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Attack of the WaT fic recs
[Updated 09.11.2005]
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verstehen asked for Without a Trace recs, and what Koanju wants...
For the curious on my f-list who may be wondering what this is about. The knowledgable among you may move on: Without a Trace is a procedural drama (one of several out of Jerry Bruckheimer's stable) on CBS, focusing on an FBI team that specializes in finding missing people. Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) is the supervisory agent, nominally in charge of Vivian Johnson (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), Samantha Spade (Poppy Montgomery), Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano), andDanny's boyfriend Martin Fitzgerald (Eric Close). CBS's official site has a short sketch of the show and the main characters, while Missing Persons Unit Elite has more complete character biographies, along with personal observations by the compiler. (The latter, however, are read at the risk of being spoiled.)
Caveat lector: There is a famous saying, "Never ask anaesc for recs, for she will say both yes and no." (Or something.) That is to say, I don't think the following is a list of "recs" as such, more like a list of fics that appeal strongly to me for their own specific reasons. Sometimes the poetry of the language leaves me aching with pleasure and satisfaction, sometimes the writer will perfectly capture exactly how I feel or what I think about a certain character, sometimes the fic is simply a story I have to read after a rough day and need to smile or laugh, and I know said fic can make me do it. So, don't take my list o' things as injunctions to read, and no guarantee or warranty of satisfaction (other than my own) is expressed or implied in all of this, because it's all ultimately subjective, no?
A few of these have been rec'ed previously by the inimitable goddess of all things WaT and overseer of Pretty FBI Boys,nekosmuse, but they appear here as well because, well, I'd like a chance to enthuse over them, too :) My tastes run very strongly toward Danny/Martin--because I am an inveterate and incurable slash lover--but there are some gen fics and even a couple of *gasp* het ones. So, that said, and in no particular order...
WaT!fics HF Really Likes For One Reason Or Another
[Summaries and descriptions in quotation marks are taken from the author's own summary.]
Title/Link: Broken
By: Matilda
Pairings: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: "Mid to post-ep for AYNOHYEB ["Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been" (1.21)]. Martin needs to find a better way to cope. Danny is just trying to do the right thing."
Cur amo: This is The Fic that pulled me not only into WaT, but onto the D/M ship. Set during an episode that's really the first test of the team's strength and trust, and of the trust between Danny and Martin in particular, it's a story of how to fix something unknowingly broken, and discovering unexpected connections between two people. Matilda's style is lovely: lyrical without being overdone, with an edge that speaks very much to Danny's impatience and frustration, and Martin's solitary struggle against despair. Really, I can't put into words why I love this fic so much... it's beyond my eloquence. (Coincidentally, you should take this as a hint to go read her other D/M fic, Debussy--a brief, but evocative, study of the fear of intimacy, and overcoming it.)
Title/Link: Are We to the Gods
By:mojokitten
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: Post-ep for the S3 finale, "Endgame."
Cur amo: The style. The way it captures the hallucinatory, unreal quality of having touched death for a moment and come away, and the perils (and promises) of a relationship born from gunfire. I'm a sucker for synesthetic writing--prose that has sounds with flashing and flowing together, colors and lights that grate on the skin, words I can taste when I read them aloud--and "Are We to the Gods" is a perfect example of that. Each moment, like the variation of impressions, blends into the next and things happen, pulling Danny and Martin--and the reader--through the narrative.
Title/Link: Torrential
By: WhiteLight (trajictale)
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: Danny and Martin go to the park. Rain and kissing ensue.
Cur amo: This ficlet is evidence of the truth of the old aphorism, "less is more": short it may be, but everything is there: Martin's compulsion to plan everything, Danny's spontaneity, making out in the rain, and an acknowledgment of the difficulty of being two men in love. While Danny blithely suggests to Martin, "Maybe we just aren't meant for the public," that spoke to me more of his recognition that, as WL says, "It's just easier to be Danny and Martin in the privacy of an apartment. It's easier to kiss and touch and whisper to each other when there aren't prying eyes and looks of disgust." Reality's always threatening at the edge of happiness in this ficlet, but never manages to win.
Title/Link: The Kiss
By: Jin
Pairings/Main characters: Martin/Sam [as in Samantha], Jack, Danny, Viv
Summary/Description: What happens when one of the team goes missing? Set during S3, some time after "Malone v. Malone."
