Slashthedrabble Challenge 585 - Facing up to it

[m_findlow]

Title: Facing up to it
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Rhiannon
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 585 - Confront at slashthedrabble
Summary: Ianto feels an awkwardness at having his sister know who he's been dating.

'You never tell me anything these days,' Rhiannon said, with as much nonplussed annoyance as she could muster. It was a skill to be able to make something sound like it was simultaneously the most and least important thing. Ianto hated her for it and how it made him feel like the worst sibling on the face of the planet.

It wasn't fair that she should spring this him. Not today of all days, anyway. He had enough on his plate, worried about kids all talking in unison and Jack desperate to get to the bottom of it, and didn't they need a kid to help move the investigation forward, and wasn't that what Ianto was trying to do right now? He just wanted to help, or maybe impress Jack, with his wrangling skills that proved he could source anything and any time, no matter how tricky that was. So far, he was failing miserably on that front, and now it was just getting worse. Coming here had been a really bad idea.

Going out for dinner at one of the most expensive places in town hadn't even seemed particularly extravagant at the time. Just as often he and Jack ended up at the most dumpy looking noodle bars and curry houses, where the food was as cheap as the tableware, and as comforting as the company in which it was eaten. It had never even crossed his mind that at some point he was going to get noticed. Cardiff wasn't a big city and he knew loads of people from his school days and knocking around the old estate, not that he'd be caught dead associating with them now, but they'd know him if they passed him in the street.

Strangely he'd always assumed he was invisible, which was nonsense when you stood next to someone who stood out as much as Jack. Perhaps he'd thought they wouldn't notice that anyone other than Jack.

The problem was that now his sister knew. Her reliable network of spies had found him and here he'd walked right into her den and let her confront him about it. He didn't like her being up in his business. He never had. His life was his to do as he chose and Rhiannon didn't get to pass judgment on it. He didn't even like her knowing anything at all. He liked his life being private, but seeing the expression on her face now he knew it wasn't going to stay that way.

The irony of it all was that it had only been this morning at the hospital he'd gotten all excited at a complete stranger noticing he and Jack were a couple - like a proper, we live together and make spag bol for dinner, couple. It felt gratifying that people saw them like that. So why then, did it bother him so much having his sister know?

Because that makes it real, he realised. And reality means being prepared to fight for it.