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sga_flashfic2006-07-20 02:08 am
sans peur et sans reproche--by frostfire
Author: Frostfire
Word count: 1217
Notes: John-centric, slightly AU. As this is the darkfic challenge, one may expect darkness. Sort of vaguely references SG-1 season 9, with spoilers for 9x07. Set around The Tower, The Long Goodbye, in there. Thanks to
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synecdochic and thecomfychair for audiencing and synecdochic also for coming up with a title so I didn't have to at 2 AM; realistically, she probably came up with half the idea, too. Power to the hive mind.
It’s been a year and a half, and John’s gotten used to Atlantis. Command can be a pain in the ass, and there’s the possible death by life-sucking alien, 1950’s-era bomb attack, ten-thousand-year-old anything, and being turned into a fucking bug, but there are perks. Really sweet ride, for one. Ascended sex. Fucking with Rodney’s head. Shooting people.
All in all, he likes it.
And he’s settled in, tested his limits, gotten comfortable. He got himself into command right away, figured out how far he could go with Elizabeth during the virus incident (answer: all the way, like he ever thought anything else), and just recently, the Caldwell Goa’uld thing. Serious luck, there. No one really trusts
And the Marines will follow him to hell and back, because he’s willing to lay down his life for them. (Not their fault they never asked why.)
So he’s gotten used to Atlantis, hardly ever flashes back to Earth, to expensive drinks and identical neatly-trimmed beards—and really, the sudden plunge into fear and death and shooting things, right at the beginning, helped him a lot. His new job has been great.
Lt. Col. John Sheppard likes football, Ferris Wheels, and things that go more than 200 mph. The first is true, the second he could give a fuck about, and the third is pretty much half the key to his happiness. Here on Atlantis, he has one football game, zero Ferris Wheels, and a ton of really fast things. He also has carte blanche to commit genocide.
He really fucking loves this job, and it’s about to get better.
The Daedalus brought him a letter today, supposedly from an old war buddy. John has zero old war buddies (considering certain methods of calculation, he might even have negative old war buddies), and the letter had a super-secret message, underneath five layers of encryption, because a certain guy with a hard-on for himself (literally) also can’t get enough of the cool spy stuff.
She starts, then smiles. “John. Don’t you ever knock?”
“Nah.” He thinks about it.
“So, John,” she says, sitting down on her bed, “what did you want to talk to me abou—”
John looks down at the handgun, still pointed, and grins.
He’s at the other end of the city, forty-five minutes later, when he radios Rodney and says, “Hey, did
“No, she didn’t say anything,” says Rodney after a minute. “Here, wait a second.” And a minute later, “She’s not answering her radio.”
John does not twitch with suppressed laughter. At all. “It’s okay, I had a couple other things I needed to ask her. I’ll go find her.”
“Fine,” says Rodney, and clicks off.
John makes his way to
Altogether, including the time it takes to calm Rodney, Beckett and Teyla down (he delegates that last one), he has the city locked down and under control in forty minutes. Marines are guarding all essential personnel, in randomly-chosen groups. The scientists are confined to quarters or labs. Rodney is sweeping the city for aliens. Beckett is overseeing the autopsy. Teyla and Ronon are standing behind him in the control room, waiting for someone to come out of the walls and attack.
So that’s Step Two. Step Three is coming right up. “I’m going to do a quick patrol, see how our guys are doing,” he says.
“I’ll go with you,” says Ronon.
“I need you to go sit on Rodney. Once he finishes that sweep, he’s going to start freaking out again. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want him doing any…creative self-defense.”
Ronon looks like he wants John to say or you could just commit seppuku right here, but he goes. Teyla opens her mouth, but John just grins and says, “Need you here. Someone has to run the place,” and jogs off.
Twenty minutes later, they find him kneeling by the body of Private Leonard Malkin, who came over with the Daedalus, and who almost threw himself in front of a Wraith last week. He was starting regular sessions with Heightmeyer tomorrow. John’s holding Private Malkin’s gun, carefully, and he’s staring down at the still face, the bloody hole in the private’s chest. There are three bullet dings in the wall behind him. One of the shots creased his upper arm. His hard-on is almost entirely gone.
“He followed me out here,” says John. “He told me what we were doing was wrong. That
Beckett lays a hand on John’s arm. Teyla, Ronon, and Rodney are back at a safer distance.
“Let’s all take the rest of the day off,” says John. He’s done all he needed to do today, at least.
