Next stop in our Bay City tour? Not actually in Bay City...

Fandom: STARSKY AND HUTCH
Pairing: Starsky/Hutch
Length: 1,352 words
Author on LJ: igbc
Author Website: Nyssa at AO3
Why this must be read:

Nyssa is famous (or maybe I should say infamous *g*) for the hawt sexytimes, but she’s not a one-trick pony, as this poignant story will attest to. Oh, the boys are still at their bantering best, but with a softer, more somber undertone, as befits the circumstances: visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. A very sweet, touching story, with nary a nookie in sight.

( Take a look~ )

Wall

Fandom: GLEE
Pairing: Brittany/Santana
Length: 5k
Author on LJ: lynnearlington
Author Website: Masterlist
Why thismust be read: I love stories about how Brittany and Santana meet and become friends, and this story is a great example of that. Santana is fiercely protective of Brittany, and I love how she gets Brittany. There's also great friendship development between Santana and Quinn, and Puck, and I think there's not enough friendships in this show, so I love it when an author does it well.

Shoebox of Photographs

Fandom: THE PROFESSIONALS
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Length: Novel length (150, 893)
Author on LJ: hgdoghouse
Author Website: No website, but the list of HG's stories at Palelyloitering - HG's stories archived at The Circuit Archive and her stories archived at The Automated Hatstand will help you find more of her fic. (I think the latter may be most complete and up-to-date.
Why this must be read: Because HG is a classic and much-loved Pros author, and I think the only reason she's not been more recced here at Crack_van is that until the last few years her stories haven't been archived online. Now even her novels are easily available to all though, and she's well worth exploring. She knows the lads, she knows England, and she knows the world in which Bodie/Doyle lived - both CI5 and the 1970s/1980s. Her characterisation and dialogue is spot on, even when her lads were born a few hundred years before ours.

Rediscovered in a Graveyard is a story within a story. The lads have been in Cornwall on a case, their car breaks down just as they're beginning their 72 hour leave, and they decide to spend some time in the sunny Cornish countryside - starting with a picnic in what turns out to be an old graveyard. Whilst there, they find something that catapults us back in time to 1799, where two men were to be found locked in the Bastille - another Bodie and Doyle. We follow the AU lads through a number of years, and our canon lads through a holiday that turns sour, until all is brought together again at the end. It's two novels in one, and I love the way that HG writes, so that both stories always keep me reading long after I should have turned out the light.

( Excerpt 1 )

( Exceprt 2 )

Rediscovered in a Graveyard

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Pairing: Human!Stefan/Katherine
Length: 2000 words
Author on LJ: lit_chick08
Author Website fic masterlist
Why this must be read:

What makes this story unique is it's careful acknowledgment of the time it takes place in. Stefan is a young man in 1864. He wants to court Katherine (not date her). He worries about the propriety of their relationship and thinks they should have a chaperone when they are alone together. He knows little of sex, other than a hazy idea of what goes on between married couples. He's so naive and noble, worrying about whether his father will consent to their marriage and how the gossip will affect Katherine's reputation. And, as Stefan is holding so firmly to the social laws that govern them, Katherine defies them all.

Excerpt: Stefan is smitten. He is not the only one. George Lockwood circles her with a predator’s grace; Adam Gilbert runs to fetch her anything she requests; William and Wyatt Forbes practically trip over each other in their hurry to gain her attention. Stefan has never courted a girl before and he has certainly never fought for a girl’s favor; that is Damon’s specialty.


You Desired My Attention (But Denied My Affection)

Fandom: STAR WARS
Length: 1117 words
Pairing: Anakin/Obi-Wan
Author on LJ: kathierif_fic
Author Website: LJ Tags
Why this must be read:

This story is not hotter than a firecracker, it's more like a sparkler, low-key and longer-lasting than a firecracker's big kabang. kathierif_fic's talent is to take a 'amnesia, mind control' prompt from kink_bingo and turn out a finely-tuned story of needs needed and fulfilled, resulting in a tender event that you may not think of, from a prompt like that.

Just A Little Love