Control \ Spike & Buffy

lovetobrag:

Spike was just sittin’ there, picking at his nail polish, when the door shoved open. All he did now, really, was sit there. Cross-legged on the cover of one of the coffins, cultivatin’ his image and considering a Damned record. He minded his own business. He did! He never stuck his nose when he could pretend he hadn’t heard, instead. He helped when he could. And what’d he get for his efforts? Couple brassed-off undeads and a door no one bothered to knock on.

“I’m in the middle of something,” he said, eyes cast down on torn cuticles. It wasn’t a lie. Few rewatches yesterday and a picture someone’d taken at the butcher’s showed his nails were too clean. Prom queens get manicures that stay smooth; Spike needed ‘em torn-up and wearing off. He slid his right thumbnail under the thin layer of polish on his left. It pushed up and ripped away easy enough. Intentional chipping. Get all the ridges right. “‘ppreciate the house call, but you oughta just come back another…”

He looked up. She’d bolted in and taken off, straight to the west end of the crypt, standing with her fingers pedaling through the air at her sides. This was no Buffy he’d seen in a long while. Her anxiety was adorable. Brought a little smile to the side of his mouth. ”…time,” Spike said, finishing the sentence and leading quick into the next one. ”Somethin’ crawly in your knickers, Summers? There’s an easier fix than dancin’ around with your—”

Another sentence cut off. She was rushing at him. All right, touchy. Won’t make jokes like that when we’re all raw and new. Didn’t think it was a threatenin’ offense. At first, Spike thought she was just gonna get close and roll her eyes, wag her finger in his face — any number of scoldings she reserved for off-coloured nonsense when she was frettin’ too much to be fun. Was it too much to ask that they just went back to where they’d been sittin’ when the music ended?

It was.

He got what she was goin’ for maybe a foot away, and then Spike scrambled to move out of her path. He pushed off the cover, legs uncrossing rapid-fire, shoulders near his ears and one hand palm-first. ”Woah, woah, hold up,” he said. He only made it a few paces before his back hit the wall behind him. Damn it. All these people bustin’ in whenever they felt like it and he still didn’t check his exits when he sat down. Her mouth was doing that flat-lipped thing. Angry Buffy wasn’t any friend of his. ”I—what?—so we won’t talk about your problems, then, all right? Christ. Just tryin’ to help.”

As she rushed toward Spike she noticed a couple of things about him, what with her incredibly keen slayer sensibilities. He was just sitting there, messing with his stupid nail polish, just chipping away like nothing was wrong. He told her she ought to come back another time, that he was busy. Busy with what? Redoing his manicure the caveman way? For a guy who spent more time on this planet using traditionally feminine beauty products (hello bottles of bleach and vial after vial of the same black nail polish…) she thought he might have discovered nail polish remover by now. But he hadn’t, no, he instead felt the need to sit there highly absorbed in his fingernail maintenance when he should be paying attention to her. He should be cowering or possibly bracing himself to fight back, but he was ignoring her.

And then he looked up with a grin she couldn’t stand. Ugh! Smiling in the face of her frustration? It only goaded her on. She rushed forward, and yes those were indeed fists she felt herself forming. Suddenly, there it was. The realization of what exactly was about to happen to him. Spike finally reacted to her. By running, or at least trying to. But he ended up at a wall. "Can’t get away that easily,“ she said under her breath. He could definitely hear her, she knew that much. She didn’t need to yell, not yet.

Hold up? No. Talk about our problems? No. Wait. Yes. That’s what she was here to do. Talk and maybe yell about her problems, vampires couldn’t read minds. At least not that she knew of? She stopped dead in her tracks with her fist about three inches from Spike’s face. He had that dear-god-no expression on. She took a couple of deep breaths and lowered her fist, untightening her tense fingers with a few good shakes of the wrist. "Actually, we will talk.” she said through clenched teeth. She was still incredibly angry despite not actively committing a violent assault. "I’ll go first. You don’t mind do you?“ She paced away, if he knew what was good for him (which she honestly wasn’t sure he did) he wouldn’t answer.

She walked to the coffin Spike had just been resting on, taking the time to readjust the cover which had moved ever so slightly during Spike’s rapid takeoff to the wall. She took another few deep breaths, she’d learned somewhere that it helped angry people to breathe sometimes, and then jumped up on the coffin. She sat there with her legs crossed adjusting her clothes so they fell just so, and then she was ready to talk. She wet her lips before speaking, because being rabidly angry always made her mouth a little dry. Probably due to her increased breathing rate which tended to near hyperventilation.

"You’re aware, I’m certain, that my life is a living hell as of right now.” She looked over at him, gauging his reaction and then continuing on. “You’re also aware of the fact that you supposedly care about me at least a little.” She spoke without really paying attention to him. She was trying to work all of this out in her head. Trying to piece together why he would do this. She understood it on a base level. He was an egomaniac who honestly deserved his fifteen minutes of fame, she knew this. She could see the allure of being on television for him. The adoring groupies that had probably been contacting him left and right, he must feel like a rockstar. He was accustomed to a certain amount of infamy in his soulless days, so naturally he’d be seeking fame once he came over to the good side. It had only been a matter of timing. "What I don’t get is why now? Why now, when I’m fighting tooth and nail for my right to do the right thing, would you decide to intentionally do something that would make my life all the more miserable?“ The questions were rhetorical at the time, she was just thinking out loud. Did he just not care?

"Do you just not care?” She looked to him through squinted and inquisitive brows. For the moment she’d actually calmed down and the time had come for Spike to say his piece. Defend himself, or do attacking of his own. It was time for him to say something, time to offer some sort of explanation And quickly before she exploded.

Lost Without You || Buffy and Dawn

dawn-summersxo:

It seemed like it had been ages since Dawn had spent time with her sister. Between her school work, and Buffy’s slaying, there was hardly a time when they could just hang out as most sisters do. And to be perfectly honest, sometimes Dawn was okay with that. She didn’t have much to say to her sister. Mainly because she didn’t want to burden the woman with her little sister ramblings. She supposed that was a huge change from the girl she used to be—always needing to be the center of Buffy’s world, always needing reassurance from Buffy that things were going to be okay. Now she just had to assure herself that she was alright, and force her mind to believe it.

