Special Edition DVD: Now with alternate beginnings!

[the_deep_magic]

I was combing through some old fic files and found about 1,600 words of a false start I wrote for medea_fic's RPF exchange prompt, the one that eventually became Feels Just Like It Should.  Reading over it, I realized that it's probably too specific for me to cannibalize for another fic, but I like some of it, so I thought what the hell, might as well post.

The prompt was for Chris and Zach to compete to see who could go the longest without jerking off.  What didn't quite work about my first attempt was that I set it during the filming of the second movie, and there seemed to be too many chances for them to cheat on the bet without getting caught.  I suppose I could have made it work, but it was just easier to set it during the press tour, when they would be around each other all the time and know if the other was illicitly beating his respective meat.  And then they started arguing in my head about donuts, and that was that.

Anyway, this is most of what would have been the first scene, plus two random scenes after that.  They are in no way complete or well-edited; I just kind of like them and wanted them to see the light of day, the poor neglected things.  Uh, PG for adult themes, I guess?  Stuff in bold is my notes.

“I don’t know, like, a week?  Why what’s the longest you’ve gone without?” Karl asked.

Chris scratched at his temple.  “Twenty-four hours?  Maybe thirty-six?”

“Nuh-uh,” said Anton.

“Well, I mean, the first twelve years of my life.  But then after that, uh…  Pretty regularly.  Why do I feel like I probably shouldn’t have admitted to that?”

John briefly raised his head from where it had been resting on his folded arms on the table.  “Obviously the man does not have children.”  

Karl just laughed.  “You need to stop having babies while we’re filming Trek.  That’s twice now – it’s a bad habit.”

“Thank you, Karl, I will inform Kerri to cease being fertile at inopportune times.”  Then he plonked it back down on his folded arms on the table.  “How ‘bout you make fun of Chris for a while?”

Zach pulled out a chair and sat down.  “Are we talking about what I think we’re talking about?”

“Probably,” muttered Karl.

“Seriously,” said Anton, still staring at Chris.  “A day and a half?”

“Why?  How often do you?”

“I don’t know.  Not every day.”  Everyone collectively snorted, and Anton’s mouth tightened into a hard line.  “I don’t.  But mostly because I get more play then all of you.  Combined.”

Karl groaned.  “He’s probably right.”

“Hey,” Chris interjected.  “What about me?”

“Well, if you wouldn’t expend all your romantic efforts on your right hand…” Zach said nonchalantly.

“Alright, fine, Quinto.  How long have you gone without jerking off?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

John lifted his head again.  “You know.”  Then: plonk.

Rolling his eyes, Zach said, “Fine.  I went without for the two weeks before Angels opened.”

Chris’ eyes widened.  “On purpose?”

“Well, yeah.  Louis and Prior weren’t exactly shagging like bunnies – he had to be pretty sexually frustrated.  I wanted to see if it would get me in the right headspace.”

“Did it?” Anton asked.

“Not well enough for me to keep doing it.”

Chris snorted.  “Yeah, sure, that’s why.  Not because you popped a boner when Christian Borle was humping your naked butt.”

Zach bristled at that, half because it wasn’t as though Chris had actually come to see the damn thing, and half because… well, it was actually the scene where Bill Heck pushed him around that nearly had him tenting his jeans.  But Chris really didn’t need to know that.  “I hardly think you have any room to talk.  Word on the street is you can’t make it a day and a half without spilling your seed.”

“I could go without longer than you could,” Chris scoffed, and Zach thought he heard a snorfle from the direction of the John-shaped lump a few seats over.


Here the bet would have officially been made, with Karl and Anton as witnesses.  As filming progressed, Chris and Zach would have had more and more scenes that involve them in tight quarters...


Zach didn’t think a thing of it when he saw it in the script:

On the run, SPOCK ducks into a utility closet.  KIRK follows, shuts the door.  They hold their breath, but footsteps pass.  The danger is gone.  KIRK tries the handle – it’s locked.  Jump cut to UHURA having to let them out.

In the final cut, it would be thirty seconds long, tops.  But the filming schedule had it spread out over three days, because Zoe wasn’t on schedule until the third day and the lighting needed to be just so and the cinematographer wanted to do some artsy camera angles and, apparently, nobody was telling J.J. “no” anymore, which could be a problem in the near future but so far everything was going smoothly.  Of course, BTD could probably put an entire short film together with the budget they were wasting on those three days, but whatever.  Some days, Zach was glad his job was just to show up and read the lines.

Except that it looked as though there was going to be very little reading of lines and an uncomfortably large about of being crammed with Chris into a “closet” the size of a gym locker.  Which ordinarily would only be a minor inconvenience if he were allowed to, uh, take care of his own needs in the privacy of his home, but at that point, he hadn’t jerked off in three days and he was starting to feel it.  For now, it was just a light little buzz of interest deep in his gut when he looked at Chris, who was standing arms akimbo in front of the “closet” with a look of great concentration on his face.

“Did you play a lot of Tetris as a kid?” he asked without tearing his eyes from the makeshift closet.  “Because I have a feeling we’re going to need that skill set right about now.”