Although, now that he’s started with the shooting people, he really—really—wants to keep going, but. There’s a plan. So he heads back to his room, drops down on his bed, thinks about silk sheets and Ba’al, wandering around his penthouse. Ba’al’s the only one (four) of the Goa’uld John’s ever met, but he likes them all better than he likes the Wraith. Sense of humor, sense of style, and they kill things for fun instead of just for food.
Ba’al against the Wraith. That’s going to be fun to watch.
John can make it happen. Turn Rodney against
He bets himself that he can make Rodney like it, though. He can blow up solar systems for a living.
John has zero (at most) old war buddies, but he’s gotten to like some of the people he works with (against) in Atlantis. He’s never known anyone else who could turn him into a bug, and he’s definitely never known anyone else who could make a sun go nova, and when he thinks about it—working with Rodney. Working against Rodney. He can’t decide which one he wants it to be.
He gets to find out, though.
Ba’al against the Wraith with John, Rodney, Beckett—Cadman, oh yeah—Zelenka—
He’ll have to kill some of them. Actually, he might have to kill all the Marines. And then, oh yeah, they’ll be exterminating the Wraith.
His job is fucking fantastic.
end
no subject
I'm one of the few SGA fans who'd argue that JF can actually act. My standard (Crowe and Depp are the standouts of their generation and I adore Gene Hackman) has less to do with pretty and more to do with absence of self-consciousness in front of a camera and individualistic acting choices. I think JF - who in interviews comes across as relatrively introverted and intellectual - is struggling to imbue the 2D character (macho hero, intergalactic babe magnet) that's written for him by TPTB in the Gateverse with some subtlety. Despite the limitations, JF has created a chracter - due to his acting choices which almost everyone pooh-poohs as robotic - who could actually turn out to be completley and utterly psychopathically/politically evil.
I love that you've grasped that aspect of the Sheppard persona and run with it. And done so in style. Kudos.
no subject
I think Sheppard is an interesting character, definitely made by the choices Joe makes as the person playing him, and I think the way he's played it means something like this fic could easily slot into the canon-verse.
On the issue of the fic, I love the fact that you made Sheppard evil, and the fact that you tied Ba'al and the Goa'uld in. It was really well-written and believable.
no subject
OT
I just wanted to say hear, hear. I think he does an incredible job despite the 2D material, and I hope the writers figure out what to do with Sheppard this season and give JF more to work with.
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So, wait. People think he can't act? How do they come to that conclusion? I'm confused. Because I'd seen exactly one thing in he was in before Atlantis, so I didn't have anything to really compare, and I think he can. It's subtle, though. Okay, occasionally not so much, but he gives Sheppard a lot of depth by line delivery. Of course, that's pretty much my take on most of the cast since subtlety is not exactly a key point on the show's writing (more like "Boom! Things go explode! Bad guys die but more come acalling!").
I just don't get it. During the season premire, he delivered some pretty corny lines extremely well. Plus the fact he act in the jumper set is pretty good too, cause wow, that's a tight space with mostly the inability to use lower body language (same with 302s). The man can convey a lot with eyes and facial expression. No, he's not exactly Gregory Peck, but the role doesn't require that serious studious acting. Tongue-in-cheek show and all. *shakes head*
no subject
I see the show's limitations as lying very much with the writing and not with the actors. So right to say "subtlety is not exactly a keypoint on the show's writing".
The quality of fanfic writing in the SGA fandom is so good that it often leaves the show's writing for dead in terms of plot and character development and interaction - frostfire's work being an example of the phenomenon. It would be such fun to see this evilJohn storyline on the show, because it does dovetail with canonJohn so perfectly. (Although he'd have to turn out to be a clone or something so ourheroJohn was restored to us.)
no subject
The writing is really good, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty sparse in the fact of the continuity of the character's responses to situations. Really, I think that falls more with the actors and their take of the characters, especially Shep's, who can be rather inconsistant at times when you compare several back to back episodes.
I think that might be the problem too. As writers, we have the chance to choose the characters and not deal with everyone on the canvas. It would be fun to see evil!John in canon because you know he has the ability. It's part of his back story, in the way I'm sure he had to be cold and calculating in the middle of war. And he is at war (again) and he would be willing to do it. In a way, it kinda of matches the IOA's statement of Weir cleaning up her mess. He would be cleaning up the mess that he inadvertently caused, and if he's a little crazy, well that's the merrier for us to watch.
no subject
And I'm with you on both Crowe and Depp.
no subject
Thank you!