Yuletide recs, part 1 (fandoms R-Z)

[kindkit]

Last year I said that every year it seems I know fewer Yuletide fandoms, and this year it was more of the same. Here are a few things I've really liked from the end of the alphabet (and there are a couple of longer fics that I haven't read yet because I prefer to read long fics on my ebook reader).



Raffles

Peaches in Winter (3611 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles
Characters: Bunny Manders, A. J. Raffles
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Christmas Fluff, Humor
Summary:

"Buckingham Palace!" I ejaculated in a whisper (yes, reader – given the right circumstances, you’ll find the thing quite feasible). "So that’s your new crib – the Queen’s own house. I knew it. I knew I’d seen a beefeater as we crossed that wall!"

"On Christmas Eve? Surely that would be a goose-eater, my Bunny."

Raffles and Bunny being themselves on Christmas Eve.

Sweet, charming Christmas fic with just a hint of melancholy.


Rivers of London

Good Grammar (6531 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Peter Grant/Thomas Nightingale
Characters: Peter Grant, Thomas Nightingale
Additional Tags: Future Fic
Summary:

You can ask plenty of members of the Metropolitan Police who will assert that it’s my stupid ideas that get me in trouble (especially, to pick an example entirely at random, newly-minted DCI Stephanopoulos) but they’re wrong. Okay, they’re mostly wrong.

Or: Peter can rationalize himself into anything, given long enough. Including a crush on his senior officer.

I'm a reluctant skeptic about Nightingale/Grant: I like the idea of it, but apart from a few moments, I have a hard time seeing Peter in canon as interested. This story creates a believable--in part because it's sudden and because Peter himself doesn't quite understand how it happened--transition in Peter's feelings from admiration to attraction. The Peter voice is fantastic, and I also love this look at a somewhat older Peter, no longer an apprentice, as he establishes a new working as well as personal relationship with Nightingale and begins to think about the future.


a country you remember (1355 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Molly (Rivers of London), Toby (Rivers of London)
Summary:

When a girl goes into service, people like to think she pledges fealty to the family, but that isn’t true. She serves the house.

Excellent Molly-POV gen that makes her a fully-rounded character while capturing the slight alien-ness of her perspective.


The Talented Mr. Ripley

Sleeper (5767 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Talented Mr Ripley (1999), Ripley Series - Patricia Highsmith
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tom Ripley/Peter Smith-Kingsley
Characters: Tom Ripley, Peter Smith-Kingsley
Additional Tags: Trains, Closeted, Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Fix-It, Happy Ending
Summary:

Tom watched Peter’s ribs rise and fall beneath his loose Italian shirt as he lay prone, his dark hair fallen artlessly back from his forehead, and the softness of unconsciousness stealing across his face.

Despite the tags this is pure movieverse. It's a fix-it fic that doesn't try to fix too much. Tom is still a mess, but it's believable that he's changing and will be able to change more, and the story does a good job of building on the movie's suggestions about why Tom is the way he is.