SGA fic: Infinity
Sep. 20th, 2007 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34Title: Infinity
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Mostly gen but includes John/Rodney, Elizabeth/Simon, Ronon/Kell, Ronon/Teyla and Lucius/Everybody
Word count: 1300 words
I've been watching SG-1 and I'm struck by the quantum mirror, by all these possibilities for the Atlantis expedition. This drabble set explores those roads not taken.
0
Somewhere and somewhen everything that could happen is happening all at once. Infinite possibilities, infinite outcomes, infinite consequences spiral outwards from each seemingly inconsequential choice we make. Six billion infinities coexist on Earth alone; seventy three million on Tollana; eight hundred thousand on Genii; four hundred on Atlantis, including the Athosians on the mainland. An endlessness of what is best in each of us and also what is worst—comedy, tragedy, horror, the blockbuster action hit we’re much too young or old or dead to star in—every virtue and vice in simultaneous play.
All these things are happening now.
1
John flips the coin and then doesn’t look until the metal warms under his palm. When he lifts his hand, he feels nothing. So he’ll stay. He doesn’t much care either way. Antarctica, the Pegasus galaxy—they’re both so far from anything real that they might as well be the same. At least here, he’s got the sky and no one can guarantee him that a trip through the Gate isn’t a permanent grounding. John never regrets his decision, but sometimes late at night, he watches the stars, their light gone cold and comfortless for him now, and he wonders.
1
John stays behind, but the SGC doesn’t give up that easily. He has the gene and he’s smarter than they first realized and even if the expedition’s gone, Earth’s Ancient outpost still has secrets left to tell. This is how John finds himself reclining in the Chair, a map of the solar system projected above his head and the red triangles of Wraith hive ships moving inexorably closer. Dr. McKay is on one of those ships; John remembers meeting him two years earlier—the arrogant prick who sold the world—and when he fires the drones, John’s conscience is clear.
2
Simon kicks back in a lawn chair and makes his own constellations with the brighter stars, the oak leaves of his neighbor’s tree like black lace against the sky. He doesn’t think about Elizabeth often but he can’t help himself on nights like these when the moon is fastened to the heavens like a thing he could touch if he stood on tiptoes. He can admit to himself now how much wishes he’d gone with her and how much of a coward his refusal made him. Sometimes he dreams that she asks him again and every time he says yes.
2
“Elizabeth, I’m not letting this man die.”
Simon cuts cleanly into his patient, tissues parting for him and spilling out the body’s secrets. He remembers watching reruns of M*A*S*H on the Hallmark channel the year he spent alone, Hawkeye operating on a soldier with a live grenade lodged in his belly, the laugh track silent as the surgeon sweated down onto bloodstained sheets.
“Simon,” she says, her voice breaking.
“I know,” he says. “Me too.”
When the white hot pain comes—the blinding flash, his own personal Cherynobl—Simon’s last thought is of Hawkeye, his clenched jaw, his trembling relief.
3
Ronon’s back hits the mat, his legs and his breath knocked out from under him with a sweep of Teyla’s sticks. She straddles his hips, her bare legs warm against Ronon’s ribs where his shirt rides up, and when she kisses him, he tastes the sweetness of yellowberry tea. She’s sweaty and warm and real under his hands, something he won’t wake to find imagined or lost years ago. He didn’t think he was ready for this; seven years weren’t nearly enough to bury his dead. But Teyla has her own dead, and together they’ve found a kind of peace.
3
Ronon’s back hits the dirt, his legs and his breath knocked out from under him with a sweep of Kell’s kentak. Kell laughs, Ronon laughing too because Kell is all he has left of Sateda and he cannot imagine bearing its loss alone. Their allies won’t shelter them because they know what Kell has done, what Ronon has helped him do, and so they’ve made something for themselves on this world where no people ever travel. Sometimes Ronon dreams of Melena, of the house he would’ve built for her, and when they wake, Kell’s sleeve is wet with his tears.
