Fic - You Well-Dressed Man
Crikey, four weeks since I last posted! I haven't been feeling too good, is all, but I'm more myself again now. Anyhoo, I found this lurking in my files, written for a challenge for which I missed the deadline so hadn't posted before.
Title: You Well-Dressed Man
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack/Ianto
Setting: End of TKKS
You Well-Dressed Man
Jack croons softly - a song he hasn't heard, hasn't thought about, in the longest time - as his gaze tracks Ianto's approach. So strange, the sometimes contradictory notions that race through your mind when anticipating unwrapping something special for the very first time. All the things you think you know, believe you've learnt, are now called into question.
Truth #1. Behind the small smiles and good-natured tolerance is an efficient, capable, quick-thinking guy. Beneath the immaculate façade and willingness to undertake all manner of menial tasks is a man you can rely on, can entrust with some of the more sensitive aspects of your work. No fashion plate, this. Not just a cute suit.
Truth #2. The suit is a costume, serving as a distraction, helping to disguise the skilled player who has conned the conman in spectacular fashion.
Truth #3. The agonies of love, loss and despair strip away layers, the passionate and dangerous side of the man is revealed. With tie askew, top buttons undone, suit sodden and blood-spattered, here is someone who no longer bites his tongue, keeps his thoughts to himself. He is compelled to speak his mind. And how! Some of his accusations hit home...
The trust that has been rocked to its foundations has had to be rebuilt. Slowly, painfully, but never impossible. Because Jack has recognised himself in those words, and doesn't like what he sees; and because he understands what it is to survive catastrophe and live alone with the guilt.
Truth #4. The costume is a shield. He wears the suit as if it is plate armour, hiding himself within it as well as he has ever done. Protecting himself from pain, keeping everyone at a distance.
Yet slowly but surely, Jack finds himself looking again. Looking just for the hell of it, for the pleasure of it. The pleasure intensified for having understood the puzzle pieces that go to make him up. Or some of them, at any rate. Jack feels sure there are still more pieces to find, and he hopes to be around when they all slot into place.
Truth #5. At long last, the suit is just an outfit, appropriate attire for the public face of the organisation. For Ianto seems more at ease in his own skin now, moving more freely, smiling more readily, getting involved.
But now some new, startling truth is about to be revealed. Is Jack man enough to accept it, embrace it; even if it serves to camouflague everything that has gone before? Hell, yeah!
Ianto hesitates for a moment in the office doorway and Jack's eyes feast on the sight before him. Impeccable black suit, crisp pale-blue shirt, devilishly crimson tie, stopwatch clutched in his palm, a small shy smile playing at his lips.
"God damn, you well-dressed man…" The bawdy lyrics flood back to Jack - they'd been pretty daring for the 1930s, when he'd caught chanteuse Robin Bontecou's act both in Paris and New York - making him feel a little giddy and ridiculously, inexplicably young again.
Daring for the 1930s they may well have been, but suddenly they seem pretty damn daring now too, as the two men close the distance between them and reach out to each other...
Title: You Well-Dressed Man
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack/Ianto
Setting: End of TKKS
You Well-Dressed Man
Jack croons softly - a song he hasn't heard, hasn't thought about, in the longest time - as his gaze tracks Ianto's approach. So strange, the sometimes contradictory notions that race through your mind when anticipating unwrapping something special for the very first time. All the things you think you know, believe you've learnt, are now called into question.
Truth #1. Behind the small smiles and good-natured tolerance is an efficient, capable, quick-thinking guy. Beneath the immaculate façade and willingness to undertake all manner of menial tasks is a man you can rely on, can entrust with some of the more sensitive aspects of your work. No fashion plate, this. Not just a cute suit.
Truth #2. The suit is a costume, serving as a distraction, helping to disguise the skilled player who has conned the conman in spectacular fashion.
Truth #3. The agonies of love, loss and despair strip away layers, the passionate and dangerous side of the man is revealed. With tie askew, top buttons undone, suit sodden and blood-spattered, here is someone who no longer bites his tongue, keeps his thoughts to himself. He is compelled to speak his mind. And how! Some of his accusations hit home...
The trust that has been rocked to its foundations has had to be rebuilt. Slowly, painfully, but never impossible. Because Jack has recognised himself in those words, and doesn't like what he sees; and because he understands what it is to survive catastrophe and live alone with the guilt.
Truth #4. The costume is a shield. He wears the suit as if it is plate armour, hiding himself within it as well as he has ever done. Protecting himself from pain, keeping everyone at a distance.
Yet slowly but surely, Jack finds himself looking again. Looking just for the hell of it, for the pleasure of it. The pleasure intensified for having understood the puzzle pieces that go to make him up. Or some of them, at any rate. Jack feels sure there are still more pieces to find, and he hopes to be around when they all slot into place.
Truth #5. At long last, the suit is just an outfit, appropriate attire for the public face of the organisation. For Ianto seems more at ease in his own skin now, moving more freely, smiling more readily, getting involved.
But now some new, startling truth is about to be revealed. Is Jack man enough to accept it, embrace it; even if it serves to camouflague everything that has gone before? Hell, yeah!
Ianto hesitates for a moment in the office doorway and Jack's eyes feast on the sight before him. Impeccable black suit, crisp pale-blue shirt, devilishly crimson tie, stopwatch clutched in his palm, a small shy smile playing at his lips.
"God damn, you well-dressed man…" The bawdy lyrics flood back to Jack - they'd been pretty daring for the 1930s, when he'd caught chanteuse Robin Bontecou's act both in Paris and New York - making him feel a little giddy and ridiculously, inexplicably young again.
Daring for the 1930s they may well have been, but suddenly they seem pretty damn daring now too, as the two men close the distance between them and reach out to each other...