The young woman drove the familiar path to Buffy’s house from her dorm, the music in her car blared up as loud as it would go. Somehow, she thought that the minute she saw Buffy, the girl would know something was off about Dawn. Maybe it would be a sister’s instinct, or maybe it would just be because Dawn radiated otherness after being brought back from the dead, she really wasn’t sure. But she hoped to the goddess, that they would have a normal girl night. Just movies, junk food, painting of nails, catching up. Although a part of her did long to speak to Buffy about what she felt. Especially since finding out that she was on good terms with Faith now. It didn’t matter how much time had passed, whether or not the other slayer had a soul now. Dawn would always have a problem with the idea of Faith. And she certainly had a problem with the Scoobies being alright with her.

Memories of that night flashed in Dawns mind—the pain from the rather dull knife that Faith had used on her. The cracking of her ribs that rang in her ears. The way her breath faded. She’d been alive for a few moments after feeling her heart leave the confines of her chest. Long enough to wish she hadn’t made the decision to meet the slayer. Long enough to wonder if she’d see her mother again and if she’d even get into Heaven at all.

A tear left her eye as she pulled up in front of Buffy’s place. Reluctantly, she reached up and wiped her cheek, staring at her hand like it was a foreign object. She hadn’t done much crying lately. She hadn’t thought herself capable of crying anymore, but she’d just proven herself wrong. Dawn didn’t even really have time to think about it, knowing that she was already at least 20 minutes late for her sister date. Grabbing her purse, stuffed to the brim with nail polish and random snacks from her dorm, she tried to focus her mind on something other than the horrible fear and pain she couldn’t stop reliving. Puppies…cute little monkies…her favorite flowers…sitting in class and watching people fall asleep, consequently drooling on their notes.

Almost mechanically, she reached up and knocked on the door before just grabbing the doorknob and being pleased to find that it was unlocked. “Buffyyyyy?” Dawn called, her blue eyes searching around for her sister. “I’ve come bearing girl night necessities. And my cute little self,” she joked, patting the bag hanging at her side.

Buffy hadn’t seen her kid sister, Dawn, in way too long of a time. But they’d both been busy right? Dawn had wanted to get back to school within a week of returning from the dead. Dawn had returned from the dead. She’d returned from the dead and buried her head in school work, Buffy knew why. She hadn’t really talked to her about it, but she knew Dawn had come back somehow wrong. Had she been to heaven? Buffy had tried to push that thought out of her mind long ago. She’d managed not to think about it for quite some time actually. She was pretty certain that not seeing Dawn so often was what had allowed her to be able to be on okay terms with Faith and Willow. Without the evidence of what they’d done in her face, it was easy to get over. But she couldn’t keep pretending her sister didn’t exist so that she could be okay with her friends. It wasn’t right, and she missed Dawn. She missed her a lot.

Despite her intense excitement about seeing her sister, Buffy was nervous. Would they be able to be normal with the past hanging unspoken between them? They could try, couldn’t they? Out of anticipation Buffy had cleaned the entire house the day Dawn was supposed to come over, and when that didn’t take up enough time she went out and rented some movies (she’d called Willow to do a glamour on her beforehand) and bought all the girls night stuff she could think of: junk food, face masks, nail polish, Cosmopolitain magazine (like she’d actually talk to Dawn about sex… Hell, she didn’t even know if her sister was a virgin or not), and she even splurged on a board game called Apples to Apples. She and Dawn would have normal sister bonding at any expense.

But then Dawn was late. Five minutes late, ten minutes late, and then fifteen minutes rolled around and Buffy couldn’t sit still anymore. She walked through her apartment making sure everything was in it’s place. Upon entering Dawn’s old room she felt a touch of nostalgia. Dawn hadn’t really been there very long before she went off to school, before she went and got killed, but somehow it felt entirely like her space. There weren’t really any photos or nick-knacks from their past, they’d lost all of that in Sunnydale. But Dawn had come in and decorated it to her likings, she’d chosen all of the colors and bedding. Sometimes, when she felt lonely, Buffy’d go in and lay on Dawn’s bed. It was comforting, her sister was home to her. She sat down in the chair next to the book shelf full of the books Dawn decided she could live without at college. She found herself absorbed in reading the titles, they were all books she’d never heard of, books she’d never be smart enough to read. Words couldn’t express how proud she was of her sister, she was doing so well in school. She was so well adjusted and so smart. She didn’t hide her feelings or put up a front the way Buffy did.

Buffy didn’t notice when Dawn came in through the unlocked front door, Buffy left it that way expecting Dawn to just waltz in and find her there waiting. She was startled when she heard her sister’s voice from the other room, she jumped up at the sound and sped to the front room. There she was, her little sister. She rushed to her, taking the things she carried in her arms and placing them on the floor next them and giving her a tight bear hug. It was compulsory. Buffy could see the sadness in her sister’s eyes, the sadness behind her small and her cute remarks. She saw it and she wanted it to go away, she wanted to just hug it out of her. To make her better somehow. “Dawnie, I missed you so much.” Buffy said into her sister’s long brown hair. She pulled away from the hug and smiled at her, trying with all she had not to cry. She knew what she was feeling and she could see it in her eyes. It took a lot to be okay after dying. “It’s gonna be okay, Dawn.” She said as she rubbed her little sister’s back, dropping her hand down to grab hold of her sister’s small hand. “Come on, I’ve got girly stuff too. We’re going to bond goddammit!” She pulled her sister into the living room where the television was ready with the DVD player open and waiting for Dawn’s selection.

Control \ Spike & Buffy

Buffy let out a huff that bordered on a growl as she slammed her laptop lid shut. There was an unexpected crack that came from the machine and she stared at it with a seething rage. “Great!” She stood up, storming across the room and away from the damned thing. Who knew a computer could cause so much trouble, could bring annoying anonymous askers of questions into her very home. There really wasn’t an escape. She couldn’t walk around town without someone noticing who she was and she couldn’t go on the internet without being harassed either.

She started putting on her shoes and jacket without even realizing what she was doing. By the time she was out the door, down the stairs, and in her car she was certain of where she needed to go: Spike. This latest barrage of questions was almost entirely his fault and he somehow though he’d done something good? He had to know that what he was doing would cause her problems, he knew and just didn’t care. How could he not care? He was supposed to be nicer with his soul, or at least nicer to Buffy. He had been before. Sure he was always a little snarky, that’s just the way he was. But he hadn’t intentionally done something to cause her trouble in quite a long time, and it pissed her off.

