Torchwood Fic: To Learn This Holding and The Holding Back (Part 3)

[kalichan]

Title: To Learn This Holding And The Holding Back
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Tosh, Gwen, Owen
Authors: rm & kalichan
Rating/Warning: NC-17, mostly plot this time, with a serving of porn for dessert.
Summary: With every night, a morning after. Jack and Ianto try to cope.
Author's Notes: Concludes the triptych begun with A Strange Fashion of Forsaking

Comments

[darthhellokitty]

Oh, my, I enjoyed this so much! I like that, although Jack screws up repeatedly, he also tries repeatedly. I like that he puts Ianto in such an uncomfortable position, and it obviously didn't occur to him that it would be a problem, and yet they ended up having a good time! Ianto is certainly a man of his time, but he's also more flexible than he thinks he is.

I like Ianto stomping around, so pissed off at Jack for just leaving - let alone the thing with the car - considering what happened last time Jack borrowed his car, he should be! Tosh's observation at the very beginning of the story - he'd saunter in after a night of who knows what, or rather who knows who, around six - tells us that this is just what Jack does, and I doubt it occurs to him that it isn't very nice, and especially if he treats someone he has this not-quite-defined-but-certainly-more-than-a-pickup relationship with that way!

The dance scene is great. Ianto's just so appalled, and Jack's so clueless about it, and yet he comes up with a solution - or two solutions - get Ianto to dance with a girl (something he's comfortable with), and get him -relaxed-.

ETA - how did I not comment on the sex scene? DAMN, that was a good sex scene. Yes.

Actually, the fact that at both the beginning and end of the story Jack leaves Ianto sleeping, but that at the end it's all right - I do love that.

I was thinking that in canon, Jack can get drunk, or at least he could when the Victorian lesbians got hold of him - but it occurs to me that things change for him as time goes on - like sleeping - so I'll accept it.

(Forgive my jumbled coherence, I'm taking major pain pills today. This story was an excellent distraction.)

[rm]

Thank you so much. I feel like some of the stuff you pointed out should have been obvious when we were writing but I am reading this comment going "Hey! We did that! Di we know we were doing that? (Kali, did we?). Awesome.

I am glad you liked the sex scene. It was brief and the subject of a lot of discussion about how it was going to go, and Iwe were really pleased with how it sorted out, but unsure how it would read to others.

Alcohol and the kiss of life situation are sort of the two great canon inconsistences that I find it almost impossible to write around if the fic skirts near anything related to either topic. For me this choice comes out of having to make one somehow and my interest in Jack's relationship to self-control, both of the sort he's striving for and te sort he got stuck with. Jack never asked for this, and he makes that plain often. One of the real reasons I have such a passion for this show is that it's the antithesis of the vampire romance. Living forever and being beautiful and cold sort of actually sucks and Jack is a child struggling with that.

Hope the pain pills keep doing their job and that you won't need them soon.

[darthhellokitty]

I did that a couple of times when I wrote, put in whole subplots I didn't know about til people congratulated me on them. XD

It occurs to me that one of the very few ways Jack can lose control is in sex.

[rm]

Not only is it one of the few ways he can lose control, but it's also somethign where it has to be a little hard to keep up the novelty. I mean, Jack's an adventurous guy and he's had sex with a lot of people and beings. So to be on earth for an extended period of time in the 19th/20th/21st century can Jack really make it new with kinkiness? Eh, not so much really, although he's still a kinky guy. So for him the novelty in sex starts to become just about what reactions he can elicit in someone else, which is part of what I think we're looking at here and why the whole strangulation incident that started this is so fascinating to him -- not only was it a matter of a loss of control, but he brought what out? In who? Why? What's up with that? So I think it's why he keeps coming back to working through this thing with Ianto, eventhough it often seems like a bad or even aggravating idea to him.

[darthhellokitty]

I wonder whether Jack's frequent remarks on all the sex he's had mean that he's extremely confident that's he's brilliant at it, or that he's not necessarily sure?

Yeah, obviously what inspired Ianto to do that - not to mention that he came after Jack came back - is something they're both going to be wondering about, and looking for an explanation for, or more than one even.

[rm]

The next two (Kali and I haven't talked that much about the final two and it's too early to say in a certain way) of tehse are going to be very, very sexual and I think a lot of this stuff is going to start, if not sorting out, at least coming to the surface albeit in a relatively non-verbal way.

[kalichan]

Wow. Thanks so much for the lovely, lovely feedback. I saw on your journal what's going on with you, and I really hope you feel better soon. And glad that this worked in any way as a distraction. Yay!

Also so glad you liked the dance scene. We were really into it, but not sure how it was going to go over, so seriously great to know it worked for you.

The alcohol thing is because alcohol works by poisoning you? So when carbon monoxide doesn't work...but yeah, they are not always very good about thinking things through logically in canon. Which is annoying. Don't get me started on the Owen "I have no breath" thing. Yeah, okay dude. How exactly are you talking?? They used to do this in vampire shows too for dramatic effect, and it drives me bonkers.

Sorry for the ramble & thanks again for commenting, esp. when you feel so meh!

[darthhellokitty]

Haha, Owen certainly talked a lot for not having breath. Poor thing.

And thanks - hopefully this stuff will get straightened out right away.