fannish 5, WIP sampler
I now have 100 LJ friends! A big welcome to herongale, #100.
1. What scene always makes you cry? I do not cry at TV shows. I dislike this question. Very few things can always make me cry. Some of them make me cry once, and then I'll rewatch it and not give a damn. It's all about context, and how I'm already feeling, and things like that.
That said, the coin toss in "Dog With Two Bones" (Farscape)? The only bit of a TV show at which I've ever cried.
2. What scene always makes you laugh? *snerk* Um... the John/Rygel kiss in "Won't Get Fooled Again" (Farscape)
3. What scene always makes you cringe? The briefing room scene in "Fallen." Daniel.... poor Daniel. And Jim. Just... gets me.
Or, in a totally different way, THAT scene in "Tin Man." SQUICK!
4. What scene always confuses you? In "Engima" where Daniel, speaking about the president, says, "I voted for him!" As the timeline weren't already frelled up enough.
Also, in "Family" where they all go off to live happily ever after in the Land of Light and "Redemption" where they're back on Chulak... confuses the hell out of me.
5. What scene always makes you want to kill the writers? The final scene of "Bad Timing." Then sarc. And force to write the continuation!
And now, for the Works in Progress. Like castalie, I'm posting just a paragraph or two from everything. For one thing, I pages and pages and pages of WIP. And for another, I still have the vain hope that someday I may finish some of them.
To start with, we have My Very First Fanfic. It was essentially going to be a tag to every episode, from the movie to the end of the series. My working title (I guess now it's a not-working title, since I'm not working on it) was "Thinking Of." This section is between Movie and CotG. It's probably a bit more pre-slashy than is really appropriate, but I like the imagery:
Jack thought about Daniel. He thought of other things as well, of course. He thought of hockey and steak and fishing--and Charlie. But thoughts of Charlie, his cockeyed grin and innocent eyes, twisted in Jack's memories and reminded him of the cold, metallic taste of his gun. His gun. But this would remind him of Daniel, of the dissolving series of sensations. The gun, cold against his teeth. A shaggy-haired archeologist sneezing, the shivering, aching coldness of the Stargate, the taste of desert wind. Blasts from weapons he could not identify, flashing in front of him--the familiar smoke of his Camels blending with Skaara's Bedouin scent to create something that would always mean Abydos. This was the past, though. Abydos, like Iraq, like Russia, like Charlie, like Sara, was a mission he had fucked up, direct orders violated sir! bomb not deployed--thanks, Jackson. And this brought his thoughts back to Daniel.
Then there's this long, complicated Jack/Daniel, Jack/Maybourne fic I'm working on, and whenever certain themes emerge in my marginalia, I just add them to this document. It's hard to choose something that's representative, since this is really all over the place with Jack's conflictedness and angst and guilt and desire and love and need. Here, though, is the first Jack/Maybourne scene, and I think I really do like it. I don't think I've posted it before:
"Someone I care about is in danger-and, I might add, because of your organization."
"And? No, never mind. And someone you 'care' about will die if I decide not to play nice. So if you really care, well."
"Shut up."
"More than you're supposed to? Really, I'm amazed, Jack. True blue military, Colonel Jack O'Neill, violating the fraternization regs on top of everything else."
"Carter and I never did a damn thing, Maybourne, but if you don't shut up, I'll be ass-deep for assaulting a fellow officer."
"The rumors are flying, Jack. Maybe Dr. Jackson? Or your friend the Jaffa? Did you care about them more than you should? It's okay-your secret's safe with me," said with mock sympathy as Harry put a hand on Jack's. Jack anticipated the move and caught Harry's wrist.
"Not Carter," he squeezed hard, "and not Daniel," he twisted Maybourne's arm, "and not Teal'c." He pulled Harry, who was struggling to escape, around to face him. "I'm not screwing anyone on my team. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," said Harry with an elaborate wink.
