Fandom: LIFE ON MARS - UK
Pairing: none (some UST)
Length: 700
Author on LJ: fawsley
Author Website: none/unavailable
Why this must be read:

Faws is a fantastic writer whose work has been recced here before but this little gem holds a special place in my heart. It was one of the many, many stories I read when I first fell into LoM fandom, and amid so much amazing writing this one captured my imagination completely. It is a short story featuring a short scene between Sam and Gene but it is full of the magic that makes Faws such a brilliant star in LoM: fantastic dialogue, spot-on characterization, and ingenius creativity. Talky, emotive Gene is not exactly easy to write believably (damn near impossible, IMHO) but Faws is one of the few writers who can do it. Faws takes the staple idea of UST and threw it on Gene Hunt's shoulders, which at the time was highly unusual and groundbreaking. This, truly, was the "picture" that launched thousands upon thousands of words, as "Limbo" was one of the primary inspirations for several of my own stories. It is sad in a very inspiring way, and I love it. So I had to share.

STORY: Limbo


~

Fandom: HIGHLANDER
Pairing: Methos/Joe, Duncan/Methos, Kronos/Methos
Length: 280,000 words
Author on LJ: genteelrebel 
Author Website: Genny's fanfic site
Why this must be read: This fantastic fic has just finished (just in time for me to rec it). In this story Adam Pierson is sent to help Joe Dawson set up his bookshop and to cut a long story short they fall in love. What follows is a wonderful Methos/Joe story that covers all their episodes and explores Methos'  relationship with Duncan in a interesting new interpretation. This fits so seemlessly into canon I'm half convinced it is canon, it actually makes sense of everything. Read and enjoy (and maybe have a hanky ready for some of the chapters).

Adam and Joe

Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: Albus Dumbledore/Severus Snape
Length: 2,300
Author on LJ: lilith_morgana
Author Website: Lilith's page of fic links on her journal
Why this must be read:
Augh, it was really hard deciding which fic to single out, because I didn't want to confine myself to just one. All of Lilith's Snapledore fics belong together, and privileging one over all others feels arbitrary. This will at least give you a taste. Most of them are fairly brief, told in fragments and glimpses full of shattered poetry. Sometimes you have to guess what the layers mean and whether they're true or false; sometime the author sums it up for you with one elegant, ironic punch line. Her Snape is bitter-flavored, with a need for redemption that's just as damning as every other hunger in his life. He's both disturbing and sympathetic, knife-sharp and broken, like a bone that will never heal. Needless to say, what he has with with Dumbledore is not a relationship of equals. The writing is unsentimental but beautifully so, darkly lyrical, with cutting edges and lots of secrets spilling through the cracks. Lilith covers so much ground and time in so few words; her fics are imbued with the speechless presence of love, the refrain of betrayal, and the knowledge that, for these two, there is no happy ending.

And yet, at least for me, her stories about them are addicting. In my quest to decide which fic to rec, I re-read them all and was sorry when I came to the end and there were no more. I know this pairing squicks a lot of readers, but the way Lilith writes them together, they make an irresistible, tragic, and heartfelt kind of sense.

Through it all, and between them, twines the shadow of Tom Riddle.

( Judge for yourselves )

'All the Dreaded Cards Foretell'

Title:Elected Silence, Sing to Me
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: GEN
Length: 1844 words
Author on LJ: elanurel
Author Website: the_lilac_wind
Why this must be read:

Short answer? It's gorgeous.

Long answer, it's really gorgeous with an awesomely unexpected twist. A peek at the angels and Castiel down through the millennium.

Elected Silence, Sing to Me