Title: What you see
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Lisa
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,813 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 331 - Clue
Summary: Ianto has the perfect facade to achieve all that they plan.
Ianto leaned back against the door as he pushed it shut behind him, letting that locking mechanism fall back into place. It was always a comfort, hearing that metallic clang of the tumblers all falling into their respective positions, like that world putting itself back in order. It also made him feel just that little bit safer down here, not that he thought he had anything to worry about.
Just by the amount of dust, pungent smell of damp and the general lack of light, he didn't think anyone had been down here in a very long time. All of those things made this the perfect place to hide something he didn't want anyone to find, even if it was a horrible cold, damp place. He used to think his flat was pokey and dark, not to mention never quite as tidy as he might have liked it to be - that was Soren's fault, mostly - but it was downright cosy and comforting compared to this.
He felt guilt and shame that he had to keep Lisa down here, but it was just too hard to keep her in that flat he'd rented in Cardiff. There were too many things he needed here that would help to keep her alive until they could devise a better plan for how to reverse the process. And he wanted her close by, so that he could come and check on her as often as his day allowed, just like he was doing now. He smiled as he felt her eyes drift towards him. She was awake and that was a good sign. They'd been dabbling with different drugs for a few days now and seemed to have landed on a winning combination. Owen, for all his lackadaisical attitude, actually had most of his research notes in relatively good order and it wasn't hard for Ianto to dig into his research and use some of the models he'd developed to come up with the right drugs in the right doses. He might otherwise not have even known where to begin. Better still was that Owen had everything he needed right there to hand. He was so overjoyed to have someone else volunteer to be responsible for the inventorying of his medical supplies that he hadn't even questioned why. Owen Harper was a high functioning drug addict's best friend. Ianto stepped over to the metal table where Lisa was lying down. It didn't look at all comfortable, but she'd assured him that cramping or muscle aches didn't exist for her. He set aside those uncomfortable thoughts that part of her human condition had been completely removed by the conversion process already.
He cupped her cheek and kissed it. 'Hi.'
'Hey,' she said back, bright-eyed and lucid. Her gaze drifted away from his face for a moment to the trolley he'd wheeled in with him before locking the door. 'You got it all?' she asked.
He nodded, keeping his face close to hers. 'Yes.' He felt a rush of pride that he'd been able to come through with the goods.
He'd stopped questioning how Lisa knew what exactly it was that they needed to rebuild the conversion machine that would keep her going and eventually fix her. It was the one advantage of the cyberman programming that had been downloaded into her mind during the conversion. She understood all kinds of things now that the old her wouldn't have ever known. On their second date, she'd invited him back to her and instead of kissing on the sofa, he'd ended up fixing her DVD player, removing the battered copy of Notting Hill which had become jammed in the tray. He'd also gotten rid of that annoying rattle from the back of her refrigerator that kept them awake at night. Now, she was the one telling him how to piece together a complex piece of technology that even Tosh would probably struggle with.
'You're amazing,' Lisa said, beaming at him and at their cache of stolen goods. 'And no one suspects?'
Ianto shook his head. He'd expected more of a challenge, to be fair. Torchwood people were meant to be the best of the best. They certainly had been back in London, but these people at Torchwood Cardiff were… well, they meant well. That was probably the kindest thing he could say about the four people that made up Torchwood Three.
His honest assessment was that they were a ragtag bunch, held together and alive through sheer dumb luck and a smattering of good fortune. They had some street smarts, he'd give them that, but otherwise they were no different to anyone else. They certainly weren't the elite force protecting the city from its rift that he'd been led to believe they were. The way people spoke about them in London - mostly disdainfully, which he'd assumed was jealousy - turned out to be a general comment on their attitudes and way of doing things, rather than any resentment that they would have preferred to be working there.