4
Lucius fucks Elizabeth every Tuesday. Her wrists are so slight and they bruise very easily in his grip, but she never complains. Rodney likes his bruises. Lucius sees him touching them Saturday mornings when he thinks no one is looking; Lucius watches him fit a finger and thumb into the corresponding marks on a bicep, notices him absently stroking the vicious bloom of a bite mark in the soft flesh of his neck. John, rather predictably, prefers to bruise Lucius instead but the Colonel’s warm mouth sliding wet and tight down Lucius’s cock is so perfect that Lucius never complains.
4
Lucius is again telling the story about how he arm wrestled the king of Ebin for half his kingdom when the Wraith come. At first no one remembers what the klaxons mean and then, when the first spire falls flaming into the ocean, their memories emerge too late to save them. John and Rodney hustle Lucius to a jumper and watch Atlantis burn from space. When the Wraith have finally gone, they settle on the mainland with a handful of Athosians and when the drug finally leaves their systems, John watches while Rodney strangles Lucius, slowly and with steady hands.
5
Laura feels herself diminishing, her sense of self slowly grinding away like Rodney’s molars as he sleeps. She will not die this way. She refuses, and because Rodney’s not expecting it, when Laura shoves him away brutally, when she pushes him back with as much force as she can muster, he goes. And he’s gone. She’s alone. No one questions Laura when she says Rodney disappeared on his own and she thinks as she vomits into the infirmary toilet, “I got away with murder.” She doesn’t resign her commission or request a transfer. Remember, someone died to keep her here.
5
Laura knows that neither of them can hold on much longer. Rodney’s body is dying and one of them should claim it soon because both of them buying the farm is too much of a waste for her to contemplate. Laura doesn’t want to die. She really, really doesn’t want to die. But she has always understood that an unnatural death is a likelihood, maybe even an inevitability, in her line of work, and just because she’s not throwing herself on top of a grenade doesn’t make her sacrifice less meaningful. “Goodbye, Rodney,” she says and then she lets go.
6
John doesn’t mean to kiss Rodney; it’s an accident really, just like most everything romantic that ever happens to him. He never sees it coming, never has. But here John is, pressed up against the jumper’s rear hatch, Rodney’s mouth moving firmly underneath his own and his hands fisted in John’s black T-shirt. Rodney doesn’t speak for once, but John knows what he’s saying all the same. This should be awkward, but it’s not. Instead, it feels like sitting in that Chair the first time, like John’s first trip through the Gate, like coming home. After all, John likes surprises.
6
John doesn’t mean to kiss Rodney; it’s an accident really, just like most everything romantic that ever happens to him. He never sees it coming, never has. But here John is, pressed up against the jumper’s rear hatch, Rodney’s mouth moving firmly underneath his own and his hands fisted in John’s black T-shirt. Rodney doesn’t speak for once, but John knows what he’s saying all the same. This should be awkward, but it’s not. Instead, it feels like sitting in that Chair the first time, like John’s first trip through the Gate, like coming home. After all, John likes surprises.
6
John doesn’t mean to kiss Rodney; it’s an accident really, just like most everything romantic that ever happens to him. He never sees it coming, never has. But here John is, pressed up against the jumper’s rear hatch, Rodney’s mouth moving firmly underneath his own and his hands fisted in John’s black T-shirt. Rodney doesn’t speak for once, but John knows what he’s saying all the same. This should be awkward, but it’s not. Instead, it feels like sitting in that Chair the first time, like John’s first trip through the Gate, like coming home. After all, John likes surprises.
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Mostly gen but includes John/Rodney, Elizabeth/Simon, Ronon/Kell, Ronon/Teyla and Lucius/Everybody
Word count: 1300 words
I've been watching SG-1 and I'm struck by the quantum mirror, by all these possibilities for the Atlantis expedition. This drabble set explores those roads not taken.
0
Somewhere and somewhen everything that could happen is happening all at once. Infinite possibilities, infinite outcomes, infinite consequences spiral outwards from each seemingly inconsequential choice we make. Six billion infinities coexist on Earth alone; seventy three million on Tollana; eight hundred thousand on Genii; four hundred on Atlantis, including the Athosians on the mainland. An endlessness of what is best in each of us and also what is worst—comedy, tragedy, horror, the blockbuster action hit we’re much too young or old or dead to star in—every virtue and vice in simultaneous play.
