Templum Bellonae

Funny summary of the show.

The names of the boys and of some of the subsidiary characters correspond to numbers in various languages. There’s no real point to this, and it doesn’t accomplish much beyond providing some extraordinarily goofy names. Quatre Rebarba Winner, this means you.

[...]

Duo is notable for being least angst-ridden of the five. He’s got a great waist-length braid, but Duo, what’s up with the jodhpurs?

A Guide to All Things Gundam Wing by Morgan Richter

Another fic I don’t remember very well, which will get a summary when I have the chance to re-read it.

An AU set in California. Trowa and Wufei answer Quatre’s personal ad.

Sugar Daddy by Windsor Blue

Ten years after Endless Waltz, Duo and Trowa are forced into therapy together. A large part of this story’s awesomeness comes from Trowa’s internal voice, which is perfect and funny. I have a weakness for mental illness fics, and the GW universe has some of the best justifications for that kind of story.

Rattlesnakes by Trixie

After the war, Heero is sent back to live with his birth family. Hands is told from the perspective of his sister, and is an amazing picture of what it might really be like for an ordinary family to live with a Gundam pilot. Excellent characterizations.

My brother is a Gundam pilot. I know, I know, what I should say is that my brother was a Gundam pilot, but once you ever saw to way he prowls into a room, upright and with his shoulders thrust so far back that you thought his back curved the wrong way, you’d see what I mean.

Hands by Oedipus Tex

Duo returns to his current school after a misson.

Loaded by One Person

Good Duo backstory is hard to come by. This is the best I’ve read so far, and it’s pretty amazing. It’s not at all how I pictured it, but the story makes so much sense and has such emotional resonance that by the time finished it, I was completely convinced. And completely hooked.

This is the story of Duo, Solo, and the L2 plague, which is used so often to create Duo-angst but rarely explored in any depth. I love Duo’s narrative voice in this fic, especially the way he juxtaposes the story of his first weeks on the colony with the account of the early progress of the plague. Lovely, lovely writing.

That night is my last pure night; the first soft whisper of a greater shadow that hangs over the landscape of my life. The last time the rain really belonged to me.

I never met Mary Lenox. The history-books say she was twenty-three, that she was admitted to Wellspring Hospital on May 15, AC 186 and died two days later of respiratory complications. As I figure it, that was seven days after Solo warned me out of the rain.

Her death passed without comment; she was only the first faceless pebble in the landslide to come.

I hesitated for a long time before adding this story to my Top Ten list, not because the fic itself isn’t good enough to justify it, but because I had a sort of unofficial rule that only novel-length fiction would be added to the list. In fact, I still do, but Twilight deserves to be the exception.

Twilight by One Person

(Link is to GWA main page)

Also Quatre/other.

A Quatre-centred fic, miracle of miracles. You may have realised that 1×2 is my OTP, but I like all the pilots, so this story is a refreshing chance of pace.

Feeling stifled and trapped in his role as businessman, Quatre takes a year off to go to university.

Nothing Like The Sun by Sol 1056

(Link is to GWA main page)

Five years after Endless Waltz, Heero hasn’t kept in touch with the other pilots. When he hears that Duo and Trowa have disappeared, he decides to go looking for them himself.

This is a very long and satisfying story. I’m particularly fond of post-war stories where one of the pilots (usually Heero, which is pretty much canonical) has been out of contact with the others, and has to work to understand the changes that have taken place in his absence. Sol 1056 makes the best of that plotline in this story; she doesn’t oversimplify and never takes the easy way out.

The Drums of Heaven by Sol 1056

(Link is to GWA main page)

This isn’t a story that’s easy to summarize, so I’ll let the author do it for me, as I so often do:

This story grew out of my wish to respond to the seemingly endless number of stories revolving around the topic of slavery, especially those that focus on breaking or torturing a person past their point of resistance. Sometimes reading those becomes excruciating, since so many seem to revel in a concept that I find personally abhorrent, when put into reality: removing all free will from a person, and destroying their spark of individuality. And worse, few investigate the process involved in surviving (let alone healing from) such an experience. So I decided I would.

