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Title: Buffy Snippets
Author: Relala
Beta Reader: Lady of Scarlet
Episode 9: Listening to Fear
You are: Willow
"You know what's weird?"
"Japanese commercials are weird."
"Yes," you giggle. "And also...you know some of the stars we're looking at don't even exist anymore. In the time that it takes for their light to reach us...they've died, exploded. Poof."
"Were, um, things rough at the hospital?" asks Tara, finally turning her head away from the stars to look at you.
At that moment you're filled with a blooming warmth, something that makes your lips twitch up into a smile and your eyes light up like the sun.
You've loved a lot of people in your life, had a lot of friends and acquaintances that you cared for, but there hasn't ever been someone like Tara. There's never been anyone else who understood you—or even loved you—quite so well.
Episode 10: Into the Woods
You are: Spike
Twisting the door handle gently, you slide into her room, drinking in the boy band posters that have been plastered to her walls and the mirror which is covered in picture after picture of her friends. You wouldn't be able to see yourself in it anyway but it still gives you pause.
"Riley?" Buffy mumbles.
"It's me."
"Every time you show up like this you risk all of your parts," Buffy snaps, hastily sitting up with the blankets clutched to her chest. "You know that?"
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't have a good reason," you counter. "As usual, I'm here to help you, and I—Are you naked under there?"
"Get out."
"No, I'm serious. I mean, not about the naked part, I mean—"
This is the moment when you know—with absolute certainty—that you are in love with the Slayer. Oh, there have been other moments that have made you think that you had some warped thing for her but it was easy to pass them off. You've always had an obsession with the Slayers...but nothing has ever been so obvious as this.
You're a hundred years old, you've been in love with many women, but none of them have ever made you stumble over your tongue like you were a sixteen-year-old boy getting his first kiss. You're in love with the Slayer and this is the moment when you figure it out.
Episode 11: Triangle
You are: Dawn
"They don't know that it's Dawn?" Buffy demands.
You hear the sound of your name and you stop on the last stair, hidden by a mere sliver of the wall. Old habits kick in—the spying skills that come with each little sister—and your breathing stops as you lean closer to the wall, a survival instinct that ensures you will not be caught by the adults within.
"I still can't even begin to grasp this," your mother says. For a moment you think that she is still sick, still having problems with her head and your heart flips with worry, but then you catch the next sentence. "She's my little girl."
"It is disorientating," the old man, Buffy's Watcher, agrees.
"Giles, what happens if they figure it out?" Buffy asks. "What would they do?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, I can't even think about this. It's too — I'll get some more milk."
From inside the room where the others are come the clinks of dishes, the telltale chime a spoon makes against a china teacup. You don't hear any of that, however, because there's a ringing in your ears, the terrified thump of your heart.
Episode 12: Checkpoint
You are: Spike
"Oh, it's the Slayer. For a second there, I was worried," you sigh. Something moves behind Buffy and, with a start, you catch sight of her mother and little sister. "So, what's with the family outing?"
"I need your help."
"Great. I need your cash."
"I'm serious," she whispers, her voice sinking down into a pitch too low for the other women to hear. "You need to look after them."
Your eyes widen in shock. "Well, that's a boatload of manly responsibility come flying out of nowhere. What's the matter, Slayer? You're not feeling one hundred percent?"
"No."
"They didn't put a chip in your head, did they?"
"No."
"Be funny if they did."
"Spike," Buffy snaps, emphasizing her point by shoving you back a few steps. "I need an answer, now. In or out?" She waits for a few seconds and then adds, "You're the only one strong enough to protect them."
Her big eyes look into yours and for a moment you don't know what to say. You're a drowning man caught in the pools of her eyes, the desperateness of her words. With that last line, the Slayer has won the battle.
"Alright, then."
Episode 13: Blood Ties
You are: Spike
The door to your crypt slams open and a whirlwind of angry Slayer breezes in, making its way towards you in boots that click on the cement floor.
"Morning, sunshine," you say without looking up as you sit on your coffin, eyes glued to your nails as you slowly apply each stroke of polish. "If you've come around for eggs or sausage I'm fresh out."
Buffy storms over and grabs the lid of your stone sarcophagus, yanking it out from under you without warning.
"Hey, careful!" you joke, wiggling your nails and sitting up in the box. "These are wet."
"How could you let her find out like that?" the Slayer demands, slamming the lid of the coffin into your chest, pinning you inside. "From books and papers? You hate me that much?"
"I was just along for the ride. Not like I knew she was a mystical glowy key thing. Nobody keeps me in the bloody loop, do they?"
"You could have stopped her."
"Oh, yeah. Here it comes," you purr, the low growl that slips from a leopard as it watches its prey. "Something goes wrong in your life, blame Spike. News flash, blondie!"
You push the lid off yourself, flipping it into the air. It lands on the floor with a booming smash that echoes throughout your crypt. Bits and pieces of broken rubble roll around on the floor.
"If kid sis wants to grab a midnight stroll she'll find a way sooner or later. I just thought she'd be safer with Big Bad looking over her shoulder."
"She shouldn't have found out like that," Buffy replies, shaking her head.
"You didn't think you could keep the truth from her forever, did you?" you hiss. "Maybe if you had been more honest with her in the first place you wouldn't be trying to make yourself feel better with a round of Kick The Spike."
