fic writing

[volari]

Once again avoiding homework...

I'm signed up for undermistletoe and have several ideas but am feeling dissatisfied with all of them. That, and I'm feeling out of practice with fic and with writing in general. Granted, most of that is probably due to the fact that the semester is wrapping up here so there are all those final major papers and tests that are

Comments

[volari]

Sheppard leads him to one of the transporters, tapping the screen without hesitation. Jack can't see which spot Sheppard chose, not that he would have much luck translating the two-dimensional image into the startling three-dimensional space that is Atlantis. Not that it matters, since the transporters are immediate and smoother than even the Asgard beams.

The doors hiss open and Jack strolls out into the dim corridor. This one doesn't have any of the stained glass windows that illuminate the airy city, just dim lights that flicker to life as Sheppard steps out beside him. Jack should've guessed as much. His manifestation of the ATA gene should be as strong as Sheppard's, but Atlantis obviously has favorites. Which explains a lot, actually.

The walk down the corrider is silent, with Sheppard nearly vibrating in tension beside him. Jack knows they both know why he asked to have a private word, but honestly? Jack has no idea how to start.

Because Atlantis should be debris on the ocean floor and he and Woolsey scattered with it. Instead, he's walking down a surprisingly long corrider with lights that he swears are focusing on Sheppard and intentionally leaving Jack in the shadows. Because Sheppard had pulled the same stupid type of thing that had had him shipped to Antartica in the first place. Only this hadn't just endangered the mission, it had endangered Earth.

He hadn't lied when he told Elizabeth she could stay, because if Atlantis was still standing then they needed to be here.

He couldn't make the same promise about Sheppard. Landry was probably ordering Sheppard's court martial while they were walking. And while Hank still needed to learn that the SGC couldn't be run like any other military command, he wasn't wrong this time.

But as they reached the end of the hallway and a door slid open without Sheppard even needing to look at it, Jack knew. The first year of SG-1, Jack had made the same decision. To rescue his home and his life. The only difference was that for Sheppard, and the others, Earth wasn't that home and life.

They stepped out onto a balcony with the perfect view of the city and ocean beyond it. And as the sound of the waves reached them where they stood, Jack opened his mouth to speak.

[panisdead]

Oh, cool. I like this very much. I don't have a particularly strong sense of how the Jack-John relationship operates on the show, but I enjoyed this version of it--it's neat to see John placed more overtly into the military chain of command, particularly in this context, where he's blatantly fucked up and knows he's at the mercy of his superior. This little snippet feels very grounded in both canon and how I assume a reality-based version of canon would operate, what with the little notes about Landry and the necessary responses to Atlantis' continuing existence. Jack's realization at the end seems both logical and organic.

Plus, translating the two-dimensional image into the startling three-dimensional space that is Atlantis is just a really neat phrase. Very nice!

[volari]

Thank you! And thanks for the prompt!

I love every bit of Jack and John. I can't slash them together, but I think their dynamic is so fascinating. Because the stargate has done the same thing to both their lives--given them a purpose and a family--but how they approach things and their experiences are so different. John's the eternal optimist while Jack's the eternal pessimist.

Sadly, the show has really only given us together in Rising. Even in the Return pt 2, it's minimal and they're more "hi, let's not die" than "let's sit and have a manly and uncommunicative heart to heart."