FIVE

Oooooh, again with the spicy-yummy-tangible flavour of the setting. I love the autumny atmosphere of this, the in-between, all-doors-open, nostalgic-yet-exciting air of being on the move, shifting towards new things. I love your descriptions of the bustling street and café, that thrummy excitement of travel when you're just setting out.

I also really like how the possibilities have kind of fanned out here, and Roman is no longer a focal point that would pop up in the majority of alternative futures… just one among many, a fleeting option popping up, triggered by an equally fleeting resemblance. I love this paragraph:

Almost without his conscious effort, Marc’s thumb slides to the call button, presses down. It’s only when the ringing begins that Marc thinks of what he might say, but the only thing that comes to mind is “another one’s gone and I’m not even that sorry and I don’t miss you, not really, but there’s a guy here drinking coffee like you do,” and that doesn’t sound quite right. Cringing at his recklessness, Marc reaches for the button to cancel the call, but then hears the electronic voice of grace announcing that “the number you’ve dialled is out of service, please check the number and dial again.”

There's so much in here, both in the words and between them – again, that spark of possibility, even now, even with the old trail of feelings nearly gone or successfully buried, I can still see the… IDK, other, new possibilities fanning out from this point: if Roman picked up, it could all swing around again, and the futures are myriad.

And yet I love that he doesn't – that there is no reconnection here except for that brief glimpse. I love the open-endedness of it. I love that at the end of this fic, we are left with Marc Hagendorf, alone, with the world wide open to him. I love how lonely this piece feels, and yet how almost cosy at the same time, how promising. It reminds me of that Buffy episode where she has Some Epic Duel with Angel and he taunts her about what will be left of her if he strips away all her defences, all her comforts, all her friends, and instead of the taunt breaking her, it *makes* her, when she tells him that what will be left is "myself". This piece has that same feeling of strength to me, and it gives me a strange sort of peace (longing, but content) to see this ending with a Marc who's almost completely free of the Roman Wild portion of his life. It's a beautiful thought – even if sad at the same time – that there *are* other futures for him in the end, countless ones that don't involve Roman, and don't need to.

And Marc feels the seasons shift as the train pulls out of the station.

*deep breath* And again, an utterly sublime last line.

I could go on about this fic until kingdom come. I'd actually love to comment and dissect and flail over every single line, because I think it's that awesome. But I'm already into srs bizniz tl;dr here, so I'll leave it at this and hope I've, uhm, made my point: MYSTERY AUTHOR, I LOVE THIS FIC TO BITS AND PIECES! AND YOU. YOU WIN AT LIFE.

I think this is the perfect way to end this fest, and I'll spazz at the mods elsewhere for their perfect pacing. I'll never forget that this is what ended HoFest, 8000 words of stirring, layered, gorgeously written possibilities. There's a statement in there somewhere, about the unlikely tenacity of the characters in these stories (independently of their currently, uhm, sucky canon medium), and of this fandom, that I think is so beautifully representative.



[BUBBLE OF LOVE] MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE [/BUBBLE OF LOVE]