badly_knitted (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
badly_knitted) wrote2025-07-04 06:48 pm
badly_knitted) wrote2025-07-04 06:48 pm
Entry tags:
Ficlet: Memento
Title: Memento
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 577
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Jack regales Ianto with another tale from his past.
Written For:
raisedbymoogles’ prompt ‘any, any, feather boa,’ at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Jack had been around Torchwood for close to a century; Ianto knew that, in an abstract sort of way, from all the reports by and about him that were stored in Torchwood’s archives. But every so often, he said or did something that really brought home to Ianto just how long his lover had been alive, and how many lives he’d lived, even during his century of employment with Torchwood. Today, it seemed, was one of those days when Jack’s past was very much present, and as always, it tilted Ianto’s world slightly out of kilter.
Not that he didn’t enjoy Jack’s many and varied tales, because for the most part he did, even if they got embellished with more and more outrageous details at every telling. It was just that Ianto’s mind was a very organised place, and with each unanticipated revelation about the man he loved, he had to reorganise his understanding of Jack Harkness, slotting each new nugget of information into the appropriate place. Jack was like a jigsaw puzzle with a picture that just kept growing and evolving.
“Ianto, look what I found at the back of my wardrobe!” Jack shouted, all but prancing out of his office, grinning that wide, white grin, blue eyes alight with excitement; there was a fluffy sapphire blue feather boa draped around his shoulders, and he twirled one end of it as he struck a pose, fluttering his eyelashes and giving his lover a coy smile. “I’d forgotten I still had it! You know, someone once told me that it matches my eyes.”
Ianto raised an eyebrow, giving the feathery accessory an amused look. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you stole it, sorry, borrowed it from a Las Vegas showgirl while on Torchwood business, then forgot to give it back.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! The only time I was in Vegas, I was the star of the show! Two shows a night, six nights a week, for five months. They adored me!”
“Of course they did.” Ianto smiled indulgently; he’d heard that one before, on several occasions, when Jack was in nostalgic mood for the glitz and glamour of Vegas in the fifties.
“This,” Jack twirled his feather boa again, “was given to me in London, just before the war, when I was doing a bit of intelligence gathering, performing as a torch singer in a very exclusive club. One of the regulars, a very wealthy foreign ambassador, took quite a shine to me and gave me this as a token of his esteem. I’ve stolen a lot of hearts in my time.”
“I have no doubt about that.”
“I think he was hoping I might agree to marry him if he showered me with enough gifts, but then the war happened, and our budding courtship came to an abrupt halt. Such a shame. He was rather sweet, very charming, and quaintly old-fashioned. Always came up to the stage to kiss my hand after every performance, showering me with such sweet compliments along with various gifts. This one was my favourite though. I wore it for him during my last show.”
“I gather he didn’t realise you were a man.”
Jack fluttered his eyelashes. “No one at the club had a clue, not even the manager and the other entertainers.”
“It’s probably just as well no one found out.” Ianto could only imagine the chaos it would have caused if Jack’s secret identity had been uncovered!
The End
Not that he didn’t enjoy Jack’s many and varied tales, because for the most part he did, even if they got embellished with more and more outrageous details at every telling. It was just that Ianto’s mind was a very organised place, and with each unanticipated revelation about the man he loved, he had to reorganise his understanding of Jack Harkness, slotting each new nugget of information into the appropriate place. Jack was like a jigsaw puzzle with a picture that just kept growing and evolving.
“Ianto, look what I found at the back of my wardrobe!” Jack shouted, all but prancing out of his office, grinning that wide, white grin, blue eyes alight with excitement; there was a fluffy sapphire blue feather boa draped around his shoulders, and he twirled one end of it as he struck a pose, fluttering his eyelashes and giving his lover a coy smile. “I’d forgotten I still had it! You know, someone once told me that it matches my eyes.”
Ianto raised an eyebrow, giving the feathery accessory an amused look. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you stole it, sorry, borrowed it from a Las Vegas showgirl while on Torchwood business, then forgot to give it back.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! The only time I was in Vegas, I was the star of the show! Two shows a night, six nights a week, for five months. They adored me!”
“Of course they did.” Ianto smiled indulgently; he’d heard that one before, on several occasions, when Jack was in nostalgic mood for the glitz and glamour of Vegas in the fifties.
“This,” Jack twirled his feather boa again, “was given to me in London, just before the war, when I was doing a bit of intelligence gathering, performing as a torch singer in a very exclusive club. One of the regulars, a very wealthy foreign ambassador, took quite a shine to me and gave me this as a token of his esteem. I’ve stolen a lot of hearts in my time.”
“I have no doubt about that.”
“I think he was hoping I might agree to marry him if he showered me with enough gifts, but then the war happened, and our budding courtship came to an abrupt halt. Such a shame. He was rather sweet, very charming, and quaintly old-fashioned. Always came up to the stage to kiss my hand after every performance, showering me with such sweet compliments along with various gifts. This one was my favourite though. I wore it for him during my last show.”
“I gather he didn’t realise you were a man.”
Jack fluttered his eyelashes. “No one at the club had a clue, not even the manager and the other entertainers.”
“It’s probably just as well no one found out.” Ianto could only imagine the chaos it would have caused if Jack’s secret identity had been uncovered!
The End