Pretty Rough
| Sentinel Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Pretty Rough |
| Author(s): | Speranza and Emily |
| Date(s): | 2000? |
| Length: | |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | The Sentinel |
| External Links: | AO3? |
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Pretty Rough is a Jim/Blair story by Speranza and Emily. It is a sequel to Pretty Boy.
Reactions and Reviews
2000
Let me get the obvious part out of the way: it's really, really good and I think everyone should go read it right now.
The beginning is lovely; the initial scene is a great story, told in what seems to me to be classic Jim-style, and then there's a lovely little sex scene that sort of makes me think of a Japanese brush painting, in which a lot of details are implied with very few strokes. I think the line "eyes screwed shut and ass screwed open" is one of my new favorite things. :-)
The "then" section is somewhat disturbing, yes. Then again, I've grown to expect a certain quantity of Jim-owwies from an Emily Brunson story, so I wasn't totally surprised.
The details are kind of alarming. They're sticking in my head. *shrug* Then again, I think the story makes it worth it, for me as a reader, to take the foray into the darker details.
And it's a good use of second-person present, to my mind. That takes some skill.
I'm also very pleased by the ending, which draws the "now" and "then" parts together. Basically, to me, this is a story about what trust and safety mean to Jim and to Blair. Since this J and B are coming into their relationship with such radically different previous experiences (we don't get to see Blair's "then," in this story, but I can't help assuming it's not like Jim's ;-), "trust" means different things to each of them -- but, at the same time, the meaning of trust is sufficiently the same that they're able to communicate, able to make things work. That's pretty much a truism for me in TS fic, but I think this story does a lovely job of drawing that truism out into a whole story and doing something new with it. [1]
Yup, it's the "No Condom as a Symbol of Trust" tm <g> Except it's more. It's Jim's deep water. In "Pretty Boy" we hear how Jim came back from Peru and discovered that over half of his friends were dead from Aids. And he thought "It's over, the party's over, everything's over." And he was terrified enough that he changed his whole lifestyle, changed his look, dated women, bought condoms, married Carolyn. And now there's Blair. And Jim's not afraid any more.
In both "Pretty Boy" and "Pretty Rough" I was struck by the "generation gap" shown between Jim and Blair. The most obvious reference in both being to Blair as a pretty boy. And in "Pretty Rough" when Jim says that he himself used to be a pretty boy but isn't anymore, now that he's "a monument to survival." He's obviously feeling his age. <g> In the first story, "Pretty Boy," Blair first sees Jim in a group of old friends and doesn't recognize him: "Tall, thirty-something guys in expensive casual clothes, looking like a bunch of gracefully aging ski bums." They are sitting around remembering the good old days. Which was the underground gay community in the armed services. And when Jim later tells Blair about getting tested for Aids. [2]
2I got to read this in beta (neener neener), which is when you're supposed to find problems and suchlike and maybe have a little critical distance. But I was still blown away.You turn your car into a gravel parking lot. The bar isn't much more than a tin shack, but you can hear the hum of an overworked air-conditioning unit, and snatches of music each time the battered wooden door bangs open. Country-western. You don't like country music much, but it's pretty much the only game in town. You're three bases used to it by now--three bases removed from the rock and roll you really like. Last two towns, the locals called it "nigger music." In this one, it pretty much brands you a communist. You aren't a nigger. You aren't a communist.
You're lots worse than that.
You slam the car door and walk through the evening air to the doorway. It's always like this. You wonder what's going on, who might be around, what's going to happen later. Sometimes it feels like you're looking for someone in particular, some shadowy person you can't really imagine. Other times, it's like you're looking for anyone at all. Anybody will do.
Your dad would have said that you're looking for trouble. And he'd probably be right.
Why you should read this: Jim history, angst and owwies, sweet moments with Blair, and elided sexual descriptions that will still make your toes curl. Smooth but gritty. And as a fabulous bonus: a lesson in writing second person well.
What might throw you off stride: It's dark. Like "ouch ouch ouch." If you're primarily fluffy, you may want to wear some sort of protective mood shield.[3]
References
- ^ comments at Prospect-L, quoted anonymously (October 24, 2000)
- ^ comments at Prospect-L, quoted anonymously (October 24, 2000)
- ^ 2000 rec by eliade