Love Between Shadows

[sauvin]

When approved, Love Between Shadows follows the unnamed kids around the house, still recovering from the events of the previous few nights. The boy gets some idea why the girl melted down.

Also, they're not "unnamed" anymore. Meet Orson Chagin, a boy, and Elysse Deschamps, a girl who isn't really a girl, and who is more usually known by those 'close' to her as Christine Laplace, and even more usually by random strangers as Joelle or Denise or Josephine or... or... or...

[metoo]

I like this. A lot.

I also find reflections of my own thoughts about the relation between Eli and Håkan.

Off topic: Part of the conversation reminds me of a discussion we had about a year ago. So while Orson may have been taught things involving dimes, diamonds and storks, Oskar would have had books like the ones discussed in this blog: http://kulturarbete.blogspot.se/2008/04 ... la-fr.html

Yes, these are real kids' books from the Swedish seventies.

[sauvin]

I like this. A lot.

I also find reflections of my own thoughts about the relation between Eli and Håkan.

Off topic: Part of the conversation reminds me of a discussion we had about a year ago. So while Orson may have been taught things involving dimes, diamonds and storks, Oskar would have had books like the ones discussed in this blog: http://kulturarbete.blogspot.se/2008/04 ... la-fr.html

Yes, these are real kids' books from the Swedish seventies.

I heard a slightly off-colour joke, once, it went something like this:

Three kids, a German, an Italian and a French kid, aged 9, 7 and 5, respectively, were walking past the storefront window of a shop that bore a CLOSED sign. The kids peered into the window to see what was in the store, and saw instead a man and a woman doing something on the floor.

The German kid, 9, asked "What are they doing?"

The Italian kid, 7, replied "They're making love."

The French kid, 5, added "And badly."

Orson and Elysse are French. I don't think French people deserve the reputation they seem to've once had of being sexually lawless, but it does seem true that European people in general are much more comfortable in their own skins and with their sexualities than North Americans, and I would presume that European children in general aren't kept in the dark as much as American kids were when I was growing up some forty years ago in rural Midwest. This, partly, is why they're Orson and Elysse, and not Oscar and Elizabeth or something.

Another one of the reasons they're Orson and Elysse and not Oskar and Eli or Abby and Owen is that it decouples my thinking from Canon, and frees me to take certain liberties. My private little Shadows in the Darkness kids aren't worried about signing leases or arranging to have the lights turned on, for example, because they're as far off the grid as it's possible to get and still draw breath.

I don't think I've even given any indication of when these stories are taking place; they might be in the '50's, or that house could have gone whump just last night. This leaves me free of worrying about anachronisms. Well, worrying overmuch, anyway; I seem to tend to worry about feelings and emotional reactions and relationship dynamics more than anything technical, but this "dimes and diamonds" thing was a reference (and something of an homage) to the opening scenes of one of the Addams Family movies, and Orson was just play-acting at being dumb, playing along with Elysse who was "explaining" (as if to a small child) something that seriously did not need explaining to a fifteen year old boy who takes showers with twelve year old girls.

I'd thought this passage was fairly clear:

This was not their first introduction, nor their second, nor even their hundredth, formal or otherwise. It was very familiar. There were no more names; there were no more words at all. There was no pretension, no lie, no pain or sorrow. There was no question and no reluctant answer. What washed down the drain for Orson Chagin was more than just the effluvia of several nights in lifeless fields and empty roads, it was also the fear of the past three days and the darkly permanent plans he’d made to remedy them, and the stiffness in the back of his neck and across his shoulder blades. He willingly lost himself in the solace of his girlfriend’s comforting arms until the hot water was exhausted.

If it wasn't, then you have my apologies. The hot water wasn't the only thing that was "exhausted". The idea here was to convey that sexual intimacy was such an integral part of their daily lives that it scarely even merits mention. In a similar vein, they lit up a candle in the child's bedroom because the master bedroom had too many flies - at a time of year when you can see Orson's breath at night. It's where they'd put the bodies of the house's former occupants. Having dead bodies laying about the house is also such a commonplace thing for these kids that it just doesn't even bear mentioning until questions of disposal have to be considered, and in this case, that question had already been decided when Orson told Elysse nearer the beginning of the story to look for drain cleaner (so as to minimise the DNA left in the drainpipes and suchlike, you see...)

But yes, my canonical Eli's attitude towards Hakan isn't simple or clear, and my Abby's attitude towards Thomas far less so.

[metoo]

I'd thought this passage was fairly clear:
[...]
If it wasn't, then you have my apologies.

I did understand that Orson played being dumb. I added "off topic" to that part of my comment to indicate that it didn't pertain to your fanfic, but to the earlier discussion. I found the blog post I linked to just recently, I didn't have it at the time of the discussion, but it still may interest some non-Swedes that Swedish kindergartens would have such books in their shelves.

However, I didn't read the quoted part the way you apparently wrote it. Part of sex is the soothing effect of being gently touched and caressed, but this is available to all humans, from infants to senile elderlings, and I didn't read more into the showering scene than that. Nevertheless, their relation might work out the way you seem to suggest. The girl helps the boy with needs she cannot fully understand, and vice-versa.

About decoupling: I have noticed this, although I haven't mentioned it before. Obviously it is a useful way for you as a writer to get some freedom, while still benefiting from the readers' familiarity with the characters.

But the drain cleaner puts the story rather firmly into the present, now that you've explained why they needed it. Before that, I wondered about it, while pictures of dismembered bodies dissolving in the basement bathtub went through my mind. This is a horror fan site, right?

