You are getting overbabbled by me today. I just can’t help it, when I finally have the opportunity to thank you properly for all the wonderful feedback.
It’s reassuring that the ending here turned out erotic enough to satisfy you (as well as, to my surprise, more R/S fans than I dared hope) while I didn’t compromise my style of subtlety. I suppose the pups sharing a bath is not an unusual scenario, but while some familiarity in it could appeal to readers, I perhaps managed to handle it in my characteristic way. I’m also particularly glad that this piece showed to you why I can avoid sex (while writing).
At the same time it’s essential that the eroticism doesn’t overshadow what else this piece is about in addition to (preface to) R/S interaction. It’s good to know I’ve succeeded in conveying something, perhaps in a poignant way, without ever coming out and saying it, and I’m startled when you come out and say it. Perhaps due to identifying with Remus I was never totally aware of his neglecting himself. I could feel something having broken and something breaking apart. And I knew about it, as my post-OotP Remus has remembered it. But here Remus is ignoring – keeps “forgetting” – it so that neither of us was capable of a conscious decision concerning the neglecting.
You also ask a highly important question – the one about questioning! I have to hope it doesn’t look too illogical that Remus questions his welcome and then interacts with Sirius so intimately without more hesitation on either side.
First of all, I wonder whether it is necessary to interpret this story so that the relationship has already been established as such an intimate one – as the single and permanent intimate one – in a mutual unambiguous agreement. Do these scenes leave such a possibility open that both Remus and Sirius have (or at least one of them has) refrained from spelling out – perhaps also failed to figure out – whether they want to live as a couple?
I get the impression that Remus has wished Sirius had invited him more often, perhaps asked him to move in to share the flat. There could be something that has stopped them from making any progress in this respect. I still know too little about young Remus and Sirius. My post-OotP Remus has recently mentioned that James shared the flat with Sirius before getting married in August 1979. I’m not surprised if Remus has enough self-doubts to suspect that Sirius hesitates to share with someone who isn’t known to be engaged to a girl and could also be outed as not fully human. I don’t know if I’ll ever take Sirius’s perspective and confirm what has held him back – whether he just hasn’t realised that Remus wants to live with him.
In any case I think it’s not unlikely that Remus’s reaction to his parents’ deaths is such depression which makes him doubt himself as someone worthy of Sirius’s love (particularly when, due to his part-human status, he’s had major difficulties in starting any kind of a career or even making a meager living, and his parents have been murdered by Death Eaters probably because of their involvement with other part-humans – while the latter fact is not mentioned anywhere outside the chaptered post-OotP story) . Besides, his needing to feel defeated before he can take what he needs from Sirius’s cupboards suggests (to me) that while he perhaps generally dislikes depending on others, he’s been particularly careful that Sirius doesn’t give him something (like home) just because he’s needy but (if such a dream could come true) because he’s Sirius’s true love.
I’m not sure all this makes sense yet, but thanks to your inspiring comments I’ve got a bit further in figuring out what there is behind this story. At the same time, particularly a reader of this single piece alone is not less correct when extrapolating quite differently.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-03-08 09:45 pm (UTC)It’s reassuring that the ending here turned out erotic enough to satisfy you (as well as, to my surprise, more R/S fans than I dared hope) while I didn’t compromise my style of subtlety. I suppose the pups sharing a bath is not an unusual scenario, but while some familiarity in it could appeal to readers, I perhaps managed to handle it in my characteristic way. I’m also particularly glad that this piece showed to you why I can avoid sex (while writing).
At the same time it’s essential that the eroticism doesn’t overshadow what else this piece is about in addition to (preface to) R/S interaction. It’s good to know I’ve succeeded in conveying something, perhaps in a poignant way, without ever coming out and saying it, and I’m startled when you come out and say it. Perhaps due to identifying with Remus I was never totally aware of his neglecting himself. I could feel something having broken and something breaking apart. And I knew about it, as my post-OotP Remus has remembered it. But here Remus is ignoring – keeps “forgetting” – it so that neither of us was capable of a conscious decision concerning the neglecting.
You also ask a highly important question – the one about questioning! I have to hope it doesn’t look too illogical that Remus questions his welcome and then interacts with Sirius so intimately without more hesitation on either side.
First of all, I wonder whether it is necessary to interpret this story so that the relationship has already been established as such an intimate one – as the single and permanent intimate one – in a mutual unambiguous agreement. Do these scenes leave such a possibility open that both Remus and Sirius have (or at least one of them has) refrained from spelling out – perhaps also failed to figure out – whether they want to live as a couple?
I get the impression that Remus has wished Sirius had invited him more often, perhaps asked him to move in to share the flat. There could be something that has stopped them from making any progress in this respect. I still know too little about young Remus and Sirius. My post-OotP Remus has recently mentioned that James shared the flat with Sirius before getting married in August 1979. I’m not surprised if Remus has enough self-doubts to suspect that Sirius hesitates to share with someone who isn’t known to be engaged to a girl and could also be outed as not fully human. I don’t know if I’ll ever take Sirius’s perspective and confirm what has held him back – whether he just hasn’t realised that Remus wants to live with him.
In any case I think it’s not unlikely that Remus’s reaction to his parents’ deaths is such depression which makes him doubt himself as someone worthy of Sirius’s love (particularly when, due to his part-human status, he’s had major difficulties in starting any kind of a career or even making a meager living, and his parents have been murdered by Death Eaters probably because of their involvement with other part-humans – while the latter fact is not mentioned anywhere outside the chaptered post-OotP story) . Besides, his needing to feel defeated before he can take what he needs from Sirius’s cupboards suggests (to me) that while he perhaps generally dislikes depending on others, he’s been particularly careful that Sirius doesn’t give him something (like home) just because he’s needy but (if such a dream could come true) because he’s Sirius’s true love.
I’m not sure all this makes sense yet, but thanks to your inspiring comments I’ve got a bit further in figuring out what there is behind this story. At the same time, particularly a reader of this single piece alone is not less correct when extrapolating quite differently.