Rectober - Batman and Rosemary Sutcliff

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I'm 15 minutes past October, but here's my final Rectober post, this one for two of my favourite little fandoms, Nolan's Batman films and Rosemary Sutcliff's book. I did mean to get an Inception rec post done in time, but that started turning into a huge long list and then I got distracted with uh, other things (I blame all you people who requested Xmas cards - I have done nothing these past few weeks except frantically scribble! And by blame, I do of course mean love, because I am having a vast amount of fun with those, and even my mother likes all the crossdressing), so maybe I'll finish off that rec list some time in November.

Batman (Nolanverse)

Title: Family Ties
Author: pagination
Pairing(s): None
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 6,398
Warnings: None
Summary: Every year, Jim Gordon gets Father's Day gifts from Jimmy, Babs, and an anonymous gift-giver with very expensive taste in ties.

Gordon really has too many ties.

Why I loved it: Pagination's Gordon is just amazing - he's got that quiet, unassuming strength, and is such a sympathetic character, and this story follows his relationship with his family (his son in particular) as it disintegrates over the events of the films, and although it gets pretty heartbreaking at time, the ending is lovely and full of hope.

Excerpt:

This year, it’s a blue-grey color. “Hey. It’s the same color as your eyes. Nice,” Montoya says, holding it up to his face when she and Stephens wander in to inspect this year’s delivery.

“It is?”

“You never look in a mirror?” Montoya asks.

He has, but then again, he hasn’t. He puts it on because it looks better than the one he has on, and these days, he needs a little help to get through the holidays that matter. The ones where he should be a father, but can’t be, because he wasn’t.

This is the day he’s called to Arkham because Joker is dead, stabbed through the eye by his psychiatrist. She’s taken away in cuffs with a strange, set smile on her face, and offers no explanation. Not that Joker’s psychiatrist would need one, all things considered. Joker is the embodiment of first causes.

Was.

Gordon stands over the body, looking down at a face that would have been beautiful if it wasn’t for the scars, and thinks with detached astonishment, I’m the only one left.

“Who says therapy doesn’t work?” says Stephens with satisfaction.

“He never did tell us who he really was.” The head of Arkham is a nervous man, obsessed with lawsuits. He hovers behind them, wringing his hands. “What are they going to put on the death certificate?”

“His name,” Gordon says. “Joker.”

This is the night he goes up to the roof with a bottle of scotch and stands by the broken spotlight, thinking that maybe tonight, this night of all nights, he’ll hear that voice again in the dark. For the space of one question, maybe. Is it true? or Did you see him? or maybe even, Are you all right?

Nobody comes, so he drinks his glass alone, then pours another one over the spotlight. For old times’ sake.

- - -

Title: In Her Mother's Likeness
Author: vestigialwords
Pairing(s): Talia/Bane, Ra's al-Ghul/Talia's mother
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1,737
Warnings: None
Summary: The girl is only a few years younger than his wife had been, but she is the absolute antithesis of her mother - blisteringly cold in all the ways the Princess radiated warmth.

Why I loved it: I came out of TDKR wanting all the gen fic about Talia, Bane and Ra's al Ghul's messed up family dynamics, and this fic delivers it beautifully, and I love the little glimpse we see of Ra's wife. While I usually prefer Bane as more of a father figure than a lover to Talia, what I really like about this one is that the sexual Talia/Bane relationship is only pictured through Ra's' eyes, so you're not sure whether it's real or just imagined.

Excerpt:

The girl is only a few years younger than his wife had been, but she is the absolute antithesis of her mother - blisteringly cold in all the ways the Princess radiated warmth. Her temper unleashes itself in terrible bouts of cruelty. During her first month, Talia put her fork through a man's hand for reaching too close to her plate, and the only sound in the mess hall besides the high, hollow screams of her victim is a dark metallic laugh.

Ducard hopes to channel her rage into more constructive pursuits, so he hands her a knife to teach her how to how to wield it properly. Instead, she slices open the practice dummy as if she had been doing it her whole life. He sends her into the mountains to build up endurance, but they do not have a route charted difficult enough to tire her. He sits her down to teach misdirection and deception, but when he cannot find her for a second lesson he decides he has learned no skill that is not her nature. Finally, he gives her a sword and sends her to train with the best swordsmen in the world. When she wins her first match against three of the most talented students at the monastery, it is not to her father that she looks for approval, but to him.

