I am going to post a series of shorts that I did about Jack and Ianto in this section. Some will pre COE as will some be post COE. They are just bits of their feelings and lives. I thought I would begin with this one, since I so loved this story as a kid.
Thank you all for reading! Peace!
This story is based around the children's story the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.
Disclaimer to her work and Torchwood. I don't own them and would never abuse them for personal profit.
The Velveteen Ianto
"Rabbit couldn't claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed."
Late night, for they always were when one worked for Torchwood, found Ianto Jones leaving the Hub alone.
Early Gwen ran out claiming that Rhys was going to murder her for being late to his parents. She barley waved as she jumped the lift and was out of sight. Jack just let her go, she had a life outside of all this.
Owen was next, swaggering his way to the cog door with his knapsack over his shoulder. "Maybe late for work tomorrow, Jack, big night on the pull and all. That new pizza delivery girl, she has a thing for me. So Dad…" he smirked as his boss, "don't wait up!" He barely missed Tosh as he left.
Her gazed looked up from the file to follow Owen out of the room. She frowned a little deeper, pursed her lips in sorrow and returned to her computer.
Jack had not even noticed the sweet tech Diva's state for he made his intentions known. "I have an appointment. See you all tomorrow. Good night Tosh." He passed by her, clasping her shoulder lightly.
He paused for a moment to study Ianto Jones before he left. Yelling over his shoulder. "Both of you leave early. I don't want to be left without an extra body if Owen proves to be absent tomorrow." With not even a friendly nod or a wink, Jack left Ianto standing there feel indeed cold, alone and unloved.
Tosh noticed his state for she knew what it was like. Owen never noticed her unless he needed something done. She always knew what her Welsh friend felt for their magnetic boss. "Ianto, I'm sure it's nothing, he must have something going on. Estelle, the fairies, the cannibals, he just needs space." She conveniently left out Lisa. Tosh was not one to bring up the real problem. Or at least what she thinks is the real problem.
"Tosh, Jack and I, we have been, well, I can't put it any way but we have been shagging, quite regularly as a fact." He blushed as he waited for her jaw to hit the floor.
Gently Tosh, the beauty behind the brains, didn't act surprised. She nodded and said; "I have known that for sometime Ianto. I walked in on the two of you one day. I didn't mean to. But I have known. It must hurt to know that you aren't "real" to him. That you aren't the only one." She regretted the words as soon as the left her thoughts and came out of her mouth.
"I know what he is Tosh. I have no illusions to what I am to him. It is just, like you wish Owen to one day say those words we all want to hear. I wish Jack could. Just make this real. I don't care if I not the only one. I just want to be above the others. I'm not looking for him to be monogamous, just that I am special, real to him, not just a distraction. Like…" He paused gathering his emotions together before he exploded.
"Like he was while Lisa was still with you." He nodded at his friend's wisdom. " Oh Ianto, I understand. Just don't expect more from Jack. He may care but he seems to not get attached. Can you understand? Just take what he gives. It is better then being alone."
Weakly Ianto smiled, nodding he made his excuses. "Well, thanks, I will keep that in mind. Now if you don't mind, the Weevil cages won't clean them selves so I say good night. Why don't you go home and get some rest. I'll stay a bit."
She sadly smiled at her friend as she gathered her things. Some how she felt that she opened her mouth, when she should have just listen. As she watched the young man leave she wondered why she couldn't fall for him. Two lost souls would have been good for each other. They could mourn over loves lost and find happiness together.
Leaving with out looking back, she didn't notice the silent Rift spike that appeared for a spec of a moment on her computer screen. As quick as it appeared it was gone.
So with the Hub cleaned and it residence feed and bedded for the night, Ianto finished some paper work for Jack. Pacing he realized Jack would not be back for the night, so rejection in his heart, he locked up the tourist office and headed for the long walk home. He could of driven but he felt the need for the crisp bay air to clear his head before another sleepless night claimed him. The unhappy man was too preoccupied to notice the wisp of white puffy mist following him.
"Nursery magic was very strange and wonderful and only those play things that are old and wise experienced like the skin horse understood all about it"
"What is real?" The Rabbit asked one day.
Ianto Jones was a man of determination. After all it was this personality trait that got him in the job at not only Torchwood One, but Torchwood Three as well. But his thoughts on Jack always led to the same place. "I'm not real enough for him to love." He was beginning to think this was true of himself. But then he would remember those blue eyes foggy with love play. The things Jack would do. Those soft lips on every thing Ianto were enough to make him believe that maybe it would, could be real someday.
He shook his head of the schoolboy wishes of being loved by the one you desire and set his stern face with the task at hand. It was time to stop feeling for Jack Harkness, to move on and find some one to love him, something to make the feeling real for him again. "Yes…" he thought, "just as it was with Lisa. In that same way, knowing that no mater what, we would be together, accepting each other's faults and talents." This time he would break free of the demon that persuaded him that getting involved with Jack before and again after Lisa was a very good idea. Next time he would say "no" to those rough kisses and hot foreplay that seemed to lead down the path of no return. Next he would aim for real and not just anything. Of course it wouldn't be easy to say 'no" to Jack. But if it meant that in the long run Jack would love him then it was worth testing his will power.
