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crack_van2010-05-01 09:44 pm
lucifuge-5.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2010-05-01 09:44 pm
Duplex: A House with Two Faces by Wistful_fever (R)
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lucifuge_5 and I'll be driving the due South rec van for this month. While I didn't go with a particular theme while selecting the fanworks I'll be reccing, I will say that they will be either F/K or genfics. I might point out a random rare pairing for some variety. Hope y'all have a good time, don't feed Dief any more donuts and please post a comment to the authors if you dig their stories. Thank you kindly. :)
Fandom: DUE SOUTH
Pairing: (past) Victoria Metcalf/Benton Fraser, pre-slash Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Length: 6,736 words
Author on LJ:wistful_fever
Author Website: Her LJ
Why this must be read:
This is an older (5 years to be exact) fic that I have just finished reading and I'm totally surprised it hasn't been recced before.
In this AU marvel of a story,wistful_fever has switched Victoria and Fraser's places. As a result, Fraser is the ex-con AND murderer back in Chicago to exact his revenge on the one Mountie who apprehended him. The Fraser in this story is inky dark, with all the cunning and charm of regular canon!Fraser pushed down for the majority of the story. That is not to say that he's a brute or especially violent. What I mean by this specific dark!Fraser is that he's broken in ways that cannot be easily resolved. He's gone through great lengths to construct a facade that can help him slip under Mountie!Victoria's radar. As the story opens, you get the sense that he's close to achieving his goal. That is, until the Ray swicheroo happens and all the dormant (one could say 'good') parts inside Fraser stir awake. Even as he begins to fall for RayK, Fraser is always aware that things can only end one way.
What got me both crying (because, for some strange reason, this dark!Fraser made me feel sad for him and all the lost opportunities in his life) and exhilarated while reading this is that it reads like a film noir. There is a sense of fatality enmeshed in the beautiful (because it is gorgeous) prose.
FWIW, I'm not in the habit of reading dark!Fraser stories because very, very, very few authors have been able to keep him from becoming either a generic villain or behave in a ridiculous OOC way.wistful_fever's sole due South story is a testament to what a truly talented writer can do.
Crossing the crosswalk, his chin angled slightly toward his chest, he could have been anyone. Caught from this angle, hands in pockets, contemplating the run in the nylons of the woman striding in front of him, his face was only partially visible. If Victoria saw him, she might look twice, but definitely not a third time.
His name was Benton Fraser, and he had come to Chicago on the trail of the woman who had betrayed him. For reasons that would doubtlessly frighten the faint of heart, he had remained, attached as another pair of shoes blending in with the nameless crowd.
Life hiding from a Mountie was life inside a twisted fun house mirror.
In the park, Benton stopped at a pretzel cart and smiled at the vendor. He was counting money from his wallet when he happened to glance up as the vendor wrapped his pretzel in a napkin, and caught his reflection in the man’s sunglasses. Chin-length hair that curled with sweat in the Chicago heat, contacts that changed his eye color from ice to walnut brown, and the patchy beard all combined to make him look like a stranger. Benton squinted at his reflection, and saw the image of himself do the same.
Phillip was the name of that man in the reflection, not Benton.
Phillip preferred to be called Phil. He went home to his apartment at night and watched the news in disgust from the couch while eating his microwave dinner. He always burnt his tongue on the chicken, and found the mashed potatoes too cold in the center. Phil woke at dawn to work at the meat packing plant, and wore that bloodstained apron from morning until quitting time, with three days off a week. His co-workers thought he was distant, but polite, and his neighbors nodded at him in the hallway, despite the dead smell he carried with him; he always kept the noise down, and occasionally fixed things for them that the super wouldn’t find the time for.
Duplex: A House with Two Faces
lucifuge_5 and I'll be driving the due South rec van for this month. While I didn't go with a particular theme while selecting the fanworks I'll be reccing, I will say that they will be either F/K or genfics. I might point out a random rare pairing for some variety. Hope y'all have a good time, don't feed Dief any more donuts and please post a comment to the authors if you dig their stories. Thank you kindly. :) Fandom: DUE SOUTH
Pairing: (past) Victoria Metcalf/Benton Fraser, pre-slash Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Length: 6,736 words
Author on LJ:
wistful_feverAuthor Website: Her LJ
Why this must be read:
This is an older (5 years to be exact) fic that I have just finished reading and I'm totally surprised it hasn't been recced before.
In this AU marvel of a story,
wistful_fever has switched Victoria and Fraser's places. As a result, Fraser is the ex-con AND murderer back in Chicago to exact his revenge on the one Mountie who apprehended him. The Fraser in this story is inky dark, with all the cunning and charm of regular canon!Fraser pushed down for the majority of the story. That is not to say that he's a brute or especially violent. What I mean by this specific dark!Fraser is that he's broken in ways that cannot be easily resolved. He's gone through great lengths to construct a facade that can help him slip under Mountie!Victoria's radar. As the story opens, you get the sense that he's close to achieving his goal. That is, until the Ray swicheroo happens and all the dormant (one could say 'good') parts inside Fraser stir awake. Even as he begins to fall for RayK, Fraser is always aware that things can only end one way. What got me both crying (because, for some strange reason, this dark!Fraser made me feel sad for him and all the lost opportunities in his life) and exhilarated while reading this is that it reads like a film noir. There is a sense of fatality enmeshed in the beautiful (because it is gorgeous) prose.
FWIW, I'm not in the habit of reading dark!Fraser stories because very, very, very few authors have been able to keep him from becoming either a generic villain or behave in a ridiculous OOC way.
wistful_fever's sole due South story is a testament to what a truly talented writer can do. Crossing the crosswalk, his chin angled slightly toward his chest, he could have been anyone. Caught from this angle, hands in pockets, contemplating the run in the nylons of the woman striding in front of him, his face was only partially visible. If Victoria saw him, she might look twice, but definitely not a third time.
His name was Benton Fraser, and he had come to Chicago on the trail of the woman who had betrayed him. For reasons that would doubtlessly frighten the faint of heart, he had remained, attached as another pair of shoes blending in with the nameless crowd.
Life hiding from a Mountie was life inside a twisted fun house mirror.
In the park, Benton stopped at a pretzel cart and smiled at the vendor. He was counting money from his wallet when he happened to glance up as the vendor wrapped his pretzel in a napkin, and caught his reflection in the man’s sunglasses. Chin-length hair that curled with sweat in the Chicago heat, contacts that changed his eye color from ice to walnut brown, and the patchy beard all combined to make him look like a stranger. Benton squinted at his reflection, and saw the image of himself do the same.
Phillip was the name of that man in the reflection, not Benton.
Phillip preferred to be called Phil. He went home to his apartment at night and watched the news in disgust from the couch while eating his microwave dinner. He always burnt his tongue on the chicken, and found the mashed potatoes too cold in the center. Phil woke at dawn to work at the meat packing plant, and wore that bloodstained apron from morning until quitting time, with three days off a week. His co-workers thought he was distant, but polite, and his neighbors nodded at him in the hallway, despite the dead smell he carried with him; he always kept the noise down, and occasionally fixed things for them that the super wouldn’t find the time for.
Duplex: A House with Two Faces
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The only other dark!Fraser fic I could even compare the one in this story is the one in
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I read Duplex not expecting much and then, pow! Awesome. Well, as long as someone recs it...*g*
*hugs you*
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When anyone mentions dark!Fraser, THIS is the only story I ever think of that truly fits that description.
*nodsnodsnods*