FIC: i am become death (BtVS, Buffy/Tara, NC-17)
TITLE: i am become death
RATING: NC-17
FANDOMS: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
PAIRING: Buffy Summers/Tara Maclay
SUMMARY: Grief is cyclical, Tara says.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Set in a slightly AU season six. Written for the femslash_minis The Language of Flowers round for kwritten who requested monkshood (chivalry), piety, twilight, and frustration. I, um, just got up from trying to sleep and pounded this out for you, so maybe it's part dream, in which case my subconscious gets a coathor credit.
Apparently Wiccaning means finding meaning in everything. Rose quartz is the heart stone, Tara tells her. She sets the cool, softly pink stone in Buffy's palm and folds her fingers over it so Buffy is holding it in her fist and Tara's hand is holding hers, Tara's palm on the back of Buffy's hand, and her fingers holding her wrist.
Tara seems so delicate, but she holds onto Buffy so firmly that Buffy isn't sure she could break the connection even with her Slayer strength.
Tara teaches her about the phases of the moon. They sit watching the waxing moon ascend into the purpling sky, round and the color of buttermilk, the same milky color as Tara's bare breasts. Her nipples are the same pink as the rose quartz, and Buffy takes their gentle weight into her palms, scratching her blunt nails over the ticklish flesh of Tara's ribs.
Tara teaches her the language of flowers. Violets for faithfulness, monkshood for chivalry. Buffy wonders what kind of flowers they laid on her casket as they lowered it into the ground, but she doesn't ask.
The house is strange now, filled with some other energy, different routines. As ill-fitting as the grave, and Buffy wants to claw her way out. She got manicures every week, before, but that seems such a long time ago. Her nails ripped open, the nailbeds pooling with blood, when she scratched desperately at the coffin lid. She keeps her nails short now, unpolished.
(After she dug herself out, Tara had bandaged Buffy's fingers and brushed the mud from her hair. It was so, so cold, and Tara had taken Buffy to her own bed, the bed where Buffy's mother had slept until she, too, had died. Tara had wrapped Buffy in a blanket, but Buffy found the chill broken only when she pressed her skin to Tara's.)
Willow is absent, and Buffy doesn't ask. She knows it has to do with the spell that brought her back. Buffy doesn't ask for details about that, either.
There are bills to pay. Dawn has to get to and from school every day. Somehow Tara takes care of everything, without Buffy even asking. Buffy keeps thinking that she'll start pitching in, but then she becomes overwhelmed by the details, paralyzed.
She's losing weight. Sometimes she catches herself nude in the mirror, Tara sleeping in the bed behind her, the moon waning outside the window and offering only a dim, blue kind of light. (She doesn't sleep so much now.) Buffy will catch her reflection, notice the ridge of her ribs plainly visible, her collarbone, sternum, pelvis. Her breasts are small as mosquito bites, and her hips are non-existant. She thinks maybe she's regressing, like time is moving backwards.
Buffy will crawl back into bed, pressing her naked body against Tara's. She wraps Tara's hair around her wrist and holds it taut. Tether.
Buffy runs between extremes, no emotion or too much. Sometimes her insides feel like a stone; others, emotion pushes against her skin from the inside, threatening to burst out her pores. Grief is cyclical, Tara says. Buffy imagines not a rollercoaster but a carousel. Up and down, up and down, round and round. When she was young, she always stretched up for the brass ring, but she could never reach.
Buffy remembers a story from some boring old text a teacher forced her to read, the lotus eaters. That's what Tara tastes like, pressing the fragrant petal to your tongue. Lotus flowers are holy, Tara explains, and they symbolize peace. Buffy runs her hand down Tara's spine, prays.
Xander suggests therapy, and it's all Buffy can do to keep from hitting him, the satisfying crack of his cheekbone against her knuckles. She isn't crazy. She's just dead.
That night, Buffy begs for it and Tara binds her hands and whips her with a switch whittled from the branch of a cherry tree. Cherry wood is for love, Tara says. The switch leaves welts, but they heal before morning. Afterwards, Buffy feels calm and centered, but Tara is shaking. Buffy knows she should apologize, but she's too selfish. She kisses up Tara's thighs, bites her hip, her fingers slick on Tara's sex. Tara blooms under her fingers and under her tongue, and lotus flowers overtake all of Buffy's senses.
Tara does a spell for her. She sits Buffy in a circle of white chalk on the hardwood, presses essential oils to Buffy's pulse points. Tara summons goddesses and asks for peace for Buffy, for love. Buffy wants to ask them to stop her stone heart from beating, but she just sits silently and waits for grace to be bestowed upon her.
At night in their bed, the sky black with the new moon, Tara crawls over her and Buffy feels calm cover her like a veil. Tara had asked for the goddesses to give Buffy love, but she already has love.
Buffy sets the rose quartz on Tara's breastbone. She bows to her altar, pressing her lips to Tara's petal flesh. Tara threads her fingers through Buffy's hair, holding her in place.