Ficlet: "A Small Crime" (TSCC, Ellison/Sarah)

[pellucid]

I really am working on a proper fic about James Ellison, complete with theology and stuff. But the porn battle is a crazy enabler, so instead I've written more Sarah/Ellison porn. Something of a follow-up to this. Ficlet here at the Porn Battle, and below for archival purposes

Comments

[pellucid]

Thanks! The other ficlet felt like getting my feet wet in a new fandom, with all the fits and starts that involves, but this felt much more like I was starting to get these characters. So I'm glad to hear you thought it worked.

I think I would be totally cool with Derek getting blowed up with Evil Jesse if we could have Sarah and Ellison together.

Heh. I'd rather not make it an either/or situation, I think, but presented in such a way, then yeah, I'm forced to agree with you. *g*

[pellucid]

Hee

[hereswith]

There is no letting go. She catches the world, but there is no one to catch her. But she's been up all night, and the kitchen smells like pancakes, and he's there and solid and just for a minute she can pretend he's safe. I loved that. And it was nice to see that you had written more about these two :-)

[pellucid]

Thanks so much!

[pellucid]

Yay! That was sort of the lightbulb moment for me, too. I was trying to figure out if such a relationship was even viable, psychologically, and James was fairly easy. He's sort of the moth to Sarah's flame, and even if he resents her and doesn't quite trust her and sometimes thinks she's wrong, she still compels him very strongly. But Sarah: what about James might draw Sarah in? And I think it's this. He doesn't have all of Derek's insurmountable baggage (and don't get me wrong, I think that Sarah/Derek is all kinds of hot, but I also don't think it could ever work in any kind of even moderately healthy way), and he isn't as vulnerable as Charley because he's already as doomed as he's going to get. And he's doomed from his own choices--not from anything that Sarah has done. That, I think, makes him "safe" in Sarah's mind. Not that she'll ever really trust him, I think, but he might give her the space she needs to let her guard down just a little bit, now and then

[beccatoria]

Dude, you realise it's unfair to write things this awesome when canon will probably never give us anything half as wonderful? Ugh. I blame you for my increasing desire to ship these two. Also your amazingly insightful point that they'd work because James has already destroyed himself; here's someone it's not up to her to protect.

And in some ways I even feel like she feels that was about Derek. Not that she physically needs to protect him, but that she needs protect John from him, that she needs to make sure he doesn't go over the edge, that she doesn't know quite enough about him to trust him, even though she has to trust him, and so he is exhausting and just as demanding on her attention and time, in many ways, as another child.

But James Ellison is, above all things, an adult and responsible and stable, and also...not someone she needs to worry about breaking more than he's already broken.

*WIBBLES*

And, of course, the writing was fantastic.

[pellucid]

I'm just trying to ignore the part where this will never happen in canon

[beccatoria]

Yes, exactly! Derek/Sarah is also not something I can't see or dislike, it's just much more fraught and destructive and if Derek appeals to Sarah then it's in a self-destructive way, whereas if James Ellison appeals to Sarah it's in a very different (but wonderful) way.

I really hope Ellison survives and if he does I think eventually he'll have to work out what's going on somehow. But then, the show is actually doing a really interesting job of keeping him on the "wrong" side for all the right reasons. Unfortunately that also keeps him away from Sarah.

Re: my story - don't worry there's no hurry. I know it's absolutely enormous and while I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on it, there is no hurry. I'm glad you even think it sounds interesting enough to want to read. :)

[pellucid]

There's something about the way that Sarah and Ellison both do and don't understand each other that intrigues me. He thinks he gets her, and I think he probably does understand her better than she does him (if only because he's had more opportunity for study), yet he still has no idea how deep any of this goes. He knows a lot, but he's still a bit naive. And she doesn't see that he won't respond to orders and threats, but he will respond to reason and evidence. That's not Sarah's way--she expects loyalty to be absolute and, well, faith-based. There's an interesting interplay between them in terms of faith and evidence, doubt and certainty. Neither trusts the other's version of faith, but they each rely on it in fairly equal amounts.

Anyway, their dynamic absolutely fascinates me, and I'm quite sad that we'll never see what the show might have done with the fabulous setup it left for the two of them.