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

[wicked-socks.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. This was excellent. I've teared up a bit and am really not sure what to say other than I really liked it. This is a fic that reaches out and smacks me silly, hitting emotional buttons, even ones I didn't know I had. It's achingly bittersweet and doesn't really wallow. The latter especially is so hard to find.

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

Okay, you win. You made me cry.

I like Rodney thinking he's hallucinating Teyla really a lot.

[teaphile.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh.

Simply wonderful.

[apple-pi.livejournal.com]

Really really really enjoyed this. They're all so obstonately blind, and yet they care about each other and put it all out there, and finally, finally you can see them growing up, still taking care of each other... It's not an easy ending, but I loved it. It's hopeful.

[copracat]

"Nothing," Rodney said quickly. "Except – you know, what if – she’s your Edith Keeler? Only...alive?" Sheppard gave him as disbelieving and contemptuous a look as he could manage through the comfortable haze of medication. "Well, you know what I mean. The whole – side by side – once in a lifetime – you know, like your Scully, your Rose– or, wait, no!" he realized, snapping his fingers eagerly. "Delenn! She’d be your Delenn."

I've only got this far into the story and I love you. I love you. I can't breath and I'm going to cry.

[siria]

Oh, this is stunning, in the literal sense of the word—it left me breathless and near tears. Oh, team.

[shadowserenity.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, stunning. I love how you wrote the connection between them. That's the story. That's the beauty here.

Oh, Rodney, scifi!legend, you kill me here: "Nothing," Rodney said quickly. "Except – you know, what if – she’s your Edith Keeler? Only...alive?" Sheppard gave him as disbelieving and contemptuous a look as he could manage through the comfortable haze of medication. "Well, you know what I mean. The whole – side by side – once in a lifetime – you know, like your Scully, your Rose– or, wait, no!" he realized, snapping his fingers eagerly. "Delenn! She’d be your Delenn." I saw the name Edith Keeler and I thought, "Hmm, I know that from somewhere... oh! Could it be? ST: TOS reference for the win!". Also? *waves* Another B5 fan here.

Definitely reccing this one, thank you :).

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I made a community for you!: team_sga. Because stories like this make me so totally happy.

[sliad89.livejournal.com]

This is a beautiful story. The love between all four comes through so clearly. Thanks!

[loligo.livejournal.com]

I'm suddenly in love with romantic OT4s, and this is a great one.

[mellyna.livejournal.com]

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

This was really beautiful, the way you showed us how each two of them are connected and love one another in various different ways. I think this is one of the more moving and believable OT4s I've read, no imbalances but also not the they're all together as a team. Instead you offer these 6 different permutations with different investments and goals and different forms of love. And in the end it works, "reckless promises" and all.

Thank you!

[jadelennox]

this is really thoroughly beautiful. It's my favorite kind of moresome story -- the kind where the characters really just love their family of choice so incredibly powerfully, and sex is just one aspect of that love.

[dine.livejournal.com]

it's really kinda hard to explain to coworkers just why I'm tearing up - but this was so amazing and wonderful and hit all my buttons.

I've always had a soft spot for your Ronon/Rodney stories and apparently I also stumbled into love for OT4 somewhere along the way. thanks for that!

[solvent90.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is so very beautiful and the most believable OT4 fic I've read. I love how you write these characters so accurately while still turning them somehow into actual people, complicated and difficult and surprising. That's the thing I always find amazing about your characterisation - that you take these canonical/fanonical tropes of characterisation and add history and reality and emotional weight, make them into three-dimensional people. Your Rodney, here, just makes my heart clench, and your Teyla - she's so, so wonderful here, the best Teyla I've ever seen written. And it's the same for how you write relationships - I adore, in this fic, the differing, complicated ways in which they're in love with each other, and in love with each other together (if that makes sense? that Rodney loves how John and Teyla are in love as well as how Ronon loves them - separately and together - as well as each of them individually). And now I'm babbling. Um. Shorter version: I love this, thank you.

[lilac-way.livejournal.com]

This story is just the sweetest thing. Given all their various personality foibles I can believe this sceanrio. *goes to read again*

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked this a lot... the love that they have for each other and the breaking away from pre-set relationship paradigms to find that they *all* fit each other... polyamory in the very best way.

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!

~

[dossier.livejournal.com]

though I'm not a hardcore anti-shipper, I so rarely read any John/Teyla that this strikes me as a perfect thing. The four of them are so irrevocably intertwined that it would be an impossible thing to separate them, but that Rodney's the one that gives is marvelous. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

[ratcreature]

Aww, I liked how it was kind of sad, but also hopeful in the end.

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

This is so powerful and absorbing and gloriously, wonderfully them. I'm very glad I read it, and will certainly be rereading it in the future.

[emma-in-oz.livejournal.com]

That was just wonderful. The love and the pain and then at the end more love. See how incoherent you have made me?

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm going to cry now. I loved this, even though I wanted to bang all of their heads together at various points (especially Lt. Col. Clueless).

[lomedet.livejournal.com]

::gasps::

::blinks back tears::

oh, Rodney.

This was beautiful and sharp and sweet and loving - all at once.

thank you so much for sharing.

[siegeofangels.livejournal.com]

This is gorgeous, and I love it even more reading it the second time around.