Part of the bleakness will be as the back-story becomes clear. Expect physical abuse, violence, torture, and possible squick situations. Also expect gallows humor, surprising light-hearted moments, and behaviors that make no sense from a rational point of view.

It is not a pretty picture. And the simple fact is that I can’t necessarily promise a happy ending in the traditional sense, where everything ends up back to ‘normal,’ because I can’t find anything in the medical or psychological information that indicates that a person – after surviving such an intense psychological breakdown – will ever be truly ‘normal’ again. You’re also going to read a lot of questions raised by performing such a horror, and the two main characters will also be raising ethical questions about their own roles in the recreation of an individual. Some of their positions and conclusions may surprise you, and some may upset you.

I’ve done a great deal of research for this story, and I’m trying to stick to as realistic an extrapolation as possible. Now that you’re braced for impact, I will assure you that I believe in the strength of a human being to come up with a way to fight even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. To paraphrase Trowa’s words in the first chapter, none of the characters in this story are going to go gently into any damn night.

This story is less romantic or sexual than psychological, but it’s none the worse for that.

Broken Jade by Sol 1056

The series is continuing, but each story in the arc pretty much stands alone. Although some things are left unresolved from story to story, there are no cliffhangers.

I love this series, even though it has way too much Duo-angst in it. I think the early stories are the strongest, especially Assumptions and Evasions. The stories start during the war, but mostly take place afterwards, when Duo takes a dangerous salvage job that goes badly wrong.

The Ion arc by Sunhawk

Short, sweet high school AU. Everyone thinks Heero and Duo are dating, but they’re not. Really.

Falling Sideways by Blue Soaring

A Preventers clinical psychologist, Milliardo Peacecraft has his hands full with Heero Yuy as a patient. Luckily he has Duo Maxwell to help him. Mild bondage.

Disinhibiting Heero by Becca Abbott

There needs to be more Zechs/Noin fanfic as great as this. Zechs and Noin spend a relaxed evening on Mars.

Brick Red by Ponderosa

Schmoopy and sentimental as hell, but in a really good way.

Struggling to make it after the war, Duo and Heero discover Christmas has a magic neither of them ever expected.

Short, and there’s an equally short sequel, Memories and Miracles.

Gifts of the Heart by Becca Abbott

Just yesterday I recommended The Arrangement, and said it was Maldoror’s best story so far. Forget that. Freeport is, beyond a doubt, the best thing she’s ever written. In fact, it’s actually one of the best sci-fi fanfics I’ve ever read.

Freeport colony: a notorious den of pirates, smugglers and thieves. Wufei persuades one of its denizens, his one-time ally Duo, to help him catch a killer hiding there. Agent Chang thinks he knows what to expect, from this case, from Freeport and from Duo Maxwell. He couldn’t be more wrong.

Freeport is a truly fascinating place.

Freeport by Maldoror

Even though I love most of Maldoror’s other fics, I was reluctant to read this one because of the pairing, and because the summary didn’t appeal to me, especially the part saying it was not a romance. But I tried it, and even though the first ten chapters or so seemed to confirm my fears, I kept reading it. And loved it. This is a story that just keeps getting better and better with every chapter.

Wufei, struggling with his demons, agrees to a wartime fling with Heero, no affection needed or wanted. But the ‘arrangement’ lasts and grows as they join the preventers. It could become a source of strength for both…if they let it.

Slightly AU–Endless Waltz never happened. I think that, in terms of writing quality, this is probably Maldoror’s greatest story so far.

The Arrangement by Maldoror

Zechs and Treize during Zechs’s officer training. Treize is nineteen; Zechs is fourteen.

Closer by Ponderosa

A few years after the wars, Milliardo is forced to work with Heero and Duo on a mission, and discovers that Duo is more than he seems. The romance between Milliardo and Duo is nice, but Heero is actually my favourite person in this story.

Princes and Soldiers by Kracken

A light, fluffy AU. Heero, a famous author, visits Hollywood to discuss making one of his books into a movie.

Californication by Merula

Another great fic by the author of Axiomatic, although very different in tone. After the war, the pilots struck a deal with the government, but didn’t get exactly what they bargained for. Heero is living in comfortable apathy when an attempt on his life forces him into action.

Touch the World by Jei