the_sheryl

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: Explicit
Length: 2882
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: sabinelagrande on AO3
Themes: Pining, Mutual pining, Friends to lovers, First time, Humor

Summary: John goes with everything. Rodney doesn't.

Reccer's Notes: A delightful short fic in which Rodney, fed up with pining and goaded by Ronon to "go off and fuck already, just to get it out of the way", finally makes a move on John. Who turns out to have been pining as well. It's hot and funny, as Rodney's POV is amusing - impatient and uncertain and acerbic. An excellent read!

Fanwork Links: LBD

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairings: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry
Rating: Explicit
Length: 14,416
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply. Note that their hookups continue for a while despite Ilya being married to a woman, so there's infidelity.
Creator Links: Anna__S on AO3
Themes: Pining, Mutual pining, AU: Fork in the road, Canon LGBTQ+ characters, Established relationship, Future fic,

Summary: They've already been so careless, unbelievably, intoxicatingly careless. Shane can’t shake the sense that they’re on the lam. It feels like their bodies belong to each other, but at the end of the day, they are both stolen property.

A 'what if' that diverges from canon at the beginning of Episode 6 and explores what could have happened in the absence of the Ottawa plan.

Reccer's Notes: This is kind of the opposite to a fix-it fic - it takes canon and makes it worse, more angsty and painful! It also transforms the genre from a romance into a much more realistic literary fiction story. In this AU, Shane's dad never discovers them at the Cottage so Shane's fear of others knowing, even his parents, is never forcibly overcome and they just go on much as before, seeing each other only rarely and having summers at the cottage. There's no longer-term plan except the terrible "once we retire" one. The author shows how this wears on them both and harms their relationship, and there's masses of yearning and pining both while they're together and after they stop seeing each other. Their special connection doesn't ever die, though, so there's a hopeful ending by the time they get to 2027, close to retirement, but it's a far sadder, realer story than the romance of canon which relies on happy accidents. The writing is excellent, and it's told from Shane's POV.

Fanwork Links: No smoke without you