Fanfic - Counting Stars: Clarity [Torchwood: Ianto]

[soera]

So I was re-reading Counting Stars just to refresh my memory on character interactions, and - you know what, I think my writing's evolved. At any rate, I can see some things I don't like in that behemoth - a few poorly-handled POV changes, in particular. Oh well, lessons learned will be applied in future writing. At any rate, have a one-shot from that 'verse:

Title: Clarity
Rating(s): PG-13
Characters/Pairing(s): Dafydd (OC), Ianto, Toshiko, background Jack/Ianto
Warning(s): Homophobic attitudes (which eventually become more moderated, if that helps). Spoilers for Counting Stars, and all attendant changes etc made to canon within that ‘verse.
Summary: Dafydd hasn't been a good older brother, and he knows it.
Author's Notes: Counting Stars-verse - click here for the Master List. For those who don't want to read it, all you need to know is that Jack and Ianto have a telepathic connection, and Ianto may or may not be immortal (they’ll find out next time he dies, I suppose). Oh, also, Tosh and Owen survived the end of Season 2.
This fic is from the POV of Ianto's brother, Dafydd (a minor CS-verse OC).
This fic also references a previous one-shot in this 'verse, Chocolate Cheesecake.


Clarity

The oldest brother is born first so that he can watch over the little ones that come after.

Tad had taught him that, back when he’d been a little thing, peering over the crib at the little bundle of cloth in it. Rhiannon’s face had been pink and squashed and he’d thought there to be nothing uglier. Still, he’d decided then and there that he’d make Tad proud and look after her properly, like a big brother should.

So he had, even when Rhiannon wanted to do stupid things like play with her dollhouse or dress up. (He was still looking for those bloody pictures of him as a seven-year-old wearing their father’s suit jacket and pretending to be Rhiannon’s groom for her ‘wedding.’) It was just his luck that she’d turned out to be really - girly.

For that reason, he’d been ecstatic when Ianto had been born. He took to watching over Ianto the same way he looked after Rhiannon, with perhaps a bit more enthusiasm because at least this baby wouldn’t grow up to try and talk him into wearing a dress. When Ianto got big enough to run around, he insisted on bringing him along to the park when he and Tad went to play rugby. Ianto would toddle along after him, getting in the way more often than not, but he didn’t mind because it was really fun teaching someone who looked up to him like that.

When Ianto had come back from his first day of primary school, it had been Dafydd who’d noticed that Ianto’s smile didn’t look right when he said he’d had a good time. It had been Dafydd who’d found out what happened, and who’d gone and smacked the older kid who’d thought it would be fun to knock Ianto’s lunch into the mud. He’d been grounded for a month for that, but Ianto had faithfully snuck up to his room every night with his dessert and they’d split it between them and it had been more than worth it.

Dafydd took a deep breath of his girlfriend’s hair and sighed. Remembering the beginning made it all the harder to think of what came after. Maybe it had started when their grandfather had died. Dafydd had never been close to the old man himself - he’d been his father’s child through and through - but Ianto had been inordinately attached to him. Dafydd had been jealous of their grandfather on more than one occasion, when Ianto would forego rugby so that he could go help in the tailor shop.

Their grandfather had died when Dafydd was sixteen and Ianto was ten. Ianto had never been really outgoing as a child, but after that, he seemed to become even quieter. And Dafydd did have his own friends and interests, and so maybe he hadn’t paid enough attention to his little brother at that point. That might have been when they started growing apart.

It had taken their father’s death for Dafydd to realise that he didn’t know his little brother any more. He could still remember Ianto standing there by Tad’s coffin, not a tear in sight, an eerily blank expression on his face. He hadn’t cried either, but he’d seen himself in the mirror and been aghast at what he’d glimpsed in his eyes. Ianto… hadn’t looked like he’d cared. And then Dafydd had started thinking over the past few years and realised that the process had started once he’d hit secondary school, slowly growing in momentum, aided by their grandfather’s death. He’d stopped looking after Ianto like he’d promised his Tad.

And he didn’t know his little brother. He didn’t know this solemn, stocky boy whose body was built for the rugby field, but whose mind was most at home amongst thread and bales of cloth. He didn’t know how Ianto was doing at school, who his friends were, what he thought of the rest of his family. What he’d thought of Tad, why he hadn’t cried. He could barely remember the last time he’d had a proper conversation with him.

