A/N: This was for the 10 year Anniversary of Welcome to the Hellmouth. Dedicated to zanthinesgirl, cause she reads everything I write :) Feedback is love!
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I. Rhinestone Cowgirl-1991
"Mom, this is totally, like, the best outfit here. I mean, everything else is dorksville with a capital 'D,' and in case you haven't noticed, we live in Los Angeles."
"Wait just a minute, kiddo. You mean this isn't Dorksville?" Joyce Summers pulls a mock-surprised face at her ten-year old daughter. "And here I was all this time, thinking otherwise. I'll have to speak to the real estate agent right away."
"Mom," Buffy fairly screams, her eyes horrified and indignant. She's at that stage where being Daddy's-little-girl has turned her into a spoiled little hellion, and--surprise!--Daddy is conspiciously absent when it comes to the ensuing tantrums. Joyce sighs. Buffy is her beautiful, talented, wonderful daughter, but sometimes, she's scarily similar to every girl Joyce ever hated in grade-school.
"Buffy, no." Joyce says firmly. "This thing is entirely too expensive for just a birthday party, and besides, you'll outgrow it so fast you'll only ever wear it once." A hundred and twenty dollars for a denim jumpsuit with lace ruffles down the side and a dozen rhinestones scattered across the backside? Joyce silently curses the eighties and the unfortunate denim-slash-BeDazzler mania. It's turned her daughter into a tiny little red-faced monster.
Buffy takes a deep breath and from the white tinge spreading across her dainty knuckles, Joyce has a feeling an outburst is imminent. Tiny little hands with glittery pink fingernails reach out and clutch at Joyce's sleeve.
"Mommy," Buffy says, an it's almost amusing how much restraint she's showing, "Please. I only ever have to wear it once. Sally Hayfort's having a rodeo rollerskating party and I have to be dressed up! I have to be the best cowgirl there is."
Joyce grimaces. A rodeo roller-derby party? What the heck is that and who comes up with that sort of crap? Not for the first time, Joyce thinks Debra Hayfort would benefit from spending less time living vicariously through little Sally, and more time attempting sanity.
"Well, we can get you a cowboy hat, how's that?" Joyce tries gamely. "And you can wear those cute new jeans with the flannel shirt and--"
Buffy is shaking her head so hard that Joyce fears for her daughter's future SAT scores. "No, no, no," she says stubbornly. "I want the denim jumpsuit. It's got diamonds."
Joyce arches an eyebrow and smiles fondly down at Buffy. "Sweetie, those are rhinestones. Not diamonds."
Buffy shrugs. "They're both sparkly. What's the difference?"
Joyce rubs Buffy's dirty-blonde locks affectionately. "Diamonds last forever, Buffy. Rhinestones fall off in the wash. Also, diamonds cost about a gajillion more dollars."
Buffy shoots Joyce that patented pre-teen look that says I'm ten, not two. "Numbers don't go up to gajillion."
"Well, hundreds, then." Joyce takes the denim atrocity from Buffy's desperate grip and places it back on the rack. "In any case, much more money than we have." Taking Buffy's hand, she guides her away from the roller-derby outfit of doom and towards the Little Miss section.
Buffy slumps her shoulders and sniffs dramatically, but Joyce will not be swayed. There are no words in the universe right now that will convince Buffy otherwise, but Joyce is only doing what's best for her daughter.
It'll make the coming years much easier for Buffy to bear if she realizes early on that she can't always have what she wants.
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II. A la Ringwald-1997
When Buffy was fifteen, she bragged to everyone that for her sixteenth birthday, she would have a party even bigger than Sally Hayfort's stupid rodeo roller-derby bash from fifth grade (and ohmygod, why did people still talk about that?), and without denim besides. It was a fantasy party complete with the best DJ, the best guests, and the best-dressed in Hemery Hills. Buffy had drawn this elaborate picture of the dress she was gonna have made up (with her own money, 'cause her mom was still annoyingly economical) and several of Buffy's friends affirmed that it was just like the one in Sixteen Candles.
Buffy saved up three hundred dollars for that party, for that dress, for that dream. Then one day this guy called Merrick stopped her in front of the school steps, and everything changed.
"Happy birthday to me," she sings now softly, her hands folded under her chin. "Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, dear me, happy birthday to me." As the song ends, she leans close and blows out the single candle placed haphazardly in the middle of the sloppy cupcake.
Buffy sighs and dips her finger into the pink frosting. Tasting it, she frowns. Cherry? she thinks, annoyed. I hate cherry. She grimaces. Who makes cherry frosting anyway?
