Gronk. Finished the Gunn/Wes getting back together bit.

"Maybe because I still love you."

That isn't the response he was expecting. Maybe the ulterior motives weren't what he thought they were. When he looks up, he realizes Gunn looks just as shocked at what he said as Wesley was to hear it.

He sighs and stops his fidgeting. "It's a bad habit. Loving me, that is. It has an alarming tendency towards fatality."

He thinks he can hear Gunn's eyes roll at his words, the action is that exaggerated. "Do I look dead to you?

He doesn't. Gunn looks like he always has: strong, stubborn, vital. Everything about him clashes with the muted blues and greys of Wesley's living room, just as so much about him clashes with the blurry greys (steel or gunmetal, tinged red around the edges) of Wesley's self. Just another reminder of what he can't be and what he can't have. He shakes his head.

"Didn't think so." Gunn crosses the room and the sofa lets out an aching groan of protest as Gunn flops down next to him, long limbs sprawling like he owns the thing. He leans forward and picks up Wesley's discarded bread, flattening a slice between his palms and attempting to fold it as if it were origami paper. He gives up quickly and sets it next to Wesley's more artistic mutilations. "Stop blaming yourself."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Not your fault, so quit acting like it was."

"Is this the part where you give me an inspirational speech, I turn my life around, and you go back home feeling like the better man?" He hates the tone of his voice, the clipped lilt of sarcasm. "Pat yourself on the back and tell everyone you've performed your good deed for the week? Don't you dare presume to tell me how I should feel, Gunn. Lilah's dead, and I might as well be the one who killed her."

He's used the word. Nothing really feels different, there's no sudden sense of closure snapping into focus, but he's used the word. Dead. He supposes that's something.

"Yeah, well, last I checked, she'd have been dead with the rest of Wolfram and Hart if you hadn't gone and dragged her evil ass out of there." Gunn sighs. "If I smacked you upside the head, would it beat some sense into that pretty head of yours?"

"She liked to watch Judge Judy and provide a running commentary on how Wolfram and Hart would handle the cases. She'd sneak in while I was away and do my laundry, then rearrange my dresser drawers so that I'd find socks when looking for my trousers. She had excellent taste in everything from clothing to books to armaments, and appalling taste in popular entertainment. How do I reconcile that woman with the woman who nearly got the lot of us killed any number of times for the sheer joy of it?" It's the most he's ever said to anyone about Lilah.

Gunn sinks into the corner of the sofa and folds his arms across his chest. "Same way I reconcile the fact that half the time I want to kiss you, and the other half I want to kick your ass? Loving someone don't make them good or good for you."

"And I, I assume, am neither." It's almost a relief, knowing that even if Gunn confirms that he thinks the worst of him still, it doesn't appear matter anymore. There's a question that Wesley can't help but ask; if it comes out wrong, he'll blame the alcohol. "Which is it right now?"

"Which what?" Gunn looks wary, his shoulders stiffening slightly, arms still crossed.

"Which half of the time?"

He thinks for a minute that it's gone very badly indeed, that he's made another miscalculation, and then Gunn smiles ever so slightly and uncrosses his arms. "Little of both, but mostly kissing. Not tonight, though. That wouldn't be fair to you or me. I get through shoveling Bloody Marys and scrambled eggs down your throat tomorrow? Whole new ball game."

It's an unexpected lifeline. "You promise?"

"Promise." Gunn has the stubborn look on his face that says he'll keep that promise if it kills him. It's the same look he had when Wesley was in hospital after taking that bullet, when Wesley told him to go and get some rest and he refused.

Tonight he'll say goodbye one last time, put her things back in the box and accept that he cannot change the past. Tomorrow, if he feels up to it (and Gunn's probably correct in assuming that Wesley will be more than a little hung over), he'll take most of the contents somewhere and give them the decent burial that she never got. He walks back to the table and stares at her picture for a moment, then raises the glass of melted ice and silently asks for forgiveness (from whom, he's not sure) before putting everything away. For the first time in longer than he can remember, he's looking forward to the morning.

Oh, Plei. Oh, my boys. Damn.

And Connie, I wanted to ask you if you had posted your Aragorn-Eowyn fic to Silverlake, because I noticed that someone posted Grima/Eowyn. I didn't read it. ::shudder::

.....ah. I, on the other hand, will be hastening to Silverlake to read it, if I ever finish my damned essay. 'Cause I really like Grima, and want to write Grima fic at some point (in the AU where I get to do all the writing and reading I want to, rather than writing essays about thermodynamics. Who knew being a primary teacher was so essaylicious?).

Takes all sorts. Um.

(I've also got this Sandman/Buffyverse thing I want to write at some point.... oh, for a time turner.)

apparently "Reflections" has ignited a mini-firestorm on BBF of mostly facetious anti-explicit-slashness. The story's being held up as just the thing for the sophisticated palate that doesn't need explicit boinkage, I believe is how they put it.

