DVD Commentary - Presence and absence, DCU Tim/Cass

[petra]

buggery requested this commentary.

Title: Presence and absence

I really dislike my inability to title things. This one, at least, is distinctive and suits its story, but I don't actually like it as a title.

Fandom: DCU (Batgirl v2)

Geek powers: activate! Batgirl v2, as opposed to Barbara Gordon.

Rating: Involves explicit sex.
Notes: Set post-Batgirl #59, pre-#60.
Disclaimer: They are not mine, and I do not want or expect any money from using them.
Summary: Cass tugs off her cowl and sits on the edge of his bed. "Steph."

Tim sits up a little straighter, yearning, hoping, and then resigning himself again with a movement that no one but Batman would ever call a slouch. "I miss her, too," he says, with every inch of his body, and much more quietly aloud.

This is not a very good summary, though it is a great teaser.



Cass doesn't say "I need you" aloud. If Robin -- if Tim can't see as much when she's in his room, with the dawn coming on, then he doesn't know her. He sits up in bed almost as if he's been expecting a dark shadow on his pillow, and he asks, "What's wrong?"

Tim expects a dark shadow on his pillow pretty much all the time. I learned that from one of the first Robin minis.

She tugs off her cowl and sits on the edge of his bed. "Steph."

He sits up a little straighter, yearning, hoping, and then resigning himself again with a movement that no one but Batman could ever call a slouch. "I miss her, too," he says, with every inch of his body, and much more quietly aloud.

Cass is extremely challenging to write, but she also means one gets to do things like this story.

Cass shakes her head. Words. "You -- knew her. For a long time."

It makes him ache and fold in on himself more. "Not long enough."

Oh, Tim. This was definitely part of my coming to terms with Steph's death via writing ways to cope with it.

"You kissed her."

Sometimes Cass still finds the range of expression in laughter amazing. Tim may as well be crying. His shoulders shake for a moment with both emotions. He says, "Well -- yes. She kissed me. I miss that, too."

My Tim is still a Kinsey 5.5 on his straightest of straight days. Right now he's sorry about that, for Steph's sake.

"Show me." Cass touches his shoulder before he flinches at the words. "Please."

I'm not sure Cass knows how much words *can* hurt, but -- perhaps. I might change this, were I to rewrite it.

Tim stares at her in the darkness, motionless with confusion. "What?"

"Show me... how she kissed you." Cass smiles at him. "I never... I wanted to."

Cass, on the other hand, doesn't have fun and exciting boundaries like heterosexuality. She might have avoided kissing Steph in this story because Steph wasn't apparently interested. Hard to say, from this POV.

He freezes even more, afraid, thinking, as Bat as he can be in only his boxers. If he could read her, as she reads him, he would not have to wonder. But he takes her hand. "She wouldn't have stopped you."

How Bat can Tim be in his boxers? Oh, very Bat indeed. He also loves Steph, but we knew that.

She considers squeezing his hand to show him just how much that hurts her, but it would not help to break a bone, now. "Too late."

Tim nods. "I know."

"Show me," Cass says again.

His breath catches in his throat, but he does not sob. "If Steph kissed you -- she'd turn on the light, first." Tim's room is dingy, but it serves his purposes. Tim's bed is fine quality, because he needs the hours of sleep he gets to be as good as possible. Tim's body is even more inescapably male in the light.

I wonder how often people have tried to take advantage of Cass. She is very pretty and she would beat the snot out of anyone except Bruce.

Until he shifts a little and runs a hand through his hair, settling into a pose for her. That crooked smile is not his, and it makes Cass's heart leap and fall at the same time. "Steph," she says, and Tim's expression says it back to her with a grin, wide, bright, and only the faintest tinge of bitter.

At this point, the pencilling in my head shifts from Scott to Woods, though I am not sure why. Scott could manage this just as well.

"You're so gorgeous, B. G.," Steph says, in Tim's voice, with Tim's posture, giving her an envious, appreciative look. Steph leans toward her, needing, wanting more openly than anyone else dares to want.

B. G. = Meta like a meta thing, because the only people I recall using it are Dick (about Babs) and Steph (about Cass). B. G. means "I love you, Batgirl!"

Steph's openness is what makes her Robin.

Dammit.

"Oh, Steph," Cass says, and she knows it isn't fair to stare at him when she's only looking at the way he's sitting, watching him think Steph at her and dance Steph for her. "Please."

