The Crane Wife, by X-Los

[roachpatrol.livejournal.com]

So okay, sorry about the delay. On to the rec!

Everything that x_los has ever written is brilliant. EVERYTHING. But of course, some brilliant fics are more brilliant than others, and one of those extra-brilliant fics is The Crane Wife. If you like slave!fic, you will like this story. If you don't like slave!fic, you will probably like this story anyway.


Story:The Crane Wife
Author: x_los
Rating:  Adult
Word Count: 46282
Author's Summary: The Doctor, a half-human renegade Time Lord who's never so much as set foot on his father's home world, has had a really rotten day. As if dying weren't bad enough, now he's facing the auction block. The renegade Time Lord Emperor of Hestin makes an ill-starred impulse buy.
Characters/Pairings: AU Fifth Doctor / Ainley!Master.
Warnings: It's a WIP, but only has the last chapter to go. Also explicit sex involving domination and a few consent issues. 

Recced because: One of my favorite genres of fic is the cliche-done-right. The one that makes you realize why a subject is cliche in the first place: because it's awesome. This story is sweet, and adorable, and really funny. The Doctor and the Master, despite being alternate-universe counterparts, come off pitch-perfect. The descriptions are wonderful, the plot's engaging and well-paced, and the sex is really, really hot. What more could you ask for, other than the final chapter? 



The Doctor’s day was going poorly. If he’d been asked to rate it on a scale of one to ten, if he’d been able to stay conscious long enough to comprehend the question, he’d have given it a solid negative eleven.

He’d died, for one, which was always enormously inconvenient. After that he’d crawled into his TARDIS to regenerate (good), but then he’d accidentally set the damn thing in flight and ended up at what looked to be, but probably was significantly more sinister than, a Renaissance Faire (bad). He’d staggered outside and remembered to lock the door behind him before slumping down against the TARDIS’s side (good, except for the undignified slump, which was probably very bad for his still-developing new regeneration’s posture). Passers-by offered him medical attention (and while he didn’t actually need a cold compress and a hot cup of something very like tea to help him through the agonies of regeneration sickness, it was still: very good!).

Unfortunately, it turned out they had only been so generous with their healthcare because they wanted to ginger him up and sell him into slavery. Apparently it was market day, and the slavers were trying to round up a particularly sizable amount of merchandise to impress some visiting dignitary. The prospect of being sold as chattel at auction was too vile to be safely ensconced in parentheses. This was all very bad indeed.

EDITED to fix font size. It was too small, now it looks too big. Sorry, guys.