From: slidellra
Date: 01/07/2008 |
So much love for this. It's just beautifully constructed, and such a gripping, moving mix of sadness and hope. Fantastic!
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From: spuffyduds (spuffyduds@gmail.com)
Date: 09/05/2007 |
Oh, this is just lovely! Beautifully written, and I love all the telling details about everyone at the station post-COTW, and it's so evocative of Ray's loneliness without sliding over into angst-o-rama, and the sweet brave grandparents in the airport just slayed me.
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From: keerawa (keerawa@yahoo.com)
Date: 04/12/2007 |
Oh, very nice. Great detail with the couple in the airport.
I loved Ray's view of Frannie and her children, like some force of beneficient nature. And Welsh, retiring and immediately proposing to her, then suggesting that Ray call Fraser.
One phone call a year at Christmas from Fraser, and Ray never, ever calls him? Oh Ray.
Thank God he finally caught the clue bus there.
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From: Erica (viciouswishes@yahoo.com)
Date: 01/13/2007 |
Awe. That was lovely. A heartwarming ending for a lonely start.
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From: nigeltde (nigeltde@livejournal.com)
Date: 01/11/2007 |
l-o-v-e-l-y!
As beautiful and heartbreaking and heartwarming and hot as the Ray/Fraser sections were, I think my favourite parts were almost reading about what happened to everyone else after the series. Okay, my favourite part was when Fraser sees him. Also, the late-night conversation. Okay, it was all fantastic :-D
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From: tally
Date: 01/08/2007 |
i really liked this story. i liked the details about the secondary characters -- they fit very well in the story. thanks for the great read! -- tally
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From: sobelle (vaughn.potter@gmail.com)
Date: 01/03/2007 |
I haven't read any DS in some while now and this was a wonderful return to them... guess I'm just gonna have to find more time to read! just lovely!
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From: exeterlinden (exeterlinden@hotmail.com)
Date: 01/01/2007 |
Okay, I *have* to mention the honeymoon line as well, because that is brillant and perfect: melancholy-tinged humouristic, very Ray. This is a beautiful, skillfully told story, and I love them having been apart for eight years, and I loved Ray's insecurity and their final reunion.
It's wonderful to have them apart, to wait and hope for the reunion, so that Fraser smelling like a combination of wool, sweat and wood shavings hits harder than porn *g* because the reader's been waiting, because the ascend to the climax was so beautiful and yearning.
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From: punk (punkm@teleport.com)
Date: 01/01/2007 |
This is really nice. I always like a reunion story, and I loved Ray telling the pilot he'd been up there on his honeymoon.
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From: Beth H (beth-h@mrks.org)
Date: 12/30/2006 |
What a charming story! And this exchange:
"Cool," the pilot says. "You worked for the pipeline?"
Ray shakes his head and peers out the window into the darkness. "Nah. I was on my honeymoon."
...is perfect.
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From: Sage (sageness@livejournal.com)
Date: 12/29/2006 |
Mmmmmmmmm, beautiful. I love the way everyone has a life, and how you've derailed fanon conventions with Stella and Ray Vecchio. The Frannie/Welsh wedding made me ridiculously happy because it fit so well. And the Huey/Dewey success story was awesome.
I love how lightly balanced this was, with just enough angst and just enough humor to blend together perfectly. So wonderful. :D
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From: kristiinthedark (kristiinthedark@livejournal.com)
Date: 12/28/2006 |
I'm a little overwhelmed with how good this was. And I adored your Ray! Very good voice, very real. Excellent fic.
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From: tharaist
Date: 12/28/2006 |
Great story, such a classic Post-CoTW! When Ray and Fraser finally meet again, it's all intense and perfect. Oh, and how cool is Frannie marrying Welsh?! *g*
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From: Isis (isis@arithmancy.net)
Date: 12/28/2006 |
This was fabulous! I really liked the bits of all the other characters' lives, the post-COTW resolution shown in vivid little snapshots, and I loved Ray and Fraser, a little older and a little wiser. And like pretty much everyone else, I thought the 'honeymoon' line was the heartbreakingly best part.
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From: lipsum
Date: 12/27/2006 |
Yum! Favorite bits:
**No; Ray can't do it like this, over the phone. Pretty soon Fraser's soft woolen late-night voice will draw confessions out of him that he doesn't want to make yet.**
**"It's okay," he says, when the guy pauses for breath, "I spent four months up here once." - "Cool," the pilot says. "You worked for the pipeline?" - Ray shakes his head and peers out the window into the darkness. "Nah. I was on my honeymoon."**
**When he's near enough for Ray to smell the combination of wool, sweat and wood shavings, he reaches out and lays his two palms on either side of Ray's face. His fingers are warm, hot even, or maybe Ray's skin's just been frozen all these lost years, waiting for the thaw.**
And the image of Fraser with crow's feet, laughing. I just want to hug your fic for a while.
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From: Berty (bertybertle@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 12/27/2006 |
Awwwwwww! That was LOVELY. I was so scared all the way through that it wasn't going to end well - but it DID! *happy fuzzy feelings*
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From: Ximeria (ximeria@popullus.net)
Date: 12/27/2006 |
What a perfect way to end things or maybe, offer a new beginning. I felt bad for Ray that he had to go through so many partners, that life was just a slow grind. The determination, however, once he gets the idea to go visit Fraser? Perfect and perfectly Ray.
