Fic Commentary: Push

Sep 25, 2010 20:16

Written for the fic commentary meme. Would you like to help me procrastinate request a commentary? You may do so right here



This is the commentary for "Push" which I am writing for np_complete (and indeed, I wrote the fic for her birthday in the first place!) and to hopefully make up for the fact that I see that I never replied to her lovely feedback. :-/ kalleah also requested I comment on this, in the comments for the "Rush" commentary. Can I say "comment" a few more times?

Anyway, "Push" is the sequel to "Rush" which is awkward first-time handjob porn.This here is quite different in tone, being nonawkward first-time p-i-v sex with a fairly dark undercurrent. "Rush" is entirely from Rose's POV, and "Push" is entirely from the Doctor's. I characterise the Doctor in several different ways in my fics, because he's such a multi-layered character, what you want to emphasise in any particular piece is really up to the writer, and here I'm going whole-hog on the darker, emo-er, angstier version.

He has tried a hundred different ways to stop it.
The thing that keeps me coming back to this ship for more is that my interpretation of canon is that the Doctor wants desperately to have a romantic relationship with Rose, and Rose wants the same, and yet... they don't (I don't think they canonically ever consummate, as much as I've written fic where they do). I have a terrible kink for that our-desire-is-a-dangerous-and-unstoppable-force vibe. Because then it leads to loss of control in a character for whom control issues are a major characteristic. Mmph.

He has been distant, even cruel to the furthest point that he could bear it. He channelled all that shame and resentment into those four terrible words: "As opposed to what?" How that had hurt, and not least because it was the truth, or a possible truth. And then there was the Other Woman gambit, almost too perfect for words in conception (and enjoyable while it lasted).LOL look at me trying to explain Girl in the Fireplace.
But that resulted in sorrow once again, and a host of unintended consequences. He should know by now, after a millennium, that unintended consequences are such an inevitability that calling them 'unintended' is really a bit of self-deception.

Yet, the most intended unintended consequence of all is happening. Again. And the only way of stopping it that he hasn't tried, the one that would almost certainly work, is beyond his grasp. Again.My kinks on parade once again. This idea that the keep falling upon each other randomly in dark corners and then pretending like it didn't happen and each of them vowing to themselves that it'll never happen again... I find that just unbearably sexy. As I say, there's a reason why I have yet to grow tired of this ship.

His hands on her waist can feel how she's trembling. This mind of his, coupled with this new body can process every tiny movement she makes, beyond even what she is conscious of herself. He has wondered what it is like for her. Wondered, but not asked, because to ask would be to name. No one knows the power of names better than he, and to unleash that force would be beyond anything this human girl is prepared for. Or so he thinks. I think in a subtle way, there is also an exploration of hard power/soft power in here. That's something that gets talked about in relation to Doctor/Rose a lot, and I can dig it. I've never seen the power issues as squicky because they each hold their own form of power over the other that I think puts them on the same emotional level. I'm writing him here as not yet realising that she can handle his power because she has power of her own.

And even beyond the energy of the words, there's the responsibility. The blame, if he's honest, lies as much with him, if not more. He'd have to ask her: When I hold you to my chest so desperately that I can feel our hearts beating together, how does that feel for you? When I put my lips on yours and take your breath, when I let you feel everything that I am and do not allow you to escape, when I touch you and make you want me, what is it like? He has done this, he is doing this, he will do it again. Loss-of-control!Ten, pushing all my buttons.

She makes a tiny sound, in the back of her throat and that evidence that he's done this, it's exciting beyond walking along the most inviting precipice, taking the most foolish chance, and brushing with the gravest danger. It is all of those things rolled in to one, and he knows that the real danger is not to him but to her. He will devour her, it's a certainty. As usual, he is wrong. Unreliable narrator is unreliable.

He presses up against her, covering as many square inches of her with him as he can. They are in a narrow passageway and any approaching footsteps would loudly echo before the approaching witness would see them. Her hands skim under his jacket, over his shirt, always moving, and moving in time with the rhythm of this kiss. It's hypnotic, and he could let his mind enter completely into this pushing and releasing, if not for the certainty that he would destroy her, as he's destroyed so many others. There would be no going back, not even for the harshest words and most alluring of other dalliances.Okay, we may be approaching overkill at this point. Move it along, the_tenzo .

She grapples with his shirt at his hips, tugging it roughly and not even waiting for there to be room for more than just one finger to touch his flesh underneath. Her thumbs run over his hip bones, her fingers pressing into his back, urging him even closer to her. He knows she wants to feel the biological responses of his own body, to get a hint of how they might match up and fit together. He lifts her slightly, his hands under her rear, feeling every layer of the clothes between them. She turns her head, take a gasping breath and disengages from him. She closes her eyes when they kiss (he does not)Hot or not? I'm going for hot in fiction, not in reality. It's disconcerting.
and in the dim light of this planet he doubts she can even remember the name of, he sees her lashes flutter dark against her pale skin.

