The Dirt of Sowing and Reaping by Salieri (NC-17)
Rec Category: Original Character
Pairing: Sam/Jack/Daniel
Category: Original character, Sam Carter, Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, apocalypse, AU, angst, threesome, drama, Jack/Sam/Daniel
Warning: threesome, some violence
Author on LJ troyswann
Author's Website: Outside the Box
Link: The Dirt of Sowing and Reaping
Why This Must Be Read: A mysterious small boy appears in the gateroom and SG-1 finds themselves four days in the future, on a roadside in a Goa'uld-decimated Earth with the boy at their sides. Soon Teal'c is forced to offer his services to the local Goa'uld-approved warlord in exchange for tretonin while Jack, Sam and Daniel, along with the boy, pose as a family unit and try to survive. But it's SG-1, so they can't stop trying to overthrow the Goa'uld powers that have taken over Earth.
Meet Michael, a boy who only grows stranger as he ages and who SG-1 is devoted to protecting as one of their own. In an intricately created post-apocalyptic world SG-1's survival skills shine and Michael is the most visible of a handful of original characters created for this tightly plotted story. The final reveal of Michael's origins makes the story that much more powerful. Read this for the complex world Salieri creates, for SG-1 bonding tightly to each other, for Jack's resistance, Daniel's attempts to preserve writing and the past, Sam's engineering and Teal'c's loyalty. And read it for Salieri's breath-taking use of language and for a wonderful look at how far SG-1 will go for those they care about and to save the world.
Coming slowly up behind him, Jack could see what the problem was: Michael had begun to arrange the cutlery by size-spoons, the lone dessert fork, dinner forks, knives, serving spoons-but the patterns on the handles had derailed him. Forks matched forks, but the patterns were wrong, a kaleidoscope of difference and disorder. The fact that Jack recognized this was proof positive in his mind that he'd been hanging around with the kid for too long. Straddling the bench beside him, Jack sorted the cutlery into piles of matching or similar patterns. Leaving the biggest pile in front of Michael, he swept the rest into the box.
"We don't need these ones," he said, and leaned over to put the box on the counter, stretching to nudge it out of sight behind a sack of flour.
Nodding vaguely, but not in thanks, or even acknowledgment, really, Michael began to arrange the remaining pieces from smallest to largest, lining them up carefully against the edge of the table. His fair hair fell over his eyes but he didn't brush it away, so Jack did it for him, fruitlessly, as it turned out.
"Time for a haircut," Jack observed.
Michael's hands slowed to a stop, his body becoming still. "I'm not fifteen," he said, head bowed, shoulders hunched, as though he were confessing, expecting punishment.
Jack's stomach tightened to a knot. "Oh?"
"I'm older." Michael nodded, confirming this, and then shook his head slightly in denial. "And I'm younger." Raising his head, he searched Jack's face, his eyes afraid. The unshed tears there seemed to distill the wan, grey light so that his eyes gleamed like polished metal for a moment before he blinked and the tears coursed down his cheeks. "These aren't my hands," he concluded, bowing his head again to look at them, limp in his lap.
The skin prickling on the back of his neck, Jack cast a longing glance over his shoulder in the direction of Daniel and Carter. He cleared his throat. "Well," he began without any clear idea what was going to come next, "possession is nine tenths of the law." He cupped Michael's chin and made him look up. "They're your hands now." Again, he was rewarded with that strangely neutral nod. "C'mon. Back to bed. No school today." He grinned a somewhat brittle grin. "We'll go fishing."
"I hate fishing," Michael complained as he let Jack usher him back into his room. "It's boring." Obediently, he lay down and pulled the sheet up to his chin and didn't look like a fifteen-year-old at all.
"We fish, we eat. Unless you want Daniel to provide all of your meals. Or-" Jack paused for chilling dramatic effect, "-Carter."
This time, when Michael made an expression of mock fear, he looked like himself again.
"Go to sleep," Jack said. He waited until Michael closed his eyes before continuing through the room and slipping past the curtain that separated the old dining room from the living room. On the mattress under the window, Carter and Daniel had shifted again, were fitted like puzzle pieces, her head tucked under his chin, his knee between her thighs. Pulling the sheet up over them, Jack resisted the urge to wake them, to make them bitch about being alert before sunrise in a world without coffee. Instead, he threw his shirt on and went back to the kitchen, his mouth twice as dry as before.