But now that she was driving to his crypt (house?) she wasn’t really certain of what she’d do when she got there. Only that she needed to be there. If she followed her gut she’d walk in there and give him a hard slap right across the face (so much for the firm talking to she’d promised Faith), but that wasn’t right was it? No, mature Buffy didn’t use violence to solve every problem. And using violence with Spike wouldn’t solve the problem anyways. Maybe yelling? Yelling sometimes did something. She was still trying to sort out what she was going to do, what she was going to say, when she parked the car and opened ever so swiftly and quietly his gate. She walked with haste and purpose to his front door and began knocking loudly and rapidly on his front door. Take the violence out on the inanimate object, not the annoying vampire.

She didn’t stop knocking until she felt and heard the slight movement behind it that meant Spike had in fact noticed that she was there. She withdrew her fist down from the door before it had a chance to open and grabbed her clenched fist, both arms behind her back. Self control. No punching. Maybe a little yelling, maybe a lot of yelling. Get your point across clearly, don’t let him argue. You’re right, he’s wrong. It was simple, easy even. When the door opened to her she didn’t bother looking at him, not yet. Instead she stormed in and as far across the room from him as she could, that way she couldn’t attack if she lost the self control she was clinging to with desperation. Once she was safely away she looked at Spike and opened her mouth to speak, but words didn’t come out. She took a couple of deep breaths and tried to keep her cool, to speak instead of act. Instead she found herself rapidly approaching him. Hopefully those weren’t fists she felt her hands forming.

Drunken Wishes \ Anya & Buffy

feistyvengeancewaif:

Doing vengeance with the Scoobies had never gone well for Anya. That time in Sunnydale she’d tried to rally them all against Xander to avenge her nuptial abandonment — oh, that had been mortifying. Not to mention her reality-warping dealings with Cordelia, which had landed her in high school and mortal in the first place. When she’d first arrived in Cleveland, she’d quietly sworn to herself never to initiate a vengeance gig with one of them, no matter how tempting the circumstances, but all of that had evidently long fallen to pieces — back when she made the decision, she’d also been under the impression that she was going to kill Xander with several floating knives or other miscellaneous bladed objects, so really, a lot had changed, and it was no surprise she’d ended up teleporting into Kennedy’s living room and sitting down next to Buffy in a Cleveland bar.

All things considered, the best stroke of luck she’d had since she came here was running into Buffy drunk instead of sober and with a stake in her hand.

“Oh, men screw over the best of us, Buffy,” Anya sighed empathetically, returning the shoulder pat with more than a little awkwardness. “I think we can all agree the planet’d be better off without them — granted the rest of us could evolve fast enough to compensate for the whole no-reproduction deal — but sadly, they’re here for good, and sometimes they’re even lovable.” She winced. Whatever man Buffy had vested her trust in had let her down big time, judging by the smell of assorted beverages on her breath. Besides, not just anybody jilted the Slayer.

She shifted in her seat as she considered her next stratagem. Telling Buffy she was a vengeance demon straight off the bat again wouldn’t do at all, despite Buffy’s throwaway comment about how much of a shame it was she wasn’t a demon anymore. Even if she was inebriated enough to be okay with it for the time being, she’d probably grab her axe and psych herself up to decapitate her as soon as she got over her hangover, knowing how seriously she’d taken her actions the last time she went demonic. No, that was far too risky a plan, and would likely derail things completely. The way she saw it, she just needed to guide Buffy along the path to vengeance until she said the magic words; once the wish was over and done with, and its consequences presumably well-received, maybe Anya could take a chance and tell Buffy the real story. Hopefully she’d be so satisfied with the deliverance of vengeance that she’d view Anya in a light favourable enough not to consider fighting her again, even if she had made a few vengeance kills along the way. Until their business was concluded, though, she couldn’t know.

“Anyway, you’re in luck, Buffy,” Anya clasped her hands together and smiled, “because I happen to have the perfect, cathartic little exercise for you.” She bit the inside of her lip, trying not to glance down at the hand print in the bar she knew was there. Slayer strength without the control to accompany it was terrifying. “It sounds like you feel powerless because you just need someone to share things with. So! Why don’t you just pretend I’m still a vengeance demon, and tell me the whole story? What he did to you, how it felt, what you hypothetically wish would happen to him… all that.”

Buffy nodded sagely in agreement with Anya. She was definitely the best, and somehow even she got the short end of the stick sometimes when it came to men. Anya gave her a shoulder pat of comforting. It was a little stiff, but Buffy’d take it. That Anya, it turned out she was nice after all. Who would have thought. Buffy knew she was good when she wasn’t all vengeancey, but even then she’d never gone as far as to say she was nice. No, Anya was pretty rude most of the time. But you couldn’t hold that against her, or at least Buffy felt bad when she did. Buffy let out a small hiccup and reached for the half-empty glass in front of her. She didn’t think she was too drunk, nope she was fully in control. She just had to put in a little effort to maintain that control was all. With a lot of effort, Buffy drew the drink to her mouth with a fairly steady hand. If she was grading her cup holding skills right now, she’d probably give herself a B+.

Buffy smiled at her B+, not really listening too closely to what Anya was saying. Something about ridding the world of men? It wasn’t a very smart idea whatever it was. Without men the world would be full of ladies and that just wouldn’t do. Even though they were a nuisance to Buffy at times, she appreciated some of them. Angel and Giles and Xander and even Spike were decent enough. Much more decent than a certain other man in her life, or out of it now, but still. Cameron: what a bastard. And to think she was going to have his baby? No. That couldn’t be true. Everything felt like a hazy memory to Buffy when it came to Cameron, or possibly even a dream. It just didn’t make sense.

“What did I do to deserve that?” she asked Anya. It didn’t really cross Buffy’s mind that Anya probably had no idea what she was talking about. Anya seemed to respond anyways. Cathartic? What was that? Anya was one of those smart talking people and in this state Buffy just couldn’t even bother to pretend she knew what was being said to her. “Anya, I don’t get so much the big words… But, I’ll do your exercise.” Buffy nodded her head once again only this time she wagged her head with a much lighter enthusiasm than when she was agreeing on the terribleocity of men. Or she should say man.

