Day 16 - Fic: Team Time: A Heart Closing

[rsgamesmods]

Team: Time

Title: A Heart Closing

Rating: R

Warnings: major character death, angst-ridden sex

Genres: period fic (WWII), angst

Word Count: 9300

Summary: A war story, told in stops and starts.

Notes: I decided on a wartime setting partly because I feel like r/s works well with the extra conflict surrounding them, but also partly because this

Comments

[luminousgloom]

This is why I love the Games - don't usually like AU fics or a lot of angst, so I doubt I'd have come across this otherwise, and man, I would've massively missed out!

Your writing is just wonderful, full of brilliantly observed details. Loved this -
"Would you hate me," Sirius asks. He sounds too earnest, too much like the child Remus met seven years ago, always soft and uncertain beneath the bravado.

"Would there be any point." Remus turns to look him in the eye, finally.

and

Remus wants to tell him that he's always been on his side, that he will probably be on his side until the day he dies at this rate, but the words stick in his throat like glass.

- and lots more but particularly this -

They keep coming back to this, hitting each other at odd angles.

"I love you," says Sirius, except it comes out as, "I'm sorry."

Remus wraps his arms around him, pulling him to his chest like a secret. This is what he wants and this is what he cannot keep.

Your theme of secrets and things left unsaid is of course at the heart of espionage - and the way Sirius can't talk or won't talk, and Remus' resentment of the fact, and his general feeling of uncertainty, are only exacerbated by the fact even their relationship isn't ever spoken about. I really liked how you show that poor Remus knows Sirius so well and absolutely understands his motivations, and yet can neither stop him, nor let go of him. And then the last part is as heartbreaking as it is beautiful...

There are some definite echoes of The Night Watch I thought, although you've done it all in a very different (and btw totally convincing) way. I could go on! Amazing piece, absolutely loved it.