Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well by Synecdochic (NC-17)
Rec Category: Sam Carter
Pairing:Sam/Daniel
Category: Sam Carter, Daniel Jackson, Sam/Daniel, character study, first time, het,
Warning: sex
Author on LJ synecdochic
Author's Website: Venus in Furs
Link: On Website: Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well
On LJ: Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well
Why This Must Be Read:
This story is part of synecdochic's Eurydiceverse- an accidental series; the one where they're all just a little not well. The author describes this story as semi-explicit because Sam's too much of a Good Girl to get as explicit as some of the E'verse stories. Plus, it's set in season 4, so they aren't yet as unwell as they will become.
What we have here is, yes, ultimately a coupling of Sam and Daniel, but there is so much going on both in the words and between the words I had to read this fic twice and I'm still sure I'm missing details. synecdochic gives us a Sam who is learning to come out of her shell and into herself, learning to understand and ask for what she needs from men and a Daniel who is much more manipulative than Sam believes or lets herself see, but uses his skills only to give Sam what he knows she needs, and if she comes out better for it, he isn't going to regret his methods.
This whole story is a fantastic character study - a slow progression of the characters drawing to their inevitable conclusion, Sam being both honest to herself and yet lying to herself - seeing reality and yet twisting it around, seeing what Daniel's doing and yet not quite believing it because that would take Daniel off the pedestal she has him on. There's way more going on here than I can possibly explain, so I just urge you to go read. Possibly more than once.
Sam doesn't remember how it starts. She can't even trace it back to a single point in time, something she can point at and say: here, yes, this is when; this is where. After their exile in the palace of the light, certainly. Perhaps as late as when Teal'c had turned back to Apophis, however briefly. All she knows is that there is a point past which she can no longer deny the fact that her Friday nights aren't solo affairs anymore, and by then, Daniel has twined himself so gradually into her life that she can't remember a point where it began.
Sometimes he settles so softly she barely realizes he's there; they order a pizza and work, side-by-side, into the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes they agree, wordlessly, that they're looking for nothing more than mindless entertainment, and they choose a movie based on what seems the most outrageous and heckle it to pieces. Sometimes they make it a foursome, her and Daniel and Janet and Cassie, and it's Janet's gumbo recipe and a movie and Daniel helps Cassie with her homework while Janet and Sam sit in the kitchen to gossip over cookies and Mai Tais. Sometimes they just sit together, the two of them, quiet and still, and it doesn't matter what they do; it's just nice not to be alone.
Sometimes she finds herself pouring out her heart: long, rambling monologues on whatever floats through her mind, lubricated by whatever wine he's brought over to take up residence in her fridge. He always sits and listens. She's never known anyone who can listen as fiercely as Daniel can; for those moments, it's as though she's the center of his universe, like he's narrowed his whole world down to her words, her gestures, her face. It's a little flattering, and more than a little disconcerting, and it makes her wonder who taught him how to do that or whether it's just something uniquely Daniel.
Sometimes Sam wonders what he did with his Friday nights before he came to spend them in her living room. And more than that, why he isn't doing it anymore. Then she remembers she promised herself she'd stop asking questions about Daniel a while back, after she'd caught the look in his eyes at the tail end of a bad night that said, plain as day: you don't ever want to know.
So instead she sits with him, or he sits with her, and they keep each other company: two half-healed loners. There's something about SG-1, she thought, that leaves them all alone in the end. Alone except for each other, but it isn't like she can go out or stay in drinking with the colonel, and Teal'c -- well, she trusts Teal'c, and she cares about him, and he listens to her too. But not like Daniel does.
Daniel's enough like her to be a comfort, and different enough to have perspective. More perspective than she has, at least. He'll sit and work with her when she's in a mood to dive into her equations and her reading; he'll match her shot-for-shot when she's in the mood to get so drunk she can't think about all the things she doesn't want to think about.
Pairing:Sam/Daniel
Category: Sam Carter, Daniel Jackson, Sam/Daniel, character study, first time, het,
Warning: sex
Author on LJ synecdochic
Author's Website: Venus in Furs
Link: On Website: Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well
On LJ: Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well
Why This Must Be Read:
This story is part of synecdochic's Eurydiceverse- an accidental series; the one where they're all just a little not well. The author describes this story as semi-explicit because Sam's too much of a Good Girl to get as explicit as some of the E'verse stories. Plus, it's set in season 4, so they aren't yet as unwell as they will become.
What we have here is, yes, ultimately a coupling of Sam and Daniel, but there is so much going on both in the words and between the words I had to read this fic twice and I'm still sure I'm missing details. synecdochic gives us a Sam who is learning to come out of her shell and into herself, learning to understand and ask for what she needs from men and a Daniel who is much more manipulative than Sam believes or lets herself see, but uses his skills only to give Sam what he knows she needs, and if she comes out better for it, he isn't going to regret his methods.
This whole story is a fantastic character study - a slow progression of the characters drawing to their inevitable conclusion, Sam being both honest to herself and yet lying to herself - seeing reality and yet twisting it around, seeing what Daniel's doing and yet not quite believing it because that would take Daniel off the pedestal she has him on. There's way more going on here than I can possibly explain, so I just urge you to go read. Possibly more than once.
Sam doesn't remember how it starts. She can't even trace it back to a single point in time, something she can point at and say: here, yes, this is when; this is where. After their exile in the palace of the light, certainly. Perhaps as late as when Teal'c had turned back to Apophis, however briefly. All she knows is that there is a point past which she can no longer deny the fact that her Friday nights aren't solo affairs anymore, and by then, Daniel has twined himself so gradually into her life that she can't remember a point where it began.
Sometimes he settles so softly she barely realizes he's there; they order a pizza and work, side-by-side, into the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes they agree, wordlessly, that they're looking for nothing more than mindless entertainment, and they choose a movie based on what seems the most outrageous and heckle it to pieces. Sometimes they make it a foursome, her and Daniel and Janet and Cassie, and it's Janet's gumbo recipe and a movie and Daniel helps Cassie with her homework while Janet and Sam sit in the kitchen to gossip over cookies and Mai Tais. Sometimes they just sit together, the two of them, quiet and still, and it doesn't matter what they do; it's just nice not to be alone.
Sometimes she finds herself pouring out her heart: long, rambling monologues on whatever floats through her mind, lubricated by whatever wine he's brought over to take up residence in her fridge. He always sits and listens. She's never known anyone who can listen as fiercely as Daniel can; for those moments, it's as though she's the center of his universe, like he's narrowed his whole world down to her words, her gestures, her face. It's a little flattering, and more than a little disconcerting, and it makes her wonder who taught him how to do that or whether it's just something uniquely Daniel.
Sometimes Sam wonders what he did with his Friday nights before he came to spend them in her living room. And more than that, why he isn't doing it anymore. Then she remembers she promised herself she'd stop asking questions about Daniel a while back, after she'd caught the look in his eyes at the tail end of a bad night that said, plain as day: you don't ever want to know.
So instead she sits with him, or he sits with her, and they keep each other company: two half-healed loners. There's something about SG-1, she thought, that leaves them all alone in the end. Alone except for each other, but it isn't like she can go out or stay in drinking with the colonel, and Teal'c -- well, she trusts Teal'c, and she cares about him, and he listens to her too. But not like Daniel does.
Daniel's enough like her to be a comfort, and different enough to have perspective. More perspective than she has, at least. He'll sit and work with her when she's in a mood to dive into her equations and her reading; he'll match her shot-for-shot when she's in the mood to get so drunk she can't think about all the things she doesn't want to think about.