto backstory. I really liked the way you conveyed the experience of adolescence and becoming an adult. I especially liked the way you treated Ianto's sexuality in a very understated, believable way, as an unexplored potentiality (is that a word?). And how it becomes more explicit and acknowledged by Ianto in the dildo scene (hot!). And curse you, you made him so happy before disaster strikes! which makes sense, given how desperate he was to save Lisa.

Thanks for writing. Looking forward to your future stories.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Potentiality is a word, and one we like very much! Yes and thank you. I'm so glad all those things worked for you. We are hoping to finish the arc (two more pieces) before 2009.

[mselfie.livejournal.com]

This story really tugged on my strings, and I figured out why before I read the comments. Ianto as a drifter and a shoplifter is a simple line on a file somewhere. Ianto as a brooding teenager dealing with his sexuality, travelling and learning to survive on his own and love the moment, becoming a man that encompassed everything that was before while still being adult about it - all of that feels like my own life in a way. I wasn't expecting anything I read tonight to hit me in that way, and it was a bit of a shock.

All in all though, I love it. Leaving kisses on the buildings in Paris. Making his own job in Rome, mostly because he could avoid the teleporting cat (that's a spell older cats get, btw). Landing a job at Torchwood after university because the professor saw the boredom but wasn't sure he was doing any favors. Even the sweetness of the relationship between Ianto and Lisa were just brilliant.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I love stories that feel very personal to me, so it's always a pleasure and an honor when someone else gets hit that way by something I've worked on.

And that's really one of the things we want to talk about -- how what are the footnotes for one person are these whole lives for someone else. And with Jack, everyone's a footnote really, not matter how much he loves them. There are a lot of issues of scale coming up in the last two pieces of this arc, and this was very much designed to be the lead-in to that. Thanks for zeroing in on it.

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

Being allowed to read this fic was the proverbial carrot on a string leading me through the ordeal of having to complete eight essays on extremely boring material that were all due by today.

It was so worth it.

Thanks, loves.

You never disappoint!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. This is a funny one to push you through school work, eh?

[wraithkeeper.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this fic! I haven't read the rest of the series, but I definitely need to now!

“That's sexual harassment,” Ianto had said, finally finding his equilibrium.

“It's Torchwood.

heheh that line pretty much sums up Torchwood.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hahahahah, thank you!

We've designed the arc so that it can actually be read from any entry point, because one of the ideas of it is that time echoes both backwards and forwards, so it _should_ work, and I hope you'll enjoy it.

[natalief.livejournal.com]

Wonderful, but I want to know what happens NEXT! ;-p

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Hehehehe. As others have commented, we are not exactly an action-adventure story here, so we left it at this point, but actually we do have a really clear notion on what happens next, so maybe a deleted scene at some point. If not, then we'll definitely enlighten interested readers on what we think happens to Ianto in the actual Battle of Canary Wharf in the DVD commentary we're going to do when we finish the series.

[kahtyasofia.livejournal.com]

You posted this just before I had to leave town for work so now I'm back and I READ it and once again, you tear my heart out. That's hard to do. I'm pretty hard-hearted.

Anyway, I love what Demotu says about waiting and I think Ianto's waiting is very subtly portrayed in canon and you've picked up on it wonderfully. You probably know that I agree totally that your back story could very well be canon. I like that you took his story further into TW than I took mine. Your totally different take on Ianto's and Lisa's relationship is fantastic.

I adore the fact that you made Ianto SEARCH, for anything and everything. He really wasn't limited in what he was ultimately willing to experiment in and I love that. The rebellion and the hard edge, so very much underneath the suits. Love it.

As always with the writing style, I'm so impressed. The entire WAY you guys tell this story is so understated and it just sort of strolls along. The story seems to be told in much the same tone that Ianto's life takes as he wanders and searches. It's rather hard to explain and I don't know if you intended it but it comes off very well. It's not often any of us can make our tone fit the theme quite so perfectly.

As always, Brava. I remain a fan.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. We really wanted to show this difficult mix Ianto has of openness to circumstance and anger for circumstance that doesn't suit him. He's so wrapped up in that inner conflict, it's hard for him to get purchase in the world.

The tone stuff was very intentional, and we worried it would be hard on the reader (and surely was for some folks), so we're quite happy to have it picked up on and enjoyed.

