Atlantis fic: De Profundis

[hth]

De Profundis
by Hth

My journey into OT4 continues. Not as porny as "Works and Plays Well With Others," not as musical as "Headbanger's Ball." This actually...didn't go at all where I expected it to.

There was no set of circumstances where that particular configuration of fire, electricity, cultists, gravity, and sociopolitical upheval was going to give anyone a good feeling, but worse this time than normal, because by that point Rodney had gotten used to all three of them and also kind of more or less fallen in love.

Comments

De Profundis (SGA, team)

[nindulgence.livejournal.com]

Reading this fic is like playing with a kaleidoscope--there's a certain mesmerizing quality to the process of watching all the bright individual elements shaken up and rearranged into new patterns.

The Athosian wedding ritual was charming, and the whole "imprisonment" sequence was very creepy and tense--especially in the manner of its telling, with the details of what was happening being revealed so obliquely.

Other moments I enjoyed:

In the Pegasus galaxy, hope was a psychological necessity; too much grim reality and you couldn’t stand it, nobody could stand it. Rodney had come to terms with his share of bitter truths in the past few years, and in fact he took pride in his ability to assess probabilities and formulate likely outcomes without overly clouding his judgment with...wanting a lot of things, or hoping things would work themselves out...but even for him, there had to be an upper limit.

the mute, stubborn unhappiness on his face reminded Rodney quite uncomfortably of being seven years old and pretending he wasn’t a genius and didn’t know what his parents meant when they said divorce.

or maybe being all stoic and martyred and heroic just got old even for two world-class champions of the art

Like maybe he should treat it like some rather delicate medical condition instead, all euphemisms and false optimism.

did you have a better plan? I mean, for the rest of your life? You had something better than her lined up?"

Rodney barely knew what to do with Sheppard’s blunt-force restraint at the best of times, let alone when it lapsed into clinical dissociation.

All Ancient programming was chock-full of redundancies, which was very prudent of them and also showed they’d had a whole damn lot of time on their hands that Rodney could only dream of.

I have known the three of you for nearly five years now, and if we did not know this morning which of us loves whom and why, we will not work it out here and now.

in the same tone someone else might have used to say they’re coming in through the walls

for one nauseous second Rodney knew the answer, the obvious, elegant solution like a proof falling into place

(I'll admit to a slight confusion regarding the cranberry-orange powerbar: I can understand why Rodney wouldn't freak out about it, if he thought he was only imagining everything...but are we to take it that he had some sort of allergic reaction after Teyla's kiss? Or did she just smell of citrus and not taste of it?)

Thanks for writing!

~

Re: De Profundis (SGA, team)

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked the story and took so much time to feedback in detail.

As for the citrus issue, the answer is exactly what you perhaps guessed but were too polite to imply: I'm an idiot, and I forget. *g* It's not even the first time I've done that! I have Rodney compare something to mimosas in another story, and after I posted it, someone was like, "Um, did you just kind of obliquely kill Rodney?" And yes. Yes, I did.

Re: De Profundis (SGA, team)

[nindulgence.livejournal.com]

It's not even the first time I've done that! I have Rodney compare something to mimosas in another story, and after I posted it, someone was like, "Um, did you just kind of obliquely kill Rodney?" And yes. Yes, I did.

Oh dear! Well, you're very good to him most of the time, so I suppose it evens out. :-)

~