The alcohol was somehow able to clear her mind instead of clouding it. She zeroed in on the root of all her problems. Her fuckbuddy, her gay best friend, and her potential baby-daddy: Cameron. Cameron, with his sexy stealy demon powers. That prick had the audacity (whoa A++ vocab!) to go and get his demony sperm all up in her uterus. Nobody knocked up Buffy Summers, she just didn’t have the time for that shit. She was more sure than she’d ever been about anything ever that he was the root of all this media drama that had been making her life a living hell. That fake bitch of a vampire, Matthew, wouldn’t have had the courage to spin his web of bullshit without the support of his pussywhipped little boyfriend/dog-slave.

“This story Anya, it starts, as they all seem to, with a man. A god-damned sexy demon bastard who somehow wriggled his way into my life…” With much gusto Buffy launched into her story. She felt every emotion over again as she spoke. She felt the intense sting of betrayal sneak up on her once again like a slap to the face. Hand gestures were flung every which way as she got carried away in telling her tale. She may or may not have hit a glass off the table or possibly punched the bartender. It all seemed to blur together after a while. As she wound down from the cheesy soap opera of a story (And it was all true!) she relayed to Anya, she found herself in tears. She wasn’t really sad, though. She was just pissed, and she was miserable, and she was in hell. God was her life hell right now. And it was all because of Cameron…

“You know Cameron? I’ve told you about him… But either way, if you did know him.” the tears continued to stream down her face which was splotchy and red. “Oh, Anya. If you only knew him you’d know that he just…” Buffy didn’t think about the words that were coming out of her mouth anymore, they just sort of spilled out of their own accord. “He really should just go to hell. He can have sex with Hitler in his fiery little prison cell, for all I care! I just, I wish he’d go to hell.” With a scrunched up face from both anger and the burn of alcohol, Buffy downed the rest of her drink and collapsed on the table into a puddle of blonde tresses and salty tears.

Drunken Wishes \ Anya & Buffy

feistyvengeancewaif:

Anya had a knack for entering a place and figuring out the lay of the land: who could be a potential client, who would yield no useful wishes even if bothered to wit’s end, and who just wanted to be left alone. Granted, the vengeance demon powers didn’t hurt; those, combined with her centuries of experience, had made her ridiculously efficient at entering bars and picking out women with bones to pick and wishes to grant. It had become less intuition, and more a logical working practice that maximised time efficiency and capitalised on opportunities if and when possible.

So, when Anya slid into the stool next to a drunken blonde woman seated at the bar, she didn’t give the action much thought. Slumped as she was over several glasses, she seemed the obvious choice. She didn’t look like a hardened drinker, given that it had only taken three drinks to lull her into a stupor, so she must have been drinking for something — the likelihood was that it was a failed romantic conquest. And if reading those cues wasn’t enough, the vengeance vibe she was getting off her was uncannily strong. Anya’d ordered a drink, preparing herself to strike up a conversation with the woman, when the woman beat her to it. Out from the mass of blonde hair turned a face, one that was immediately familiar, and oh god, it was Buffy, and how in the unholy fuck was she going to crawl out of this one unscathed?

“Anya! Aren’t you supposed to be dead? You need to explain yourself right now, Anya. I can’t have dead things being alive right now, it just won’t do,” Buffy immediately launched into the accusations, and Anya couldn’t tell if it was because she was piss-drunk or because she’d jumped straight to the conclusion that she was a vengeance demon again, but for whatever reason she wanted answers.

“Uh,” Anya started, hoping for dear life that Buffy wasn’t clutching the edge of the bar because she was trying to restrain herself from going the full Slayer on her right then and there. “I can explain. If what I’m about to say makes zero sense, it’s probably — definitely — because you’re drunk. Really, really drunk.” If she was lucky, Buffy would buy whatever excuse she threw on her right then in her desperation to not fall off her stool. Clearly extreme alcohol tolerance wasn’t one of the gifts a Slayer inherited with their fate. Maybe she could even turn the situation to her advantage.

“See, I never actually died,” she finally blurted out. “Andrew thought he saw me die, because he was panicking like a little girl and, um, wildly hallucinating, and Xander thought I was dead because he couldn’t find me in the building, but… I got out of Sunnydale before the entire town blew up.” As she finished her explanation, Anya let out a heavy exhale. Maybe, just maybe, in her current state, Buffy would buy it? “So don’t worry, because I— I’m not some manner of creepy-crawly undead demon thing or anything of the kind. I am alive, and a human.”

Really, it was the perfect lie.

Even though she was drunk, what Anya said did make a lot of sense. That Andrew, of course he had just thought he saw her dying. It explained everything, she knew Anya wouldn’t just go and die in a battle like that. She had to live, if not for the money. Buffy had to focus extra hard to see straight, but she knew one thing for certain. Anya liked money. And when she told her not to worry, she didn’t. For all she knew she was in the bar hoping to get someone to buy her a free drink, that did seem like the kind of thing she would do. But whatever the reason that Anya was in this particular bar at the exact same time that she was, it didn’t really matter. Because Anya was alive, and she wasn’t on the vengeance path any more and Buffy just knew she didn’t need to worry. Because Anya had said so.

What really mattered was that she was there. And while Anya wasn’t always the most understanding and she only got like 40% of the pop culture references Buffy made, she felt like Anya was just the person she needed to talk to. She would listen. It occurred to Buffy that she might also laugh at her, but she thought better of it. Why would Anya laugh? She wasn’t that drunk after all. She was just a girl in need of a friendly face to talk to. And Anya’s face was friendly, especially tonight. Anya gave off this sort of vibe she hadn’t really noticed before this particular evening, she just felt like Anya wanted to know all of her problems, that she cared. The drunkenness of course, only enhanced this feeling.

“You know, Anya, it’s a shame you’re not in the vengeance mode as of now.” Buffy began with a slight giggle. She couldn’t really control where the laughter spilled out when she spoke. She knew she was trying to forget her problems, but talking about them was something she felt might make her feel better. Because she never really got to talk about these things. “There isn’t a soul in the world I can talk to about these things, except for you that is, Miss living Anya.”

She found herself regaining the ability to keep herself firmly planted in the chair, which allowed her to remove one of her hands from the metal bar. She noticed a hand shaped dent left behind from where she’d clung for dear life, and again she laughed. She always forgot just how strong she was. Taking her free hand she gave Anya a little shoulder pat, not for any reason in particular. Just to show their buddyship, which was going very strong in Buffy’s eyes. "I just, I have so many things in my life that need avengeance (is avengeance even a word you silly?) and I don’t have any way to fix them! Do you know what that’s like for a me, Anya? I am Buffy! I always know what to do, only no I don’t apparently.“ The words poured out of Buffy’s mouth as she babbled on, hardly giving herself time to breathe, much less allowing Anya to get in a word of her own. But when she finished she looked over to Anya, maybe someone as old as she was would know what to do about all of this. She could only hope.

