opps! it's a slash Nano novel I accidentally started writing
Yeah, I'm doing Nanowrimo this year and I had this whole plan to write something cool and fun and safe for my daughter who's nine to read when I was finished with it, but I made this terrible mistake. Okay, in regular writing, this isn't really considered a mistake, but in the cutthroat sport of speed writing that is Nanowrimo, it's the biggest mistake. I got to attached. I started trying to write a perfect novel and not make mistakes and I ground to a halt at about 8,500 words. And I've stayed there for abou three days. I was dying, so I decided to chuck it all (I can work on it later, when I'm slow writing) and start anew with a funny little slash story I just thought of when I should have been making good wholesome story for my kid.
After one day working on it, I'm at 2,613 words and it's flowing so well. See, slash fixes everything.
So, I'm figuring I might as well share this bad boy here, since my dear daughter isn't reading it (at least not for like ten years). All comments welcomed and thrown on the fire of my creative steam engine to get to 50,000.
Title: Let's Call It a Rebuilding Year
Rating: PG now, NC-17 eventually
Word Count: 2,613
Let's Call It a Rebuilding Year
Dale checked the apartment number on the notebook page one more time and knocked on the door. There was a muffled shout that might have been "Ten more minutes, Mom," or might have been something else, Dale couldn't tell for sure. A few more random bangs and shuffling noises and the door opened just a few inches (as far as the security chain would allow).
"Who is it?" a seriously cranky voice asked and Dale was starting to regret choosing to look up Thomas Prentice of 336 Cherry Tree Lane, Apartment 4E first thing in the morning. The man had obviously been asleep.
"Hi, I'm uh- Dale Chang," he responded, trying to imagine the rest of the half face he could see through the ajarness of the door.
"What do you want, Dale Chang?"
"Uh- well I- would it be possible for you to open the door the rest of the way. I'd like to be able to see who I'm talking to."
"You selling something? I'm broke and my credit's crap!" the voice of the half face told he matter-of-factly.
"No, I- I think I need your help," Dale explained. "Please," he added.
"Help as in feed the starving kids in Africa? 'Cause I already sponsor three of them little tikes, but I can't really afford a big family, you know."
"No, really, money's not involved at all."
"Right," the voice said long and low and disbelieving, but the door was pushed shut and the noise of the chain being undone came through and then the door popped open to reveal a sleepy looking guy of about thirty or so who was wearing nothing but a pair of Santa Claus boxers (it was April) and a doubtful facial expression. "So, what's it involve, if not money?"
Dale couldn't help but notice that the guy had these really wide shoulders and a lean body that tapered down to slender hips (which the boxers were sort of hanging low on, revealing his almost too well defined hip bones and the top of that soft hollow inside them). And, okay, Dale filed his strong reaction to that away for analysis later because maybe he was kind of bisexual, which wasn't in the notebook at all. The notebook. Dale remembered that he had the notebook in his hand and that he was here for a reason other than just to gawk at this guy's navel.
Dale dragged his eyes up to the man's face (which was looking kind of smirky and smug) to say, "Oh- I- do you recognize me?"
He considered Dale a moment, clicking his tongue against his teeth as he did. Then, he squinted up one eye, made a strange puckered face, and said (rather definitively), "No." A moment later, he'd stepped back inside and closed the door.
Dale checked the address again- no, it was right. He knocked again and raised his voice to be heard through the door. "Uh- You are Thomas Prentice, right?"
The door opened up again. This time the guy had a carton of milk in his hand and a telltale white stripe on his upper lip. "Dude, you really need to get to your point because I'm like one more knock away from calling the cops."
"Look, I'm sorry. I- I'm sorry. Please just give me like two minutes, okay."
"You've had like six minutes already. Make it snappy."