Steph kisses her, and it is as impetuous, maddening, delightful, shivering as Steph's kisses must be -- must have been -- the tenses make Cass's head spin when she isn't in love, loved, when no one is kissing her with the taste of sunshine and beauty and Robin.

I am not sure where this story came from in my brain, but it was not actually as hard to write as it seems like it ought to have been, in retrospect. It flowed.

That frightens me.

Robin.

Cass breaks the kiss and stares at Tim for a breath. He has lost too much, and he gives her this. She cannot see his pain under his act. She touches Steph's cheek -- stubble. Tim. "Wait."

I love the separation of layers of reality here -- the spoken reality, the sensed reality, the seen reality.

Steph would not sit on his bed with a cape hanging from her shoulders, not if they had been apart -- how many weeks? Oh, Tim. He must have missed her. Cass thinks of blonde hair and laughter. She peels off her uniform, her sweaty underwear, her bra, and focuses. There. That is how Steph's smile feels, so alive. She can feel Tim's eyes on her, and she loves him, loves being looked at, loves being appreciated. That tip of the pelvis is Steph's, with confidence and an invitation. She wants him to know that she is naked for him, and she knows that she is beautiful.

Cass with a cocked hip is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. She just doesn't stand like that, but Steph can, and did.

Tim moans and reaches for her. Steph leans into the touch, and when Tim's smile opens into something joyous, Cass kisses Steph, and Steph kisses Tim. He touches her breast, or Steph does, tentative at first, then bolder when she sighs, "Tim."

Pronouns be damned. I'll be over here using nine names in a 3 sentence paragraph so everyone can tell what in the hell is going on in Cass's head.

He says, "Steph," in her ear, and she laughs for the music of it, the way no one has laughed around Tim in too long. Steph kisses her again and touches her stomach, her hip. "Is it okay?"

I'm glad that this is not penetrative-het-sex, because I am pretty darn sure I couldn't have done that. Well, relatively sure.

Cass answers as Steph answers, pressing her hips against his hand, moving to find the right places, the right rhythms, and reaching for Tim. Steph says, "Please, yes." He's shaking with need, Steph's breath is already coming short and fast. He makes her tingle and gasp for more. She strokes him, moving faster, harder in time to the jerks of Steph's hips. Too long since she touched him, too long since he touched her. They kiss again, more eloquent than any words -- immediate need and the deeper ache of longing.

It makes me sad to reread this and see -- yes, Steph *loved* Tim, and Tim loved her back, as much as he could. The other problem is that Cass *loved* Steph, but differently.

I like this relatively oblique sex. It works for them, here, because they're dissociating hard on purpose.

"God, I missed you," Tim says, gruffly, against her hair that should be blonde. "Please --" Steph says.

"I'm here," Cass says, as Steph as she can make herself be. Open, clear, bright, shivering with emotion. "I love you."

I don't think anyone gets to see Cass like that very often.

I am pretty sure Tim knows that, when he's not in the middle of wanting to orgasm and sob.

Steph falters for a moment, clings to her shoulder, and Tim comes in her hand, his expression naked enough to be Steph's, his body shouting its climax. "Sorry," Steph says, and that isn't Tim. Tim would be sincere or embarrassed. Steph is grinning at her. "But now I can think about it."

Cross-gender roleplaying during sex is fun for the whole Batfamily, particularly when they get to the point of fluids where no fluids should be.

Cass lets herself fall back on the bed, watching the hunger in Steph's eyes, Tim's eyes. It doesn't mask the loneliness. It burns it to ashes. Steph licks her nipple and Cass watches the focus on her face, then lets the shiver show for Tim's sake. Steph doesn't have any reason to hide her pleasure. When Tim slides a finger inside her, she lets her hips move with it and whimpers for him, shows him just what she needs, today, now. Steph's hands know just where to go, and Cass moans for her. "Oh, Steph."

Having sex with Cass if she *decided* not to react would be a singularly weird experience.

It makes me wonder what these kids' second time was like. How long before they didn't *need* Steph there to communicate? Did they ever really manage it, or did the Crisis/Willingham/god only knows what eat their time together?

This is *deeply* melancholy sex. Does it even count as erotica when what I expect the reader to do is whimper?

"You're beautiful," Steph says, brushing just there, just hard enough, just right, and Cass feels her muscles tense just as Steph says, "Love you." She can show Steph the climax, the release and the tension and the naked, naked self, to be Steph for Tim for a last moment in the most intimate way she can.

When the room is real again, when he is Tim again, she pushes his hands away, and sits up Cass. "I wish she kissed me," Cass says, and Tim shivers.