Drunken Wishes \ Anya & Buffy

Buffy didn’t consider herself a drinker, not really. She’d only been drunk a few times in her life and she honestly didn’t know a thing about alcohol. She had no preference except that she hated whiskey. But, even with all the experience she lacked, she knew one thing: when things got really rough, a good drink or two could ease the pain. And boy did she have a lot of pain. Everywhere she looked things had been going wrong. She’d had to deal with a distraught sister, betrayals, a media blitz she had zero ways to handle, an ensouled vampire to reform, and now the impending doom of a dear friend. It was all too much, she hadn’t really learned how to cope with such issues. But she needed to push them to the back of her mind, if only for a night.

And so, she found herself at a bar. She was on her third White Russian, a drink she’d never tried before, and she felt pretty damn good. Sure, the world around her was a little watery and she had to focus really hard in order to see straight but none of it really mattered. At least she was free from her life for a little while. The only thing that seemed of great importance to her at the moment was unzipping her makeup bag so she could touch up her lipgloss. This proved to be a harder task than she’d imagined before she started it but she focused really hard and eventually undid the zipper finding the squishy little tube from which the glittery goop came. She gave it what she thought was a light squeeze and slathered it onto her lips, she got out of the “lines” a little bit but she knew she still looked good. She could just tell.

By the time she finished this task she looked up to the bartender to ask for another drink, but her focus was derailed by the person sitting next to her. She hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t alone, but the familiar face caught her eye. Sitting next to her was, of all people, Anya. Anya, the dead ex-vengeance demon. Yes, she was fairly certain that Anya was dead. But Anya was there despite the fact that she was dead. It didn’t really make sense and she found herself needing to figure it out what on earth was going on, and pronto.

“Anya! Aren’t you supposed to be dead? You need to explain yourself right now Anya. I can’t have dead things being alive right now, it just won’t do…” The words flew out of her mouth with a sort of desperation she hadn’t intended. She was aiming for suave but instead came off sort of demanding. She didn’t really think it was a problem though. Anya always forgot her manners even when she was sober, so Buffy hoped in some corner of her mind that Anya wouldn’t be offended by her lack of any real greeting. She looked at her old friend expectantly and with intense focus, she was trying really hard not to fall out of her chair. She found the edge of the bar and clung to it for dear life with both of her hands, grasping so hard that her knuckles turned white.

setting straight || buffy & spike

lovetobrag:

He’d done chains before. For fun, you know. Open Dru’s chest o’ toys and you’ll find a few things used to have whole different meanings. Chains like these were near the top of that list. And there’d been times more recently, looked on less fondly, when he was restrained for safety. The Watcher’s bathtub. Buffy’s basement. A couple days in the cave of soul-searchin’, as part of one of those bloody trials.

Spike didn’t want to be in any of those places again.

But this was by choice, wasn’t it? ‘bout as much as something can be chosen with a crossbow pointed at your chest, sure. Make friends with a Slayer, see how long you last with blood on your mouth. Get a soul, see how long you can handle screamin’ at the walls after, losing your sodding mind. That’s what he told himself last night—or was it two nights ago? or was it three—when he hoisted the chains through the little hooks in the walls. The iron clinked against the stone to make sure he couldn’t block it out. Pay attention, mate. This is you. It’s not too late to ditch. But it was. It was.

Made it comfortable as he could: mattress under, chains long enough to move his arms and legs out of the way. Knew he’d need that. And when the cuffs were hooked on, cold cuttin’ into his wrists and ankles, he tossed the key just out of reach. Bit his tongue damn near straight through after that one. Went a bit bonkers tryin’ to take it back, tugging and stretching and groaning. Not good ‘less you’re cursin’ yourself soon as the cave entrance slides shut. You’ve got to get what you’re doing just before it starts.

And then he woke up. His wrists were bleeding where he’d pulled too hard, and the first thing he did was try to lick it off. Stale, dusty. Like ashes, she’d said. Worse now. No matter. His tongue wouldn’t flatten between the metal and his skin, wouldn’t get at the bit that opened and spilled. Spike rolled his nose onto his forearm and closed his eyes.

Woke up blurry, stomach a mess. He rolled over, arms behind his back to keep the chain from curlin’ under his chest, and fluttered eyelids real slow. Reached for his pack of cigarettes—one of six or seven he’d left lyin’ about—and knocked the whiskey over instead. It was uncapped. It sloshed out onto the floor. He couldn’t think to pick if up.

Woke up snarlin’, yellow-eyed and mean.

Woke up, woke up, woke up.

The sun was comin’ in through the windows in streaks. Spike’s tongue was dry in his mouth, heavy and dull. He kept his eyes closed long as he could, so he wouldn’t have to see, but there was blood in him now; had he got out? was it real? was it his? And there was something else, too. Could’ve picked her up when she was at the far gate in—hell, maybe he had. Maybe that’s what woke him up. Maybe this was the first night, the first time she’d come, or maybe she was what kept him shiftin’ at all hours. He couldn’t remember. Eifa and the fire. Faith on the shards.

“Been doin’ well, right, Slayer?” Spike needed the wall to sit up; he needed the leverage of the chains. One of the weaker points. Came and went, surely. He wiped the damp off his temples and tried to look real stable like. “Graduation’s not far off now. Here to fit me for my cap ‘n gown?”

Spike had been chained up in his crypt for coming up on two weeks. But, it took about that long for human blood to finally leave a vampire’s system. A week and a half until feeding again was a must. She’d heard from somewhere (maybe Giles?) that if they went long enough without the stuff they’d sort of just freeze, that it’d be like watching a corpse decay in front of your very eyes. The image repulsed her though, and she was fortunate enough to be able to say that she hadn’t seen one that far gone. Not yet, at least. Two weeks wouldn’t do it to a vamp, it took months and even years for such a process to occur. But one detail that she always remembered was the fact that a vampire couldn’t actually die from not feeding, just pour some blood into their mouth and voila! Instant revival. Well she wasn’t actually sure if it was instant, but it was sort of beside the point.

