Fic commentary: No Names, No Regrets
Jan. 28th, 2012 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonelvisRequested by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ms_prue.
I love writing rare pairings, so how could I resist Nine/River when I saw it on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sizeofthatthing? "No names, no regrets" is more of a prompt than a kink, but if that's what the OP wanted, that's what I was going to give them. (I did include a small amount of handcuff play, though, just for the hell of it.)
The hardest part of any rare-pair kinkmeme story -- for me, anyway -- is coming up with a logical reason for the characters to meet. Here, I had an extra problem, because Nine would have to forget who River was by the end of the story, and speaking as an author, there are only so many times you can write a variant on "Oh, I'll just make myself forget about this in the morning" before you get tired of it.
Fortunately, River comes with a built-in solution: hallucinogenic lipstick. Once I had that, I had the story.
The Doctor hunched over the pink, iridescent bar while nursing something equally pink and iridescent and stealing occasional glances at the crowd writhing on the dance floor. A brief flash of bleached-blonde pouf illuminated by laser-light: Rose. A pair of naked, muscular arms waving overhead: Jack. They'd wanted a night out, a proper 51st century night out at a proper 51st century bar, so here he was, stuck playing chaperone.
He supposed he could be out there dancing with them. Neither would object, but that would mean considering whether he'd object to it, and that train of thought only led to a set of admissions he preferred to keep buried deep within.
I needed to establish where we were in the timeline -- late enough that Nine is now aware of his attraction to Rose and is trying to bury it. While I was at it, I figured I'd throw in a hint of pining for the OT3. Why not?
Good thing, then, that another blonde, this one in a shimmering silver slip of a dress, had just sidled up to grab his attention. Curls that put his sixth incarnation's head of hair to shame; a wicked curve to her smile; honey in her voice when she asked the bartender for a shot of lemon hypervodka; a voice more honeyed afterwards, when she whispered in the Doctor's ear.
"Come with me."
"Where?"
She tilted her head towards a poorly lit corridor opposite the dance floor. A glass heart glowing the same shade of iridescent pink as the bar hovered over the corridor entrance.
In my head, River's been collecting Doctors. She's got a spotter's guide, after all, and do you really think she wouldn't try to use it as a scorecard, too?
"My friends …" He gestured to the dance floor. "I shouldn't leave them."
"That's very loyal of you, but it doesn't sound like much fun."
"Who said I'm not having fun? I've got a drink with a little brolly in it. It even opens and closes, see? Don't tell me that's not fun."
Aw, Nine. You're so cute. (And so are wee paper umbrellas.)
"There's fun," the blonde said, lips suddenly close to his ear, "and there's fun."
I accidentally used a line too similar to this in "British Summer Time." Oops.
The Doctor opened the paper parasol, twirled it in his drink. Come to a 51st century bar, get the same sort of proposition people had been making long before bars existed. The blonde was all confidence and control, certain that she could reel him in anytime she wanted.
Because she can.
The trouble was that he thought she might be right, at least tonight, here in this bar with his friends otherwise occupied and him trying to ignore any occupation he might have with them.
The woman's breath was warm on his skin. "You can sit there feeling sorry for yourself all night, or you could come with me and forget your friends are out enjoying themselves without you." A hand grazed the back of his neck, nails scraping lightly, a faint tickling that was unexpectedly tickling through other parts of him as well. "Do something for yourself," she said. "Just once. No strings. Promise."
Through the crowd of dancers, he caught a glimpse of Rose laughing and disappearing deeper among them. Whatever he thought he might have with her, with Jack; whatever they thought they might have with him, it wasn't on their minds tonight, or they'd never have let him mope on a barstool.
"No names," he said.
"No regrets," the woman replied.
This prompt was made for angsty, I'm-feeling-sorry-for-myself one-night stand fic. Thank you, OP.
* * *
She tapped her sequinned evening bag against a sensor outside one of the booths along the corridor, and a door snicked open, then shut behind them. It was a standard-issue sex booth: double bed with pillow notecard, looping gold script reading "sanitised for your protection"; intelligent walls in default dove-grey; well-stocked accessory vending machine in the corner.
