Short: "Wired"

[cyus]

Title: Wired
Characters/Pairing: Ianto/Lisa, Jack
Rating: R
Length: 677
Summary: Lisa is Ianto's girlfriend, encased in metal or not.
Notes: set pre-series

Harkness crossed the main floor of the Hub. His soles squeaked on the metal walkway. "Well-"

Ianto glanced at Harkness' boots, froze in mid-movement. Suzie cleared her throat, and he looked up at her. He swallowed, tried to say something, but she stared him down, so he kept his mouth shut and continued to sort the papers into folders.

"That time of the year, is it?" Owen leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. The chair creaked with every shift of his weight, springs cranky.

"Snowdon is calling," Harkness replied.

"Yeah, it's screaming 'get away from me, Harkness, oh no, not you again'." Owen rolled his eyes and turned back to his workstation with a long screech of metal on metal.

Ianto's cock hardened.

He would watch her at night when she was asleep, balls and cock pressed to cold metal, just warming it with his own heat. He'd walk in, and she'd already have her eyes closed, painkillers dripping into her and shutting down her system.

He missed her.

Harkness took the steps to the main area at an easy jog. He stood, surveyed them, and Ianto watched from the corner of his eyes when he came closer, stood right beside him. Suzie glanced over, then turned back to her computer screen.

"Do you enjoy the work here then?" Harkness asked. He fingered one of the folders, looked at it, then dropped it back on the desk. "Fancy a trip up Snowdon?"

"Snowdon?"

Owen got up, metal springs screamed with the bounce, and Ianto pressed his crotch against the edge of the table, hidden from view by the sheets of paper in his hand. Arousal caught in his stomach, muscles in his thighs tense, and the edge of the desk didn't yield.

Harkness raised an eyebrow at him.

She'd shift, a screech of metal and metal, and all it meant was that she was still alive and still there. Hand between her legs, he'd push his cock against one of the metal plates, then she'd open her eyes and gasp. His fingers would slip into her. She didn't get wet anymore, not for him or anything, so it'd be his precome that would ease the way for a moment of heat, but even inside wires would grip him, and reality brought the fantasy crashing down. He'd jerk off against the metal and stain it with come while she was watching.

"Bit of excitement, hunting dead alien sheep, that kind of thing," Harkness went on.

Owen dropped onto his chair again. Metal screeched. Ianto pushed his crotch against the edge of the desk. His hips jerked once, twice before he stopped, face heating. The coffee in the cup rippled with the movement.

Harkness looked pointedly from the cup to Ianto's hips. "Not that exciting," he said after a pause, light tone. "Boys." He laughed, then leaned close. "You can still come. There'll be guns and ropes and all other kinds of entertaining things." He drew his hand down Ianto's back, then clapped him on the shoulder. "And me, of course. What do you say?" Jack brushed his thumb along the back of Ianto's neck.

Ianto nodded, his trousers tight.

"Finish up and be ready in thirty, then, Ianto," Harkness called as he pushed away and crossed the Hub again.

Ianto stared after Harkness. Suzie caught him, laughed and shook her head.

"I'll just carry this down to the archives," he told no-one in particular and held up the folders. They didn't even look up.

He took the stairs down to the lower levels of the Hub, walked past the archives.

She'd be asleep, but she usually was, at least at first. She'd say, 'thank you for making me feel alive', and he'd feel the part of the rapist anyway and flee. He always came back when she was asleep again and cleaned her, whispered he'd never do it again. But then he would, because she was the only thing he still had. He told himself that she never said 'no' and that that was enough.

Comments

[electro-club.livejournal.com]

(Oh, how much do I hate LJ? It ate my big comment. Damn.)

So, I was saying... This story was good on the most disturbing way. It makes a weird, almost wrong kind of sense. Ianto was so screwed up around that time I can imagine him doing something like that (and it also seems very clear that he'd be terribly sorry afterwards, ashamed even). It's not that the situation's turned him into some kind of freak, it's the consequences of being that desperate and destroyed.

I liked it very much. It's also different. It's always about how tempted Ianto was to give in to Jack's charms. For once it wasn't Jack making hard.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

I do feel I should apologize for only getting back to you now, most certainly not intentional but especially on this story, with the different interpretations people came up with I was a bit afraid to stop the flow of interpretation so to speak by responding to people with something like 'weeeeeeell- actually, no, that's not what I meant' since I do believe that once I have written a story the interpretation of the story is out of my hands, and it's not my position to correct someone's interpretation of the story or tell them 'no, actually, it's like this' because it's good there are different interpretations and it's kind of, for me, the reason for writing something, that people come up with different views of the thing and to succeed in such a way that and write the story ambigious enough, indeed, people can have very varied interpretations of the content.

So, umm, after reading TWU, I do honestly feel sorry for not having replied to this (and I have, in fact, read your comment on the rec of this on TWH and appreciated it, too, but felt that it would have been the wrong venue to put it there).

To your comment: I tend to see Ianto as someone who is damaged, yes, and as someone who is trying his best to hold himself together and to hold a somewhat normal life together, and what he had with Lisa, that was normal. To me that was the peak of what he'd personally see as the life he ultimately enjoyed, so yes - I don't think his morals have suffered through his experiences (eg. he is still ashamed by his actions), but I do believe that it is in great ways, a quest to remain normal.