Ianto had fit seamlessly into the team without really trying. Once he was in, he was in. He'd had to win over their Captain but after that he'd just become accepted as part of the furniture - albeit a very invisible, unexciting piece of furniture. He'd played his part perfectly, keeping a low profile and being deferential to absolutely everyone. They seemed to enjoy having someone there to do all their dirty work, all the odd jobs and administration that they loathed. And everybody loved knowing there was someone lower than themselves. No one wanted to be at the bottom of the food chain. They thought he was shy or sweet or a bit of a no hoper - perhaps even a little old fashioned, though nothing compared to the anachronistic man who led their team - and unable to move on from Torchwood. In that they were only half right. He wasn't able to move on from Torchwood, not yet. Once they'd fixed Lisa, he was moving on and never looking back.
The work was easy enough for Ianto. It was never going to keep him actively engaged or mentally stimulated, but then he had other things he needed his mind to be working on, slipping in a quick search here and there to find the location of some of the equipment he'd need, then jotting it down for later as he was filing reports. Nobody cared how long he took to take out the rubbish, or transfer Owen's corpses into the incinerator several floors beneath the main hub. If anyone had even noticed him moving things around, he'd simply have told them he was reorganising and that would be that. They'd bought right into the idea that he was obsessively compulsively neat, and that shuffling things around the hub was all part of his mantra. They certainly weren't going to notice things going missing altogether, or records of their locations altered. If they knew half of the things he'd seen and done at Torchwood One, they'd never have let him near the coffee machine, let alone anything else.
He knew Jack would do a little digging on him, so he'd come prepared for that, altering the records from their data servers before Toshiko would have a chance to incorporate them into the Cardiff computer systems, logging any further access and modifications to them. It was a bit of a wrench, having to delete so much vital data. Many of their files simply had to be erased in their entirety in order to protect his own identity and involvement in them. It was easier and quicker than modifying them, knowing he'd never get them all. With more time perhaps he could have preserved a copy somewhere else before deleting them, but he didn't think he'd have a use for them in future.
Poor Yvonne would be made to look like a complete fool at the helm of the Titanic right before the iceberg hit, but that was the price to be paid for securing his own survival. And Yvonne was dead now, so it wasn't like she'd be upset with him for fudging a few things. He'd known her better than most. In his shoes, she'd have done exactly the same, throwing him under the bus for the sake of the bigger picture. She'd taught him that, and it would serve him well.
He only wished she'd been able to give him better warning about what he might have to do to get the attention of Captain Jack Harkness. Clearly he'd never tried his flirtation tactics on her or she'd have worded him up. Those sorts of skills weren't really Ianto's forte, but even so, he'd had the Captain hook, line and sinker by the end of it. Just a cute little piece of meat for you to toy with, Ianto thought. He played along just enough that Jack wouldn't have to try too hard. Ianto knew the type, and that the harder you fought them, the harder they pursued you, and one thing he didn't need was Jack following him around everywhere.
Jack played his own part to a tea as well, giving Ianto just the right amount of aloofness that would make a straight man like himself not feel the need to panic over Jack's homosexual overtones. But if he had to snog the man to keep him in line, Ianto knew he'd do it - and possibly even enjoy it a little. It wouldn't be the first time he'd lead someone on in order to bring them down. Just thinking about Rachel reminded how naive he'd once been and how he wouldn't get fooled like that again. This time he'd be the one doing all the fooling. They had no idea how dangerous he could be. No one would get hurt because of him, though. That's what made him different, and why he could justify it in his own mind. No one saw Ianto as a threat. He was just that pathetic little man in the suit that made the coffee and cleaned up after them. It was a perfect ruse and almost too easy to have carried out thus far.
He leaned close again and kissed Lisa full on the lips, letting his tongue delve into her mouth just enough that she responded in kind. It was nice just to be able to kiss her again like they used to. He might have tried to take it further were it not for her obvious physical impediment. They'd make up for it once she was better again. For now he'd just keep those dirty thoughts to himself and deal with them later someplace private. When he finally broke off the kiss he stroked her cheek with his thumb and smiled at her. 'No one suspects anything, my love,' he whispered. 'They haven't got a clue.'