The woman drew her finger across the featureless wall at waist height. "Command: ledge, this length, twenty centimetres depth. Centre six-centimetre hook three-quarters of a meter above. Go."
In response, a ledge and hook to her specifications extruded from the wall, rippling into place. The woman tested the strength of the ledge with her hand, nodded in satisfaction, and seated herself, hitching up the bottom of her dress to just below indecent levels, not that decency was likely to matter much soon.
I had a lot of fun sorting out how Sex Booths of the Future!!!11!!! might work. Clearly there's a condom/sex toy vending machine, and why not make it possible to reconfigure the room into your own personal dungeon? Admittedly, I still don't know how you sanitize the bed, but I couldn't resist that joke.
I also spent more than a few minutes sorting out believable dimensions for the seat and hook River builds, because I'm anal like that. You're welcome.
"You've got this all planned out," he said.
And she does, not just because she knows what she wants from him sexually, but also because she has to plan things out properly if she's going to sleep with him before he remembers meeting her.
On a related note, I spent quite a while trying to decide if I was writing dubcon, so I knew whether to warn for it. Could Nine really consent if he didn't know about his future incarnations' relationship with River? I finally decided that I had to approach consent in the context of this story only, where there's no question that Nine consents to sex with River -- he doesn't consent to being drugged afterwards, but that's nonsexual.
I still fret about this a bit, though.
She folded her arms round his neck, drew him in. "Some people might call me 'forward,'" she said, lips now tracing the hard edge of his jawline. "I don't think there's anything wrong with knowing what you want." A light nip on his pulse point. "And you know what you want now too, don't you?"
He did. The Doctor tilted his head to kiss her, tasting waxy lipstick and a faint note of citrus from the hypervodka she'd ordered. She was light and playful with her tongue, making him chase her for kisses, her laughter humming against his lips.
Establishing that River is wearing (normal) lipstick. Also, I like that second sentenceand it gets me out of describing kisses.
She pulled him closer, and with her back tight to the wall, there was nowhere for his hands to go but her cheeks, her neck, her hair twisting helices round his fingers. Another chuckle, low and throaty against his lips, and she drew his hands over her shoulders to push the spaghetti straps down over her biceps, gooseflesh prickling in his wake.
She shrugged out of the slumping dress, now a silvery pool at her waist; tugged at the front of the Doctor's trousers, a finger dancing at the edge of his waistband, rustling the coarse hair at the base of his stomach. He hissed in a breath.
"What's the hurry?" he asked.
"I'm not very good at waiting for things I want." A flick of her thumb, and the top of his jeans came unbuttoned.
The Doctor leaned down, took a nipple in his mouth, swirled his tongue over the peak until it hardened, traced ever-larger rings round it while the woman moaned, low and throaty. Tasting musky soap, floral vanilla perfume, the salt and acid of sweat on her breasts and at the quarter-moon curve of her waistline. She scraped her nails across his scalp, digging her thumbs into the muscles at the back of his neck.
There are several deliberate mentions of what River tastes like specifically so that it feels in-character when Nine notices something different about the way River tastes at the end of the story.
She wasn't wearing knickers, which didn't come as much of a surprise. But save her increasingly rapid breathing, she was quiet as he knelt and kissed and nipped his way along her inner thighs, right up to the moment when his tongue swept an ellipse round her centre.
"Yes," she hissed, shifting herself forwards to give the Doctor better access. "All I wanted from you was a good, hard fuck, but this will do — oh …"
After that, she wasn't very quiet.
This is me going, "It would be really sexy if River's totally quiet and absorbed in Nine getting ready to go down on her ... oh, fuck, this is the same woman who said she's a screamer. Better fix that."
He didn't let her come. She was gasping for air, moaning so loudly now the Doctor wondered whether the booth's soundproofing would hold. Her heels were pressed deep into his back, her thighs taut around his head as she squeezed her legs together, desperate for climax. But she'd dragged him into this booth, she'd been in charge for long enough; time to turn the tables, see how far he could push her. She didn't seem to object.
