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sga_flashficTitle: Avatar
Author: nadi_bren
Rating: G
Word count: 321
Summary: He never read it.
The box was metal, slate gray, utilitarian. No sign of the destructive potential it held was visible on the outside.
It sat in a closet at the back of the room, behind Rodney's extra pair of boots and next to the football that John had sometimes sent sailing down long corridors when they'd first arrived; the ball brown, synthetic, mundane, and yet alien among the greens and blues, the spare, echoing beauty of Atlantis' halls.
Rodney never touched the box, a talisman of things he didn't want to think about, and didn't, through the same force of will that had made people in two galaxies quail. He didn't touch the box. He didn't open it. He didn't look through the papers that nested there.
Most of the paper had the weight of formality; vellum, linen, watermarks. Records of a life lived in a paper-bound society, where notable moments were commemorated by the death of trees. But there was one piece in the box that didn't fit in; the poor cousin in cheap stationery, the writing on it from a disposable Bic, ink uneven, stuttering out its message as it neared its end.
It was the outlier that kept Rodney away. The rest of the box called to him, pieces of John's history, before Atlantis, before Rodney, spelled out in exactly the way that John'd never been. His fingers itched to run over all of it, to see the folds of ivory open at his touch, in exactly the way that John had done. But he couldn't risk touching that one letter. Could not risk it.
Rodney wasn't religious. He wasn't superstitious. Mainly. Knowledge was his god, and he worshipped it curiously. But not even his need to know could overcome Rodney's dread of that letter. He'd never read it, the box safe from his fear of the unknown.
He never read it, even long after the others had given up hope.
Author: nadi_bren
Rating: G
Word count: 321
Summary: He never read it.
The box was metal, slate gray, utilitarian. No sign of the destructive potential it held was visible on the outside.
It sat in a closet at the back of the room, behind Rodney's extra pair of boots and next to the football that John had sometimes sent sailing down long corridors when they'd first arrived; the ball brown, synthetic, mundane, and yet alien among the greens and blues, the spare, echoing beauty of Atlantis' halls.
Rodney never touched the box, a talisman of things he didn't want to think about, and didn't, through the same force of will that had made people in two galaxies quail. He didn't touch the box. He didn't open it. He didn't look through the papers that nested there.
Most of the paper had the weight of formality; vellum, linen, watermarks. Records of a life lived in a paper-bound society, where notable moments were commemorated by the death of trees. But there was one piece in the box that didn't fit in; the poor cousin in cheap stationery, the writing on it from a disposable Bic, ink uneven, stuttering out its message as it neared its end.
It was the outlier that kept Rodney away. The rest of the box called to him, pieces of John's history, before Atlantis, before Rodney, spelled out in exactly the way that John'd never been. His fingers itched to run over all of it, to see the folds of ivory open at his touch, in exactly the way that John had done. But he couldn't risk touching that one letter. Could not risk it.
Rodney wasn't religious. He wasn't superstitious. Mainly. Knowledge was his god, and he worshipped it curiously. But not even his need to know could overcome Rodney's dread of that letter. He'd never read it, the box safe from his fear of the unknown.
He never read it, even long after the others had given up hope.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 12:24 am (UTC)Very good.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 12:47 am (UTC)Well done.
:-) xx
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:19 am (UTC)I'm with you. This was an experiment to see if I could write something without defining the story ahead of time, and this is where it wound up. And thanks, I'm glad you liked it even with the not-happiness.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 01:43 am (UTC)I just got this lump under my breastbone as I read this, I could feel the doom looming through the words, even before the last sentences.
Very nice.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:54 am (UTC)Lovely.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 12:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 01:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 05:37 am (UTC)(It may have hit me harder because I went into it grinning from your username. )
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 01:03 pm (UTC)As to the user name, Cherryh fan or was it just the phonetics of it?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 01:03 pm (UTC)(I liked your story too, by the way!)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-27 04:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 12:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 04:38 pm (UTC)And thank you, I'm glad you liked the story and I'm always happy to know there are more Cherryh fans out there.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 04:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-27 04:41 am (UTC)I'll be watching for more of your writing on the comm. Thanks for sharing it with us!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 04:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 08:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 10:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 11:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-23 11:40 am (UTC)