Fic Recs: Eighth Doctor, Hornblower, Luther

The Watch All The Paul McGann project has moved on to the Read All The Fanfic stage, I see.

The first two are pretty angsty, and the last one (with the Master, of all things) is actually happy.

Title: The Man in the Seine
Author: binz, shiplizard
Fandom: Hornblower/Doctor Who fusion
Pairing/Characters: Eighth Doctor, Horatio Hornblower/William Bush, Horatio Hornblower/Eighth Doctor
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 4600 words
Summary: ‘Make me a warrior,’ he said. ‘Watch me,’ said the TARDIS. Prequel fic for the imaginary Big Finish audio dreamed up by the same authors.
Notes: The one where Lt. William Bush is actually the Eighth Doctor. I usually feel foolish about most characters-played-by-same-actor-are-same-person fic, but if you're a Time Lord who can canonically appear to be entirely human, well...there are unexplored possibilities there. And this fic is just bloody brilliant. Heartwrenching, like a kick in the chest, but ugh so good. I especially love the treatment of what it actually means to be a warrior, and the parallels between Horatio/Bush and Doctor/TARDIS (or Doctor/companion).


Title: Winter Garden of Our Crumbled Hearts
Author: Isagel
Fandom: Luther
Pairing/Characters: John Luther/Mark North/Alice Morgan
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 4400
Summary: It's Mark – soft-spoken, reasonable, academic Mark North with his tweed sports coats and his bohemian scarves – who slips the handcuffs on him.
Notes: I'm not hugely fannish about Luther in general, mostly because the main character is uncomfortably fucked up. But I did wonder if there was Luther/Mark North slash, and yes, yes there is; this is probably the hottest piece of it on AO3, despite actually being a threesome with Alice. The mutual grief between Luther and Mark over Zoe is well-drawn here, but tbh I'm in this one for the scorchingly hot mental images. Who doesn't want Paul McGann tying Idris Elba to a chair? :D


Title: Cafestrovalva
Author: x_los
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing/Characters: Eighth Doctor/Jacobi!Master
Rating: R
Word Count: 13,500 words in two parts
Summary: "You could very easily be poisoning these people. You might be attempting to weaken this time line by feeding it a steady diet of anachronisms—softening it up in preparation for a larger plan. You might, Master, be capable of anything. Or at least of anything but running a tea shop."
Notes: In which the Master seems to have retired, the Doctor doesn't believe a word of it, and they slowly come to an accommodation. In a tea shop. I love the skittishness of Eight in this, and the humour, and the way the tension is slowly tightened over the course of the fic simply because the Doctor wants to be able to trust the Master, but that has never ever ended well for him. My problem with Doctor/Master fic has always been that either it's written as fluff (which I can't believe in) or tragedy (and I like happy endings). This managed what I thought impossible: an AU for them that doesn't end in disaster. Also, tea, and someone who may or may not be Uncle Iroh.


*wanders back to watching Three ride up to space in an improbably-spacious manned capsule employed by the British space program in 1971--oh, Doctor Who, how I do love your give-no-fucks attitude sometimes*

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