DVD commentary track
Pick a passage from my stories, up to 500 words, from anything I've written in this journal, and comment to this post with that selection (including a link to the story being excerpted). I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's
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If Pike didn’t know her so well, he may not have been able to tell the subtle difference between her stillness before she was awake and after. He can see it, though, easily, in the line of her shoulder, so close to him; he can hear it in her breath, barely altered, but obvious enough to him. He wishes he could hide the fact that he’s awake, but he can’t. Not only is it too late; but she’s Illyrian, and the icing on the cake is that she knows him nearly as well as he knows her.
“Chris?” she says, a long moment later. Her voice is heavy and languorous with sleep, and he grits his teeth against the reaction that a beautiful woman in bed with him saying his name in that tone would normally produce.
It’s too late. He responds, nonetheless. “I’m awake.”
She pushes herself up with one hand and turns to face him. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” he says, and sits up-or, rather, tries to. He barely raises his head more than a few inches. “Ow.”
“You have a concussion,” she says. “Don’t move.”
“I have a concussion?” he says. “I don’t remember getting one.”
She smiles. “You won’t. Well, you may later.”
“Huh,” he says. “What happened? Away mission gone bad?”
She nods.
“You know,” he says, “normally, this isn’t how I’d prefer to wake up in bed with a beautiful woman.” He smiles, to show that it was a joke.
She smiles as well, but it’s bittersweet. “That’s the third time you’ve said that.”
He can feel his brows meeting in the middle of his forehead as he frowns. “What?” He clearly doesn’t remember that.
“You were hit on the head down on the planet; it was unclear as to whether you had a concussion or not. Dr. Boyce released you with strict instructions to be woken every hour, and I volunteered.” She gestures to the bathroom that connects their quarters. “I came in to wake you up two hours ago, and you didn’t know what had happened, so I stayed. The second time I woke you up, you didn’t remember the first time, and this-” She gestures elegantly. “This was the third time. I would have taken you to Sickbay before, but you insisted that we try a third time, for proper scientific principles.”
“Oh.” He’s still confused, but it’s starting to make some sense.
“So let’s get you down to Sickbay now,” she says, and swings her legs off the side of the bed.
“Okay,” he says. She helps him sit up slowly, and replace his shirt and boots. He stands, also slowly, also with her help, and they begin what will probably be an interminable trek to Sickbay.
“So how many times have I woken up next to you?” he asks. He can blame it on the concussion later.
She slants a glance at him. “I apologize for joining you on the bunk, but you were quite insistent that it was ridiculous for me to stay in the chair.”
“No apologies needed,” he says. “Three times, then?”
She nods.
“I’m sorry I don’t remember,” he says. He wishes he could, since the last few hours probably marks the only time he’ll ever awaken next to her.
[ third time's a charm]
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One of my rare excursions into present tense (I don't know why I started it that way but I think it works, in that it kind of emphasizes that he can't remember what came before /self-important analysis), this is also a more-clueless-than-usual Pike, in one of the pocket-universes where they sizzle with sexual tension for more years than usual (I tend to want to pitch them into bed ASAP) and Pike, um, pretty much just pines.
I would kind of like to have written this story from One's point of view (or if someone wants to remix it?); I think she is achy, too, and really wants nothing more than to wrap herself around him and Make It All Better.
I don't think he ever remembers but I'm sure he gets another chance to wake up next to her. :-D
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and Pike, um, pretty much just pines.
(there is a deeply bad pun there that I'm not making. instead I will use appropriate icon is appropriate)
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