Adam Hills/Hamish Blake: Awake/Sleep

[wolfanfics]

Title: Awake/Sleep
Author: Sashataakheru
Fandom: AUSComedy
Characters: Adam/Hamish
Prompt: #14 Breath Play
Word Count: 226
Warnings: none
Rating: G
Table: http://wolfanfics.livejournal.com/10809.html
Disclaimer: I don’t know them, not associated with them, just a slashy fangirl admirer with a very active imagination.
Author's Notes: Very short piece, probably the shortest I’ve written, about Hamish and Adam in bed, waking up, well, trying not to wake up. From Hamish’s POV.

Awake/Sleep
I’m aware of his breathing long before I have the desire to open my eyes. It’s in that groggy, half-awake state in which you tend to notice the things you don’t otherwise notice.

Bed is warm and soft, his arm draped over my back, content and happy. I love the weight of his arm over me. It feels like it should be there, protective, almost. I vaguely recognise the song on the radio, but don’t care enough to wake. I’d rather stay here in my memories and dreams, be here in his arms, ignoring the outside world. It’s much more pleasant here anyway. Head’s all heavy against the pillow, the last semblance of my dreams wafting into my head.

Apart from the radio – there it is: his breathing, long, unhurried, gentle. I think he’s not quite awake yet. I can tell. He’s still lost in his sleep. I’m quite content to lie there and listen to his breathing. It’s calming, knowing he’s still there beside me. I reach a heavy arm over to touch him, finding his warm skin. It’s nice to touch him. It’s making me fall asleep again. Brain gives in, letting me float away, down towards sleep, down into my dreams of him, the sound of his breathing slowly fading into silence.

This is peace.

I wish we could stay this way forever.

Comments

[brilliant-lies.livejournal.com]

As promised:

I'm so excited to read a fic written in first-person that doesn't make me want to scream and go drown myself in a fishtank! Not only that, it's also too adorable for words - watch me flailing for description, yo - and I *love* it. Hurrah Admish!

I'm always a fan of writers who can convey a mood without the need for excessive description, as you've managed to do here. (My own attempts tend to fail; short fic that I write usually ends up totally pointless and boring, so I say this with meaning!) Gorgeous :)

[lexicalcrow]

I've never understood why people hate first person so much. First person can be very good when used correctly. Bad writing in general annoys me, I don't take it out on the tense used. I'm one of those few people who actually love first person because for some fics, it's the most appropriate way to tell a story. But, for others, third person works best. Or even second person, when it's done well.

I'm actually very pleased with how that came out. I'm totally not used to writing pieces that short. The prompt for it was breath play, and I took a much different take on breath play than most others. Besides which neither Adam or Hamish seemed all that keen on actually experimenting with breath play. Neither did they want to go for cross-dressing, which is how Charlie got written. Which I must be thankful for as it's proved a useful setup for my NaNo fic.

I did the same with the genderswap prompt for the wtf27 challenge. Yay for crackfic. When most others were doing the whole 'oh, I went to bed a man and woke up a woman' routine, I went along a different line and had Craig become a woman by having a sex change. Well, it did say "By some method, the character transforms into the gender opposite his or hers." A sex change counts. So there. I've been told that fic is rather beautiful. That'd be the long version of Dressed, as opposed to the short 500 word piece that started it.

[brilliant-lies.livejournal.com]

I think I just developed an intense dislike for the abuse of first person that so often shows up in fic - it's a shame, really, because I agree that it can be appropriate to particular stories, and I have certainly read some beautiful fics (such as this one) where first person was utilised in a thoughtful way.

It's a very subtle tense, y'know? It has to be treated with respect, and there are too many cases where it doesn't receive that respect. Alas, I am guilty of stereotyping the tense! That's bad, isn't it? I shall endeavour to change that; maybe try to tackle first person myself... *gulps*

Awesome... I love that you played with the typical prompt-responses to find something that worked. I'm always interested to learn the background of a fic, or a pattern of inspiration, since mine has, like, a semi-permanent case of PMS. *sighs*

Anyway, thanks for a lovely read :)

[lexicalcrow]

Yeah, I know what you mean. First person is a delicate tense that requires attention to detail in a way that third person doesn't. You have to know when to use it, and know how to use it properly. Otherwise, I'm going to have to hit something. Just as you can't use third person for everything, so you can't use first person for everything.

