fic: Alpha Centauri 7.5 -- Mutual Thing

[hth]

Mutual Thing
by Hth
part of the Alpha Centauri series

NOTES AND WHATNOT: I can't finish the freaking series until the new season starts, not so much because I'm afraid canon will screw me up (it always does, so why sweat it?), but because there's stuff coming up that fits so well into what I planned to do with 8 that it would be a crime not to use it. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that at the end of 7, I said some things were going to happen that, on further reflection, y'all might like to actually see happen, rather than just take my word for it. Thus, this bright and uplifting little breakup story, which takes place shortly before "Michael" and contains very minor spoilers for that episode and for "The Tower," as well as a whole mess of references to everything previous to this in the Alpha Centauri universe. Seriously, don't even think about starting with this one.

Comments

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

I read this yesterday, not long after you posted it, and had to go away for a while. It really tore me up. Then I remembered that you've already posted the ending -- or at least an ending, and one I really really love, so now I can comment without rending my clothes and wailing.

Very, very painful read, and in part because it reads so honestly -- their voices were so clear, just as clear as their pain and confusion. And when Rodney told John that he loved him, it really hurt.

Um. Thank you. I'm gonna go read the one set in San Francisco again, okay?

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm...glad it hurt, I guess. That always sounds weird to say, but what I wanted to do with this series was to create a poly relationship that a) even people who don't believe in poly relationships could like and root for, and 2) that didn't cheat by making things easy. I feel like this story is ultimately only satisfying (for me, at least, and isn't that what counts? *g*) if they really have to work hard to get there. I know it probably looks like torture for the sake of voyeurism some of the time, but really what I'm trying to do is make them all have to go outside their comfort zones for each other; I want this to be something that they earn, so that hopefully someday in San Francisco, they can look back and see what they have as something they made work, rather than something that fell randomly out of the sky. That's the goal, at any rate!