Political crisis managers AU. Arthur and Eames are operatives for rival presidential campaigns in a heated Democratic primary. Can they find love and happiness in spite of all the pies, Republicans, and publicity disasters in their way? Even in the face of the dreaded ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM? I DON'T KNOW! LET'S FIND OUT!

Ariadne needs a vacation. So does Arthur, but he doesn't know it yet.

Arthur needs a date for Gwen's wedding. The rest is history.

This time, Arthur has a secret.

"You want me to – but I'm not a barber!"

The reason SAS Captain Arthur Pendragon can't keep a communications specialist in Team Excalibur because none of them are good enough. And then Lieutenant Merlin Emrys gets assigned to his squad, and Arthur does everything he can to prove that Merlin isn't good enough, either. Except he is.

It might be difficult to seduce someone when you want to climb their boyfriend like a tree. Merlin learns this the hard way when Uther mistakes him for someone who knows how to seduce anyone at all.

In which Brad is a desperately self-sacrificing HRH, Nate is not happy about being blind-sided, Ray wants to kill the Swedish press corps, and Walt is present in the background like a good bodyguard.

It's around when Ray wants to hold Walt's hand like a goddamn teenage girl with stars in her eyes and wet panties that he starts to worry.

No one has better timing than a mother.

Or worse timing, depending on what said mother wants.

"Mum, no," Eames says into the phone, kicking the refrigerator door closed with his bare foot since his hands are currently full of ale bottles and sable paint brushes.

“The others are running late?” he asks and Brad blinks at him slowly, because he doesn’t think he actually knows this guy. It’s true, he doesn’t remember everyone he has classes with, but he’s pretty damn sure he’d know if he made lunch arrangements.

And while some people simply have no sense of decorum (Ray) or refuse to acknowledge all the hard work Brad puts into seeming as unapproachable as humanly possible (Ray) to save himself from idiots (also Ray), this one looks like he attends Sunday school and says all the thank yous and pleases in the right places.

What he doesn’t look is confused, at least not until Brad stares at him.

Brad's pretty sure it would have gone diferently if he had actually seen Nate's movies.

Walt informs him that the dog is a flat coated retriever, which doesn't tell Ray all that much. What the dog is, is a ball of fluff with big, pretty eyes, which kind of makes sense, because, well, Walt's dog.

The first time Erik asks Charles to marry him, New York has just legalized gay marriage and Erik has just issued a long list of demands to the newly elected president. The list of demands does not include the legalizing of gay marriage, unfortunately, but Erik's an old man, and he can't be expected to fight every battle.

Charles lectures him for over ten minutes about the "terrorism" then goes, "Did you just ask me to marry you?"

If this is what the middle of the night is usually like, Clint is prepared to visit it way more often.

“I think they’re re-running our movie on the Genovian first channel.”

“The Disney one or the documentary one?”

“Disney,” Nate says, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Damn him. He knows damn well Brad can’t resist the Disney one, they’ve made Ray into a girl and gave Grandfather a Russian accent. It’s fantastic.

“I’ll get the remote.”

“You know,” Nate says, settling against the pillows. “If nothing else, we’re the reason Disney made a gay movie.”

Brad supposes that complaining about having too good a boyfriend wouldn’t win him any support from anyone.

In which an argument about Dickens leads to a Twitter scandal, broken bones, midnight conversations, and transatlantic longing.

(Or, an AU with Arthur and Merlin as moderately famous authors.)

Groundhog Day AU. Brad Colbert wakes up and it's the same day over and over again.

Brad’s plans for the Friday night included: pizza, working on his bike in Doc’s garage, listening to Ray’s band butcher whatever song they’re working on and listening to Ray’s rant on modern music, radio fascists who block his career, and how Brad never listens to him at all.

Also planned: trying not to kill Ray. It’s a constant struggle.

What he did not plan at all was to learn that, apparently, he was the sole heir to the Genovian throne. As you do.

Brad flies home for three days.

It’s a party and Coulson is a wallflower. He’s wallflowering like a motherfucker, like it’s his job and maybe it is, sometimes, when there are Avengers avenging and he’s got to coordinate attacks and retreats but it’s a fucking retirement party and Clint’s going to make sure Coulson enjoys himself.

Brad and Nate are models. They fall in love.

In John’s head, the following sentence runs something like: 'My ex-wife said that among other flaws, I have the emotional maturity of cake, which is the only thing I will ever be able to hold a meaningful relationship with. But I guess if you’re also doomed to be alone, maybe we’ll be able to sort something out?'