He’d tried to rectify that, and then the second part of what he’d lost had hit home. Ianto had shied away from talking to him. Ianto hadn’t known what to do with this tall stranger who shared his home. That had somehow hurt just as bad as their father’s death had. Something in Dafydd had resented the fact that Ianto had so easily forgotten how well Dafydd had looked after him once - and if, for a few years, he’d not been as close to him, surely that wasn’t cause to look at him like he was a lunatic for wanting to talk to Ianto? Shouldn’t Ianto have been off making his own friends, finding himself by that age anyway?

Which had been when he’d found out. It had been an accident, of course. He doubted Ianto would have ever voluntarily told any of them. But Dafydd had seen for himself how Ianto had blushed when he saw Max, how Ianto had fidgeted and avoided eye contact like a girl with her first crush.

He hadn’t wanted to believe it. He’d made a joke out of it at first, hoping that Ianto would be properly indignant. But Ianto had flushed scarlet and Dafydd’s heart had dropped to somewhere in the region of his knees.

And then the words. The ugly, horrible words. Every bit of anger he felt (Why did you hate Tad? Why did you forget me? Why are you so quiet, so distant? Why don’t you fit in this family when you’re part of it?) had come flooding out of his mouth in a torrent of aggressive words.

Freak.

Fucking queer.

Pansy.

(How can you do this? Don’t you know what they do to people like you? Why are you trying to get in trouble, with the shoplifting and now this? How can I protect you when you’re going out of your way to put yourself in danger? Why can’t you see how wrong this is?)

And then lashing out, shoving Ianto back in sheer frustration, forgetting where Ianto had been standing. Watching as his baby brother had crashed down the stairs and lain there at the bottom without moving. Trying to figure out what the hell he’d just done.

So he’d stopped.

“I’m thinking lunch at Maxwell’s,” Sandy suggested, peering into her mirror.

“Sure,” Dafydd agreed. “You look fine, baby.”

She turned and flashed him a wide smile. “Thanks. Gotta look better than fine though - big presentation today!”

“You’ll knock their socks off,” Dafydd said confidently.

Sandy laughed. “Let’s hope so! I feel nice and fresh anyway -” She gave him a sly smile. “You wore me out yesterday… I slept like a baby.”

Dafydd leered playfully at her. “We can celebrate tonight once you get this contract.”

“Or you can console me,” she said, turning back to the mirror. “Either way!”

He snorted and grabbed a tie at random, knotting it quickly. He hated the bloody things, but they were a curse every man who worked in a bank had to put up with.

“You don’t look like you slept too well though,” Sandy observed. Dafydd nearly strangled himself with his tie.

“Yeah,” he said. “Woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

She laid a cool hand on his arm. “Something bothering you?”

“Nah,” he said. “It’s nothing important.”

Except he hadn’t really stopped, had he? He’d been desperately confused and terrified all at the same time. He’d never felt like that before, and that it was Ianto causing it all just made it worse.

How could a guy possibly be attracted to another guy? The thought of it turned his stomach, though he didn’t really care so long as it wasn’t shoved in his face. But this was Ianto, his baby brother, and he was - queer? How the hell had that happened?

He couldn’t stop himself trying to convince Ianto to change. It had to be possible to get him back to being normal, surely? But Ianto had started vanishing every time Dafydd was around, and by the time he realised what was going on it was too late to reverse it. Ianto progressively spoke less and less to Dafydd, until Dafydd barely saw his brother even though they were living together. He’d given up then; started staying out more so that Ianto wouldn’t feel like he had to, started hunting for an apartment he could afford. He’d just started his new job a few months back, and it paid well enough that, when combined with the money from a few previous part-time jobs, he was able to put down a deposit on a small flat in Cardiff.

When their mother had remarried, he’d taken it as a sign. He’d proposed to Mabel two months later, and by the time he was twenty-four, he’d been married and living with his new wife in that little flat.

The divorce had gone through six months later. He let her stay in the flat and moved back home.

By that point, Ianto had finished his A-levels (with rather lacklustre grades, unlike both his siblings; it had been a disappointment to his family, but considering how he’d been doing in school, it hadn’t been a surprise) and started working (to his mother’s further distress - she’d wanted him to go to university). Dafydd had wondered if he shouldn’t try and convince Ianto that his future prospects would be a lot brighter with a university degree, but then he’d realised that if he told Ianto to do something, Ianto would probably do exactly the opposite. So he’d bitten his lip and watched as Ianto made a mess of his life. Surely his brother wouldn’t be too proud to ask for help once he realised he was in over his head.

