|
Favourites I'm primarily a Fraser/Kowalski chick, but you might find the odd Sentinel and Hard Core Logo piece here too. Comfort Food
I have a sweet tooth, but my inner Sap Bitch goes into
convulsions at the least hint of endearments and ceremony and - god forbid
- gift exchanges. It's kind of like being a slash diabetic. Her darker stuff is pretty wonderful too. NWH (a huge fic -- a whole day's worth of reading at least) moves across some satisfyingly difficult emotional landscapes, as does Waiting to Fall in the print zine, Serge Protector. And if you like your eggs really scrambled, try her Hard Core Logo pieces. (To access her site, you'll need to email her for a password.) He covers his mouth to hide the smile and he starts to laugh. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Is your dander up yet?" I've said it before; I'll say it again. Canadians give weird names to things. Barb's Ray and Fraser are Men with a capital Taciturn. And they're so good for each other, it makes my toes curl. The whole series rocks: quirky, funny, poignant, with a great, spare Ray POV. He's awake. And he's not pulling back, or politing up, or anything.
He's just laying there, looking at me. Okay, now *this* guy can put the good in good morning.
Ray was lying draped half across him, and had been, in various positions, all night. It was the most beautiful, wonderful gift Fraser could ever have imagined. And it was torture. This is one of those stories, where, when you finish reading it, you
suddenly realise that - hey, you're actually *not* in a cabin in Inuvik,
that your eyes and back kinda hurt, that the sun's moved quite a lot since
you sat down, and that the cat's been demanding to know where the fuck you
get off forgetting to feed him for quite a while now. I could still see Kowalski. His shirt was off, and he was sweating like – well, like a guy who'd been chopping wood for a while. Scrawny, wiry – queer? Had to be. Couldn't be. What the fuck had he done to the Mountie? I'm a child of the instant gratification generation. (First time, shmirst time - I want them to fuck *now*). But every once in a while a really special story comes along, and I can groove to the tune of slow-burn. Like True North, AtCoH is one of those onces. (Of course, any fic with a shirtless Ray chopping wood is a good fic to my mind). Fraser had seen Ray work his magic on perpetrators before. He always passed through a series of steps - watching and listening, followed by threats and intimidation. Like sucking poison from a snakebite, Ray would bait and taunt, and beckon to the devil, absorbing the tension near the breaking point like it was the sweetest thing imaginable.. Simply sublime. This is Destina's first (*first*!) dS story, and all I can say is that she sure knows how to make an entrance. Kick-ass RayK (as you can probably tell from the excerpt) and pretty, pretty language are just the tip of the iceberg. "Should have guessed," I say, to distract Fraser when I run a red light. "Had to be the docks or an empty warehouse." Vecchio's file is busting with freaky showdowns, but these guys are industrial-strength. We weren't gonna have the bullet-party at an onion farm or a dental school or anything. Julad sets Fraser and Ray on maxed-out snark and lets the sparks fly
where they will. Sharp, intelligent stuff. Kass writes AlphaFraser, SmartAssRay and scorching sex. And *ducking* if you want to find her stuff, you'll have to do some digging on your own. (It's worth the effort). Waaaay back in the dawn of time, I read a Mulder/other story by Kellie Matthews called Gemma. It was just the second *gasp* NC-17 fanfic I'd come across, and it sent me scrambling to find more. Kind of appropriate then, that Kellie's Fishing series was one of my first introductions to slash too. And how. I'm particularly partial to Something Green. Set during Asylum, this has razer-sharp dialogue, and LaT's trademark slinky, sexy style. What's not to love? In the print zine, Serge Protector, and now online. Confused, Ray opened the envelope, impatiently yanking out the pictures
inside. There were five of them, printed from a grainy security camera
in a bank, and they all showed one impossible thing. Fraser. Steely eyed, gun in hand, and a cigarette dangling from his lip. Cooler-than-thou James Dean attitude. Robbing a bank in company with two men who looked like they belonged on America's Most Wanted. Some of my favourite Fraser moments on the show are when he relaxes his
white-knuckle grip on his self-control. Bracelet. Rings. Even his hair is dressed -- nature didn't make it
that color, and she certainly didn't make it stand up under its own power. A series of scenes showing a gradually deepening relationship between F. and K - full of beautifully-observed, subtle detail. "Death threats, Fraser!" Ray looked pretty threatening himself. "These are death threats, okay? 'Mountie Go Home.' 'Mountie Fuck Off.' 'Kill The Mountie.' What part of that don't you understand?" An astonishingly true-to-the-show piece. Speranza nails internal/external voices, humour, due South weirdness, *everything*. Take out the groping (not that you'd want to), and this reads like a lost episode A sensitive, fascinating and very hot exploration of Fraser and Ray working through kinks that they don't fully understand, and that Fraser in particular has reservations about. (Contains domination/submission and bondage).
