Rating: PG
Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Summary: Post-Doublemeat Palace. Short Buffy POV piece.

Musing about Doublemeat Palace, in Buffy's voice. Is it just me or was that
really depressing?

Maybe it's just me.

If you feel the need, email me at ascian@tsoft.com.

Cow and Chicken

by ascian
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Every night, he comes to the place where I work.

It doesn't matter whether I want him there or not. I don't, really. He
knows that. But he comes all the same. And every night, we have some
variation on the same conversation.

"Buffy... let me help." He's leaning toward me, talking quietly, looking
all intense with those piercing eyes that I avoid as though they burn
me. In a way, they do.

"I don't need help."

"You're lying to yourself, Buffy. This isn't what you are."

I can't hear this. Every night the same. Not the same words, but the
same conversation. Sometimes there are no words at all. Sometimes I shut
him up before he can start. I always shut him up before he can finish,
one way or another.

The truth that I admit freely to myself when I'm alone is that he's
right. This isn't me. I'm not Worker Girl. Which is what makes it so
hard. But I have to try. What else can I do? I have responsibilities.
Not just the saving the world kind - and truthfully, I think about that
as little as possible, and sometimes these days it even starts to recede
into the fog - but the other kind, the life kind, the real kind. The
awful, inescapable kind that you can't beat up, or run away from. I'm
not very good at that kind.

I'm not strong enough for this. I tell him this. He doesn't believe me.
In an odd way I think that he has more confidence in me than I have in
me. But of course that's not new. Everyone has more confidence in me
than I do. But when Spike looks at me I don't think he's looking
entirely at the Slayer any more. If he ever was.

If I were prepared to think about it, his confidence would terrify me.

It's a good thing, the not thinking about it. Actually I try to not
think very much about anything. It seems to work better that way. It
dulls the edges of the world.

When he talks too much, which happens mostly if he comes while I'm
outside on my break, I take him around back, and shut him up the only
way I know how. I've stopped trying to hit him, because that doesn't
stop him from talking. The other way -- well, let's just say that he
finally shuts the hell up when I let him screw me.

I don't let him look at me when we do this.

I'm surprised that he goes along with it. It's not really his style. He
likes fire, and that's not something that I have to give. I think that
he thinks that the sex might reach me, somehow, where his pleading and
his anger can't. He does things sometimes, strokes my hair, tries to
make me look at him. I can feel his eyes boring holes through me, and
I'm afraid of what might leak out.

If I look at him, I will be in serious danger of crying. And if that
happens, I know I won't be able to stop until there is nothing left of
me except an empty husk, like the shells that cicadas leave when they
shed their skins. Still clinging to the bushes even though there's
nothing left inside.

Empty husks can't pay the bills.

He tries to talk to me afterwards. During, sometimes. I kiss him then,
and I think he understands it for the brush-off that it is. I don't kiss
him unless I have to, because it's entirely more intimate than I want to
get. It's like admitting defeat. Too easy to get lost in it. I hate that
it's so easy for him to get to me. I hate what he does to me, just by
being around. I hate myself for wanting him.

Last night, he didn't come. I am not sure what this means.

I hate myself for missing him.