[observer3.livejournal.com]

i love the complexity of Ianto that is balanced with real life self discovery. Your details that both of you put int each of your stories and characters makes for lovely reading. Lisa is strong and well rounded, a joy to read and to see the attraction that appealed to Ianto. As to the continuing of the story, I wait with held breath. I love all your work

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[seres-mimosa.livejournal.com]

Here via Torchwood House recs.
I want to say something about how much I'm in awe of what you've created, but I think you broke my brain. It's incredible. Passionate, fragile, cruel, beautiful, tender, stark, painful, grace - I have felt all of these about the relationship between Jack and Ianto in this series. So multifaceted and *brilliant* I cant tell you how much it thrills and moves me. Your interpretation of canonical event especially after Exit Wounds are deeply affecting and exquisitely rendered. This Jack and Ianto ring true to every last word and motivation, utterly "in character" but are are so strongly original and unique, they could only belong to IHNIIBT. And they are absolutely fascinating. I feel like I understand them, and could never fully grasp their complexity at the same time! And in the course of the series they have grown, especially evident in Ianto's story here and Jack's story from the Tardis. There is an epic-ness to this story, masterfully handled, that makes it GRAND. And leads to an obsessed reader :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. We are planning to finish the arc (two more stories) before the year turns, and hope you will continue to be pleased. Your comment is, in a subtle way I cannot address for fear of spoilers, eerily prescient about something that will transpire.

[azriona.livejournal.com]

Here from the Children of Time Awards. Congrats on your nomination - although why this series is catalogued with the DW fic, I don't know, as it's very much a Torchwood fic. All the same, in a way, I'm glad it was, because I've spent the last two days reading, and I have completely fallen in love with it. I love Ianto in the series, and I love what you've done with him here.

I'm writing reviews of all the nominees, in hopes of figuring out how to vote, and I'm including this series in tonight's edition. I've been pulling my favorite quotes as I read (yes, very bad, should have reviewed for each story), but as I don't think I'll be able to include them all, I'll put them here for your amusement.

Says Ianto to Jack at one point: I've made a choice to be here and keep being here. It's not that it's the least I can do; it's that in the scheme of things it's not that bad. You're not that bad. Me? Well, we all have our issues.

How someone from the future [Jack] could be so caught up in the past, was one of those things that Ianto was sure he would never be able to really puzzle out.

"You miss having a commanding officer," Ianto said, meaning no innuendo by it, but Jack smirked.

"Why haven't we done this sooner?" [Jack] eventually inquired idly.

Ianto shrugged. "Weevils, sir," he said, deadpan.

Proof that Jack Harkness is not perfect: There were weevils crashing around Cardiff in broad daylight and Jack had decided he [Ianto] should sleep in? And taken his car?!

Ianto angry at Jack: “Curry, pizza or Chinese?”

"Whichever one's hardest for you to poison," Owen said with malicious cheer.

Jack on Ianto: Ianto was so young. And Jack was moving through his life and warping it, like that fixed point the Doctor liked to call him, like the birth of a star nails down and distorts the fabric of space and time.

Jack on his relationship with Ianto: “Okay,” he said to the silent dark. “It doesn't matter. I give up. I give in. No more running. No more rebellion. It never worked anyway. After all, it got me here.”

Ianto: He belonged to Jack, maybe, but Jack couldn't ever belong to him, no matter how much he might wish it otherwise.

Jack on their relationship: "I remembered this time," Jack said, staring up into the sky. "But now I understand that one day, I just won't. No matter what I do. Two thousand years? It felt like an eternity, but it was just a day for you, and one day, even that'll be an eyeblink for me. I promised you once I'd never forget your story, remember?...But I will. I won't be able to help it. Someday I won't even remember your name. You'll be dead all over again, and I won't even know it, but I'll have killed you. For good."

Their relationship, in the end: Everything between them was slivers and fractions, a constant edge, a million tiny tensions. No matter how often it caught him off balance or wounded his pride or found him half-afraid, Ianto was starting to realize that he liked things like this.


Thank you so much for writing and posting these. They're absolutely amazing. Please write more.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

And thank you so much! rm and I are very much looking forward to your review. Thanks for telling us about it, and your favorite snippets here.

I don't know why we're in the DW section either (we're also in the Torchwood section, so...) unless it's for some bizarre timey-wimey reason -- the last two installments which we're working on now are very definitely DW crossovers (the Doctor is a main character in both of them) but since we've yet to finish writing those -- I'm really at a loss. But! Thank you for so much for reading. We're delighted it spoke to you, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest! We plan to have the next installment posted in the next week or so.

[qaffangyrl.livejournal.com]

my god. this is quite possibly the best fic OF ANY FANDOM i've ever read. Truly briliant.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! We're so very pleased to see Ianto's backstory get some love.

[chiara7.livejournal.com]

Upon re-reading after you finished the series:

This is one of the chapters that stayed with me the most, and it has an even greater power after reading the final two installments -- perhaps because of the differences in tone and pacing that others have mentioned. Ianto here is still groping toward becoming (he knows not what, exactly), and we're given several key pieces of his puzzle; but his meandering grasp on his own experience, and on time itself, stands in sharp contrast to how he will see himself in relation to Jack's future and his own mortality. (I'm thinking in particular about his drifting through Europe vs. his time in the TARDIS in "Harbour," or the contrast between his somewhat inchoate grief for his mother and his meeting with Boe.)

