stargateficrec | East of the Sun, West of the Moon by Dossier [R]

Rec Category: John Sheppard

Pairing: background Rodney/OFC
Category: Atlantis, AU, Sheppard, McKay, drama
Warning: supporting character death
Author on LJ:

dossier
Author's Website: dossier's story page
Link: East of the Sun, West of the Moon (chaptered) - or all on one page (828Kb)

Why This Must Be Read: East of the Sun, West of the Moon is one of those fanfics that comes along only rarely in a fandom. I really cannot recommend this story highly enough. It's amazing, unique, emotionally powerful, and truly a science fiction novel in every sense, with a tight plot, believable OCs and a detailed, well-realized alien culture and world.

In this canon-divergent AU, the Daedalus fails to stop the rogue F-302 in "Intruder", and is subsequently forced to make a crash landing on the nearest planet, a desert world with no Stargate. Cut off from any hope of rescue, the survivors (John, Rodney, Elizabeth, Lorne, etc) are forced to make a new life for themselves -- but that's not even the half of their problems. I've only had a few fanfics get this deeply into my emotions, or into my head; it made me struggle along with the characters, laugh with them, bleed with them, and when it was over I was left desperately wanting more from this 'verse.

Since I'm reccing this in the John Sheppard category,

dossier's characterization of Sheppard deserves a special nod. Despite being very well-represented in fanfic, Sheppard is often portrayed as a somewhat one-note character -- either he's written as a flawless hero (stoic, brave to a fault, never bearing a petty thought towards another person) or as a loveable dork, or, less commonly, there's "dark John", the closet sociopath. But John in East of the Sun is wonderfully multi-dimensional and human. He struggles, he fails, he hurts himself and others, he sometimes gives in to pettiness and emotional cowardice; but he also fights to be a better person, and tries to do the right thing even if it costs him greatly. He's still the recognizable John Sheppard that we know and love, but, like all the characters in this story, he also grows and changes, and part of what makes him a sympathetic hero is that we see him falter, fall and have to pick himself back up again.

This story wow'd me, and seriously, it really deserves to be one of the handful of well-known must-reads in this fandom. It's that good.

While it's difficult to give an impression of a novel-sized story from one small snippet, here's a bit from the first chapter:

The sand billows around them, and the 302 does its own hop and skip when John lands a couple of hundred yards away from the Daedalus. They sit for a moment while John takes in the situation; there is a scent of fear-quickened sweat and high-octane fuel in the cockpit, and John can hear the faint patter and hiss of sand landing on the canopy as the dust clears. The temperature in the cockpit is rising fast, and rapidly reaching uncomfortable levels.

The gravity feels higher than normal, but John can't tell if the sick feeling he has in his gut is that or distress. He clamps down on the nausea, promises himself the time to freak out later. He tries to raise the bridge on the radio, but he doesn't get an answer. He undoes his seat restraints to turn around and check on Rodney. "You okay?"

Rodney's eyes are huge and focused on the broken ship. "We are so fucked."

"Yeah. Come on, let's get out of here." John keeps his voice even and light, not even allowing a hint of his horror to bleed through.

"Wait! What if the atmosphere's not viable?" Rodney's voice quavers, he's not nearly as successful at maintaining calm, never been good at hiding his fear.

"Well, pretty soon, we're not going to have any air in here either and if the air out there is bad, then we might as well get it over with quick." John pops the canopy, but he'll never admit to McKay that he's holding his breath.

He takes an exploratory sniff. The air is so hot and dry that it burns the inside of his nose, but not enough to kill the overwhelming, burnt, acrid odor of Daedalus. John can feel the dehydration setting in, the heat has him sweating instantly, and the sunlight is blindingly, brilliantly white. John takes a deep breath, even though it feels like it's searing his lungs, despite the foul smell of the crashed ship. "We're good. You can breathe now, Rodney."

He hears an explosive breath as Rodney noisily sucks in the arid, dusty air and immediately begins coughing and swearing, "Jesus," at the smell.

Ignoring his own hypocrisy, John allows himself a grim smirk at Rodney holding his breath.

Exiting the craft without a ladder takes some care, but it's possible under normal circumstances, though the extra gravity makes this particular exit problematical. "Make sure you stand where it's marked in yellow, don't stand on the wing any further out. Then slide off, like this." John sits down and slides off the trailing edge of the wing. He falls faster than expected, and his landing is awkward and painful. "Piece of cake." He stands up, trying to dust off his hands and pants for a moment before giving it up as a lost cause.

"Sure, if you're some sort of gymnastic monkey," Rodney grumbles. He sits down and turns around to slide off from his stomach, making an ungainly landing in the sand. "Christ, I feel like I've gained fifty pounds." He lies there, looking up into the violet-colored sky.

John shades his eyes with a hand and takes a look around. A sea of sand surrounds them, but there is a distant mountain range already dim with the coming dusk. The sky is definitely purple, and the nascent sunset is painted in glorious shades of violet and lavender. "Nice hopping."

"Very funny." Rodney's tone is sarcastic, but when John sneaks a glance over at Rodney, his tiny crooked smile morphs into a grimace. "Do you suppose they're all dead?"