Fic: Grief (Oz/Xander; Adult rating)

[moosesal]

Title: Grief
Author: Moosesal
Rating: Adult
Beta: Mega thanks to crazydiamondsue for encouraging me to write more of this world and volunteering to beta anything I did manage to pull together (and then actually doing it when the time finally came).
Note 1: This is a companion to my Xander/Oz, Xander/Spike story "Shame". While this is technically a prequel, it

Comments

[moosesal]

Thank you. I've got a lot of emotional investment in this story (and Shame). I think that shows. I hope so, anyway.

[moosesal]

Your feedback here and in the original file was much appreciated. And thanks for the little catches here and there. As I mentioned to Brandi, this fic is very close to my heart and I always feel that the stuff that's so personal is some of my best writing. I'm really pleased with this and how it turned out. Thanks again.

[ldthomps]

The way Xander would graze Oz's bottom lip with his thumb made Oz want to swallow him completely. His fingers sliding up Oz's thigh made him want to open up wider, spread his body and give himself up.

The way you present Oz's love, his willingness to let the apologies and lost love just wash over him until he can't, always feels true to life. Well done!

[moosesal]

Thank you sweetie. Oz gives himself completely and that makes it all so much harder.

[romanyg]

Self-pimping does work. *g* My flist has become so ungainly that I often miss things.

This is gorgeous and tight writing, drabble sequences force so many images into few words, resonant.

Some gorgeous lines, Oz lived for the now--yesterday's transgressions forgotten, tomorrow's wished away. He lived for today. And this, That made Oz think maybe it should be Xander doing it. Talking to the dead, that is. In a way, that's what Xander does when he says Anya's name.

And how like Oz, knowing when to walk away, knowing that he can only do so much.

[moosesal]

Thank you. I feel weird self-pimping but so many people read and commented on the original story that it's killing me to have so few comments on this piece that I feel so personally attached to. I don't normal get quite so wrapped up in my own fic, but this is really close to home.

I'm glad you liked it and I love what you say about drabbles and tight writing. I was talking to someone recently who thinks you can't tell a story in a drabble and I just wanted to weep. Maybe not the kind of stories she wants to read, but I think you can say a lot with very few words.

Thanks so much for reading.

[romanyg]

Perhaps the original piece had more readers simply because it was for a ficathon? I'm not sure. Also Spike/Xander is a more popular pairing.

But yes, I have pieces that I'm more emotionally invested in as well. And even if they're written for ourselves--hence the investment--we feel this need to *share* them.

Drabbles are akin to poetry. I have some stories that I've whipped out in a day or two, and then tweaked with editing. But the one drabble sequence that I wrote took me five months. Taking things out but still leaving the taste, the afterimage burned into the other words is *hard*, sequencing also.

But not everyone wants to read poetry unfortunately. They don't find it as accessible, something.

You did good with this one. Be proud.

[moosesal]

Thank you for the encouraging words. I know the ficathon helped with the first piece and most of my requests for a "sequel" were for a happy ending story, which this so very much is not. ;-)

Serious drabble writing is hard. It can be a fun exercise writing to just do a few now and then. But to really truly tell a story that way? Hard work. I'm not surprised that you spent 5 months. I spent about 2 months on this. Some drabbles I worked and reworked for over an hour at a time. Then I'd leave it and come back later. Then I'd revise some more. And then the sequencing was even harder. These were definitely not written in the order above. And I'm not sure the final sequencing is the best, but it's where I was when I decided to finally just put this piece to bed.

[ricktboy]

this is a beautiful back-story, full of pain, and shame, and all the confusion and longing, and...*dies*

I honestly liked Shame more, for all of it's imagery, but the sheer Empathic emotion these convey, is so much, it's...powerful.

You really are a wonderful writer, and I thank you for it.

[moosesal]

I'm blushing. Thank you. And it's cool to like Shame more, they're different. This is more of a companion piece than a straight-forward sequel. I'm hoping to eventually write a post-Shame piece from Spike's POV to pull it all together. We'll see how long that takes me given my current list of fics to write on deadline. ;-)