Mercutio (read_mercutio) wrote,
Mercutio
read_mercutio

Sentinel AUs

The Sentinel: Sentinel 101, by Susan Foster. The first story in the GDP series. The AU that has spawned many other AUs. The author is against slash, yet the whole story is full of manly skin on skin bonding, so who cares? Jim is an unbonded sentinel. He must have a guide. However, guides here are completely the property of their sentinels and much abused both within and without the sentinel-guide relationship. Blair is considered a problem guide and has been horribly abused. Will Jim be able to bond with him? Will Blair ever be able to have a semi-normal life? Whole series and sub-series and other stuff on Susan's page.

Conforming to Requirements, by Flutterbev. Jim doesn't want to bond with a guide. Guides are namby-pamby well-trained automans. To avoid bonding, he chooses a rather unsuitable temporary guide who isn't allowed to bond at all. Blair's perfect for him -- up until Jim starts bonding with him regardless of better intentions or rules. Blair pays the price.

My Soul To Keep, by sone. In the future, sentinels are common, but guides are unknown. Then one is discovered -- in cryogenic sleep. Do they wake him up? Will he wake up? And who is going to be his sentinel? (Obvious answers here.) The losing sentinel kidnaps Blair and Blair almost dies, but Jim eventually gets him back. Long and absorbing.

Sentinel-Guide Research Project, by Sorka. Guides are in control in this one, while sentinels are considered extremely dangerous and their lives are very restricted. When Jim emerges as a sentinel late in life, he's dragged off to a center where they handle sentinels, drugged and very nearly killed. Blair is a professor at the center and he rescues Jim, in the process coming to realize that all of his ideal theories about sentinel treatment and guide training bear little resemblance to how things are actually done.

Upgrade 01: A Fresh Start, by YS McCool. The story where Jim's a Retrieval Officer and Blair is both wealthy and the originator of the phrase, "to be sandburged". In the future, there are many sentinels -- all artificial, with a chip in their heads giving them their abilities. When Jim's chip starts giving him trouble, he thinks it's going to be the end of his career. But the man who designed the chips takes an interest and discovers that the reason Jim's chip doesn't work is because Jim doesn't need it. They go on to have many many adventures from there. Firmly het, with marriages and babies and so on, but I can forgive this story anything because of its fresh, sharp plots and thorough world-building. Multi-planet adventure. Fabulous stuff here. Could spend forever wallowing in it.

Twice Again, by ysone. Jim doesn't want a guide. Blair is a street rat marked as a fallen guide and implanted so he can't bond. Jim offers Blair a deal -- room and board for keeping Jim from zoning. As the prejudice against fallen guides is bad, Blair doesn't have any alternative. There's a lot of hostility and Blair's going to leave for good -- and then Jim's father offers him $20,000 to go. Blair takes it and then things get interesting.

Outside These Walls, by Jael Lyn. What if Jim never got help from Blair? What if he instead went ahead and found a way to live his life with his problems? Here, he does by buying property by Blair's old warehouse and turning it into a gym (for money-making) and a laboratory (for his senses) and figures out, little by little, how to get through each day. In the meantime, Blair gets his doctorate. They meet at a charity dinner where Blair is the speaker. After the dinner is attacked by terrorists, Jim reacts badly. Blair takes him home and the rest is, well, history. Great stuff -- I love the idea of Jim painfully figuring out how to survive with his senses.

Coming Up For Air series, by Delilah. Jim was never able to cope with his senses and lives at home with his family, unable to speak, misdiagnosed as autistic. His only outlet is sculpture. Blair is working as an observer with the police and gets thrown to the wolves when a frantic William Ellison descends on the police department demanding that they do something about his kidnapped son. Blair manages to rescue Jim when no one else can, connecting with him, something no one else has been able to do in twenty years. Jim never gets completely better in the series, but it's still touching.

Sell My Soul, by DoggyJ. Blair needs money to pay for an operation for the daughter of a broke friend. So he sells himself into indentured servitude, and gets bought by Wiliam Ellison as a guide for a certain detective. Jim hates him at first, but eventually they get along. Blair's friend, on the other hand? Takes the money, but dumps Blair.

Empaths, by neichan. Blair gives a lecture. The whole story is only the lecture, yet it feels like more and it's very moving. In this universe, guides are considered animals and are bought and sold and live in cloistered harems, swathed in protective clothing and veiled, not to be seen or touched by other's eyes. Blair is an unusual one, in that he's allowed to study and to sometimes travel, although for travel he's sealed into a cell and must remain there. For this lecture, his owner did not go with him and a temporary owner/sentinel has been assigned to him who touches him every so often to maintain Blair's abilities. His lecture is about a culture where the women are all sentinels and the men are all empath/guides and their social structure. It becomes clear during the lecture that the people he is giving the lecture to are going to steal the male empaths and take them as guides. And that they don't intend to return him to his barely-a-sentinel-at-all owner. Blair's not that disappointed with ending up with Officer Ellison, his temporary sentinel. Nothing actually happens in the story -- it ends when the lecture ends. But it's perfectly lovely in its own way.
Tags: fandom: the sentinel, pairing: blair/jim
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