Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Stiles/Derek
Length: 31,886
Rating: M
Warnings: spoilers through season 2, canonical violence, non-consensual daemon touching, mentions of schizophrenia
Author on LJ:
Author Website: ecarian on tumblr
Summary: Sometime around mid summer, during the intervening weeks of baseball camp and recovering from baseball camp and the latest Minecraft update, Jinx hops up the plastic step stool to their bed and says, "Derek's daemon won't talk to me."

Why this must be read: This was a magical boon from the fic rec fairy gods, posted yesterday and linked to me by my sister. Everything I've ever wanted from a Sterek daemon AU, ecarian has presented here using a mix of the psychology of the characters (as shown through daemons) & details from how this world works (such as touching another's daemon being against the Constitution). Every character is presented true to how I perceived them in canon, which is lovely. In particular, narrative from Stiles' POV was a great decision, keeping me involved and emotionally attached.

Derek's daemon was an unexpected well thought out comment on how he views himself, to the point that I found her actions one of the best parts in this fantastic story. Also there's a really nice merge of canon-typical supernatural creatures and the daemon no-touching rule.

Cross My Soul

Fandom: THE AVENGERS
Pairing: Maria Hill and Natasha Romanov, Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
Length: 3564
Author on LJ: irnan
Author Website: At AO3
Why this must be read: This is a *fantastic* Maria Hill character study. It was posted at a time when I was reading a comic that had left a very nasty taste in my mouth regarding Maria. [No one bad mouths Pepper Potts when I'm around, just saying] I actually hated her for about a week. Then this fic saved her character for me. Yes, it is that strong.

So is Maria.

Excerpt

"I don't like Saviours - I don't trust them," she tries explaining.

Cap looks astonished and amused and thoughtful all at once. "Why not? Why would anyone not?"

Maria waves her hands. The bridge elevator's stuck again, Stark and Banner set something off and jammed half the non-essential electronics systems on the carrier, thank God they're already in the water and won't be crashing out of the sky. She and Cap are sitting opposite each other on the floor in dull, dim red emergency lighting. He's wearing civvies; she isn't. She's armed; he isn't. There's a trap door above them in the elevator roof they could get out of if they had to.

"Because," she says, "once you need a Saviour - that's giving up your autonomy, that's - giving up responsibility. People should make their own choices, and people should defend themselves."

Cap drums his fingers on his knee, drawn up in an easy, casual stance he hadn't had seven months ago. "I see – as if that's liberty - that people should get to choose to destroy themselves if they want. I mean, I think that's awful, it's so - so uncaring."

"It's not," says Maria, "it's respect - respect for their choices, for their ability to make choices. You don't get to decide what's best for others."

"Well, of course not," says Cap. "But neither do other people - people like Loki - bullies, you know."

"The point is that we ought to be able to find a way to deal with bullies that doesn't rely on you or Stark or Thor or anyone else, anyone bigger or stronger than we are ourselves," says Maria, and Cap's blue eyes flash with understanding - she thinks there's pain there too, old pain, scabbed over but still aching.

"Yeah," he says. "That. I used to think that."

Maria's eyebrows climb. "What happened?"

He grins. "I got beat up a lot."

can't carve a whistle

Hi! I'm unbidden_truth and I'll be driving the Merlin van for this month.  I mostly read Merlin/Arthur (both canon and modern AUs) but also love gen stories so hopefully I'll get a chance to rec both.

Fandom: MERLIN
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur, Arthur/Gwen
Length: 3527
Author on LJ: leopardwrites
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read:

( Spoiler for S5 Finale )

Hi, I'm April, back to rec for a new fandom this time. Person of Interest is well into its second exciting season and the fandom is growing with new authors, new fics and vids and art showing up every day. There are plenty of genres of fic in this fandom, but as I'm primarily a slasher, I'll mostly be recc'ing slash fic, with some gen friendship thrown in.

Fandom: Person of Interest
Pairing: John Reese/Harold Finch
word count: 107,661
Author on LJ: katicalocke
Author Website: http://katicalockefanfic.wordpress.com/
Why this must be read:

This is one of the longest POI fics out there and it's one that propelled me headlong into the fandom. I discovered the show in July last summer and went searching for fic right away. I found this story being posted as a WIP on pofinterest_fic. I soon got caught up in it, then waited with everyone else as the author posted a new chapter each Friday. I hated to see it end, but now that it's finished, it can be recc'ed as one of the best POI fics out there.

Tags on AO3 list it as containing angst, romance, torture, psychological trauma, and drama. For me, it has everything: physical and psychological torture, hurt/comfort and sex. Both main characters are abducted, one after the other, by nemesis Mark Snow who wants information about what they are doing. Finch won't give up Reese's whereabouts and Reese won't divulge information about Finch's Machine and what they do. Following Snow's painful persuasive measures, there's lovely hurt/comfort and their relationship grows as they get past Finch's paranoia and Reese's darkness. The Machine is a major character and the direction the author takes that aspect of the story is just as fascinating.

Mark Snow was Reese's boss in the CIA and started looking for him during the show's first season. In the episode "Number Crunch" Snow found him, only to have his operative shoot Reese with a high powered rifle. Finch came to the rescue and Reese survived to help the irrelevants another day and only the viewers knew what happened to Snow after that. Recently, we saw what "really" happened to Snow in canon, but while this novel diverges from the events of second season, it holds up wonderfully as an alternate way things could have gone.

The characters of Fusco and Carter are present, as well as Dr. Megan Tillman from the well-loved episode, "Cura Te Ipsum."

The writing is excellent, the plot thorough and convincing and overall, the story is just plain satisfying, especially when the relationship between Reese and Finch is finally consumated.

( Excerpt )

Damaged

Fandom : due South
Pairing : Benton Fraser / Ray Vecchio
Length : 3,640 words
Author on LJ : belmanoir
Author Website : belmanoir on AO3
Why this must be read :

This first-time, set immediately after "Vault," begins with a delightful "clueless boys" set-up, then winningly balances the sweet sex with the equally sweet friendship between the boys. Perfect voices, perfectly believable interactions. Aaaaaaaand one of my very favorite kinks : getting Fraser WET.

Ray says, "I mean, you had your sleeves rolled up and there was water pouring off you like you were in a carwash porno and your eyelashes had droplets of water in them and God, those lights..." He trails off because Fraser has stopped kissing his neck.

If You Want to Be Polite

Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Length: 7,415
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: spoilers for the movie
Author on LJ: foxxcub
Author Website:
Summary: Eames turns to him during a simple blueprint discussion and says casually, "You settled late, didn't you?" Or, an Inception/His Dark Materials fusion fic.

Why this must be read: Keeping in the tradition of most Inception and HDM fic, foxxcub presents a story that really focuses on how aspects of working in dreams affect characters, as shown through daemons. The idea of forgery is done nicely, with Eames reacting in a subtle but powerful way to having to reshape his own soul. Arthur's storyline focuses on how he and others view himself versus who he really is. It's these discrepancies that make this fic a stand-out classic.

This fic also does angst marvelously in showing the difference between emotional and physical closeness or separation, and how both can affect a person.

The Kind You Could Sing on LJ and on AO3