Cur amo: A wonderful analysis not only of Martin in dire straits--trying to stay tough, and terrified of losing his dignity and worth in the eyes of his teammates--but of each other character's relationship to him. "The Kiss" takes the canon as it stands in the third season and fleshes it out: the difficulties in Sam and Martin's relationship, the friendship and cameraderie between Danny and Martin, Jack's odd and vaguely confused position as respected authority figure (a novelty in Martin's heretofore rebellious life), and Viv's brand of "been there, done that" wisdom. What makes this fic fun for me is that it's a great look into the minds of all the team, which can be hard to come by. Though MS is not my thing, Jin is a writer I trust, and that trust paid off here.
Title/Link: Becoming and Genesis
By: Cha Oseye Tempest-Thrain
Pairing/Main Characters: Martin, Danny, Victor
Summary/Description: See below
Cur amo: I'm doing both these stories together, because even though they don't seem to be intended to work together, they do. Both flesh out the circumstances of Martin's early life, career in the FBI, and his eventual placement in Missing Persons. "Becoming" covers the early years: Martin's relationship with Victor, and (for me) an accurate assessment of Martin's cynical, yet oddly envious, attitude toward the "perfect" American family. The last part of the fic, a scene between Victor and Jack, is wonderful--a changing of the guard, so to speak, from a man who can't look out for his son (and never could) to one who can, and who has by virtue of his action and character earned what Martin's never given Victor--respect worth having. "Genesis" offers a backstory for Martin's transfer into MisPers, but M\more than that, it also offers one of the best insights into Danny's "harass the new kid strategy" I've ever read--as much personality as necessity, and the ability to recognize that, as Cha puts it, what Martin really needs is someone to kick his ass and give him hell.
Title/Link: For All I Know
By: Spike
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin; Martin/Sam
Summary/Description: "Things change." (Spans the series.)
Cur amo: A series of quasi-drabbles charting the development of Danny and Martin's relationship, mostly from Danny's POV with some contributions from Martin. A story of missed opportunities and chances taken. What Makes the fic for me, though, is Spike's wonderful insight into a war-weary Martin, who wants his own version of happiness and finally decides to go after it. One of those diamonds in the rough of ff.net.
Title/Link: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
By: Mady Bay
Pairings/Main characters: no pairings; Martin, Vin Tanner
Summary/Description: A crossover with The Magnificent Seven (the TV series, not the original samurai flick or the US Western remake of it), set in the very popular M7 modern-day ATF AU, in which the boys are become ATF agents.
Cur amo: The premise is difficult to describe without spoiling the ending, but suffice to say, stupid, desperate criminals + an unexpected change of plans + ill-timed vacation = trouble for Special Agent Fitzgerald. A swift-paced story (MB does not mince words), and beautifully woven together, with unexpected serious undertones beneath the humor of what is (superficially) an amusing series of near-misses and lapses of communication.
Title/Link: Midnight Street
By: painfulclarity
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: To quote Danny from the fic, "You're thinking again. What did I tell you about thinking?"
Cur amo: Okay, I admit it, I'm a sucker for Martin introspection. I love seeing other people get into his mind and explicate the bizarre tangle of thoughts that is my favorite WaT character. This is one of the best specimens I've come across.
Title/Link: A River Bends
By:nekosmuse
Pairings/Main characters: Martin/Danny
Summary/Description: What happens when two people can't keep a secret.
Cur amo: Neko, like so many of the authors on this list, is a wonderful writer and I've enjoyed all her WaT stuff. This one rates a mention in part becauseverstehen wanted long stuff, and this is definitely long. It's also good; sexy, hot, dangerous, and strangely sad in places, as Martin and Danny try to negotiate what they mean to each other and, eventually, try to save themselves.
Title/Link: Annus Mirabilis: Petitio Principii, Experientia Docet, and Natale Solum
By: Alethia
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin, OMC/OMCs
Summary/Description: Three fics in a series. See below.
Cur amo: Boarding. School. Fic. Ever sinceevremonde's GW AUs I have had a, at times guilty, love for boarding school fics. As Alethia says, this is all "Sixteen-year-old boys being sixteen-year-old boys": namely, being horny and stupid and, occasionally, smart enough to do something about both things. Her style is a lot of fun--smart, sarcastic, and sly, very much like the characters she's writing.
Title/Link: Perceptions
By:lillyjk
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin; traces of Martin/Sam
Summary/Description: There's oblivious... and then there's Danny. And Martin.