"Oh, I don't think you do." And Jack pulled Maybourne closer still, till their foreheads touched, then their lips. Then Jack was kissing Harry, his tongue slipping easily between lips that opened in surprise. He was still holding Harry's wrists, he realized, so he released them and pulled Harry into an embrace, tight and choking.
He pulled away to breathe, then allowed the sensation to settle in. He'd kissed another man. Finally, after years of wanting needing waiting denying, he'd tasted another man's mouth.
The shell-shocked look on Maybourne's face vanished after a few seconds; it took a lot to bewilder an agent like Maybourne. As soon as he'd recovered sufficiently, he wrapped his arms around Jack's neck and pulled him into another kiss, trying to slide his tongue into Jack's mouth.
"Oh no you don't," said Jack, pulling away, and he kissed Harry hard, his tongue probing and tasting. It was hot and sour and wet, bright fire in his mouth, and he realized his hand had slipped down to Maybourne's ass, their tongues still touching, slick and powerful, graceful and violent in each other's mouths.
Then there's the Cassie/Ally piece that insists that it wants to be written, for sheer wtf value, I suppose. It's probably not going to get much further than this, though I do enjoy how they play off each other:
Cassie slammed her locker shut and spun around angrily. She stomped through the halls of the slummiest public high school in Colorado Springs. She hated it. She hated everything. Last year the whole world had been great, excellent, ecstatic, and except for that stupid thing they'd done to her on her fifteenth birthday, she'd been able to pretend, most of the time, that she was normal. That's all she wanted. Normal.
"Hey, watch where you're going, man."
"Bitch," said Cassie without even turning around. She found fingers around her neck, her back against the locker. The girl was half an inch shorter than she was and hadn't had Jack O'Neill teaching her self-defense. Cassie kneed her, and the girl fell back. Cassie slung her purse back over her shoulder and glared. "What's your damage?"
"Why don't you look where you're going?"
"I'm having a bad century. Sue me."
"I'm Ally, and I am the fucking cause of your bad century if I don't get an apology."
"What ghetto did you crawl out of?" Cassie asked, then stomped down the hallway, not waiting for an answer.
I have an image that won't go away of Daniel and Sam working in the lab and talking about their love lives. It eventually comes around to being Jack/Daniel. I've never written it successfully, though. This is my best effort yet, and it's fairly short, so I'll share the whole thing:
"You have a crush on him, don't you?" Daniel's eyes smiled at Sam, and she grinned and lowered her head. Of course not. She bit her lip and fiddled with the controls on the piece of technology Daniel insisted was some sort of alien computing device, possibly a database. If so, it would be invaluable. They had a week's worth of downtime to examine the artifact before shipping it off to Maybourne
"What does it say?" she asked, pointed to a set of symbols apparently labeling a black switch.
"I have no idea... and I think you're avoiding the question. You have a crush on Jack, don't you?"
"I don't. It would be completely unprofessional, against everything I stand for. My career would be over if we did anything. You know that, right?"
"I'd forgotten."
"Not career military. Right. But anyhow, not only that, he's far older than I am, he's still very much in love with his wife, and he's "
"He's very attractive, isn't he?"
"That doesn't mean anything." Sam tried flicking a switch off then on again, but she wasn't sure which direction was on in the first place. "Are you sure you don't know what it does?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure this line means, 'When activated, this device will destroy the facility of the discoverer and everyone in it, leaving them unable to continue their fascinating conversation about the sexual appeal of the facility's second in command.' So I would assume press the green button?"
"Really? How do you say 'second in command' in Goa'uld?"
"It's not Goa'uld. It might be a derivative, but I'm pretty sure this isn't Goa'uld in design... possibly made by a race who'd been freed from the Goa'uld."
"Ah. Um, Daniel? About Colonel O'Neill..."
"You have a crush on him."
"I do not. But even if I did, nothing would happen."
"Why not? Regulations?"
"Yes and... he's not interested. I know that. I might have been... watching him. And there's no way he'd jeopardize his career for me, because Daniel... he's head over heels in love with you."
"Sam! I'm married. And in case you hadn't noticed, well... I'm a guy."
