InsaneJournal

Current mood:	good
Entry tags:	dr who, glee!, ianto fucking jones

The House That Jack Built
More spoilers zomg. I'm not doing one of these for Into the Silence because I just... didn't take any notes when I was reading it. It was good, but of the three it was the weakest, I think, though it may just be that it was the most Gwen-heavy and I wanted more Ianto.

This one, obviously, was very Jack-centric, including various memories of his from living in the house. There was also the highest concentration of Jack/Ianto, but in defiance of character consistency through the novels, the implication was that it was very casual but Ianto was in love with Jack (compare to Almost Perfect where Ianto is uncomfortable with Jack using the word love) - though that only comes up once or twice. Both of them I've quoted below, the first because I wanted to note it, the second because it was pretty funny.

Of the three, this one has the best plot, technically, though I have to say the zombies in Bay of the Dead were more awesome. Zombies > plot, apparently. This one also had a strong guest character, Alexander, who in a moment of carryover consistency appears at the end of BotD, with Jack recognising him and thinking he should track him down, which he does at the start of THTJB. He's a grumpy old man in a wheelchair (there's more to him than that though) who's really quite hilarious in a grumpy old man sort of way. He was more fun than the guest character in Into the Silence, a police officer named Cutler who works with them on the case - BotD didn't have a strong guest character, instead giving Andy and Rhys more action. In this one Andy only has a brief role, and Rhys just pops up as the loving husband, etc. (He also buys a box set of the first 21 James Bond films. My Ianto approves.)

Ultimately my favourites list for the novels still has Almost Perfect at the top, with Bay of the Dead and Pack Animals hovering around second and third, but THTJB probably does make the top five thanks to great dialogue, plot and Alexander.


There's nothing quite like the luxury of a cup of coffee prepared by *someone else*. The sort of coffee that you watch someone else labour over. You watch them grind the beans, fill the scoop, steam the milk, pump the espresso. Then, if you're Ianto Jones, you watch them pick you out a juicy Pain au Raisin and drop that fruity bad boy into a takeaway bag. *Nice*.
Having found a barista whose coffee-making skill he actually trusted, Ianto was becoming quite the fan of having someone else do all the work. The fact that this Queen of the Beans, this Empress of the Roast, was a grumpy little Chinese girl whose service was lousy and attitude abominable didn't take the edge off it in the least. She could spit in his eye if she so wished. As long as she didn't do it in his coffee, he would pay her with a smile.

"Who's for coffee then?"
"You read my mind," Jack smiled and gave Ianto a wink.
"If the first thing that pops into your head when you see me is 'hope that sexy devil put the kettle on before he left', then I can honestly say I don't know you half as well as I thought."
"OK, it was the second thing that popped into my head."

"Such manliness," Gwen sighed. "I'm almost overcome. Now hunt me bison."

In the early days of Torchwood Cardiff, there had been access to the lower storage levels via submarine. *Submarine*... How cool was that? Who said things always improved over time?

Alexander shook Ianto's hand and rolled his eyes as he spotted the look that passed between the young man and Jack. "Tell him if he's going to roger you, the least he could do is get you an office of your own." He waved at Ianto's workstation. "Look at him, sat there in the middle of the entrance hall." He looked up at Jack. "Bet *you've* got your own office."
"Well..."
"Thought as much. Bet you don't use it for much more than looking at porn and listening to Glenn Miller, either."

"Oh yeah," muttered Ianto, placing the carefully folded sheet away in a drawer. "It'll be that old liquid pavement problem again. The council *were* looking into it, I believe..."
Alexander chuckled and nodded his head towards Ianto. "I *like* him. He definitely deserves his own office."
"Is there a list?" Gwen said. "Somewhere I can put my name down? I'd like a pot plant, too, if the budget will stretch."
"Ooh..." Ianto smiled. "There's a Venus Flytrap in the containment chamber you can have. Saves me having to feed it."

"I doubt I know a fraction of what's worth knowing, but what little of his life is on file I've found it, read it..." he looked up at her and gave an embarrassed smile, "learnt it. I'm like a stupid teenager swotting up with a copy of Smash Hits."
Gwen rested a hand on his shoulder. "You don't know that he's..."
"Just a shag?" Ianto nodded. "Yes I know. I can't help it though, I've never been much good at casual." He looked up at her. "Don't tell him. I don't want to look stupid."
She squatted down and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I won't, you're not stupid either, just..."
"Deluded?"
She smiled. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Do we have a choice?" asked Julia.
"Yes," Jack replied. "I could drug you and throw you in the boot of the car."
"Jack," Gwen hissed.
"What?" Jack replied with a laugh. "It's a choice!" His smile vanished as he stared at Rob and Julia. "Believe me, I'll do it for your safety and ours if it looks like the best option."
"We should always let him deal with the civilians," Ianto said. "He's just so good at it."

"...We want this place wired for sound."
"'Power from the needle to the plastic'," Ianto replied, straight-faced, and walked out.
Jack stared after him. "Please tell me he didn't just quote Cliff Richard at me... He's *so* dumped if he did."

"It might be commonplace to you," she muttered, "but I don't normally go around shoving tools in people's mouths."
There was an awkward pause at that and then, despite herself, she burst into hysterics. "I'm sorry," she said. "That came out so wrong... I wasn't having a pop about you being, you know..."
"He prefers the term 'omnisexual'," said Ianto, stepping into the room. "It's the polite way of saying he'll sleep with anything - men, women... cephalopods. I must be the only boyfriend that's ever had to get jealous in a fishmongers."
"Don't knock the sensual embrace of the tentacle," Jack replied with a wink.
"Oh God..." Ianto replied. "I could have died happy had I never heard you say that. Changing the subject - cos one of us has to before someone throws up - I've disconnected four monitors, the amp and a couple of speakers, so we're all set."
"Isn't he wonderful?" Jack said to Julia, kissing Ianto on the forehead. "What would I do without him?"
"The same things you do with me, just to someone else," Ianto deadpanned.

Jack reached the top floor, both rooms were empty.
"Nothing," he said.
"I could have told him that from here," said Ianto, "though that would have cut down on his 'looking dramatic' quota for this evening."
"You're getting more sarcastic with each passing day," Gwen said.
"It's the only pleasure I have left."

"When you've all finished being heroic in my absence," [Ianto] said, "I'd quite like to have a go myself."
"You can start by figuring a way out of the house, then," said Jack.
"Oh," Ianto wandered into the hall. "That hardly seems fair... All Gwen had to do was beat up a workman."

"Hand the reader over," [Ianto] shouted, pointing the gun at Rob, "and... well... stop being such a pain in the arse, frankly."