I’ll say it straight – a lot of writing didn’t make it into the final cut of Two Face.
Sometimes in some of my stories, every scene I write makes it to the end product. But more often I’ll have written a scene that takes the story to a place I don’t want it to go. Or maybe the scene just isn’t working out and I decide to start from scratch on that part. Or maybe it’s absolutely brilliant but utterly not the mood I’m searching for.
No matter what the reason, the majority of my fanfictions actually take up a few documents in my computer: one for each chapter of the story (for FF.net uploading); one with the entire story for my own convenience (if it’s a one-shot then this is the same as the first); and one or two or three for brainstorming, an outline, and cut scenes. I’m an archive packrat: I hate throwing things out if I can help it. So if a scene, paragraph, or even sentence is one I don’t want to let go of, I throw it into a separate document, in order of the chronology of the story and/or the time of writing (it gets a bit confusing when these contradict each other).
It’s a shame to leave them all lying on the cutting room floor (or in the cutting room document, or whatever analogy you wish to use), so I’ll be sharing a good deal of them here. With each will come author’s notes, because I don’t believe in creation without process. Know that these blog posts will contain spoilers. The chapter number will be in the post’s title, and I’ll try to give a little context at the beginning of the author’s note that doesn’t spoil things, but it’s up to you to decide whether or not to read on. This particular post does contain a spoiler in the first sentence of the author’s note, so proceed with caution.
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This particular scene comes from the break-up section of Two Face. This particular scene begins in the hotel in which they stay on their school trip overseas to Vancouver…
I tell Takeshi and Shiroi to go ahead down to dinner first, feeling they should be allowed to have at least a little privacy when they can get it. Sasuke’s probably going to confront me the minute they’re gone, but I can handle him, if I can get a grasp on my hormones. I reassure them with a look, then they head downstairs and I get up to shower. To my surprise and relief, Sasuke continues to ignore me. He’s not even looking at me, gazing absently out the window instead. I shrug to myself and strip, then head for the bathroom.
The warm water soothes me, calming my nerves, but not doing much to quell my raging hormones. I watch in mild interest as my cock hardens untouched, because images of Sasuke are flashing through my head and it’s been months since I got any. Well, I guess masturbation will have to suffice for now. For now… for as long as this keeps going. Am I deluding myself? Because I know that deep down I really want to go back to the way we were. Me and Sasuke. Together. But is that likely? Is it even possible? Would it happen if I begged him? Or will he snap first and come crawling to me? Those last two questions are the conflict that keeps me solidly grounded. He’s the one who made the mistake. He’s the one who should pay for it, who should make amends. I’m not going to pretend that I was at fault, that I’m willing to beg and forgive him just to have him back. If there’s one thing I’ve always, always hated about Sasuke, it’s that he’s too damn self-important. This is good for him, I tell myself. He needs to learn how to say sorry.
A strange sliding sound cuts through the sound of the running water. I open my eyes, not realizing I closed them, and nearly jump out of my skin.
“What the fuck?” I shout, backing into the wall, my voice echoing unintelligibly around the bathroom in a confusing din. Sasuke, naked and quickly becoming soaked, watches me through deadpan eyes, the shower door wide open behind him. “The fuck are you doing, you asshole? I’m taking a fucking shower! You can’t just—mmph!”
I punch him as hard as I can in the gut, and he breaks the kiss, gasping and clutching at his stomach. Refusing to be forced into the defensive, I advance and push him against the cold tile wall, sparing no power. I can see the effect of my strength in a pained twitch of his face. I spit as if that’ll get rid of the taste of his lips on mine, even though I know it won’t and, really, I don’t want it to anyway.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking,” I say, “but I’m taking a shower and this is my fucking privacy. I don’t give a shit what your reasons are, saving water or just ‘cause you’re horny or whatever you’re thinking. You can go screw some other guy, the whole fucking world can burn up and go to hell, I don’t care. Get the fuck out and wait your turn.”
