After the End by Arabella and Zsenya is longer than something really long, it's stil a wip and several of the characters dip into überperfectionness on occasion, but (see that but? it's important) it's frequently updated, Remus and Sirius are near perfect, I swear, and the Draco is... intriguing, though I want to hit the PotterGang over the head several times for utter cold heartedness, and, uh, Fleur and Bill? Theirloveissopure. No. Really. And original character Max? I like him too. This is why I keep reading the thing. I don't really give a damn what happens to Ginny and Harry or Hermione and Ron. *eyes the ceiling* Imma bad, bad reader, yes, I am.
Lustre by Julad and Calico. Hee. Pomegranate. You just gotta love a story which features a snake named Pomegranate. Draco's point of view. Very easy to read.
He turns his hand over and admires the silvery shimmer as the snake winds itself over his palm to rest her little wedge head on the back of his hand. She's long enough to wrap five times around his wrist, or twice round his neck with a curl of tail trailing against his collarbone, and she's slender as his thumb for the most part, tapering down to a single scale's-width at one end and a tiny snub muzzle at the other.
Alongside her, in the Eagle UltraMail delivery casket, there was a short note from his father. It required his breath on the wax to unseal it, and detailed price and species and availability, all of which marked this gift out as a most exclusive one indeed.
Enfolded in the parchment was a ring: a small dark emerald balanced between the neck and the tail of a minute curling snake. The note finished: If you can deduce the enchantment on this ring, it will stand as my contribution to mark your passage into adulthood. You know what to do with it. Let me know when the time comes, and I shall begin making the arrangements.
He Said it That Knew it Best by Lexin. Harry, ahem, goes to spend his summer vaca with his godfather, who's currently living with Remus Lupin. Good Sirius and Harry interaction, bonding, whatever you want to call it. Remus and Sirius relationship is always low-key in the background.
smallville
the Lionel in Winter by Ciel. Extremely funny christmas story with hijinks worthy of very good comedies (I can't think of any right now), features Lionel and cousin, Lex and Clark, Lucas and wife, Martha and Jonathan and various members of Lionel's staff, and a Fed in hot pursuit of Lucas and wife.
In a Miami, Florida, penthouse overlooking the emerald sea, DEA, INS, and SEC agents were busily pounding down the door while Lucas Luthor, Marisse Luthor, and assorted business associates were equally busy shoveling documents, bankbooks, passports, and baggies into the fireplace and shredder.
Lucas had just grabbed another random pile off the marble credenza and prepared to toss it into the flames when his wife shrieked, "Sweetie! That's the mail!"
"Sort it, then, " he said, for there might be checks in the mail, and there was almost certainly a letter from his attorney. One of his attorneys.
"Sweetie! Here's something from your father!" She tore open the envelope. "Oh, what fun! He wants us to Christmas with him in Smallville!"
"Fun," "father," and "Smallville," were not words Lucas would all put together in one sentence - not, at any rate, without the words "no" and "not" also figuring prominently. The only worse thing would be if the word "Lex" was also in the -
"He says he expects your brother to be there. And your brother-in-law. Luke, sweetie-pie, won't that be just dishes of fun?"
Marisse thought her brother-in-law was a big ol' dish of fun all by himself. This was not, to Lucas' mind, an added inducement.
"I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out with pliers."
star trek: DS9
jeu-parti by Macedon. Jake Sisko befriends celebrity Vulcan castrati singer Salene, and then it really gets complicated. Trilogy. Excellently written, as all of Macedon's work. Extremely hard to quote though, but I gave it a try anyway.
In the lift to one of the upper pylons, Salene asked, "What manner of writing do you do?"
"Fiction."
"I had rather supposed that." This was offered dryly.
"Well not all writers are fiction writers," Jake pointed out.
Salene dipped his head. "True. What manner of fiction?"
"Mainstream--character stories. I like writing about people."
He opened his mouth then to ask Salene what kind of music he performed, but didn't. It might bring up Salene's castration and, except for the initial remark in his quarters, neither he nor Jake had mentioned it since--as if the topic were taboo.
Instead, Jake added, "Most of what I do is short stuff, though I did finish one novella. I haven't tried a full novel yet."