//I claim this Mountie in the name of--// He had the delirious feeling that he should have a flag to plant. His dirty mind immediately gave him the image of what he could plant instead, and he nearly choked. Can you tell I had trouble picking just one (or three) Viridian stories? There are so many things I love about Viridian's writing - her ability to write different shadings of Ray and Fraser in different stories, to mix humour with drama, to create fully-realised universes in a handful of paragraphs, being just some of them. Dessert "Coping... " All of Bone and Aristide's writing is fabulous, but this one in particular just scorches up the screen. Fraser truly thought it was dangerous to actually *look* at Ray. It would embarrass everyone in the lecture hall if he were to tackle his partner to the ground, undress the man with his teeth, and lick him all over. That ... simply wouldn't do in a public setting. Speaking of scorching. Everything on LaT's site is terrific (the woman has Style), but these little lovelies are particularly great - F. and K. spark and crackle all over the place. (Reprimand contains bondage/discipline).
Ray stands next to the bed and breathes deeply for a moment or two to calm himself. Ben is on edge enough for both of them. The lazy slick groove of the music is filtering through the open door and Ray closes his eyes. necessary angel labels Close a PWP, but it's so much more. She weaves together themes like trust and risk-taking into a totally absorbing, beautifully-written and (it goes without saying) hot, hot story. (Contains blades, but no blood. This link takes you to necessary angel's front page. You'll need to e-mail her for a password to access her stories). Black, One Sugar (HCL). This is one of those stories where you really do have to see the film first. If you don't, you'll miss all of the nuances, and you'll miss the way AuKestrel seamlessly weaves floating quotes into the narrative. So go see it. You'll thank me. (Gifts of chocolate and jewellery welcome.) "You said you would be here at six o'clock. It's six twenty-four. You
are twenty-four minutes late. I looked at a map of Chicago and used the
City's Street Department's information on signal light timing and figured
that the trip to the restaurant will take exactly thirty-seven minutes.
Considering the time I have been talking and the time it will take us
to get to your car, we will be six minutes late for our reservations." What if Bumbling!Turnbull were a post-breakdown construction? What if the persona started to unravel? Yup, I'm reccing a 50+-part, unfinished Fraser/Vecchio, Kowalski/Turnbull story, in which Ray Kowalski fucking gets called Stanley (but only by Vecchio). Nope, this is not your garden variety fanfic. (August 4 update: now finished). Calm, until I idly wonder why I'm still sitting here, loitering in this park. My brain, handed the question, industriously digs for an answer, which turns out, idiotically, pathetically, to be--that I'm waiting for Ray to come find me. At the same moment I realize that, stroking the soft bristle of grass, caressing it, I'm imagining that that's how Ray's hair would feel under my hand, and I know in that moment how utterly hopeless I am, how badly lost. How badly I've lost. Reading Kat's writing is like reading distilled pain. But - as Rustler says - she's so astonishingly good that you come crawling back for more. I'm just in awe of her.
Most of the customers flirt with me. I am, after all, the best thing in that bar, as male flesh goes, apart from their own personal lovers. It isn't hard to learn a few words of banter, a joke or two, a phrase to turn them away without insulting them. I've always been a quick study…. These two stories are set in an AU in which Fraser doesn't find his father's killers and in which he quits the RCMP. At the beginning of A Little Voodoo, he's working in a strip club as a bartender - and it's to Maxine's considerable credit that this doesn't require even the tiniest suspension of disbelief.This is a darker Fraser than most portrayals - he embraces his own alienation and his first person narrative is filled with bitterness. But - with the introduction of RayK - it's also a story about love and unexpected connection. Beautiful and poignant - as all of Maxine's stories are; this stays with you for a long time after reading it.
Petit
Fours Outlanders might live in the North for decades before they were truly accepted into the community. Even travelers, such as my grandparents and I, took a good long time to settle into each new place. Only after three years in Aklavik did I shed the title of "the new boy." Of course, "Boomboom," my nickname after the incident in the mine, was hardly preferable. A gem of a story - Fraser's voice is pinpoint perfect, and Gearbox makes every word count. Gorgeous stuff.
Ask And while you're at it, read everything else on Hth's site. She's sublime. "Would you like a towel, Ray?" He sounds a little strangled. "Maybe I like pickin' fights with you in the nude. It's a, what would ya say, a refreshin' change to have *you* bein' the one who's nervous all the time." Pares has written quite a few stories I like, but this is my favourite. The climax makes me happy-sniffle every time. Ray takes in the damp curl starting at his partner's temples, the heated flush painting the sculpted ridge of those perfect cheekbones and not for the first time, he considers the tantalizing notion that Fraser needs that uniform. Needs the starch and grooming, the scratchy wool and straps as a constant reminder that he has to act civilized but if you could ever get beneath the surface... Mmyeah. There's a *lot* I love about Rustler's stories, and right up there is her talent for writing evocative, mouthwatering description. Both these fics are lovely, sexy voyeuristic numbers -- The Delivery offers a refreshing Stella-perspective of the boys, and in DaBG, Ray... enjoys the view. (As do we, Ray).
"Keep the mud, "I say. "It's, uh, it's a good look on you." Look, ma. Bad Ray took possession of my mouth and he won't give it back to Good Ray, the one who doesn't want to jump his partner's bones. No, really. There just aren't enough I Coulda Been a Defendant stories. For that matter, there aren't enough Fraser-rolling-around-in-mud stories. (Yeah, that would be me with yet another kink... File it under 'What Fanfic Has Done to Me' Chapter 3). I just love this story -- great characterisation, great description and a wonderful, playful F/K dynamic. |
Template by The Webmistress. |