I think it comes down to knowing when and how to use it, knowing in your gut that this story must be told in first person. Having characters turn up and tell you or hint at this also helps. It's fun to experiment with. If you haven't read Damaged People, I suggest you do. That was me experimenting to see if I could get a first person fic to sound like it has two voices instead of one, and apparently I succeeded. I think the joy in first person comes with experimenting with it like that, playing around with it to see what you can achieve while also knowing it's limitations as well. I say go for it. The more you write in it, the more you'll get to know what works and what doesn't.

Well, why go for an interpretation everyone else is using, especially if I have characters that aren't keen on those interpretations? That's an added challenge for me in doing Admish for the 50kinkyways challenge. For a lot of the prompts, I'm going to have to be rather liberal/lateral in my interpretations, since Adam and Hamish aren't into hardcore bondage at all. Hamish can't deal with the pain, and Adam can't stand hurting him like that. They care about each other far too much to be able to hurt each other like that. I will have absolutely no troubles with leather. They seem very keen on leather. But yes.

I'm not sure what I'll do for the non-con prompt, because planding non-con on either of them is not something I want to do, so that will require some thinking in how I can write that in a way that fits them.

It's all about knowing your characters and their limitations and beeing able to interpret the prompts in a way that works for them, and isn't just the same interpretation everyone else is using. Besides, I love the challenge of having to be very creative in my fics. Makes you think outside the square, to really consider what the prompts could mean.

Same with smut69. I'm doing Chris/Craig for that, so that should be fun, considering there's very little hint of any significant D/s aspects there, so with neither taking charge, I have to write them differently than I do Adam/Hamish. Though considering what I wrote for Wrong and Strained, yeah, that's a different interpretation. I hated writing what I wrote for Wrong. It's not often I hate my writing, or write something that just gives off the wrongness vibe, but I don't think anything else would've worked. But it's done and written now.

Right, I think that's enough paragraphs for now. ;) I could talk about it forever, but I'll stop now.

[brilliant-lies.livejournal.com]

I totally agree - gut instinct is such a major part of my successful stories. As wannabe-esoteric as this may sound, I've had to learn to trust my inspiration, because when I don't, or when I go ahead with my own ideas even when the story is telling me to go somewhere else, it always turns out badly.

It took me a long time to finish Freedom is Slavery, for instance, because I had a very fixed idea of where I wanted it to go; I had a central paragraph written from which the whole story blossomed, but in the end, as much as I loved the tone and style of that paragraph, I had to cut it in order to get myself over the plot-barricade I'd constructed from my stubbornness. And the whole time my inspiration's sitting in front of me, telling me to listen to it because it knows what it's doing, I can trust it, etc. I remember hearing an interview with Kate Grenville where she said that writer's block is often her characters' way of protesting against the direction of the story - that comment rang so true with me. Huzzah for character autonomy! (Well, to a degree :D)

Challenge is important in writing... I really admire you for taking on so many prompt challenges. I have so much trouble responding to prompts; it might be the broadness of the keywords, or something, but I can never get my ideas to develop far enough to get a story out of it. On the other hand, though, I'm quite easily inspired (read: I see a slash conspiracy-theory in everything - Freedom is Slavery, case in point), so it's not often that I'm searching for something to write. Of course, I still go through periods of intense hatred towards my writing, my style, my excessive use of commas, and my total inability to describe things the way I want to... *sighs* Such is the life of the writer.

I'll certainly go and read Damaged People - that sounds awesome, and yay for busting the voice-stereotypes! I'm impressed by the way you embrace your challenges and you're not afraid to try something unconvential. I tend to stay in my comfort zones, these days... I don't know why I do that, because the best work I've turned out came when I was stretching myself beyond what I believed I could do, and not shying away from second person or future tense or subjects I found uncomfortable. Those were the days...

