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| [ Construction Paper Canvas] by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) zoiciteNick/Brian. Lovely AU with a twist. Nick has a dream about the new kindergarten teacher three days before school starts. The dream isn’t that exciting. He’s with AJ and they’re hanging out in some dimly lit room full of guitars and mangled looking instruments. They’re laughing about something stupid, sharing a joint, and then the new kindergarten teacher comes in and Nick’s pretty sure he’s wearing makeup and he scrunches up his nose and says, “So this is where you have been hiding. Man, you two reek.” | |
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| [ Break Loose Ranch] by smokeringhalosJensen/Jared. Gorgeous AU fic, drenched in atmosphere. Eyeing his best friend, Jared tips back his brew. "Tell me again why we're here?"
"Girls love these guys, Big Jay." Blowing out an exasperated sigh, Chad waves his smoke hand toward the stage with so much force his rickety-ass stool rocks and Jared has to steady it with his foot. "It's like he's got sex hormones or some kinda shit."
"Pheromones," comes a wry retort in a whiskey-raw, smoke-burnt voice that makes Jared's toes want to curl in his Tony Llamas. Jesusfuck. | |
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| [ Easy There] by syllicMerlin/Arthur, Gwen/Lancelot. Alright, so, whatever, everyone's been telling me to get into Merlin for aaaaaages and my RL friends finally got me to watch an episode (with nachos and judicious use of, "but the king's marrying a troll!!!!") and yes, it's lovely. I hate it when that happens. This is also lovely, despite being an Oxford AU. (I'm at Cambridge, if you didn't know. Which, why would you?) (Cambridge and Oxford hate each other, again, if you didn't know, and why would you?) It's a rowing AU, and follows the juddering progression of Merlin and Arthur's relationship beautifully. "Mate. Mate. Your name is Arthur? Jesus fucking Christ. I'm Lancelot," he said, holding his hand out.
Arthur shook it as Merlin barrelled on, irrationally impolite but not really caring, because it was cold and he’d been up ludicrously early that morning to do some last-minute revision for a collection,
"—and I'm Merlin," he said. "Welcome to training with what will no doubt be known for the next seven months as the Knights of the Round Table. Again. Thanks for that, really. We weren't doing fine on our own, Lancelot and I, what with the stupid names and the cruel parents and the odd serendipity of our making the Blue boat together last year."
Merlin liked to think that he’d normally have found the fact that they’d acquired an Arthur for a boat that already had a Lancelot and a Merlin in it hilarious, but there was something about this Arthur—the way he stood, shoulders thrown back, the way his eyes had swept over Merlin as he approached—that made Merlin reticent to laugh with him. He exuded physical confidence in a way that Merlin, who was awkward at the best of times, resented, and he radiated a sense of old money and breeding that would rankle anyone who had grown up as a child in a single-parent family that struggled to make ends meet sometimes, as Merlin’s had. | |
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| [ Be Resigned] by franticsgaMerlin/Arthur. And another long Merlin AU, this one in the US Air Force, and it's also really lovely. There was never a question of what Arthur was going to do when he grew up. He'd wanted briefly to go into the Navy so he could work on submarines-- he was nearly grounded after that one, until he smiled and told his father he'd only been joking-- but in the end he submitted to his father's unbending will and applied for the Air Force Academy.
Luckily, Uther didn't seem to care which job Arthur held in the Air Force, as long as he graduated from the Academy and got himself stationed somewhere close enough for Uther to keep an eye on him. When Arthur showed a predilection for science in his year at the Academy's prep school, the career counselor advised him to pursue meteorology.
"It's more of an art than a science, they always say," she told him. "I was stationed with some weather guys when I was at Barksdale. They're a little weird, but harmless."
"Ma'am, I don't know if anybody's ever called me weird before," he said, neutrally, but inside he was wondering if there was a job where he could guarantee the most distance from his father. | |
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