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out_thereI'm putting these two wips to rest. Burying them six feet under and forgetting that they ever existed.
I learned important lessons from these two pieces:
1) Just because my FList is familiar with the fandom -- and I occasionally read the fanfiction/watch the show -- doesn't mean I'm anywhere near knowledgeable enough to write a story.
2) If it's been languishing on the hard-drive for years, you're not going to finish it. Admit defeat and move on to the current wips.
The first story was started -- many, many moons ago -- for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thete1's Sex Pollen challenge. Those of you who did that will realise just how long ago that was. I wanted it to be Dick/Wally, but Bruce was the only one who really spoke to me. The characterisation is a bit wacky and the ideas... well. Never worked.
***
Looking around, Dick thinks it’s strange that he feels so at home here. He’s more comfortable on this space station than he is in Metropolis. It’s not home, home is Gotham’s baroque architecture; New York’s towering skyscrapers. It’s shadowed streets and buildings darkened by pollution.
It’s the newness, the sleek cleanness, of Metropolis that unnerves Dick. The Luthors have torn down the old slums and replaced them with soulless apartment buildings. The entire city feels as if it could be rebuilt overnight. The space station may be modern, but it doesn’t feel replaceable.
He walks down the hallway and knows which identical corner to turn. He’s only been here a few times, but Bruce made sure he knew how to find and operate the communication system. He tunes it into Bruce’s frequency with stark efficiency.
“Batman,” Bruce answers, his voice crisp and clear.
“Nightwing here.” His fingers hover over the keys and there’s enough of Bruce’s own technology in this system that it feels familiar beneath his hands.
“Good.” Bruce punctuates his word with a soft grunt, which means that somewhere down there, Batman’s fighting with someone who is about to feel a lot of pain.
Dick almost feels sorry for them, but not enough to dull his sharp smile. “You said that Poison Ivy had attacked?”
There’s the hushed sound of fighting, the muffled thud of leather gloves impacting against flesh. “Apparently, she’s working with Brainiac.”
“Sounds like a match made in heaven, or the supervillain equivalent,” he says lightly. Bruce had given him instructions to get up here, but hadn’t told him any more than that. “What do you need me to do?”
“Stay there. Protect the station.” Bruce’s voice is firm and there was a time when Dick would have whined about that, made some crack about being so useful as he sat safe and far away from danger. There was a time when he would have been tempted to turn around now and track Batman down. Luckily, now he knows it’s better to wait for Bruce’s reasons. And then decide if it’s worth tracking him down.
In the background, he hears someone moan, then there’s a sharp slap, and then silence. It’s all too easy to picture the exact violence that would cause those sounds. “Ivy captured Flash. He’s locked in his room right now.”
He waits for a few seconds, but Bruce remains silent. “What happened?”
“We got to her greenhouse.” Of course, it’s always a greenhouse. “She’d already left. We found Flash unconscious and covered in pollen.”
“What does it do?”
There’s a small huff of air, Bruce’s equivalent of a frustrated sigh. “No idea. It’s being analysed by the station now.”
“So, I’m here to baby-sit the Flash?” Dick’s own sigh is, well, a sigh. Highly effective in communicating his lack of love for this idea.
“Exactly,” Bruce replies and most people wouldn’t have caught the change in his tone. Dick, on the other hand, has spent years around Bruce. He hears the extra depth, the extra note of warmth. But even Dick would heed to be observing Bruce carefully to have any idea what it meant.
But he can guess it’s not good. “Mind control?”
“Possibly,” Bruce says evenly, as if it’s just another alternative, and that explains the entire mission. This has nothing to do with actually helping track down Ivy. It has everything to do with making sure a potentially dangerous superhero isn’t left alone with a good variety of weapons.
“Any tips on how to keep an eye on someone who runs faster than human sight?"
