Baby-sitters Club | Oneshot: Summer Rain
Title: Summer Rain
Fandom: Baby-sitters Club
Universe: Early canon
Pairing: Richard Spier/Sharon Schafer
Genre: Romance
Rating: X
Warning: Explicit sexual content
Word Count: 4,586
Summary: He’d always had exquisite control, and she’d always longed to break it.
Link: AO3
Writing for![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mkrobinson for the 2017 ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hetswap exchange.
When I saw which fandom I matched on for this exchange, it gave me pause. BSC would be easy to write for, I thought; I have plenty of time (even with the ridiculousness that was overhauling the KI OTP), I thought. And yet, when it came time to actually put pen to paper, I wasn't feeling the least bit inspired.
I turned over a Sam/Stacey idea for a couple of days, but what I had in mind was too similar toozqueen's lovely Aches and Braggs. I'm all about comfort and snuggling, but I didn't want to tread on her toes, especially since she wrote it much better than I ever could (I'm terrible at math jokes or context).
So one night, while I was laying in bed, I started to think outside the box. What is the last thing readers might expect from me in this fandom? Explicit fic, no doubt, considering how many times I've said I wouldn't go there - for the baby-sitters, at least. Their parents, of course, were a whole different story. I've enjoyed quite a bit of parent!fic in my day, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I am now closer to the parents' ages than the baby-sitters'...and most of the explicit work I read, both fanfic and professionally published stories, center around people in their 20s-30s. Suddenly, the dreamboat dads of Stoneybrook getting it on didn't seem quite so strange, LOL.
Choosing Richard/Sharon wasn't very much of a leap, considering they are the stars of the Great Romance of Our Time, but I did have to convince myself to write it. I have a soft spot for stodgy ol' Richard, but he is a dad - and until now, I've always thought of him as such. Realizing he's more of a contemporary definitely put a new spin on things, and I started thinking about how he might've approached his reignited relationship with his childhood sweetheart.
You only have to look as far as the KI OTP manifesto to realize childhood sweethearts are my kryptonite ♥ Knowing that Richard and Sharon were forced to separate by her parents hinted at the touch of angst, and suddenly gave them a motive for having sex - what if it was just as much about being able to finish what they'd started way back when, as it was about a second chance at romance?
My inspiration song was "The Logical Song" by Supertramp, which is consummate nostalgia for me:
It has that innocent sense of wonder and longing and looking back at the past, which is exactly how I approached this story. I decided to make Sharon the aggressor because I see her as the more outwardly passionate of the two. Plus, we know that she dated different men between her marriages, whereas Richard's social life was much quieter.
She draws Richard in with memories of the past, of what they were denied as teenagers by her family. The Porters were the snobs, looking down on the humble Spier family and considering the son of a mailman not good enough for their precious darling daughter. I can totally see them as Society people, and Sharon as a modern day debutante. I can totally see her taking her exile to California personally and rebelling against her staid family by completely and totally embracing the hippie flower child movement. Her friendship with the Winslows is proof enough of that, and Jack Schafer is so completely different from Richard Spier in terms of personality and parenting style (and probably profession - did we ever find out what Dawn's dad did for a living?).
Anyway, Sharon is back in Stoneybrook and can't help but be sucked into the past, just a bit, all of those old passionate feelings rising to the fore again. The fact that she and Richard married tells me that they had quite a strong bond, to want to go through that whole process again after both of their first marriages ended in tragedy. It's the desire to confirm the depth of Richard's feelings for her that drives her to seduce him.
I see Richard being the more reticent of the two, especially about a sexual relationship, if only because of the way he lost Alma, and how he reacted in the aftermath. He held himself together so tightly in order to keep custody of Mary Anne, to prove to the world as much as his in-laws that he could raise her himself, that I can totally see him giving up a social life. Maybe he's one of those romantics who thinks they have only one shot at a great romance, and losing his wife meant that part of his life was over.
I see him bringing a lot of pain and confusion to the table when he rekindles his romance with Sharon. Writing this fic has only made me want to explore that angle more.
It was interesting writing these two having sex. They're both parents, so obviously they are not new to this party. Even with all of the other emotions swirling around between them, that they have that inherent knowledge of how to make the act pleasurable for each other was a necessity. I wanted to make the parallel between their physical excitement and their emotional angst (mingling with their memories) interesting and authentic.
The timing and location are definitely out of my realm of comfort, though =) On Sharon's sofa, on a Friday night, with the BSC upstairs in Dawn's room having a sleepover? How naughty of them! The risk of being caught just adds to the excitement of course, much as the risk of getting caught by their parents would've fueled their volatile relationship as teenagers.
All that was left was a title for the piece. It was but by chance that I found it - another song, which proved rather prescient, given the intertwining of memories with reality:
I'm a big fan of Johnny Rivers anyway (I'm a sucker for blue-eyed soul), so I suspect this may be the first of many stories based on his string of hits from the 60s and 70s.
I don't know if I fooled anyone by stepping so far out of my comfort zone, but I did receive some lovely comments for this fic before author reveals, and I saw at least one rec, which made me happy ♥ I'm definitely looking forward to exploring this relationship more, especially from Richard's perspective.