She may be his daughter, but Ducard is not her anything.

- - -

Title: Old, Familiar Things
Author: lonelywalker
Pairing(s):Alfred Pennyworth/Lucius Fox
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 1,116
Warnings: None
Summary: Alfred and Lucius' first evening in the new and improved Wayne Manor.

Why I loved it: Well, I'll happily gobble up anything Alfred/Lucius, but this particular one has a very special place in my heart - I love what an adorable old married couple they are in this and their good-natured grumbling about Bruce, but I particularly love that there's a (non-explicit) sex scene in this, because sex shouldn't be something restricted to only the young and wrinkle-free.

Excerpt:

Over the years, as custodians of the Wayne legacy, and as men, they've never quite understood how to be affectionate with each other. They've never had the time or the space to work out the intricacies, to casually do even as much as hug in public. But here, in the deepest, warmest part of a safe place, they can at least continue to try.

Bruises on wrinkled skin aside, Alfred is as he has always been – solid and whole in Lucius' embrace, with flavors of whiskey and varnish and unfashionable aftershave in his scent. His hand rakes through Lucius' hair, and then Alfred pulls him into a kiss.

Kisses are for pretty girls, Alfred had told him, the first time they'd ever done anything like this. Alfred, the weary soldier, then, who had found release for his desires a hundred times around the world, but never in anything like the intimacy Lucius craved. They kiss now, an act always tinged with a little aggression on Alfred's part, and Lucius attends to the suddenly desperate necessity of undressing them both. Why on earth does a butler's uniform have so many buttons?

- - -

Title: Parasite
Author: huntsmonsters
Pairing(s): None
Rating: General
Word Count: 703
Warnings: None
Summary: The dream is the idea is the dream. And the dream is a nightmare, and the dream is fear. Inception/Nolanverse Batman crossover.

Why I loved it: This short, rather creepy little fic is actually an Inception/Batman crossover, where Robert Fischer becomes Jonathan Crane, and I really love this one for how it very cleverly uses the Inception talk of parasites and dreams to convincingly turn a fairly decent man into the monster that Crane is.

Excerpt:

Something happened in the dream, and he can't grasp it. There was a safe, there was snow. When he sees Browning again, he breaks his nose in front of half the board. Despite this, they have to accept it when he tells them he's breaking the company down and leaving. It's what father would have wanted.

And the parasite gnaws. The parasite tells him something isn't right here and there is power in the mind and the parasite is graffiti, the parasite is crop circles on the field of his mind where his father is hung on a cross and the long wheat is cut down to read SOMEONE WAS HERE.

Dreams become nightmares that are reality. He is growing confused - he is growing more clear.


Rosemary Sutcliff

Title: Follow Me Home
Author: Isis
Fandom: Sword at Sunset
Pairing(s): Gault/Levin
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 19,869
Warnings: Major (canon) character death
Summary: In the late 5th century, Lord Artos, the Count of Britain - who would later be known as King Arthur - fought to defend his people from the Saxon invaders and their allies the Picts and Scots. Among his Company were two men named Gault and Levin. They were warriors; they were lovers; they were heroes. This is their story.

Why I loved it: It's a beautiful and heartbreaking expansion of the relationship between Gault and Levin, following the events in the book. This is everything I wanted after reading Sword at Sunset, and I love the use of the woman of the Little Dark People on Levin's final journey.

Excerpt:

I felt my death creeping up on me. And although once I had wished fervently for it, this was not the death I wanted. I missed Gault fiercely, for at least if he were here we could share this, wrapped up in each other's arms, keeping each other alive. January had been too harsh to spend much time out of doors, but by February, when the days grew longer and lighter, and the world thawed for a brief time at the middle of each day, I went out again to visit my friend, the woman of the Little Dark People in her grave beneath the horses.

"We have eaten through our stores," I told her. "We are down to a single rye cake each day for every man, and Artos says we must begin to eat the dogs soon."

