LINKDING

<blockquote>"You wanna get out of here?" Nile asked.</blockquote> ➤ the one where Andy regains immortality

<blockquote>“Alright, fine,” said Andy, and Nile’s free-fall spiraling thoughts came to a halt, climbing back up to a bearable altitude. “Teach me then. Show me the ways of 21st century dating.” “What, me?” asked Nile. “There’s no one else here with that experience, is there?” When Andy has to go on a Tinder date to get intel from a mark, and proves to be shockingly bad at it, it's up to Nile to show her how it's done.</blockquote>

<blockquote>‘So, you’re Nicky, I take it? I’m Joe.’ ‘Sorry, I don’t speak English,’ Nicky says. It’s about the only sentence he knows in English, a dubious badge of honour he nevertheless wears with pride. Or rather, he did until about five minutes ago, when Andy said there was someone she wanted him to meet. In English. -- Modern AU with language barriers: Joe speaks Dutch, English, and Arabic; Nicky speaks Italian, Spanish, and German. Andy didn't know that when she introduced them, but it doesn't really matter. As the poets say, love finds a way.</blockquote>

<blockquote>listen if we’re talking AUs where someone had a bad relationship, Joe deserves to be gently supported back into a healthy relationship by all his friends and his perfect new boyfriend Nicky, okay? He deserves it. And I’m making it happen. You’re welcome.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It started on the midnight to eight shift, sometime before three, the witching hour even by ship standards.</blockquote> ➤ the one about the boat of scientists when quynh emerges from the ocean!

<blockquote>"How much more will I forget, Joe?" Nile asks, voice small. "It's not about what you forget," he tells her, searching for the right words. "It's like...negative space. You still feel the echo of where they have been, even when you can no longer fill in all the details. Maybe you lose some of the shading: the timber of a voice, the scent of their skin. Yet you still know them by the space they have left behind." (The one where Nile and Joe are stuck alone in a car together and talk about feelings and stuff.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>"Perhaps most tragic of all is the absence of Andy Burgess outside of Scranton history. We know that she was brave and determined based on her actions during the Scranton Flood. We know that she loved and was loved in return, that her final thoughts on the day of her death were about Nile. But who she was outside of that has been lost to the pages of history. Though many people have shown up over the years claiming to be her family, there has been no actual proven familial link to this day. In many ways, Andy Burgess exists because of Nile's letters, her words doing more to immortalize the Hero of Scranton's human existence than any biographical text to date...And perhaps, at the end of the day, this was the greatest demonstration of Nile's love for Andy Burgess: to keep her alive long after she was gone." - Smith, A. (2079). The missing link: A study of the absence of women in early twenty-first century queer studies. Queer Studies, 2(22).</blockquote> ➤ the one where andy died

<blockquote>“I do not ‘have a go’ at you,” Nicky said, with a frankly offensive degree of dignity for someone who had once called Joe both arrogant and lazy within the space of five minutes; that Joe had used the term ‘self-righteous bastard’ shortly prior was beside the point.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Joe’s going to get over his break-up blues by sleeping with the most attractive person he knows who he’d happily never speak to again. And it works like a charm! The cursed kind.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The first thing Nicolò thought about Yusuf al-Kaysani, when they shook hands in front of three cameras, eight crew, and two members of his father’s PR team, was that he had an impressive amount of self-control.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Very good,” says the Prince. “Now. Listen carefully. Congratulations, Signor al-Kaysani and Signor diGenova; you are to be married. To each other.” (or: Yusuf and Nicolò are ordered to marry each other to end a family feud, while both pining for their secret lovers (each other). This goes about as well as you’d expect.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Palaeobotany PhD student Nile Freeman and her supervisor Joe al-Kaysani are invited to billionaire Stephen Merrick’s new project – a theme park full of cloned dinosaurs. What could possibly go wrong?</blockquote>

<blockquote>To be fair, Joe did know there were some things Nicky wasn’t quite telling him. But it didn’t matter to him who Nicky’s ancestors had been. What mattered was Nicky, who was kind, and thoughtful, and relentlessly committed to doing the right thing, including his share of the dishes. Really, what else did you need to know that someone was a keeper?</blockquote> ➤ I enjoyed that the relationship arc wasn't "will they get together" but "how will their relationship handle this major stressor"; a fun switch-up from the usual sort of thing

<blockquote>As it happened, Joe was straight; he just happened to be currently girlfriend-less. And just because you were straight didn’t mean you had to be a dick about this stuff. He could absolutely win this game. Nicky was going to be fighting all that Catholic guilt. (or: the one where they start playing gay chicken and never stop)</blockquote>

