It Breathes by Koanju (First Night Challenge)

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Title: It Breathes
Author: Koanju
Rating: PG
Summary: In the walls, there are ghosts. In the mind, there are whispers. Gen, Sheppard, Atlantis
Notes: This came out a little different than I was intending. I think it's the lack of sleep. It's tangentially related to Prime/Not Prime, a longer fic saeva and I are co-writing.



In high school, people thought Johnny Sheppard was kind of stupid. He didn't talk in class, he didn't hang out with the cool people, even though he was pretty handsome, he wouldn't be caught dead inside the auditorium, carburators bored him, and even though he loved the game, Johnny didn't play football.

Too much chance he could fuck up his chances to enlist. One wrong hit and your knee was shot for life. Sure, you might be able to walk well enough no one would notice, but the minute you were pulling Gs or trying to haul someone off the ground into a chopper? You were fucked.

So he didn't play sports, he didn't show his grades to anyone, he didn't go to the parties, and he always said "thank you" and "please" and never did anything that might distress the sisters. By the time he was a senior, the really malicious ones said he was stupid and a faggot and gonna die like all the rest.

Johnny let them. He didn't care. Listening to them talk was like listening to the whispering of ghosts. It didn't matter.

This. This place. General O'Neill had been right. It was so much bigger than he was. It mattered. It whispered and talked and mattered and even though he wasn't Johnny Sheppard, he was just John, and he could fly anything with blades and an engine and play a mean game of chess while doing it...

Atlantis.

He'd waited for very last to get his assigned quarters. There was something creepy about the way the doors just opened when he barely knew which way he was going or the lights coming on by themselves. The fucking city breathed and down to the very marrow of his bones, he knew it was talking to them. To him.

He just couldn't figure out what it was trying to say.

He didn't want to spend the night alone, listening to those whispers. The sounds, the fragments of the past trapped, had started sounding less like the boys in his high school and more like the boys in the home at night, when the loneliness caught up to them, or the dreams of Before.

This place was creepy. And it felt more like home than Antarctica did and he'd loved Antarctica.

"Just shut up," John muttered, outside the door to his rooms. His home, possibly for the rest of his natural life, quieted and the lights dimmed. But the doors opened and invited him in.

Comments

[merryish.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is a really cool look inside Sheppard. I especially like the very end:


This place was creepy. And it felt more like home than Antarctica did and he'd loved Antarctica.

"Just shut up," John muttered, outside the door to his rooms. His home, possibly for the rest of his natural life, quieted and the lights dimmed. But the doors opened and invited him in.

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I really wanted to play around with the "sixth" character of Atlantis; it's nice to see I was at least partially successful. ;)

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

Intriguing view of John, from inside and out; very personal and a little bleak, with the focus and the loneliness. Also kinda shivvery, the idea of the city 'alive', the last Ancient, another character in the ensemble. Cool.

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I wasn't entirely sure it worked, but if people are picking up on the nuances, I guess it did. ;)

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful. I like your John's focus, how he knows what he wants and quietly works to achieve it.

>This place was creepy. And it felt more like home than Antarctica did and he'd loved Antarctica.<

Nice.

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

ADMIN

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Hey, for the sake of regularity, could you put "by [Authorname]" into the subject line? (Title can be included, but is optional!) It'll save me a TON of time in the archiving! Thanks!!

Re: ADMIN

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

No problem, all edited. :)

[julad.livejournal.com]

Wow, I really liked this. Very charged, packing a lot into a few words, and very atmospheric. :)

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Thanks; I'm glad Touga approves. *coughs* ;)

[julad.livejournal.com]

Touga! *random moment of squee*

It's funny, I've had it for so long, I forget for whole months that there's actually a character out there who looks just like my default icon. ;) Must rewatch Utena now.

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

It's been so long for me too, since the movie at least, but if there's a show that's absolutely unforgettable, it's probably Utena. ;)

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I didn't know where you were going with the HS flashback unti this:

Too much chance he could fuck up his chances to enlist. One wrong hit and your knee was shot for life.

--and then bam! So much character there! The drive, the planning, the keeping his own counsel. I loved that sense of Sheppard, so thanks!

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I have to say, that's one thing that's bothered me about the "football player" fanon I saw in fics, which is how the story ended up in the first place. ;)

[ophidiae.livejournal.com]

Oh, very nice. Esp. love the last paragraph, the sense of alienation and homecoming all mixed together. Well done.

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Thanks! For both the comment and inadvertently inspiring another fic with the phrasing of your comment. ;)

[ophidiae.livejournal.com]

Eek! Really? How cool. :-)

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

I was just looking at "alienation" and thinking "alien nation" and the synapses just took off from there. ;)

[ophidiae.livejournal.com]

Heh. It's amazing what will trigger a response, isn't it?

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

But the doors opened and invited him in.

I really love this as a last line.

Gorgeously written look into john :-)

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

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

This is a very interesting look into John's head and one I really like. He doesn't strike me as someone who was a quiet kid, but you made it work. I really enjoyed it :-).

[wagacca.livejournal.com]

Was looking up old challenges and found this story. Excellent piece, very subtle, but also kind of haunting.

[adannu.livejournal.com]

Old challenge, I know, but I thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that I really liked this. It's an edged, bleak John here, one with unexpected flashes of character underneath, like with the knee thing in high school, and the part about 'the boys in the home at night'.