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stargateficrecShow: SGA
Rec Category: Sheppard/McKay
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan
Pairings: Sheppard/McKay
Categories: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship
Warnings: None
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sgamadison, the_cephalopod
Author's Website:
Link: Dumbstruck by sgamadison, the_cephalopod
Why This Must Be Read:
Imprisoned by aliens, John loses not only his memory but his ability to speak in this story. His rescue is only the beginning of his long road back to himself...and Rodney.
The ground was hard and the rough wooden handle of the tool felt odd and unfamiliar in his hands. He looked down at them, raw and reddened in the cold morning air and then a shout had him looking up again. The man yelling at him from the side of the field was speaking in a language incomprehensible to him, but he knew what the other man intended just the same. Keep working. Work or you do not eat. Work or we will hit you.
Whatever, a corner of his mind supplied, and he tightened his grip on the handle. The handle of the hoe. The word came to him suddenly, as words sometimes did, in a burst of illumination, only to leave him feeling flat and cold when the insight changed nothing. Whatever it was called, it was still a tool in his hands with which he was to dig holes in the semi-frozen ground. It wasn't even the right time of the year to plant things—though how he knew this, he wasn't sure. This was just busy-work, something that you made the newbies do, to teach them unquestioning obedience. He knew that too, knew instinctively he'd been through something similar before, recognized as well that what he was experiencing now was inherently different.
He just didn't know different how.
His existence, as he remembered it, began eleven days ago. He knew the word day was what to call the cycle between a single span of sunlight and darkness, but he could not remember what groupings of days were called. He didn't think it mattered much. Not as much as noting that the calluses on his hands did not match the blisters that he was developing, or that he and the other people who worked the fields all had a shiny implant embedded into the right side of their heads or that he was the only one of the workers that did not seem to understand the language. Or that he was the only one who ever got angry.
The other workers seemed passive in their chores. Oh sure, they hated the cold, and working in the fields without the proper clothing (gear, his brain supplied) and the fact that they weren't getting much to eat. But he seemed to be the only one who objected, who resisted, who fought back when pushed around.
He'd gotten punched and beaten a few times before he'd learned to hide the anger. Watch and learn. He could do that. The men who supervised the fieldwork had seemed to relax a bit after that, though they were quick to warn him if they thought he was getting out of line again. At night, after the workers had eaten and crawled wearily into the communal hut for sleeping, he would lie awake and wonder about who he was and who he had been. He'd thought about leaving this place but his mind teased him with thoughts of where—at least here he had food and shelter of a sort. He didn't have enough information yet. He needed to wait. Sometimes odd thoughts and memories would come to him in the early morning hours—in that tiny window between sleeping and waking. He began to crave that small slice of time, but to pursue it too vigorously was to watch it slip through his fingers like the silt in the bottom of the creek bed.
Rec Category: Sheppard/McKay
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan
Pairings: Sheppard/McKay
Categories: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship
Warnings: None
Author on LJ:
sgamadison, the_cephalopodAuthor's Website:
Link: Dumbstruck by sgamadison, the_cephalopod
Why This Must Be Read:
Imprisoned by aliens, John loses not only his memory but his ability to speak in this story. His rescue is only the beginning of his long road back to himself...and Rodney.
The ground was hard and the rough wooden handle of the tool felt odd and unfamiliar in his hands. He looked down at them, raw and reddened in the cold morning air and then a shout had him looking up again. The man yelling at him from the side of the field was speaking in a language incomprehensible to him, but he knew what the other man intended just the same. Keep working. Work or you do not eat. Work or we will hit you.
Whatever, a corner of his mind supplied, and he tightened his grip on the handle. The handle of the hoe. The word came to him suddenly, as words sometimes did, in a burst of illumination, only to leave him feeling flat and cold when the insight changed nothing. Whatever it was called, it was still a tool in his hands with which he was to dig holes in the semi-frozen ground. It wasn't even the right time of the year to plant things—though how he knew this, he wasn't sure. This was just busy-work, something that you made the newbies do, to teach them unquestioning obedience. He knew that too, knew instinctively he'd been through something similar before, recognized as well that what he was experiencing now was inherently different.
He just didn't know different how.
His existence, as he remembered it, began eleven days ago. He knew the word day was what to call the cycle between a single span of sunlight and darkness, but he could not remember what groupings of days were called. He didn't think it mattered much. Not as much as noting that the calluses on his hands did not match the blisters that he was developing, or that he and the other people who worked the fields all had a shiny implant embedded into the right side of their heads or that he was the only one of the workers that did not seem to understand the language. Or that he was the only one who ever got angry.
The other workers seemed passive in their chores. Oh sure, they hated the cold, and working in the fields without the proper clothing (gear, his brain supplied) and the fact that they weren't getting much to eat. But he seemed to be the only one who objected, who resisted, who fought back when pushed around.
He'd gotten punched and beaten a few times before he'd learned to hide the anger. Watch and learn. He could do that. The men who supervised the fieldwork had seemed to relax a bit after that, though they were quick to warn him if they thought he was getting out of line again. At night, after the workers had eaten and crawled wearily into the communal hut for sleeping, he would lie awake and wonder about who he was and who he had been. He'd thought about leaving this place but his mind teased him with thoughts of where—at least here he had food and shelter of a sort. He didn't have enough information yet. He needed to wait. Sometimes odd thoughts and memories would come to him in the early morning hours—in that tiny window between sleeping and waking. He began to crave that small slice of time, but to pursue it too vigorously was to watch it slip through his fingers like the silt in the bottom of the creek bed.
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no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 03:18 pm (UTC)