You have a first row seat to watch as the tears rise to her eyes before she turns around and leaves without another word. When the crypt door swings shut you hang your head, but it's not in shame, it's not in regret.
You're not the one in wrong here, for once, and sometimes the Slayer needs to be kicked in the ass to realize that she isn't always the perfect one. That's the connection between the two of you, a link of understanding, and whether she likes it or not doesn't matter. She can't deny it's there.
Episode 14: Crush
You are: Spike
Drusilla looks at you expectantly out of the corner of her yellowed eye and for a second you are horrified at what you see. The humans with their broken necks and the vampire with the blood down her face, smeared on her cheeks and dripping from her lips. But after a second the vampire in you kicks back in, and your breath becomes raspy.
The hesitation you feel is replaced with lust and hunger, the desire to fulfil the hunger that has been burning at your guts for the last who-knows-how-long. Just how many months has it been since those army boys put that damn chip inside your head, anyway? How long has it been since you were turned into a grovelling mutt on the Slayer's doorstep?
You slip into vamp face and force your fangs right through the flesh of the dead human's neck and, god, it's everything you've ever dreamt it would be.
Episode 15: I Was Made To Love You
You are: Buffy
"Can you cry? Sometimes I feel better when I cry," you explain to the robot. It's true, over the years you have found that the best way to get over something is to let it all out. Bottling everything up just leads to trouble in the long run. "But there might be rust issues."
"Crying is blackmail. Good girlfriends don't cry."
Sympathy thuds down on you, closing your throat and making you fall into silence. You've no idea what you say so you merely mumble "Oh" as you swing back and forth on the swings. The chains creak and moan in protest and the sand sucks at your shoes.
"I've rechecked everything," April states, confused. "I did everything I was supposed to do. I was a good girlfriend."
"I'm sure you were," you whisper.
It's funny, but April is the first person you have related to since Riley left. Somehow, you understand everything she says, everything she is feeling, because you're feeling the exact same thing. It's almost as if April is you at the moment or as if you were her. That worries you, of course, but it's not the point.
"I'm only supposed to love him. If I can't do that, what am I for? What do I exist for?"
"I don't know."
Episode 17: Forever
You are: Buffy
The day slowly sinks into night, the hot yellow glow of the sun fading into a twilight blue which bathes the world in its chilly hues. The night has taken too long to arrive, you think, when from behind you come hushed—almost completely silent—footsteps.
"I'm sorry," Angel whispers. "I couldn't come sooner."
His hand finds yours, fingers sliding through yours without pause. It should be different after not being together for so long, it should be awkward or wrong, but the spaces in between your fingers will forever be right where his fit perfectly.
Angel is like an extension of yourself even after these last few years that you have been away from him, and holding his hand is as natural for you as taking breath.
Episode 18: Intervention
You are: Buffy
"Why?" you ask, your voice high and chipper.
"Cause Buffy—the other not-so-pleasant Buffy—anything happened to Dawn, it'd destroy her," Spike pants, the words coming out as nothing more than wispy breathes. "I couldn't live, her being in that much pain. I'd let Glory kill me first. Nearly bloody did."
It stuns you for a second that this lowly vampire could have done something so incredibly noble. This is still Spike you're talking about, of course, and a relationship with him would be unthinkable, but you lean forwards and kiss him.
His lips are puffed up and bloody and the kiss is no more than a delicate brush of lips. Still, when you pull back and see the understanding in his eyes Spike looks as if his world has been lit up by the sun. He looks at peace.
Spike at least deserves that much.
Episode 19: Tough Love
You are: Spike
"You wanna know what I'm scared of, Spike?" asks Dawn, swinging herself around to look into your blackened face. "Me. Right now, Glory thinks Tara's the key. But I'm the key, Spike. I am. And anything that happens to Tara...is 'cause of me. Your bruises, your limp—that's all me too. I'm like a lightning rod for pain and hurt. And everyone around me suffers, and dies. I must be something so horrible to cause so much pain and evil."
She swallows her tears down and you fix your eyes on her throat, afraid that if you look anywhere besides at her skin you'll want to reach out to her. You'd like to pull her towards you, hold her tight against your cold chest, save her from all the bad things that go bump in the night. But the thing is you're one of those things.
"Rot," you spit out.
"What do you know?"
"I'm a vampire. I know something about evil. You're not evil," you explain to her, your voice low and hard-edged. It's not much, these words, but they're all you have to offer. It's the only comfort you can offer this human girl which you have taken such a liking to.
Episode 20: Spiral
You are: Buffy
"What's he doing here?" Giles demands, his eyes hardening at the ludicrous sight of the vampire sitting in the driver's seat behind the tinfoil covered windows, giant goggles covering half his face.
"Just out for a jaunt," teases Spike. "Thought I'd swing by and say howdy."
"Out," Giles orders.
"He's here because we need him," you explain without looking up from where you sit at the table, flipping through maps upon maps upon maps. "If Glory finds us he's the only one besides me that has any chance of protecting Dawn."
"Buffy, come on!" Xander wheedles.
"Look, this isn't a discussion!" you scream, slamming your fist down on the table. You can feel everything building up inside of you, ready to explode at any moment. Where will you take everyone? What's going to happen now that a God is after your little sister and has already tortured two of your friends? You need strong allies. "He stays. Get over it."
THE END
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