She drove to the butcher, the place where she usually got blood for this type of situation. As she drove it donned on her how ironic this all was. She was supposed to be killing vampires left and right, but on more than one occasion she’d taken the role of caregiver to a vampire. It wouldn’t make sense to an outsider and it hardly made sense to her. She’d decided long ago that she couldn’t go to a butcher in the city where everyone was in the know about vampires, especially not with her face. It would look bad on Slayers in general, something she’d had to start worrying about. She’d found a butcher an hour or so outside of the city in the phone book, which seemed so old school in the technological age. They didn’t even have their own website.

She pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car. She hesitated getting out for a moment, this was the first time she’d gone out of the house without a glamour in a long while, and then rushed into the tiny little shop. She pushed open the door and it responded with the tired jingle of a bell, everything in the store was old. The man behind the counter looked to be about her father’s age and wore a paper cap in an attempt to hide the bald spot that peeked out from beneath it. He had a friendly vibe which she hoped wouldn’t be ruined by the fact that she was asking him for pints of pigs blood. The vibe didn’t change, but he shot a confused and curious look her way when she made the order.

“Just pulling a prank on an old high school friend, you know how it is.” She said with a forced chuckle. She tried to explain herself a little further. “Have you ever seen Carrie?” she asked, hoping he’d get the reference. His eyes lit up at the mention of the movie, he recognized it. Which of course he would, it was from his time after all. He smiled at her and let out a chuckle, laugh lines forming around his eyes.

“Now Miss, you better not be up to no good!” he said as he handed her the blood. Hopefully she wouldn’t be back there, but if she was she knew who she’d ask to help her. Bob was his name. Very generic. She smiled once more as she paid for the goods and then left the shop. She drove about ten miles above the speed limit all the way back. It was getting later in the day, and the few other times she’d checked on Spike she’d found him completely passed out by nightfall. The starvation so to speak was making him unsurprisingly weak. She let herself in and hurried to where he was chained up.

He wasn’t awake, but he seemed to stir when she entered the room. Looking upon him wasn’t exactly pleasant and he smelled horrible. Two weeks without a bath would do that, but he’d gone longer when he lived under the school and she found his scent to be something she could at least manage to stand. His eyes were sunken in and there were dark bags beneath them blacker than any living being would have. He looked like something out of scary movie at first glance, but when she looked harder he seemed more like himself. It was the same old Spike; but with curly hair that was matted to his head in places from tossing and turning she supposed, and lips the same unsettling white as the rest of his skin. She took one of the pints and heated it for a few seconds in the microwave, stowing the others in the refrigerator that had nothing within (it was obviously meant for blood alone, a gruesome thought she didn’t linger on for too long.) She opened the container and a gush of the familiarly metallic smell of blood wafted up to her nose. She wasn’t really bothered by it, but she was surprised that he didn’t wake up for that either.

Not wasting any time, she walked over and rolled him onto his back. He’d been sleeping curled up in the fetal position which was something she’d never seen before. He’d never been quite this fragile. She opened his mouth and poured the blood in, stepping back as she waited for it to take affect. Within a minute or so his eyes opened and he sat up against the wall, she would’ve helped him but could tell he didn’t want it. He wanted to feel like he had some semblance of strength she guessed, that’s what she would want were she in his place.

He greeted her with snarky remarks about his “graduation” and she knew he was on his way back, the blood was doing what it was supposed to. She didn’t respond to him right away, instead she went to the second bag she’d brought in with her and pulled out one of the straws she’d purchased a few days ago for this purpose. She tried to ignore the question of whether or not she was okay. It felt almost like a slap in the face in many ways. Was she okay? No. Would she let him know that? Absolutely not. One of them had to appear to be strong.

She knelt down next to him, having stabbed the straw into the plastic lid that covered the white Styrofoam container. She offered it to him as she spoke. He’d probably be able to drink it on his own in a day or so, but she could tell he wasn’t strong enough yet and didn’t want to wound his pride by offering him that option.

“I think another week, maybe less and you’ll be a free man. Just gotta make sure it sticks is all.” She replied. She didn’t know if that was really what he wanted to hear. Maybe he wanted to be out sooner, maybe longer. She couldn’t read him at that moment, but he seemed so drained that she doubted there was really much to read anyways.

begin again | giles and buffy

watcher-rupertgiles:

Rupert Giles had been Buffy Summers’ Watcher for over seven years now. He had watched her grow, from being the girl who had only wanted to be normal, the reluctant Slayer that he had been forced to drag out for patrolling, to being the woman that she was now. Even when she turned him away, he had still been hers. She had been his first Slayer, and she had been the one to make him smile and laugh, to bring him joy and light in his bland life.

Buffy had changed his life. She had made him better than he ever could have been alone. And he may have been upset when they had brougt her back to life, but he could not see any other way that things would have gone. Without his Slayer, his Chosen One, his life was something less. Even knowing that, he had stepped out of her life before, to try what was best for her.

After his mistakes he had made since coming to Cleveland, he had stepped away from her again. He had betrayed her trust, had gone against her, he had done everything that one should not do to their Slayer. He watched over her from afar, how she kept her head high and how strong she still was, even if she was broken. She was his hero.

Perhaps things were coming together. She had agreed to meet with him, to see if they could be all right again. She was coming to what was meant to be his reopened magic shop, but the media explosion was keeping him from opening it.

Giles grunted softly as he landed on his back, before sitting up. Rebekkah, the Slayer he was training with at the moment, gasped and kneat beside him. “Are you all right, Mr. Giles?” He laughed and nodded, rubbing his back. “Oh, I’m quite all right. You’re not the first Slayer to knock me off my feet in training and you certainly won’t be the last.” She managed a smile for him before she helped him to his feet. She was rather timid, one of the more reserved of the girls, but the raven-haired girl was also a fierce fighter.

“Very good with the offensive manuevers. Now, let us move onto defense. Prepare yourself.” She nodded and slid into a defensive stance. Rupert took a deep breath and lunged at her. Only a moment later, he landed on the padded floor again, this time on his stomach. “Oh, it’s quite all right, quite all right.” He assured her as she helped him up.

The bell on the door jingled gently and they both looked up to find Buffy in the doorway. Giles smiled and Rebekkah slipped away to get her things. “See you tomorrow, Mr. Giles. Later, Miss Summers.” She waved to them and then closed the door behind her. Giles wiped his brow and then slid his glasses back into place.