He finally drew back with a flutter of his tongue against her clit and a kiss on her inner thigh. His cock was aching by now; he'd freed himself from his jeans, but the woman had said she'd wanted a good, hard fuck, and he planned to give it to her.
"You're not stopping there," she said, panting.
"Could do," he replied. "Why, you want something more?"
Nine, you cheeky bastard.
She smiled. "Oh, shut up and pass me my bag." She extracted a silvery pair of handcuffs — military grade, if he wasn't mistaken; she was obviously serious about her gear — snapped them across her wrists, and settled her arms above her head, supported by the hook.
I really loved the idea of River knowing she wants to be restrained, but also knowing she can't necessarily ask the Doctor for that -- they aren't at that point in their relationship yet. Having already given her so much control over the situation, it felt logical to me that she'd have planned something that hit her own personal kinks yet wouldn't interfere with the Doctor's enjoyment, either.
"Now," she said, coy and breathy, "you said there might be something more?"
She locked her ankles at the small of his back and sighed with satisfaction as he entered her. Hemmed in by the woman's body, the Doctor had little room to thrust, but soon realised that shallow jerks of his hips might be for the best now anyway, if he wanted this to last more than a minute. It had been so long since he'd last done this — well, with someone else, anyway — and even without use of her arms, his current partner displayed extraordinary talent in skills as simple as artfully arching her back to rub her breasts across his chest; swiping her tongue against his bottom lip; grazing her mouth over his collarbone, warming his skin.
She ground against him in a circle, and glancing upwards, he saw that she'd grabbed onto the hook for leverage. Somehow, she'd got louder, too, heroically so, in a way he'd might have found suspicious if it weren't for the tense muscles and eyes squeezed shut that gave her away. The Doctor slid one hand up the woman's curves, palm resting over her breast, forefinger and thumb squeezing one pink nipple and drawing it into his mouth for a lick and a bite —
— and the woman came with wild, gasping cries, the jingling of her cuffs overhead as she lost her grip on the hook and dropped her arms round the Doctor's neck. "More," she begged him, "more," and relaxed the grip of her legs so he could really start to move now. Smooth, full strokes, faster and so much more satisfying than before, tension vibrating through him, humming in his head.
The humming escalated into a buzz, spreading through his torso, his thighs, prickling along his cock like electricity. A little faster: yes, that was it, that was the rhythm he craved, almost unbearably close to the edge. Another hard thrust, then another, just a few more would be all it took — and then the woman screamed again, her chest heaving against him. Gentle pulses inside of her rippled across his cock, waves in time with his own motions.
His head burst with a dizzying pleasure, and the woman sighed softly in his ear.
Hoo boy, those last paragraphs were fun to write. I like a certain rhythm to my sex scenes (right now, I can tellprofrobert is thinking of at least three horrible jokes he can make about that statement), and I'm really pleased with the way these paragraphs flow.
It took a few moments to come back to himself. Besides, the woman was warm and comfortable, her kisses still sweet on his lips; no need to separate until they were both ready.
Eventually, she withdrew her arms and asked for her bag again. While the Doctor tucked himself away and sat on the bed to rest, the woman uncuffed herself, slid the shimmering dress back over her arms, freshened her lipstick.
Freshened her -3 LIPSTICK OF HALLUCINOGENIC FORGETFULNESS.
"No regrets, then, sweetie?" she asked, leaning over him. He fell back on the bed, drew her down for a kiss.
"Definitely not." A different taste on her lips now, a high note above the wax, faintly bitter and alkaline.
Not unlike hallucinogenic mushrooms *cough*
The ceiling lamp fuzzed at the edges, diffracted into rotating prisms. He opened his mouth, sounds not even dying in his throat, just deciding that they had better places to be. Right now, that seemed to be playing a cheerful gavotte in his head.
The woman stroked his cheek, a sympathetic look on her face. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. But we did say 'no names,' too."
The last thing he remembered, right before the booth door snicked open and the prisms completely overtook him with their merry dance, was the woman's voice, finishing her sentence.
"At least for now."