But since I've taken up enough of your comment space to rewrite War and Peace, I'll run along. Lovely to talk at you! :P

[lexicalcrow]

Yeah, it takes time to know what your gut's telling you, but it usually knows what it's talking about. I mean, I've been writing for ten years now, and I think I've really only started writing decent stuff in the last few years. But I've gotten better at listening to my gut. Knowing when to kill a character and when you can get away with saving them is an important thing to learn as well. Sometimes, the plot and the characters are convinced that's the way it has to be, and no amount of pleading changes that, no matter how much you might hate it.

I've mostly given up trying to force stories to be what I want them to be, since they nearly always go off-track and go somewhere I didn't want them to go. Another reason I haven't got a detailed plot for NaNo as I'm certain it'll go off-track if I plan it too much. I've had several stories do that to me. I have all these great plans, then the characters take them and dump them and take me somewhere else, leaving me sitting there thinking, "Why are we going this way? I didn't want you going this way." And that comment by Kate Grenville: yeah, that totally makes sense. I'd never thought about writer's block that way.

Yeah, I can see slash in anything too, but the prompts just add that extra challenge. Challenge is important so you don't get stuck in a rut. It forces you to be creative, as opposed to just writing whatever down. I've done challenges where we had an opening line and three items to include in them, and all within 1000 words. It's actually a lot of fun doing that. And two of the pieces I wrote ended up in my huge Admish fic, albeit edited and changed a bit so they made sense. There are times whenI hate my writing too, but I think every writer is like that. And with some prompts, you just have to sit back and let the characters take over. They'll tell you what to write.

And yes, I'm probably insane for taking on four challenges at once, but it's fun, and it means I've always got somethng to work on, so if I get stuck on one fic, I have something to work on to get my brain into gear. It's very useful for that. And I get to have fun rewriting Master Tom, as I decided to use that for my 50kinkyways challenge, so I have to change the first seven chapters to fit the prompts, but it's good. I quite like that fic.

Well, why do what everyone else is doing? I want my fics to stand out fromeveryone else's. Anyone can write 'OMG, I went to bed a man, and woke up a woman.' But, how many people would approach the prompt genderswap with an actual sex-change in mind? I think that's what a good writer should do, to be able to make their readers see things in a different way than usual. Another reason why I'm so in love with ambiguous characters, because it's never clear what's going to happen, and motives are often not as straight forward as they appear. I just love messing with people's heads. Having typical 'good guys' and 'bad guys' is boring. You know where everyone stands, and everyone's so one-sided that they're too 'perfect' as characters. Real people aren't like that. Real people have all these shades of grey, all these little things that make them do what they do, how they relate to other people. Real people have a complexity that's difficult to put on paper.

You want a challenge? I think you might enjoy the wtf27 challenge. The prompts there might be a good place to start, and there's only 27 of them. Take a look at it at any rate. Might be a good way to shake you out of your comfort zone. Otherwise, there's plenty of other fic challenges on LJ.

Hehe, yeah, yay for long comments. :P And now I'll go have my coffee and watch some TV. Yay!

[brilliant-lies.livejournal.com]

I do enjoy responding to challenges with specific criteria, mainly because I like having to think creatively in order to work successfully within the confinements.

I share your love of ambiguous characters - I've never found interest in reading about perfect characters. As you said, real people aren't like that; if real people were like that the world would implode from carbon-copy residue and there'd be no place for creativity and it would tragic. I've been writing for about five years, myself (though my attempts of the first three years were so pitiful I can't even tell you), and I used to write a lot of boring, predictable narrative - A meets B, they fall in love, they break up, they get back together, there are multiple drawn-out moments of painfully corny soppiness and then Oh look, they're getting married. *snores* That improved slightly when I started writing femslash, and started to delve more into the character's motivation and emotion, but I really only got better when I abandoned the notion of excitement - or plot in general, in some cases - in favour of character-examination. That's why nothing happens in much of my fic; I'm too busy applying my cereal-box degree in psychology to their every thought and movement...

I just went and looked at the wtf27 table, and several of the concepts caught my eye, so I'm bookmarking that particular page. This is exciting! I mean, I had already semi-developed an idea for an Adam/Wil Apocolypse fic, just because, so the fact that fun things like that are on the prompt-list makes me happy! Thanks for that :)

[lexicalcrow]

Yeah, it's all part of the fun. Makes you use your imagination in different ways.

