TVP: Chapter 61
Happy Monday, my dearesteses.
A mockingbird was somewhere in the bare trees beyond them, singing someone else’s song ( Read more... )
A mockingbird was somewhere in the bare trees beyond them, singing someone else’s song ( Read more... )
Raikov smiled, relieved.
“Remind me.”
This chapter ends on a perfect note, a lovely little reflection of not just Ocelot's character, but also of the state of his and Raikov's relationship - this partnership, really, that began as ADAM and EVA, but as now as men, and lovers. It's the tacit understanding between them that I love here, what can go unspoken in lieu of what is.
In fact, there were a lot of perfect notes in this chapter - this another one:
“Plenty, plenty of air,” assured the old man, urging him toward the hall. “It’s not hypoxia, the issue with your lover. It’s his burden, which I believe we’ll prove soon enough. It isn’t easy, you know, being a conduit for the dead.”
“His what-” managed Ocelot, with wan, belated incredulity. “That word-”
Vasiliev patted him on the shoulder.
Ocelot's objection here is the description of his "burden," not being called Raikov's lover. He doesn't even notice that little bit, which is absolutely charming. It's an excellent, subtle device to reflect Ocelot's mindset and his comfort with their relationship. You clever thing. Heh. XD
Another one:
Adam’s gaze was stony, inscrutable.
“You’re doing this for me.”
Ivan’s smile was slightly bitter.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Ocelot paused, hesitating, taking another drag. He seemed to have been struck speechless briefly, scowling into rain mist and ether.
So Ivan quietly reinforced his statement, with unvarnished honesty, which had a patina like concrete to his mind’s eye.
“It’s all for you, now.”
Adam coughed violently, and threw down the cigarette, where it hissed to its anticlimactic death in the rain-logged snow.
Because, god. XD No wonder why that gets to Ocelot so much. It's so simply and baldly put that there can be no question of subterfuge - the act of saying it itself is its own veracity, and coming from Ivan, no wonder it's a swift and merciless shot to the heart for Ocelot, to hear, and to feel the truth of this sort of devotion about him. Ivan puts no spin on it here; he's as overt about the exact nature of his feelings about Ocelot as he is about his feelings for Volgin. They're different feelings, of course, but the way in which he expresses them is the same. Simple and unvarnished. Unusual for the cagey major, but it's the same matter-of-fact tone.
It shocks Ocelot a bit, because he has no way of knowing Ivan's twisty little mental processes, and the Raikov's mental denouement of the telephone scene in chapter 57. In Chapter 58, we actually see Ivan's line of thinking:
He wondered if Ocelot had known his true intention was being tested in the wake of his earlier confession. If he realized, at that critical, primal juncture, what Ivan meant to prove by forcing him to choose shared risk instead of self-preservation.
It had seemed like such a perfect litmus- ruthless, fast and telling- until the demand had passed his lips, and then he’d been looking up at Ocelot, into the wild sharpness of those eyes, and known that he asked too much.
And Ocelot had given it to him.
There had been no hesitation beyond surprise on his part, and it left little doubt.
Adam had proved he would take a dive, chance the heat with him. It was good enough for now.
Cool to see this idea return, that Ivan has acted upon his conclusion and has shifted his loyalties...though how he's going to get out of his current entanglements remains to be seen. What a way to raise the dramatic stakes, to make it intensely personal, and driving.
(continued, sorry, gah, garrulousness)
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I love how Ivan leads off with this:
“If you’ll humor an objective layman’s clumsy perversion of a genius explanation, it seems like…there are two extremes of hyper-sentient emotive personality, apart from the median man, who merely exists and accepts. The emotionally expressed, and the emotionally repressed.”
The layman's view, huh, Ivan? Perhaps, but even so, it's a deep and provocative observation, challenging in its initial form. I have the feeling, though, you did that on purpose, to have Ivan express the "layman's view" in cerebral psychological terminology is because the meaning, ultimately, is simple. It's the difference between Ocelot and Ivan, it's right there in who they are, and the examination of their own personalities proves to be the perfect means by which Ivan is able to explain the phenomenon.
It serves a dual purpose - both to explicate the nature of Ocelot's power (and even foreshadow how it might be used later, as a plot device) but also to draw a parallel between the boys, to show us that in a way, they're like opposite sides of a doorway, going in, and coming out. Equal but different, ADAM and EVA, complimentary in so many ways.
It speaks to their future partnership, both as lovers and conspirators, but again, is so subtly done it primes us for what is to come without us even consciously noticing.
This:
“But everything finds an outlet, doesn’t it,” muttered Ocelot, under his breath. “An ultimate form of expression.”
Pertains to both of them, really, and in a way that resonates far more deeply that the game quote, though kudos to you for using that, and tying it in so profoundly.
The explanation itself strikes a great balance - Ocelot asks believable questions, ones that the reader would ask, to help make the point clear without insulting our intelligence. It's a delicious sort of unraveling, to think about what Ivan's saying, and to realize what is meant by that literally, and metaphorically.
This chapter is so loaded and rich, you redeem the term "fanfic" - there is a depth and passion for the subject matter here that surpasses so much published hack literature and lazy writing. In other words, you BRING IT. XD
I'm damn impressed. XDDD
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