Aw, she really does love him, even if she's leaving him drugged out of his gourd.
ms_prue.I love writing rare pairings, so how could I resist Nine/River when I saw it on
sizeofthatthing? "No names, no regrets" is more of a prompt than a kink, but if that's what the OP wanted, that's what I was going to give them. (I did include a small amount of handcuff play, though, just for the hell of it.)The hardest part of any rare-pair kinkmeme story -- for me, anyway -- is coming up with a logical reason for the characters to meet. Here, I had an extra problem, because Nine would have to forget who River was by the end of the story, and speaking as an author, there are only so many times you can write a variant on "Oh, I'll just make myself forget about this in the morning" before you get tired of it.
Fortunately, River comes with a built-in solution: hallucinogenic lipstick. Once I had that, I had the story.
The Doctor hunched over the pink, iridescent bar while nursing something equally pink and iridescent and stealing occasional glances at the crowd writhing on the dance floor. A brief flash of bleached-blonde pouf illuminated by laser-light: Rose. A pair of naked, muscular arms waving overhead: Jack. They'd wanted a night out, a proper 51st century night out at a proper 51st century bar, so here he was, stuck playing chaperone.
He supposed he could be out there dancing with them. Neither would object, but that would mean considering whether he'd object to it, and that train of thought only led to a set of admissions he preferred to keep buried deep within.
I needed to establish where we were in the timeline -- late enough that Nine is now aware of his attraction to Rose and is trying to bury it. While I was at it, I figured I'd throw in a hint of pining for the OT3. Why not?
Good thing, then, that another blonde, this one in a shimmering silver slip of a dress, had just sidled up to grab his attention. Curls that put his sixth incarnation's head of hair to shame; a wicked curve to her smile; honey in her voice when she asked the bartender for a shot of lemon hypervodka; a voice more honeyed afterwards, when she whispered in the Doctor's ear.
"Come with me."
"Where?"
She tilted her head towards a poorly lit corridor opposite the dance floor. A glass heart glowing the same shade of iridescent pink as the bar hovered over the corridor entrance.
In my head, River's been collecting Doctors. She's got a spotter's guide, after all, and do you really think she wouldn't try to use it as a scorecard, too?
"My friends …" He gestured to the dance floor. "I shouldn't leave them."
"That's very loyal of you, but it doesn't sound like much fun."
"Who said I'm not having fun? I've got a drink with a little brolly in it. It even opens and closes, see? Don't tell me that's not fun."
Aw, Nine. You're so cute. (And so are wee paper umbrellas.)
"There's fun," the blonde said, lips suddenly close to his ear, "and there's fun."
I accidentally used a line too similar to this in "British Summer Time." Oops.
The Doctor opened the paper parasol, twirled it in his drink. Come to a 51st century bar, get the same sort of proposition people had been making long before bars existed. The blonde was all confidence and control, certain that she could reel him in anytime she wanted.
Because she can.
The trouble was that he thought she might be right, at least tonight, here in this bar with his friends otherwise occupied and him trying to ignore any occupation he might have with them.
The woman's breath was warm on his skin. "You can sit there feeling sorry for yourself all night, or you could come with me and forget your friends are out enjoying themselves without you." A hand grazed the back of his neck, nails scraping lightly, a faint tickling that was unexpectedly tickling through other parts of him as well. "Do something for yourself," she said. "Just once. No strings. Promise."
Through the crowd of dancers, he caught a glimpse of Rose laughing and disappearing deeper among them. Whatever he thought he might have with her, with Jack; whatever they thought they might have with him, it wasn't on their minds tonight, or they'd never have let him mope on a barstool.
"No names," he said.
"No regrets," the woman replied.
This prompt was made for angsty, I'm-feeling-sorry-for-myself one-night stand fic. Thank you, OP.
She tapped her sequinned evening bag against a sensor outside one of the booths along the corridor, and a door snicked open, then shut behind them. It was a standard-issue sex booth: double bed with pillow notecard, looping gold script reading "sanitised for your protection"; intelligent walls in default dove-grey; well-stocked accessory vending machine in the corner.
