Hard Core Logo/Wilby Wonderful (PG13)
Title: There's a Leak in Every Boat, by Exeterlinden
Pairing: Joe/Duck
Length: ~2,700 words
Author on LJ: exeterlinden
Author Website: Linden at AO3
Why this must be read: because the idea should be wildly improbably, but isn't. Linden does an excellent job of creating a close, claustrophobic atmosphere between Joe and Duck, with both of them running from their lives, their hopes and their dreams.
This is a raw, painful story, so true to both of their characters. Both Joe and Duck are young and hurting, on their own and lost. For one brief moment, they manage to find a rough kind of solace in each other before going their separate ways.
The first day is a ten hour shift, working through the night in the glare of projector lights. Joe starts out by the cogs, pulling crabs and trash fish and seaweed out of the nets as they emerge from the water. Later on, one of the fishermen ushers him below deck where the still-gaping fish are pushed down a slide, gutted, sorted in size, put in crates and covered with shovelfuls of crushed ice.
"Fucking mass murder, isn't it?" Joe leans against the wall, smoking a cigarette, sweating underneath the oilskin. He gets no reaction. He takes the last drag of his cigarette and throws it into one of the filled crates. It dies out in the melting ice. He looks up and sees Walt, half turned away, smiling wryly around the soggy stub of a cigarette.
There's a Leak in Every Boat.
Pairing: Joe/Duck
Length: ~2,700 words
Author on LJ: exeterlinden
Author Website: Linden at AO3
Why this must be read: because the idea should be wildly improbably, but isn't. Linden does an excellent job of creating a close, claustrophobic atmosphere between Joe and Duck, with both of them running from their lives, their hopes and their dreams.
This is a raw, painful story, so true to both of their characters. Both Joe and Duck are young and hurting, on their own and lost. For one brief moment, they manage to find a rough kind of solace in each other before going their separate ways.
The first day is a ten hour shift, working through the night in the glare of projector lights. Joe starts out by the cogs, pulling crabs and trash fish and seaweed out of the nets as they emerge from the water. Later on, one of the fishermen ushers him below deck where the still-gaping fish are pushed down a slide, gutted, sorted in size, put in crates and covered with shovelfuls of crushed ice.
"Fucking mass murder, isn't it?" Joe leans against the wall, smoking a cigarette, sweating underneath the oilskin. He gets no reaction. He takes the last drag of his cigarette and throws it into one of the filled crates. It dies out in the melting ice. He looks up and sees Walt, half turned away, smiling wryly around the soggy stub of a cigarette.
There's a Leak in Every Boat.