Except Ianto hadn’t. Ianto had done quite well for himself, actually. He’d still been a ghost at home, but somewhere along the way he’d scrimped and saved enough that once he turned twenty-one, he announced his decision to move to London - and it had actually been feasible.

Their mother had been horrified at the prospect of her baby moving away (she’d always spoiled Ianto), but Ianto had been adamant. He’d handled everything himself and, with amazingly little fuss, the house was suddenly Ianto-free.

And suddenly unfamiliar.

“Hey, sweetie,” Sandra said. “Sorry I had to push lunch back. Have a good day so far?”

“Boring day,” Dafydd said, pushing the door open. They both liked this little café because of the privacy granted by the high walls and half-curtains across each booth. You didn’t feel like other people were staring at you. It helped, of course, that the service was quick and the food was good and filling. “How was your presentation?”

She smiled broadly. “We’ll be celebrating tonight,” she said, and he grinned back.

“Excellent,” he said. “Something to look forward to. Going out of my skull, I swear.”

“Tell me about it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Kind of wish I had a more interesting job. Don’t you?”

It had been Rhiannon who’d told him and Mam that Ianto was back in Cardiff. His immediate thought had been Given up at last, has he? and then he’d mentally slapped himself. That kind of knee-jerk reaction had been exactly the reason why he’d sent that nasty email to Ianto. When Mam had left the email open and he’d happened to see it - and then realised it was from Ianto and guiltily read through it - and then realised that after all the worry and frustration, Ianto had wound up with a girl after all - he’d been so angry. And once again, he’d acted before thinking and…

Even after coming to the conclusion that maybe he should try and mend bridges.

Because he really had wanted to. He’d had a good couple of years at that point to think about it. He’d tried to understand it, he really had. He still couldn’t quite stomach it, but it didn’t incite the same kind of revulsion it once had. And some people seemed to think that it was something you were born with - that it wasn’t a choice - so maybe it had been wrong of him to blame Ianto for it after all? At any rate, he’d wanted the chance to try and make things up… and he’d messed it up.

He’d slunk away from the knowledge of what he’d done with his proverbial tail between his legs. Somehow, he doubted Ianto would believe him if he said he was sorry now.

And so Ianto hadn’t bothered telling him (or Mam, for that matter) anything. He’d given Rhiannon a call, told her that he was back in Cardiff. Told her that he’d known people who’d been caught in the terrorist bombings at Canary Wharf. Mam had been out of her mind with worry, but Ianto hadn’t returned any of her calls. Dafydd hadn’t even bothered. He’d known that Ianto wouldn’t pick up.

Ianto completely disappeared for a few months there. Even Rhiannon started to worry, since he’d normally call at least once a month, if only for a few minutes. But eventually, Ianto had turned up at Rhiannon’s. He’d said that he’d found another job there in Cardiff, and that he was coping with what had happened. As it turned out, his girlfriend - Lisa, that was her name - had been killed in the explosion. No wonder the poor bugger had lost it there for a bit.

Dafydd sat and counted his failings. He’d managed to so thoroughly drive Ianto away that Ianto didn’t even feel like he could go to his family for support. He felt thoroughly miserable, and only his new girlfriend (Sandra, who was nothing like Mabel had been, thank god) had managed to cheer him up at all. He’d told her a little of what had happened, and she’d told him to give Ianto some space. To actively work at retraining his instinctive reactions so he wouldn’t screw up if he ever got another chance again.

He’d tried, though he hadn’t held out much hope for ever getting that chance.

Then, just a few months ago, he’d gotten his opportunity. Rhiannon had heard that Ianto was dating a guy now, and then a few weeks later Ianto had called to say he wanted to come over to talk to the family. It was obvious what he wanted to say, and equally obvious that he wouldn’t go over if Dafydd was there. So Dafydd had played along, agreed to leave before Ianto got there - and then snuck back home.

As it turned out, his - boyfriend? - hadn’t been what Ianto had wanted to talk about. Apparently, Ianto was now working for Special Ops. His baby brother, who’d barely scraped through school, didn’t even attend university, was merely average in physical strength - he was in Special Ops. Dafydd would have suspected that Ianto was pulling their collective legs, except he knew that Ianto didn’t care about them enough to joke with them. It was still hard to take in, though, and then Mam had started freaking out and then Ianto had had to leave before Dafydd could talk to him about anything else.