All these things are happening now.
1
John flips the coin and then doesn’t look until the metal warms under his palm. When he lifts his hand, he feels nothing. So he’ll stay. He doesn’t much care either way. Antarctica, the Pegasus galaxy—they’re both so far from anything real that they might as well be the same. At least here, he’s got the sky and no one can guarantee him that a trip through the Gate isn’t a permanent grounding. John never regrets his decision, but sometimes late at night, he watches the stars, their light gone cold and comfortless for him now, and he wonders.
1
John stays behind, but the SGC doesn’t give up that easily. He has the gene and he’s smarter than they first realized and even if the expedition’s gone, Earth’s Ancient outpost still has secrets left to tell. This is how John finds himself reclining in the Chair, a map of the solar system projected above his head and the red triangles of Wraith hive ships moving inexorably closer. Dr. McKay is on one of those ships; John remembers meeting him two years earlier—the arrogant prick who sold the world—and when he fires the drones, John’s conscience is clear.
2
Simon kicks back in a lawn chair and makes his own constellations with the brighter stars, the oak leaves of his neighbor’s tree like black lace against the sky. He doesn’t think about Elizabeth often but he can’t help himself on nights like these when the moon is fastened to the heavens like a thing he could touch if he stood on tiptoes. He can admit to himself now how much wishes he’d gone with her and how much of a coward his refusal made him. Sometimes he dreams that she asks him again and every time he says yes.
2
“Elizabeth, I’m not letting this man die.”
Simon cuts cleanly into his patient, tissues parting for him and spilling out the body’s secrets. He remembers watching reruns of M*A*S*H on the Hallmark channel the year he spent alone, Hawkeye operating on a soldier with a live grenade lodged in his belly, the laugh track silent as the surgeon sweated down onto bloodstained sheets.
“Simon,” she says, her voice breaking.
“I know,” he says. “Me too.”
When the white hot pain comes—the blinding flash, his own personal Cherynobl—Simon’s last thought is of Hawkeye, his clenched jaw, his trembling relief.
3
Ronon’s back hits the mat, his legs and his breath knocked out from under him with a sweep of Teyla’s sticks. She straddles his hips, her bare legs warm against Ronon’s ribs where his shirt rides up, and when she kisses him, he tastes the sweetness of yellowberry tea. She’s sweaty and warm and real under his hands, something he won’t wake to find imagined or lost years ago. He didn’t think he was ready for this; seven years weren’t nearly enough to bury his dead. But Teyla has her own dead, and together they’ve found a kind of peace.
3
Ronon’s back hits the dirt, his legs and his breath knocked out from under him with a sweep of Kell’s kentak. Kell laughs, Ronon laughing too because Kell is all he has left of Sateda and he cannot imagine bearing its loss alone. Their allies won’t shelter them because they know what Kell has done, what Ronon has helped him do, and so they’ve made something for themselves on this world where no people ever travel. Sometimes Ronon dreams of Melena, of the house he would’ve built for her, and when they wake, Kell’s sleeve is wet with his tears.
4
Lucius fucks Elizabeth every Tuesday. Her wrists are so slight and they bruise very easily in his grip, but she never complains. Rodney likes his bruises. Lucius sees him touching them Saturday mornings when he thinks no one is looking; Lucius watches him fit a finger and thumb into the corresponding marks on a bicep, notices him absently stroking the vicious bloom of a bite mark in the soft flesh of his neck. John, rather predictably, prefers to bruise Lucius instead but the Colonel’s warm mouth sliding wet and tight down Lucius’s cock is so perfect that Lucius never complains.
4
Lucius is again telling the story about how he arm wrestled the king of Ebin for half his kingdom when the Wraith come. At first no one remembers what the klaxons mean and then, when the first spire falls flaming into the ocean, their memories emerge too late to save them. John and Rodney hustle Lucius to a jumper and watch Atlantis burn from space. When the Wraith have finally gone, they settle on the mainland with a handful of Athosians and when the drug finally leaves their systems, John watches while Rodney strangles Lucius, slowly and with steady hands.
