It's Supernatural/Horror/Dark!Fic theme week!
Title: Soundtrack to the Apocalypse
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin
Categories: Modern post-apocalyptic AU with magic, supernatural, road trip, first time, drama, a little horror, and repeating time(ish)
Length: Medium (7,700 words)
Warnings: None
Author on LJ:
phantomjamAuthor Website:
phantomjam Author's Summary: The best thing you can have during the apocalypse is a healthy sense of irony. Or a decent car, infinite replenishing supplies and magical powers, but the irony helps.
Review:
This post-apocalyptic road trip is eerie, badass and brimming with the bizarre. You get moments like Merlin moving closer to kiss Arthur while animated skeletons reap with rusty sickles. It's not dark fic, but it fits this week's supernatural theme nicely, and I had a blast behind the wheel of Arthur's BMW in a world gone grim.
Arthur and Merlin are strangers at the start, and I like the way they need to trust one another. I love the always sharp, frequently unsettling, and occasionally funny-as-hell tone that phantomjam nails. The wall is so well described that driving through it made me shudder. The songs on the ipod are a great touch, and the back seat gets a nice Arthur/Merlin workout.
I don't know how the end of the world happened. I only know I read this and thought WTF?! And immediately wanted to read it again.
Soundtrack to the Apocalypse