She looks up at him, her eyes pleading for something more than just the completion of a chemical circuit. His answer is to find the bottom of her short skirt, and he begins to lift it.I fear I have dressed Rose as Belle in this fic. It's just so much easier to write smut when one or both parties are wearing skirts.
He wants her to look away, but she doesn't. Her thighs feel hot to his cooler touch, and the elastic of her knickers is rough on the pads of his fingers. She lifts her chin and parts her swollen lips for him again, taking a breath as if she's about to speak.

He freezes. His left index-finger, he can feel it so clearly, has crept under the light cotton of her underwear. Her two thumbs circle over his hips slowly and ceaselessly. She could say so many things to him, but all she says is, "I know."

That's what he has seen in her and never addressed. She knows, she always has. How she comes by it, or why, he's been perpetually too afraid to ask. She knows that he will ultimately be her undoing, and she welcomes it. It is beyond love, or runs parallel to it. Love claims victims, and that's something she'll never be.Hey there, Satan Pit callback. I will say that if there was any sexing going on in series 2, I'd place it after that episode. Which I realise is not an original thought, but it does make sense. I think I'd like to maybe explore some of these ideas again soon, though. I see a lot, in various people disdaining this ship or ships in general, that being in love weakens a character, especially female characters. Like the minute they fall in love, they are diminished and become helpless victims. I don't see it like that. So much of the time, Rose and the Doctor are both spurred to action because of love, and not always action to save one another or get back to one another (though there is that) but to just act, be strong, because they know that's what the other would expect of them. Or, er, have sex on a random planet in a castle. Whatevs. Did I mention they're skulking about a castle mid-adventure here?

He leans over her and takes her mouth with his again, and removes the final stop. All of his neurons fire, and there's a swirling together of their two different body temperatures, the hardness and softness of their bodies, the push and the pull of their movements. His fingers ease up further and he's in complete contact with all of her now. She bites lightly on his lower lip as he presses against her, and runs a palm up and over the front of his trousers.

He realises suddenly that they are no longer silent. It starts with a low rumble that they can only feel in each other's chests rather than hear, but then there are groans, gasps for air in between increasingly rough kisses and bites - what is this impulse to add pain to the pleasure, he wonders. Then there are finally the words, as banal as they turn out to be:

"Wait. In there," he says at a whisper, tilting his head towards the doorway she'd just come through when they met up in this hallway. She nods, takes his wrist and removes his hand from her pants, pulling him behind her through the door. He shuts it with a click and it's like the sound of the final tumbler of a lock falling. Pretty sure I have used this image before. I need to get some new tricks. Also, if he's shutting a door, it's not like that sound, it is that sound.

She pulls his jacket downward, dropping it to the floor, then in the next motion pulls his shirt upward. So many times he'd guarded against this by wearing complicated human formalwear, I know I'm not the only one who ascribes to this fanon.
and the next sound is her laughter after realising this herself.

"Can you...?" She points a finger to his tie and the front buttons of his shirt and he finds that he'd do anything to just do this and finally be able to get answers to his questions. As he undoes buttons with one hand and loosens his tie with another, she kneels in front of him. Not a subservient sort of kneeling, never his Rose, but like a detective solving a problem. She unties his trainers and loosens the laces, then draws the zip of his trousers slowly down. His shirt falls to the floor to join his jacket with a soft, luxurious swish. She stands again and looks him unflinchingly in the eye.Okay, a little clothing awkardness.

"Here we are," he says, and it comes out sounding all wrong. He sounds like a lecher; a leering, dirty old man.Well, that is quite an age-difference, Doctor. Another thing critics of the ship bring up that has never really bothered me. But real-life age differences in romance also don't bother me, as long as they are both consenting adults.

"Finally," she says evenly, the edges of her mouth lifting just a little bit.

"Yeah."

She doesn't wait for him to undress her, but takes the bottom of her shirt in both hands and pulls it over her head, tossing it aside. She kicks off her shoes, lets her skirt fall, and stands hands-on-hips, in a bra that doesn't match her knickers and thick thigh-high tights.Let's just recap: thick thigh-high tights. How has it taken me so long to realise that it's really Rose I'm most in this game for? I do like that her bra and knickers don't match. I don't think Rose would care much.

"It's like this," she says, backing towards the bed - the only furniture in the room, the very bed she'd just risen from a little while before. "I'm terrified, and I know you are too. But of all the things in the universe either of us has to be scared of, I know that the one thing I'm not afraid of is you."

"You should be." Now that nothing is being stopped or left unspoken, he says it freely, even as he stands there half undressed.

"I know. I know I should be, and I'm not. Do your worst."

