Title: White Lies
By: sqyd
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: G
Prompt: Backstory/Family - 3. "He always pushed me too hard." 7. Why Ianto lied about his father, 17. Parallels between Jack and Ianto - written for torchwood_reset
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, just borrow them.
Word Count: 602
Warning/Notes: Sometime before CoE Day 4
Summary: Ficlet. Ianto's thoughts about his father and lies.
Thanks to: rootesie for beta

He can't really remember his mother. He can't even say he misses her, since he can't recall her as a presence. He is supposed to have her blue eyes, but he can't remember them either. He has one hazy memory of his father and mother sitting around the kitchen table talking about the tailor's shop. They were saving money, they were going to open the shop, his father was going to make fine suits for fine gentlemen and his mother was going to help out. It's not even a memory, but an echo of a memory; he can't recall the words or their faces, only their happiness.

The ghost of that tailor's shop lingered around his childhood before getting banished for good. His mother's illness and eventual death put it on hold forever. Raising two small children as a single parent is hard, and his father gave up his dreams, keping his dull job at Debenhams. Like most parents, he wanted something better for his children, and like so many parents, he went about it the wrong way. It took Ianto years to figure out what went wrong between them. They were so similar in many ways, yet fundamentally different. His father was a boisterous, outgoing man who saw his son's shyness and introversion as a weakness to overcome. This had disastrous results - the more he pushed him, the more withdrawn Ianto became.

There were happy times too - Ianto fondly remembered their trips to the cinema. He owned his predilection for old films to his father. However, as time passed the good times became more and more infrequent. When his father died, Ianto’s grief was tainted with a guilty tinge of relief. Not unlike his grief over Lisa, years later. He worked so incredibly hard, risked so much to save her, but when she was gone, in a shameful corner of his soul he felt relieved - like a huge weight lifted off his chest, leaving emptiness behind. He was too honest with himself not to admit it. At least with Lisa he felt a closure. His father's death sealed all that strain between them into eternity.

It is a gesture of making amends when in his stories he makes his father the master tailor he never was, and gives himself the childhood he never had. It is a white lie, it hurts no one. It is also camouflage. Hiding in plain sight is both an instinct and a highly developed skill for him. White lies, omissions, misdirection are all part of it. He has many finely spun protective layers - none entirely true or untrue, all aspects of him. Somewhere deep within hides roiling fury and pain, and an impossible yearning - that if allowed to escape, would destroy him and anyone close to him.

He and Jack are both con men, for different but similar reasons. They both withhold much of themselves, carefully cultivate the personas they present to the outside world. Jack hides the bitterness of eternity, the never ending cycle of loss. Ianto conceals the rage and resignation of mortality, the fact that it's not enough, never enough. He tells Jack everything that matters, that could have consequences, but doesn't bother with old injuries that can't be helped anyway. They already made him who he is. He knows Jack does the same. They both know some things can't be said, because the words for them don't exist, or are too dangerous. For now they form a strange equilibrium together: fragility and indestructibility, impermanence and immortality. It isn't meant to last, but while it does it’s perfection.