So the somewhat loose, leisurely progression of the narrative seems necessary to me. It also raises an interesting question about the reader's position vis-à-vis the "tense" of the narrative, since by this point in the story we know so much more about Ianto's future than he does. On the one hand, you invite us to experience his youth in some of the diffuse way that he does; on the other, there's already a hint of his ordering his past into distinct events and patterns that suggests a POV of recollection. So I ask myself (again, especially in light of the final installments) if there's a point in Ianto's later story where he imagines this as his past history.

(Hope that makes sense. It's one of your many narrative subtleties that's difficult to put into words.)

A related point that worked better in retrospect: the stopwatch backstory, which struck me as clever the first time around but a slightly odd way of introducing the timekeeping/sexuality equation. Second time? Bejeezus, it's brilliant and subtle. Ianto discovering a longing he didn't realize he had, linking it to his sense of placement in time (and, of course, of finite time, time running out, etc.), over and beyond its fetish-value as a fixed object in his life. (Jack's later jealousy of Jens is just icing on the cake.)

While I admit to a certain greed for your version of Canary Wharf (bring on the DVD extras), I think it works best as an absence (void?) here. We understand Ianto's obsessive sense of loss the better for the final glimpse of Lisa as someone alive and daring and willing to push his boundaries.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Wow. What a fabulous comment, thank you.

It also raises an interesting question about the reader's position vis-à-vis the "tense" of the narrative, since by this point in the story we know so much more about Ianto's future than he does. On the one hand, you invite us to experience his youth in some of the diffuse way that he does; on the other, there's already a hint of his ordering his past into distinct events and patterns that suggests a POV of recollection. So I ask myself (again, especially in light of the final installments) if there's a point in Ianto's later story where he imagines this as his past history.

How beautifully articulated! In writing this whole series with its sort of nonlinear structure, we definitely came back to "tense" over and over; in fact one of the titles we played with for Harbour was Past Continuous, Future Perfect, in an effort to draw attention to that very aspect. (Also, note: tense changes in In Our Bedroom After the War and Harbour itself; there's a definite sense of what Ianto experiences taking place in the past tense; while things outside of him take place in the present.) Are these all the stories he tells to Face of Boe? I don't know, exactly, and I think that's a matter up to the reader, ultimately. But there's a way that Ianto is always thinking of himself as composed of stories, so I think in some ways, the atmospheric quality of the narrative is meant to convey the sort of fairy-tale way he views his life.

Bejeezus, it's brilliant and subtle. Ianto discovering a longing he didn't realize he had, linking it to his sense of placement in time (and, of course, of finite time, time running out, etc.), over and beyond its fetish-value as a fixed object in his life. (Jack's later jealousy of Jens is just icing on the cake.)

*grins* Thank you. The stopwatch, I think, has a great metaphorical quality that's underused in stopwatch!fic (how hilarious is it that we have a fandom in which this is a genre!). But yeah, recording time, keeping time, capturing a certain fraction of time... the possibilities are endless, and it's so pleasing that you liked them. Thank you.

While I admit to a certain greed for your version of Canary Wharf (bring on the DVD extras), I think it works best as an absence (void?) here.

We'll definitely reveal what we think happened, although I don't know if it'll be written out in story form. Because this is when childhood really ends for Ianto, even though he doesn't think it does. I don't know if you remember Jack's moth fairy tale from In Our Bedroom... but that was the end of Ianto's first night, or at least certainly, the beginning of the end.

[mcparrot.livejournal.com]

Thank you for giving us a real person as Lisa, not a "oh my god what does this hot chic see in me" caricature (?sp) that we see so often, but a real person who saw Ianto very clearly and really seems to have been the other half of him he always insisted she was. Certainly a woman that was willing to let a young possibly bisexual guy try things out is a special sort of woman.
I loved this Ianto. As someone remarked in the part one reviews, they felt that they too had drifted like this. I feel that too and it resonates as true of a lot of young people of around that age. Of course we're not all quite that odd in the end, but at the time it certainly felt that way. And there's a point, who knows, if Canary wharf didn't happen, would Ianto have settled into this life that gave he what he thinks he needed with this great girl at his side and would he then have got on with things and grown out of the angst and oddness (at least in public)?
Great take on Ianto's early life. completely different from Loveslashangst's take on it, which up until now has been my favourite. http://loveslashangst.livejournal.com/29198.html#cutid1 Your version is calmer and probably more realistic.
many thanks

[mcparrot.livejournal.com]

Actually this was the story I really meant. I mucked up my bookmarks
The other one is good too, but this is a little earlier in time than that one I think.
http://loveslashangst.livejournal.com/17365.html#cutid1