"Use the tranquilisers," Bruce says wryly. Dick snorts in amusement, but he's also wondering how far away nearest tranq gun is. Bruce's sense of humour may be dry and cutting, but he means what he says.
"Keep him drugged?" Dick keeps his tone light, makes it the Nightwing equivalent of Robin rolling his eyes.
"Whatever's necessary." Which, okay, explains why it's him who's here instead of someone who could actually catch the Flash, like Superman. Bruce doesn't trust his team-mates to do what's needed, or more correctly, Bruce *knows* his team-mates won't be able to, not without the team falling apart.
Dick decides to take Bruce's confidence in him as a compliment. He's Bruce's potential murderer of choice. "Let me know when you find her."
Bruce grunts in agreement, and Dick knows that most of the League's communications won't be going through the station. If Flash decides to start supporting plants, the information would be too dangerous, the possibility of Flash wreaking havoc on Earth could be deadly.
The comm signal dies off with a hiss of static and Dick knows it's just him, some weapons and an unpredictable Flash floating in space. He's almost tempted to write a country blues song about it.
***
The second story was promised forseperis and I welshed. I wrote the start and never wrote the rest. Of course, that could have something to do with my unholy hate of Brian and most things Justin (the cute violinist, Ethan, is the one exception to the "things of Justin" rule). As it turns out, I'm far better at writing characters I *like*.
According to the author notes, it's set: post-S2, pre-Ethan breakup. Post Ethan signing the in-the-closet contract. (Or, at least, vaguely Justin-still-with-Ethan time period.)
Yeah. I liked Ethan.
***
Justin wraps damp fingers around the metalwork and pushes. The elevator doors open with a soft metallic clatter that seems to echo down the empty hallway. The sound fades into the background of rain falling harshly and Justin's glad he grabbed an umbrella before he left for class. Brian's door looks just as intimidating as ever; scuffed metal and stark bricks; small security keypad almost out of place.
Brian still hasn't changed the code. He's complained about getting robbed, about Justin *letting* him get robbed, but the code's the same. Justin sends out a brief thanks to fate as the door opens. At this time of day, Brian will be in the office, and Justin doesn't want to call and explain that he just wanted to pick up a few CDs he left behind. What he wants is to just get them, with a minimum of fuss, and a minimum of contact with Brian.
Stepping into the apartment is familar in a way that's utterly terrrifying. Everywhere it's Brian's apartment, the same way it was always Brian's apartment. Brian's furniture, Brian's gadgets, Brian's neatness and order. The kitchen bench is clear, as is the kitchen table. There's no dirty dishes in the sink, or glasses left sitting on the coffee table. It's stylish and impressive, but it's not lived in, and for some reason that seems profoundly *Brian*. He realises he's walking lightly, carefully, although there's no need. He doesn't need to pick his way through clothes left lying around, and school books, and scraps of drawing paper. There's nothing here to trip him up.
He strides over to the entertainment unit and crouches in front of it. He forces himself to quickly flick through the CDs, finding his occasional CD breaking up the organisation of Brian's collection. There's a brief flash of memory, of kneeling over the CDs and joking with Brian about their apparent randomness. He can almost hear Brian explaining they were ordered by mood, by purpose. The warmth of Brian's breath on his neck as he defined them into for partying, getting high, being mellow. The promise of Brian's hands on bare skin as he said, for fucking, and he reached over to slip the disc in. The CD player blaring slow primal rhythms, beats that Brian pounded into his skin; that ocean of sound that drowned out Justin's cries.
At the moment, the only sound Justin can actually hear is the rain pelting down outside. Justin shakes his head, clearing it of the ghost sensations. Just the memory of it has already got him half hard, and Justin's knows, gut instinct, that it's not a good idea to remember. Not here, not now. Best to get what he needs and get out, quick. He marks each CD title off his list, and thinks that he'll have to go into the bedroom for the last item.