The woman drew her finger across the featureless wall at waist height. "Command: ledge, this length, twenty centimetres depth. Centre six-centimetre hook three-quarters of a meter above. Go."
In response, a ledge and hook to her specifications extruded from the wall, rippling into place. The woman tested the strength of the ledge with her hand, nodded in satisfaction, and seated herself, hitching up the bottom of her dress to just below indecent levels, not that decency was likely to matter much soon.
I had a lot of fun sorting out how Sex Booths of the Future!!!11!!! might work. Clearly there's a condom/sex toy vending machine, and why not make it possible to reconfigure the room into your own personal dungeon? Admittedly, I still don't know how you sanitize the bed, but I couldn't resist that joke.
I also spent more than a few minutes sorting out believable dimensions for the seat and hook River builds, because I'm anal like that. You're welcome.
"You've got this all planned out," he said.
And she does, not just because she knows what she wants from him sexually, but also because she has to plan things out properly if she's going to sleep with him before he remembers meeting her.
On a related note, I spent quite a while trying to decide if I was writing dubcon, so I knew whether to warn for it. Could Nine really consent if he didn't know about his future incarnations' relationship with River? I finally decided that I had to approach consent in the context of this story only, where there's no question that Nine consents to sex with River -- he doesn't consent to being drugged afterwards, but that's nonsexual.
I still fret about this a bit, though.
She folded her arms round his neck, drew him in. "Some people might call me 'forward,'" she said, lips now tracing the hard edge of his jawline. "I don't think there's anything wrong with knowing what you want." A light nip on his pulse point. "And you know what you want now too, don't you?"
He did. The Doctor tilted his head to kiss her, tasting waxy lipstick and a faint note of citrus from the hypervodka she'd ordered. She was light and playful with her tongue, making him chase her for kisses, her laughter humming against his lips.
Establishing that River is wearing (normal) lipstick. Also, I like that second sentence
She pulled him closer, and with her back tight to the wall, there was nowhere for his hands to go but her cheeks, her neck, her hair twisting helices round his fingers. Another chuckle, low and throaty against his lips, and she drew his hands over her shoulders to push the spaghetti straps down over her biceps, gooseflesh prickling in his wake.
She shrugged out of the slumping dress, now a silvery pool at her waist; tugged at the front of the Doctor's trousers, a finger dancing at the edge of his waistband, rustling the coarse hair at the base of his stomach. He hissed in a breath.
"What's the hurry?" he asked.
"I'm not very good at waiting for things I want." A flick of her thumb, and the top of his jeans came unbuttoned.
The Doctor leaned down, took a nipple in his mouth, swirled his tongue over the peak until it hardened, traced ever-larger rings round it while the woman moaned, low and throaty. Tasting musky soap, floral vanilla perfume, the salt and acid of sweat on her breasts and at the quarter-moon curve of her waistline. She scraped her nails across his scalp, digging her thumbs into the muscles at the back of his neck.
There are several deliberate mentions of what River tastes like specifically so that it feels in-character when Nine notices something different about the way River tastes at the end of the story.
She wasn't wearing knickers, which didn't come as much of a surprise. But save her increasingly rapid breathing, she was quiet as he knelt and kissed and nipped his way along her inner thighs, right up to the moment when his tongue swept an ellipse round her centre.
"Yes," she hissed, shifting herself forwards to give the Doctor better access. "All I wanted from you was a good, hard fuck, but this will do — oh …"
After that, she wasn't very quiet.
This is me going, "It would be really sexy if River's totally quiet and absorbed in Nine getting ready to go down on her ... oh, fuck, this is the same woman who said she's a screamer. Better fix that."
He didn't let her come. She was gasping for air, moaning so loudly now the Doctor wondered whether the booth's soundproofing would hold. Her heels were pressed deep into his back, her thighs taut around his head as she squeezed her legs together, desperate for climax. But she'd dragged him into this booth, she'd been in charge for long enough; time to turn the tables, see how far he could push her. She didn't seem to object.
