Torchwood: Fanfic: Not hard to see

[m_findlow]

Title: Not hard to see
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, mentions Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 715 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Torchwood, Jack, you had to look hard to spot the fifty first century bits" at fic_promptly
Summary: Ianto knows Jack better than anyone.

Ianto laughed at Jack when he tried not to compare himself to them. He'd tell them he was alien, or at the very least that he wasn't human like them. Three thousand years of evolution was a lot according to him. Ianto couldn't understand it. It had taken fifty thousand years to get from apes to humans, so what difference could another three thousand years possibly make?

It was hard to spot the differences, especially since Jack's immortality hid so much of what would have made him a normal aging mortal. You really did have to look quite hard to pick out anything that wasn't quite the same, and Ianto knew Jack's body better than anyone. If he couldn't spot the differences, then no one could.

But the differences were there. They were tiny, almost insignificant things, but Ianto was keeping a list. He wanted to know Jack more intimately than anyone ever had.

One of the first things he'd come to notice was the lack of those little moon shaped colorings on his nails. Everyone else had them, right down near the cuticles, but Jack's were noticeably absent. Ianto had spent enough time admiring those strong hands to know that no matter how many times he took them in his hand and inspected them, that small marker wasn't there. Jack couldn't explain that one, simply saying he didn't know what the point of it was in the first place, so how could you miss something that had no purpose?

Owen had discovered he had four less bones in his body than his twenty-first century compatriots, and two extra teeth on the top jaw. The teeth could have been a freak occurrence, since Owen argued you should have a matching set in the bottom to go with them. Jack laughed him off. Wouldn't his smile be crooked if he had too many teeth, and those extra bones missing from the base of his spine seemed to be replaced by simply larger vertebrae higher up. Perhaps it explained why Jack could inhale his food faster than anyone Ianto had ever met, and why he was so remarkably flexible in bed.

His eyes were an unusual shade, too. Dazzling blue to the average passer by, and stunning up close, but the longer you looked at them, the more you noticed there were about five other colors in there as well, and that they changed constantly as your stared. Ianto could get lost in them at the best of times, but sometimes it was like staring at one of those magic eye pictures, where he expected something to suddenly leap out from them. How Jack's eyes could be simultaneously blue, green, brown, violet, gold and silver all at the same time was beyond comprehension. 'My mum had the same eyes,' Jack shrugged, finding it unremarkable. 'I bet if I stared at yours long enough, I'd see all kinds of things.' 'Only in your imagination,' Ianto had replied, knowing exactly what sort of things Jack might picture in his mind's eye, and none of them hidden in his sky blue irises.

There were a dozen other things Ianto might have noticed if he'd been a medical and anatomical expert, but it was hard to discern what was simply the endless variety of genetics and what was mutated over centuries of evolution. Was Jack's appetite and ability to consume huge quantities of sugar without ill effects a by-product of his immortality, or did he simply have a cast iron stomach and hollow legs? Was his sleep requirement normal for someone from the future? Did everyone in the future have broad shoulders, a strong jawline, and devilishly good looks, or was Jack just singularly blessed? Too many questions and not enough answers.

Sure there might have been little things here and there which separated them at the physical level, but as far as Ianto was concerned, Jack was as human as they came, regardless of which century he happened to come from. If anything, he was more human than the rest of them. What made him so special wasn't anything to do with his physical features, but rather what was hidden on the inside that no blood test or x-ray could uncover. And for that, you didn't have to look very hard at all.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Jack is a very singular individual, and definitely deserving of Ianto's careful scrutiny, but Ianto himself is just as fascinating. I'm sure Jack would agree!

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Jack has no doubt registered every last inch of Ianto and committed it to memory. He'd be able to spot a new freckle in an instant and loves every one of them.

[mscatmoon.livejournal.com]

Nice look at Jack through Ianto's eyes. It's not his outward differences that Ianto loves, it's what's inside. The exact opposite of how most others feel, and why Ianto is so good for him.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Ianto loves him for who is he rather than what he is, but he also enjoys finding all those tiny little things that make Jack unique. I bet he knows every last freckle.