<blockquote>“That’s my supervisor,” said Nile, lowering her voice. “He told me he had a blind date. I don’t think it’s going too well.” “Well, if he needs to be rescued,” said Nicky, “let me know.”</blockquote> ➤ consists of: Holding Out For A Hero Academic Proposals

<blockquote>Prince Nicolò is marrying Lady Nile for the good of the kingdom, and everybody has to make the best of it. Or: wlw/mlm solidarity is conspiring with your boyfriend’s wife’s girlfriend to help them produce a royal heir.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Some days you find yourself having sex with your academic nemesis in a storage closet and that’s just how it is.</blockquote> ➤ series consists of: Explaining Is Losing A Brief Report On Being In Love (diGenova, 2019)

<blockquote>There can be no misinterpretation or confusion on Yusuf’s part when what Duke Nicolò says is “But I didn’t want a husband, what does my brother think he’s doing?”</blockquote>

How to seduce your brother’s fiancé when you’re Nicolò of Genoa (or Malta?) and you’re just too polite to do that (or: the arranged marriage fic where Yusuf is going to marry Nicolò’s brother).

<blockquote>A dam bursts inside Nicky, and he is so swept away in the tide of his relief he admits everything. “I meant it,” he says. “Of course I meant it, I’ve fallen in love with you. Let me keep you. Let me stay with you. Marry me, Joe.” “I thought I would spend my nights in darkness,” Joe tells him, and Nicky knows this about him, too, that he will not give a straight answer when a poem would do. “I thought I’d live on a pale shadow of what you’ve made me feel. But you – your smile could light up the darkest night, Nicolò. Your heart is so sweet, my love, you’ve captured mine so easily. I’ll stay with you for as long as you’ll have me.” Nicky would blame the wine, he would blame the summer breeze, the beautiful view, temporary insanity, anything, but it would be a lie and he’s an honest man. If he’s drunk on anything, it’s Joe. If anything makes him shiver, it’s Joe. If there is any beautiful view, it’s Joe’s eyes, bright with tears and smiling at him. If he’s insane, it’s only love. OR: The one where Joe and Nicky get married after knowing each other for two weeks.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The first forgery Booker ever made was a new identity for himself as a gentile. Wherein Booker loses his family, reconnects with his heritage, and maybe finds something a little like faith.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“I don’t want to fuck anybody,” Yusuf said, starting bluntly to save them both the trouble of specifics. “Or almost all the time, I do not.” (or: the one with slutty Nicolò and confused demisexual Yusuf)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Pam Marks is surprised and delighted when four young (looking) people make a big purchase at her Help the Refugees charity shop in suburban England. The political winds and the recession are catching up with her. She's glad to know there are people on her side.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It was the first time James had seen Y’suf in nearly two Turns, since his best Harper – for intelligence as much as song – had gone to a Hatching at Ista Weyr and never come back, suddenly thrust into a new life as a brown dragonrider.</blockquote> ➤ a pern au where the characters are working on fixing all the oogy gender and sexuality stuff that goes on in the canon! beautiful ➤ so far: A Queen Weyr Flying Free Out Of The Blue Piece By Fragile Piece

<blockquote>The question is not whether they love each other; the question is how that can be said, and what it means.</blockquote>

<blockquote>For all the weirdness of the new life Nile found herself in, it was--of all things--a grilled cheese sandwich that finally pushed her over the metaphorical edge.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"Do you ever think about getting old?"</blockquote>

<blockquote>Joe has complaints, Nicky has a plan, and communication is important even after 900 years together.</blockquote>

<blockquote>On her layover in Munich, she stops in the ladies’. She’s washing her hands when someone pulls up at the next sink, and says, “Corporal Freeman?” Forcing herself to breathe slow, raise her head slow, she looks. The sight of desert camo takes her right out of the bathroom, back to the heat and the buzz of flies swarming to her own blood.</blockquote> ➤ note: andy dies permanently in this one, as a warning

<blockquote>They have just made it through the syllabus and started on actual instruction when, with twenty-five minutes left, the fire alarm goes off. “Probably a drill,” says Mercedes. “Not on the first day,” Vidal counters. “Some clown pulled the alarm.” “Or some clown set a fire,” Mercedes says, cheerfully. Nile sighs before she can stop herself. “I wasn’t planning on dying today, and I’d rather not,” she mutters in English. Isidra snorts, packing away her things. “You millennials and your gallows humor.” Nile lets herself laugh at that, but not as long as she’d like to. </blockquote>