"Exactly. You don't have a woman's perception on these things. I mean, it's obvious to anyone that I'd be a little bit in awe of the Colonel. But it takes a woman's experience to know that the same Colonel is more than a little bit in awe of you. He's crazy about you, Daniel."
"Right. And I'm supposed to do something about this?"
Sam's voice dropped and she abandoned all pretense of working on the device.
Then there's this bizarre maybe gen maybe slash fic I'm writing called "Desert Nights." Not sure what's going on with the plot, but I'm proud of the language. This paragraph is in the middle of what I have now:
"Daniel!" Sam noticed first, as Daniel's solid body suddenly crumpled like a man made of sugar, becoming like the sand, becoming sand, Daniel, a man with careless grace suddenly careless and empty. Daniel, who should have been most used to the desert, had succumbed to the heat. The desert world was black and white and blurry. When Daniel opened his eyes, he saw only bright heat, the tricks of the desert making the heat visible and shimmering. Jack frowned into the distance shading his eyes with a browned palm
"You okay?" Jack's voice was brusque; his words were cold. Daniel thought there was snow in the distance. He tried to say that, but his mouth wasn't working. It was full of hot, dry sand. Daniel wanted winter. Winter wasn't fond of Daniel. Daniel wasn't fond of summer coming and breathing on his mouth.
"Colonel, he's breathing. It's okay. You don't need to--"
Daniel rolled the flavored of couscous in his mouth. He left his eyes closed.
Oh yes! Over the summer, I started writing this moody, angsty Jack/Daniel piece. I decided to add Sam and Teal'c bits too. This is the Sam piece:
And this woman has learned to cry. This woman was once a soldier, this woman was once as tough as the next guy, telling bawdy jokes and kicking so much ass, but no more. Those days are gone. This woman is Sam Carter, and she is crying. Between the day her mother died and the day Cassandra didn't, Sam carefully hid all those tears, unacknowledged and unshed. Her life was a battle, not a tragedy, and soldiers didn't cry. Soldiers don't cry, so this woman can't be a soldier, can she? So she says, and the tears are heavier than a P-90 ever was.
And an early attempt at some D/s-y themes:
The way into Daniel's heart is dangerous and paved with good intentions. Specifically, it is a path that has been walked far too often as far as Jack is concerned, and by far too many people. He would like to be the first man who's found his way here, but he knows he's not. Daniel can make things quite clear, clear enough even for Jack to understand, even when he'd rather be intentionally dense. Daniel just has a way of making the most obscene facts make a weird sort of sense, the sort of sense that haunts Jack at three in the morning when he's off-world and on watch and thus sleep isn't an option and sex isn't a possibility. At times like that, there's really nothing for it but surrender to the inevitable dark thoughts. Jack has his fair share of nightmare images, even when he's awake, and there are certain things he can't think about rationally anymore, things like Daniel's loyalties and his own preferences. No one would think it was easy for Jack to admit he loved Daniel, but they would imagine all the wrong reasons, they'd assume things about Jack that he preferred were assumed and not questioned too carefully, things he'd known about since high school.
"Not exactly submissive," he told Daniel. "Just..."
"Just what? You want to bottom? You want me to..."
"Hold me."
Jacob/Hammond: because it just demands to be written. Unfortunately it needs a plot, and plot is my weak point, so another fic that's never going to be finished. It's called "Holding Hands at the Alamo," and it's the title that I'm proudest of. Here's the first paragraph:
Jacob Carter tumbled through the Stargate to be greeted by a diminished but competent team of airmen, guns all pointed directly at him. SOP, but nothing was standard today, from the tattered clothes Jacob was wearing to the number of airmen who greeted him to the firefight he had just abandoned. He waited. "Hold your fire!" said a familiar voice, and George Hammond was hurrying to greet him, also familiar. But unfamiliar was the zat gun George was holding and the feeling of electricity ripping through him-well, familiar enough, but not here, not in the bowels of the SGC. He gave Selmack the word, and the world faded to black as Selmack took control.
