Torchwood: Fanfic: Note to self

[m_findlow]

Title: Note to self
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 864 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Torchwood, Ianto, sketching artifacts in his diary" at fic_promptly
Summary: Ianto prefers to commit memories to paper.

Ianto ran a hand over the smooth leather cover of his diary. It was getting well worn now, and the texture of the grain was being slowly worn down by months of it being laid open on his desk, or slipped into the bookshelf between boring volumes of texts where Jack would never look for it. Even just stroking the cover like this now was probably adding to the wear and tear - dirt and oils from his hands seeping into the hide. It was well loved, if nothing else. Soon though, he was going to run out of fresh pages, and then he'd need a new one to replace it. Though it was worn and a little dog-eared at the corners, he knew the new one wouldn't feel the same.

He probably could have made it last longer but for all the pages filled with sketches. Some days there were more drawings than words. There was just so much fascinating stuff that came through the rift, or that he uncovered in the archives. Things that looked strange, or had unusual languages printed on their surface. Things that had caused all kinds of headaches for the team, trying to figure out what they did, things that had been wondrous, and other things they wished they could forget.

He pushed open the cover, which fell open naturally to well read pages, before flipping forward to the next available blank space. He traded his favourite fountain pen for a lead pencil. He always liked to draw in pencil. There was something about the way he could control the light and shade. He knew he was no artist, but his photographic memory made it easy to replicate the details, even if the thing he wanted to sketch wasn't within sight.

Today though it wasn't some alien spacecraft, or a new power source, or even a pod that could sing to you in the shower - though that particular artifact had been uniquely shaped in a way that fascinated him and had taken ages to put down on paper to get the details just right. Today the only thing he wanted to sketch was the person who should have been here now.

Jack had disappeared some time late in the afternoon. Something about this morning's investigation had left him troubled and pensive, and so he'd gone - probably to stand up on a rooftop somewhere to think. It was that pensive look that Ianto tried to capture now. He'd spotted Jack leaning back against the SUV whilst they were still packing up their kit. There was something in the way he held his body, and that overcast look on his face that had captured his imagination. Photographic memory or not, he wanted to capture it on paper so that he could remember that expression long after today was over.

The sketch wasn't quite as detailed as the real image in his head, but there was enough shape and shading for there to be no mistake who it was he'd drawn in his diary. This was why he didn't want Jack to find his diary. It wasn't for the innermost thoughts on life and their relationship, nor the sometimes naive views he held of the world and the universe at large. It was for tiny moments like this, when he didn't want Jack to know he was watching. Jack loved being the centre of attention, but it was this unguarded little fragment of time when something other than what they were currently dealing with was plaguing Jack's thoughts. There had always been an inner darkness to Jack that Ianto found equal parts fascinating and terrifying - like there was another person hiding inside, who only occasion bubbled up to the surface. Ianto didn't have to guess who that person was. Jack had lived so long, and had a whole other life before the one he had now, with Torchwood and the Doctor. There was something about that unknown mystery of the Jack who had lived before this one. Perhaps he was caught in a memory of years long since passed when Ianto had caught him holding that expression, or perhaps he was worrying about the future - the one that would occur without the rest of them, once they were all dead and gone.

Ianto let the pencil scratch over the textured paper, and though he wanted to add more detail, he stopped. Like Jack, the picture seemed to carry a mystery that required interpretation for its lack of detail, so rather than give everything away, he let the empty space and rough pencil lines ask the question.

He admired the sketch. Definitely no artist, he told himself, but a good enough likeness he didn't need. Somewhere out there, the real Captain Jack Harkness was walking the streets, maybe gazing out over the rooftops or roaming the streets, his long great coat flowing behind him. He'd come back eventually, long after Ianto had hidden away his diary from those prying eyes. His mood would have lifted and lightened, having unburdened himself of whatever was on his mind, yet somewhere in the depths of the archives that deeply evocative expression would forever live on.

Comments

[bk_forever]

This is lovely, I love that Ianto is keeping sketches of Jack hidden from the man himself rather than any of the other things in his diary.

[mscatmoon.livejournal.com]

Nice! I'd love to see that drawing. It sounds amazing.