Who Doesn't Actually Exist
Title: The One Who Doesn't Actually Exist
Author: Me
jbs_teeth
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ianto/Jack, Jack/Gwen
Spoilers: No, not really.
Notes: Blame the angst on Jack for being a total prat about Gwen and, in a round-about way, the bitches at my tennis drills.
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One day, erasing the facts of some now-nameless corpse caught in the crossfire of Torchwood's bang-bang, the realization strikes Ianto with perfect simplicity: Torchwood's long-standing success in secrecy has little to do with his or anyone else's rather clumsy and devious efficiencies, and everything to do with the population's extraordinary devotion to the practice of solipsism. Aliens, UFOs, impossibilities -- Torchwood has a logo, for Christ's sake -- these things that cannot be comprehended by the minds of the general population simply do not exist, and because of this, cannot exist, regardless of the evidence laid out before them.
Ironically, no further proof of this theory is necessary beyond Jack himself: Ianto, even, does not exist but for the reflection he creates of Jack; and, strangely, this liberates Ianto as no other circumstance ever could.
If I am as clear as air to him when he is not thinking of me, then what I say or think or do makes no difference at all. So he can do as he chooses, and does.
It does not matter, then, that his reflective glint seems to be dulling a bit; right now, Jack is distracted by the shiny objects in Gwen; in her, right now, Jack sees himself passed over and forgotten, and, right now, this suits him.
Ianto supposes it suits him, too. He can play at what he likes, the words don't matter any more. He is free to be as confident as he has never been before, charming, funny, even, oddly, romantic. "Yes, sir, I would miss you so!" This pleases Jack -- who gets to see himself as coveted in the momentarily glittery Ianto mirror -- and Ianto earns himself the sweet, rough glide of Jack's plump red tongue.
But, overall, is suits him, this lack of existence, and he has taken to believing he knows everything. Maybe it is all in his head: In a universe that shapes itself only as his mind paints it, everything is knowable, and everything he knows is right.
I made up quarks, all six kinds, and isn't it gratifying I thought to include strange and charmed among them? I wonder where or how I dug up Hawking radiation and Homer and Russian ballet and sushi and good on me for red wine.
Ianto's interior life is deeper and richer than it ever has been before. He watches Jack and Gwen as they don't watch him, as they see maybe just the air ripple a little bit as he crosses the room.
It's amazing, it really is, to watch them together because he knows something they don't -- and he knows the truth of this because he's thought it so and that makes it so... sometimes he takes pleasure in making himself dizzy with this toy thought of his, and he thinks about opening an amusement park for intellectuals. Admission will be cheap.
But it is genuinely amusing to watch Gwen and Jack together, watching them strain to see their reflections materialize in each other's non-existent mirror.
Ianto wonders if Jack has any idea of how ironic his very narcissist being has become: Jack, solitary and constantly at search for his lack of existence does not actually exist beyond the reflection of himself in the whole of the human race.
So Ianto mocks, calls him dashing, sasses, plays hero, plays backup, plays office furniture and kissy face and laughs at everyone around him for thinking they are outside the confines of his own ken.
And as he plays at all of this, he knows one more thing, and it's the truest thing of all of it: He is full of shit, and it breaks his heart that Jack doesn't see him, isn't obligated to; that no matter how pink his shirt and fast his quips and smooth his skin, Jack has stopped seeing him. Ianto is the one who doesn't really exist, and it breaks his fucking heart.
( Fic Index)
Author: Me
jbs_teeth
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ianto/Jack, Jack/Gwen
Spoilers: No, not really.
Notes: Blame the angst on Jack for being a total prat about Gwen and, in a round-about way, the bitches at my tennis drills.
-----
One day, erasing the facts of some now-nameless corpse caught in the crossfire of Torchwood's bang-bang, the realization strikes Ianto with perfect simplicity: Torchwood's long-standing success in secrecy has little to do with his or anyone else's rather clumsy and devious efficiencies, and everything to do with the population's extraordinary devotion to the practice of solipsism. Aliens, UFOs, impossibilities -- Torchwood has a logo, for Christ's sake -- these things that cannot be comprehended by the minds of the general population simply do not exist, and because of this, cannot exist, regardless of the evidence laid out before them.
Ironically, no further proof of this theory is necessary beyond Jack himself: Ianto, even, does not exist but for the reflection he creates of Jack; and, strangely, this liberates Ianto as no other circumstance ever could.
If I am as clear as air to him when he is not thinking of me, then what I say or think or do makes no difference at all. So he can do as he chooses, and does.
It does not matter, then, that his reflective glint seems to be dulling a bit; right now, Jack is distracted by the shiny objects in Gwen; in her, right now, Jack sees himself passed over and forgotten, and, right now, this suits him.
Ianto supposes it suits him, too. He can play at what he likes, the words don't matter any more. He is free to be as confident as he has never been before, charming, funny, even, oddly, romantic. "Yes, sir, I would miss you so!" This pleases Jack -- who gets to see himself as coveted in the momentarily glittery Ianto mirror -- and Ianto earns himself the sweet, rough glide of Jack's plump red tongue.
But, overall, is suits him, this lack of existence, and he has taken to believing he knows everything. Maybe it is all in his head: In a universe that shapes itself only as his mind paints it, everything is knowable, and everything he knows is right.
I made up quarks, all six kinds, and isn't it gratifying I thought to include strange and charmed among them? I wonder where or how I dug up Hawking radiation and Homer and Russian ballet and sushi and good on me for red wine.
Ianto's interior life is deeper and richer than it ever has been before. He watches Jack and Gwen as they don't watch him, as they see maybe just the air ripple a little bit as he crosses the room.
It's amazing, it really is, to watch them together because he knows something they don't -- and he knows the truth of this because he's thought it so and that makes it so... sometimes he takes pleasure in making himself dizzy with this toy thought of his, and he thinks about opening an amusement park for intellectuals. Admission will be cheap.
But it is genuinely amusing to watch Gwen and Jack together, watching them strain to see their reflections materialize in each other's non-existent mirror.
Ianto wonders if Jack has any idea of how ironic his very narcissist being has become: Jack, solitary and constantly at search for his lack of existence does not actually exist beyond the reflection of himself in the whole of the human race.
So Ianto mocks, calls him dashing, sasses, plays hero, plays backup, plays office furniture and kissy face and laughs at everyone around him for thinking they are outside the confines of his own ken.
And as he plays at all of this, he knows one more thing, and it's the truest thing of all of it: He is full of shit, and it breaks his heart that Jack doesn't see him, isn't obligated to; that no matter how pink his shirt and fast his quips and smooth his skin, Jack has stopped seeing him. Ianto is the one who doesn't really exist, and it breaks his fucking heart.
( Fic Index)