And then, the ultimate WIP: "The Choices They Didn't Make." I really, really like this fic, and wish to goodness I knew where it was going so I could actually finish it. Because I like it so much, I'll just tantalize y'all with the first paragraph:
"Quantum mirrors are almost always a bad idea," Daniel said. "Like eavesdroppers, those who play with quantum mirrors tend to overhear what they don't want to hear."
Sam half-smiled at him. "I know, Daniel, but I think you'll really want to see who came through. I think you'll really,really want to see this."
"Am I alive in their reality?"
Sam bit her lip. "No. But someone else is." She didn't look at him.
Daniel's eyes lit up, and he smiled a smile that Sam hadn't seen in she didn't know how long. "Sha're?" he asked, a little breathy. Then, steadier, "Sha're."
Ah yes. The Sam/Cassie fic that you can all blame sage_theory for. I think for various reasons I'm going to wait till the end of the season to do any serious work on it, but here's a few paragraphs for you:
Cassie put her coffee down and twisted her torso deliberately till her mouth was inches from Sam's. Her tongue slid out--Sam was paralyzed--and she licked Sam's lips and forced them apart. At that, Sam suddenly came to herself and turned aside--Cassie was licking her cheek.
"What?" asked Cassie. "Haven't we just agreed that it doesn't work any other way?"
"That doesn't mean it works this way, either."
"But Sam--I'm eighteen. You can't tell me I'm not allowed to have sex ever. Because in case you forgot, everyone from Toronto? They're dead." Cassie said Toronto like it was a curse word. "but you're not dead, are you Sam?" Sam just shook her head. Her mouth tasted like sulfur. She had to leave. Normally she would hug Cassie goodbye, but she couldn't even look at the girl.
There are other bits and pieces of fic lying around, but there's always the hope that I might actually manage to put them into longer fics or actually finish them, so this sampler is all you're getting. Thoughts? Anything you want to see finished? Anything you pray to God I'll never attempt to write again?
I should probably take a nap, I should.
1. What scene always makes you cry? I do not cry at TV shows. I dislike this question. Very few things can always make me cry. Some of them make me cry once, and then I'll rewatch it and not give a damn. It's all about context, and how I'm already feeling, and things like that.
That said, the coin toss in "Dog With Two Bones" (Farscape)? The only bit of a TV show at which I've ever cried.
2. What scene always makes you laugh? *snerk* Um... the John/Rygel kiss in "Won't Get Fooled Again" (Farscape)
3. What scene always makes you cringe? The briefing room scene in "Fallen." Daniel.... poor Daniel. And Jim. Just... gets me.
Or, in a totally different way, THAT scene in "Tin Man." SQUICK!
4. What scene always confuses you? In "Engima" where Daniel, speaking about the president, says, "I voted for him!" As the timeline weren't already frelled up enough.
Also, in "Family" where they all go off to live happily ever after in the Land of Light and "Redemption" where they're back on Chulak... confuses the hell out of me.
5. What scene always makes you want to kill the writers? The final scene of "Bad Timing." Then sarc. And force to write the continuation!
And now, for the Works in Progress. Like castalie, I'm posting just a paragraph or two from everything. For one thing, I pages and pages and pages of WIP. And for another, I still have the vain hope that someday I may finish some of them.
To start with, we have My Very First Fanfic. It was essentially going to be a tag to every episode, from the movie to the end of the series. My working title (I guess now it's a not-working title, since I'm not working on it) was "Thinking Of." This section is between Movie and CotG. It's probably a bit more pre-slashy than is really appropriate, but I like the imagery:
Jack thought about Daniel. He thought of other things as well, of course. He thought of hockey and steak and fishing--and Charlie. But thoughts of Charlie, his cockeyed grin and innocent eyes, twisted in Jack's memories and reminded him of the cold, metallic taste of his gun. His gun. But this would remind him of Daniel, of the dissolving series of sensations. The gun, cold against his teeth. A shaggy-haired archeologist sneezing, the shivering, aching coldness of the Stargate, the taste of desert wind. Blasts from weapons he could not identify, flashing in front of him--the familiar smoke of his Camels blending with Skaara's Bedouin scent to create something that would always mean Abydos. This was the past, though. Abydos, like Iraq, like Russia, like Charlie, like Sara, was a mission he had fucked up, direct orders violated sir! bomb not deployed--thanks, Jackson. And this brought his thoughts back to Daniel.