[sauvin]

However, I didn't read the quoted part the way you apparently wrote it. Part of sex is the soothing effect of being gently touched and caressed, but this is available to all humans, from infants to senile elderlings, and I didn't read more into the showering scene than that. Nevertheless, their relation might work out the way you seem to suggest. The girl helps the boy with needs she cannot fully understand, and vice-versa.

The girl may be twelve; she may just be an older-looking ten, in "reality", or a really young-looking fifteen. The former seems a bit more likely than the latter, though, because a fifteen year old girl wouldn't remark on the differences between her perceptions and those of a fifteen year old boy. That whole time of life is all about transition, and it comes to people at different stages, rates and ways, and illegitimate birth at such ages is not unknown.

Who knows what Elysse might or might not "fully understand" at the apparent age of twelve? As I wrote the story, what crossed my mind was "they collapsed into each other's arms, and then the laughter died down, and then they cuddled, and then they cuddled some more, and then maybe I better turn my attention elsewhere because this could get pornographic". All I was really concerned with in that moment was that "there was no question and no reluctant answer"; they understood and respected each other's boundaries.

I think most folk would consider such a relationship transgressive for a variety of reasons. If she'd been a real girl, the boy's behaviour would be considered shameful (at best) because the girl he's preying on is much smaller, physically much weaker and presumably much less able to understand the possible consequences of this act.

She isn't a "real" girl, though, and this has nothing to do with having centuries of "giving up" when being told "give up or get out" by boys even younger than a twelve year old Orson. What she can never seem to get out of her mind is what she is, and the juxtaposition isn't one of a predatory teenaged boy taking advantage of a preteen girl, it's of a teenaged boy shampooing and soaping the body of a practically invulnerable angel of death.

This, in fact, is part of the point: just about everything about both these kids is transgressive. They invaded a home, killed all its occupants, trashed the house, stole things from it and then burned it down, leaving virtually nothing behind. The girl has the feeble excuse of long experience, but the boy doesn't - and it's the girl who expresses regret that the house and all the former occupants' belongings will be denied their survivors. Their wrongness is so uniform and so deep that they can decline to light a candle in the master bedroom only because there are too many flies, without giving the reason those flies are there even a single thought.

But the drain cleaner puts the story rather firmly into the present, now that you've explained why they needed it. Before that, I wondered about it, while pictures of dismembered bodies dissolving in the basement bathtub went through my mind. This is a horror fan site, right?

"They'll find things. Hair. Blood. Your fingerprints."

How long has blood type been used to help incriminate or eliminate suspects? I don't really know, but because I don't, neither do the kids. In the 60's and 70's, when I was myself still just a kid, there were an awful lot of cop shows that had an awful lot of bad guys going to jail because of the tiniest things, such as a drop of blood found behind a counter or traces of saliva found on a victim's body. Orson apparently watches TV, at least when he's bored; he may or may not have a realistic idea of the state of forensic science, but he knows there's something to know, and he knows that survival is at stake. Why take chances?

But, you may be right. He disconnected a gas line downstairs somewhere and left a candle burning upstairs somewhere because using "something else" wouldn't give them "enough time" to evade pursuit as investigators realised an accelerant had been deliberately used.

[metoo]

Well, you did mention DNA in a comment, and that has not been available to forensic analysis until very recently. Nevertheless, destroying all traces of themselves would have been wise at any time.

[PeteMork]

I love the way you’ve painted their relationship in this one. The shower scene was sweet, sensitive, and realistic, and the sex seemed just as sweet, natural, and timeless as the rest of their relationship.

I also liked the way you segued from her comments about Orson’s being willing to die for her, and the discussion of her “father,” whom she realized after the fact, may have actually done it. And her acknowledgement that they had both used each other, but she had probably hurt him far worse than he had hurt her:

We fought sometimes when he wanted more than I wanted to give. He was always wanting. We fought when I wanted more than he wanted to give. I guess I was always wanting, too, and I made him do things he’d never have done in a million years if we’d never met. Things that must have really hurt him worse than he already was….
… And, I think he didn’t want to live without me.

And I especially liked this…

“There are other girls. You could meet one, and she could give you what I can’t.”

“But can she give me what you can?”

You’ve outdone yourself this time, Sauvin. But then, as everyone knows, I'm always a sucker for a happy …ending?

[PeteMork]

I've reread this several times but I'm not sure I understand what it is that she doesn't want Orson to talk about here:

She swallowed, nodded her head once. “I’m Elysse Deschamps.”
He started.
“Elysse... des champs...!?”
She huffed.
“You mean-”
“Don’t start.”
“But, seriously-”
“I said don’t start!”
“But really, now, you-”
“I got a whole tubful of ‘don’t start’ for every comment you’re about to try to make!”

[sauvin]

I've reread this several times but I'm not sure I understand what it is that she doesn't want Orson to talk about here:

She swallowed, nodded her head once. “I’m Elysse Deschamps.”
He started.
“Elysse... des champs...!?”
She huffed.
“You mean-”
“Don’t start.”
“But, seriously-”
“I said don’t start!”
“But really, now, you-”
“I got a whole tubful of ‘don’t start’ for every comment you’re about to try to make!”

Oh, come on, a girl has to have some secrets!

[metoo]

Oh, come on, a girl has to have some secrets!

Hmm, it wasn't a complete secret to Orson, though, so...

I tried to Google that name, to see if it was referring to some folk tale or similar. I found references to people wearing the name, but none that was informative.

However, the name Elysse is explained thus:

Elysse meaning and name origin
Elysse \e-lysse, el(ys)-se\ as a girl's name is a variant of Elissa (Greek), and the meaning of Elysse is "from the blessed isles".