Cur amo: "There were all sorts of pills to create erections, there had to be something he could take to prevent them." That, and so much more. This is one of those fics I come back to after a day of unmitigated crappitude, and especially in the past couple of weeks it's brought a smile to my face. Bylillyjk's own admission, it started out as cliche drunk-fic, but evolved into something more, as many stories tend to do. It starts in S3, sometime around "Bogie Man" and goes through "Off the Tracks", charting the odd twists and turns through drunkenness, interrogations, bathrooms, gay clubs, and leather pants as it goes, and finds its way home in a wonderful last chapter. Oh, and two words: Fitz Alps.
Title/Link: Aftershocks
By:carolinecrane
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: Danny has a scare and Martin has a little trouble dealing.
Cur amo: This is Martin stripped down and desperate and unable to control it, which is always a Good Thing, considering it almost never happens in the series. Oh, and I recommend all the rest of her stuff. 'Tis very good.
Title/Link: Mal Vu, Mal Dit
By: Elina
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin, Sam
Summary/Description: "Ill-seen, ill-said."
Cur amo: My only complaint is that the people who really need to read this--i.e. the screenwriters--seem not to have done so. Sam happens upon a Moment, and in doing so, realizes the error of her ways. (And I would also like to second Neko's rec of Cocaine, yes I would, and damned if I don't have Clapton's song playing in the back of my head the entire time.)
Title/Link: Borrowed Heaven
By: Veronica
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: "You can't borrow heaven."
Cur amo: Although it starts out with a bang, "Borrowed Heaven" is really about finding enough quiet to define a relationship and to realize what's important. One of the unexpected treats in this is an appearance by Jack, who is written exactly as I envision him in the series, to the point that I can hear him in my head: sarcastic, impatient, and more than a little bit hard-assed. "Borrowed Heaven" is filled with trademark Danny-Martin banter, Martin's pride and independence, and moments that are sweet, tender, and appealing even to my cynical and embittered heart. While you're poking around shiny.aithine.org, you should know that Aithine and Veronica are truly a dynamic duo--all their WaT fic is good, and as I can attest from having (briefly) known Aithine way back in my Gundam Wing days, their other stuff is good too.
Title/Link: A Really Rotten Day
By: Anne Higgins
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: "It was all going wrong."
Cur amo: This is interesting to contrast with Matilda's "Broken," inasmuch as, unlike "Broken"--which tests a relationship that has not yet had time to form--this tests a relationship that has had a few months to develop, and has done so in Miracle-Gro fashion. ARRD takes place during that wonderful pressure-cooker episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?", and as the opening quotation indicates, everything is slowly but inexorably going to hell as Martin struggles with insomnia and Danny struggles to get Martin to talk about it. Things only get worse when the Spaulding trial and the OPR investigation conspire to produce misunderstandings, lack of sleep, and unpleasant revelations--especially for Martin, poor boy.
Title/Link: A Day at the Office
By: Vera
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: "An unexpected day at the office."
Cur amo: The summary really doesn't do the story justice, as so many summaries fail to do. While events revolve around some unexpected developments for Jack's MisPers team, they are played out against a relationship that has somehow gone beyond what Danny has intended for it to be. In part, my love for this fic is because it digs into Danny's head and brings up some interesting thoughts and reactions to the maddening behavior of one Martin Fitzgerald. And, in part, it's beautifully written, which with me counts for a lot. Victor also makes an appearance--and is not the thoroughgoing bastard he usually is, but a worried father--and those of you who have read ALTC know how much I like Victor like that :)
Title/Link: Drinks
By: Cha Oseye Tempest-Thrain
Pairings/Main characters: Martin, Danny
Summary/Description: "Danny didn’t seem surprised on the phone he seems even less surprised here, watching someone else get drunk."
Cur amo: A great Martin and Danny moment, post-"Endgame." How two friends get each other through the trauma of near death: a bar, drinks, and the offer of a place to crash--but more than that, it's Martin's perspective on Danny, moving beneath the smartassery and the suavity to look at the damaged alcoholic kid beneath it all. And it's a moment of brutal honesty for Martin, who evaluates himself unflinchingly and why the relationship he has with Danny works so well.
Title/Link: A Matter of Moments
By:le_mot_mo
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: Seven hours, twenty-six minutes and fourteen seconds ago, Danny's life still made sense.