Then there's this long, complicated Jack/Daniel, Jack/Maybourne fic I'm working on, and whenever certain themes emerge in my marginalia, I just add them to this document. It's hard to choose something that's representative, since this is really all over the place with Jack's conflictedness and angst and guilt and desire and love and need. Here, though, is the first Jack/Maybourne scene, and I think I really do like it. I don't think I've posted it before:
"Someone I care about is in danger-and, I might add, because of your organization."
"And? No, never mind. And someone you 'care' about will die if I decide not to play nice. So if you really care, well."
"Shut up."
"More than you're supposed to? Really, I'm amazed, Jack. True blue military, Colonel Jack O'Neill, violating the fraternization regs on top of everything else."
"Carter and I never did a damn thing, Maybourne, but if you don't shut up, I'll be ass-deep for assaulting a fellow officer."
"The rumors are flying, Jack. Maybe Dr. Jackson? Or your friend the Jaffa? Did you care about them more than you should? It's okay-your secret's safe with me," said with mock sympathy as Harry put a hand on Jack's. Jack anticipated the move and caught Harry's wrist.
"Not Carter," he squeezed hard, "and not Daniel," he twisted Maybourne's arm, "and not Teal'c." He pulled Harry, who was struggling to escape, around to face him. "I'm not screwing anyone on my team. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," said Harry with an elaborate wink.
"Oh, I don't think you do." And Jack pulled Maybourne closer still, till their foreheads touched, then their lips. Then Jack was kissing Harry, his tongue slipping easily between lips that opened in surprise. He was still holding Harry's wrists, he realized, so he released them and pulled Harry into an embrace, tight and choking.
He pulled away to breathe, then allowed the sensation to settle in. He'd kissed another man. Finally, after years of wanting needing waiting denying, he'd tasted another man's mouth.
The shell-shocked look on Maybourne's face vanished after a few seconds; it took a lot to bewilder an agent like Maybourne. As soon as he'd recovered sufficiently, he wrapped his arms around Jack's neck and pulled him into another kiss, trying to slide his tongue into Jack's mouth.
"Oh no you don't," said Jack, pulling away, and he kissed Harry hard, his tongue probing and tasting. It was hot and sour and wet, bright fire in his mouth, and he realized his hand had slipped down to Maybourne's ass, their tongues still touching, slick and powerful, graceful and violent in each other's mouths.
Then there's the Cassie/Ally piece that insists that it wants to be written, for sheer wtf value, I suppose. It's probably not going to get much further than this, though I do enjoy how they play off each other:
Cassie slammed her locker shut and spun around angrily. She stomped through the halls of the slummiest public high school in Colorado Springs. She hated it. She hated everything. Last year the whole world had been great, excellent, ecstatic, and except for that stupid thing they'd done to her on her fifteenth birthday, she'd been able to pretend, most of the time, that she was normal. That's all she wanted. Normal.
"Hey, watch where you're going, man."
"Bitch," said Cassie without even turning around. She found fingers around her neck, her back against the locker. The girl was half an inch shorter than she was and hadn't had Jack O'Neill teaching her self-defense. Cassie kneed her, and the girl fell back. Cassie slung her purse back over her shoulder and glared. "What's your damage?"
"Why don't you look where you're going?"
"I'm having a bad century. Sue me."
"I'm Ally, and I am the fucking cause of your bad century if I don't get an apology."
"What ghetto did you crawl out of?" Cassie asked, then stomped down the hallway, not waiting for an answer.