The lift arrived at the pylon top. They exited and Jake led Salene over to a porthole. "Perhaps you will share one of your stories with me?" Salene asked.
"Sure," Jake replied, at once flattered and confused. What would a singer like Salene want with Jake's intermediate fiction? Only four years Jake's senior, Salene not only had a professional career, but a celebrated one. Jake knew that because his father had said so before leaving them together. Salene himself had said nothing about it: humility or reticence. Jake couldn't decide which.
due south
the Bodyguard by Speranza. Bet'cha you never thought ex-Russian Primadonna Ballerinas were so much trouble. Fraser's on duty, and finds himself overwhelmed by Olga - the said ballerina, and calls in Ray K for backup.
Blueprint by Journey. Ah. Yes. This one. It's. Ray K comes to Canada to help Fraser build a house. Once you start reading it just sucks you in, man. I swear. And the random original characters wandering about are great.
Ray turned to meet him. “Fraser! Thank God.” Stumbling forward on wobbly legs he clutched at Fraser’s shoulders. “Fraser. Get me off this plane. You’ve got to get me on the ground, buddy.”
“You’re on the ground, Ray.” Despite Ray’s condition, Fraser couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. “It’s all right. Really.”
Ray looked around at the jetway behind him. “Yeah, okay, but we’re too close. Get me out of here. That plane could attack at anytime, I’m telling you.” He slid one arm around Fraser’s shoulder and leaned on him heavily.
“I seriously doubt that Ray.” Fraser was conscious of an unfamiliar emotion flooding through him. It made him wrap his arm around Ray’s waist to steer him away from the gate. “But as you say, we’ll be on our way immediately. Do you have any bags?”
“Yeah, if they got this far,” Ray muttered fatalistically.
“Very well, baggage claim is this way. Is this yours?” Fraser pointed at the knapsack at Ray’s feet. At Ray’s nod, he slung it up onto his free shoulder and escorted his partner away from the sky and back to solid ground. “Was it a difficult trip, then?” he ventured as they made their way down the concourse.
Ray turned and attempted to look Fraser in the eye. He appeared to be having some difficulty focusing. “Oh, yeah. We hit some...what do you call it...turbulence as soon as we took off. We never got past it. It was like driving for two hours on a road with speed bumps. Bang, bang, bang!” He faced forward again. “They ran out of barf bags.”
“I’m extremely sorry to hear that.”
“So were the flight attendants.”
X-Men/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Little Gods by JaneTe, because, dude, yeah. So shiny it sparkles. Oz and Nate Grey.
(And a blink and you'll miss it appearence by Jacob Gavin jr. *fangirl squeal*)
Nate rescues Oz from a bad situation, they have sex, and then we have a Plot of sorts. It involves Oz meeting the X-Men and Nate meeting the Scoobies. And a road-trip. Long story, v.shiny. *happy*
"Do you want to. Have sex?"
And Oz allows himself to really think about the question for a moment. There's freedom in being no longer 15, and being capable of hearing the word sex in a sentence without shorting out. Nate is young, one. Extremely powerful, two. Potentially unstable, three. Very interesting, four.
Hmmm.
It's a tough call.
"I mean, we don't have to, that is, you don't, I won't..." One hand raised to Oz, palm forward, eyes wide. Not an unfamiliar situation, and Oz wonders if this is anything like what those ancient Greeks went through when gods came to visit, when the deus exed the machina, and there's definitely more to that, but it all has that don't-touch don't-look feel that Oz can't help but listen to.
There must be parts to this sort of thing that they don't tell you. The slam-the-mortal-up-against-the-wall-and-fuck-his/her-brains-out probably worked some of the time, yeah, but there must have been these awkward little moments, too. He wonders how many gods were this fragile.
*nsync
wolves and boybands mate for life by Merry. Fuck off. It made me laugh. I'm willing to forgive it for being popslash just because of that. *grins* Good, good story about, uh, the troubles of courting, I guess.
JC tried to woo Chris by writing him songs. He worked on them constantly, trying to get the words just right. It was weird, but the more he cared about a song the harder it was to finish. He could write Space Cowboy in like half a day but writing a song for a guy he was in love with, that took weeks. This wasn't a big problem or anything, since JC had been in love with Chris for years and it hadn't occurred to him to do anything besides write about it until they started the Celebrity tour. He had a lot of material to work with.
