Fandom: NUMB3RS
Pairing: David/Colby
Length: 1,923 words
Author on LJ: spikedluv
Author Website: http://spikedluv.livejournal.com/ (You’ll have to sort through tags to find the Numb3rs fics.)
Why this must be read:

Colby and David, in a shower, with Colby on his knees.

There's not much more to it than that but it's really hot, dirty and very well written.

This is a story to print out and take with you to your bunk.

Size Queen

Fandom: NUMB3RS
Pairing: Don/Charlie ('cest free edit available upon request), Don/Kim, Charlie/Kit, Charlie/Amita, Charlie/Colby, Megan/Billy, David/Claudia, Charlie/Susan
Length: Novella in 24 bits
Author on LJ: emmademarais
Author Website: http://emmademarais.livejournal.com
Why this must be read:

( He stood back up, put the gun in the man's mouth and cocked it. ‘Goodbye, Coop.’ He pulled the trigger. )


Vice (scroll to the bottom of the post to find the chapter links)

Hi, I'm nos4a2no9 (call me Nos) and I'll be taking the wheel for CW RPS this month. I'm going to focus on recommending some select stories from the annual SPN/J2 Big Bang challenge. Long stories are love, and the Big Bang has produced a whole host of meaty fics that you can really sink your metaphorical teeth into.

Okay, let's get started!

Fandom: RPF: the WB/CW
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Length: ~33,000 words
Author on LJ: riyku, with art by zaipixie
Author Website: Here Be the Fic on LJ

Why this must be read:

A Handful of Rain is one of those rare stories that reads like original fic. The tale follows former junkie Jensen as he tries to get clean and get his life back together. After a nasty overdose he lands in a halfway house run by Jared, and the two begin to build a friendship that eventually blossoms into romance. If you're a veteran RPS reader, you can probably identify some of the thematic and emotional pitfalls that could plague a story written by someone less confident than riyku. There is potential for squicky trust abuse (Jared is a drug counsellor, after all, and Jensen is his counsellee) and such a melodramatic plot could run the risk of offering up an unrealistic or inaccurate representation of drug addiction. Instead, we're treated to a remarkably lyrical and moving portrait of the painful process of withdrawal and recovery.

The prose here is fabulous, poetic without sacrificing realism, and riyku proves she has an excellent handle on the emotional, physical and psychological complications of serious long-term drug addiction. The story's focus remains firmly on addiction, even as the J2 romance develops. riyku doesn't let her characters (or the reader) off easy, and the constant drumbeat of addiction is as much a central thematic fixture for reader as much as it is for Jensen. A Handful of Rain asks some serious and challenging questions about love, drug dependency, hope, and the meagre expectations of former addicts. It shows us how difficult yet rewarding each passing day becomes. I haven't read anything (in published or self-posted fanfic) that approaches this level of sensitivity and realism about such a serious topic, and this story is definitely worth a read. Rest assured, the story isn't as fraught as I make it sound. Hell, it's even kind of fun!

( C'mon, give it a try... )

A Handful of Rain

Fandom: STAR TREK REBOOT
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Length: 22K
Author on LJ: thalialunacy
Author Website: http://thalialunacy.livejournal.com/1012702.html
Why this must be read: This fic takes a pretty common trope in Star Trek, the Alfvén Wave, and turns it on it's ear. Bones basically gets whammied and it changes both of their lives forever. I read this fic first when Thalia posted a while back and I keep coming back to it. Her writing makes the characters come to life in a very real way. They are warm and funny and flawed and completely engaging. Oh and did I mention it was smoking hot? Well, it is.
( intrigueing snippet )

Every Mountain and Hill Shall be Made Low

Hi, perverse_idyll back a second time to steer the Harry Potter van into Snape country, and I've finally sorted out which recs can stay and which had to go. Once again, I'll be presiding over an all-Snape month, and I've arranged the stories in chronological order, following my favorite character from childhood through Hogwarts to the end of his life.

Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: Gen, no pairing
Length: 5840
Author on LJ: duniazade
Author Website: duniazade's page at the Online Wizard Library (OWL)
Why this must be read:
This is one of my favorite fics in all of fandom. In its brief span it combines the winter-bleak, winter-beautiful quality of a Grimm's fairytale with a textured, touching description of a day in Severus' childhood; the day his Hogwarts letter arrives. The quiet, worn poetry of daily life under siege, of cold and poverty and a terrible strangeness barricaded inside a Muggle household, is painted in delicate, economical, intensely sympathetic colors. This is a parable of destiny, of unfathomable forces far more ancient and indifferent to puny human lives—a half-blood child's life—than anything we see in canon; of inheritance and magic as both a source of wonder and an inescapable, inhuman compulsion of the soul.

( A bit more )

A Rowan in Winter