Benchmark of Nothing

So this is the big secret fic I've been stealthily working on *eye roll*. Um, I wrote an episode of the Bagenders. And since I know very little about GB, this installment has them moving to the US of A. I hope fans of the original series enjoy this spin off. My writing style isn't really the same at all as Random Dent/Flatmate and Lady Alyssa, but I hope it's slightly funny anyway. If you never read the Original I highly recommend it. The original site is more or less in the toilet but I managed to scrape them together and archive them here.
I apologise for any continuity errors between my fic and the old series, but no, I will not fix them. I apologize for glaring errors in...idiomatic...cultural...whatever. I can't fix those either. I also apologize for any Legalocentricity. I just lurve him.
If you don't feel like prerequisite reading or you have read the original but have lost all memory of it due to binge drinking, binge binging, or binge bowling (pins to the head good for amnesia I hear), here's a brief, and possibly inaccurate synopsis: The Fellowship were granted eternal life as a reward for saving Middle Earth (except for Boromir since he died before they did most of the really heroic stuff, but he comes to visit now and then). So it's just them and the elves (who already live forever so it wasn't much of a reward for Legolas, bloody Valar) and the rest of us oblivious humans. They've gone their separate ways at times but they always end up back together, and for the better part of the last decade they were sharing a cramped flat in the North of England working blue collar jobs, getting arrested, committed, hit by buses, avoiding ex's and in-laws, and getting drunk at Elrond's karaoke parties. Aragorn and Arwen split up ages ago but she keeps in touch just enough to keep Aragorn bitchy. Legolas has been pushing a refreshment trolly on the train and swatting away fawning girls while maintaining a fragile grip on his elfish dignity. Merry and Pippin have employed themselves as people who get fired from jobs, Frodo is mentally unstable, and Sam takes care of Frodo and the garden. Gandalf is a drunken old codger, and Gimli works nights to avoid the rest of them. Not too long ago, while digging through Pippin's extensive collection of pornography, Legolas discovered some rather old and bawdy doodles penned by none other than Leonardo "Arse Grabber" DaVinci which he sold for a tidy profit. He used this windfall to buy the fellowship a new, spacious home with a relaxing room all to himself with a little motorized waterfall on the desk and some of those nice bamboo drawings on the walls. Aside from the odd existential crisis and the occasional fireball in the kitchen, their lives seemed destined to settle down a bit after that....

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This is a far cry from my usual recommended fic. It's not artistically constructed, each word a stroke of genius, in fact, the main characters I find lacking in interest, the writing a little child-like - but the story is SO DAMN ENGAGING. It's A Fleeting Glimpse of Shadow by Le Rouret. I haven't finished reading it myself, but it's worth reading even if the ending is less than stellar because the story, MY GOD THE STORY, is fantastic. It's an AU - sorta. It's the present day, and the fellowship is still hanging on, but not in a Bagenders way, more in a Mission Impossible kind of way. It's told from the point of view of a an original character and there is almost no sex (so far anyway), no wait, it's still worth reading, seriously. Wait till you meet the modern Legolas. OMFG. You will love him as I do.

“Ear drums!” Dom complained. “The sound barrier. The space-time continuum. Everything is destroyed.”

I laughed out loud on that line, and several others.  Her timing and wit are perfect.  Four Hotel Rooms and a Backseat by </a></strong></a>hyacinth_sky747Fantastically sweet and funny.