Ianto leaned back against the door as he pushed it shut behind him, letting that locking mechanism fall back into place. It was always a comfort, hearing that metallic clang of the tumblers all falling into their respective positions, like that world putting itself back in order. It also made him feel just that little bit safer down here, not that he thought he had anything to worry about.
Just by the amount of dust, pungent smell of damp and the general lack of light, he didn't think anyone had been down here in a very long time. All of those things made this the perfect place to hide something he didn't want anyone to find, even if it was a horrible cold, damp place. He used to think his flat was pokey and dark, not to mention never quite as tidy as he might have liked it to be - that was Soren's fault, mostly - but it was downright cosy and comforting compared to this.
He felt guilt and shame that he had to keep Lisa down here, but it was just too hard to keep her in that flat he'd rented in Cardiff. There were too many things he needed here that would help to keep her alive until they could devise a better plan for how to reverse the process. And he wanted her close by, so that he could come and check on her as often as his day allowed, just like he was doing now. He smiled as he felt her eyes drift towards him. She was awake and that was a good sign. They'd been dabbling with different drugs for a few days now and seemed to have landed on a winning combination. Owen, for all his lackadaisical attitude, actually had most of his research notes in relatively good order and it wasn't hard for Ianto to dig into his research and use some of the models he'd developed to come up with the right drugs in the right doses. He might otherwise not have even known where to begin. Better still was that Owen had everything he needed right there to hand. He was so overjoyed to have someone else volunteer to be responsible for the inventorying of his medical supplies that he hadn't even questioned why. Owen Harper was a high functioning drug addict's best friend. Ianto stepped over to the metal table where Lisa was lying down. It didn't look at all comfortable, but she'd assured him that cramping or muscle aches didn't exist for her. He set aside those uncomfortable thoughts that part of her human condition had been completely removed by the conversion process already.
He cupped her cheek and kissed it. 'Hi.'
'Hey,' she said back, bright-eyed and lucid. Her gaze drifted away from his face for a moment to the trolley he'd wheeled in with him before locking the door. 'You got it all?' she asked.
He nodded, keeping his face close to hers. 'Yes.' He felt a rush of pride that he'd been able to come through with the goods.
He'd stopped questioning how Lisa knew what exactly it was that they needed to rebuild the conversion machine that would keep her going and eventually fix her. It was the one advantage of the cyberman programming that had been downloaded into her mind during the conversion. She understood all kinds of things now that the old her wouldn't have ever known. On their second date, she'd invited him back to her and instead of kissing on the sofa, he'd ended up fixing her DVD player, removing the battered copy of Notting Hill which had become jammed in the tray. He'd also gotten rid of that annoying rattle from the back of her refrigerator that kept them awake at night. Now, she was the one telling him how to piece together a complex piece of technology that even Tosh would probably struggle with.
'You're amazing,' Lisa said, beaming at him and at their cache of stolen goods. 'And no one suspects?'
Ianto shook his head. He'd expected more of a challenge, to be fair. Torchwood people were meant to be the best of the best. They certainly had been back in London, but these people at Torchwood Cardiff were… well, they meant well. That was probably the kindest thing he could say about the four people that made up Torchwood Three.
His honest assessment was that they were a ragtag bunch, held together and alive through sheer dumb luck and a smattering of good fortune. They had some street smarts, he'd give them that, but otherwise they were no different to anyone else. They certainly weren't the elite force protecting the city from its rift that he'd been led to believe they were. The way people spoke about them in London - mostly disdainfully, which he'd assumed was jealousy - turned out to be a general comment on their attitudes and way of doing things, rather than any resentment that they would have preferred to be working there.