"Right. Snappy- right." Dale took a breath and launched into it. "I had this brain cancer- a a tumor, and I have this notebook because I had the surgery and- it was brain surgery- and it saved my life, but I knew I'd lose all this memory or all my memory, and I did, which is kind of the suck, but the point is, I knew it was coming, so I wrote it all down- at least the stuff I thought was important- good and bad stuff, which I'm really kind of proud of that fact that I wrote down the crappy stuff instead of leaving myself in blissful ignorance of the time I actually did take a test in my underwear," Dale paused for a breath and glanced down at Thomas Prentice's St. Nicks before going on. "And so I've got this list- this biography of this person I used to be and all and I've also got this list of places and dates and people- especially people- that I'm working my way down to like re-meet all these people who I knew or know- knew, I guess- that feels more right as the way to say it- and I have notes about them- like the things I've done with them and what was way cool or, conversely, way bad about them and my former relationship with them, so I can be, you know, not a complete imbecile when I talk to them the first time, and you're on that list- see," he held the notebook up for Prentice to take a quick look. "But, there's no stories about you or commentary on who you even are to me, just your name and address, so I'm completely in the dark here and sounding like the imbecile I didn't want to sound like and so, I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me where we know each other from so I can cross you off the list and move on to the next person."
Prentice looked kind of startled as he asked, "Seriously? Brain tumor?"
"Uh- yeah." Dale nodded, resigned. It had been really interesting to find out all about this guy he was. He found that, for the most part, he like that guy and most of his choices- and that had to be some kind of miracle (maybe as much of one as him living through the surgery and not being mentally deficient, much- he did have this tendency to string all his sentences together and run on and on and on, but his buddy Rico had assured him that that was a trait he'd had before, as well).
"Huh. Come on in." Prentice left the door open and walked back into the apartment and across to the small kitchenette. "Want some coffee?" he offered as Dale stepped inside the cluttered efficiency. It was small. It was messy. It smelled strange (maybe garlic and vanilla and some third thing that was candy sweet, but Dale couldn't place). Dale liked it.
"No, I can't- I've got this whole blood pressure thing to deal with since the surgery- I'm still kind of healing. He took of his Mets cap and scratched his hand over the short hairs on his head. There was a thin line of puckered scar right over the center of his skull. It still itched pretty often.
"Wow!" Prentice strolled over from where he'd just been measuring out coffee grounds (more dumping sloppily from the can into the filter, than measuring, really) to come and look at the scar. "They really cut you up, huh?"
"Yeah, but I'm here. They even think they got it all." Dale put his cap back on. He didn't really mind most people seeing his scar, but, well he still had that fluttery feeling low in his belly from the lack of clothing on the man standing next to him and- it made him feel self-conscious about the scar.
"Right. So, no coffee. I think I've got tea in the back of here somewhere." He finished getting the coffee maker set up and then started pulling dry good from the cupboard and stacking the packages higgly-piggly on the counter.
Dale almost let himself worry that it would all fall over, but that officially counted as pettily shit and he'd printed that in big block letters on the first page of the notebook before the surgery, like it was the most important thing to relearn, "FORGET THE PITTILY SHIT AND LIVE YOUR LIFE." It was sort of his mantra now.
"You eat?" Prentice was putting water in a pot and shouting over the sound of it hard shushing against the metal.
"Oh, yes. I've got a list for that, too. All these foods I like- or liked, some of them are kind of disgusting. This morning was poached egg and salmon. It was fine, but I doubt that I really liked fish with breakfast before the surgery. I'm not sure if maybe I didn't decide to put nasty stuff on that list to see how much I would take it."
"You think you punked yourself?"
"Yeah, but I'll never know for sure."
"Okay, that's it- this is officially the freakiest conversation I've ever had. And what is it that is so damned interesting about my stomach?"
"Oh." Dale had forgotten not to stare- they called that a washboard didn't they? "Sorry. You're just uh- never mind."
"I'm just-" He made a rolling sort of motion with his one hand to indicate that Dale really needed to elaborate.
"Uh-" Dale struggled a moment before just admitting, "naked."
"Ah." He shrugged. "I can remedy that." Then he walked over to the dresser that was next to the opened up sofa bed and started pulling clothes out from the drawers. "Watch the water, will you?" he called over his shoulder.
It took a minute for Dale to figure out what he meant about the water, but then he got it and went to the kitchenette to watch the pot of tea water. He could hear the other man moving around and the quiet susurrations of fabric against skin. He did not look back at him, though he really wanted to.
"How we doing?" Prentice asked from close behind Dale's shoulder, asking him jump.
"It never boiled," Dale said, recovering.
"Cute. You don't mind if I eat, right?" He pulled out some bread and popped it into the toaster. "So, brain surgery and no memory? You seem like you're doing well. You're not visibly stupid, at least. How long ago was it?"