He was organised enough to make a list of things forgotten. Every time he'd reach for something, and realise it wasn't there, he added it to the list. When he'd run off with Ethan, he'd been full of idea of love, and romance, and adventure, but he'd still felt the vague underlying shock at not going back to Brian's place. It had taken him over a week to stop thinking of Brian's apartment as home. Even after he'd moved all of his stuff to Ethan's, he'd still had that niggling feeling that he'd forgotten things, and that was why he wasn't settled. He'd laughed at himself when he evenutally realised he was just missing Brian. But it still seems strange that the list is so small.
The only thing left is a sketchbook that he'd just forgotten. The last time he'd used it, he was lying in bed and sketching hands, graceful hands with long fingers, the hands of a musician. When he heard Brian come home, he'd stashed it under Brian's mattress. Justin had forgotten about it, until he was talking to Ethan about hands and feet, angles and curves of shadow, and wanted to show Ethan what he meant, but couldn't find the sketches. He's pretty sure it'll still be lying there, the last invisible sign that he ever lived here.
Justin leaves his bag sitting on the couch and makes his way into the bedroom, thinking that the sound of the rain hitting the windows seems miraculously louder in the bedroom. Then, the noise is suddenly quieter. He's halfway around the bed before he realises the obvious. It wasn't the rain, it was the sound of running water from the bathroom. It was the sound of the shower running and then stopping. His stomach lurches because he's moved out, and he's just getting his stuff, but he's not up to meeting Brian's latest trick. Not just yet.
He's torn between rushing to the mattress, or coming back later for the sketchbook, and is still standing there in indecision when the bathroom door opens. It's far worse than he could have expected. He would have preferred to be confronted by Brian's latest trick, even if he was gorgeous, and charming, and the kind of guy that Justin would want the second he saw him. It would have been far better than looking up to see Brian there, still wet from the shower, towel hanging almost indecently low on his hips.
Brian just standing there, smirking, water slowly dripping down his neck.
***
I also have SV wips that I haven't touched in forever, but now that SV's back on my TV, I may be re-inspired to complete them.
I learned important lessons from these two pieces:
1) Just because my FList is familiar with the fandom -- and I occasionally read the fanfiction/watch the show -- doesn't mean I'm anywhere near knowledgeable enough to write a story.
2) If it's been languishing on the hard-drive for years, you're not going to finish it. Admit defeat and move on to the current wips.
The first story was started -- many, many moons ago -- for
thete1's Sex Pollen challenge. Those of you who did that will realise just how long ago that was. I wanted it to be Dick/Wally, but Bruce was the only one who really spoke to me. The characterisation is a bit wacky and the ideas... well. Never worked.***
Looking around, Dick thinks it’s strange that he feels so at home here. He’s more comfortable on this space station than he is in Metropolis. It’s not home, home is Gotham’s baroque architecture; New York’s towering skyscrapers. It’s shadowed streets and buildings darkened by pollution.
It’s the newness, the sleek cleanness, of Metropolis that unnerves Dick. The Luthors have torn down the old slums and replaced them with soulless apartment buildings. The entire city feels as if it could be rebuilt overnight. The space station may be modern, but it doesn’t feel replaceable.
He walks down the hallway and knows which identical corner to turn. He’s only been here a few times, but Bruce made sure he knew how to find and operate the communication system. He tunes it into Bruce’s frequency with stark efficiency.
“Batman,” Bruce answers, his voice crisp and clear.
“Nightwing here.” His fingers hover over the keys and there’s enough of Bruce’s own technology in this system that it feels familiar beneath his hands.
“Good.” Bruce punctuates his word with a soft grunt, which means that somewhere down there, Batman’s fighting with someone who is about to feel a lot of pain.
Dick almost feels sorry for them, but not enough to dull his sharp smile. “You said that Poison Ivy had attacked?”
There’s the hushed sound of fighting, the muffled thud of leather gloves impacting against flesh. “Apparently, she’s working with Brainiac.”
