Calufrax

Story: The Flower Tender
Author: apolesen
Rating: Adult
Word Count: 5237
Author's Summary: A beautiful madman, who talks of begonias and mermaids. A girl who is not a tenant or a maid or a companion, perhaps not even the pious rescue worker she seems to be. Fitz Kreiner, who leaves his rooms in the semislum of Hoxton to join the eccentric household, entering into a world which challenges the very values of the time.
Characters/Pairings: Eight, Fitz, Sam

Recced because: Another 'guess what aralias has just finished reading' moment (answer: it's 'Blue Angel'). I am very fond of AUs, and I'm very fond of Victoriana. The era has been used as a setting EDAs have employed as a place the characters could go, rather than a place they live (the Doctor gets sort of mad-housed in 'Camera Obscura', for example), so it's particularly interesting to see it here as a place these characters have always lived. The Doctor is presented entirely from the outside (unlike in 'Blue Angel') as this fascinating, bizarre, and unknowable person, and there are so many hints that this is part of a larger narrative. It seems like a very strange piece, but ultimately it's about Fitz feeling left out of life and then not feeling like that any more, and that simple human kernel of this story is what makes it much more accessible to me than say... 'Blue Angel'. The writing's good, too.
ETA: By going to the author's LJ I've just discovered... there are 5 more chapters still be posted on Teaspoon. Hopefully those will go up soon. This rec was based on the first chapter only (although I anticipate that the other chapters are very good too).

Excerpt:

Feeling rather clumsy in his oddly matched clothes, he offered her his arm, which she nevertheless accepted. They walked in silence for a long time. First, he was worried that she would try to ask questions about his mother, but she only looked around the park, as if the world was new to her. He watched her instead; she looked so innocent, and he wondered how she had ended up living with a madman.

‘Is the Doctor your uncle?’ he asked. It was the only explanation he could think of.

‘When people ask, yes,’ she said. ‘Or guardian.’

‘“When people ask”?’ Fitz repeated.

‘He’s really nothing of the kind,’ she admitted with an unconcerned smile. ‘Although he’s the closest I’ve had to a father or an uncle or a guardian for a long time.’

‘How did you meet him? If I may ask...?’

She nodded. ‘He saved me,’ she said. ‘Not in the Christian sense, in the actual sense.’

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As part of pod_aware I have recorded yesterday's rec, Personal Statement, which can be downloaded here. I will post the outstanding podfics (including, hopefully, a podfic of today's rec) in the comments of the appropriate rec (i.e. so the podfic of this fic will be in the comment of this post).

I hope you've enjoyed some of the recs this week - and the podfics!