"Four and a half months. I'm not invisibly stupid either. My doctors kind of don't know how I'm doing so well. It's pretty cool. Are you sure you don't remember me? I'd really like to know. Hey look, the water's boiling."
"Just when you looked away, funny that." He took the butter out of the fridge and poured a cup of tea for Dale. "Sorry, I really don't. I think I'd remember. Maybe you had a secret crush on me- you ever been to Benny's on the Beach? I work there."
Dale took his tea. He didn't know if he wanted anything in it- he hadn't had tea yet- and it wasn't in the notebook. Most people tended to give him lemonade (the notebook said he was strangely obsessed with lemonade) of course, all of the people he'd re-met before remembered him. He took a sip (it was kind of plain- maybe some sugar?) before reminding Prentice that, "Uh- don't remember if I've been there, amnesia boy over here." He pointed to his head.
"Right, sorry." He took his toast and coffee over to the small table. Dale followed, sitting in the only other chair with his tea. "I bartend at Benny's. I do get a few guys macking on me when they've had a few."
"I don't know. Maybe. I don't really think I'd put you on the list just for s crush, you know. Also, I don't know if I really gay. I, uh, didn't so much put anything about it in the notebook and I do think I would put that in as a basic fact."
"Hmm, maybe. Or maybe you weren't out and figured it was better not to have it down in black and white for your family to read if you didn't- you know, didn't-"
"Hey, maybe. That would what- make you some kind of code for my own gayness- seeing you, my secret crush would magically make me realize that I like guys?"
"Except maybe you don't, in which case-"
"No, actually, I might- I kind of had this mini-epiphany about it when I saw you. I'm pretty sure sober guys hit on at work, too, don't they?"
"Well, some," he admitted.
"Still don't think I'd put you on the list instead of say, an old boyfriend, you know."
"Maybe there aren't any, or any you'd want to see again, at any rate."
"Well, that's depressing. I did put three old girlfriends in the notebook, too, so-" Dale waggled his head to express something akin to that doesn't compute.
"So," Prentice paused to take a huge bite of his toast and wash it down with half his coffee. "You don't have any evidence of your hypothetical gayness, but you had that- what did you call it? Mini-epiphany? Want to maybe test the theory?"
"Umm- how?" Dale asked, really hoping that he was suggesting something dirty, but not all that hopeful that he was. He'd asked Dale in, but he hadn't wanted to be stared at. If Dale didn’t have his little mystery to solve about why Prentice was in the notebook, he would have run from embarrassment a while ago.
Prentice put down his coffee, leaned right over close to Dale and said, "Kiss me."
Dale didn't have to be asked twice. He moved forward the last two inches between them and pressed his mouth to Prenti- Tom's. He should call him Tom if he was kissing him. And, it wasn't actually his first kiss, but Dale didn't really remember any of the others he'd ever had, so it was still a revelation. Tom's mouth was soft and welcoming and it made Dale give this unintentional little moan with how he felt the contact all the way through his body. Tom smoothed one of his hands over Dale's cheek and around to the back of his neck, while his tongue stroked over Dale's lower lip like a key in a lock, getting him to open up before he could even think about it (although, if he'd thought about it, he wouldn't have refused- not in this lifetime- he didn't know about his last one). Tom's hot tongue slicked against his own and yeah- that was just the thing, but a second later, Tom was pulling away and breaking the kiss. Dale felt just the littlest bit bereft.
"Guess that answers that question. Thanks for playing," Dale teased, going back to his coffee.
"Uh- yeah, right." Dale watched that mouth- lips against the smooth white of the greasy spoon style coffee mug (stains and chips included) and felt jealous.
"So, listen, this has been interesting," Tom said as he was picking up his breakfast dishes and bringing them back to the kitchenette, "But I have to go to work, so-"
"Oh- right. I guess that means I should, uh go." Dale stood up, brought his still mostly tea mug to the sink and they walked to the door.
"Thanks for, thanks for listening and, you know, kissing me." Dale cringed because he'd just thanked the guy for kissing him. That had to be really wrong.
"Sure thing. My pleasure." Tom smiled crookedly at him as he opened the door. "Oh and, good luck on the whole finding everything on your life list thing."
