art by Wychwood
Several of my X-Men stories (and Artaxastra's) fit in the same continuity as Fear the Rest, and share the same backstory. While you don't have to read them as a series, if you're interested in following the chronological order of the stories, they run as follows:
Smoking on the Bus by Artaxastra (flashback sections) -- While we don't have the temperment to co-write with each other, Artaxastra and I were both playing with very similar backstories for our X-Men fic, and it became too much work to keep them separate. I've never been able to write about the beginning of Charles and Erik's relationship in this series without covering the same ground she does beautifully here.
Six Lessons in Living In Sin -- This is the same apartment that appears in The Art of Losing, which I wrote first. (It also appears in Trust, which isn't in the same continuity. I have a bad habit of reusing the sets.)
Moving Furniture -- Parts of this story go earlier and later, but this is where the middle part goes, so I'll put it here. Charles and Erik's room in this story becomes Charles's room by Home Maintenance, and then later Scott and Jean's room.
The Last of the Jedi by Artaxastra -- Father Cassidy from this story makes a brief appearance in Chapter 6 of Fear the Rest. Also the Star Wars references keep popping up.
Home Maintenance (flashback sections) -- This story begins before His Mother's Eyes but runs through around Chapter 4 of Fear the Rest.
Under Cover of Darkness (flashback sections), His Mother's Eyes (flashback sections), Collateral Damage, and Blue, all by Artaxastra -- How Erik met Raven. Again, given that I was using this backstory, there was no way for me to write about it without writing the same story.
Fear the Rest -- References everything but the kitchen sink. Artaxastra's Revolution fits somewhere between Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.
Children's Crusade -- Enter Bobby. While this story stands on its own, some of this is stuff I wanted to get at in Role Models and didn't have the chance.
Orientation -- Enter John. The hedge maze shows up again in a couple of places, I think.
X1
Unrepentant -- Assumes Mystique's history with Sabretooth from Fear the Rest, and also the apartment that we see in Freefall.
Personal and Political by Artaxastra -- A somewhat different take on Mystique at this point. I'm not sure whether the two stories actually contradict each other or are just from different points of view.
Game Theory -- This is pretty much the dynamic among the kids in this series. Kitty, Jubilee, John, Bobby, and Marie are all within a few years in age. X3 canon seems to confirm this, which was one of the few things about the movie that pleased me.
Closer -- I don't think there are any direct references to anything else in this story, but the image of Jean sitting on the stairs comes up a couple of other times.
Normal -- This is the Scott-Warren relationship (I almost wrote Scott/Warren, which is almost entirely not true) that we see in Fear the Rest.
Home Maintenance (present sections) -- This is right before X2, maybe a few weeks before. It's possible that some of these people could resolve some of these issues if they had more time, but they don't.
X2
(AU: Freefall -- The Freefall timeline splits off at the beginning of X2, but still assumes everything up to this point as backstory.)The Art of Losing, Laundry -- Both happen at essentially the same time, in the immediate aftermath of X2 (and may actually fit within the timeframe of the movie, depending on how much time passes between the scene in the White House and the movie's last scene).
At that point, you have your choice of what happens to Bobby, John, and Rogue:
Ocean View, A Thousand Words, Christmas List, Role Models, Homesick -- These work as a miniature series, I think, running through the year or so after X2.20 Random Facts about Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Like Fish -- These assume the same backstory, but they also assume that Hank arrives at the school in the fall, which changes the dynamic a bit.
Iron, Playing with Fire, First and Last, Public Transportation, His Mother's Eyes, Thirteen Years Later, and Well, I'm Back by Artaxastra -- Yet another miniature series, heavy on the Erik/John and running farther into the future than I've ventured.