Ficlet: Different
Title: Different
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Lisa, Yvonne Hartman.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Tiny for Fragments & Cyberwoman.
Summary: Ianto isn’t entirely like other people thanks to his remarkable memory.
Word Count: 595
Written For: m_findlow’s prompt ‘Torchwood, Ianto, eidetic memory,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
A/N: I’ve never really been happy with this one, I’m still not, but I’m running out of fics to post that don’t still need a ton of work, so…
When Ianto told people ‘I know everything’, it wasn’t an idle boast, just the simple truth. For some reason, his brain worked very differently from most people’s. All he had to do was read something once and he’d have that information at his fingertips forever after. It wasn’t just the contents of books that were, in effect, permanently downloaded into his memory either; it was the same with anything he looked at, from posters to photographs to movies, and even ordinary, everyday objects.
Not only that, but he could remember and quote every line of dialogue from evert TV show or movie, the lyrics to every song he’d ever heard, and if he’d had a better vocal range, he could have sung them too. Show him something for a few seconds then take it away and ask him to describe it, and he could, down to the last detail. Have a conversation with him and he could repeat it word for word days, weeks, months, ever years later. Once he’d seen or heard something, it was never forgotten, even if he occasionally had to rummage around the filing cabinets of his brain to locate what he was looking for.
When he’d been a young boy he’d thought everyone’s brains worked the same way, unaware of how unique his ability was, but as he’d grown older and realised he wasn’t like the other kids, he’d done his best to conceal the thing that made him so different, deliberately passing himself off as an average student. On the estate it was best to blend in with the crowd; those who stood out for any reason got picked on, bullied, or ostracised. He didn’t even tell his parents or his older sister, afraid they would see him as a freak and wouldn’t want him anymore. As different as he was, the last thing he wanted was to be alone in the world.
Nevertheless, he hadn’t been able to hide his incredible memory from everyone; Torchwood had been searching for someone like him for a long time, someone who could remember and reproduce anything he read, learn any language, describe anything he saw with almost photographic accuracy. Yvonne Hartman ‘recruited’ Ianto personally, well aware of what an asset he could be to the institute.
Hartman had put Lisa in charge of him; she’d been his handler, the one who gave him his assignments and accompanied him everywhere. Before long he’d fallen head over heels in love with her, and amazingly she’d felt the same way, though they’d hidden their relationship from their superiors, knowing that Hartman wouldn’t approve. Ianto was seen by the Institute not as a person but as a valuable commodity; he’d been a virtual prisoner, housed within the tower and only allowed outside in Lisa’s company; it hadn’t been much of a life, but they’d made the best of it, content with simply being together.
Then the battle against the Cybermen and Daleks had happened, Lisa had been injured, partially converted, and Ianto had been left with no choice but to escape with her. She was all he had, the only person who cared about him, so there was no doubt in his mind that he would do whatever he could to save her. As they fled London heading for Torchwood Three, Ianto resolved that if his plan worked and he did manage to get himself a job with the Cardiff branch, he was never going to let Captain Harkness know the truth about him. Now that he was free, he intended to stay that way.
TBC in ' Preparing'
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Lisa, Yvonne Hartman.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Tiny for Fragments & Cyberwoman.
Summary: Ianto isn’t entirely like other people thanks to his remarkable memory.
Word Count: 595
Written For: m_findlow’s prompt ‘Torchwood, Ianto, eidetic memory,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
A/N: I’ve never really been happy with this one, I’m still not, but I’m running out of fics to post that don’t still need a ton of work, so…
When Ianto told people ‘I know everything’, it wasn’t an idle boast, just the simple truth. For some reason, his brain worked very differently from most people’s. All he had to do was read something once and he’d have that information at his fingertips forever after. It wasn’t just the contents of books that were, in effect, permanently downloaded into his memory either; it was the same with anything he looked at, from posters to photographs to movies, and even ordinary, everyday objects.
Not only that, but he could remember and quote every line of dialogue from evert TV show or movie, the lyrics to every song he’d ever heard, and if he’d had a better vocal range, he could have sung them too. Show him something for a few seconds then take it away and ask him to describe it, and he could, down to the last detail. Have a conversation with him and he could repeat it word for word days, weeks, months, ever years later. Once he’d seen or heard something, it was never forgotten, even if he occasionally had to rummage around the filing cabinets of his brain to locate what he was looking for.
When he’d been a young boy he’d thought everyone’s brains worked the same way, unaware of how unique his ability was, but as he’d grown older and realised he wasn’t like the other kids, he’d done his best to conceal the thing that made him so different, deliberately passing himself off as an average student. On the estate it was best to blend in with the crowd; those who stood out for any reason got picked on, bullied, or ostracised. He didn’t even tell his parents or his older sister, afraid they would see him as a freak and wouldn’t want him anymore. As different as he was, the last thing he wanted was to be alone in the world.
Nevertheless, he hadn’t been able to hide his incredible memory from everyone; Torchwood had been searching for someone like him for a long time, someone who could remember and reproduce anything he read, learn any language, describe anything he saw with almost photographic accuracy. Yvonne Hartman ‘recruited’ Ianto personally, well aware of what an asset he could be to the institute.
Hartman had put Lisa in charge of him; she’d been his handler, the one who gave him his assignments and accompanied him everywhere. Before long he’d fallen head over heels in love with her, and amazingly she’d felt the same way, though they’d hidden their relationship from their superiors, knowing that Hartman wouldn’t approve. Ianto was seen by the Institute not as a person but as a valuable commodity; he’d been a virtual prisoner, housed within the tower and only allowed outside in Lisa’s company; it hadn’t been much of a life, but they’d made the best of it, content with simply being together.
Then the battle against the Cybermen and Daleks had happened, Lisa had been injured, partially converted, and Ianto had been left with no choice but to escape with her. She was all he had, the only person who cared about him, so there was no doubt in his mind that he would do whatever he could to save her. As they fled London heading for Torchwood Three, Ianto resolved that if his plan worked and he did manage to get himself a job with the Cardiff branch, he was never going to let Captain Harkness know the truth about him. Now that he was free, he intended to stay that way.
TBC in ' Preparing'