crack_van | Farcape/Firefly (PG)

Title: Pain Never Stopped Us by Jacob
Pairing: uc D'Argo/River, sort of
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: Unknown
Why this must be read:

The annual Multiverse challenge has produced an astounding crop of high-quality crossovers, and tons of the stories have ended up on recs lists, here and elsewhere. But this one, despite being one of my own favorites from the ficathon's first year, seems to have been pretty consistently overlooked. I suppose it's not too difficult to understand why. It's easy to read the first couple of paragraphs, become confused by what appears to be a mess of random pronouns, and hit the "back" button on the hastily-made assumption that the writer doesn't really know what he's doing. Give the story a chance, however, and you discover that he most certainly does know, because that mess of random pronouns is, quite simply, River. And what the story ultimately gives us is a profound portrait of River in all her amazing, confusing, beautiful brokenness. More than that, it also gives us D'Argo as seen through the lens of River's perceptions... which shows us just how beautiful he is, and always has been.

I don't exactly like to think of myself as the kind of person who turns into a sentimental sap over fic, but, as much of an intellectual challenge as it is to read, there's something about this story that leaves me with a warm feeling in my heart, a lump in my throat, and a threatening case of the sniffles. Maybe I'm just a sucker for stories about damaged people finding strength and comfort in one another, but I seriously doubt I'm the only one. So. Go, read, give it a chance. See what you think.

But first, an excerpt:

Arms strong like Academy restraints -- that's the kind of jiao-zi lèsè that comforts her now, shattered as she is -- around her body, tentacles across her face like Mother's hair, like going back to cold sleep, neon-like, fetus-style, like being back in Simon's bed, both of us children and no tears, no real danger beyond what we pretended. Before both of us got broken, safe and no words, just sleep and no words. //poetry.words offers "pentacles" in place of "tentacles" because //poetry came before the rest of the 'verse, and after all it's only words. It's only ever words, and things that are words. Her body like a sentence, stepping across the blood and the story she leaves behind. Words are what protect us from the black. If she could tell them any one thing in this 'verse, I'd tell them this: Words are what protect us from the black.

Pain Never Stopped Us