What You Wanted From This Life

[jjtaylor]

Title: What You Wanted From This Life
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Author's notes: Thanks to phineasjones for beta.
Written in answer to a challenge in the rs_fqf: Sirius comes back, but Remus doesn't believe him.

Comments

[penknife]

Aaagh! *sniff* This is gorgeous. I love the ending.

[jjtaylor]

Thanks so much!

[olivia_circe]

So now that I've finally gotten around to reading the story...

I really like it. I still agree with a whole lot of the stuff you said before, in comments and in the essay about writing it, but I also love what you've done here.

It's achingly funny, which I didn't expect at all. Painful, sure, because of Remus' angst, but there's also this bubble of slightly hysterical hillarity right below the surface of the story that's Remus going crazy and us (or me, anyway) sort of going crazy along with him.

The dialogue is spot-on, and I love that it takes Harry believing for Remus to believe. I also think that Remus not believing the ease with which Sirius returns helps a little with the difficulty of bringing him back in the first place. At least from the outside.

[jjtaylor]

Glad you like it. I argued with myself over the humor. I knew it was a good match for Remus' near-hysteria, but I didn't want it to go too far down the comic, joke-a-minute route, because it was pretty clear the humor was mostly just a cover for all that anguish.

Harry was what convinced me, too - I knew from the beginning that he would be the one to finally convince Remus, because Harry would just believe Sirius could come back.

I also think that Remus not believing the ease with which Sirius returns helps a little with the difficulty of bringing him back in the first place. At least from the outside.

Yeah, it almost makes me believe it's possible. Which is why I totally freaked myself out.

[jjtaylor]

Thanks for reading, and thanks for taking the time to check out the essay, too. Normally I don't feel the need to write essays about the fic I write, but this story was a very unusual journey. Glad you liked it in the end.

[kat_scratches]

I read this before, and can't believe I didn't comment on it! Your character's voices are brilliant throughout this, so believable and so very much themselves, if that makes any sense. Wonderful!

On that note, I'd like to invite you to join the_kennel, a haven for quality Remus/Sirius fic & art by quality writers and artists. (There will be monthly challenges, but this is not a challenge comm.) We would be delighted to have you join!