“Sounds like a match made in heaven, or the supervillain equivalent,” he says lightly. Bruce had given him instructions to get up here, but hadn’t told him any more than that. “What do you need me to do?”
“Stay there. Protect the station.” Bruce’s voice is firm and there was a time when Dick would have whined about that, made some crack about being so useful as he sat safe and far away from danger. There was a time when he would have been tempted to turn around now and track Batman down. Luckily, now he knows it’s better to wait for Bruce’s reasons. And then decide if it’s worth tracking him down.
In the background, he hears someone moan, then there’s a sharp slap, and then silence. It’s all too easy to picture the exact violence that would cause those sounds. “Ivy captured Flash. He’s locked in his room right now.”
He waits for a few seconds, but Bruce remains silent. “What happened?”
“We got to her greenhouse.” Of course, it’s always a greenhouse. “She’d already left. We found Flash unconscious and covered in pollen.”
“What does it do?”
There’s a small huff of air, Bruce’s equivalent of a frustrated sigh. “No idea. It’s being analysed by the station now.”
“So, I’m here to baby-sit the Flash?” Dick’s own sigh is, well, a sigh. Highly effective in communicating his lack of love for this idea.
“Exactly,” Bruce replies and most people wouldn’t have caught the change in his tone. Dick, on the other hand, has spent years around Bruce. He hears the extra depth, the extra note of warmth. But even Dick would heed to be observing Bruce carefully to have any idea what it meant.
But he can guess it’s not good. “Mind control?”
“Possibly,” Bruce says evenly, as if it’s just another alternative, and that explains the entire mission. This has nothing to do with actually helping track down Ivy. It has everything to do with making sure a potentially dangerous superhero isn’t left alone with a good variety of weapons.
“Any tips on how to keep an eye on someone who runs faster than human sight?"
"Use the tranquilisers," Bruce says wryly. Dick snorts in amusement, but he's also wondering how far away nearest tranq gun is. Bruce's sense of humour may be dry and cutting, but he means what he says.
"Keep him drugged?" Dick keeps his tone light, makes it the Nightwing equivalent of Robin rolling his eyes.
"Whatever's necessary." Which, okay, explains why it's him who's here instead of someone who could actually catch the Flash, like Superman. Bruce doesn't trust his team-mates to do what's needed, or more correctly, Bruce *knows* his team-mates won't be able to, not without the team falling apart.
Dick decides to take Bruce's confidence in him as a compliment. He's Bruce's potential murderer of choice. "Let me know when you find her."
Bruce grunts in agreement, and Dick knows that most of the League's communications won't be going through the station. If Flash decides to start supporting plants, the information would be too dangerous, the possibility of Flash wreaking havoc on Earth could be deadly.
The comm signal dies off with a hiss of static and Dick knows it's just him, some weapons and an unpredictable Flash floating in space. He's almost tempted to write a country blues song about it.
***
The second story was promised for
seperis and I welshed. I wrote the start and never wrote the rest. Of course, that could have something to do with my unholy hate of Brian and most things Justin (the cute violinist, Ethan, is the one exception to the "things of Justin" rule). As it turns out, I'm far better at writing characters I *like*.According to the author notes, it's set: post-S2, pre-Ethan breakup. Post Ethan signing the in-the-closet contract. (Or, at least, vaguely Justin-still-with-Ethan time period.)
Yeah. I liked Ethan.
***
Justin wraps damp fingers around the metalwork and pushes. The elevator doors open with a soft metallic clatter that seems to echo down the empty hallway. The sound fades into the background of rain falling harshly and Justin's glad he grabbed an umbrella before he left for class. Brian's door looks just as intimidating as ever; scuffed metal and stark bricks; small security keypad almost out of place.