I loved your descriptions of Fraser having aged a little, but I think what hit me the hardest was Ray's comment during the trip that he'd been there before, on his honeymoon and the image of Fraser just dropping the pile of wood when he sees Ray. That combined with him just marching up to Ray to kiss him? Absolutely perfect read for a cold and grey morning.
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From: moon_brain
Date: 12/27/2006 |
yes yes yes YES! Perfect. "I was on my honeymoon". OH RAY! OH FRASER! You are made of love and artic sunshine and happy.
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From: brooklinegirl (brooklinegirl@rcn.com)
Date: 12/26/2006 |
oh, this is WONDERFUL. this is brilliant and beautiful and REAL. From Ray leaving and regretting it for far too many years, to Welsh retiring and immediately marching out to propose to Frannie to this:
>>His face looks older, of course, the lines more apparent, and there's a tuft of gray hair peeking out from under his fur cap, but to Ray he's still the most beautiful sight he's ever seen, standing here in the place where he belongs.
oh, oh, it's great and wonderful and not perfect, but REAL, and I love it a very great deal.
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From: MissA
Date: 12/26/2006 |
This perfect, heart-wrenching happy-ending!angst really took me apart and then back together. The part where Ray calls his post-COTW trip a "honeymoon" made me choke, because, so yes! And yet so sad, because with with this he admits to eight years of regrets and missed chances...
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From: Alexis (alexis.muirhead@gmail.com)
Date: 12/26/2006 |
This fic made me tremendously happy. I printed out Kat's "End of the Road" for some cheery holiday plane-riding, and this story is pretty much the *exact* opposite of that excellent but depressing story. Because this is the alternative for Ray and Fraser - eight years apart, eight years of lost chances and lost nights and lost love, and you made it beautifully clear how miserable these two guys are without each other. I particularily like the very brief but powerful description of the lines on Fraser's face, that faint trace of misery that's only apparent because he looks so happy now that Ray is finally there. It was also great to see the way you address the silliness that serves as the CotW epilogues - the Welsh/Frannie wedding was an inspired touch, and I loved that line that they stand united "against loneliness and an uncertain future." Wonderfully done!
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From: Zebra (zebra363@livejournal.com)
Date: 12/25/2006 |
This is great. The parts with Ray on his own are especially moving ("when he comes home and there's nobody there but the turtle he feels some small and indefinable piece of him shrivel up and fall away" - sob!). I love this:
At a certain point, though, right around the time he finds somebody who promises to give the turtle a good home, the momentum he's built up starts to carry him forward. He's booked the flight, so he has to do it; he's pissed off his new boss, so he has to do it; he's given away his last friend in the world, so he has to do it.
and perhaps even more, I love this:
Even though they've never flown before, they're determined to see their kids and grandkids who've moved to Yellowknife, they tell him, and the looks of mingled terror and anticipation on their wrinkled faces makes Ray feel strangely humble.
I hope they have many happy years together to make up for all those years apart!
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From: jamethiel_bane (jamethiel_bane@livejournal.com)
Date: 12/25/2006 |
This is WONDERFUL. Heartbreaking and so TRUE to them. Poor Fraser. When he said "You never call me" I just. Oh.
I loved the snippets of the other character's lives. I loved the whole thing. OH BOYS.
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From: Nora Bombay (nbombay@mindspring.com)
Date: 12/25/2006 |
I just want to say, I love the bit about the bowling alley law firm...
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From: bluebrocade (asjbg_chick@yahoo.com)
Date: 12/25/2006 |
Oh, wow. That was PERFECT. ♥♥♥ I asked for angst and boy, did you deliver. I was crying by the time Ray called Fraser. And this:
He wants to tell Fraser he's sorry he didn't tell him what he meant to him, didn't tell him he wanted to stay close, to stay with him no matter what people would say.
had tears streaming down my face.
I loved joy spilling out of him too. The sense of relief and *finally*. Oh, my boys! Eight years!!
Lovely, wonderful story! THANK YOU SEKRIT SANTA! <3<3
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From: sam80853 (sam80853@gmail.com)
Date: 12/25/2006 |
Eight damn years? God, they are SO stupid! This is wonderfully heartbreaking!
I laughed about Huey & Dewey ... Cameron Diaz, really.
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From: J S Cavalcante (JSCavalcante@nycap.rr.com)
Date: 12/25/2006 |
(I hope it's okay to comment before Bluebrocade does. I just couldn't let the following go unsaid.)
Oh my God. This story is utterly perfect. I am stunned.
"Ray?" Fraser asks. That one syllable holds about a thousand questions, and Ray knows the answer to all of them.
"Yeah," he says simply. "Yeah, Fraser."
Says it all without saying it, which is genius.
This is beautifully, beautifully, beautifully written, clearly by a master storyteller. I'm in awe.
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From: pearl (schmerica@gmail.com)
Date: 12/24/2006 |
Aww, lonely incomplete Ray post-CotW is a classic, and this is nicely done -- I like how vivid you made the secondary characters.
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From: Allison (shoemaster@livejournal.com)
Date: 12/24/2006 |
Oh, I almost got a bit teary there. I hate them living the half lives a part but then Ray making the grand gesture and Fraser dropping his chopped wood. *sigh*
Also liked the hints of Frannie/Welsh :D
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