"I always do," he says and his eyes fall shut for just that moment before he takes the sight of her in again fresh and strides towards her, leaving shoes and socks and trousers in his wake. I kind of love how this exchange turned out, especially the Do your worst/I always do bit. And I wanted to write Rose as taking the bull by the horns, more of that she-is-not-a-victim agency that I always see Rose as having.
She holds her arms out to him and he doesn't stop until he's pressing her into the bed and spreading her legs with his own. She arches her back and he feels impossibly enormous, Figuratively enormous, people. I'm not a size-queen.
looming over her like this. A single one of his hands spans her gently rounded little stomach as the other presses down on the duvet and holds him just inches above her.

She wraps her legs around him and the rough fabric of her stockings rubs against his thighs as she grasps and pulls him closer to her. Her hands grip and knead while his hand pulls her bra away hastily. There's no point in any more barriers now, or at least no more barriers that don't add to the experience.Because I wanted her to stay in the thigh-highs. /shameless
He bites down into the flesh of her breast and she curses under her breath, but then contradicts herself with a string of affirmations.

The flood of perception being processed by his brain, and instantly translated in to the chemical tattoo beating in his ears, is like the rudder snapping from a boat in a storm. HOw many metaphors for loss of control and/or point of no return can I pack into this thing?
He's just tossed about with her. Her knickers are off, and her hands are completely lacking in hesitation as she guides him in to her.

If his fingers and palms have grown used to the heat of her skin, his cock surely has not and she is close to burning him. He pulls himself out of her and the change of environment again sends a frenzy of messages along his nerve-endings. Inside her again, he rides the wave of her heat and sees it through before again being released. He does not think of how he must feel to her, or does not think about it until later. I think I frequently write Doctor-POV sex using these sort of scientific terms. That's probably a terrible Whofic cliche.

He sits back on his heels and revels in the feel of her weight on his thighs; of her soft, round rump and her stockinged legs wrapped around his back. And he certainly can't get enough of the dome of her sex,Dome of her sex, yea or nay? "Mound" just make me think of candybars.
modestly hiding where they are joined behind a smattering of soft curls.Let's talk about pubic hair. Or rather, let me tell you about pubic hair: I like it. Is Rose a waxer? I decree that she is not in my fic, so there.

With every stroke that he enters her, she lets out a gasp, and he meets it with one of his own. He's completely unprepared for it when she reaches down with a decisive hand and feels how he pulls away from her slowly and then presses in again. It reminds him of a terrified, brave, foolish girl on a sofa in a council estate.HANDJOBS! I feel that getting hands involved in all stages of sexual activity is generally crank-turning.

With a finger she enters herself along with him, presses and strokes, and he thinks he can even feel the whorl of her fingerprint on him there.Rose has clearly thought long and hard about what exactly she was going to do with him once she got him here.
This has to finish, before he enters a place where this is all he'll ever want to do from now until they day it will inevitably end. He bucks into her, faster, and she grasps his hips in her hands, pulling him when he pushes, angling him a little bit upward and meeting him with her own hips. Once, twice, ten times, twenty, he loses count and her gasps become voiced with little accompanying cries.

She lets her legs fall to the sides and she's spread open before him, a flush rising from her thighs to her stomach to her chest. Her rhythm falters, she spasms from the inside out. Her eyes are closed and her mouth gently open as her tongue darts out involuntarily to lick her bottom lip. He wonders if he should stop what he's doing, but he really can't. He slows at least, just a little bit, and she removes her hands from him and runs them up her own body, brushing at the edge of her pubic hair, skimming upwards over her stomach and then her breasts, where they linger.

He slams into her so hard that he apologises hoarsely, but she smiles, a shy, knowing, satisfied smile.

"Again," she whispers, looking away, as if she can't urge him forward at the same time as watching him comply.

He unsheathes himself and then plunges in again, roughly. This time, he says it: "Again."

She raises a hand to brace herself against the headboard and keep herself from being pushed back across the smooth sheets. He repeats himself a thousand different ways. Again, again, again; a question, a statement, a command, and then just the action. Press and release, pushing and pulling, he's lost to everything else, even time. It all comes crashing down again as he hears himself shout it one last time and his vision irises in so that all he sees is her. For now she's all he wants to see, and to touch, and to know. Just for now.So, hey, slightly angsty porns, what a surprise. I'm actually quite pleased with this and I think I managed to avoid the instruction-manual he-did-she-did-they-did style that I sometimes fall into. It's the opposite of all the "never ever" at the start of this, to go from that to "again again again."

He tried to stop the unstoppable, and failed. Isn't that just like a Time Lord, he thinks, rolling off to the side and panting raggedly. Isn't it just.That's pretty much Ten in a nutshell, isn't it? And to think, I wrote this long before Waters of Mars and all that jazz. Suffice it to say that I was not someone for whom the Time Lord Victorious and the whole manner in which Ten went out was at all surprising. I love me some dark, raging-against-the-inevitable Ten. As you can clearly see.

!memery, !fic commentary

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