Brian still hasn't changed the code. He's complained about getting robbed, about Justin *letting* him get robbed, but the code's the same. Justin sends out a brief thanks to fate as the door opens. At this time of day, Brian will be in the office, and Justin doesn't want to call and explain that he just wanted to pick up a few CDs he left behind. What he wants is to just get them, with a minimum of fuss, and a minimum of contact with Brian.
Stepping into the apartment is familar in a way that's utterly terrrifying. Everywhere it's Brian's apartment, the same way it was always Brian's apartment. Brian's furniture, Brian's gadgets, Brian's neatness and order. The kitchen bench is clear, as is the kitchen table. There's no dirty dishes in the sink, or glasses left sitting on the coffee table. It's stylish and impressive, but it's not lived in, and for some reason that seems profoundly *Brian*. He realises he's walking lightly, carefully, although there's no need. He doesn't need to pick his way through clothes left lying around, and school books, and scraps of drawing paper. There's nothing here to trip him up.
He strides over to the entertainment unit and crouches in front of it. He forces himself to quickly flick through the CDs, finding his occasional CD breaking up the organisation of Brian's collection. There's a brief flash of memory, of kneeling over the CDs and joking with Brian about their apparent randomness. He can almost hear Brian explaining they were ordered by mood, by purpose. The warmth of Brian's breath on his neck as he defined them into for partying, getting high, being mellow. The promise of Brian's hands on bare skin as he said, for fucking, and he reached over to slip the disc in. The CD player blaring slow primal rhythms, beats that Brian pounded into his skin; that ocean of sound that drowned out Justin's cries.
At the moment, the only sound Justin can actually hear is the rain pelting down outside. Justin shakes his head, clearing it of the ghost sensations. Just the memory of it has already got him half hard, and Justin's knows, gut instinct, that it's not a good idea to remember. Not here, not now. Best to get what he needs and get out, quick. He marks each CD title off his list, and thinks that he'll have to go into the bedroom for the last item.
He was organised enough to make a list of things forgotten. Every time he'd reach for something, and realise it wasn't there, he added it to the list. When he'd run off with Ethan, he'd been full of idea of love, and romance, and adventure, but he'd still felt the vague underlying shock at not going back to Brian's place. It had taken him over a week to stop thinking of Brian's apartment as home. Even after he'd moved all of his stuff to Ethan's, he'd still had that niggling feeling that he'd forgotten things, and that was why he wasn't settled. He'd laughed at himself when he evenutally realised he was just missing Brian. But it still seems strange that the list is so small.
The only thing left is a sketchbook that he'd just forgotten. The last time he'd used it, he was lying in bed and sketching hands, graceful hands with long fingers, the hands of a musician. When he heard Brian come home, he'd stashed it under Brian's mattress. Justin had forgotten about it, until he was talking to Ethan about hands and feet, angles and curves of shadow, and wanted to show Ethan what he meant, but couldn't find the sketches. He's pretty sure it'll still be lying there, the last invisible sign that he ever lived here.
Justin leaves his bag sitting on the couch and makes his way into the bedroom, thinking that the sound of the rain hitting the windows seems miraculously louder in the bedroom. Then, the noise is suddenly quieter. He's halfway around the bed before he realises the obvious. It wasn't the rain, it was the sound of running water from the bathroom. It was the sound of the shower running and then stopping. His stomach lurches because he's moved out, and he's just getting his stuff, but he's not up to meeting Brian's latest trick. Not just yet.
He's torn between rushing to the mattress, or coming back later for the sketchbook, and is still standing there in indecision when the bathroom door opens. It's far worse than he could have expected. He would have preferred to be confronted by Brian's latest trick, even if he was gorgeous, and charming, and the kind of guy that Justin would want the second he saw him. It would have been far better than looking up to see Brian there, still wet from the shower, towel hanging almost indecently low on his hips.
Brian just standing there, smirking, water slowly dripping down his neck.
***
I also have SV wips that I haven't touched in forever, but now that SV's back on my TV, I may be re-inspired to complete them.
