The Wrong Smile by a_silver_story

[a_silver_story]

Title: The Wrong Smile
Author: a_silver_story
Chapter: One Shot
Rating: U | G | All Audiences
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Ianto Jones, Captain Jack Harkness and the Doctor all belong to the BBC, who I have decided deserve the money I paid for my license fee this quarter. But only this quarter.

Summary: Ianto Jones is alive again. He's not sure how he is just yet, but he's hoping the Doctor might be able to get him some answers. Hacking into O2 phone records, he retrieves the last dialled numbers of Martha Jones - and finds the Doctor. The Doctor agrees to take him off-planet to a bar in Mos Eisley, Tatooine, to find his Captain Jack Harkness ....




"Hi, Jack."

"Ianto! Ianto? Ianto ..."

Ianto drew back his hand and slapped the Captain as hard as he could. "That was for the way you treated me in 'The Undertaker's Gift'!" he yelled.

Jack had the gall to look shocked, so Ianto slapped him again, harder.

"That was for 'Children of Earth'!"

The Captain staggered slightly, his glass falling to the floor and only just regaining equilibrium as Ianto's hand collided with his face again.

"THAT was for me! ... and this ... this ...!" Ianto growled. ".. is because I know it turns you on!"

Ianto slapped him a final time.





[INSERT PUBLIC MAN SHAGGINZ AND VOYEUR!TEN HERE]





THE [GOOD!STICKY] END






Yes ... another masterpiece brought to you by Silver!

... terribly sorry ... I just had a random idea and kholran made me roll with it.

Comments

[a-silver-story.livejournal.com]

I found the Jack written in it a total arsehole, to be honest.

I thought it was wonderfully creepy, and the whole idea of what the Undertaker's Gift actually was was chilling, but the way Jack was written and how in this book he has a complete obsession with Gwen, while dismissing Ianto like you would a waiter at a table, just didn't sit right.

Yes, Jack has a thing for Gwen, but ... when he does weapons training, all he can smell is Gwen's perfume? Really? He didn't even seem that bothered when he discovered that Ianto was being eaten alive.

Gwen had some weird agenda to prove to Jack that she didn't need him and she could do anything and everything by herself with absolutely no assistance, and Ianto just sort of ... hung around.

The plot is the strength of the book, but it's brought down by bad characterisations. Ironically, Baxendale's other Torchwood novel is really rather good :S

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I guess the impression I got was that Jack knew exactly what was wrong with Ianto and blamed himself and that's why he was keeping Ianto at arm's length at first. " "Jack, I don't feel well."
A look of anguish came over Jack's face. " He seems to very pre-occupied in this story with Ianto being mortal...the undiscovered country paragraph made me cry all over again.

However, later, he started taking the bugs out first as I recall before Gwen took over...and I loved that Gwen did do that, removing every single bug from Ianto. Gwen and Ianto and their feelings with each other wasn't explored enough especially when we found out that Ianto had still kept Gwen at a distance...not telling her about his sister or anything. So, I liked all the Gwen/Ianto moments in this book, like his complaining about Jack to her or her covering him with her jacket and " They lay in silence then...holding on to each other like frightened children in a storm."

I was disappointed that Jack turned Ianto down after his nightmare but I liked how in Jack's nightmare, he specifies "his" bed which would be the bunker, but when he wakes up, it's "the" bed which means he's at Ianto's.
Of course, I acknowledge that points should be taken away for having naked Gwen in dream...except the Jack we met in DW would be imagining everyone naked with no remorse. Whereas this Jack knows it was wrong, that's why he doesn't want to talk about it.

"Ianto could get you looking clean and presentable in ten minutes flat. Do you really want me to turn him loose?"
Love this and Jack and Ianto interrogating together, plus, X-Files reference AND pun, yes!
"And men were useless at the routine, day-to-day domestic stuff. Unless they were Ianto."
hehe
"Making coffee is an art. Trust me on this."
"How hard can it be?"
""no, Jack, really, it would be like letting a chimpanzee loose with Van Gogh's paint box."
hehe

The only thing that really grated on me was use of "buddy". I liked Jack being all worried over him and everything, but "But I really need your help, Buddy" (shudders)

Also, after Ianto healed up...a whole new form of coat kink
" He was wearing a rather smart Burberry overcoat over a new suit, which hid the heavy bandages Jack knew were wrapped around his chest. A lot of the damage had been undone, but there were still sores. There would probably be scars.
But he did look good in that coat."

[a-silver-story.livejournal.com]

The thing that grated with me was how the Janto moments, perhaps not the interrogation banter, felt forced in. As if after the first draft, the writer was told "by the way ... you need to have Jack thinking about Ianto occasionally, y'know".

And all the extravagant similes the writer used just ... read like bad fanfiction.

And the 'buddy' nearly made me throw the book across the room.

It's like between Baxendale's previous novel and this one, he's totally forgotten what the characters are like, and just gone ahead with OMFG JACK AND GWEN ethic, squick be damned.

And Rhys wasn't even in this novel! He was nicely hidden away in Gloucester at a haulage convention wtf?