Title: Pants with flowers on them
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Distribution: Want. Take. Have. Ask.
Description: Buffy receives a call…
Author's note: this originated as a story I had previously had posted, however when I wrote that story I was much younger and much dumber and a terrible writer. Now that I'm a bit better I've revamped it a bit (thank god). Though I attempted to keep some of the original material so it is still a bit crapy, it is much better now. Please review.
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She is lying under her covers, thinking about the smell of dust on grass.
She remembers... she remembers in stop motion, claymation, whatever the hell they call it when everything is all jumpy, and twitchy. She can hear him talking, that old guy in serious need of a facial... Mavick, Marvin or whatever. She's bad with names unless it's Jake Marsden, in which case she'll make an acception.
She's never been the best listener but she swears that now, here in her bead with her skin all pale shocked under the light Californian sheets and the covers pulled high she can remember the exact sound of the man's voice like fine crushed gravel pressed to pavement.
"Buffy Summers?"
She should never have answered him then. She can imagine telling him he had the wrong girl, the wrong choice, the wrong hero.
"Are you Buffy Summers?"
But she hadn't known to lie. Sure she had though about it- popular as she was, it was her choice if she wanted to talk to someone or not. If it had been some dork with a year book for her to sign she might have said no, said, "I'm not Buffy Summers and why don't you get a life?" but this was a man. Old, yes, but business-y. Almost talent
scout-ish with his suit all fresh and tweedy.
And now she is awake a 3:54 AM, remembering every word he spoke. There's a name for that, she thinks, distracted: to remember every word. She was painting her nails during those notes but she can almost remember... almost remember...
Verbatim.
She greeted the man. Her voice had been bright and chipper like mochachinoes and strawberry swirl lip balm, a girlish giggle in the form of a greeting.
"What? Hi! Huh?"
She can remember her fingers on the round metallic case of lipstick still hidden in the soft folds of her pants pocket. The twist in her stomach, nothing more than a fear of reprimand. "I meant to pay for that lipstick."
"I dare you to take it." Stephanie's rich, sharp voice in her ear, Stephanie's hot, breath.
Buffy is the chosen one; she has to pay for everything- and she has to fight now. That's what the man said. His voice dark and mockable, like the foreboding voice of an all night horror movie marathon. She contemplated telling him to try a throat lozenge. He said, "You are the chosen, you have to fight them."
A pause.
She was glaring, insulted, at the rust bucket, junk car idling on the corner. It stood out like an oil stain on silk and the man inside the tinted windows was grungy- having the nerve to stare. She hoped it wasn't at her that he was staring. The man needed a shower, stat.
"You have to fight the vampires."
The man in the car was still staring, dark and almost skittish through murky windows partially covered in cardboard and tape. She glanced back at the talent scout. "What?"
What vampires?
She wishes she had known. With all the benefits of hindsight she wishes. He didn't even look apologetic.
In her bed beneath the sweaty California sheets- expensive and smooth- she thinks she must have missed something, some loophole in the contract, some clause of annulment or whatever the hell Mr. Jenkins was always going on about in law class. There must be something she missed to bring her back to that morning when she was sitting in her kitchen on the mahogany stool, tracing her fingers along the wood grain and picking the poppy seeds off of her bagel, begging for low fat cream cheese.
Please mom, I have to have it or-
Or you'll die?
Yes! Painfully. And not only that, I'll die fat so you'll have to pay more for a larger coffin.
Her mother laughed. "You're horrible, honey."
Yes, maybe a little bit, but the return on investment was worth it. Her mother would buy the cream cheese- Buffy smiled and thought about how she needed some more Bic razors.
She never did buy them though. She had been planning to go to the mall after school; buy a new outfit and charge it to her dad's credit card, then feel bad and only buy a small frappichino so she could save the money and begin to pay him back.
She rubs her legs together beneath the covers and feels for stubble. For now she is safe.
At this she almost laughs.
"You are never safe. Not anymore."
Derrick or whatever his name was had really been getting into the heavy narration. The sun had set quickly, leaving her shivering outside the cemetery gates- rubbing her arms and pressing her skin to the still-warm metal, annoyed.
Of course she didn't believe him then. Of course she laughed, who wouldn't?
She wouldn't. Not anymore.
Perhaps if she had refused, if she hadn't come there, to the cemetery, all pink and daisies, standing out against the backdrop full of crumbling monuments and hell-beast angels with dead eyes, he would have left. Derrick- old and British and smelling of stale tea bags- would have disappeared into the sunny Californian streets amidst the smell of corn dogs and the sound of gushing sprinklers. Gone away and found another girl, someone better, more suited, with less to lose.
"Hi, my name is Buffy Anne Summers and I have a lot to lose so pick me!"