You know that AJ Hall has been considering chucking in the fanfic thing altogether because of the way that some reviewers/commentators have held Lust over Pendle up in a similar way? Saying that it isn't really slash? Man, I'm so tempted to start writing essays about slash again, for all that it's a far from new topic. You know what I'd like? I'd like to be able to wave a magic wand and banish the terms 'slash', 'het' and 'gen' altogether. I see the usefulness of a very simple rating system akin to that used by films (although no such system is used for published fiction) because so much fanfic is erotic - so yeah, I can see that this is a useful guideline. And a brief outline of salient points is fair enough - a little back-cover blurb, if you will - to be read or ignored at will. But 'slash' as it is presently used in fandom, and 'het', and 'gen' - I'd just like to be rid of them.

I read a lass's blog on this subject recently, and it seems to me that the difference between her take on slash and mine is that she sees slash as inherently violating canon for the sake of violating canon; that she sees heterosexuality as the default setting, and homosexuality as something that can't be there unless it's openly expressed. For my part, most all the gay folks I know have had relationships, or at least drunken fumbles, with people of the opposite sex, and have all passed/continue to pass as straight in some (or most) contexts. What's more I fancy girls more often than boys, but I'm not normally very forthcoming about my sexuality. The UST I feel towards a lass at my workplace, for example, is strictly subtext and will remain so, what with the me-being-in-the-closet and the her-being-regrettably-straight. Doesn't mean I don't fancy her.

Ple, I like it, except for one thing. I can't imagine a world where Wes looks forward to waking up in the morning.

Beautiful Fay, I always think of you as just like me (because, everyone is, of course. Therefore you must be het with a little added spice of bi when dreaming). I never thought about you being in the closet or how difficult that must be. I find myself wanting to snuggle you and tell you you're very much loved, right now.

"Is this the part where you give me an inspirational speech, I turn my life around, and you go back home feeling like the better man?" He hates the tone of his voice, the clipped lilt of sarcasm. "Pat yourself on the back and tell everyone you've performed your good deed for the week? Don't you dare presume to tell me how I should feel, Gunn. Lilah's dead, and I might as well be the one who killed her."

Oh, I like this a lot, and all the rest of it too.

I read a lass's blog on this subject recently, and it seems to me that the difference between her take on slash and mine is that she sees slash as inherently violating canon for the sake of violating canon; that she sees heterosexuality as the default setting, and homosexuality as something that can't be there unless it's openly expressed.

That's pants.

Feh.

Ple, I like it, except for one thing. I can't imagine a world where Wes looks forward to waking up in the morning.

t schmoop alert The only one where I can is one where Gunn accepts him for whatever he is. (kicks things shyly and gently like a grade schooler kicking a clump of dirt) It's this old OTP thing, you see.(shakes tiny fist in air) THEIRLUVWAZSOTRU!!!

Ooo! Thanks, Mlle. Theodosia.

(woke up at 7 again. hate this. not making of the sense.)

You're so cute! I'm giggling.

(pssst! I have two of Deb's books!)

I read a lass's blog on this subject recently, and it seems to me that the difference between her take on slash and mine is that she sees slash as inherently violating canon for the sake of violating canon; that she sees heterosexuality as the default setting, and homosexuality as something that can't be there unless it's openly expressed.

Interesting, but I don't really agree with her. Yes, there are PWP slash stories that exist solely for the point of portraying hot sex between two hot characters and violate characterization and canon up the wazoo, but there are others in which the slash portrayed is firmly rooted in canon. In due South, especially in the Ray K episodes, the subtext is barely sub at all. The characters in ME shows all interact with such intensity, that sometimes it's hard not to read things in a sexual way. In the Potterverse, the characters are young and (in the case of Draco, Neville, etc.) blank enough slates that it's possible to add all kinds of backstory and psychology that still works within the parameters of what Rowling has set up.

I'd like to be able to wave a magic wand and banish the terms 'slash', 'het' and 'gen' altogether.

Yup. Personally, I see the biggest divide not between slash and het, but between slash/het and gen. It's really more of a gut feeling than anything that has evidence I can point to, but it may be because so many fic writers and fic communities seem to be 'shipper driven.

I also don't like the idea of categorizing writers by their pairings or by their slashiness. Yrs truly would probably be categorized as a gen writer, but currently I'm working on a plot bunny involving some f/f slash (odd, for a conservative Kinsey 0 sort of girl).

Personally, (even though I get very upset when people don't understand the true, lasting love between Fraser and Ray K.) I think that shippiness is not always a good thing for the fic world. I think it can keep people from looking at the quality of a fic rather than whether or not the right people end up in bed (or on the floor, on a desk, in the back seat of a car, etc.) together. Yes, I like a good schmoopy romance or torrid bit of erotica as much as the next gal, but I'd hate for those things to be the only things I valued about fic.

(pssst! I have two of Deb's books!)

Curse you wee and adorable Deena! I must track them down, so as to add to the Buffista Bookshelf.

Okay. Going to TRY and sleep now.

Ignorant question of the day: What is gen?