Fandom: Baby-sitters Club
Universe: Early canon
Pairing: Richard Spier/Sharon Schafer
Genre: Romance
Rating: X
Warning: Explicit sexual content
Word Count: 4,586
Summary: He’d always had exquisite control, and she’d always longed to break it.
Link: AO3
Writing for
mkrobinson for the 2017 hetswap exchange.When I saw which fandom I matched on for this exchange, it gave me pause. BSC would be easy to write for, I thought; I have plenty of time (even with the ridiculousness that was overhauling the KI OTP), I thought. And yet, when it came time to actually put pen to paper, I wasn't feeling the least bit inspired.
I turned over a Sam/Stacey idea for a couple of days, but what I had in mind was too similar to
ozqueen's lovely Aches and Braggs. I'm all about comfort and snuggling, but I didn't want to tread on her toes, especially since she wrote it much better than I ever could (I'm terrible at math jokes or context).So one night, while I was laying in bed, I started to think outside the box. What is the last thing readers might expect from me in this fandom? Explicit fic, no doubt, considering how many times I've said I wouldn't go there - for the baby-sitters, at least. Their parents, of course, were a whole different story. I've enjoyed quite a bit of parent!fic in my day, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I am now closer to the parents' ages than the baby-sitters'...and most of the explicit work I read, both fanfic and professionally published stories, center around people in their 20s-30s. Suddenly, the dreamboat dads of Stoneybrook getting it on didn't seem quite so strange, LOL.
Choosing Richard/Sharon wasn't very much of a leap, considering they are the stars of the Great Romance of Our Time, but I did have to convince myself to write it. I have a soft spot for stodgy ol' Richard, but he is a dad - and until now, I've always thought of him as such. Realizing he's more of a contemporary definitely put a new spin on things, and I started thinking about how he might've approached his reignited relationship with his childhood sweetheart.
You only have to look as far as the KI OTP manifesto to realize childhood sweethearts are my kryptonite ♥ Knowing that Richard and Sharon were forced to separate by her parents hinted at the touch of angst, and suddenly gave them a motive for having sex - what if it was just as much about being able to finish what they'd started way back when, as it was about a second chance at romance?
My inspiration song was "The Logical Song" by Supertramp, which is consummate nostalgia for me:
It has that innocent sense of wonder and longing and looking back at the past, which is exactly how I approached this story. I decided to make Sharon the aggressor because I see her as the more outwardly passionate of the two. Plus, we know that she dated different men between her marriages, whereas Richard's social life was much quieter.
She draws Richard in with memories of the past, of what they were denied as teenagers by her family. The Porters were the snobs, looking down on the humble Spier family and considering the son of a mailman not good enough for their precious darling daughter. I can totally see them as Society people, and Sharon as a modern day debutante. I can totally see her taking her exile to California personally and rebelling against her staid family by completely and totally embracing the hippie flower child movement. Her friendship with the Winslows is proof enough of that, and Jack Schafer is so completely different from Richard Spier in terms of personality and parenting style (and probably profession - did we ever find out what Dawn's dad did for a living?).
Anyway, Sharon is back in Stoneybrook and can't help but be sucked into the past, just a bit, all of those old passionate feelings rising to the fore again. The fact that she and Richard married tells me that they had quite a strong bond, to want to go through that whole process again after both of their first marriages ended in tragedy. It's the desire to confirm the depth of Richard's feelings for her that drives her to seduce him.
I see Richard being the more reticent of the two, especially about a sexual relationship, if only because of the way he lost Alma, and how he reacted in the aftermath. He held himself together so tightly in order to keep custody of Mary Anne, to prove to the world as much as his in-laws that he could raise her himself, that I can totally see him giving up a social life. Maybe he's one of those romantics who thinks they have only one shot at a great romance, and losing his wife meant that part of his life was over.
I see him bringing a lot of pain and confusion to the table when he rekindles his romance with Sharon. Writing this fic has only made me want to explore that angle more.
It was interesting writing these two having sex. They're both parents, so obviously they are not new to this party. Even with all of the other emotions swirling around between them, that they have that inherent knowledge of how to make the act pleasurable for each other was a necessity. I wanted to make the parallel between their physical excitement and their emotional angst (mingling with their memories) interesting and authentic.
The timing and location are definitely out of my realm of comfort, though =) On Sharon's sofa, on a Friday night, with the BSC upstairs in Dawn's room having a sleepover? How naughty of them! The risk of being caught just adds to the excitement of course, much as the risk of getting caught by their parents would've fueled their volatile relationship as teenagers.
All that was left was a title for the piece. It was but by chance that I found it - another song, which proved rather prescient, given the intertwining of memories with reality:
I'm a big fan of Johnny Rivers anyway (I'm a sucker for blue-eyed soul), so I suspect this may be the first of many stories based on his string of hits from the 60s and 70s.
I don't know if I fooled anyone by stepping so far out of my comfort zone, but I did receive some lovely comments for this fic before author reveals, and I saw at least one rec, which made me happy ♥ I'm definitely looking forward to exploring this relationship more, especially from Richard's perspective.