The Things Which Are Caesar's

Fanfiction
Title:	The Things Which Are Caesar's
Author(s):	Wintertime
Date(s):	December 2005
Length:	2,443 words
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Stargate Atlantis
External Links:	online here
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The Things Which Are Caesar's is a Stargate Atlantis story by Wintertime.

Reactions and Reviews

Why this must be read: The summary is "Five gods John Sheppard never worshipped." This lushy written "five things" fic loops from horror (blood on the ground) to light humor (McKay didn't trip) and then back. Each section, unrelated to the section before, describes a new kind of god, with oblique references to events that aren't fully explained but that have brought about an end. Behind each section is the implication that things have been happening, that events are out of human control. This fic stands out because of its sensuous wordplay: cold hands, the taste of juice, bright, hungry eyes, all of it about, as Sheppard says, mocking McKay, "the end of the world as we know it," and the gods, or chance, that make it so.

Five gods John Sheppard never worshipped. The premise is intriguing, but it's the execution that's amazing. There's humor in this, and action, but mostly this is creepy, in subtle and intricate ways. Watch out especially for the last one, the last line, that's so casual and yet means so many things.

“You lied to Elizabeth,” Rodney said. He sounded relieved, but his relief was tinged with accusation. Still, even though his gene was secondhand, he must have felt something in the city. He must have seen the crystal stalactites on the east pier, the steeples that only pointed downwards. To the ocean. To the Ancients.

“Yeah,” John said, “I lied.”

He waited, in the stillness, for McKay to decide what he thought about that. The things they had done were small, and virtually harmless; but they were still there and John needed to know what Rodney would choose, in the end. But even before Rodney answered, John knew. Rodney touched the rail and the city responded, activating to warm his cold and chapped hands, and that was a small thing, too. But that was Atlantis, so damnably gratifying to resurrect. John wondered absently why they hadn’t built it honestly: all mirrors and reversed steeples. If there had been a god in that woodwork once, John could only hope he never met it.