Pulling his jacket around himself as he began to shiver, he cursed himself for not taking his warmer coat and for not just getting in the car in the first place. He missed his turn for his flat some time back. Looking around he realized that his lost thoughts on Jack made him miss where he was altogether. He turned around frantically as he realized he didn't know where the hell he was.
First he took a breath a reached for his phone. It was dead. Strange he had just charged it. Next he panicked for though he was on a city block, he didn't think it was Cardiff. The buildings started to shift and change colors. Actually they were devoid of color, actual in Ianto's observation, they were more like a film or a set then solid building.
"Shit! What did I step though, where the hell am I?" He began to panic. Since he knew that emotions like that would get him killed. He reached into his himself and pulled out his focused part. At least now he would seem intelligent to whomever or whatever was now, to his knowledge, watching him.
Light in the filmy background surrounded the entity, as it began to take on a shape before him. If shape was what it was. The shimmering translucent being seemed to just drift through the forming world that was all around Ianto. Gold highlights shaped multi limbs that were long, like tentacles. They dances around a crown of blue light that could be considered a mane of hair that shaped a head in soft pink skin tone, almost the color of a youthful child. The creature stopped forming as its eyes took hold of Ianto standing before it.
"Real is not how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time not just to play with, but really loves you then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"You have a question, yes?" It bored into Ianto's thoughts make him wince with pain a little.
Ianto hesitated. "I'm lost, I just want to go home."
The creature shifted its color to green for the moment in which it processed Ianto's words. Then with a return to its colors, it answered. "This could be your home. I could make it one for you." The creature said color went to lavender before all colors returning to their proper places.
Ianto breathed in heavily before he answered. "Yes you could, but it wouldn't be my home."
"There is one that means this home you speak of. I can see that the first thought you had was that you would never see this other again, yes?" The entity returned to green again as it waited for Ianto's answer.
"Well that is rude, isn't it? You just pulled that out of my head didn't you. He is not the reason I wouldn't stay." Ianto had just lied, he didn't know why but he did.
The creature return from green to blue and in a few more moments went back to its original colors.
"You are not full of truth. It was your lonely thoughts, those of him, that led me to you. I followed you as you step into my world. I could be he." Suddenly the fake world became scene with a picnic basket by a riverbank, Jack spreading the blanket out as he smiled at Ianto.
"Jack?" Ianto knew it wasn't him, just every bit like Jack. He reached with out thinking for the man before him. Flesh, warm, firm, greeted his hand. The other one followed and headed for the creature Jack's face. Soft in the right spots and warm, the smell that was only Jack's leapt at Ianto's nose. He swooned as he pulled this Jack in for a kiss.
That is where the illusion ended. "You are not Jack."
"No I am not Jack, but you could make me Jack."
"No I couldn't." Ianto sighed as he watched the entity return to being itself, the scene again surreal buildings. "Jack is Jack because of the sum total of his experiences. I could never make Jack because I'm just a small part of his experiences." It was in that statement that Ianto realized what this encounter was all about. "I see, you never wanted to be Jack, you wanted me to see the real Jack, what I do love about him. And that is because he is Jack. He is real." Ianto smiled at the creature.
"You make him real, he makes you real. That is what you need to remember. That only you can shape your reality. And once it is there, things may bump into it and misshape it a bit, but the underline feeling that forms it, love you call, will always be there." The wobbly shapes of the buildings shimmered one last time, then they flicked leaving Ianto and the entity on a dark road one block from Ianto's flat. The creature as well began to fade.
"Wait I want to help you. Help you get you back to where you belong. Please, that is my job." Ianto held out his hand to the creature as it dematerialize and became a wispy cloud again.
Some where in Ianto's mind a small though said as the creature vanished. "I'm already there. Live and be Real."
Ianto stood alone on the street of a very real Cardiff. He shook again from the cold as he walked to his flat. The thoughts of his creature friend were still in his mind when at his door he saw Jack waiting for him.
Jack's head shot up from his thoughts and with his stunning smile he warmly greeted Ianto.
"My neighbors are going to think I'm in trouble with the law or the mob with you standing there." He moved around the ever present being of Jack and some how manage to get his key in his lock. Jack's breath was felt on the back of his neck as he forced himself to walk through the door.
" I was upset when you weren't at the hub. Can I come in?" Jack seemed hopeful when Ianto smiled at him.
"What your other plans didn't come through?" Ianto looked at the Captain and could tell just when his confidence fell.
"There were no other plans. I just thought that maybe we needed a break. For myself I can say it was a bad idea." He stared at the younger man as his eyes softened for one unschooled moment.
"Jack, be real for me. Just, be something for me. I don't want emptiness. I know you won't be here forever, neither will I but for now, while we can, be real for me." He stared at Jack realizing that he must seem hysterical.
Jack closed the gap between them and shuffled Ianto into the flat, kicking the door shut behind him.
Rough kissing led two troubled souls to the bedroom. They discovered what "Real" was when the fell naked on the bed. Ianto mused that his saying "no" was a thing that could never be. Not with Jack anyway.
In the end two souls lost were in each other's arms. Jack slept as Ianto huddled next to him. He knew then that what Jack was willing to give him was more, much more then words could say. And in the end life would catch them up. But what they had would be forever Real. With that he cuddled up next to his Captain and slept.
The End.