"Thanks. I'll see you." Dale stepped out the door into the hallway and turned around to say one thing more (he didn't know what, but it was going to be something really witty and smooth that would have gotten him kissed again) but Tom had already closed the door. Oh well, he still had three more people he wanted to re-meet that day, so he walked over and rang for the elevator.
After one day working on it, I'm at 2,613 words and it's flowing so well. See, slash fixes everything.
So, I'm figuring I might as well share this bad boy here, since my dear daughter isn't reading it (at least not for like ten years). All comments welcomed and thrown on the fire of my creative steam engine to get to 50,000.
Title: Let's Call It a Rebuilding Year
Rating: PG now, NC-17 eventually
Word Count: 2,613
Let's Call It a Rebuilding Year
Dale checked the apartment number on the notebook page one more time and knocked on the door. There was a muffled shout that might have been "Ten more minutes, Mom," or might have been something else, Dale couldn't tell for sure. A few more random bangs and shuffling noises and the door opened just a few inches (as far as the security chain would allow).
"Who is it?" a seriously cranky voice asked and Dale was starting to regret choosing to look up Thomas Prentice of 336 Cherry Tree Lane, Apartment 4E first thing in the morning. The man had obviously been asleep.
"Hi, I'm uh- Dale Chang," he responded, trying to imagine the rest of the half face he could see through the ajarness of the door.
"What do you want, Dale Chang?"
"Uh- well I- would it be possible for you to open the door the rest of the way. I'd like to be able to see who I'm talking to."
"You selling something? I'm broke and my credit's crap!" the voice of the half face told he matter-of-factly.
"No, I- I think I need your help," Dale explained. "Please," he added.
"Help as in feed the starving kids in Africa? 'Cause I already sponsor three of them little tikes, but I can't really afford a big family, you know."
"No, really, money's not involved at all."
"Right," the voice said long and low and disbelieving, but the door was pushed shut and the noise of the chain being undone came through and then the door popped open to reveal a sleepy looking guy of about thirty or so who was wearing nothing but a pair of Santa Claus boxers (it was April) and a doubtful facial expression. "So, what's it involve, if not money?"
Dale couldn't help but notice that the guy had these really wide shoulders and a lean body that tapered down to slender hips (which the boxers were sort of hanging low on, revealing his almost too well defined hip bones and the top of that soft hollow inside them). And, okay, Dale filed his strong reaction to that away for analysis later because maybe he was kind of bisexual, which wasn't in the notebook at all. The notebook. Dale remembered that he had the notebook in his hand and that he was here for a reason other than just to gawk at this guy's navel.
Dale dragged his eyes up to the man's face (which was looking kind of smirky and smug) to say, "Oh- I- do you recognize me?"
He considered Dale a moment, clicking his tongue against his teeth as he did. Then, he squinted up one eye, made a strange puckered face, and said (rather definitively), "No." A moment later, he'd stepped back inside and closed the door.
Dale checked the address again- no, it was right. He knocked again and raised his voice to be heard through the door. "Uh- You are Thomas Prentice, right?"
The door opened up again. This time the guy had a carton of milk in his hand and a telltale white stripe on his upper lip. "Dude, you really need to get to your point because I'm like one more knock away from calling the cops."
"Look, I'm sorry. I- I'm sorry. Please just give me like two minutes, okay."
"You've had like six minutes already. Make it snappy."
"Right. Snappy- right." Dale took a breath and launched into it. "I had this brain cancer- a a tumor, and I have this notebook because I had the surgery and- it was brain surgery- and it saved my life, but I knew I'd lose all this memory or all my memory, and I did, which is kind of the suck, but the point is, I knew it was coming, so I wrote it all down- at least the stuff I thought was important- good and bad stuff, which I'm really kind of proud of that fact that I wrote down the crappy stuff instead of leaving myself in blissful ignorance of the time I actually did take a test in my underwear," Dale paused for a breath and glanced down at Thomas Prentice's St. Nicks before going on. "And so I've got this list- this biography of this person I used to be and all and I've also got this list of places and dates and people- especially people- that I'm working my way down to like re-meet all these people who I knew or know- knew, I guess- that feels more right as the way to say it- and I have notes about them- like the things I've done with them and what was way cool or, conversely, way bad about them and my former relationship with them, so I can be, you know, not a complete imbecile when I talk to them the first time, and you're on that list- see," he held the notebook up for Prentice to take a quick look. "But, there's no stories about you or commentary on who you even are to me, just your name and address, so I'm completely in the dark here and sounding like the imbecile I didn't want to sound like and so, I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me where we know each other from so I can cross you off the list and move on to the next person."
