Rec: 'Irresistible Force'

[pontisbright.livejournal.com]

Story: "Irresistible Force"
Author: synaesthete7
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 11,069
Author’s summary: 'The Fifth Doctor gets a haircut, acquires a temporary new companion, and matches wits with a terrifying alien killer.'
Characters/Pairings: Five
Warnings: None

Recommended because: I'd be holding his hand if I had the nerve. If I tell you this is a first-person, present tense tale of a plucky Canadian student-turned-hairdresser who winds up accompanying the Fifth Doctor in the thrilling pursuit of a murderous alien (but only after running her hands through his silky locks), you'll probably shout 'Mary Sue' - and you won't be entirely wrong. But the companion is the audience POV figure: the entire canon is predicated on a little whiff of self-insertion, that 'what if it were me?' temptation. synaesthete7 embraces that concept and produces an absolute cracker of a story: note-perfect Doctor characterisation (seen through the eyes of the innocent bystander swept up in his usual chaos, the type of wide-eyed enthused newbie that Five never had in his crowded TARDIS), and a narrative that positively fizzes with charm, pace, and quality. Without doubt my favourite Five-era fic.

Rec: "Not a Love Story"

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

 Story: "Not a Love Story"
Author: rallalon
Rating: Adult
Word Count: 3986
Author’s summary: "It's a partnership and he couldn't care less. It's theirs and nothing, not anything, is ever going to take it away from him."
Characters/Pairings: Captain Jack Harkness/Captain John Hart
Warnings: S2 of "Torchwood," graphic slash-o-rama.

Recommended because:  This is a dark, intense, very adult take on the relationship between Jack and John back in their Time Agency days, and the feelings they might have had . . . or not had, or been fooling themselves about.  There's a bitter sting in this story's tail, and a genuinely memorable sense of . . . tragedy, I guess you'd call it.  Sockets in well with the Jack/John relationship shown in canon.  It's worth noting that rallalon has taken on the difficult task of keeping the characters essentially nameless, with the usual attendant problems of tracking which "he/him" is which -- but I think it's handled about as well as it could be.