Yuletide treasures I've enjoyed
New to Yuletide this year, and I haven't yet been able to read many stories so far, but I want to get in the few I have been able to read - otherwise I'll end up not doing it at all, and the writers of our small (or obscure) fandoms deserve much better treatment than that, right? :)
first, written for me: Absence of Fear, Alias Smith and Jones, Heyes/Curry explicit - "Heyes realized that when he got really, really mad, Kid didn't seem to be afraid of him at all" - and it makes him feel irritable and insignificant. But then when something happens and Curry seems to fear him after all, there's nothing he wants less. Sensitive subject matter, a lot of love in the end:)
also written for me: Ask for Anything - Long Walk, Stephen King
The Long Walk's about 100 teenage boys in the competition of their life, and it all boils down to the last one walking wins, simple as that. The rest are killed. The Long Walk tells their story.
Here's the thing: I hadn't really thought much about Scramm's (one of the walkers) wife - we never met her, we just heard of her. Yet the author makes her come alive. She's young and pregnant, her husband's dead and the guy who made it through and won wants to talk to her. She's grieving, she's afraid, and yet when she sees the winner of the Walk, Ray Garraty, she listens to him and feels compassion for him. And Ray himself is such a tragedy. The Walk HAS no real winners - in fact, the winner may be the real loser.
and these:
Beside My Lonely Fires - Blood Ties, Henry Fitzroy/Mike Celluci, explicit - how many stories have you read delve into leather bars AND the existential anguish of an immortal watching his loved ones die;) Both are touched on. Loved reading of Henry and Mike's interaction.
Great and More Fortunate Things - Sparactus: Blood and Sand - neat, in character Naevia's POV as she comforts Crixus' in his recovery and keeps a terrible secret. Bonus Pietros. Love the ending. It just makes sense.
The Road to Villa Mercedes- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, explicit. Etta and Sundance and Butch, just some threesome fun:)