the night has a thousand saxaphones

Yuletide reveal! Am woefully behind on posting- just want to thank philomytha for my fantastic Vorkosigan fic Secrets and Lies. I was assigned Mythbusters for toft which was terrifying because she's written most of the best Mythbusters fic out there.

Like Bottled Lightning
3400 words
Gen, G
Set during the pilots.

( Jamie isn't good at the cameras and isn't quite sure how this thing works, but he believes in complementary talents and he can improve. )

What the Dormouse Said
Glam RPF
Adam/Tommy
NC-17 (barely)
2700 words
Warning: I prefer my RPS with a minimum of accuracy.
Note: Inspired by this. For hilarytamar, who I owe for about six different reasons this week.

( The only flaw in Tommy's 'late night flights for sleep and profit' plan is Adam himself. )

I got three lovely Yuletide presents! Such are the fruits of going out on the pinch-hit list.

Seekingferret wrote me The Last Temptation of Eve, which takes that Last Temptation of Adam song and genderswitches it AND POV flips it, possibly breaking my brain in the process.

Thedevilchicken wrote me Rome fic, To Please the Gods, in which it is Saturnalia and Pullo's easy carnality is difficult to resist. And lastly there is Orders, in which sithwitch13 displays a mastery of character voices (for Pullo, Vorenus, and Antony) that makes me wild with authorial jealousy.

So my Yuletide fic this year was so niche. I am absolutely shocked that anybody other than the recipient commented on it. It could be read as historical fiction, in Athens late in the Peloponnesian war just after the overthrow of the four hundred; but the characterizations and writing style both come from Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine (the syntax so much so that it's practically pastiche).

Let me pause to pitch this book, for re-reading it was a wonder and a joy. The Last of the Wine may be difficult if you don't remember your Greek history or your Plato, but I consider this a hell of a recommendation for it; the narrative sinks us into the first-person POV of a man who speaks to us as he would another Athenian. Every page is drenched in his cultural assumptions, rich and natural, and there is none of the distance or foreignness that would be required if he tried to explain things to us. And so the book is both oblique and completely immersive; it's also sensitive, tragic, beautiful, and lyrical, a story of war and philosophy and joy. It is a coming-of-age, a boy's quest to understand the horrors he sees around him and shape the man he is becoming, a story about the pain and difficulty and importance of living well and rightly, and, above all, a story of transcendent love.


To Learn and to Teach
Last of the Wine- Phaedo and Plato
Gen, G, 1400 words

( The Four Hundred are gone, and Kritias with them, and possibilities open up. )

Since posting my bunny last night, Alec has been bantering in my head. I can't make him shut up. This is a good thing, of course, and is because I'm picking bdblack up at the airport in an hour. The minute I stop being depressed, the voices in my head start talking again. I wish they were SG1 voices, because I owe hilarytamar fic, but what can you do?

This snippet isn't a secret crossover. No way. Uh-uh. *innocent face* Short and PG.

( You about done sparring with your girlfriend? )

So I was going to get all these, or at least the first four, written and posted before the second episode Jossed me all to hell... but then medical issues intervened and I didn't. So, the great conundrum of fanfic: Finish the pre-Jossed fic or not? All of which is to say, no spoilers for anything but the pilot, and I think I'll finish the rest of them no matter how far astray the show goes.

Five ways Jack falls in love

Part 2: The readiness is all
Not a WIP, stands alone. PG and Jack/David. 1500 words. Thanks to hilarytamar!

( David sits on the patio, golden and sleepy-eyed under the slanting sun. It's a shocking difference from how he carried himself in this palace less than two weeks ago; he sits like this grand panorama, the brilliant green lawn leading out to the sea, is as much home to him as his mother's front porch. )

Part 1

I was trying to write fic this week. It didn't work. Below I give you three snippets; I do not know whether they really come from the same fic or not, but I wanted them to. Judge for yourselves.

Inside the Defenses
J/D, PG-13, short.

( Jack didn't really quit smoking, as such )

***

( Even amnesiac, Daniel still held all his secrets )

***

( If I wrote the fic about Jack's history with addiction, this is how it would end )

Obvious
Itty-bitty early-seasons McShep, PG-13.
(Mostly an experiment in Rodney's internal voice. This is totally what I think the inside of his head sounds like, at 99 miles an hour, all the time)

( Sheppard's lips on his were warm and soft and very, very unexpected. )

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Antony/Brutus
NC-17
7k words
(  Overlong AN: )

---

( Antony was probably a terror on the battlefield, Brutus decided, but definitely a lout. So simple as to nearly be insipid, so stupid as to nearly be a joke. But very, very good for a fuck. )

Apparently I am capable of writing everything except what I actually should be writing. You see, I was rewatching late Season 1 and early Season 2 for my Zelenka voice... and let me tell you, I had forgotten how utterly wonderful SGA was back then! I mean, fresh and exciting and shiny, before the regular contact with Earth managed to make a far away galaxy seem boring and routine and before the weird colonialism and genocide and crap started up. And the characters! Grodin! Kavanaugh! Beckett! Ford! (Oh, Ford. Young and fresh-faced and innocent and wet behind the ears, so much enthusiasm and sincerity and potential and sweetness. He breaks my heart) Zelenka! (Oh, Zelenka. My Rodney/Radek love has come roaring back. I was Rodney/Radek OTP for so long before I was sold on the John/Rodney)

So, anyway, I watched Duet and Laura Cadman wouldn't shut up. This is an AU of the episode. WIP warning- I'll probably come back to it, but I have deadline obligations!

Open like the Morning Glory
Part 1/?
650 words
Laura Cadman/Katie Brown
Still rated G...

( What was that about the wildflowers on P6X-849? )

Also, I have no appropriate girlslash icon. Some kickass women- Hermione, Sam Carter, CJ, Starbuck, Kaylee, Chuck- but I don't have a single "shameless objectification of a sexy woman or pair of women" icon. Help?

A Long Time Denied
NC-17, 6500 words, Jack/Daniel
Written for the J/D Kinkathon for the prompts "bottom Jack," "Jack in handcuffs," and "dubious consent." Missing scene/AU of 2x05 Need.
SERIOUS WARNINGS for consent issues
AN: I might as well just change my lj name to "the one with the oral fixation" now. I mean, it's not like I'm fooling anybody. *facepalm* HUGE thanks to blue_meridian and princessofg for beta-duty and hand-holding and cheerleading above and beyond the call.

( For one horrible, stomach-lurching, dick-hardening second, Jack is on his knees before Daniel and he wants to worship. )