That had been a spectacular failure.

Christmas dinner had gone only slightly better. Dafydd had decided to be polite, but speak as little as possible. It was clear to him now that Ianto didn’t much appreciate being forced to converse with his older brother - so Dafydd would make it easy for him not to. And Dafydd would not give him a reason to be unhappy when talking to him was unavoidable.

He’d kind of hoped that Ianto’s boyfriend looked effeminate, so he could pretend it was a girl (it was a lot easier that way). No such luck though. But this Jack guy seemed like a decent enough sort, and he was cheerful and engaging enough that even Dafydd found himself relaxing. The dinner hadn’t been as awkward as he’d thought it might be, even after he nearly stuffed it up with his ill-timed comment about Ianto sleeping with his boss. He hadn’t meant it maliciously, but he knew Ianto had no reason to believe that.

He worried about Ianto more than ever now. Ianto’s job sounded dangerous, and he just knew that they weren’t really scratching the surface of it. He also knew that he’d lost the right long ago to tell Ianto to get out of it while he could. He wasn’t Ianto’s protector any more - that was Jack’s job.

There was no room left in Ianto’s life for Dafydd.

The café was fairly deserted since they were having such a late lunch. The chime of the little bell above the door was loud in the silence. Dafydd wouldn’t have paid it much attention except that from where he was sitting, he could see the counter - and he could see one of the women there suddenly run over to the door. Friend of hers, maybe?

It was curiosity that made him peek out.

And it was with very wide eyes that he darted back into the relative privacy of his booth, hastily dragging the half-curtain shut.

“What?” Sandra asked warily.

“It’s Ianto,” Dafydd whispered, and Sandra ooh-ed silently. “And a girl in a wheelchair.”

“Know who she is?” Sandra whispered.

“No clue,” he said. “Maybe one of his colleagues? Oh god, don’t sea - they’re seating them here. Shit.”

He fell abruptly silent as Ianto passed by, pushing the wheelchair before him. Dafydd hadn’t gotten a really good glimpse at her face, but she’d seemed pretty, if exhausted. They got settled in the booth next to Dafydd’s, and there was a moment of quiet conversation before Ianto left again, presumably heading to the counter to order.

“Want to spy?” Sandra asked, very quietly. At the considering look in his eyes, she smirked and placed a finger over her lips.

Ianto came back and set the tray down. A moment of silence, then Ianto said, “I checked with Owen.” Dafydd could hear the smile in his voice. He seemed very fond of this girl, whoever she was. Oh, maybe that Tosh girl Ianto had mentioned before, the good friend he’d met through work. They chattered on about inconsequential things, and Dafydd found himself relaxing a little as he listened. There was none of the usual guardedness he’d come to associate with Ianto.

The whole no-kissing-and-telling thing is lost on you, isn’t it?

Sandra looked like she was trying not to laugh. Dafydd found himself suddenly, inexplicably relieved that at least this one person seemed to have no problems with Ianto’s and Jack’s relationship. Seemed, in fact, to be strangely interested in it.

You know, Owen and Gwen have this ongoing argument about what sex between you two is like.

Dafydd dropped his fork. Sandra doubled over in silent laughter.

The girl elaborated. Dafydd was fairly certain his face was capable of rivalling a tomato. Sandra looked like she might have hurt something trying to keep the laughter in. Then Ianto turned the conversation on his friend, and if Dafydd hadn’t been so busy trying to tamp down his own totally inappropriate desire to laugh, he might have applauded his brother.

They’re not always Jack’s ideas, you know.

There was a queer sound of liquid-y sputtering, and then the girl started coughing. Hard. Dafydd and Sandra smirked at each other over their meals. But then something funny happened there - Ianto sounded actually worried for her. And what was that about stitches? Dafydd’s stomach did a funny little lurch as Ianto talked soothingly to the girl. There was something about the calm efficiency with which his brother dealt with the situation that made Dafydd think possibly torn stitches weren’t anything new to him.

The idea terrified him.

He paid very close attention as Ianto and the girl continued to talk. The conversation seemed to have taken on a sombre tone, though. Blood in her lungs. What had happened to her, anyway?

I didn’t have time to feel much. He shot me - what was it, thrice?

Dafydd could have sworn his heart just stopped.