I started writing ten years ago. What did I start writing? Spice Girls fanfic. Very badly writtes Spice Girls fanfic, but that's what it was. Bloody, violent, and hooray, mostly OOC. XD I tend to have always written fantasy-horror to some degree. It's only in the last few years that I've gotten less bloody. I like to think that's because I know how to write better now. And the fanfic and slash I've been writing now is much better than it was when I started. I cut my teeth in original fiction before someone poked me into writing fanfic again at the start of 2004. So yes. It's been fun.

See, I thought you might like those prompts. Different from a lot of the other prompt challenges, and there's not as many of them either. I'm doing that challenge with The Chaser boys, which makes for fun. I've done genderswap and doppelganger, and have half-written or semi-formed ideas for the rest. I was actually dared to do that challenge with the Chaser boys by a friend of mine. I just adore the prompts. They're a lot of fun to write. Read Andrew/Andrew as an example. I had a ton of fun writing that. Incidentally, my NaNo fic is going to be a sequel to Andrew/Andrew, though more serious and I'm actually killing characters off, but I'm aiming for a similar style at any rate.

[brilliant-lies.livejournal.com]

Spice Girls fanfic? That's hilarious! :D
I've been writing both original fic and fanfic since I started in about 2000/2001 (aged thirteen), and my first story was Aussie swim-team fic. Something clicked in my brain during the 2000 Olympics (at which point I was totally enamoured with a handful of... Australian girls in swimmers, I guess) and so followed some excruciatingly bad writing! *shudders* I still have some of it, actually - back then, I wrote using lead pencil, in half-sized exercise books; the barely legible cursive of a thirteen-year-old - and my goodness, it's absolutely cringe-worthy. The narration's about as subtle as a freight train...

Yeah, the prompts are awesome, and I'm certainly appreciative of the fact that there are only 27! :P

But explain to me this NaNo fic concept?

[lexicalcrow]

I know, they were atrociously bad. All variants on the whole Spice Girls vs *insert band name here* variety, though mostly SG vs No Doubt, for some very very odd reason. I did include Hanson, All Saints and I'm sure a few mote I can't think of right now. But they were all bad and involved lots of bloodand killing and shit like that.

I have just about everything I've ever written, sorted alphabetically in three lever arch files with a rather detailed table of contents. I did write in small notebooks, which I still have, I might add. This is the product of me not being able to throw anything out.

Feel free to not do the challenge if you don't want to. Just pointed you in that general direction. :)

Ahh, my NaNo concept. Yes, this was plot idea number 4, if I remember correctly. No, it was #5. But anyway. I wrote Andrew/Andrew pretty much out of nowhere. Very random that was. Involved a odd subplot (if it was a subplot) about Julian and Chas plotting to take over the world with a hoard of Andrew clones. (It was for the prompt doppelganger, hence the clones) And in the ensuing silliness, the hoards were destroyed, Jules was defeated, and the 'secret underground lair' was destroyed. And at the end,
everyone goes back to the pub, just because. Well, Andrew disappears in the TARDIS with the Tenth Doctor, but apart from that, everyone's at the pub. And there's Jules and Chas discussing other ways to take over the world.

ANd there was this character quiz thing on the NaNo boards, you know, like, list 12 characters before you answer the questions type of thing. And the last question went something like this:

24) 1 and 9 reluctantly team up to save the world from the threat posed by 4's sinister secret organization. 11 volunteers to help them, but it is later discovered that he/she is actually a spy for 4. Meanwhile, 4 has kidnapped 12 in an attempt to force their surrender. Following the wise advice of 5, they seek out 3, who gives them what they need to complete their quest. What title would you give this fic?

And conveniently, this is how it ended up with how my characters were listed: 1=Chas; 9=Charles; 4=Julian; 11=Tim Minchin; 12=Adam Hills; 5=Chris; and 3=Shane Cubis. So I giggled at the prospect of Jules once again being an Evil Genius, and decided that was too good a plot to pass up for NaNo. XD Throw in Andrew, Craig, Hamish, and Dom and we have a party. *giggles* So it's taking place after Andrew/Andrew, with selected references to Charlie as well (that would be the poker matches). And to not make this comment any longer, you can read the whole plot (well, it's changed a bit, but that's basically it) here at my NaNo journal.