Her well-meaning, but serially misguided parents, that's who. Buffy sighs again and gives up, plucking the candle out of the cupcake and snarfing it whole. Ever since Pike broke up with her after their summer in Vegas, she's got no one left to impress. Probably better this way, she thinks morosely.
Half a year ago she wasn't more. Half a year ago she was a normal, popular fifteen year old girl who had no idea things like vampires and detergent-resistent stains existed. Now, half a year later, on her sixteenth birthday, she's a wacky Slayer of demons and mystical creatures. Plus, she's always getting blood in her new clothes.
"Such is the life of a complete freak," Buffy mutters. "With a shiny new stay at a mental institution to add to the growing list of accomplishments! Go me."
The cupcake is already congealing in Buffy's stomach and she sighs yet again as her poor belly rumbles. She loves her family, she really does, but when her little sister reads her diary (the diary where Buffy explains missing curfew by claiming she fights vampires and assorted leagues of evil) and the consquence is a fun few weeks in L.A's most massively Hellish (literally) mental hospital...
It makes a girl kinda crazy. Pun intended 'cause Buffy's glib like that, but still.
Eventually her doctors (the non-evil ones who weren't trying to feed Buffy to a demon intent on taking themselves some brides for that demon lovin') let her go, and her parents sort of retreated into that special selective-memory pattern Buffy's starting to recognize pretty well.
She guesses the cupcake is supposed to make up for her parents not believing her when she needed support the most. She also guesses the badly-drawn card underneath it, the one that's smudged with frosting and suspicious marks that look like dried tears, is supposed to make up for her little sister being an annoying little brat. She guesses the barely-leashed civility downstairs is supposed to make up for the fact that this is the last time she's ever gonna have a whole family, ever have claim to even one relatively normal aspect of relatively normal life. And most of all, she guesses that the pale pink sundress, a cheap Wal-Mart model for maybe thirteen dollars, is supposed to make up for the fact that Buffy's parents used her savings to help fund the move to Sunnydale, where Buffy will have to begin a new life in a new place when she's not even sure where she fits in this one anymore.
Buffy thinks about how much she wanted that pink taffetta dress, once upon a more innocent time.
And she wishes their efforts had been enough.
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III. Something Slinky-1999
When Buffy wakes up, her head pillowed against Angel's steadily rising and falling chest, the waning sunlight is streaming in the window. She figures she didn't sleep long, since they settled into bed, sated, while the sun was still in the sky. But there's no wonder in that one--how does someone sleep after finally getting something they've wanted for so long?
Her face warms as stretches, letting the golden rays skim her belly and outstretched arms. She settles her arm across Angel's waist when she curls back against his body, letting the heat and shadows intermingle until all that she can feel is skin against skin, Angel's breath against her temple, and his heart beat against her ear.
This is good. This is a good day.
Didn't start out good, obviously. There was that whole "Stop coming back to my town and following me like an ex-boyfriend that won't quit," fight. And then the Mohra demon. And the lonely walk across the beach, thinking dark thoughts about her romantic future, or self-prophesized lack thereof. But then she'd felt that tingle in her blood, felt the clench in her gut, the twinge in her neck. And when she'd turned, there Angel had been. Tall, and handsome, and...well, pale. But pale was good, pale is good when it means not burning up as the alternative. And then he'd kissed her, and when she'd felt his lips on hers (warm, like she was swallowing the sun) she knew why it was that Angel always seemed to get under her skin in a way she's sure no one else ever will.
First love, and all that jazz, and even though they've never been conventional, they're still as epic as any love story can be. Even now, especially now.
So, yes. General Buffy consensus? Good day. And Angel had said they would make another one like it tommorrow.
Buffy smiles against his chest. Looking to the future, even if the future is just tommorrow. Angel's never really done that before. Buffy's never done that before, actually. Never let herself, because as much as she likes to live life like its to the fullest, like she could be normal if she just tries hard enough, she knows better. It's always been one day closer to death on her calender, and on the inside, Buffy stopped pretending otherwise the night Kendra died.
Secretly, Buffy wonders what else there is to really look forward to anyway, in the life of a Slayer. College is already sort of a spectacular disaster, and an actual profession short of hired bodyguard? Not a happy, probable-looking prospect. Buffy's been stretched between two worlds for so long, duty versus desire, that she forgot how to just be. Forgot that there's a reason humanity and life is so worth saving.
But now. Now there's something to look towards. Something other than death and destruction and demons. A real future. So many new things to show one another, to see about one another.
