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crack_van2005-01-13 06:54 pm
zulu.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2005-01-13 06:54 pm
Entry tags:
"Compassion", by FaithC (Rating: NC-17)
Fandom: BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Pairing: Tara/Buffy
Author on LJ: Am unaware.
Author Website: Am apparently ignorant here as well.
Why this must be read:
There is, I feel--and certainly I'm biased in this opinion, but that's why they pay me the big![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
crack_van bucks--a lot of promise for Buffy/Tara fics set in the sixth season. Buffy, yanked back from Heaven, is in pain and confused; Tara, at first worried about Willow's magic use and finally separated from her, is empathic and in need of rebound sex. No moment in the season is more fraught with this potential than the fade-to-black at the end of "Dead Things". Buffy has just confessed to Tara that her relations with Spike are hurtful to both of them, and Tara is placed in the position of being both consoler and absolver.
I've read several 'and then what happened was' scenes placed at this juncture, but no story is done so artfully as FaithC's "Compassion" trilogy. Nothing, for me, makes sex hotter than a meaningful emotional component. That depth of feeling is most emphatically present here. Both Buffy and Tara are fragile and vulnerable, yet willing to reach out for whatever comfort the other can offer them. They are, to a great extent, broken by their previous relationships. Buffy is certain that sex cannot come without a great psychological price. Tara is still in love with Willow, despite her terror and hatred of Willow's growing black magic addiction. It is nothing less than desperation that drives them into each other's arms for what is supposed to be "one night"--one forgettable, forgivable event.
It is, of course, nothing of the sort.
Tara realized suddenly, and not without a strange kind of sorrow, that she had never once seen Buffy cry. Not even the day of Joyce's funeral, not even the night she recalled to them her memories of heaven. Tara realized she had come to think of Buffy as one of those steel-spun women who were beyond tears. Her mother had been one. And she wanted to tell Buffy that the ancients believed that only creatures with souls could cry: she had a soul, then, and she was, still and always, Buffy. Vampire Slayer, sister, daughter, friend, lover, beloved. She wanted to tell her that tears cleanse and purify the body from the poisons of grief, and that Tara had long suspected her mother's refusal to cry had killed her in the end. She wanted to tell Buffy a lot of things suddenly, for in that moment she felt a kinship with the Slayer that surpassed the family status that had long been assumed between them. And maybe someday she would. But for now, Tara simply stroked gently the Vampire Slayer's hair, whispering words of love and comfort.
Compassion
Contrition
Communion
Pairing: Tara/Buffy
Author on LJ: Am unaware.
Author Website: Am apparently ignorant here as well.
Why this must be read:
There is, I feel--and certainly I'm biased in this opinion, but that's why they pay me the big
crack_van bucks--a lot of promise for Buffy/Tara fics set in the sixth season. Buffy, yanked back from Heaven, is in pain and confused; Tara, at first worried about Willow's magic use and finally separated from her, is empathic and in need of rebound sex. No moment in the season is more fraught with this potential than the fade-to-black at the end of "Dead Things". Buffy has just confessed to Tara that her relations with Spike are hurtful to both of them, and Tara is placed in the position of being both consoler and absolver.I've read several 'and then what happened was' scenes placed at this juncture, but no story is done so artfully as FaithC's "Compassion" trilogy. Nothing, for me, makes sex hotter than a meaningful emotional component. That depth of feeling is most emphatically present here. Both Buffy and Tara are fragile and vulnerable, yet willing to reach out for whatever comfort the other can offer them. They are, to a great extent, broken by their previous relationships. Buffy is certain that sex cannot come without a great psychological price. Tara is still in love with Willow, despite her terror and hatred of Willow's growing black magic addiction. It is nothing less than desperation that drives them into each other's arms for what is supposed to be "one night"--one forgettable, forgivable event.
It is, of course, nothing of the sort.
Tara realized suddenly, and not without a strange kind of sorrow, that she had never once seen Buffy cry. Not even the day of Joyce's funeral, not even the night she recalled to them her memories of heaven. Tara realized she had come to think of Buffy as one of those steel-spun women who were beyond tears. Her mother had been one. And she wanted to tell Buffy that the ancients believed that only creatures with souls could cry: she had a soul, then, and she was, still and always, Buffy. Vampire Slayer, sister, daughter, friend, lover, beloved. She wanted to tell her that tears cleanse and purify the body from the poisons of grief, and that Tara had long suspected her mother's refusal to cry had killed her in the end. She wanted to tell Buffy a lot of things suddenly, for in that moment she felt a kinship with the Slayer that surpassed the family status that had long been assumed between them. And maybe someday she would. But for now, Tara simply stroked gently the Vampire Slayer's hair, whispering words of love and comfort.
Compassion
Contrition
Communion