*contes de fées préférés = favorite fairy tales

Wired by Jane St Clair

You should read all of Jane's Restaurant Dogs universe, but I like this story the best because it epitomizes Gunn's attitude towards Wesley in this series: "Damn! I need a piece of that. Goddamn! It's got a hold on me." I love that.

I also love the metaphors and language from these stories, probably best epitomized in this quote from Restaurant Dogs, the title piece, but second in the series:

"I feel wonderful," Rayne tells the room at large. "We should market you, Ripper. The rest of us could retire rich and live like the Marquis de Sade on what we'd make off your services."

"Shut up, Ethan." Pleasant, distracted, like he's said it a lot.

"How I am supposed to market your erotic skills if I'm not allowed to describe them?"

"I don't want you to, particularly. This restaurant is full of large truck-driving men and other individuals whose activities are, I suspect, of a criminal but largely heterosexual nature. Either group will almost certainly take exception to your remarks eventually, and when they come over here, I'm giving you to them, to beat or molest as they choose."

recommended 23.2.01 | permalink

Mockingbird by Jane St Clair

This is an Angel that ties into the episode "Five by Five." We get to watch Cordelia be mean and nasty in a way she usually hasn't been in LA, and we get to watch Faith be relatively good and happy, and we get to watch two girls fuck in a really hot way. I can't ask for anything more.

recommended 23.2.01 | permalink

The Year of Grace by Ellen

I've never understood the collective fannish hardon for Doyle. When Doyle was on Angel: The Series, I was just discovering The Sentinel on the Scifi Channel and watching it obsessively. By the time Scifi had moved The Sentinel to the afternoons, Doyle was dead and Wesley was on the show being cute and English and drooling over Angel in somewhat reserved fashion. But when I read this story about the Powers that Be granting Doyle one more year of life, the last two sections had me in tears. Even without knowing Doyle, the effect he has on Cordelia and Angel is mesmerizing and this story is well-worth reading.

recommended 22.2.01 | permalink

Done by Sheila

This is a very short Wesley/Gunn piece that Shrift recommended. It's marvelous. It's extremely compact, and it really captures Gunn. Go. Read. Now.

recommended 22.2.01 | permalink

Consumer Affairs by James Walkswithwind and The Mad Poetess

This Wesley/Angel/Gunn piece is part of a larger Buffy/Angel universe series of silly stories called Domestic Piranhas where the primary pairing is Spike/Xander. There's a lot of silliness in this story, and not a small amount of sex, but what I like best is the way in which Wesley's insecurities are dealt with.

recommended 21.2.01 | permalink

Sojourn by MaybeAmanda

This is a vignette that's a missing scene from last night's episode Per Manum. It's not slash. In fact, it's Mulder/Scully UST. But it works really well, it's short, and it's beautiful.

recommended 19.2.01 | permalink

Cicatrix by Webrain

Maybe you remember a long time ago in season one when Buffy was prophesied to die. And she did, but Xander knew CPR, so he brought her back to life and everything was okay.

Well, CPR is actually a pretty chancy thing. What if Xander hadn't been able to get Buffy going again? What if she died and stayed dead? How would things fall apart? Could all of the Watchers and all Buffy's sad friends put Sunnydale back together again?

Debchan, Spike, and Te answer these questions and many more in this painful, intricate novel which talks about how Giles, Ethan, Xander, Spike, Dru, Cordelia, Willow, Oz, Kendra, and Faith might have gotten on if the Master had really bagged himself a Slayer.

recommended 16.2.01 | permalink

Nightwatch by Webrain

Xander is too hot to sleep. Spike is cool to the touch. Sex ensues. Lots of it. Very arousing. Unfortunately, this file is riddled with a repeated typographical error. Many, many words have no space between them, although intent is difficult to decipher in only one or two cases.

recommended 14.2.01 | permalink

In Thicket by Martha

This is a Sentinel piece where Blair realizes that he's been going about things all wrong. Or perhaps that there was no right way to go about them. In any case, he has to stop. The story is set the morning after Night Shift, and if you blink at the wrong moment, you'll miss the slash. But this is a pretty picture of someone's world crashing in around their ears when they really look in a mirror for the first time in two years.

recommended 10.2.01 | permalink

Slick Like Water by Te

Hurt. Gunn. (Bitch. Kate.) Comfort. Wesley.

recommended 9.2.01 | permalink

Thrift by Dawn M. Pares and Te

Look, here's the thing. Authors put notes at the beginning of their stories so you can't blame them if you read something normally out of their league. But, there are so many author's notes and warnings, etc, that sometimes you just start to skip them. And when you do, you can read something pretty damn terrific that you wouldn't normally touch with a ten foot pole. So, go read this Buffy/The Sentinel crossover. Faith and Blair really work together, and it doesn't even matter that it's hetfic. It's superduperyummysquidgealicious!

recommended 9.2.01 | permalink

This Way by Te

I've been reading a lot of Buffy universe fic this week, but I haven't felt like recommending, in large part because most of it was Spike/Xander which I just don't find believable. But Te has written this utterly fabulous story from Wes' point of view, where we start off with Wesley being pleasantly oblivious to the obvious, and then we finish with a sex scene that had me so hot I felt like I was crawling out of my skin.

recommended 9.2.01 | permalink

The Adversary by Xanthe

The category on this is Skinner/Mulder, but the Skinner/Mulder relationship isn't the primary one. This is an exquisite example of mental, emotional, and physical MulderTorture, and it's about the relationship between Mulder and his abuser. It's painful and awful and fascinating, and Xanthe, once again, demonstrates her genius.

recommended 9.2.01 | permalink

valse a deux temps by Laura Jacquez Valentine

No one writes Sentinel fanfiction like Laura Jacquez Valentine. Sentinel fiction tends toward the warm and fuzzy. When we explore hurts, oftentimes, it's the hurt and terror of lunatics, the inexplicable bad actions of the Evil or the Insane. LJV gives us the harsh, ragged edges of togetherness, the kind little hurts that arise from loving too closely.

This story is a crossover with DueSouth (takes place after both series finales), where she uses the consanguinous relationship of Fraser and Kowalski to illustrate the functional constraint of Jim and Blair, and the relative groundedness of Sandburg and Ellison to demonstrate the total lunacy that is Ray and Fraser's world. And neither way is worse than the other, but also neither way is better.

recommended 2.2.01 | permalink