Adding somewhat frivilously to Helen's comments -
The proponents of male-speak, female-speak theories (which goes with that thing about men and women being two alien species, yadda, yadda, yadda, depending on whether or not you buy that [do somedays, don't others, myself]) say that women tend to bond over things like shared feelings but also sharing hurt and comforting each other about it.
Now, I'll be the first to admit, this is something that must be handled with care in the B7 universe. I don't quite see Avon and Tarrant sitting down over a large quantity of chocolate and saying things like "And, then, when the Liberator blew up, I just felt so abandoned. I'd given the best years of my life to that ship. Always there for it when it needed extra spark plugs, willing to stay up nights monitoring power levels. And what do I get for it? The one time - the _one_ time - I can't come through, it's just big explosions and goodbye and hope you die on that mutant planet. I just feel so . . . _used_." And Tarrant replying, "Hey, let it out. I'm here for you, man."
Pardon a moment.
OK, stomach distress with an urge to do something seriously damaging to the keyboard under control.
Anyhow, that's not quite them. It should only happen in a story where Vila is having the DTs to end all DTs and hallucinating it.
All right, back to the point, which is that h/c may have its place, especially if it spares us the above. However, whether it says something really sick about me or not (I hope not. I really, really hope not) but I am somewhat inclined towards it as a story device. Worse, my impulse is to put one of Avon's friends through Bad Things and make Avon feel guilty about it - which stands to reason since, even if it wasn't his fault, he's good at blaming himself for stuff (IMHO). If the laws of physics were ultimately responsible for hurting someone he didn't admit he cared about, he'd probably blame himself for not having fixed that design defect in the universe before it hurt someone.
JMO.
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