Buffy smiles again as she thinks of the way Angel's eyes had bugged out when he'd taken a look at her in all her glory. There's something to be said for nakedness, she thinks diplomatically, rubbing her hand over Angel's hip. But there's something even more to be said about getting Angel's eyes to do that whole widen and darken thing.
Buffy thinks maybe she'll stop by a boutique nearby tommorow. Maybe get something slinky. Angel likes her in slinky. She remembers the way, back in Sunnydale, that his jaw would clench whenever she wore her spaghetti straps. The way Angel's fingers would rub at her shoulders, slip the thin strings down her arms, teasing the skin underneath. She thinks that there is a world of possibilities with slinky dresses, and she can't wait to try out every single one she's dreaming about buying, just to see the multitude of reactions in his eyes.
There are so many expressions she has yet to recognize in the planes of his face. But she will. With the boutique, with the slinkiness. Tommorrow.
After all, they have all the time in the world now, don't they?
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IV. Home Burial-2001
The first thing Buffy does when she gets back from Heaven is look in her closet.
She's not sure why. Maybe it's autopilot. How does one act when one is resurrected, anyway? Last time it happened, she kicked vampire butt and danced the night away in a pretty dress.
She doesn't think that'll work so well this time around, somehow.
For one thing, there's almost no pretty dresses left. Buffy's brow creases in confusion as she takes in the sheer uniformity of her closet. Turtlenecks, gauzy blouses, jackets. Jeans and black pants stacked up in a towering pile, and the latest in kick-ass footwear. But nothing utterly feminine. Dreamy, ethereal. Buffy remembers the dresses she used to wear back in high school, when she was still going with the idea that her life could be anything other than Slaying.
Slowly, as the truth set in, her wardrobe became strictly Slayage-ready. She thinks it's appropriate, then, that they buried her in a dress that stretched and moved with her limbs. Easy to move around in. Easy to kill in, as if they anticipated this happy scenario.
She looks down at the black dress, lying haphazardly on the floor. Not bad, she guesses. Standard black, very simple. She thinks it might have been her mom's, and would smell it to see if Chanel still lingers, but she knows that all she'll pick up is the scent of dirt and bones and smoke. Smells like death, and it's familiar, even though that's no comfort.
Heaven smelled like nachos. Well, she thinks it did. In reality, it probably didn't smell like anything. Buffy knows this. Or she thinks she does. She's not...she's not sure of anything concerning that place. Just that it was warm. Like eternal sunlight. And that she didn't want for anything, didn't regret anything, wasn't consumed by worldly pain any longer. That's all she knows, and it's enough.
Enough to make her really want some nachos. Gooey and cheesy and piled high so that she can keep filling the emptiness in her gut. She's thinner, inexplicably. Bonier, and darker, and when she shuts her eyes, all she can see (and feel and hear and taste) is the dark, thick, silent decay lurking in the coffin she woke up clawing her way out of. She wants to know how to be herself again. No, it's too soon for that. Her room is unfamiliar, the bed is uninviting, and the pictures make her head hurt. No, she wants to know how to go back to before.
Before she knew what Heaven was and that she had a place there. A place the people she loved took her away from, because they thought she was in Hell.
Should she have been in Hell? Is that what she deserved? Did someone make a processing mistake and send Buffy upstairs instead of down, and next time this happens (and Buffy knows by now that there'll be a next time) she's screwed? If someone gets a chance at nachos, is it their last chance at nachos? Forever?
Eternity is so long, Buffy thinks wearily, and time here moves so much slower than she thinks it's supposed to. Another lifetime to make mistakes, and it isn't fair, because she's supposed to be done. Done with all this. She earned her reward, and it was taken from her, and now she's not sure how to get back in the game. How to be a player again.
Second chances come so rarely, and the thing of it is, Buffy never wanted another. Now it's an exercise of preperation, waiting. Just waiting for the next time (and there will be a next time) to come.
She ends up stepping into an old pair of sweats and falling right to sleep. Too many thoughts in her head to stay awake, and when she dreams, she dreams of slipping under drifts of sand, until the soft white fills her nose and ears and mouth and eyes. She dreams of being taken under, consumed by infinity. The First Slayer paws at her grave, and a red rose springs up where her fingers claw at the sand.
The next morning, before going downstairs, Buffy opens the suitcase that was still unpacked from her days at UCS. Underneath all of her old-life, she unfolds the filmy, fluttery cotton dress from the enjoining spell dreams. Red flowers dot the white print, and Buffy fingers the dress thoughtfully. Thinks of the desert stretching out limitless before her, and of being given to the earth to swallow her whole.