His expression is absolutely calm, but there’s a spark in his eyes that tells me his mind’s on the move. Then he smirks, and white spots explode in my vision as a hand squeezes my hard-on.
“You’re not very convincing when you’re hard… Naruto.”
My core shudders unbidden as he whispers my name. I can hear his low murmur, feel his breath on my ear, and I realize I’ve slumped against the wall, my hand against his chest weakening. He massages my aching shaft and I momentarily forget how to breathe. Immobile, gasping, I stare wide-eyed at where his hand is grasping me, where his own swollen erection stands waiting. Fuck. I can’t do anything. It’s only been two months and already his touch reduces me to this.
“We’ve been apart too long. You’ve been feeling it too, haven’t you? Obviously you have, considering this.” He pulls harshly, forcing a restrained grunt from my throat. Then his tone turns acidic as he hisses, “Or is that because you’ve been dreaming of Takeshi instead?”
The anger in his voice fills me with a wicked desire for vindication. “What if I have?” I dig my nails into his wrist and he lets go of my member, but then with a surge of strength he pushes me off him and against an adjacent wall, holding my shoulders to keep me still, then grinds roughly against me, growling as his rock-hard erection presses into mine. Once again whiteness invades my sight as the borderline-painful pleasure rockets through my system, pouring unbridled need and terrible guilt into my veins. I whack the back of my head against the wall, but I can hardly feel the pain because a tongue is pressing against my pulse.
“If Takeshi so much as touches you he’ll wish he was never born,” Sasuke snarls, and a shiver runs down my back at the pure venom in his words – not because it’s Sasuke or how he said it, but because I’m genuinely afraid for Takeshi. I redouble my efforts to escape, pushing him away, and manage to force him out of the shower. But his grip on me is too strong; he pulls me out with him, then slams me against the wall, our bodies still slick with hot water, the towel on the floor the only thing stopping us from slipping. As he grasps my waist in a vice-like grip and resumes grinding against me, I drag my nails down his back, knowing I’m gouging deep cuts into his beautiful pale skin by the way he writhes and snarls and buries his face in the crook of my neck. But he’s something of a masochist, I know, and he just keeps pressing, probably because he knows he’ll never get his cock up my ass in a situation like this. I can hardly move, all my senses assaulted with his being, his heat and his smell and the agonizing pleasure he’s forcing on me, and every attempt I make to wrench myself away only results in adding more friction to this mess we are. I can hardly even get a grasp on my thoughts because the sensations are so overwhelming, but somewhere deep down something is telling me this is wrong, this isn’t supposed to happen, I’m not supposed to want this. I latch onto that with everything I have, repeating it over and over in my head, this is wrong, this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong until teeth clamp down on my neck and snap my focus in half.
“You’re fucking mental!” I yell, scoring his chest with deep red lines that start to drip blood, hot and sticky on my fingers. “You’re a rapist!”
He freezes, totally immobile, and suddenly the only sound is that of the pouring water, like we’re both holding our breaths.
“Get off of me,” I snap, because his fingers are still locked around my waist and his hips have mine trapped as well. He’s bleeding, dark red liquid mingling and swirling into the water still clinging to his body, and for a split second the bathroom dissolves around me and turns into the school rooftop in a dark, pouring storm and Kyuubi roars loud enough to make my ears ring. But then hips roll into mine once more and I’m back in the brightly-lit, pristine hotel bathroom, kicking and screaming and clawing as Sasuke forces his lips onto mine, and though I want to bite his tongue as hard as I can, my jaw won’t cooperate, my taste buds flooded with this flavour I’ve been craving for weeks. I hear and feel his feral grunts in my mouth, feel his pulse skyrocketing, feel my balls tighten – and then I explode with heat and feel the splatter of way too much come to be able to be attributed to a single person.