5
Laura feels herself diminishing, her sense of self slowly grinding away like Rodney’s molars as he sleeps. She will not die this way. She refuses, and because Rodney’s not expecting it, when Laura shoves him away brutally, when she pushes him back with as much force as she can muster, he goes. And he’s gone. She’s alone. No one questions Laura when she says Rodney disappeared on his own and she thinks as she vomits into the infirmary toilet, “I got away with murder.” She doesn’t resign her commission or request a transfer. Remember, someone died to keep her here.
5
Laura knows that neither of them can hold on much longer. Rodney’s body is dying and one of them should claim it soon because both of them buying the farm is too much of a waste for her to contemplate. Laura doesn’t want to die. She really, really doesn’t want to die. But she has always understood that an unnatural death is a likelihood, maybe even an inevitability, in her line of work, and just because she’s not throwing herself on top of a grenade doesn’t make her sacrifice less meaningful. “Goodbye, Rodney,” she says and then she lets go.
6
John doesn’t mean to kiss Rodney; it’s an accident really, just like most everything romantic that ever happens to him. He never sees it coming, never has. But here John is, pressed up against the jumper’s rear hatch, Rodney’s mouth moving firmly underneath his own and his hands fisted in John’s black T-shirt. Rodney doesn’t speak for once, but John knows what he’s saying all the same. This should be awkward, but it’s not. Instead, it feels like sitting in that Chair the first time, like John’s first trip through the Gate, like coming home. After all, John likes surprises.
6
John doesn’t mean to kiss Rodney; it’s an accident really, just like most everything romantic that ever happens to him. He never sees it coming, never has. But here John is, pressed up against the jumper’s rear hatch, Rodney’s mouth moving firmly underneath his own and his hands fisted in John’s black T-shirt. Rodney doesn’t speak for once, but John knows what he’s saying all the same. This should be awkward, but it’s not. Instead, it feels like sitting in that Chair the first time, like John’s first trip through the Gate, like coming home. After all, John likes surprises.
6
John doesn’t mean to kiss Rodney; it’s an accident really, just like most everything romantic that ever happens to him. He never sees it coming, never has. But here John is, pressed up against the jumper’s rear hatch, Rodney’s mouth moving firmly underneath his own and his hands fisted in John’s black T-shirt. Rodney doesn’t speak for once, but John knows what he’s saying all the same. This should be awkward, but it’s not. Instead, it feels like sitting in that Chair the first time, like John’s first trip through the Gate, like coming home. After all, John likes surprises.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 05:46 am (UTC)*is inordinately proud of herself*
I'm very glad you liked this.
:)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 12:02 pm (UTC)I was a bit confused, at first with the a/b thing, b/c it suggested to me that they were the same universes (i.e. 1a and 2a and 3a) and I don't think that works...
And I was a bit disturbed in my sense of balance that you had 3 6 versions...not sure whether just having different ways to distinguish the alternates might have solved (just ### rather than numbered or something?) that or whether a 6a ... 6t or maybe 6z might have made that same gesture?
Also in the last one it felt a bit uneven to have John yet again (esp. given that we started with him not going), plus the never seeing it coming was kind of at odds to me with the fact that he initiated it.
Hmpf...that sounds like I hated it which is really, really not true!!! The different scenarios you paint are marvelous! Oh, but one more: how can John know that Rodney's on the wraith ship? Also, wouldn't the time line be utterly different without John picking up the lock????
no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 04:13 pm (UTC)I can see why you'd be confused by the a/b thing but all I was trying to do is differentiate between alternate versions of the same event. I don't think there's a really good way to do that, alas. LOL I think what I was trying to suggest (rather lamely) with repeating the last drabble three times is that in many of these realities, no matter what happens, John and Rodney get together. Because they're MADE FOR EACH OTHER. *g*
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Date: 2007-09-20 04:15 pm (UTC)Question?