In actuality, he says, “You see, I’m. I’m kinda like cake in – in some way, so, uh. Maybe I’ll keep you company?”

Everyone thinks Peter Burke has only caught Neal Caffrey twice. Everyone is wrong.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ALONE

Rodney buys a magical lamp.

Erik runs a kosher bakery. Charles comes in for baked goods. They play chess, eat meringues, people drop other people's keys down the toilet, and there's mutant performance art.

Erik's spent fifty years being a figurehead and he's ready to leave that behind. Luckily, so is Charles.

(aka Old Retired Dudes in Love)

In which Eames embarks on a campaign of seduction and Arthur mostly just wants someone to hang out with other than Cobb.

At age fifteen, Steve Rogers had been in love with Tony Stark.

By age twenty, he’d (mostly) gotten over it. And then he promptly became Tony Stark's fuck buddy.

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

Clint, Coulson, injury, and the appropriate response from field agents regarding orders.

Clint's got a secret love, and it's spelled b-a-n-j-o.

John has to work hard to stay awake so he can enjoy the whole thing: Rodney's blunt-nailed fingertips skating across John's skin, the gentle sweet tickle of it, soothing and comforting and a whole lot of things John had thought he was past desiring after about age ten.

In which the Avengers take advantage of some unexpected downtime around Tony's pool and several of Clint's tattoos are discussed. Including the one just over his heart.

Erik knows that Charles is both the strongest and the weakest of them all. But the 'why' of the paradox somehow gets lost in translation.

Exploration of Charles' telepathy and his relationship with Erik. Much longer, more elaborate version of my short ficlet, 'And All of the Ghouls Come out to Play.'

The cardinal rule of being a wedding planner is not falling in love with the bride or groom. Arthur's never had trouble with that rule.

In which there is pining, Merlin bakes, Arthur borrows batteries he doesn't actually need, and did I mention the pining?

Merlin's addicted to Craigslist, Arthur's looking for love in all the wrong places, and with a little help from their friends, they manage to get it together.

Eames probably would have been pleased with a sandwich, but Arthur's got a knack for making Eames happy in surprising ways.

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.

~ Dr. Seuss

“Yusuf,” she says, dangerously, “did you give my point man a love potion?”

In which Eames writes (sometimes horrible) horoscopes to woo Arthur, much to the chagrin of everyone (read: Dom), and manages to even mess that up. Go figure.

Arthur doesn't care much about the popular radio program Dragon's Lonely Hearts until his ex-girlfriend calls in to slag him off and get advice. When he calls in and has an on-air argument with the host, it starts off more than he expected, including meddling friends, overinvolved fans, and maybe love.

"That," he says, "is how you know it was close." - Sebastian Junger, War

"Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush here. You seem like you have a good head on your shoulders in addition to training and experience. I'm calling to offer you a job as Eames' fulltime bodyguard for his upcoming summer tour."

Arthur and Eames are on the verge of giving up mind crime when Cobb convinces Arthur to be his point man on one last job — which rather inevitably goes wrong. Eames is pulled into the mess as Cobb’s simple heist spirals into an attempt on inception. It’s time to stop trespassing on the dreams of others; building a home takes two sets of hands.

One day Arthur finds a quote scrawled on his desk. His competitive streak forces him to reply.

After a client pukes on Mike and dies, Pearson Hardman is put under quarantine. The Associates go feral, the Paralegals build a fort, and Mike ends up in Harvey's office watching Inherit The Wind -- at least until Harvey notices something is wrong.

If a top secret file on Phil Coulson and Clint Barton's relationship existed, it would look something like this.

Arthur's known since he was young that he has a knack for cooking and baking, and beginning culinary school only makes him more certain. But no matter how good he is, it seems Eames is better – which does not endear him to Arthur in the slightest. Eames, however, is quite determined to get Arthur to open up and stop being so uptight and prickly by any means necessary. While each hones his skill in the culinary arts (and Arthur desperately tries to convince Ariadne that the desired structural integrity of her cakes violates basic laws of physics), they increasingly find themselves drawn together, inside the classroom and out. Given such close quarters in the kitchen, and the amount of sensory stimulation involved with preparing all manner of food, it starts to become difficult for Arthur to retain his customary level of distance and detachment. And, as Arthur will find, when it comes to unsatisfied appetites, hunger is often the best sauce of all.

From: Steve Rogers <steverogersamerica@gmail.com>
To: Tony Stark <tony.stark@starkindustries.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 2:15PM
Subject: RE: Test

HI

Sincerely,

Steve Rogers

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Christmas is about finding a place to call home. (Or, the one where Eames and Arthur have a Christmas...thing.)