The grip on my waist finally lessens, heavy breathing harsh in my ear, and the waves of climax fade away slowly until there’s a strange lull, exceptionally calm – too calm. Then, without warning, I’m inundated by a tsunami of horror. My eyes snap open, my body takes in the bleeding, heaving figure leaning on me, and I shove him away. He falls back against the counter.
“I hope you’re happy,” I say, willing my voice to fill with pure hatred. “I hope you’re happy with what you just got, ‘cause that’s all you’re getting. You’re disgusting. Get the fuck out of the bathroom.”
Still panting, he watches me for another moment, apparently oblivious to the ten, twenty long red scratches all over his arms and torso, many of them trickling blood. But I refuse to break, refuse to be the first to turn away. Finally his gaze falters. He ducks his head and walks out.
I lock the bathroom door behind him, rinse myself off, turn off the water, and lean back against the shower wall. Then I slide down into a sitting position and bury my face in my shaking hands, wanting to throw up.
(My plan was to end the chapter there, incidentally.) I think the reason it wasn’t included is fairly plain to see. I’ve been influenced in the past year by a good friend of mine who is easily put off by anything that isn’t completely consensual, but dubcon and non-con don’t bother me nearly as much as they do her. That said, I think this particular scene is, while not out of character for some variations of Sasuke I’ve written, almost certainly not something he would do in Two Face. It’s a very powerful scene and I was somewhat reluctant to let go of it, but I talked it over with my betas and we all agreed it was for the best. Instead you get the scene where Naruto and Sasuke have a stare-down and Naruto sees how worn out Sasuke has become since they last saw each other properly:
[Sasuke]’s lost weight, unhealthily quickly it seems, so that his hip bones jut out and his ribs are prominent under his skin. His face is gaunt, the circles under his eyes deep in shadow. He seems paler than usual, too; regardless of the warm, soft lighting of the room his complexion is little short of sickly and the topography of his body seems far too angular. Even his posture seems weary, the tilt of his head and sag of his shoulders suggesting he’d appreciate it if he could lay down for a long while.
Personally I think this scene is much stronger because it doesn’t rely on the brashness and violence of sexual assault to convey its mood and message. In fact, this would be a good time to talk about description and “show, don’t tell.” In my time on FF.net, several readers have come to me asking for help with their own writing. I’m a terrible teacher; I’ll tell you that now. My method is to ask the writer what they feel they’re struggling with, then bombard them with tips. So lesson number one: Show, Don’t Tell.
My friend sent me a document with notes from his writing course about showing and telling, and I know for a fact that sometimes telling is more effective or appropriate. But as a general rule, when writing a long description, “showing” does the trick. Actually, I don’t know that “show” and “tell” are the right words. Perhaps it’s the difference between “seeing” and “understanding.” You can see that a guy’s got a huge bruise on his cheek, and from that you might infer that he was in a fight. How you describe a particular detail goes a long way in conveying information to the observant reader, and the context you give will help shape whether the bruise was indeed from a fight, or if he just fell out of bed.
In the above description of Sasuke’s appearance, it’s plain to see he hasn’t been eating or sleeping right. His health has gone down the drain. I could have written that he looked bony, but instead I gave examples of where the bones were most prominent and what Naruto deems the cause to be.
This isn’t the perfect paragraph to base this lesson off of, by the way. I always tell people to use active verbs where possible instead of passive ones. For example, Naruto observes that Sasuke’s hip bones jut out. Jut is quite a strong verb, carrying a lot of character and connotation. (They could stick out too, and that would work fine, but I chose a more interesting word. But that’s another topic.) In the next clause his ribs are prominent under his skin, which is alright I guess, but doesn’t pack nearly the same punch. The verb “to be” is, to put it plainly, boring. It’s a state of, well, being, as opposed to doing. Hip bones probably shouldn’t be doing anything so extravagant as, I dunno, driving a car, but you can still apply action verbs to them to spice up your description.
Anyway, that was an arguably short blurb about describing things. Go forth, dear readers, and write!
R+F
