Straight from the workshop:
Oct. 28th, 2007 04:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hmpfHe is back in her bed now. (She is back in his.)
At night she listens to his breath. It is soft and ever so slightly irregular: a human sound, not the harsh machine wheeze she remembers. It fills her with a precarious joy as she lies listening, looking up into dark. She feels that she should be able to see it, catch it and cup it in her hands and feel his life in it; fearing, still fearing that any moment it may stop.
Fear softly settles on her as the night progresses by increments. She turns her head to see his peaceful form under the blankets, tousled hair, rim of an ear outlined by blinds-filtered moonlight. Finds her hand spider-crawling towards him, reading the message of his warmth.
Things he never had to waste conscious thought on take effort now. By early evening speech waylays him. He gets lost on his way through a sentence. Words slur. He says he does not want her to pattern her life around his, but it is her own need, (vital), that takes her to his side as he retires at dusk.
She does not ask if he, too, imagines that he will not wake up. She throws him a lifeline of words and touch: in case.
Despite his weariness, sleep does not come easily. Some visceral memory of the undertow of unconsciousness, perhaps, tells his body to resist. When she senses the dark waves finally drawing near - him slipping, ready to be carried away - she stills her hands, her whispers; waits. Then lies awake for three, four, five hours, watching him sleep.
(She still has not managed to turn him back into an adult entirely. As she watched, waiting, the machinery leached something essential from him. In its place grew a lessness. He aged backwards; became soft, undefined. She fought by recalling him: resolve and precision and curiosity, and bloody-mindedness, yes; hands deft and intent on steering wheel, laptop keys, obsessively lining up pens; fingers wandering, softly, down her midriff, circling her navel.)
***
He is back in her bed now. (She is back in his.)
At night she listens to his breath. It is soft and ever so slightly irregular: a human sound, not the harsh machine wheeze she remembers. It fills her with a precarious joy as she lies listening, looking up into dark. She feels that she should be able to see it, catch it and cup it in her hands and feel his life in it; fearing, still fearing that any moment it may stop.
Fear softly settles on her as the night progresses by increments. She turns her head to see his peaceful form under the blankets, tousled hair, rim of an ear outlined by blinds-filtered moonlight. Finds her hand spider-crawling towards him, reading the message of his warmth.
Part removed.Things he never had to waste conscious thought on take effort now. By early evening speech waylays him. He gets lost on his way through a sentence. Words slur. He says he does not want her to pattern her life around his part removed, but it is her own need, (vital), that takes her to his side as he retires at dusk. Part removed.
She does not ask if he, too, imagines that he will not wake up. She throws him a lifeline of words and touch: in case.
Despite his weariness, sleep does not come easily. Some visceral memory of the undertow of unconsciousness, perhaps, tells his body to resist. When she senses the dark waves finally drawing near - him slipping, ready to be carried away - she stills her hands, her whispers; waits. Then lies awake for three, four, five hours, watching him sleep.
(She still has not managed to turn him back into an adult entirely. As she watched, waiting, the machinery leached something essential from him. In its place grew a lessness. He aged backwards; became soft, undefined. She fought part removed by recalling him: resolve and precision and curiosity, and bloody-mindedness, yes; hands deft and intent on steering wheel, laptop keys, obsessively lining up pens; fingers wandering, softly, down her midriff, circling her navel.)
Gah. Still needs a lot of work.
P.S.: Yes, that's my hands and fingers fetish at work there. :D
At night she listens to his breath. It is soft and ever so slightly irregular: a human sound, not the harsh machine wheeze she remembers. It fills her with a precarious joy as she lies listening, looking up into dark. She feels that she should be able to see it, catch it and cup it in her hands and feel his life in it; fearing, still fearing that any moment it may stop.
Fear softly settles on her as the night progresses by increments. She turns her head to see his peaceful form under the blankets, tousled hair, rim of an ear outlined by blinds-filtered moonlight. Finds her hand spider-crawling towards him, reading the message of his warmth.
Things he never had to waste conscious thought on take effort now. By early evening speech waylays him. He gets lost on his way through a sentence. Words slur. He says he does not want her to pattern her life around his, but it is her own need, (vital), that takes her to his side as he retires at dusk.
She does not ask if he, too, imagines that he will not wake up. She throws him a lifeline of words and touch: in case.
Despite his weariness, sleep does not come easily. Some visceral memory of the undertow of unconsciousness, perhaps, tells his body to resist. When she senses the dark waves finally drawing near - him slipping, ready to be carried away - she stills her hands, her whispers; waits. Then lies awake for three, four, five hours, watching him sleep.
(She still has not managed to turn him back into an adult entirely. As she watched, waiting, the machinery leached something essential from him. In its place grew a lessness. He aged backwards; became soft, undefined. She fought by recalling him: resolve and precision and curiosity, and bloody-mindedness, yes; hands deft and intent on steering wheel, laptop keys, obsessively lining up pens; fingers wandering, softly, down her midriff, circling her navel.)