The songs didn't make any sense to Chris. They seemed to be mostly about girls. A few were about girls and candles, and a few were about girls and boats, and one of them seemed to be about Justin. The most recent one, Chris was pretty sure, was about a dog, or possibly a wolf, who turned into a butterfly. He had to read it three times before he got even that much.
Good Omens/Dogma
One Big Happy Pantheon by K.A. Rose. Works surprisingly well. Features Adam Young, Anathema Pulsifer, Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens, and Bethany Sloane, her daughter aka the Second Christ aka Ellen, Loki and Bartleby from Dogma. And God, of course. And people I'm forgetting, because I have a bad memory. Adam meets Ellen. The universe starts to crack. Aziraphale, Crowley, Bartleby and Loki decides to try to do something about that. ...It might help if any of them actually got along for more than two seconds.
All angels knew each other. It was like a fraternity, minus the copious amounts of drinking. For the most part.
He turned fully, looking them up and down. "You're looking very well... Er..." Aziraphale gave a look of confusion. "I thought you were dead."
This wasn't really the mild statement that most humans would perceive it to be. Angels didn't often die. As it happened, Bartleby and Loki had been the first. This didn't do much to tarnish their reputation because, as it was, they were also the first angels to be condemned to Wisconsin for the entirety of human existence. Something like that is hard to dent.
"Oh, we are," said Loki, quickly.
"We're on our lunch break," explained Bartleby.
"They have you working somewhere?" Aziraphale inquired. The two ghosts noticed he kept glancing off to his left.
"Purgatory," Bartleby said miserably.
"Janitors," Loki added, just as despondently.
Aziraphale forced a sympathetic nod.
Both Bartleby and Loki had been angels for a very long time, and even after their banishment still retained the attributes they had had in their jobs as a Grigori and an Angel of Death, respectively. So when Bartleby told of their new positions, both of them had the look of pain on their faces attributed to those who will never, ever Be The Job or even like it, and that even if it could be a lot worse, from their perspective they failed to see how.
the Real Ghostbusters
Ancient History by Robyn Thurman. How Peter and Egon came to be friends. It wasn't without conflict, I can tell you that much.
I ignored the knocking on my door for a good ten minutes, my head buried under the pillow, before I finally came to the conclusion whoever it was either wanted to die an ugly death or was a gold plated son of a bitch. I heaved myself out of bed, groaned at the alarm clock that read the horrifyingly early hour of eleven am. Yanking up my sweatpants with one hand and running a hand through my longish hair, I jerked open the door and snarled, "What the hell do you want?"
It was Spengler. Jesus Christ. The short white blond hair, tailored shirt starched to knife-edge sharpness, pressed dark pants…it was all too much. Too early. Too annoying. Too Spengler. I groaned again and closed the door in his face then headed back to bed. Flopping onto my stomach, I wasn't the slightest bit surprised to hear the door open and the measured tread of one Egon Spengler come to ruin my day from the very beginning. "So, Venkman," the bass rumbled, "Are you actually in a coma or merely the laziest human on the planet?"
Firefly
Unchained Melody by Bonibaru. This is... Well. It's... Jayne/Vera. ...Yeah. No, really, it is.
You've had bigger, of course. But an ounce of perseverance and a mite of skill will get a man through a complicated situation no matter what barrel size he's packing. Vera packs more of a punch than any other weapon you've owned, and that's saying something, because until she came along you felt pretty strongly that size mattered and under-compensation was for pussies. Most guys lucky enough to have a quality piece like Vera wouldn't know what to do with what they'd got, but you know in your heart that you were born to handle her.
the Rape of Kassandra by Reaver Poet wherein River is now, and then and impatiently awaiting the future.
River recognizes that kiss that Simon won't take. Kaylee's kiss, soft lips on soft lips. The little happy sigh she would make. Her body pressing eagerly.
River recognized Kaylee as soon as she stepped aboard the strange ship. Kaylee, ever friendly, extended her grease stained hand, but River just stared at it, remembering how the slightest movement of that hand could shake the world. River wouldn't look up; she couldn't bear to see what wasn't in Kaylee's eyes.