Pairing: Sam/Jack/Daniel
Category: Original character, Sam Carter, Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, apocalypse, AU, angst, threesome, drama, Jack/Sam/Daniel
Warning: threesome, some violence
Author on LJ troyswann
Author's Website: Outside the Box
Link: The Dirt of Sowing and Reaping
Why This Must Be Read: A mysterious small boy appears in the gateroom and SG-1 finds themselves four days in the future, on a roadside in a Goa'uld-decimated Earth with the boy at their sides. Soon Teal'c is forced to offer his services to the local Goa'uld-approved warlord in exchange for tretonin while Jack, Sam and Daniel, along with the boy, pose as a family unit and try to survive. But it's SG-1, so they can't stop trying to overthrow the Goa'uld powers that have taken over Earth.
Meet Michael, a boy who only grows stranger as he ages and who SG-1 is devoted to protecting as one of their own. In an intricately created post-apocalyptic world SG-1's survival skills shine and Michael is the most visible of a handful of original characters created for this tightly plotted story. The final reveal of Michael's origins makes the story that much more powerful. Read this for the complex world Salieri creates, for SG-1 bonding tightly to each other, for Jack's resistance, Daniel's attempts to preserve writing and the past, Sam's engineering and Teal'c's loyalty. And read it for Salieri's breath-taking use of language and for a wonderful look at how far SG-1 will go for those they care about and to save the world.
Coming slowly up behind him, Jack could see what the problem was: Michael had begun to arrange the cutlery by size-spoons, the lone dessert fork, dinner forks, knives, serving spoons-but the patterns on the handles had derailed him. Forks matched forks, but the patterns were wrong, a kaleidoscope of difference and disorder. The fact that Jack recognized this was proof positive in his mind that he'd been hanging around with the kid for too long. Straddling the bench beside him, Jack sorted the cutlery into piles of matching or similar patterns. Leaving the biggest pile in front of Michael, he swept the rest into the box.
"We don't need these ones," he said, and leaned over to put the box on the counter, stretching to nudge it out of sight behind a sack of flour.
Nodding vaguely, but not in thanks, or even acknowledgment, really, Michael began to arrange the remaining pieces from smallest to largest, lining them up carefully against the edge of the table. His fair hair fell over his eyes but he didn't brush it away, so Jack did it for him, fruitlessly, as it turned out.
"Time for a haircut," Jack observed.
Michael's hands slowed to a stop, his body becoming still. "I'm not fifteen," he said, head bowed, shoulders hunched, as though he were confessing, expecting punishment.
Jack's stomach tightened to a knot. "Oh?"
"I'm older." Michael nodded, confirming this, and then shook his head slightly in denial. "And I'm younger." Raising his head, he searched Jack's face, his eyes afraid. The unshed tears there seemed to distill the wan, grey light so that his eyes gleamed like polished metal for a moment before he blinked and the tears coursed down his cheeks. "These aren't my hands," he concluded, bowing his head again to look at them, limp in his lap.
The skin prickling on the back of his neck, Jack cast a longing glance over his shoulder in the direction of Daniel and Carter. He cleared his throat. "Well," he began without any clear idea what was going to come next, "possession is nine tenths of the law." He cupped Michael's chin and made him look up. "They're your hands now." Again, he was rewarded with that strangely neutral nod. "C'mon. Back to bed. No school today." He grinned a somewhat brittle grin. "We'll go fishing."
"I hate fishing," Michael complained as he let Jack usher him back into his room. "It's boring." Obediently, he lay down and pulled the sheet up to his chin and didn't look like a fifteen-year-old at all.
"We fish, we eat. Unless you want Daniel to provide all of your meals. Or-" Jack paused for chilling dramatic effect, "-Carter."
This time, when Michael made an expression of mock fear, he looked like himself again.
"Go to sleep," Jack said. He waited until Michael closed his eyes before continuing through the room and slipping past the curtain that separated the old dining room from the living room. On the mattress under the window, Carter and Daniel had shifted again, were fitted like puzzle pieces, her head tucked under his chin, his knee between her thighs. Pulling the sheet up over them, Jack resisted the urge to wake them, to make them bitch about being alert before sunrise in a world without coffee. Instead, he threw his shirt on and went back to the kitchen, his mouth twice as dry as before.