Just Sleep, and Sleep by maestro1123 (PG)

[jantalaimon.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm jantalaimon, and I’ll be driving the Life on Mars van for the month of November. I’m mostly known in the fandom as a proponent of sheer, utter crack. And also twisted things. There may be some slash involved. Possibly. My OTP is Sam/Mobile, although I’m also a sucker for Sam/Procedure (who isn’t???). So without further unnecessary preamble, please to be preparing to be mowed down and sent back to 1973 at will! :D

FANDOM: Life on Mars
AUTHOR ON LJ: maestro1123
AUTHOR’S FIC SITE: None.
PAIRING: None. Gen, actually.
WHY THIS MUST BE READ: No matter what genre/pairing/etc. I’m reading, the surest way to suck me into a story is by the author making whatever it is they’re attempting to convey as plausible as possible. Yes, this can be done with crack, as well. This story, however, is not cracky---it’s definitely more on the angst side of the equation. The thing I love about it is how well Maestro knows her characters. She hasn’t written a lot in this fandom, which is our unfortunate loss, because she’s very good. An important way to ratchet up tension is to space it out, to make sure it ebbs and flows with just the right amount of tension-breaking sprinkled over it, like salt. That way, by the time you get to the end, you haven’t even realised the quicksand has swallowed you up.

EXCERPT:

On the first day, it rains constantly. Sam likes the rain, because it forces people indoors, and it makes the rest of the world nice and blurred. If he squints, through the streaked glass, he can almost believe he’s back home, another rainy day in bloody Manchester.

He sits by the window, at the battered little table, feet up. There’s a ring-bound notepad in front of him, and a heading in pencil, ‘Things To Do’. The rain makes him think of Blackpool, which makes him think of Annie, and then Gene, and then he tries just to think about the rain and nothing else, and crosses out ‘Blackpool’ on his list.

He could go to a concert. He always liked the seventies anyway, always got an urge to defend himself when he heard someone say the music was crap back then. He likes Bowie, Sweet, T-Rex. He could pick up some merchandise, even, a T-shirt or a poster or just a badge.

But even as he thinks about it, he knows he won’t do it. Going to a gig means believing he’s really here, that this is all real, and that means-

He won’t do it.

Sam rests his forehead against the glass, the ice-cold almost like a burn. And what would be worse, he wonders, to see a performance entirely unlike what he expected, or one that was exactly like it?

Just Sleep, and Sleep