This would be the absence part.

"Yes." He squeezes her shoulder in a Batman-hug.

Oh, Cass. Please don't ever sleep with Bruce. Really.

It's cold in the room without Steph there. Cass clears her throat, and Steph says, "Timmy, hug me." He does it without hesitation, clinging to her with all of the wishing and wanting she can see in him every night. Steph strokes his hair and says, "It's okay."

I'm not sure now that Steph really did call him Timmy, butI must have picked it up somewhere. Also, the identity switching back and forth is pretty darn confusing when I *think* about it, but not when I'm just reading.

"It's not okay." Tim gives her a Robin frown, angry with the world.

I wish Cass had met Dick-Robin.

But then she would have been afraid of Tim.

"I'm here," Cass says, and Steph adds, "Timmy."

Tim hugs her more tightly. "It's still not okay."

Cass shrugs. "What else can we do?"

Steph grins at her, a tired smile, but still real. "We'll just have to figure it out." And Tim gives her another shoulder squeeze. "Thanks."

They're trying so hard, but neither of them is actually Robin.

They need Jason to drop by.

Nah, they just need Steph. Someone to bring sweetness and light into the whole damn mess.

Cass nods. "Welcome."

Tim pulls back his covers. "Let's get some sleep."

"Does Steph -- cuddle?"

Tim laughs, and there are still sharp edges, but not quite so many. "Is the Pope Catholic?"

Oh, self-indulgent author, that was a Steph-line, not a Tim-line.

Cass blinks. "I don't know."

"I meant yes. She does. Definitely."

"I will stay." And Steph does cuddle, warmly, tightly, enough to drive out the cold in every part of Cass's body until she can fall asleep and feel safe.

There is not enough cuddling in this fandom.

I try to remedy that, when the occasion presents itself, but it doesn't happen often enough.

Comments

[maelithil.livejournal.com]

Ouch. See, reading it hurt enough, but your commentary just *hammered it in*.

"I wish she kissed me," is... god. Ouch. And perfect for Cass, for a Cass using *words*.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

I believe in pain. Yep.

Pain is good for you.

Oh, Cass.

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Aw, I'm so *glad* I asked for this. DVD commentary really does add value to the source material -- the story itself is more rereadable because there's new depth of perception, and nuances that one might have missed. And then there's the commentary, which is entertaining on multiple levels of meta, authorial process, and humour. Thanks for making a great story even more ...shiny. ::wink::

(And hey look, now I have an even *more* appropriate icon for commenting on this story...)

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

*grins* I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Tim's expression freaks me out gently.

[katarik.livejournal.com]

This story made me reach for Kleenex the first time I read it, and the commentary REALLY DOESN'T HELP.
*sniffle*
Oh, Cass. Oh, Tim. Oh, Steph, honey; they loved you so much.
They still do.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

I --

I hate to say, "Good!"

But really -- that's what I was aiming for.

[katarik.livejournal.com]

*wibbles*

Good that you got what you were aiming for, but *ow* my poor heart.

I need to go read fluff now. Yes. Fluff.

[thete1.livejournal.com]

You know, I think it was actually easier to get all the ID-switches without the commentary -- this was one of those stories which lived or died on flow, and it totally lived.

Mostly, though, I'm thinking about what you say about erotica-with-whimpering and... yeah. I always get a weird kind of guilt when I write sad porn, because I know that as little as it 'works' for me, it'll work even less for the readers -- who have *no* separation from the pain, assuming I did my job right.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

You know, I think it was actually easier to get all the ID-switches without the commentary -- this was one of those stories which lived or died on flow, and it totally lived.

I agree, and I wouldn't have figured it was necessarily the case. Too much tweaking, though, and it falls apart.

*eyes the concept of sad porn*

Is it *porn* if it's not meant to arouse the reader? What is it, if it's not porn? Why don't we have more words for "writing about sex"?

[pulpgeek.livejournal.com]

Good commentary on a great story even if it does make me want to quietly whimper in a corner. Poor kids.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I feel so bad for them, really. They *do* need time to grieve, and they really aren't getting it.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Having recced this, I thouught I should finally say how much I love this DVD meme, how much it adds to an already perfect story.

In my defence, this is the first time I managed to read all of it without crying, and that only because I'm at work and was forced to take several breaks.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dear heart, for the recommendation and the comment.

I shouldn't feel so self-congratulatory about making you cry, but I feel it anyway.