Cur amo: "A Matter of Moments" is worked out by the numbers, a careful counting game that measures the loss of Danny's sanity against the potential loss of Martin's life. This is Danny under pressure like I've never really seen before, stripped down past his sarcasm and smirk to a place where he's stuck making bargains with higher powers. Short fic, but powerful and tense, stretched along a timeline of pain and fear. So very, very good.
Title/Link: Seasons Present, Seasons Past
By:nekosmuse
Pairings/Main characters: Martin/Danny
Summary/Description: "The wind spoke of the coming winter."
Cur amo: AU. This is something that you really can't describe without giving away the story's premise. Suffice it to say, it's very cold outside, and there are murder mysteries to be solved. SPSP affected me particularly strongly because I had been reading Caleb Carr's The Alienist; the atmosphere is surreal as the characters move through a New York that really isn't New York and try to contend with dreams and memories of another time and place.
Title/Link: The Best-Laid Plans
By:mardia_
Pairings/Main characters: Martin, Victor
Summary/Description: The title says it all.
Cur amo:mardia_ writes some of the best Victor in the known universe; she captures the strained "relationship" (such as it is) between Martin and Victor so beautifully--Martin's resentment and willful disobedience, and Victor's confusion over why Martin won't do the logical thing (ie. do what Victor wants him to do). Memories and the present (set sometime during the beginning of S4, right after "Endgame") interweave as Victor tries to figure out where everything went wrong. Just lovely.
Title/Link: Ghosts Upon the Dawn
By:mardia_
Pairings/Main characters: Martin/Sam, Danny/Martin, Danny/Sam (of a sort, and yes, I know this is insane) and mentions of Sam/Jack
Summary/Description: "Sometimes, when Danny hasn’t fallen asleep yet, but isn’t fully awake, he thinks about all the ways things could have gone."
Cur amo: Even though much of the story is Danny wondering over how things after "Endgame" could have gone, and so the reader knows (at least most of the time) that even his worst imaginings are unreal and safely in the realm of fantasy, this is a difficult story to read. In a good way, of course. Difficult because, especially for me, it strikes at the heart of what makes us human--the ability to see other ends, things that could happen, but by some miracle, didn't... Likemardia_ says, It could have happened like that. It didn’t.
And thassit. For now. *fallover*
verstehen asked for Without a Trace recs, and what Koanju wants... For the curious on my f-list who may be wondering what this is about. The knowledgable among you may move on: Without a Trace is a procedural drama (one of several out of Jerry Bruckheimer's stable) on CBS, focusing on an FBI team that specializes in finding missing people. Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) is the supervisory agent, nominally in charge of Vivian Johnson (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), Samantha Spade (Poppy Montgomery), Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano), and
Caveat lector: There is a famous saying, "Never ask an
aesc for recs, for she will say both yes and no." (Or something.) That is to say, I don't think the following is a list of "recs" as such, more like a list of fics that appeal strongly to me for their own specific reasons. Sometimes the poetry of the language leaves me aching with pleasure and satisfaction, sometimes the writer will perfectly capture exactly how I feel or what I think about a certain character, sometimes the fic is simply a story I have to read after a rough day and need to smile or laugh, and I know said fic can make me do it. So, don't take my list o' things as injunctions to read, and no guarantee or warranty of satisfaction (other than my own) is expressed or implied in all of this, because it's all ultimately subjective, no?A few of these have been rec'ed previously by the inimitable goddess of all things WaT and overseer of Pretty FBI Boys,
nekosmuse, but they appear here as well because, well, I'd like a chance to enthuse over them, too :) My tastes run very strongly toward Danny/Martin--because I am an inveterate and incurable slash lover--but there are some gen fics and even a couple of *gasp* het ones. So, that said, and in no particular order...[Summaries and descriptions in quotation marks are taken from the author's own summary.]
Title/Link: Broken
By: Matilda
Pairings: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: "Mid to post-ep for AYNOHYEB ["Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been" (1.21)]. Martin needs to find a better way to cope. Danny is just trying to do the right thing."