I have an image that won't go away of Daniel and Sam working in the lab and talking about their love lives. It eventually comes around to being Jack/Daniel. I've never written it successfully, though. This is my best effort yet, and it's fairly short, so I'll share the whole thing:
"You have a crush on him, don't you?" Daniel's eyes smiled at Sam, and she grinned and lowered her head. Of course not. She bit her lip and fiddled with the controls on the piece of technology Daniel insisted was some sort of alien computing device, possibly a database. If so, it would be invaluable. They had a week's worth of downtime to examine the artifact before shipping it off to Maybourne
"What does it say?" she asked, pointed to a set of symbols apparently labeling a black switch.
"I have no idea... and I think you're avoiding the question. You have a crush on Jack, don't you?"
"I don't. It would be completely unprofessional, against everything I stand for. My career would be over if we did anything. You know that, right?"
"I'd forgotten."
"Not career military. Right. But anyhow, not only that, he's far older than I am, he's still very much in love with his wife, and he's "
"He's very attractive, isn't he?"
"That doesn't mean anything." Sam tried flicking a switch off then on again, but she wasn't sure which direction was on in the first place. "Are you sure you don't know what it does?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure this line means, 'When activated, this device will destroy the facility of the discoverer and everyone in it, leaving them unable to continue their fascinating conversation about the sexual appeal of the facility's second in command.' So I would assume press the green button?"
"Really? How do you say 'second in command' in Goa'uld?"
"It's not Goa'uld. It might be a derivative, but I'm pretty sure this isn't Goa'uld in design... possibly made by a race who'd been freed from the Goa'uld."
"Ah. Um, Daniel? About Colonel O'Neill..."
"You have a crush on him."
"I do not. But even if I did, nothing would happen."
"Why not? Regulations?"
"Yes and... he's not interested. I know that. I might have been... watching him. And there's no way he'd jeopardize his career for me, because Daniel... he's head over heels in love with you."
"Sam! I'm married. And in case you hadn't noticed, well... I'm a guy."
"Exactly. You don't have a woman's perception on these things. I mean, it's obvious to anyone that I'd be a little bit in awe of the Colonel. But it takes a woman's experience to know that the same Colonel is more than a little bit in awe of you. He's crazy about you, Daniel."
"Right. And I'm supposed to do something about this?"
Sam's voice dropped and she abandoned all pretense of working on the device.
Then there's this bizarre maybe gen maybe slash fic I'm writing called "Desert Nights." Not sure what's going on with the plot, but I'm proud of the language. This paragraph is in the middle of what I have now:
"Daniel!" Sam noticed first, as Daniel's solid body suddenly crumpled like a man made of sugar, becoming like the sand, becoming sand, Daniel, a man with careless grace suddenly careless and empty. Daniel, who should have been most used to the desert, had succumbed to the heat. The desert world was black and white and blurry. When Daniel opened his eyes, he saw only bright heat, the tricks of the desert making the heat visible and shimmering. Jack frowned into the distance shading his eyes with a browned palm
"You okay?" Jack's voice was brusque; his words were cold. Daniel thought there was snow in the distance. He tried to say that, but his mouth wasn't working. It was full of hot, dry sand. Daniel wanted winter. Winter wasn't fond of Daniel. Daniel wasn't fond of summer coming and breathing on his mouth.
"Colonel, he's breathing. It's okay. You don't need to--"
Daniel rolled the flavored of couscous in his mouth. He left his eyes closed.
Oh yes! Over the summer, I started writing this moody, angsty Jack/Daniel piece. I decided to add Sam and Teal'c bits too. This is the Sam piece:
And this woman has learned to cry. This woman was once a soldier, this woman was once as tough as the next guy, telling bawdy jokes and kicking so much ass, but no more. Those days are gone. This woman is Sam Carter, and she is crying. Between the day her mother died and the day Cassandra didn't, Sam carefully hid all those tears, unacknowledged and unshed. Her life was a battle, not a tragedy, and soldiers didn't cry. Soldiers don't cry, so this woman can't be a soldier, can she? So she says, and the tears are heavier than a P-90 ever was.
