pants!verse came from a long chat between me and elly427 and familyarchives about how Sam and Jack really need to work on their *friendship* (a la Star Trek pairings like Picard/Crusher and Riker/Troi), and also, how we could arrange it that Sam and Jack date while on SG-1 (because ten thousand fanfic writers under the age of 14 can't all be wrong). We came up with the solution that they wouldn't realize, or admit, that they were dating. They're just FRIENDS! Who hang out. A lot. And go places, like to dinner and to the movies. And kiss, sometimes, because they are friends and care about each other. But they're not dating, so it's okay. And along the way, Sam would come up with a bunch of strange rules to make absolutely sure they aren't dating, because she's Sam, the most important of which is that the pants stay on.

Basically, this results in them building a solid friendship and being very very happy, because they get to be together all the time and get to know each other and *gasp* fool around without there being all this ANGST. And, incidentally, also makes it a lot more likely that they will be able to get into a "real" relationship without pants later without crashing and burning, because they had this long warming-up period of friendship and fun and pants. YAY!

You can check out more of the madness at shipwithpants, if you like...