And I'm glad you liked the spin on the Jack/Ianto dynamic. I admit to liking to write stories where the want-love-sex isn't quite as clearcut as all that.

Thanks for the comment, appreciate it.

[electro-club.livejournal.com]

Oh man, did we make you feel bad about not replying to all your comments? Don't! It's normal, everybody does that. I don't bother leaving comments to certain authors when they don't reply, but those are very few, specific ones that I don't necessarily sympathize with. I understand why you didn't reply, it's valid. I'm one who thinks discussions about different interpretations are always valuable as well, but that's personal I guess.

Yes, I see your point. I suppose it's a different take on Ianto, but it makes sense. I have question though, feel free not to answer - how do you see his involvement with Jack? I mean, I do agree with you Ianto's probably doing his best to hold on to any normalcy he can grab, keep himself together, but when you say that, do you mean it by that time when he was still keeping Lisa in the basement, or overall? I'm sorry, it's just your comment made me curious.

Thanks for getting back to me. =) Your effort has been truly appreciated.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Oh my active replying to comments has actually spurned two conversations yesterday so I am quite happy, really. For me, I do like discussions about interpretations, but I hesitate when people look to me, as the author, for the true interpretation so to speak, as if I, as the author, have the only valid interpretation of the contents of the story because I wrote it and that all other interpretations somehow matter less. I believe that a story leaves my hands as soon as it is online and that my interpretation of the contents is only as valid as everyone else's interpretation of the story, and that there is not one true way to see a story but quite a few different ways (ideally, it depends a bit on how complex or ambigious the story is).

I do believe that Ianto is someone who tries to hold himself/his life together by holding on to things. And Jack is the ideal thing to hold onto, what with the no-dying business. I believe that throughout the seasons he manages to deal with losing Lisa (mostly), but that in a way Jack becomes the new thing upon which to rely even if it disappoints you or doesn't behave the way you do. I tend to write Ianto as someone who is always longing for something that is not Torchwood Three in Cardiff (there seems to be a theme of him glorifying London running through the stories lately, that has him thinking that he was happy in London etc). I do tend to write Ianto as someone who was happiest with Lisa and happiest in London. I think he has a different kind of happiness with Jack, it's more jaded, not quite as carefree and innocent, and it's not overflowing, but I tend to think Ianto is a pragmatist and he takes the bits of happiness he can and that he is happy with Jack, in their own ways (naturally, since it's Jack and Ianto, and not Lisa and Ianto, it would be a bit different), but that he sometimes longs for the ease and the carefreeness of the relationship with Lisa or really anyone that isn't Jack.

[electro-club.livejournal.com]

I like your idea of Ianto missing London and his previous life, sort of keeping it shielded from all of the subsequent horror.

I personally don't think it was easy for Ianto to even think of London and/or Lisa, for a while at least. I can't imagine him being able to separate the murderous cyberwoman and all the horror of Canary Wharf from his girlfriend and the life he used to have in London. It probably wasn't a pleasant thing to think about (and I tend to believe one of the reasons Ianto has become so dedicated, so to speak, to Jack is probably because Jack appeared to him as an option to all this - Jack implicated a completely different concept of life, the opposite of everything he had before, just what he might have been in need of back then).

I think he has a different kind of happiness with Jack, it's more jaded, not quite as carefree and innocent, and it's not overflowing, but I tend to think Ianto is a pragmatist and he takes the bits of happiness he can and that he is happy with Jack, in their own ways

And that is exactly what I think. I think of Ianto as someone who's not hoping to live to see the next day or daring to make any kinds of plans (getting married, having a family, getting a dog, asking Jack to move in together). He accepts his new reality as skeptically as he can, because he knows that's as much as he'll get, and he's fine with it. Someone who sees things more harshly, for what they really are, not the fantastic, mythical, fantasy world it seems to be (though it is, too, partly). He understands what Torchwood is about, what Jack is about - what he can offer and what he can't, what he'll do and what he won't. They're honest, I think. Pretty honest, their relationship. Not on the sense that they'll tell everything to each other and never keep secrets, more like they'll be hiding things from each other, and are both very aware of it (among other things, of course). Maybe it's the way they're both so hurt and damaged that they can find some sort of peace in each other. It's the difference between Ianto and Gwen, I think.

I agree he was probably happier in London, when, in comparison, everything seemed easier. There was no saving the world every day (not him, anyway), no expecting to find death in every corner, not knowing he'll most likely lose everyone he works with/knows sooner than he'll ever be ready to accept. Thinking of how relatively ‘softer’ things were when he had a cool job, a pretty girlfriend and could make plans for the future must be something to hold onto, though very depressing as well. He'll never be completely happy or satisfied with this parameter in mind - but, honestly, I can see him as someone who's all but expecting something as subjective and ephemeral as happiness. He's happy, in a sense, just never complete, and, as you said, he finds his own happiness in the little things, everything he can get.

So yeah, I had never really though of things that way, but I think I agree with you, kind of. I don't think, for instance, Ianto needs someone out of Torchwood and Jack, I think he's pretty committed to Jack, all the while not necessarily waiting for Jack to be committed to him with the same intensity. But I do think he needs things to keep him in touch with normality. He probably doesn't want Torchwood or Jack to be present in and part of every aspect of his life.

(Gigantic, babbling, sort of useless comment. Feel free to ignore. =D And apologizes for the rape of the English language.)