Prentice looked kind of startled as he asked, "Seriously? Brain tumor?"
"Uh- yeah." Dale nodded, resigned. It had been really interesting to find out all about this guy he was. He found that, for the most part, he like that guy and most of his choices- and that had to be some kind of miracle (maybe as much of one as him living through the surgery and not being mentally deficient, much- he did have this tendency to string all his sentences together and run on and on and on, but his buddy Rico had assured him that that was a trait he'd had before, as well).
"Huh. Come on in." Prentice left the door open and walked back into the apartment and across to the small kitchenette. "Want some coffee?" he offered as Dale stepped inside the cluttered efficiency. It was small. It was messy. It smelled strange (maybe garlic and vanilla and some third thing that was candy sweet, but Dale couldn't place). Dale liked it.
"No, I can't- I've got this whole blood pressure thing to deal with since the surgery- I'm still kind of healing. He took of his Mets cap and scratched his hand over the short hairs on his head. There was a thin line of puckered scar right over the center of his skull. It still itched pretty often.
"Wow!" Prentice strolled over from where he'd just been measuring out coffee grounds (more dumping sloppily from the can into the filter, than measuring, really) to come and look at the scar. "They really cut you up, huh?"
"Yeah, but I'm here. They even think they got it all." Dale put his cap back on. He didn't really mind most people seeing his scar, but, well he still had that fluttery feeling low in his belly from the lack of clothing on the man standing next to him and- it made him feel self-conscious about the scar.
"Right. So, no coffee. I think I've got tea in the back of here somewhere." He finished getting the coffee maker set up and then started pulling dry good from the cupboard and stacking the packages higgly-piggly on the counter.
Dale almost let himself worry that it would all fall over, but that officially counted as pettily shit and he'd printed that in big block letters on the first page of the notebook before the surgery, like it was the most important thing to relearn, "FORGET THE PITTILY SHIT AND LIVE YOUR LIFE." It was sort of his mantra now.
"You eat?" Prentice was putting water in a pot and shouting over the sound of it hard shushing against the metal.
"Oh, yes. I've got a list for that, too. All these foods I like- or liked, some of them are kind of disgusting. This morning was poached egg and salmon. It was fine, but I doubt that I really liked fish with breakfast before the surgery. I'm not sure if maybe I didn't decide to put nasty stuff on that list to see how much I would take it."
"You think you punked yourself?"
"Yeah, but I'll never know for sure."
"Okay, that's it- this is officially the freakiest conversation I've ever had. And what is it that is so damned interesting about my stomach?"
"Oh." Dale had forgotten not to stare- they called that a washboard didn't they? "Sorry. You're just uh- never mind."
"I'm just-" He made a rolling sort of motion with his one hand to indicate that Dale really needed to elaborate.
"Uh-" Dale struggled a moment before just admitting, "naked."
"Ah." He shrugged. "I can remedy that." Then he walked over to the dresser that was next to the opened up sofa bed and started pulling clothes out from the drawers. "Watch the water, will you?" he called over his shoulder.
It took a minute for Dale to figure out what he meant about the water, but then he got it and went to the kitchenette to watch the pot of tea water. He could hear the other man moving around and the quiet susurrations of fabric against skin. He did not look back at him, though he really wanted to.
"How we doing?" Prentice asked from close behind Dale's shoulder, asking him jump.
"It never boiled," Dale said, recovering.
"Cute. You don't mind if I eat, right?" He pulled out some bread and popped it into the toaster. "So, brain surgery and no memory? You seem like you're doing well. You're not visibly stupid, at least. How long ago was it?"
"Four and a half months. I'm not invisibly stupid either. My doctors kind of don't know how I'm doing so well. It's pretty cool. Are you sure you don't remember me? I'd really like to know. Hey look, the water's boiling."