[brilliant-lies.livejournal.com]

Keeping everything you've written? That's gotta be a bonus of the hoarding-tendency. I often regret my decisions to throw out old fic - sure, the stuff I throw away is crap, but after a certain amount of time it's appropriate to reread it to laugh aloud and say, I used to be so bad, but now I rock! Go me!

*reads plot* Everything NaNo related = awesome-tastic! *adds journal*

I remember reading that Andrew/Andrew story, actually, and being delighted with the idea of crossing the Doctor into it, since the Tenth Doctor is, like, hot as, and he can slide so easily and delightfully into just about any situation and save the world and generate subtext with everything in existence. Ten-love! <3

And the army of Andrew clones? You have such a wonderful imagination! I'm quite a fan of the crackness of doppelganger fic, long-time Star Trek fan that I am - parallel universes and the like... good times... :)

[lexicalcrow]

I'm obsessed with it, I think. Most of those archived stories are shit, but there's some good ones in there. Mostly covers from 1996-2003, I think, so yeah. Over 300 individual stories. I read through them every now and then, and yeah, totally badly written, but a lot of fun to read.

Hehe, thanks. And hey, why aren't you my friend already? *adds*

Yeah, I loved writing that. Hilariously funny. I swear I didn't plan it at all, just had the idea for Andrew clones and such. The rest was all their work. The Doctor showed up uninvited and stayed around. He may or may not turn up in my NaNo fic, but we'll see. But yes, I love Ten as well. Very pretty. Very good at making subtext. XD

Yes, the Andrew clone army. Another out of nowhere invention. That fic was so silly, that I fear it's NaNo sequel won't be as silly, because there's a lot of angst building, so it'll either be dark and serious, or just plain hilarious. Won't know til I write it though. It's called Chas/Chas, simply because Chas gets cloned. Yay! But there'll be no clone Army, Jules tried that once, see? So he needs a new plan. I have no idea what the Andrew clone army were going to do, but apparently they were going to secure world domination or something. *shakes head* Ah well.

[brilliant-lies.livejournal.com]

I'm just so impressed that you've not only kept them, but kept them archived, and in chronological order! My brain turns fuzzy with such concepts of organisation... :S

I just realised I hadn't added you yet! *Adds back* Most of my entries are me whinging about the weather, or whinging about unrequited love, or whinging about my lack of sleep, but anyway.

I'm really looking forward to reading your NaNo fic. World domination, mwaha! :D

[lexicalcrow]

Hehe, that's just the way my brain works. Well, it likes at least some of my world to be organised. *shakes head* But yes. Alphabetised, sorted, and because I had wrote a lot of them, my TOC makes sure to list whether I have a typed or handwritten version. Hehehe.

Yeah, I was like, why aren't you on my friends list? I'm sure I friended you, and if not, I should do it now. XD Hehe, but it's all good now. And don't worry, most of my entries are me posting random shit at whatever o'clock, or occasionally ranting about things, or yeah. And every now and then I post something interesting. So yeah.

I'm looking forward to writing it too. Actually, I spent some time last night turning my inpirational wallpaper into a movie poster type thing. XD Cos I made little dolls of all the guys involved, because I could, heh, and yeah. Pretty! *giggles* I am totally obsessed with NaNo. I have a lever arch file for organising my notes and everything. And a notebook to write stuff down in. As well as a whole pile of stuff on my computer. *headdesk* I wonder if I'll be sick of the whole thing come December?

[brilliant-lies.livejournal.com]

LJ is great for the occasional rant, isn't it? ;)

December... wow, I don't think my attention span could last that long (but, to be fair, my attention span is legendary for its shortness). Do you have any kind of time-frame for the NaNo fic, or is just kind of write-it-when-you-feel-inspired-to-write-it?

[lexicalcrow]

Oh yeah, totally good for that. ;)

Planning usually takes place in October, but the novel itself must be written between November 1st and November 30th for it to count. You can write after that, but if you want to win it, you have to write the 50k between those dates. So yeah. It's been worked out as about 1667 words a day to reach the target. So it should be fun.