Cur amo: This is The Fic that pulled me not only into WaT, but onto the D/M ship. Set during an episode that's really the first test of the team's strength and trust, and of the trust between Danny and Martin in particular, it's a story of how to fix something unknowingly broken, and discovering unexpected connections between two people. Matilda's style is lovely: lyrical without being overdone, with an edge that speaks very much to Danny's impatience and frustration, and Martin's solitary struggle against despair. Really, I can't put into words why I love this fic so much... it's beyond my eloquence. (Coincidentally, you should take this as a hint to go read her other D/M fic, Debussy--a brief, but evocative, study of the fear of intimacy, and overcoming it.)
Title/Link: Are We to the Gods
By:
mojokittenPairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: Post-ep for the S3 finale, "Endgame."
Cur amo: The style. The way it captures the hallucinatory, unreal quality of having touched death for a moment and come away, and the perils (and promises) of a relationship born from gunfire. I'm a sucker for synesthetic writing--prose that has sounds with flashing and flowing together, colors and lights that grate on the skin, words I can taste when I read them aloud--and "Are We to the Gods" is a perfect example of that. Each moment, like the variation of impressions, blends into the next and things happen, pulling Danny and Martin--and the reader--through the narrative.
Title/Link: Torrential
By: WhiteLight (
trajictale)Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: Danny and Martin go to the park. Rain and kissing ensue.
Cur amo: This ficlet is evidence of the truth of the old aphorism, "less is more": short it may be, but everything is there: Martin's compulsion to plan everything, Danny's spontaneity, making out in the rain, and an acknowledgment of the difficulty of being two men in love. While Danny blithely suggests to Martin, "Maybe we just aren't meant for the public," that spoke to me more of his recognition that, as WL says, "It's just easier to be Danny and Martin in the privacy of an apartment. It's easier to kiss and touch and whisper to each other when there aren't prying eyes and looks of disgust." Reality's always threatening at the edge of happiness in this ficlet, but never manages to win.
Title/Link: The Kiss
By: Jin
Pairings/Main characters: Martin/Sam [as in Samantha], Jack, Danny, Viv
Summary/Description: What happens when one of the team goes missing? Set during S3, some time after "Malone v. Malone."
Cur amo: A wonderful analysis not only of Martin in dire straits--trying to stay tough, and terrified of losing his dignity and worth in the eyes of his teammates--but of each other character's relationship to him. "The Kiss" takes the canon as it stands in the third season and fleshes it out: the difficulties in Sam and Martin's relationship, the friendship and cameraderie between Danny and Martin, Jack's odd and vaguely confused position as respected authority figure (a novelty in Martin's heretofore rebellious life), and Viv's brand of "been there, done that" wisdom. What makes this fic fun for me is that it's a great look into the minds of all the team, which can be hard to come by. Though MS is not my thing, Jin is a writer I trust, and that trust paid off here.
Title/Link: Becoming and Genesis
By: Cha Oseye Tempest-Thrain
Pairing/Main Characters: Martin, Danny, Victor
Summary/Description: See below
Cur amo: I'm doing both these stories together, because even though they don't seem to be intended to work together, they do. Both flesh out the circumstances of Martin's early life, career in the FBI, and his eventual placement in Missing Persons. "Becoming" covers the early years: Martin's relationship with Victor, and (for me) an accurate assessment of Martin's cynical, yet oddly envious, attitude toward the "perfect" American family. The last part of the fic, a scene between Victor and Jack, is wonderful--a changing of the guard, so to speak, from a man who can't look out for his son (and never could) to one who can, and who has by virtue of his action and character earned what Martin's never given Victor--respect worth having. "Genesis" offers a backstory for Martin's transfer into MisPers, but M\more than that, it also offers one of the best insights into Danny's "harass the new kid strategy" I've ever read--as much personality as necessity, and the ability to recognize that, as Cha puts it, what Martin really needs is someone to kick his ass and give him hell.
Title/Link: For All I Know
By: Spike
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin; Martin/Sam
Summary/Description: "Things change." (Spans the series.)
Cur amo: A series of quasi-drabbles charting the development of Danny and Martin's relationship, mostly from Danny's POV with some contributions from Martin. A story of missed opportunities and chances taken. What Makes the fic for me, though, is Spike's wonderful insight into a war-weary Martin, who wants his own version of happiness and finally decides to go after it. One of those diamonds in the rough of ff.net.
Title/Link: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
By: Mady Bay
Pairings/Main characters: no pairings; Martin, Vin Tanner
Summary/Description: A crossover with The Magnificent Seven (the TV series, not the original samurai flick or the US Western remake of it), set in the very popular M7 modern-day ATF AU, in which the boys are become ATF agents.