“If they fold you into an L-shape and drop you on top of me, I’m calling for the stunt double.”

“Nah, dropping me was the theme of the last movie.  I think there’s more of a crushing thing going on here.”

He was right – so far they’d filmed a scene where the evil alien creature had pinned Kirk to the ground with a knee on his chest, and there was a scene in the script where the villain tortured him by crushing his hand.  “Did you drown a sack of kittens in a previous life?”

Chris winced.  “Worse, I pissed off the writers.  I may have once reacted with something less than enthusiasm when Bob was passing around pictures of his kids.  And I dinged Alex’s car.”

Zach laughed before he could stop himself.  “You do remember we’re contractually obligated for at least one more movie after this?”

“Yeah, I’m fucked,” Chris sighed.  “If we make it to number fourteen, I’m pretty sure I’m going to get shot out of a cannon.  Space cannon.  Thing.”

“Alright,” J.J. interrupted, charging across the set like a man on a mission.  “Let’s get this thing blocked.  It’ll be simple enough – Zach, you go in first, then get to the left side so we can still see your face as Chris shuts the door.”

Zach followed J.J.’s instructions, and Chris followed Zach, turning back out to the corridor as he began to shut the door.  Of course, as he retreated into the closet, his whole backside ended up pressed against Zach.  “Uh, was there any particular way you wanted us to fit in here?” Chris asked as he pushed the door back open.

“That’s what we’re going to figure out,” J.J. said.  “Zach, stay there.”

Zach glanced around.  The closet was deeper than he’d originally thought, but narrow enough that he and Chris would be right in each other’s space if they faced each other.  He was just starting to worry about that when the back of the closet popped out, making him jump.  Obviously, the camera and lights were going to be set up on that side.

“Okay,” J.J. said, “I hope you’ve both showered, because you’re going to be getting very close here in a minute.  Zach, put your back against the wall.  Chris, if you could just kind of sliiiiide right in there, facing him.  Perfect.”


So I liked this set up, but there would have had to be Accidental Boners, and it seemed liked too soon in the story to start throwing in Accidental Boners.  And here's the last scene (that I wrote, not the end of the story), which is just an excuse to make fun of Chris for being a pseudo-Luddite.  I may re-use some of this dialogue in another fic, but whatever, I'm going to post it here, too.


“Well?” Chris asked, pacing back and forth nervously, like an expectant father in an old sitcom.

Zach narrowed his eyes at the laptop as he strategically pressed a few keys.  “I think we can salvage her.”

A glimmer of hope appeared in Chris’ eye.  “Okay, how?”

“You need more internets,” Zach said gravely, pausing to rub his chin.  “Five should do it.  Though I might get seven, just to be safe.”

Chris actually looked like he was considering it for about half a second – then he yanked a pillow off the couch and clocked Zach over the head.  “You cheesedick!  I thought you could actually fix it!”

“And I honestly have no idea why you thought that.  Seriously, Chris.”

“But you…”  He gestured wildly in the vicinity of Zach’s crotch, and it took Zach a little longer than it should have to realize Chris was trying to indicate his pocket.  “You’re always typing away on your… magic phone and taking pictures and shit.”

“Wow.  You were technologically lobotomized somewhere around 2002, weren’t you?”

“It was a good year,” Chris said, shrugging helplessly.  “I had a cell phone that actually made and received phone calls.”

He did look pitiful, so Zach sighed and faced the laptop again.  “Okay, I know a few basic things.  When was the last time you emptied your Recycle Bin?”

“You, uh… you have to empty that?”

“Well, that answers that question.  Okay, let me just check it, and then we’ll run a defrag, and… holy shit!”  Zach gaped at the screen.  “Chris, you have 27 gigabytes of crap in your Recycle Bin.”

He had the good sense to at least look sheepish.  “Is that too many gigathingies?”

“Don’t play dumb with me – you at least know what a gigabyte is.  What all is even in h—”  Zach stopped himself short.  There was porn.  Lots of porn.  “Oh.”  So much porn.

“Fuck,” Chris groaned, yanking the laptop out of his hands.

Zach let it go without a struggle.  “Shit, Chris, I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s— I mean.”  Chris flapped his hands, his face slowly going from pink to red to… was that puce?   “Okay, it’s not that big a deal.  I mean, I’m not into anything— It’s just porn, right?”

“Yeah, just porn.”

“I was actually getting rid of it,” Chris muttered, plopping down on the couch and burying his face in his hands.  “That’s why it’s in the trash file.  I thought it was gone.”

“All of it?”

“Well, no.  I burned my, uh, favorite stuff onto some discs.”  His head popped up and he brightened momentarily.  “I can do that much!  But, uh.  Yeah, with the bet and all, it was kind of too tempting.  And half of it I don’t even watch, anyway.”


So, like I said, just randomness, but since I haven't posted fic in forever, I thought it might be nice to give you a little snippet of something.  I AM WORKING ON A THING, I SWEAR.  IT IS A FUN THING.  YOU WILL LIKE IT.  WHEN I FINISH IT.