Short: "21st (the language)"

[cyus]

Title: 21st (the language)
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Length: 750 words
Summary: Ianto is that kind of romantic.

It's another painted line, and Ianto looks up from the paperwork at shadows playing in Jack's office. Jack is fighting demons, and he's out here just looking on. He slides the sheet of paper into the right folder and snaps it shut, keeps his eyes on it when Jack strides from his office and past him, keeps his mouth shut when there is a bit of a command in there somewhere to heel like a good boy, playing good doggie for another wrecking adventure and another, Something beautiful, Ianto, I can show you something beautiful..

Like the fuck in the arse, like the alien remains that bloom into flowers.

Gwen looks between them, bunny-caught-headlights-smash kind of look, Ianto shrugs it off and slides another sheet into another folder.

"I don't have time for domestics," Jack says, playing petty after ten minutes of exposition about a threat-but-not-that-dangerous.

Ianto looks up then and says, "Neither do I." And it's a bit stroppy, and a bit defiant, and a bit childish, sure, but Jack flouncing off hits the metre higher on that there, so it doesn't bother him much. Jack leaves a rainbow of blackened sparkle in his wake. Time flies, literally.

Cut, later the same night, Gwen's gone home after a hug, a whispered reassurance about a buried case that's ended up not quite that buried in terms of skeletons under ground, and Ianto's kept the lights on high in the Hub, less environmental protection today and more attempt not to pull the emo kid shit and make himself the twenty-six he actually is.

Jack strides in, a bit beaten up, very muddy, less pissed-off, not any less stand-off-ish. High energy, always, except when he's drinking to his secrets in his own private lairs.

"You want a kid," Jack says, hip cocked, leaned against Ianto's desk.

"No," Ianto replies, smiles tightly and sorts the folders by colour, but hey, it makes him look busy.

Jack looks through it, that quirk of the eyebrow and that smirk that turns sneer, and Ianto knows that expression from before - back after Lisa and before the Welsh countryside tried to eat him - as he pushes off the desk.

Ianto shrugs, looks up, shrugs again and gives up on an answer. A suck my cock would be more of an invitation than he wants to give. He feels about fifteen but flips Jack off anyway.

"I don't do promises."

"I didn't ask, did I?" Because fuck my corpse when I'm dead is more commitment than anyone could expect, and mostly Ianto is dying for a fag and a night not sorting things by color in lieu of leaving flowers and framed little hearts on desks.

"You love me," Jack says, drunken smile with that bit of cruel shit because there's never a question about that.

"Yes." And Ianto shoves the blue folder at Jack with print outs of something, and mostly hidden little teenage messages of lovememarrymehavemybabies and initials in heart font.

Jack takes it and shrugs and goes back to his office, and he won't get the cryptic messages because Jack doesn't.

Cut, even later, it's dark and it's dark because Ianto has turned off the lights and hid under some stairs and had a good manly cry with snot on his face.

"I'd have your kid," Jack calls out in the middle of the Hub, and it carries down and down and lower.

That's not what it says in the code in the folder. It says more about hearts and flowers, and shit about death and fucked corpses. Ianto is that kind of romantic. But, as usual, Jack doesn't speak his language.

Not English and not 21st century, or 18th, or whatever. Jack speaks expectations-of and textbook-entries and I-have-read-once and Ianto defies that a little.

He'd like a flower, sometime.

He'd settle for a paperheart.

When Ianto doesn't reply, Jack's steps make off to nowhere, and Ianto crawls out of his hiding place.

Mostly he feels lonely.

Cut, Ianto has a smoke on the plass and thinks about running away, just step by step, for something with hearts and flowers.

Aliens turning into flowers just aren't the same in 21st (the language).

Cut, Ianto wanks to thoughts of Gwen because she'd give him flowers, and then he falls asleep to thoughts of Jack trying to decode the language.

I'm really a teenage girl, sorry, is what it says, and Twilight.

It's a joke.

But he'd really like the flowers.

Comments

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

So i just had to comment again. though I'll cheat a little and cut and paste what I said.

This was very romantic in the bittersweet sort of sense.

It doesn't have that feeling of wanting to throw up in a bucket.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

It's possibly in that odd place between sweet and quite bitter to keep it from being terrifyingly nauseating. Romantic is good though, thanks.

[hazelayes.livejournal.com]

Interesting, uncomfortable and different :) I like! You got any more hidden away?

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much.

As for more, there is the masterlist/index of my fic here. For Jack/Ianto of this type more or less, I'd suggest reading the stories in the 'Sharing Spaces' cluster really. Or yknow, just go through and read whatever catches your fancy, but if you liked this, that is your next most likely bet of something more or less similar.

Thanks for the comment, I do appreciate and I'll take 'different' any day.