She thinks she ought to look nice in the event that it happens.
So she irons the dress, and the fabric hangs pristine and clean from the hanger in the back of her closet.
Just in case.
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V. Old School-2007
It's been close to four years since the Hellmouth in Sunnydale collapsed, and Buffy's still trying to get used to her new way of life.
All the new gear is what takes the most getting acquainted with. More than that, working with squads of fifty other girls takes a lot of getting used to. Fifty other girls who have different fighting styles and distinguishing features and names. But the confusion is even worse with things like swords and stun-guns and grappling hooks attached to various nooks and crannies on her person. Plus, the whole intimidating attitude is really hard to keep up when she's wearing heavy steel boots and one of Dawn's slutty tank top, which are the only things she can fit underneath the shoulder and chest armor.
Also, she's starting to think the only reason Xander's been piling her with the new tech is 'cause it's secretly funny to watch her fumble with the crossbow-stake-holy water gun hybrids that Andrew's been developing. Once, she squirted herself in the eye when she went to stake a vamp at close-range.
Buffy misses her good old-fashioned tree branch stakes. In a pinch, she'd probably even take a table leg.
"Ma'am?" Buffy turns and sighs. Tonight's mission was pretty part and parcel. A nice little excursion into a demon lair buried deep within the hills of Scotland. The girls were on the top of their games, fighting with an ease and precision and panache that Buffy is startled to recognize. Mostly because she's still not quite sure what panache even means. But underneath all that pride and admiration is a deep-seated yearning to show all the newbies up. Because as good as they are, Buffy's still better.
They just don't believe her when she says it.
Now she's Ms. Summers, or the Old Slayer, or the dreaded ma'am. Buffy's twenty-six, for crying out loud! She's not ancient or anything. Sure, she's not sixteen anymore, and her reflexes are a hair slower than they used to be, but she's died twice. "Give me a break," she mutters.
"Ma'am?" There goes Rose. Pretty girl, shy, but with a cutthroat battle technique. Thinks Buffy's crazy. The catching-her-talking-to-herself thing probably doesn't help much, Buffy admits sheepishly to herself.
"Heya, Rose. What's up?" Buffy fingers the new stake Xander carved for her yesterday, complete with a trigger-release to keep enclosed in her fist when she fights. One press and the stake goes whizzing off into the night. She frowns; she loves Xander, but Slaying is meant to be up-close and personal. She'd rather get a vamp iin the gut, take him down and stake him dead-center. Feel the give beneath the stake and--
Buffy wonders, not for the first time, if she's just a little disturbing.
"Well, Xander says that there's just been news of a nest not far from here, and we were wondering..." Rose looks down, blushes. "It's just, it's been ages since we all had a proper night to ourselves. And the nest is so small that Xander asked us to ask you since you hardly ever seem to be busy--" She blushes again, looking anywhere but Buffy.
"Rose?" Buffy asks kindly. "Do you guys want me to take the nest solo? I don't mind, if you do." She looks down at the stake, remembering how mad she used to get at Giles and whoever gave her these stupid Slayer powers. Because all she wanted was a 'proper night' to herself. "In fact," Buffy continues firmly, "I'm pretty much insisting you guys head off to do whatever you wanna. I haven't patrolled by myself in a long time--might be good for the ego." Buffy winks and Rose gives her that hesitatant smile that Buffy used to throw at Giles whenever he made a joke.
Oh, God, Buffy thinks in horror. She's Giles now. Without the intellect and the accent and the father-like devotion. Just with the old and possibly the occasionally lame.
"Go," Buffy says more forcefully. "Go now." Rose beams a more genuine smile in response before leaving Command Central and Buffy alone.
The Slayer, the first Slayer, stares thoughtfully down at the stake in her hand before carefully unattaching the trigger. Then, smiling, she shrugs out of the heavy, bullet-resistant armor Xander always insists she wear on missions (the Army's been getting sort of overzealous lately, after all) and slips on the leather jacket Dawn recently outgrew (and oh, if she snickers at that, it's only because she's a bad, bad person). After she zips the jacket up, Buffy leans down and unstraps the various weapons tucked into her boots and attached leg armor. Then she steps out of the contraption entirely, leaving the weird robo-leg thing behind. Points to Andrew for the thought, but Buffy sort of likes not walking like she's got something stuck in her unmentionables.
Standing in the middle of Command Central in her fitted leather jacket, in slim black pants and her regular old black boots from Payless, holding a stake carved by her carpenter best friend, Buffy can't help but smile.
Tonight, she's going old-school.
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FINIS