[#179] Fitting In (Torchwood)

[badly_knitted]

Theme Prompt: #179 – Faking It
Title: Fitting In
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Finding Jack is not going to be easy. Ianto knows that first he’ll need to find a way to fit in among the people whose help he’s going to need. Set in my ‘Through Time and Space’ ‘Verse.




Ianto had in no way been prepared for this. If he’d ever given so much as a passing thought to someday leaving earth and travelling among the stars, visiting other worlds, and encountering alien races in their natural environments, he’d expected that he’d be with Jack, and probably the Doctor, not all by himself.

No that he WAS by himself, he had his TARDIS for company and support, but she was fairly new to space travel herself. It was hard to gain experience of other worlds and other peoples while growing under a heat lamp on a desk in the underground base of a secret organisation. Growing to maturity in the void, cut off from practically everything, hadn’t done much to further her education either.

Nevertheless, here they were, far from earth and everything that was familiar, travelling from planet to planet in search of Jack, who didn’t even know anyone was looking for him. Ianto had never felt more completely out of his depth.

All he knew of other worlds came from the tales Jack used to tell of his adventures with the Time Agency, and later, with the Doctor. To make matters worse, Ianto had no way of knowing how much of those stories was the truth and how much was… artistic embellishment, or outright lies.

His TARDIS was busy everywhere they went absorbing as much information as she could, watching, listening, learning, and sometimes remembering things passed down to her by the TARDIS equivalent of ancestral memory. Ianto was trying to do the same, in a much more limited fashion, but he was still at a disadvantage, especially since they’d stopped looking for Jack around the docks and more… official areas of the space stations and spaceports they visited and turned their attention to the seedier side of town.

Ianto Jones, former Torchwood archivist and general support officer, clad in his immaculate three-piece suits, could never hope to fit in amongst the smugglers, thieves, and sundry other lowlifes who frequented such places. He would have immediately drawn their suspicion, which was the last thing he needed, and yet it was necessary that he be able to move freely amongst them, asking questions without drawing undue attention from anyone.

If in doubt, fall back on what you know.

Only, Ianto didn’t know anything that might help him in this situation. His experience as a Torchwood field agent was useless; he might have become reasonably skilled at dealing with humans and the odd Weevil, but this wasn’t earth, and most of the people didn’t look or think like humans.

Okay, so what would James Bond do?

007 would find a way to blend in. He’d dress to suit his environment, act like the people around him, think the way they did… How did one think like an alien? Watch them, learn from them, then emulate them.

First, he needed another identity. He could remain Ianto Jones for any legal activities, but for anything illicit he’d need to reinvent himself.

But who as? It would have to be a name that would mean something to Jack. James Bond was too obvious. Sean Connery was too Scottish for a Welshman. He smiled suddenly. Of course! Desmond Llewellyn, Des for short; that would work. Now he just needed an outfit to go with the name, so he headed for the wardrobe room.

What he picked out was more Indiana Jones than Q, but it was comfortable, hardwearing, and drab enough not to stand out: loose-fitting brown cargo pants, a battered brown leather jacket, a nondescript tunic shirt that looked like it might have been white at one time, even though it had always been this dirty beige colour, sturdy ankle boots, and a wide-brimmed hat that would help to hide his face. An old canvas shoulder bag completed the look.

For a few days he resisted shaving, or washing his hair, making sure he looked suitably scruffy, and he had the TARDIS stop off briefly on an uninhabited planet where he could dirty himself up a bit. Showing up in clean clothes would be a dead giveaway. Finally he was ready to venture out as Des for the first time.

‘Are you sure this is wise, Ianto?’ His TARDIS spoke in his mind.

‘Wise?’ he replied, thinking the words rather than speaking them out loud. ‘Possibly not, but I know what I’m doing, I swear. At least, I think I do.’

‘Be careful.’

‘I’ll have you watching my back, and everything around me, right?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then I have nothing to worry about. It’ll be like having eyes in the back of my head, but a lot more comfortable.’

Taking a deep breath, Ianto slung his bag across his shoulders and stepped out of his TARDIS, who’d disguised herself as a shabby wooden door halfway along a rubbish-strewn alleyway. Nerves fluttered like butterflies in his stomach, but he knew he couldn’t let that show. He had to appear calm and confident, sure of himself, if he wanted the people he met to accept him as one of their own. Because Des Llewellyn belonged here; he had to believe that if he expected others to.

In time, as he established himself, it would become the truth. He might have to take on the occasional job, he intended to sell himself as a mercenary, specialising in bodyguard work, with a side-line in transporting stolen goods; something he could easily do with the help of his TARDIS. He wasn’t quite there yet though.

He remembered what Jack had told him once about being a conman. “Fake it well enough and you can make people believe anything. Sometimes you even end up believing it yourself.”

That was what he had to do, just keep faking it until he believed it, until Des Llewellyn became just another facet of himself. He could do it, because he had to. If he was ever going to find Jack, he needed to learn the ways of the universe, starting now.


The End