Date: 2007-09-20 04:42 pm (UTC)Re: Question?
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Date: 2007-09-20 04:46 pm (UTC)Ah, the heart and work of shippers. *loves*
no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 05:03 pm (UTC)*big grin*
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Date: 2007-09-20 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 05:32 pm (UTC)I liked #5 too; I thought that episode left us open for some dark!Cadman. :)
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Date: 2007-09-20 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 09:26 pm (UTC)*big grin*
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Date: 2007-09-20 09:01 pm (UTC)I love what you have done with this! It's so novel. The others are right when they compare it to a sonnet. It has the same sense of getting into a pattern, getting used to the way things are flowing, and then suddenly having the words twist out from under you and deposit you somewhere you hadn't imagined being. Wonderfully done! It was a real pleasure to read. :)
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Date: 2007-09-20 09:29 pm (UTC)I hadn't thought of a sonnet when I was writing this, but now that it's done I definitely see the structural comparison. I think that's one of my absolute favorite things about writing. You end up doing all these things that you weren't consciously thinking of or intending, but which end up being really interesting.
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Date: 2007-09-20 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 11:44 pm (UTC)I think I have found my new favorite adjective. LOL
Thanks so much for the awesome feedback.
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Date: 2007-09-21 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 03:18 am (UTC)*glee*
I am so excited at the positive response this piece is getting. Thanks for reading.
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Date: 2007-09-21 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 12:30 pm (UTC)I think we all expect John to shoot Kolya in an old school Western standoff or close the iris on 60 Genii, but after all these years, I think Rodney would be just as likely to off Lucius in this situation as John.
I'm so glad you like this.
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Date: 2007-09-21 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 12:30 pm (UTC)*big grin*
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Date: 2007-09-21 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 12:32 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for the awesome feedback. I'm really glad you liked this story. :)
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Date: 2007-09-21 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-23 11:08 pm (UTC)You and your McKay/Sheppard, lol! OMG, POOR LORNE, NOT GETTING ANY ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 02:33 am (UTC)Ahem................
7
Major Lorne strips off his thigh holster. He's tired and dirty and, frankly, a little cranky. He doesn't know why his team always draws the rock slides and the hurricanes and the freaking monsoons, but he does know he's tired of it. He's tired of digging Parrish out of caves and climbing trees to escape the mudslides and floating on his back in quicksand. He's tired of it. Lorne's tired. But not so tired that he can't appreciate Parrish's teeth sharp on his collarbone, his hand spanning Lorne's lower back, his cock hard and insistent against Lorne's hip. (AND YOUR TURN........)
MORE MAJOR LORNE, PLEASE!
From:There's never enough 2ic
From:Re: There's never enough 2ic (that's what Parrish said, anyway)
From:Bweeeeeee! Lorne/not so unnamed gate guy LOL
From:Re: Bweeeeeee! Lorne/not so unnamed gate guy LOL
From:I like where this is going. Interspecies love
From:Re: Bweeeeeee! Lorne/not so unnamed gate guy LOL
From:Indeed
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Date: 2007-09-26 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-26 03:57 pm (UTC)Thank you so much. I'm so glad you liked this.
:)
gorgeously done
Date: 2007-10-17 03:51 am (UTC)Re: gorgeously done
Date: 2007-10-17 03:54 am (UTC)I will go to bed and promptly expire from ego.
LOL
Thank you.
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Date: 2007-10-20 08:14 am (UTC)Because this. It's just exquisite. You know I'm a fan of your work in general, but this is one of my very favorites. I love the vivid fragments of possibility, and what they say about the characters and their choices. Each one is clear and crisp and lovely. These glimpses of the roads not taken provide deeper, more textured pictures of characters and relationships than canon provides. And the graceful ending, sure and simple yet subtle, is clever and perfect. Much love!
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Date: 2007-10-20 04:52 pm (UTC)*squeezes you*
Thank you so so much for always saying such deeply lovely things about my writing. (You're the voice I hear in my head when I'm revising. WWLS? What would Lyr say? LOL)
;)
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