Of course she had followed him to the cemetery- stood wide-eyed and glossy with a stake placed in her hand, thinking, "Why does he have fangs? My god, is he ugly." Of course she had gone, fought, won- she was destined for it- destiny meaning that she had no choice at all.
Buffy didn't believe in destiny until tonight. She was a deist which meant she was holding off for further evidence- holding off for the right beliefs to come begging on their hands and knees like Tyler and his stupid dance.
She did not believe in vampires.
"I am a die-ist," she thinks with a small scoffing laugh. Really, there's nothing all that funny about death.
She remembers the smooth compatibility of wood grain in her hand, fingers dancing around it, almost sensuous, fitted to her palm. The stake made a sound as it broke the skin open, hot and gushing in the cooling air- then turning immediately dry. She almost cried as she straddled him...
It...
Him.
She watched him crumble into ashes, blinking the dust from her frightened eyes. Only half of the tears, then, were caused by the gritty dirt.
"Now you see? What your capable of, what you are?"
She spun on her heel and saw nothing. Nothing but Maverick, Derrick, Merrick, standing arms at his sides, lips turned out in a calm frown. She believed just then that he would have done nothing to help her- only watched her die, slowly, keening. Yet he spoke as if he understood. He had the nerve to watch.
The truth was: she hates him more even now, in the dark shadows of her room, than she had ever hated the vampire- her very first vampire. One single notching in the tombstone.
She felt cold from the inside as she stared, eyes huge and terrified, glare already beginning to surface, perfect white teeth set and mean. He wanted to have tea. "A warm up," he had called it, as though 'a cuppa' and some polite explanation could set her right again. She told the buttons of his tweed over coat that she had to go. 'Her mom' she said, her mom was waiting; her mom would be angry- would be worried.
"You can't tell her anything," he said.
"I'm a pompous prick," she tried, covering over his words with her own like she did in math class when Mrs. Wendell talked about quadrilaterals. But her old tricks didn't work anymore. The world was right side up and she was standing on her head, attempting to fit back into her life as though it were a hole in a child's toy.
He didn't walk her home- no longer needed to.
"I'll contact you very soon. You have much work to do, this was just the beginning." she wanted to laugh and to cry.
"This was the end," she said, loud, not letting the quavering inside of her out, but he was already walking away and he didn't turn to collect her words. She could feel them scatter in the wind.
"This was the end."
At her front door her mom looked relieved, turning confused, turning angry before Buffy had gotten to the front stairs. Buffy remembered Tyler. Tyler her boyfriend, Tyler on hands a knees, begging. She let his name fall like an unkempt excuse on the roughish gray carpet of her room. She was 'out with Tyler'.
"We were talking, we just lost track of time… not his fault."
Decoy.
More law class terminology. She may have to begin paying attention- if she was going to be getting into trouble now.
Her mom had said something, "-irresponsible-" something. Buffy stared at her mother's dress, soft cotton loose around the neck. She traced the seams, coming and receding out of view. She could smell hot flour rising in clouds through the house- the acrid smell of burning.
"You know we worry." Her mother disappeared into the hallway. Her soft steps made a scratching sound on the expensive carpet until soon she was out of sight.
"Don't worry mom," Buffy though, determination twisting her face into a tear. "I'll be good from now on, I promise." She could feel the slight burn of a cut on her elbow; the deep brownish-green grass stains on her knees. She was wearing her favorite pants. Macy's, full price. They had flowers on them.
Soon She could hear her parent's voices from downstairs, as sharp and hard as the sound of porcelain place settings- silver cutlery and cast iron.
"That girl is irresponsible..."
"She just lost track of time, don't smother her-"
"Don't put this off on me-"
In the mirror she was pale and her hair rose in fly-aways, glowing. "I'll make this go away," she though quietly. "I can make this go away."
That night while she tried to sleep she would pull the covers up high, higher than she had in years, up and over her head like a fort.
She listened to her parent's harsh notes and stared into the cabinet mirror. She thought they didn't sound like anyone she knew anymore. She thought they were smaller now- barely parents.
Finally she took the lipstick from her pocket and read the tiny circular print on the bottom. "Heroine," said the small dark letters.
Ha ha, very funny.
She put the lipstick in the right hand drawer and closed it with a careful thump, turned the tap until the water was too hot and placed her hands beneath.
In the mirror she brushed her teeth and stared until she couldn't see at all.
So late that it's very early, Buffy cant sleep. "I have to stop caring about this," she reasons- alert- too sick inside to unclench her fists. "I have to stop thinking about this and then, tomorrow, Tyler will ask me to the dance and I will say 'maybe' and I will walk away like really, what I said was 'not a chance' and he'll bring me flowers. My favorite flowers."
It will be so good...
That night she grinds her teeth while she sleeps and dreams of fangs and fists and fury.