Title: Bathwater
Author: Ashley K.
Disclaimer: If I was Joss Whedon, I wouldn't have to be writing what I am.
Spoilers: All of season 6.
AN: This is not a happy story. There is some serious words. This is a serious fic and should not be read by people who want to be happy.
Summary: Just read the story!
Its like I'm addicted.
Addicted to pain. Addicted to filth. Addicted to sex. Addicted to Spike.
If anyone ever told me a couple years ago I would be there, lying on Spike's cold, cold floor, recovering after being thoroughly fucked, I would have laughed in their faces.
Now I would probably puke. Beg forgiveness. Cry.
Every time, EVERY time, I go back to my house (its not my home anymore), I feel dirty, used, like the cheap whore I've become. I can't look at them anymore. I'm too afraid they'll see my dirty little secret in my eyes.
((little cuts))
I *wanted* to be the one who killed the girl. I would confess and be put in jail, just like Faith. I would have had my refuge from this harsh world that I don't fit in anymore. From Spike.
He haunts me.
Every time we're through, I feel like I was just raped. I feel so dirty and used and disgusting. I feel resentment towards him. I hate myself. I hate who I've become.
But I feel.
((little cuts))
I avoid mirrors.
As a little girl, I would primp and dancing and inspect in front of my mirror. I'd ask my mommy if I was beautiful. And I remember what she said. What she always say. She'd hold me and look me in the eyes and kiss my forehead. Then she'd say, "Buffy, you are so beautiful. One day, you'll find a man who is worthy of your beauty."
If Spike's as worthy as I can get, I must be hideous now.
Tara said I was right. That I just had a molecular sunburn. But that can't be it! It can't be! There is no way that the Real Buffy would let Spike do the things she does, and enjoy them. The Real Buffy would see that Dawnie's stealing for attention, to have the Real Buffy yell at her and make her return it all and punish and *care.* The Real Buffy would see that Xander was having doubts about marrying Anya and would be talking to him and making him see. The Real Buffy would have noticed Willow's addiction, *before* it almost killed Dawnie. The Real Buffy wouldn't have to work at the Double Meat Palace, just to afford to live.
((little cuts))
I want to close my eyes and tap my heels together and say, "There's no place like home," until I'm back were everything makes sense and I'm the Real Buffy. I want to go back four years, when I was just sixteen and happy and in love and safe.
I want to be the Buffy who laughed and joked and loved and cared.
I want to be the Buffy with a mother and nobody to take care of.
I want to be the Buffy whose friends were normal and laughed and joked and loved and cared.
I want to be the Buffy who dreamed every night about her Dark Prince Charming, who loved and worshipped her and would always love her and would never leave her.
I want to be the Buffy whose Sister Slayer was still alive and not in jail and not psycho.
I want… I wanted so much… Why do I have so little now?
((little cuts))
Four years ago, I couldn't wait to be in college. I saw everything with rose-colored glasses. Xander, Willow, and I are all supposed to be in UC Sunnydale. Xander and Cordelia are supposed to be together, happy and complete. Willow and Oz are supposed to be together, happy and complete. Angel and I are supposed to be together, engaged and both human, destiny-free. My mommy was supposed to be here, always waiting for me, always ready to comfort. Giles was supposed to stay, maybe marry my mommy, and become my real daddy. The monsters who I chased everyday are supposed to be gone, disappeared, non-existent. I am supposed to be *normal.*
It didn't work out that way. I jumped and I died.
Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, by jumping. Should I have let Dawnie jump and die? She didn't, doesn't really exist. She's just energy bound by a little flesh and a couple memories. But I (the Real Buffy) am too righteous and good to let an innocent die.
It helped that I was ready to die. To leave this lonely, scary, bad world.
Why did Willow bring me back? Didn't she know? This world is wrong and I'm not supposed to be here.
((little cuts))
Spike has cold hands. Cold feet. Cold lips. Cold tongue. Cold…everything. Just like Angel…but he's not Angel and that makes all the difference. That's why I go home, not floating on air, not humming, not happy, I go home feeling raped and dirty and bad and nasty and wrong. I look at Spike's cold hands (almost like Angel's…too small, too rough) and all I see is blood. Its like they're stained and when he touches me, I see the stains soaking into my already too stained skin. I can scrub and scrub and scrub, but I still see blood.
He left me. I'm supposed to be having a normal life right now. Be engaged, be buying my white house with the white picket fence and have a dog, or two. Happy and planning on what to call my 2.5 kids.
But he forgot. I'm the Slayer. It's my destiny to be abnormal and to die in my twenties.
((little cuts))
I'm afraid to die, again. The first time I remember that all I felt was darkness, silence, then a rush of power. This past time I remember thinking, 'This is it. Congratulations, Buffy, you're dead." There was a little pain, but the reward was so much greater than the pain. This last time, I will die and I will worry that it won't be the last time. That the second I'm buried and in my little coffin, my friends will find, yet another, way to revive me.
I wish I would have stayed dead, that first time. I wish that Angel and Xander would have left me alone, let me enjoy being dead. Then I wouldn't be where I am. I wouldn't have to experience what I did. Kendra would have been the Slayer, the perfect Slayer. And IF she would have died, Faith would have been the lone Slayer, no competition, and she could have been unique, just like she wanted to be.
If I would have only stayed dead…
((little cuts))
I'm sorry, Dawn, Willow, whoever finds me. I'm sorry I left such a mess and that somebody will have to clean it up.
I'm sorry.
Please, leave me…let me be happy. Just this once.
Buffy Anne Summers O'Connor (I am pretending that I am the Real Buffy and that I really did live out my fairy-tale world)
b. 1981 d. 1996, 2001, 2002
~*~*~*~*~*~
It was Dawn who found her. She was going to take a bath, she woke up early, just so that she would have enough time to, before school. She peeled back the curtain and screamed…
Seeing your sister die once is bad.
Seeing your sister dead in the bathtub, surrounded by water so full of blood you can't see through it, is worse. The stench, of death and of blood, permeated the bathroom. There was a bittersweet tang in the air and Dawn collapsed by the tub, trying to pull her long-dead sister out, being pulled away by a sobbing Willow. Screaming as the bloody bathwater sloshed over the tub and got on the both of them.
~*~*~*~*~*~
It took them two days to find the suicide note. Willow and Xander found it, when they went into Buffy's bedroom, to pick out, yet another, dress to bury their hero in. Xander wanted to rip it up, but Willow stopped him.
She read it and gasped, not in horror, but that she had blinded herself to what Buffy was going through and put up that wall that made Buffy think that everyone would see her as being dirty. She broke down when she read that Buffy wanted to stay dead, that she did, somewhat, blame her for her own unhappiness.
Wordlessly, she handed it to Xander, and walked out of the room, crying. Xander read it. He got to the postscript and tears flowed. He gently placed the note on the bed and followed Willow.
~*~*~*~*~*~
P.S. Please tell Angel that I love him. Please don't let the one pure thing I have left in this world know that I am a dirty and bad and wrong and a whore. Please, let him think I am the perfect, innocent heroine of this world. Please.
END
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