***
He is back in her bed now. (She is back in his.)
At night she listens to his breath. It is soft and ever so slightly irregular: a human sound, not the harsh machine wheeze she remembers. It fills her with a precarious joy as she lies listening, looking up into dark. She feels that she should be able to see it, catch it and cup it in her hands and feel his life in it; fearing, still fearing that any moment it may stop.
Fear softly settles on her as the night progresses by increments. She turns her head to see his peaceful form under the blankets, tousled hair, rim of an ear outlined by blinds-filtered moonlight. Finds her hand spider-crawling towards him, reading the message of his warmth.
Part removed.Things he never had to waste conscious thought on take effort now. By early evening speech waylays him. He gets lost on his way through a sentence. Words slur. He says he does not want her to pattern her life around his part removed, but it is her own need, (vital), that takes her to his side as he retires at dusk. Part removed.
She does not ask if he, too, imagines that he will not wake up. She throws him a lifeline of words and touch: in case.
Despite his weariness, sleep does not come easily. Some visceral memory of the undertow of unconsciousness, perhaps, tells his body to resist. When she senses the dark waves finally drawing near - him slipping, ready to be carried away - she stills her hands, her whispers; waits. Then lies awake for three, four, five hours, watching him sleep.
(She still has not managed to turn him back into an adult entirely. As she watched, waiting, the machinery leached something essential from him. In its place grew a lessness. He aged backwards; became soft, undefined. She fought part removed by recalling him: resolve and precision and curiosity, and bloody-mindedness, yes; hands deft and intent on steering wheel, laptop keys, obsessively lining up pens; fingers wandering, softly, down her midriff, circling her navel.)
Gah. Still needs a lot of work.
P.S.: Yes, that's my hands and fingers fetish at work there. :D
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 03:58 am (UTC)Oh dear.
Date: 2007-10-28 03:59 am (UTC)*iz deeply twisted*
Re: Oh dear.
Date: 2007-10-28 04:02 am (UTC)Yeah, I do remember.
Date: 2007-10-28 04:21 am (UTC)Then again, I'm only really taking what's already there in canon and taking it slightly more seriously than the writers did, so it's not really me doing this to Sam, at least not entirely, she said, trying to feel less guilty for torturing characters and upsetting readers... Of course, I could pick happier topics to write about... but, err, yeah... well. Obviously I have some kind of issues that drive me to exploring really uncomfortable scenarios in fic, again and again, wherever I go. (What the frell is wrong with me??)
Anyway, this really *is* meant as a mostly positive story. It's still (relatively) early in the recovery process; he will get better. I'm not really going to be covering all of that, but it will at least be on the horizon. (Of course, thanks to MG there's also a frelling brain tumor on the horizon... *is annoyed*... but as official goddess of this story I declare that's still a long way from getting really serious.)
Well, actually I have to admit there will be different ways of reading the story, and one of them *will* be seriously depressing. But the "depressingness" isn't going to be due to Sam's state.
I will have to put a warning in the header for this story when I post it.
Date: 2007-10-28 04:23 am (UTC)And yeah, I do know this is all kind of beside the point.
Date: 2007-10-28 04:37 am (UTC)...
Date: 2007-10-28 01:26 pm (UTC)*shakes head at self*
Re: ...
Date: 2007-10-28 01:28 pm (UTC)I feel like I may have been, though, commenting on the thing as a whole, as opposed to the writing process. I can do that.
Yes, I was.
Date: 2007-10-28 01:37 pm (UTC)Ergh. Talking about this kind of stuff in plain language is fucking difficult. I understand a lot about emotions (I think; I think I wouldn't be writing the kind of stuff I do if I didn't), but most of it is not expressible in plain words; it needs fiction.
Re: Yes, I was.
Date: 2007-10-28 01:41 pm (UTC)I think I understand that, too. :-)
Date: 2007-10-28 02:07 pm (UTC)It all scares me a bit, of course. I hope the fic will live up to your expectations?/need?/... It's strange to be writing something that kind of consciously goes beyond fanfic, in terms of... hmm, emotional weight?/meaning?/... Oh, arrgh.
Of course, angsty fic rather often is about issues of real weight, so, really, this is actually a responsibility we always deal with... it just gets easily lost in the kink. I think *really* good angst fic always transcends the kink, to some degree. Or maybe transcendence of the kink is part of the kink? What exactly *is* the kink in angst? Ooooh, there's another meta essay in there somewhere, I think.
It's funny:
Date: 2007-10-28 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 10:05 am (UTC)It's changed quite a bit since that draft!
Date: 2007-10-28 01:28 pm (UTC)Hey. How are you today?
Re: It's changed quite a bit since that draft!
Date: 2007-10-28 02:48 pm (UTC)(And I'm doing a bit better, thank you. It will take some time before I'm 100% ok, but I'm coping. Thanks for asking.)