Cur amo: The premise is difficult to describe without spoiling the ending, but suffice to say, stupid, desperate criminals + an unexpected change of plans + ill-timed vacation = trouble for Special Agent Fitzgerald. A swift-paced story (MB does not mince words), and beautifully woven together, with unexpected serious undertones beneath the humor of what is (superficially) an amusing series of near-misses and lapses of communication.
Title/Link: Midnight Street
By: painfulclarity
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: To quote Danny from the fic, "You're thinking again. What did I tell you about thinking?"
Cur amo: Okay, I admit it, I'm a sucker for Martin introspection. I love seeing other people get into his mind and explicate the bizarre tangle of thoughts that is my favorite WaT character. This is one of the best specimens I've come across.
Title/Link: A River Bends
By:
nekosmusePairings/Main characters: Martin/Danny
Summary/Description: What happens when two people can't keep a secret.
Cur amo: Neko, like so many of the authors on this list, is a wonderful writer and I've enjoyed all her WaT stuff. This one rates a mention in part because
verstehen wanted long stuff, and this is definitely long. It's also good; sexy, hot, dangerous, and strangely sad in places, as Martin and Danny try to negotiate what they mean to each other and, eventually, try to save themselves.Title/Link: Annus Mirabilis: Petitio Principii, Experientia Docet, and Natale Solum
By: Alethia
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin, OMC/OMCs
Summary/Description: Three fics in a series. See below.
Cur amo: Boarding. School. Fic. Ever since
evremonde's GW AUs I have had a, at times guilty, love for boarding school fics. As Alethia says, this is all "Sixteen-year-old boys being sixteen-year-old boys": namely, being horny and stupid and, occasionally, smart enough to do something about both things. Her style is a lot of fun--smart, sarcastic, and sly, very much like the characters she's writing.Title/Link: Perceptions
By:
lillyjkPairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin; traces of Martin/Sam
Summary/Description: There's oblivious... and then there's Danny. And Martin.
Cur amo: "There were all sorts of pills to create erections, there had to be something he could take to prevent them." That, and so much more. This is one of those fics I come back to after a day of unmitigated crappitude, and especially in the past couple of weeks it's brought a smile to my face. By
lillyjk's own admission, it started out as cliche drunk-fic, but evolved into something more, as many stories tend to do. It starts in S3, sometime around "Bogie Man" and goes through "Off the Tracks", charting the odd twists and turns through drunkenness, interrogations, bathrooms, gay clubs, and leather pants as it goes, and finds its way home in a wonderful last chapter. Oh, and two words: Fitz Alps.Title/Link: Aftershocks
By:
carolinecranePairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: Danny has a scare and Martin has a little trouble dealing.
Cur amo: This is Martin stripped down and desperate and unable to control it, which is always a Good Thing, considering it almost never happens in the series. Oh, and I recommend all the rest of her stuff. 'Tis very good.
Title/Link: Mal Vu, Mal Dit
By: Elina
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin, Sam
Summary/Description: "Ill-seen, ill-said."
Cur amo: My only complaint is that the people who really need to read this--i.e. the screenwriters--seem not to have done so. Sam happens upon a Moment, and in doing so, realizes the error of her ways. (And I would also like to second Neko's rec of Cocaine, yes I would, and damned if I don't have Clapton's song playing in the back of my head the entire time.)
Title/Link: Borrowed Heaven
By: Veronica
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: "You can't borrow heaven."
Cur amo: Although it starts out with a bang, "Borrowed Heaven" is really about finding enough quiet to define a relationship and to realize what's important. One of the unexpected treats in this is an appearance by Jack, who is written exactly as I envision him in the series, to the point that I can hear him in my head: sarcastic, impatient, and more than a little bit hard-assed. "Borrowed Heaven" is filled with trademark Danny-Martin banter, Martin's pride and independence, and moments that are sweet, tender, and appealing even to my cynical and embittered heart. While you're poking around shiny.aithine.org, you should know that Aithine and Veronica are truly a dynamic duo--all their WaT fic is good, and as I can attest from having (briefly) known Aithine way back in my Gundam Wing days, their other stuff is good too.
Title/Link: A Really Rotten Day
By: Anne Higgins
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: "It was all going wrong."