“I remember when this used to be you and I.” He said with a soft laugh.

Buffy had missed Giles more than she’d ever be willing to admit. The truth was, after almost a decade of knowing him, he’d become something of a father to her. He had been with her through almost all of her struggles, leaving her for a time but eventually returning to Sunnydale when she’d gotten herself into dire straits during his absence. She needed him that much was obvious. Things just seemed to go to hell when he left.

Giles was more than a Watcher. He was a father to her in ways she couldn’t explain. He real father probably didn’t even know she was alive; much less that she was a slayer. He hadn’t been there for her mother’s funeral, and a lurking suspicion told her he wasn’t there for hers either. But Giles had been there. He was one of the few people she felt she could actually express her emotions to, when things became too much for her to handle his shoulder was there for her to cry on. Buffy didn’t often talk about her feelings, though they were easily read on her face. She truly did wear her heart on her sleeve, despite her efforts to hide it. So it truly was rare that she willingly told Giles what she was feeling. But she trusted him. He supported her in all that she did and he treated her like an adult despite the fact that she still had so much growing up to do. He was her stronghold, the one constant in her life. When Sunnydale fell to the earth, he was home.

She couldn’t lie to herself, the way he’d gone behind her back with Willow on the whole Faith situation had really hurt her. She felt betrayed. But that betrayal was nothing in comparison to what she was feeling about Cameron. She had trusted Cameron, enough to let him see her most vulnerable and intimate side. It seemed like only moments before that they were happily expecting a baby. They weren’t in love, but she knew they would be good parents together. There was a sort of mutual understanding and partnership she could depend on. Correction, a partnership she thought she could depend on. But he chose evil and didn’t even seem to feel bad about it. He was actively working to make it impossible for slayers to kill the forces of darkness that would feast when there wasn’t anyone to stand between the world and total oblivion. And he knew it.

When she thought about what Cameron had done to her, well… What Giles did was easy to overcome and forgive. She even felt her heart softening toward Willow, which she didn’t think would be possible for a long time. But when the world is in mortal peril, personal drama tends to seem petty. It all looked so easy to overcome, and it felt like she’d been making a mountain out of a molehill the whole time. Apocalypse really put things into perspective.

So Buffy found herself making her way to the new Magic Box. It had yet to open, which Buffy suspected was due to the media frenzy that had recently begun. She didn’t bother driving there, instead opting for a brisk walk to the shop. Walking had given her time to think, to sort out her thoughts. She wanted things to be right between her and Giles.

Finally the shop came into view; she walked to it hastily because she didn’t like to linger outside for too terribly long. Media people seemed to have this eerie way of knowing where she was at any given time, and of hounding her with questions when they caught a hold of her. She turned the handle gently and stepped into the shop. Immediately she felt at home there. The shelves were half stocked and the center of the room had been converted into a training arena, it lacked the privacy of the Magic Box back in Sunnydale for the time being. But it held potential and brought back memory after memory of inspirational speeches, long nights spend researching demonic forces, and the hatching of some thoroughly brilliant plans.

Speaking of potential, the young Slayer Giles had been working tensed up at the sight of Buffy and hurriedly slipped out of the shop muttering her farewells in passing.

“Later, Miss Summers.” No, no, no! Buffy didn’t like the sound of that at all. Was she really old enough for teenagers to call her by her last name? Almost all the young Slayers seemed to react to her this way, something she still hadn’t gotten used to.

“Please, it’s Buffy!” She called after the girl, Buffy thought her name was Rebekah, but she was already gone before the words would have reached her ears. She looked over to Giles who seemed a bit winded, training always did tire him. She tended to forget that he was really just a normal person in that respect, he was too spectacular to just be a normal person. But he did seem to have some sort of super intelligence going for him which Buffy always respected though she’d never said anything about it. It was no secret that she wasn’t as book smart as the other Scoobies.

“I remember when this used to be you and I.” Buffy smiled at the thought of those days. She walked over to Giles as quick as she could. Once she was close enough she threw any sort of caution or reservations she had to the metaphorical wind and wrapped her arms tightly around him in a bear hug. She remembered and just saying it wasn’t enough. She needed to show how she felt, her emotions were overflowing and she couldn’t help it when a tear slid down her face.

“I remember, Giles. I missed you so much.” Her voice cracked ever so slightly as she uttered the last few words of her greeting. She needed Giles. How could she have ever forgotten that? She pulled away from the hug and tried discreetly to wipe the tears from her cheeks, offering up a wide grin to Giles.

Long Time No See || Buffy and Xander

zeppo-with-one-eye:

Xander sat at Bob’s Burgers, munching on a fry and waiting for Buffy to show up. He’d gone ahead and ordered food – a large basket of fries, two burgers with everything on them, and two Cokes. Food and fun was on the menu today. Absolutely stress-free goodness with his best friend.

With the crazy post-time-warp activities, it’d been a while since Xander had spent any good quality time with Buffy. There had been other things going on, Willow and Faith and then the Halo night with Andrew and the daily grind of construction work. No good excuses for neglecting to hang out with her, of course, but time was a tricky thing. Nonetheless, he felt guilty for it. She’d been busy too, he supposed, busy with Dawn and whatever else Buffy had been up to, so their free-time schedules hadn’t meshed up.

Still, he should’ve made time before this. How many nights had he spent on his own, watching television and unlocking achievements? It’d be good to see her again. His last memory, hazy as it was, was her jumping from the tower again and then her body cold and unmoving on the ground. Not exactly a great mental image. Seeing her alive and vibrant would be much better, scrub the unpleasant images from his mind.

Not to mention he missed her a lot.

This would be good. Fun and easy and just two best friends hanging out with each other. He wished Willow could be there too, complete the Golden Trio and make it feel like old times again. He missed those times, missed hanging out with both of them at the same time. But that wasn’t an option right now. Things were tense between Buffy and Willow. Understandably so, everything was so messy and bad, but he still wished they could fix things and go back to being non-avoid-y friends. Someday.

He noticed Buffy enter Bob’s Burgers, a smile covering his face at the sight of his best friend. Standing up, he waved to get her attention.

Buffy made her way to Bob’s Burgers to meet Xander. It felt like an eternity since they’d actually seen one another in person, and she had yet to see him since the whole time travel situation (still very mind-boggling if you asked her). So technically, it had been years. Life had been so much easier in those days and she almost found herself wishing them back.