Ianto had fit seamlessly into the team without really trying. Once he was in, he was in. He'd had to win over their Captain but after that he'd just become accepted as part of the furniture - albeit a very invisible, unexciting piece of furniture. He'd played his part perfectly, keeping a low profile and being deferential to absolutely everyone. They seemed to enjoy having someone there to do all their dirty work, all the odd jobs and administration that they loathed. And everybody loved knowing there was someone lower than themselves. No one wanted to be at the bottom of the food chain. They thought he was shy or sweet or a bit of a no hoper - perhaps even a little old fashioned, though nothing compared to the anachronistic man who led their team - and unable to move on from Torchwood. In that they were only half right. He wasn't able to move on from Torchwood, not yet. Once they'd fixed Lisa, he was moving on and never looking back.
The work was easy enough for Ianto. It was never going to keep him actively engaged or mentally stimulated, but then he had other things he needed his mind to be working on, slipping in a quick search here and there to find the location of some of the equipment he'd need, then jotting it down for later as he was filing reports. Nobody cared how long he took to take out the rubbish, or transfer Owen's corpses into the incinerator several floors beneath the main hub. If anyone had even noticed him moving things around, he'd simply have told them he was reorganising and that would be that. They'd bought right into the idea that he was obsessively compulsively neat, and that shuffling things around the hub was all part of his mantra. They certainly weren't going to notice things going missing altogether, or records of their locations altered. If they knew half of the things he'd seen and done at Torchwood One, they'd never have let him near the coffee machine, let alone anything else.
He knew Jack would do a little digging on him, so he'd come prepared for that, altering the records from their data servers before Toshiko would have a chance to incorporate them into the Cardiff computer systems, logging any further access and modifications to them. It was a bit of a wrench, having to delete so much vital data. Many of their files simply had to be erased in their entirety in order to protect his own identity and involvement in them. It was easier and quicker than modifying them, knowing he'd never get them all. With more time perhaps he could have preserved a copy somewhere else before deleting them, but he didn't think he'd have a use for them in future.
Poor Yvonne would be made to look like a complete fool at the helm of the Titanic right before the iceberg hit, but that was the price to be paid for securing his own survival. And Yvonne was dead now, so it wasn't like she'd be upset with him for fudging a few things. He'd known her better than most. In his shoes, she'd have done exactly the same, throwing him under the bus for the sake of the bigger picture. She'd taught him that, and it would serve him well.
He only wished she'd been able to give him better warning about what he might have to do to get the attention of Captain Jack Harkness. Clearly he'd never tried his flirtation tactics on her or she'd have worded him up. Those sorts of skills weren't really Ianto's forte, but even so, he'd had the Captain hook, line and sinker by the end of it. Just a cute little piece of meat for you to toy with, Ianto thought. He played along just enough that Jack wouldn't have to try too hard. Ianto knew the type, and that the harder you fought them, the harder they pursued you, and one thing he didn't need was Jack following him around everywhere.
Jack played his own part to a tea as well, giving Ianto just the right amount of aloofness that would make a straight man like himself not feel the need to panic over Jack's homosexual overtones. But if he had to snog the man to keep him in line, Ianto knew he'd do it - and possibly even enjoy it a little. It wouldn't be the first time he'd lead someone on in order to bring them down. Just thinking about Rachel reminded how naive he'd once been and how he wouldn't get fooled like that again. This time he'd be the one doing all the fooling. They had no idea how dangerous he could be. No one would get hurt because of him, though. That's what made him different, and why he could justify it in his own mind. No one saw Ianto as a threat. He was just that pathetic little man in the suit that made the coffee and cleaned up after them. It was a perfect ruse and almost too easy to have carried out thus far.
He leaned close again and kissed Lisa full on the lips, letting his tongue delve into her mouth just enough that she responded in kind. It was nice just to be able to kiss her again like they used to. He might have tried to take it further were it not for her obvious physical impediment. They'd make up for it once she was better again. For now he'd just keep those dirty thoughts to himself and deal with them later someplace private. When he finally broke off the kiss he stroked her cheek with his thumb and smiled at her. 'No one suspects anything, my love,' he whispered. 'They haven't got a clue.'
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