TITLE: "The Polychromatic Adventures of Buffy Summers"
AUTHOR: Liz AKA Will ow
DISTRIBUTION: My "site," and the yahoo groups I'm involved with. Anyone who wants it, just ask me and I'll be happy to give.
SPOILERS: None, this is AU.
RATING: PG-13 for now
PREMISE: Buffy Summers' countless attempts to find her niche in the world.
DISCLAIMER: Joss, these characters belong to you, I'm sorry to say. I wish they were mine, though.
DEDICATION: To Stacerella...cause she's my evil, evil friend. To my Bonopos, since she has always pushed me to write and never give up. To CC, cause we obsessed over the Olympics and decided that we have a good chance of meeting up in Beijing at the 2008 Summer Games. To Bre, Lea, and Dani for testing this out. And to Zo cause she's such a sweetheart. Ooh, and to the groups - love you all.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yes, this fic was inspired by Loftyheights' "Culture Shock." She is an amazing author and every time I read over her unfinished fic, it has me bawling - in hilarium, if that's a word, which it's not. :)
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Prologue: In the beginning, Buffy Summers was a very lost girl...very, very lost...
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She sat at a secluded, dark corner of The Bronze, quietly sipping her Diet Coke as she came to an honest and genuine conclusion: If she glanced to the side once more without moving her head, there was no doubt she'd find herself cross-eyed in the morning.
She chuckled embarrassingly at how absurd she was acting. Never in her life had she ever acted like this, except when he was nearby. Let's just say it freaked her out. Whenever he was in the near vicinity of her, she always seemed to have a dopey smile plastered on her face (think clowns), as well as a blush that was buried deep within her cheeks.
She tucked a golden lock carefully behind her ear and took a long side-ways glance at him. Oh God, he was so beautiful. Her heart fluttered every time he grinned, those eyes of his glinting in the most enthralling way. She looked at him with hooded eyes as she studied the outlines of his muscled chest through his threadbare sweater.
She swore to herself that a mere brush of his sleeve against her bare arm would paralyze her indefinably; the light brush of his lips against hers would cause her to die and go to heaven.
But that would never happen, she thought depressingly. The boy grew up. He'd come back to this part of town for Spring Break and would go off to UC Sunnydale again after his vacation would be over. He wasn't the type to go for a swoon-y schoolgirl like her. She was too innocent to ever have a chance with him. But, she decided, there was no harm in dreaming. Even if it involved a lot of deadly whipped-cream.
He was not the same boy she knew - the one who stood up for her in the playground when she was being bullied (Xander used to tease her, sometimes), the one who slept over to help her with a history paper. No, he was definitely not the same...in the sense that this boy was now a man who avoided her like the plague.
What was up with that, anyway? Did he actually think that now that he had a college life, he had the right to avoid the people - no, his friends - who had one more year of high school to complete? She felt a tinge of sorrow churn in her stomach. She felt unworthy, felt that the part of her heart that she reserved for his love was empty. All she needed was one phrase, one simple phrase like "I'm sorry" and she'd forgive him; the empty part of her heart would be complete and all would be right.
How did that expression go again? A hard man is good to find?
Oh. Oh, wait! No, no, she didn't mean that! Well, yeah, she admitted, a hard man is good to find - but she meant that a good man is hard to find. And he was just that. A good, respectable man. No one could ever be a better catch than he was.
She sounded like the stalker-type, didn't she? Okay, yeah, you could say that she was obsessed. Infatuated was a better sounding word. Not like that Alicia Silverstone, "The Crush," killer-type of infatuation. But she was drawn to him deeply. She was...
She was his soul mate. She wouldn't give up on him until he realized that they were simply meant to be. They were just meant to be together.
She hadn't realized she was staring at him for so long and quickly looked down in a rush as his eyes met hers. She heard him murmur something to his college buddies and saw him swiftly get up from his seat. 'Oh my God, he's walking towards me,' she beamed as she started fidgeting around, looking for something to occupy herself with. She quickly poured herself some more Diet Coke, and held the cold, plastic cup in her slightly trembling hands.
She was whistling to herself as he came up to her, the cutest smile having crawled on his handsome face. She put on her nonchalant act, and looked up interestingly at the beautiful man who stood before her.
"Buffy," he whispered, grinning, "you look well."
She frowned slightly. Did she really? Did she really look well? Because apparently she was not feeling the wellness. If feeling well meant that her life was a living hell, full of moaning and groaning over him, thinking of ways to seduce him and make him hers forever, then yes, she was feeling the uber-wellness.
"Hi," she said softly. "I haven't seen or talked to you in a while. How's the college gig working for you?"
He smirked cutely. "It's been going great. But I miss you."
She smiled brightly. He missed her? By golly, she missed him, too! Oh, how she loved this man...
"And I miss Willow, and Oz, and for some weird reason...Xander, too," he said, looking somewhat depressed.
Oh. He missed her in a sense of a group missing. Like, he missed the Scoobies, but didn't miss someone specifically from the Scoobies. Oh...Great.
What a bastard.
"Buffy, I know I haven't been much of a friend these past few months. I haven't been keeping in touch, and I'm sorry for that."
He damn well better be sorry! Oh shit, that sure was a scary, sudden outbreak of "Mommy" talk.
He continued. "So, maybe - if you aren't busy - you'd like to pair up for doubles in tennis at the country club this weekend? So we can catch up, of course."
Her heart slammed against her chest. Was she...was she being asked on a date by him? As in, a real, live date...with HIM? Like, actually seeing him up-close and stuff? Wow. Okay, so playing doubles in a tennis match together was far from a romantic, candle-lit dinner. But, she'd be with him, and that's what counted! Plus, she'd get to see her SOUL MATE sweating sexily, beads of water dripping down the front of his chest while he played tennis. Oh God, and if he'd take off his shirt, she'd surely pass out. And, maybe if she'd be lucky enough, she'd have the absolutely wonderful privilege of accidentally walking in on him while he took his shower at the club! What fun! She was going.
"Okay," she said, biting back a giddy shriek of excitement. Mr. Woo, meet Mrs. Hoo. Woohoo!
"Okay," he said, while returning to his burly college buds. He never took his eyes off her and purposefully walked backwards as he tried to remember that gentle curve of her face, that searing glint in her green eyes, those lips that seemed to be protruding proudly, waiting impatiently for his rough kisses. They would eventually come, but not now.
As he turned his attention back to his burly buds, Buffy picked up the pillow that lay next to her on the couch and stuffed it into her face, shrieking of pure joy.
"MY SOUL MATE ASKED ME OUT ON A DATE!" she cried as she gagged on the corner of the pillow, its material working to muffle her sounds. She started coughing a bit. Some people around were looking at her weirdly. "RILEY FINN ASKED ME, BUFFY SUMMERS, OUT ON A DATE!"
Three cheers for the "woo" and the "hoo."
Woohoo!
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AUTHOR'S NOTES 2:
HA! You thought it'd be Angel, didn't you? Don't worry...You were worrying, weren't you? PSH! You thought I, Liz (AKA Willow), would have the grossest of minds and write B/R? PFFT! NEVER likely. Please feedback; please rant. It will be greatly appreciated. :)