WIP Wednesday [2020-09-23]

[thrillingdetectivetales]

WIP Wednesday!



Whatcha workin' on, babes?

Comments

[muccamukk]

I don't have an excerpt yet, since I'm mostly pondering the plot structure of my Eddie Jones is a Demon fic for spook_me. I want to go for a really inhuman feel, and also maybe not completely temporally nailed to one place? But I always want it to feel IC for a very earthy character, and have the relationship ring true enough for the melodramatic bit at the end.

I've got some stuff on Scottish demonology from the 1800s, so I might read that and see if I can dig anything out of it. Put Andy's heritage to use, finally.

Hopefully by next week, I'll have something useful to post.

[scandalinbohemia]

That sounds like a lot of fun! I'm really curious to see how you work in the other-ness feel.

[muccamukk]

Ha. At this point, so am I!

[rilla]

here are the first few paragraphs of my eternal sunshine fic! i'm about 7500 words in now.

It was just another goddamned day, like yesterday, like the day before that. Lew woke up, and his head hurt, although not as much as it often did. He stared at the ceiling, at the white whorls in the paint and the slant of sunlight from the gap between the drapes, and when he was almost too late, he got himself out of bed. The shower took an age to warm up, and he had forgotten to hang his towel up, so it felt damp and smelled musty from the day before. He had no food for breakfast so he stood at the counter and paged through the newspaper without taking in a word as his coffee brewed. Out of habit, he added a splash of whisky, to start the day off right.

He felt better after that, but only barely. It was already a quarter after nine, which meant he was late for work without having even left the house yet. He had lived in Nixon itself for some time close to the works, but then he had moved out to the sticks for no reason at all, so the drive to work felt long and redundant. When he took in his surroundings it was hard to make himself feel any way at all about them. There was a hell of a lot of grass, and part of him thought that perhaps it should make him feel peaceful, but he had never been good at serenity. He rolled down his car window a few inches and winced away from the cold wind as he tipped his cigarette ash out onto the half-frozen road. November was a shitty fucking month and always had been, dark and miserable: he felt more than thought the words, Least I’m not in Bastogne, and then had a sudden unpleasant rush of foxholes and exploding trees and 3am treks with his boots crunching over endless snow. He had thought then that he would never be warm again, but then there had been Austria and – and –

He frowned. There had been Austria, the sun hanging high in the sky, and a lake, its surface like rippling grey glass. The water cold on his skin – he remembered being in the lake fully clothed and for the life of him had no idea how that had happened. Whisky, probably. He fished one-handed in the passenger footwell for a scarf he had glimpsed when he had got into the car. It was checked, green and grey, and when he twisted it around his neck he felt acutely sad and heavy. Maybe he didn’t need a scarf today after all. He threw it back down onto the floor of the car and put his foot down.

[scandalinbohemia]

AAAAHHHH THIS. I'm so excited for this. Knowing what the AU is about it's really nice to see how you've worked in Dick's ghost as this gaping hole that leaves Nix confused and unsettled (but of course he'd blame it on the booze because, well, he was mostly drunk all the time anyway).

Looking forward to the rest of it!

[rilla]

thank you!! so far it's been interesting to write but also kind of hard to figure out what things exactly he would have forgotten - but thankfully the booze is a good excuse for him not to interrogate himself too much, haha. hope you like it when it's done!

[muccamukk]

WOW. You've totally nailed the mood on this one. You can see where his life with Dick was, and it just hurts so much, and hurts more than he can't see it.

[rilla]

thanks so much! it has been a lot of fun to write but also quite tricky because i don't want to make it TOO obvious but i also want to make it clear that something is missing.

Part V trudges on at the speed of glaciers

[scandalinbohemia]

As if woken by the movement, Dick sighed contentedly, tiredly, the way one would after a large meal.

“Thanks, Lew,” he said.

Nix scoffed. “Did you just thank me for jerking you off?”

“I meant it in more general terms, but--Yes.”

“Mm. You're welcome.”

Dick was silent then, and Nix figured from his minute body tension that he meant to say something else, but he was struggling to pick the right words. He pictured Dick’s furrowed brow, the rigid line of his lips as he formed the sentence.

“Sometimes I don't know if--” Dick paused. “All this sitting around. Waiting to be overrun, wiped out. And nothing--,” his voice almost broke there, “nothing feels, not good, I could take that, but--It's just. White. White all over.” He took a shaky breath. “So, yeah. Thank you.”

The terrible truth that Nix was completely, hopelessly out of booze chose that moment to hit him. It suddenly felt like everything had gone dark, a dry, cold kind of emptiness like a desert at night. His mouth like sandpaper, Nix closed his eyes and thought of Paris so hard that he almost tasted onion soup, merlot, bordelaise sauce--and deep under it all, the tangier notes of Dick’s skin and sweat.

“You ever need a refill, you come to me,” he said. “This is no place for ennui.”

Re: Part V trudges on at the speed of glaciers

[rilla]

oh, i love this! their voices are just *chef's kiss* wonderful.

Re: Part V trudges on at the speed of glaciers

[muccamukk]

The terrible truth that Nix was completely, hopelessly out of booze chose that moment to hit him.

I love this line. It's such a great Nix trying to externalise "holy shit my other half is really depressed and only my hand jobs are keeping him in this world" moment.

And Dick's broken confession just kills me.