Sure, there were some horrible moments she’d relived, but even with those moments it was all simpler. At least in those days she and Willow and Xander were still best friends. She’d only died one time, which would be one time too many for any normal person, but seemed like child’s play in comparison to all that she’d been through between then and now. But those times were long gone and she had to live the life that had been dealt to her, it was the only way she could cope; just keep trucking forward, it’ll all be okay in the end. If all this drama and mortal peril ever did end, that is.

And things with Willow… Well she wasn’t really sure how they were. The next big problem had come along and so they’d have to start talking again. She knew this much. They’d started talking again on the computer, she wasn’t really ready just yet for face-to-face. But she didn’t actually end up having to worry about that since Willow went chasing after Faith and left the rest of them in the thick of a media storm that Buffy wasn’t so certain she could whether alone. Even if Willow had to be in hiding, it seemed like she’d be more of a help than if she was gone. But away she went, and Buffy could understand why. They’d talked about it and Willow had assured her she’d be back, which Buffy trusted was true. And yet, she found herself feeling pissed off.

But today wasn’t supposed to be about that. Today was about meeting up with her best friend and just being Buffy. Not slayer Buffy, not angry Buffy, and definitely not media spokesperson Buffy. Today she was just Buffy. She and Xander would have a good time and there wasn’t a force in the world that would stop it from happening, not if she couldn’t help it. Buffy’d been lucky enough to make it out of her apartment without a single reporter or cameraman following her with an onslaught of questions or flashes, which she was eternally grateful for. She ended up arriving at the restaurant—Bob’s Burgers, a perfectly normal locale for a perfectly normal day—about five minutes late which she hoped wouldn’t bother Xander. They had allowed for a lot of hours to hang out so she doubted a few minutes would be too detrimental.

She walked into the restaurant and scanned the room for her one-eyed friend. She couldn’t ever get over Xander and his eye; he’d been so great about it. He was making jokes about it before anybody else had even dared go there. That was something she honestly loved about him, the way that he could see light in the darkest of situations. But even now when she laid eyes upon the black patch that made him look like some sort of modern pirate, she felt a pang of guilt. This pang of guilt was immediately replaced though by a little chuckle that bubbled up when she finally found him. True to form he had a grin about a mile wide plastered onto his face and was waving his hands around like a dork. She walked over to where he was sitting in a hurry, she had to stop him before he embarrassed himself. It was just the right thing to do, though she would have loved to fake looking around for a moment more just to watch as people’s heads turned toward him. But she didn’t.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said in sincere apology as she plopped down into the booth seat across from him. She gave him a smile and reached across the table, ruffling his hair for no other reason than to annoy him. She was feeling surprisingly playful and she couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe she’d needed this more than she thought. She’d definitely missed him, that much she was certain of.

“Loved the arm wave you had going on there Xander! A neon sign would have worked too.” She said jokingly as a sly smile spread across her face. She kidnapped one of his French fries before he could say anything about it and bit into it deliberately, flaunting the fact that she’d stolen. She had her own food but taking his was just more fun!

False Positive // Buffy & Cameron

Buffy clicked the radio on in an attempt to drown out all of the minute car driving sounds that she couldn’t help but notice. Tires crunching down constantly on loose pieces of asphalt, the honking horns of other drivers, the whirring engine, the sound of the car’s air conditioning, the medical terms heard a couple of days ago had begun to float through her head as well; it was all too much. She tried to get ahold of Robin Wood after she heard the news, for some reason she thought he might be able to tell her something that would make her feel better about all of this. His mother had been a slayer and he of all people would have known what she was going to be missing. But all she had was his Sunnydale number, and even though she hoped to whatever-power-controlled-the-universe he would answer, he didn’t. Which made sense, that contract had quite literally fallen through.
But just thinking of Robin Wood made Buffy realize something she hadn’t considered before. Being the child of a slayer had to be the crappiest life she could imagine bringing a child into. Robin’s mother had died on him when he was just a kid and it had turned him into a vengeful monster in a lot of ways. Robin Wood was a good man, she couldn’t deny it, but nobody else saw the way he’d tried to take his revenge out on Spike. He didn’t just want to kill him, he wanted to torture him, to bring him to his weakest point and exploit that fact. Buffy couldn’t understand it; the whole torture gig. If you wanted someone dead, you just killed them. It was as easy as that, and never that easy. Either way, it was monstrous the way Robin had tried to attack Spike. Buffy was all for a fair fight and she was certain that Robin could have fought and even killed Spike sans the cross covered walls.
And though Robin Wood had moved on from that person, he was forever etched in Buffy’s memory. No child of hers would become that way. But it seemed almost unavoidable. It takes the best type of person to forgive something that takes away that which you love. And what’s more beloved than a mother? Buffy understood that loss all too clearly. And she understood the hatred. If cancer had a corporeal incarnation, she wouldn’t hesitate to destroy the beast. But that was the problem: the lack of hesitation that hatred seemed to foster. It was nearly impossible to escape, and even her child was likely to fall prey to it.
And that’s when she’d realized that any child of hers, at least in at this juncture in her life, would be better off having not been born. If she loved her potential children, she wouldn’t bring them into a world where they would have to hate whatever inevitably killed their mother. Not when that thing could be an individual instead of a disease. It wouldn’t be fair and it would make monsters out of them. So this chemical pregnancy (Had the nurse said it was a really early miscarriage? She couldn’t remember…) had become some sort of blessing in disguise. Of course it certainly didn’t feel that way, somehow it still stung. It still welled up inside of her wanting to push tears from her eyes. It ached to burst from within her, this feeling, these unsaid words. She hadn’t told a soul.
So she texted Cameron, figuring now was as good a time as any. And then she drove, almost absentmindedly because she knew the way by heart. Her mind was screaming out. No, no, no. You know he’s going through some badness, Buffy. The time isn’t right. Remember what you heard he tried to do… But she had to tell someone, she needed the truth to be out. She wanted him to know, because he deserved to know. And then she found herself parked at Cameron’s place, her cheeks were stained with tears when she pulled down the sunblind’s mirror to make sure she looked at least a little presentable. Not that it really mattered, but when you’re unsure of so much, looking nice can really help. She didn’t bother texting or calling, he knew she was coming. She made her way to his front door and knocked gently, trying to keep herself composed. If he didn’t know she was upset, maybe he wouldn’t be either.