"No, Gwen. No, really it’s bloody not. It’s the worst part of any world because you don’t really belong anywhere, because you are never sure of yourself or those around you. You can’t trust in anyone, their motives or their intentions. And because of that, you have, in a world that likes its nice shiny labels, no true identity. For Torchwood’s “Little Miss Sensitive”, you don’t half talk crap sometimes. So do me a favour and shut up about it, all right?"

—Ianto Jones, ‘The Twilight streets’, replying to Gwen saying being bisexual is “best of both worlds, isn’t it?” (via godtissumbrella)

"

One day, when he’d had time on his hands, Jack had tried to work out how many times he had died. He actually sat down in his office with a block of paper and a couple of pens and wrote a neat 1 in the margin and alongside it he wrote Dalek.

That had been how it all started. After that there had been endless bar-room brawls – they had even killed him at Torchwood back in the early days – and at one time he’d worked in a travelling show billed as The Man Who Cannot Die. OK, people had paid to kill him then, but he figured that even if it bought him a few beers at the end of the day, when you got down to it a death was a death.

Then Torchwood had discovered that they had a problem with alien sleeper agents and the whole city started going up in smoke, and Jack lost the list and never got around to starting it again. The score was somewhere around a couple of hundred, by then. But he hadn’t even started on the trenches in Flanders.

He was sure he had already forgotten some of them – unlike his lovers; he remembered all of them (every sex and species) – the one thing he never forgot, however, was how it felt to come back to life.

Like being dragged over broken glass.

It never got any better, and he never got used to it.

"

—Torchwood novel - SkyPoint

"

Several floors below, Ianto and his companions in the elevator had made themselves as comfortable as they could on the floor. According to the acrylic plaque on the wall of the cabin, it was supposed to carry no more than ten people at a time. Ianto thanked God that they hadn’t been travelling at maximum capacity when the power went. It already felt like they were running out of oxygen.

He knew that was ridiculous, the cabin wasn’t airtight; they weren’t going to suffocate, it was just getting hot, that was all. He had already peeled off his jacket and loosened his tie.

Ryan, the guy that had lost his wife, had stopped whimpering. He had stopped doing anything, in fact. He just sat in a corner of the cabin staring ahead of him, almost catatonic, probably playing over and over in his mind the moment that Gillian had been taken by something awful that came out of the wall. Ianto seriously hoped that they got him out of there soon, or perhaps the poor man would be caught in that hideous mind-loop for ever.

Simon and Andrew sat opposite Ianto, their arms looped together. It looked casual but he knew that they were each taking comfort from the contact. He thought about Jack, and hoped that he was all right.

He caught himself, and smiled. Like Jack wouldn’t be all right.

"

—Torchwood novel - SkyPoint

"

Toshiko followed, just two steps behind and reached the bedroom as Jack dived onto the massive bed in there like a big kid.

‘Now this is something I could use,’ he grinned.

Toshiko smiled. Jack was a big kid sometimes, all right, but he didn’t play kids’ games. She bet he could come up with some pretty interesting and enjoyable ways to use the bed.

For a nano-second she wondered if he was about to invite her to try out a couple, and she wondered if she would agree.

"

—Torchwood novel - SkyPoint

"The opening chords of T-Rex’s ‘20th Century Boy’ blasted into his ears as Jack Harkness walked down Carnaby Street on a late summer’s morning in 1967. Never mind that the song would not be recorded for another six years, or that the device on which he was listening to it, the C-Fish X20, would not be invented for another six decades. Anachronisms weren’t important to Jack, and the earphones were practically invisible so it wasn’t as if anyone might notice. What mattered was that the song seemed right."

—Torchwood novel - Trace Memory

"

‘So how’s week two going so far?’

Ianto shrugged. 'OK, I guess,’ he said. 'Taking a little bit of getting used to.’

Lisa laughed. 'Yeah. Tell me about it. My first month I was just freaked out most of the time. I mean, you sign all the official secrets stuff, and then… wham!’

Ianto knew what she meant. The interview had given him no clue as to what the job would actually entail. Of course, they’d told him it would be largely administrative work: filing, photocopying, answering emails, arranging meetings, that kind of thing. He’d even known that it involved classified government work, and that it was strictly hush-hush. He’d had to sign the Official Secrets Act at the interview itself, which gave him some clue as to just how secretive it might be, but the one thing nobody had cared to mention at that first interview, or indeed at any of the subsequent interviews, was aliens.

"

—Ianto’s flashback in the Torchwood novel “Trace Memory”

"

Ianto Jones was at his station behind the run-down Tourist Information Centre that served as a front to the clandestine goings-on in Torchwood. His bare feet were on his desk, his tie slumped like a crestfallen snake next to an open pizza box, the top two buttons of his shirt undone.

‘Taking it easy, I see?’ said Jack, stepping out through the security door that led into the Hub itself. 'Well, at least someone has the right idea. Whatcha doing there, Sport?’

’“Sport”?’ said Ianto. 'Not sure I like “Sport” as a term of endearment. “Sexy” is good, if unimaginative. “Pumpkin” is a bit much, but “Sport”? No. You’ll have to think of another one.’

'OK, Tiger Pants. Whatcha doing?’

"

—Torchwood novel - Trace Memory