"Just when you looked away, funny that." He took the butter out of the fridge and poured a cup of tea for Dale. "Sorry, I really don't. I think I'd remember. Maybe you had a secret crush on me- you ever been to Benny's on the Beach? I work there."
Dale took his tea. He didn't know if he wanted anything in it- he hadn't had tea yet- and it wasn't in the notebook. Most people tended to give him lemonade (the notebook said he was strangely obsessed with lemonade) of course, all of the people he'd re-met before remembered him. He took a sip (it was kind of plain- maybe some sugar?) before reminding Prentice that, "Uh- don't remember if I've been there, amnesia boy over here." He pointed to his head.
"Right, sorry." He took his toast and coffee over to the small table. Dale followed, sitting in the only other chair with his tea. "I bartend at Benny's. I do get a few guys macking on me when they've had a few."
"I don't know. Maybe. I don't really think I'd put you on the list just for s crush, you know. Also, I don't know if I really gay. I, uh, didn't so much put anything about it in the notebook and I do think I would put that in as a basic fact."
"Hmm, maybe. Or maybe you weren't out and figured it was better not to have it down in black and white for your family to read if you didn't- you know, didn't-"
"Hey, maybe. That would what- make you some kind of code for my own gayness- seeing you, my secret crush would magically make me realize that I like guys?"
"Except maybe you don't, in which case-"
"No, actually, I might- I kind of had this mini-epiphany about it when I saw you. I'm pretty sure sober guys hit on at work, too, don't they?"
"Well, some," he admitted.
"Still don't think I'd put you on the list instead of say, an old boyfriend, you know."
"Maybe there aren't any, or any you'd want to see again, at any rate."
"Well, that's depressing. I did put three old girlfriends in the notebook, too, so-" Dale waggled his head to express something akin to that doesn't compute.
"So," Prentice paused to take a huge bite of his toast and wash it down with half his coffee. "You don't have any evidence of your hypothetical gayness, but you had that- what did you call it? Mini-epiphany? Want to maybe test the theory?"
"Umm- how?" Dale asked, really hoping that he was suggesting something dirty, but not all that hopeful that he was. He'd asked Dale in, but he hadn't wanted to be stared at. If Dale didn’t have his little mystery to solve about why Prentice was in the notebook, he would have run from embarrassment a while ago.
Prentice put down his coffee, leaned right over close to Dale and said, "Kiss me."
Dale didn't have to be asked twice. He moved forward the last two inches between them and pressed his mouth to Prenti- Tom's. He should call him Tom if he was kissing him. And, it wasn't actually his first kiss, but Dale didn't really remember any of the others he'd ever had, so it was still a revelation. Tom's mouth was soft and welcoming and it made Dale give this unintentional little moan with how he felt the contact all the way through his body. Tom smoothed one of his hands over Dale's cheek and around to the back of his neck, while his tongue stroked over Dale's lower lip like a key in a lock, getting him to open up before he could even think about it (although, if he'd thought about it, he wouldn't have refused- not in this lifetime- he didn't know about his last one). Tom's hot tongue slicked against his own and yeah- that was just the thing, but a second later, Tom was pulling away and breaking the kiss. Dale felt just the littlest bit bereft.
"Guess that answers that question. Thanks for playing," Dale teased, going back to his coffee.
"Uh- yeah, right." Dale watched that mouth- lips against the smooth white of the greasy spoon style coffee mug (stains and chips included) and felt jealous.
"So, listen, this has been interesting," Tom said as he was picking up his breakfast dishes and bringing them back to the kitchenette, "But I have to go to work, so-"
"Oh- right. I guess that means I should, uh go." Dale stood up, brought his still mostly tea mug to the sink and they walked to the door.
"Thanks for, thanks for listening and, you know, kissing me." Dale cringed because he'd just thanked the guy for kissing him. That had to be really wrong.
"Sure thing. My pleasure." Tom smiled crookedly at him as he opened the door. "Oh and, good luck on the whole finding everything on your life list thing."
"Thanks. I'll see you." Dale stepped out the door into the hallway and turned around to say one thing more (he didn't know what, but it was going to be something really witty and smooth that would have gotten him kissed again) but Tom had already closed the door. Oh well, he still had three more people he wanted to re-meet that day, so he walked over and rang for the elevator.