Sinner's Grove

Fanfiction
Title:	Sinner's Grove
Author(s):	saffronhouse
Date(s):	October 11, 2002
Length:	32794 words
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Stargate: SG-1
External Links:	at Archive of Our Own
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Sinner's Grove is a Jack/Daniel story by saffronhouse.

Reactions and Reviews

2004

I recently dug this out of my slash library to re-read and in the process rediscovered why I loved it so much. Put aside the Jack/Danielness of it and read it for the writing. Spare, lovely, evocative. Alien without silliness and rape that makes you almost as sick as Daniel. More than a soupcon of plot, excellent character voices and more than a passing reference to other team members.

Back to the Jack/Danielness.

This is those two stripped down to the bone. It's a fairly rugged piece that way. Nicely twisty with some truly tender moments. My only reservation was that, as with most h/c, there wasn't enough comfort. While I'm a big fan of the story left hanging, I think in this instance I would have liked to seen a more comfortable resolution.

It's not a hanky story, but it will make you want to eat Ben and Jerry's and read some fuzzy warm fic afterwards.

But you won't be sorry.

2006

SG-1 visits a world with truly unique aliens, and then Jack gets snaked by a goa'uld like they've never seen before. The story of their ordeal and the aftermath is told in a back and forth style to reveal in pieces both the horror of what happened and the guilt carried afterward. Incredibly angsty with friendship and love shining through.

The Story That Is Going to Make Me Feel Like a Total Wimp the Next Time I Whine About Not Wanting to Go to Home Depot. Sinner's Grove, by Martha, aka saffronhouse. Stargate: SG-1, Jack O'Neill/Daniel Jackson. (You know, it's just occured to me that if SG1 fandom was starting up now, in this modern era of unfortunate pairing names, this pairing would be called JackJack. Unless - wait. It's not actually already called that somewhere, right?)

So, first and foremost: disturbing themes, folks. I mean this. I'm going to try not to spoil this here, but - well, as the author says, if you've got places you'd rather not go in your fan fiction, read the warnings on her index page. (There's a link at the top of the page.) I will also be offering an alternate near-death experience SG1 story, so you can still get your fix if you need to give this a miss.

And I would not in any way blame you for skipping this, but you would be missing out in a big way. When I first read this, I was horrified and absolutely transfixed; I could not move away from the computer until I was done. This story is way, way outside my comfort zone, dealing with a topic that I basically never want to read in my fan fiction, and yet it is so perfectly done that I regularly re-read this out of pure admiration. I'm not even sure why it works the way it does - surely the contrast of the mundane and the horrible helps, as does the way the story is told; she doesn't hit you with it, but lets you figure it out, and she builds the comfort right alongside the hurt. I get all that. I still can't quite see why this works this well. I'm guessing the secret ingredient is genius. (Or tea. Could be tea.)

I do think, though, that it'd be damned near impossible to tell this story with different characters. This story comes close to defining SG1 for me, because - yeah, this is what they do. They live through the pain, the horror, the suffering, the near-death (and real death) experiences: they live to fight another day, only they do it without any of that pansy retreating and regrouping stuff. It's pretty much damn the religion-associated evil aliens, light speed ahead for this team. (And if you want one of them to take a vacation, you either have to kill him or drive him to Minnesota, which, as I'm sure you know, is basically the same thing.)

My point is - I believe, or this story makes me believe, that Jack and Daniel could go through this and survive. I know I couldn't; I would have given up before I gated out (my motto is: no science fiction devices that defy all known laws of physics near my component atoms, thank you). Even the toughest of characters would likely have given up somewhere in the middle of this story. And yet Jack and Daniel (oh my god, that's hideous pairing name for them that must already be in use: Jack Daniel's, or bourbon for short) live to have bickering arguments - and visit Home Depot - another day.