Cur amo: This is interesting to contrast with Matilda's "Broken," inasmuch as, unlike "Broken"--which tests a relationship that has not yet had time to form--this tests a relationship that has had a few months to develop, and has done so in Miracle-Gro fashion. ARRD takes place during that wonderful pressure-cooker episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?", and as the opening quotation indicates, everything is slowly but inexorably going to hell as Martin struggles with insomnia and Danny struggles to get Martin to talk about it. Things only get worse when the Spaulding trial and the OPR investigation conspire to produce misunderstandings, lack of sleep, and unpleasant revelations--especially for Martin, poor boy.
Title/Link: A Day at the Office
By: Vera
Pairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: "An unexpected day at the office."
Cur amo: The summary really doesn't do the story justice, as so many summaries fail to do. While events revolve around some unexpected developments for Jack's MisPers team, they are played out against a relationship that has somehow gone beyond what Danny has intended for it to be. In part, my love for this fic is because it digs into Danny's head and brings up some interesting thoughts and reactions to the maddening behavior of one Martin Fitzgerald. And, in part, it's beautifully written, which with me counts for a lot. Victor also makes an appearance--and is not the thoroughgoing bastard he usually is, but a worried father--and those of you who have read ALTC know how much I like Victor like that :)
Title/Link: Drinks
By: Cha Oseye Tempest-Thrain
Pairings/Main characters: Martin, Danny
Summary/Description: "Danny didn’t seem surprised on the phone he seems even less surprised here, watching someone else get drunk."
Cur amo: A great Martin and Danny moment, post-"Endgame." How two friends get each other through the trauma of near death: a bar, drinks, and the offer of a place to crash--but more than that, it's Martin's perspective on Danny, moving beneath the smartassery and the suavity to look at the damaged alcoholic kid beneath it all. And it's a moment of brutal honesty for Martin, who evaluates himself unflinchingly and why the relationship he has with Danny works so well.
Title/Link: A Matter of Moments
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le_mot_moPairings/Main characters: Danny/Martin
Summary/Description: Seven hours, twenty-six minutes and fourteen seconds ago, Danny's life still made sense.
Cur amo: "A Matter of Moments" is worked out by the numbers, a careful counting game that measures the loss of Danny's sanity against the potential loss of Martin's life. This is Danny under pressure like I've never really seen before, stripped down past his sarcasm and smirk to a place where he's stuck making bargains with higher powers. Short fic, but powerful and tense, stretched along a timeline of pain and fear. So very, very good.
Title/Link: Seasons Present, Seasons Past
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nekosmusePairings/Main characters: Martin/Danny
Summary/Description: "The wind spoke of the coming winter."
Cur amo: AU. This is something that you really can't describe without giving away the story's premise. Suffice it to say, it's very cold outside, and there are murder mysteries to be solved. SPSP affected me particularly strongly because I had been reading Caleb Carr's The Alienist; the atmosphere is surreal as the characters move through a New York that really isn't New York and try to contend with dreams and memories of another time and place.
Title/Link: The Best-Laid Plans
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mardia_Pairings/Main characters: Martin, Victor
Summary/Description: The title says it all.
Cur amo:
mardia_ writes some of the best Victor in the known universe; she captures the strained "relationship" (such as it is) between Martin and Victor so beautifully--Martin's resentment and willful disobedience, and Victor's confusion over why Martin won't do the logical thing (ie. do what Victor wants him to do). Memories and the present (set sometime during the beginning of S4, right after "Endgame") interweave as Victor tries to figure out where everything went wrong. Just lovely.Title/Link: Ghosts Upon the Dawn
By:
mardia_Pairings/Main characters: Martin/Sam, Danny/Martin, Danny/Sam (of a sort, and yes, I know this is insane) and mentions of Sam/Jack
Summary/Description: "Sometimes, when Danny hasn’t fallen asleep yet, but isn’t fully awake, he thinks about all the ways things could have gone."
Cur amo: Even though much of the story is Danny wondering over how things after "Endgame" could have gone, and so the reader knows (at least most of the time) that even his worst imaginings are unreal and safely in the realm of fantasy, this is a difficult story to read. In a good way, of course. Difficult because, especially for me, it strikes at the heart of what makes us human--the ability to see other ends, things that could happen, but by some miracle, didn't... Like
mardia_ says, It could have happened like that. It didn’t.And thassit. For now. *fallover*
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But you should definitely check out Neko's recs, too. Much more WaT goodness to be had.
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