fic update: Never Have I Asked an August Sky (Sheppard/McKay)

[hth]

Never Have I Asked an August Sky
by Hth
Sheppard/McKay

Originally written for the zine Surfacing, now available right here on your internets.


“Major,” Rodney said by way of a greeting, which sucked and was stupid and oh my God, if there was room left for this to get more pathetic, then absolutely the way to get there was to call the man by his military title, as if he’d driven seven hundred and thirty miles through fucking Kansas for some kind of horrifically awkward war-buddy reunion moment.

Comments

[cathalin.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. This made me tear up, this is heartbreaking and beautiful.

There is so much amazing writing in this story. This line was amazing:

""I’ll help," you say, your voice rough and sore from the silence you keep when you fuck."

That's an amazing description, and tells so much about their relationship and their situation. The whole story is packed with lines like that.

This killed me, in the good way. Thanks for posting this - as a relative newcomer, I had no idea this zine existed. Wow.

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Holy cow, this made me cry. It hurt to read at the end when Rodney made his declaration. I wanted to slap him up the head for not staying.

[ratcreature]

*sniffle*

[spuffyduds.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, this is gorgeous. So perfectly them, and so sad and beautiful and sadly hot, and the way they spend so long not saying what they mean completely EARNS the moment when Rodney breaks through and is almost mushy at the end, and it made me CRY. In a coffeeshop. My GOD.

[villeinage.livejournal.com]

*reduced to tears*

[lferion]

Oh John. Oh Rodney.

*whimpers*

*wipes eyes*

So beautiful and so sad.

...and I bet Atlantis herself is as desperately unhappy.

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I love how you wreck me. You get in there deep with your gorgeous language and amazing intimacy and find all the places where I resonate with the characters and then you twist, and it's awesome. I love the angst in this so effing much, and the neediness and the wanting and the regrets and the little tinge of hope for a someday that probably won't ever happen, and, just, damn. Beautiful.

(You know, if you really wanted to go for OTT bleakness, you could have stationed him in Altus. But maybe that would have been too much. *eg*)

[scarlett-k.livejournal.com]

I loved this fic and didn't know how to leave feedback when I read it in the zine last year. It was so sad, but felt very true. A great story.

[tingler.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm going to skip all the "gorgeous", "wonderful" "tore my fucking heart out--again!", etc., and jump right to the "Squee! You put John in OKLAHOMA! I could drive up and have sex with see him! I mean, if it were real, which, y'know, the way you write, sometimes, I get confused" bit.

Squeee!

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for John Sheppard? I'd hang out in Enid, too. *g* (I bet he'd like the stock car racing.)

[elizaria.livejournal.com]

That just about started my morning with tears in my coffee!!

Seriously though, it was a very good story and Rodney's declaration as he was about to leave was a punch in the gut. Wonderful, and beautiful and hurtful at the same time.

[graycastle.livejournal.com]

that was really beautiful; the ache and impossibility of the situation were absolutely heartrending. I love this:

"I want to kiss you goodbye." He didn’t think he’d be able to, but he did want it. That seemed important to say.

Because, yes, that's it exactly: the desire without the follow-through. Really, really lovely.

[zoniduck.livejournal.com]

Ow, ow, ow. And also, ow. Thank you! :-)

[dossier.livejournal.com]

Ok, uhm. you broke me, thank you very much. I kinda needed that. I love the stylistic choices, the seemingly meandering but not really asides (I'm sure there's a real word for them), and how they are pulled along by the other half of the narrative. I really like that.

[witling.livejournal.com]

Wow. Beautiful and very, very sad. Thank you.

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

Ah, this is the most beautiful thing, and I love the way you slip into second person for the part of the story that's Rodney knowing what's happening, too late. And the sadness at the end, the summer evening they'll never have, is so perfectly balanced against Rodney figuring it all out...

[acari.livejournal.com]

I had a little trouble getting into the story at first. For some reason the sections in italics threw me, I couldn't quite figure out their purpose. Nevertheless, by the end I was misty-eyed and aching for them. I'm glad I kept reading because I enjoyed your story quite a lot.

[amalthia]

This was heartbreaking and I loved it.

[hivesofactivity.livejournal.com]

This is utterly beautiful in a really chest-achey way. I normally have a happy-ending kink, and yes, this is heartbreaking, but there is a real kernel of something-that-I-can't-call-happiness-quite-but-warms-my-heart there anyway. I think the killer moment is Rodney, standing by the car with the fricking door open already, telling John that he's the love of his life - oh, my.

And Ronon? Damn those crazy offworld parties!

[laura-trekkie.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was painful to read. Very bittersweet. I loved that Rodney drove all that way to see John and that they finally put their feelings for each other to good use (hot and sweet), yet it was sad that they only had this short time to do and say everything they wanted to each other and now have to face who knows how much time apart and alone. I choose to believe that Rodney's already coming up with some great plan to get John back to Atlantis...it just may take a while to impliment it is all.

Laura.