"I suppose you should eat the dogs before they eat you."

I looked up, startled. The woman of the Dark Folk sat on the snow that mounded over the pit where we had buried her, and she smiled at me as though amused at my surprise. She was as she had been in the vision I had seen briefly, that I had thought a shadow, when we had lowered her into her grave: no larger than a child, with long dark hair over her naked shoulders, falling across her small breasts to her narrow hips. I thought for a moment that she must be cold, before I remembered she could not feel the cold as we did, that she was beyond that.

"You have not spoken to me before," I said. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt stupid.

"You were not ready to hear me."

"I hear you now," I said cautiously. "What have you to say?"

Her eyes were very dark, and very old. I was put in mind of my mother's mother, although I only knew her when I was a very small child, and remembered little: her hair, her scent, and her dark eyes in her wrinkled face. "That you should not fear death."

- - -

Title: Declining
Author: Northland
Fandom: The Lantern Bearers
Pairing(s): None
Rating: General
Word Count: 852
Warnings: None
Summary: Five moments from post-Roman Britain; episodes from Aquila's life we never saw in the book.

Why I loved it: These little insights into Aquila's life are so beautifully written and evocative. The last two are particularly heartbreaking.

Excerpt:

The only time Aquila spoke of it, he was graceless and abrupt as always. "Why did you persuade Ambrosius's companions to take me in?"

Brychan did not look up from the leash he was mending. "Conry thought well of you," he said. "And that is a better way to know a man's heart, I have found, than what is on his tongue."

At the sound of his name the hound half-opened one eye, a dark well shining in the firelight. Aquila scratched the massive, rough-coated head by his knee. "Certain it is that if you were judged by your tongue you would suffer," he said.

Brychan smiled down at his hands. "That is why I go everywhere with these princely hounds -- that men may say, if these noble beasts stay with him, surely Brychan is not so bad as that."

- - -

Title: Bright of Eye and Bushy of Tail
Author: elven_enchantress
Fandom: Frontier Wolf
Pairing(s): Alexios/Hilarion
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1,565
Warnings: None
Summary: Wherein Alexios the srs business journalist meets Hilarion, the professional lounger, and they snark at each other and try to be professional, but Alexios has feelings and Hilarion smirks a lot. Like, an unhealthy amount.

Why I loved it: I didn't think that I was interested in Sutcliff modern AUs, but this is awesome and very charming, and I would pay extremely good money to read the story outlined in the Notes!

Excerpt:

Alexios will be the first to admit that he doesn’t know much about modeling, but even he can tell that the photographer is extremely pleased with Hilarion. The man’s poses entirely consist of him leaning on something, or holding up furniture by sheer force of his languid body posture, but even when he’s draped across a doorway he’s oddly compelling.

It’s disturbing, to say the least. Alexios is torn between a tug of despair when the shoot ends, and the urge to run far, far away. The latter emotion surges forward when Hilarion strolls over to him, looking much too pleased with himself. Alexios can’t even bring himself to be annoyed, rather than solidly impressed and a little awed. He tries to cover both with a strong mask of indifference and rigidity when Hilarion closes in.

“So, what did you think?” Hilarion is smirking again, and Alexios tries to think of that as a bad, bad thing. It doesn’t exactly work out for him, because then all he can focus on is the bow of Hilarion’s mouth, which really isn’t an improvement.

“I think I’m probably not qualified to be doing an interview with you.” He answers, and it’s surprisingly honest. He’s not the person Hilarion should be talking to if he really wants proper publicity. He smiles down at his folder, a touch self-deprecatory, before glancing back at what he’s sure will be a wide smile of victory.

- - -

Title: Red Phaedrus
Artist: Leyna
Fandom: Mark of the Horse Lord
Pairing(s): None
Rating: General
Warnings: None
Summary: A portrait of Phaedrus with Dun Monaidh in the distance.

Why I loved it: Everything about this is gorgeous, and my detail-loving eye is utterly spoiled by all the beautiful, intricate jewelry and clothing in this, as well as that amazing (and very well researched!) hillfort with its teensy roundhouses and fortifications.