Part 2 of the Uncomfortable Realizations
Title: The Uncomfortable Moment in Which Ianto Realizes He Does Not Want to Clean a Litter Box, and Others.
Rating: PG
Genre: Slash
Summary: Ianto has a problem or two himself, and he sure wishes he didn't. (Companion piece to Jack's uncomfortable moment.)
Ianto is seated in his usual spot in the National Gallery when the realization hits him: All the significant problems in his life can be traced back to one seemingly innocuous fact. Ianto Jones is a sucker for beauty.
He hopes, with some small measure of amusing insecurity, that this is the trait of neither some ancient grand dame nor of an overly educated, feminized Bond villain, stroking an immaculate white Persian, gold pinky ring gleaming on hand, a beautifully cut crystal decanter stage left.
Ianto quirks one corner of his mouth up in acknowledgment of both the ridiculous image of himself in that particular scene and at his unshakeable, if relatively low-grade, fear that he is somehow destined to remain, at best, just a boy in the eyes of others. Not a raw knuckled man, just a ... nice boy. At least, he is certain that this is how his Aunt Amelia, his mother, next-door neighbor, postal workers, college crushes, filling station clerks and all manner of random poodles see him. You, there, lovely boy! I say, come closer. Let us give your sweet cheeks a pinch and slip a hundred-year-old candy in your palm while we're at it.
Ianto shudders and thinks this latest realization will do nothing to improve his masculine self esteem. Sighs. Then wonders why it's taken him quite so long to see this spectacularly obvious truth.
Philosophically, he recalls his Plato. Beauty, Ianto remembers, exists recognizable as a reminder that we are all derived from and evolving to a state of perfection. And physical beauty, specifically, as a gateway -- a starter kit, training wheels -- for the greater comprehension of inner beauty, truth, philosophy.
Ianto snorts: Perhaps he should be taking notes so as to remember more clearly this particular line of thought, primarily for his unnecessarily expository oration following the elaborate heist of the Louvre. He wonders where one can acquire a Persian kitten so late in the day in this February twilight; he wonders how old the kitten will need to be before it is declawed. After all, brocade is so easily snagged.
Still, Ianto hopes there is a some glimmer of depth to him, seeing how it was the expression on Leonardo's Saint Anne, the conveyance of an endlessly deep acceptance and beatific affection wrought by the coalescing, layered lines of the drawing, that so moved him in this moment.
And, dear lord, doesn't this make so many of his own decisions, which he has to admit baffled even himself as he made them, ever so much more understandable? In a rare moment of objectivity or dispassion, Ianto sees Lisa may have well worn a flashing neon sign stating, "Here be dragons," from the very moment they met. But, honestly, who could have expected him to look beyond the charted territory of her flawless skin, a map of creamy exploration and certain order.
Yes, the order he pursued, too. What is beauty but nature's expression of perfect order?
At this thought, Ianto puzzles the other occupant of the gallery with his softly uttered, "Shit." How could this Da Vinci piece he'd been staring so intently through for the past ten minutes have inspired the corner tug of amusement, the quick frown, subtly altered into the look of recognition, then resignation, and finally followed by a genuinely irked, "Shit"? She shakes her own staring gaze from the dialog chasing across this lovely boy's face, uncomfortable with the dawning realization that the silent picture projected there signifies a consciousness unto itself, a complete and actual self in someone other than her own self.
She turns on her heel and heads out into the square, determined to find a Starbucks within easy walking distance.
Ianto, only marginally aware of his unknown companion's departure, marks his next realization with a spoken curse and unconsciously rearranges his features into yet another expression of comprehension.
Oh yes, well hell, this certainly explains Jack. Jesus holy saints, Jack. Ianto wonders if it is possible for a human creature to comprehend in his entirety the glory that is Jack. Nature absurdly and ultimately expresses the perfection of order in the line of Jack's nose, in the corded curve of Jack's forearm -- one-third exposed from behind the rolled up sleeve of his button-down blue shirts -- and in the achingly indescribable pearlescence of his miraculous teeth.
This, he realizes at last, has been Ianto's approach in perceiving Jack's inexplicable, but somehow totally necessary, beauty. Take a catalog of each exquisite, yet undeniably male, piece -- and Ianto appreciates the irony of this masculine component, acknowledged as it is, by himself -- and try to understand each bit individually. Eventually, the addition of each part should resolve itself into some otherworldly connotation of the whole of Jack's beauty.
If Plato is correct, if the ability to divine the entirety of Jack's physical perfection paves the way to the recognition of some intellectual or emotional beauty, Ianto knows he ought to prepare himself for something not yet seen on this planet. All unifying formulae of M Theory or the schematics to world peace: such is Ianto's suspicion of the vastness of Jack's gorgeousness.
And meanwhile, though this is probably the first time he has thought this thought, a sonnet lies in every pore on Jack's body.
Ianto stops short, snorts again, clears his throat, and tells himself to forget the decanter; just go ahead and pick up the floral dress, a tiara, and, excuse me, if you wouldn't mind, I'll take all five kittens?
Lingering yet, unable to let go the entire rationale, Ianto knows being a sucker for beauty is just as bad as being a sucker for love, and it explains every corner of how his life has got to be so difficult, of the money spent on suits, why he can't quite clear his head of the absent humming, even of why he has never quite taken to bloody Owen.
Finally, Ianto laughs has he realizes this could be why, despite everything, he has started to really, really like Jack Harkness.