“Oh,” Eames says. “A potential riot. I must be going love, ta!”

“Don’t get shanked!” Arthur yells, but Eames has already hung up.

Good news spreads fast - possibly faster than Tony intended. Pepper's gonna be mad.

Arthur's one of the bright lights of the conservatory, but he's sharing the stage with a star about to go supernova.

“Expecto Patronum,” he says, in a clear, deep voice, and a thin silver light streams from his wand, expanding to take the form of -

“Huh,” John says, as Sherlock drives the Dementors back.

“I just think that If we're doing this, we need to make some things absolutely clear," Arthur says, and he lays out a yellow legal pad on the table before Eames--aka Chuck Dickens, Frankie Bacon, and Jim Dean (although really Arthur thinks he's flattering himself with that last one). On that yellow legal pad there is a Venn Diagram, a fucking Venn Diagram, with two circles that do not overlap at all. One says ‘Things I should tell my lawyer,’ and the other says ‘Things I should absolutely not, under no circumstances, ever tell my lawyer.’ ‘No’ is underlined. ‘Ever’ is underlined thrice.

Acquaintances, half-heart rivals: these words defined Arthur's relationship with Eames for years, until the Fischer job brings in another part to the equation--friendship. But the rules of engagement change completely during a night of drinks and suggestive conversation. What begins as a one night stand slowly turns into something much more complicated. Can you really be friends with benefits and feelings?

After pining for longer than he'd care to admit, Arthur asks Merlin out and gets more than he expected.

When Harry starts to have erotic dreams about his godfather, he questions his sexual preference. The real issue turns out to be even more complicated and disruptive. Then there's Draco.

This. This was something that needed taking care of. In a non-traditional sense.

Fury's a beautiful princess. Clint's plotting a Communist revolution. Rhodey's not sexy. Wall-E's not a documentary. Clint's not gay but he does give a great blowjob. This fic is not an AU.

But. . . this year the two months were an absolute comedy of disasters, and John was literally counting down the minutes until the end of May. He felt like he was on the Biblical curses roller-coaster.

Snippet, in which pancakes are made.

SG1 AU where Rodney's Air Force, John's an engineer, and Jack O'Neill's got an unpleasant job to do.

AU: Rodney's in the Canadian Air Force. He likes cats. John's an aerospace engineer. He wants kids. There is no Atlantis, but there is sushi, Captain Underpants, the end of the world, and the flagrant misuse of alien technology.

His best friend keeps cockblocking him, his relationship guru is a computer, and he might be gay. The future is very complicated.

Bird AU. Erik is a lone kestrel on a mission to destroy the great golden eagle who killed his mother. Charles is an abandoned pet dove with no fear and a dream of making a place where the little birds can fly free. They don’t quite want the same thing, but together they’ll change the world.

So there's this thing going around Tumblr where this dog leaves food for in his bowl for weeks and the human eventually discovers he's carefully saving back food for a stray pregnant cat. Cat is eventually adopted by human and cat and dog live happily in interspecies harmony. It is adorbs.

Candy, who is an amazing human being that I probably should never actually talk to because horrible things would happen to the universe, was like OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THIS SHOULD BE KIRK/SPOCK

After a hard week at work, Harvey and Mike are on their way to Harvey's condo, desperate for some time alone. What they don't know is that Harvey's parents have come to visit, and when Harvey pushes Mike against the front door to thoroughly ravish him before they have even entered, Harvey's parents decide to investigate where the noise is coming from and open the door.

"Music is the silence between the notes" ~ Claude Debussy; or, life is what happens when you're busy wishing you could be in a practice room.

Set very shortly after "Ach, des Knaben Augen".

Arthur’s face shifts from interrogatory focus to something soft and slack and longing, almost within a bare second.

"I'm next," Eames says. "If you don't smother me in blankets and tape me together my voice will be no use to you either. I'll probably sing in French instead of German or something equally disastrous."

When Eames travels, the thought of Arthur travels with him.

The story of ‘happily ever after.’

This isn't an old theory assignment; that much was clear from the instant Eames pulled it out, folded unevenly, from where it had been pressed between the pages of Thayer's dreary Beethoven tome.

Being a freshman piano performance major at a prestigious New England conservatory is difficult enough without landing the school's star baritone as your singer, and inevitably, your hopeless crush.

"Yeah," Joe says, calling his bluff but unable to keep from smiling, "yeah, I'm hoping you'll be my first off-screen dude-on-dude kiss."