[starshine24mc.livejournal.com]

You really are the master of Ianto's emotions, and I always enjoy your darker Jack--not evil, just....not 21st *L* Thanks again for a really terrific read!

But Twilight? Really? ;)

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much. This was certainly stretching it a bit for me, but I'd like to think it's the type of Ianto that I vaguely reference in another fic, and possibly not the type of Ianto that I write most of the time, but it was a quick fix idea and I did write it in 20 minutes admittedly-- and well, something stood out about it that made it 'part of Ianto' and just barely kept it from being too much.

And yeah, that's Jack for you.

Couldn't resist "Twilight". ;)

[starshine24mc.livejournal.com]

Quick fix, 20 minute write, doesn't matter--you're excellent at what you do, and just know it's appreciated :D

[marita-c.livejournal.com]

YOU ARE AWESOME.

OMG.

My inner emo passive-aggressive 15 YO reared up her ugly head while I was reading this.

Oh, Ianto, I empathize completely. Also, grow up already and stop being such a pussy.

And Jack!!! I could so use this Jack as a model to explain my recent hatred of men, yet at the same time I loved him in this even more than usual.

I don't remember the last time anyone pressed so many of my buttons with 750 words (!!!). Have I mentioned you're awesome?

[cyus.livejournal.com]

HAHA Thanks very much!

I can completely empathize with wanting to smack Ianto around a bit and tell him to grow up. He is extremely passive aggressive and bitey, and I'd hate to think of him being that way all the time, but we all have that kind of days in relationships, and something about this (probably the language, maybe something else) saves it from me from being only immature and stupid teenage fiction, but yeah, glad that worked for you actually since I was a bit unsure about this thing.

And thanks for the comment, appreciate it.

[nancybrown.livejournal.com]

Oh! This was sweet and painful. Great job!

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It is borderline 'too much' for me almost, but something saves it, I think, just not quite sure what it is.

[stuffphile.livejournal.com]

Puzzling, and very interesting. I feel like I missed something, like the first half of the conversation.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I think. It's really not so much about content of any conversation that may have taken place, but more about the style of communication, I guess.

I love your icon, just had to say that.

Thanks for the comment, appreciate it.

[stuffphile.livejournal.com]

You know, that's also how I felt about your story. Your prose is a treat to read.

[jo02]

I'm very bemused, but I think I liked it - enough to send flowers :)

[cyus.livejournal.com]

That's my feeling about it, fairly summed up there. Lol. Thanks. :)

[duck-or-rabbit.livejournal.com]

Ah, I really love this. As it reads to me, there is just so much misunderstanding here between Jack and Ianto, and as much as it hurts me to say it, that's keeping in character with what we saw on the show.

Really, writing something raw like this takes talent. Loved it.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much. It is very much about misunderstanding and miscommunication in a way. Ianto's also a bit of a wet blanket in it, and a bit desperate, which for me scratches at being almost 'too much' but I think it's pulled around by the end and is more self-deprecating and ironic by that point, but yeah -- glad it works for you for the characters we see in canon, and I appreciate your comment.

[owensheart.livejournal.com]

Ths was very different romantic, liked it very much.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much, appreciate it.

[cthonus.livejournal.com]

Very nice but it sounds a hell of a lot like my conversations with my partner to make me 100% comfortable with it :p

[cyus.livejournal.com]

I can very much relate, more to friends I've had, since my partner's very much not passive aggressive, but yeah, I can relate because it's head-to-wall-banging type of communication.

[hab318princess.livejournal.com]

that was wonderful, great the way you get them to miscommunicate... it feels so them

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much, good to hear it worked for you :)

[remuslives23.livejournal.com]

It's very raw and it's a bit excrutiating how they keep hurting each other because they can't communicate. I wanted to slap both of them for very different reasons. It's extraordinarily well written - great work.:)

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Slapping them, oh yeah, I get that notion. It is very much about communication and it extremizes their communication issues a bit, I think, but communication is difficult when everyone operates on secrets and for me that's probably one of the fascinating aspects about the J/I dynamic. Glad you enjoyed it.

[monikkk.livejournal.com]

wow, that was ..original :) i liked it very much:)

[penny-sieve.livejournal.com]

Wow! I've been lurking in your journal reading your fics for the better part of today and I absolutely love your style and the way you portray Ianto! And I'm not into RPF in the least bit but read a couple of your JB/SG ones and was completely blown away by that too.

Hope to see some more from the Sharing Spaces universe.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Whoops, slightly late on the comment reply here, but thanks very much for your comment and I'm glad you enjoyed the stories. I definitely have a soft spot for Ianto and over the course of writing him have probably developed this inner fanon of the character that shows through (even if I'm flexible enough with the shades of it in every story, I think ... I hope). But yeah, thanks, I'm happy to hear that.

And that you enjoyed the RPF.