And an early attempt at some D/s-y themes:
The way into Daniel's heart is dangerous and paved with good intentions. Specifically, it is a path that has been walked far too often as far as Jack is concerned, and by far too many people. He would like to be the first man who's found his way here, but he knows he's not. Daniel can make things quite clear, clear enough even for Jack to understand, even when he'd rather be intentionally dense. Daniel just has a way of making the most obscene facts make a weird sort of sense, the sort of sense that haunts Jack at three in the morning when he's off-world and on watch and thus sleep isn't an option and sex isn't a possibility. At times like that, there's really nothing for it but surrender to the inevitable dark thoughts. Jack has his fair share of nightmare images, even when he's awake, and there are certain things he can't think about rationally anymore, things like Daniel's loyalties and his own preferences. No one would think it was easy for Jack to admit he loved Daniel, but they would imagine all the wrong reasons, they'd assume things about Jack that he preferred were assumed and not questioned too carefully, things he'd known about since high school.
"Not exactly submissive," he told Daniel. "Just..."
"Just what? You want to bottom? You want me to..."
"Hold me."
Jacob/Hammond: because it just demands to be written. Unfortunately it needs a plot, and plot is my weak point, so another fic that's never going to be finished. It's called "Holding Hands at the Alamo," and it's the title that I'm proudest of. Here's the first paragraph:
Jacob Carter tumbled through the Stargate to be greeted by a diminished but competent team of airmen, guns all pointed directly at him. SOP, but nothing was standard today, from the tattered clothes Jacob was wearing to the number of airmen who greeted him to the firefight he had just abandoned. He waited. "Hold your fire!" said a familiar voice, and George Hammond was hurrying to greet him, also familiar. But unfamiliar was the zat gun George was holding and the feeling of electricity ripping through him-well, familiar enough, but not here, not in the bowels of the SGC. He gave Selmack the word, and the world faded to black as Selmack took control.
And then, the ultimate WIP: "The Choices They Didn't Make." I really, really like this fic, and wish to goodness I knew where it was going so I could actually finish it. Because I like it so much, I'll just tantalize y'all with the first paragraph:
"Quantum mirrors are almost always a bad idea," Daniel said. "Like eavesdroppers, those who play with quantum mirrors tend to overhear what they don't want to hear."
Sam half-smiled at him. "I know, Daniel, but I think you'll really want to see who came through. I think you'll really,really want to see this."
"Am I alive in their reality?"
Sam bit her lip. "No. But someone else is." She didn't look at him.
Daniel's eyes lit up, and he smiled a smile that Sam hadn't seen in she didn't know how long. "Sha're?" he asked, a little breathy. Then, steadier, "Sha're."
Ah yes. The Sam/Cassie fic that you can all blame sage_theory for. I think for various reasons I'm going to wait till the end of the season to do any serious work on it, but here's a few paragraphs for you:
Cassie put her coffee down and twisted her torso deliberately till her mouth was inches from Sam's. Her tongue slid out--Sam was paralyzed--and she licked Sam's lips and forced them apart. At that, Sam suddenly came to herself and turned aside--Cassie was licking her cheek.
"What?" asked Cassie. "Haven't we just agreed that it doesn't work any other way?"
"That doesn't mean it works this way, either."
"But Sam--I'm eighteen. You can't tell me I'm not allowed to have sex ever. Because in case you forgot, everyone from Toronto? They're dead." Cassie said Toronto like it was a curse word. "but you're not dead, are you Sam?" Sam just shook her head. Her mouth tasted like sulfur. She had to leave. Normally she would hug Cassie goodbye, but she couldn't even look at the girl.
There are other bits and pieces of fic lying around, but there's always the hope that I might actually manage to put them into longer fics or actually finish them, so this sampler is all you're getting. Thoughts? Anything you want to see finished? Anything you pray to God I'll never attempt to write again?
I should probably take a nap, I should.