Sunny Days [Remember the Titans, Gerry/Julius, mature]
Fandom : Remember the Titans
Title : Sunny Days
Author : eatsscissors @ AO3
Rating : mature
Characters & Pairings : Gerry/Julius
Length : ~6700
Warnings : none; spoilers for the movie, obviously.
Summary : A collection of missing scenes, telling how Julius and Gerry went from enemies to friends to Julius standing beside Gerry's mother and wearing no ring.
My Rave Review :
there's just something about this movie, am i right? you'd think a story about an integrated football team working its way toward simultaneous racial cooperation and a state championship in the 70s sounds too predictable for words, and yet, if you've seen it, you know that's not the case. right from the beginning it reaches in and grabs onto your heart, and then spends the next two hours yanking for all it's worth. i think the best thing about the movie, the thing that makes me love it, is that it's irrepressibly hopeful without being clunky or trite about it-- and the same is true of this fic.
i just stumbled across this while surfing AO3 at work last week, and god, am i glad i did. i've always shipped gerry and julius, but never to a degree where i wanted to see the ship take precedence over the awesomeness of their friendship, and this fic gives me just the right balance. the romance enters in pretty quickly, but the author never gives the impression that it's separate from them becoming closer, stronger as teammates and friends, and using that closeness to drive what happens in the movie. it's not easy-- the same conflicts crop up, with an edge to them borne of knowing there's not one but two dangerous sides to what's between them. "Look, like I said, I knew you weren't ever going to show your face around someplace like the 'burg, just like you know damned good and well that I'm never going to meet your mama for dinner, and it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that we're--" Julius makes a gesture between the two of them that seems helpless, confused, and entirely mirrors what Gerry is thinking. They're fucking, and it ought to be pretty clear by now that they're not just fucking, but they're fools if they think that they're dating, either. Gerry tries to imagine which one Mama would be able to get over faster, the fact that he's seeing another boy or that he's seeing a black boy, and decides that he had probably resign himself to being an orphan before he ever mans up enough to actually tell her.
i love the narrative from gerry's point of view (and her voice for him is spot-on, just the right touch of country hick without overdoing it), i love how it shifts as his relationship with julius opens his eyes to the world being bigger than himself, and after the car accident it shifts again. gerry's character has always really fascinated me, and i love this fic for giving me more of it. it's not full of revelations or surprises about him, or about julius either, but really rounds out his transformation from small-town kid to becoming a man, and puts it in the context of his life. it also fills in the gaps in the movie with a really sweet, funny and touching love story, which i can't resist either.
Title : Sunny Days
Author : eatsscissors @ AO3
Rating : mature
Characters & Pairings : Gerry/Julius
Length : ~6700
Warnings : none; spoilers for the movie, obviously.
Summary : A collection of missing scenes, telling how Julius and Gerry went from enemies to friends to Julius standing beside Gerry's mother and wearing no ring.
My Rave Review :
there's just something about this movie, am i right? you'd think a story about an integrated football team working its way toward simultaneous racial cooperation and a state championship in the 70s sounds too predictable for words, and yet, if you've seen it, you know that's not the case. right from the beginning it reaches in and grabs onto your heart, and then spends the next two hours yanking for all it's worth. i think the best thing about the movie, the thing that makes me love it, is that it's irrepressibly hopeful without being clunky or trite about it-- and the same is true of this fic.
i just stumbled across this while surfing AO3 at work last week, and god, am i glad i did. i've always shipped gerry and julius, but never to a degree where i wanted to see the ship take precedence over the awesomeness of their friendship, and this fic gives me just the right balance. the romance enters in pretty quickly, but the author never gives the impression that it's separate from them becoming closer, stronger as teammates and friends, and using that closeness to drive what happens in the movie. it's not easy-- the same conflicts crop up, with an edge to them borne of knowing there's not one but two dangerous sides to what's between them. "Look, like I said, I knew you weren't ever going to show your face around someplace like the 'burg, just like you know damned good and well that I'm never going to meet your mama for dinner, and it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that we're--" Julius makes a gesture between the two of them that seems helpless, confused, and entirely mirrors what Gerry is thinking. They're fucking, and it ought to be pretty clear by now that they're not just fucking, but they're fools if they think that they're dating, either. Gerry tries to imagine which one Mama would be able to get over faster, the fact that he's seeing another boy or that he's seeing a black boy, and decides that he had probably resign himself to being an orphan before he ever mans up enough to actually tell her.
i love the narrative from gerry's point of view (and her voice for him is spot-on, just the right touch of country hick without overdoing it), i love how it shifts as his relationship with julius opens his eyes to the world being bigger than himself, and after the car accident it shifts again. gerry's character has always really fascinated me, and i love this fic for giving me more of it. it's not full of revelations or surprises about him, or about julius either, but really rounds out his transformation from small-town kid to becoming a man, and puts it in the context of his life. it also fills in the gaps in the movie with a really sweet, funny and touching love story, which i can't resist either.