-- The End --
( Fic Index)
Rating: PG
Genre: Slash
Summary: Ianto has a problem or two himself, and he sure wishes he didn't. (Companion piece to Jack's uncomfortable moment.)
Ianto is seated in his usual spot in the National Gallery when the realization hits him: All the significant problems in his life can be traced back to one seemingly innocuous fact. Ianto Jones is a sucker for beauty.
He hopes, with some small measure of amusing insecurity, that this is the trait of neither some ancient grand dame nor of an overly educated, feminized Bond villain, stroking an immaculate white Persian, gold pinky ring gleaming on hand, a beautifully cut crystal decanter stage left.
Ianto quirks one corner of his mouth up in acknowledgment of both the ridiculous image of himself in that particular scene and at his unshakeable, if relatively low-grade, fear that he is somehow destined to remain, at best, just a boy in the eyes of others. Not a raw knuckled man, just a ... nice boy. At least, he is certain that this is how his Aunt Amelia, his mother, next-door neighbor, postal workers, college crushes, filling station clerks and all manner of random poodles see him. You, there, lovely boy! I say, come closer. Let us give your sweet cheeks a pinch and slip a hundred-year-old candy in your palm while we're at it.
Ianto shudders and thinks this latest realization will do nothing to improve his masculine self esteem. Sighs. Then wonders why it's taken him quite so long to see this spectacularly obvious truth.
Philosophically, he recalls his Plato. Beauty, Ianto remembers, exists recognizable as a reminder that we are all derived from and evolving to a state of perfection. And physical beauty, specifically, as a gateway -- a starter kit, training wheels -- for the greater comprehension of inner beauty, truth, philosophy.
Ianto snorts: Perhaps he should be taking notes so as to remember more clearly this particular line of thought, primarily for his unnecessarily expository oration following the elaborate heist of the Louvre. He wonders where one can acquire a Persian kitten so late in the day in this February twilight; he wonders how old the kitten will need to be before it is declawed. After all, brocade is so easily snagged.
Still, Ianto hopes there is a some glimmer of depth to him, seeing how it was the expression on Leonardo's Saint Anne, the conveyance of an endlessly deep acceptance and beatific affection wrought by the coalescing, layered lines of the drawing, that so moved him in this moment.
And, dear lord, doesn't this make so many of his own decisions, which he has to admit baffled even himself as he made them, ever so much more understandable? In a rare moment of objectivity or dispassion, Ianto sees Lisa may have well worn a flashing neon sign stating, "Here be dragons," from the very moment they met. But, honestly, who could have expected him to look beyond the charted territory of her flawless skin, a map of creamy exploration and certain order.
Yes, the order he pursued, too. What is beauty but nature's expression of perfect order?
At this thought, Ianto puzzles the other occupant of the gallery with his softly uttered, "Shit." How could this Da Vinci piece he'd been staring so intently through for the past ten minutes have inspired the corner tug of amusement, the quick frown, subtly altered into the look of recognition, then resignation, and finally followed by a genuinely irked, "Shit"? She shakes her own staring gaze from the dialog chasing across this lovely boy's face, uncomfortable with the dawning realization that the silent picture projected there signifies a consciousness unto itself, a complete and actual self in someone other than her own self.
She turns on her heel and heads out into the square, determined to find a Starbucks within easy walking distance.
Ianto, only marginally aware of his unknown companion's departure, marks his next realization with a spoken curse and unconsciously rearranges his features into yet another expression of comprehension.
Oh yes, well hell, this certainly explains Jack. Jesus holy saints, Jack. Ianto wonders if it is possible for a human creature to comprehend in his entirety the glory that is Jack. Nature absurdly and ultimately expresses the perfection of order in the line of Jack's nose, in the corded curve of Jack's forearm -- one-third exposed from behind the rolled up sleeve of his button-down blue shirts -- and in the achingly indescribable pearlescence of his miraculous teeth.
This, he realizes at last, has been Ianto's approach in perceiving Jack's inexplicable, but somehow totally necessary, beauty. Take a catalog of each exquisite, yet undeniably male, piece -- and Ianto appreciates the irony of this masculine component, acknowledged as it is, by himself -- and try to understand each bit individually. Eventually, the addition of each part should resolve itself into some otherworldly connotation of the whole of Jack's beauty.
If Plato is correct, if the ability to divine the entirety of Jack's physical perfection paves the way to the recognition of some intellectual or emotional beauty, Ianto knows he ought to prepare himself for something not yet seen on this planet. All unifying formulae of M Theory or the schematics to world peace: such is Ianto's suspicion of the vastness of Jack's gorgeousness.
And meanwhile, though this is probably the first time he has thought this thought, a sonnet lies in every pore on Jack's body.
Ianto stops short, snorts again, clears his throat, and tells himself to forget the decanter; just go ahead and pick up the floral dress, a tiara, and, excuse me, if you wouldn't mind, I'll take all five kittens?
Lingering yet, unable to let go the entire rationale, Ianto knows being a sucker for beauty is just as bad as being a sucker for love, and it explains every corner of how his life has got to be so difficult, of the money spent on suits, why he can't quite clear his head of the absent humming, even of why he has never quite taken to bloody Owen.
Finally, Ianto laughs has he realizes this could be why, despite everything, he has started to really, really like Jack Harkness.
-- The End --
( Fic Index)