What the fuck did his baby brother do? What were they talking about - nearly dying, and hearing friends shot, and radioactivity, and shit, Ianto was in Special Ops and did that mean he’d been involved with those bloody bombings a couple of weeks back, and what the bloody hell was Ianto getting himself into, dammit?

Why was Ianto laughing about getting shot? Five years life expectancy? No, no, no. He didn’t want to lose Ianto, not so soon, not like that. Not a violent death for his Ianto. Ianto was supposed to live to a hundred and die old and grey and surrounded by people who loved him.

Don’t get so caught up in mourning her that you forget she’s still alive.

It would, Dafydd thought faintly, be good advice if he didn’t feel like he was about to hyperventilate.

“Breathe,” Sandra hissed, reaching over the table and taking his hand firmly in hers.

“What does he do?” Dafydd mouthed at her. She shrugged helplessly as silence momentarily descended on the next booth. Cutlery clinked quietly.

Then the girl began to speak again, talking about her family, and it seemed like there was some big mystery there too. Dafydd listened half-heartedly, not sure if he could take any more shocks to his system, but unwilling to sacrifice any morsel of information about his brother. The girl was inviting Ianto over to her family reunion, and Dafydd couldn’t help but wonder exactly how close the two of them were.

He’d probably have more luck convincing Ianto to strip naked, paint himself pink and do cartwheels down the street than convincing him to come to a full family reunion. Christmas dinner had been a miracle, and Dafydd suspected the only reason Ianto had come, had been Jack.

It wouldn’t be the same without my onii-san there.

What did that mean? Then the girl went on to say that Ianto spoke perfect Japanese, which made Dafydd’s innards squirm uncomfortably. He hadn’t known that. He was rapidly coming to realise just how much he didn’t know about his brother.

He listened to the foreign words rolling off Ianto’s tongue, and felt a flood of admiration for him.

See the place when we’re not frantically chasing evil villains and the like.

He couldn’t even be amused by the terminology his brother had chosen to employ, not even when he heard the girl’s reply, or Ianto’s subsequent retort. He licked his lips as the wheelchair squeaked past and the door eventually swung shut, bell chiming softly. Torchwood, his brother had said. He worked for Torchwood. He’d heard of them, just rumours and half-baked stories. No one seemed to know much about them. They were Special Ops then, were they? And Ianto worked for them…

Dafydd had no idea what to do with what he’d just learnt.

His baby brother had been shot. Had, from the sounds of it, nearly died. And there was bloody nothing Dafydd could do about it. His baby bro -

Well, there was his problem.

Because Ianto wasn’t the baby of the family any more, was he? Somewhere along the way, Ianto had grown up and Dafydd had managed to miss the whole damn thing.

“Dafydd?” Sandra said. “What are you going to do?”

He’d been going about things wrong this whole time. Ianto didn’t need a protector in Dafydd - not that Dafydd had done a bang-up job of it, exactly. But he didn’t need that anymore. Dafydd wasn’t sure Ianto even needed a brother. But maybe, just maybe… they could at least start out as casual acquaintances, and slowly make their way to being friends.

“Dafydd?” Sandra asked uncertainly.

Calling him was out of the question; Ianto wouldn’t answer. Maybe an email, if it came from an address Ianto didn’t recognise, and if Dafydd could write something in the first line that would convince Ianto to keep reading. Hi, Ianto. This is your first-class idiot of an older brother writing to apologise for being such a bastard to you.

It seemed like his best shot. And then he’d ask what he should do about what he’d heard. Ask Ianto if he was all right, because Dafydd couldn’t help worrying. Ask Ianto if he could tell Mam, because he wasn’t doing it without his permission. Ask Ianto if Jack had been hurt, because if his team had been involved and the girl and Ianto had both been hurt, then Jack might have been too and - and Jack was family now, and so Dafydd worried about him too. He didn’t know if Ianto would believe him. It was kind of surprising to realise it was all true. He’d just have to keep his fingers crossed.

“Dafydd,” Sandra said, shaking his arm. “Hey, you in there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry, baby, was just - thinking.”

“Thinking pretty hard,” she said. “So…?” She nodded significantly towards the exit. “How’re you feeling?”

Dafydd paused for a moment to consider that, then smiled at her. She raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Really proud,” he said, and found that the words rang true.

~fin

CC much appreciated. Also, FYI for those who might have missed it: there's a soundtrack for Counting Stars now available here.