He finally drew back with a flutter of his tongue against her clit and a kiss on her inner thigh. His cock was aching by now; he'd freed himself from his jeans, but the woman had said she'd wanted a good, hard fuck, and he planned to give it to her.
"You're not stopping there," she said, panting.
"Could do," he replied. "Why, you want something more?"
Nine, you cheeky bastard.
She smiled. "Oh, shut up and pass me my bag." She extracted a silvery pair of handcuffs — military grade, if he wasn't mistaken; she was obviously serious about her gear — snapped them across her wrists, and settled her arms above her head, supported by the hook.
I really loved the idea of River knowing she wants to be restrained, but also knowing she can't necessarily ask the Doctor for that -- they aren't at that point in their relationship yet. Having already given her so much control over the situation, it felt logical to me that she'd have planned something that hit her own personal kinks yet wouldn't interfere with the Doctor's enjoyment, either.
"Now," she said, coy and breathy, "you said there might be something more?"
She locked her ankles at the small of his back and sighed with satisfaction as he entered her. Hemmed in by the woman's body, the Doctor had little room to thrust, but soon realised that shallow jerks of his hips might be for the best now anyway, if he wanted this to last more than a minute. It had been so long since he'd last done this — well, with someone else, anyway — and even without use of her arms, his current partner displayed extraordinary talent in skills as simple as artfully arching her back to rub her breasts across his chest; swiping her tongue against his bottom lip; grazing her mouth over his collarbone, warming his skin.
She ground against him in a circle, and glancing upwards, he saw that she'd grabbed onto the hook for leverage. Somehow, she'd got louder, too, heroically so, in a way he'd might have found suspicious if it weren't for the tense muscles and eyes squeezed shut that gave her away. The Doctor slid one hand up the woman's curves, palm resting over her breast, forefinger and thumb squeezing one pink nipple and drawing it into his mouth for a lick and a bite —
— and the woman came with wild, gasping cries, the jingling of her cuffs overhead as she lost her grip on the hook and dropped her arms round the Doctor's neck. "More," she begged him, "more," and relaxed the grip of her legs so he could really start to move now. Smooth, full strokes, faster and so much more satisfying than before, tension vibrating through him, humming in his head.
The humming escalated into a buzz, spreading through his torso, his thighs, prickling along his cock like electricity. A little faster: yes, that was it, that was the rhythm he craved, almost unbearably close to the edge. Another hard thrust, then another, just a few more would be all it took — and then the woman screamed again, her chest heaving against him. Gentle pulses inside of her rippled across his cock, waves in time with his own motions.
His head burst with a dizzying pleasure, and the woman sighed softly in his ear.
Hoo boy, those last paragraphs were fun to write. I like a certain rhythm to my sex scenes (right now, I can tell
profrobert is thinking of at least three horrible jokes he can make about that statement), and I'm really pleased with the way these paragraphs flow.It took a few moments to come back to himself. Besides, the woman was warm and comfortable, her kisses still sweet on his lips; no need to separate until they were both ready.
Eventually, she withdrew her arms and asked for her bag again. While the Doctor tucked himself away and sat on the bed to rest, the woman uncuffed herself, slid the shimmering dress back over her arms, freshened her lipstick.
Freshened her -3 LIPSTICK OF HALLUCINOGENIC FORGETFULNESS.
"No regrets, then, sweetie?" she asked, leaning over him. He fell back on the bed, drew her down for a kiss.
"Definitely not." A different taste on her lips now, a high note above the wax, faintly bitter and alkaline.
Not unlike hallucinogenic mushrooms *cough*
The ceiling lamp fuzzed at the edges, diffracted into rotating prisms. He opened his mouth, sounds not even dying in his throat, just deciding that they had better places to be. Right now, that seemed to be playing a cheerful gavotte in his head.
The woman stroked his cheek, a sympathetic look on her face. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. But we did say 'no names,' too."
The last thing he remembered, right before the booth door snicked open and the prisms completely overtook him with their merry dance, was the woman's voice, finishing her sentence.
"At least for now."
Aw, she really does love him, even if she's leaving him drugged out of his gourd.