Title: Nothing Much
Author: S J Smith
Rating: Teenish
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: The demon could give Buffy anything she wanted.
Nightmare pulse, pounding, making her head throb like it's about to explode. Buffy forces herself to take deep breaths, but it's hard, so damned hard to control her breathing right now. She spins her scythe, more to give her hands something to do rather than shake than anything.
The creature in front of her looks like nothing much. Humanoid, with a faint blueish cast to its skin; frail-seeming, with how thin it is. Big black eyes, and spindly fingers, and no clothes. This is the creature that inspired peoples' versions of aliens, or, at least one of them. Their ability to misdirect, hypnotize, all plays a part in what they are. It seems childlike, innocent. Looks, Buffy knows all too well, are deceiving. "It's time for you to go," she says, coldly, boldly.
Its voice has a strange, faint echo to it, like it's standing in a cave. "But We like it here." The capital is more than implied. Its slit mouth stretches in what might be a smile, or a grimace. It raises its hand and Buffy readies herself for an attack.
What hits isn't what she expects.
Plunged somewhere else, into a warm house, rather than a dark field full of cowpats, Buffy rocks back, her eyes widening. She spins, trying to take it all in. It can't be. It can't be. Her breath comes hard and fast as she catches a whiff that makes her eyes fill. "M-mom?" she stutters, recognizing the perfume, even though the house – no, she doesn't know this house, not with the little kid drawings magneted to the fridge and a pot of something that smells a lot like her Mom's favorite soup recipe, and evidence that a family lives here. Buffy sees a mantelpiece with pictures and is drawn to it, picking up a framed photo of her and –
- Angel -
- ducking away from a shower of well-wishes from Will and Tara and her Mom and Dawn and Xander and Anya and Giles as they run laughing down the courthouse steps.
Another photo, of her holding a little girl on her lap, a swelling belly showing underneath her pretty shirt. And another photo, of Giles and Mom, together, with two little kids, the same girl and a little boy in Giles' arms.
And smaller photos, of her friends, and people she didn't even know, but everyone smiles and looks natural and so real that Buffy's heart aches when she puts the framed picture back on the mantel and turns away, deliberate. She faces the room, the house, the fucking dream with wide eyes and says, "This isn't real!"
"What isn't, Buffy?" her Mom calls from another room, making a shudder run through her body, so much longing nearly dropping her to her knees. Buffy withstands it, clenching her fists, imagining the scythe in them (she didn't drop it when the little bug-eyed guy sent her here, did she?).
"This isn't real!" she shouts, and spins the scythe in her hands again, lunging forward.
The dream vanishes as it appeared, leaving her in a field that stinks of cow rather than the sweet smell of home. The being narrows its eyes at her. Spindly fingers wriggling, it says, "This is everything you want!"
Buffy leaps forward, the scythe slicing through nightmares and fantasies and everything else for its blade to strike the little blue-grey demon. "But it's all a dream!" She grunts as the scythe cleaves through flesh and muscle and bone, and the dream is over and the creature falls, not quite halved, to the ground. "It's a dream," she repeats, "and a lie."
Its hue eyes blink at her and whatever it tries to say is lost in the way its skin bubbles up, like milk boiling over, and its body melts in a heaving, rumbling goo. Buffy backs away quickly, dodging cowpats, and waits at a safe distance until she's sure there's nothing really identifiable left. Finally, she turns and walks down into the valley where her car waits to take her back home.
She laughs silently at the idea; a small apartment, in a city she doesn't know, but at least there are pictures on the wall, and her closest friends and little sister close as a telephone call. Because that's real life, not some dream that can never – will never - come true. She cleans her scythe and stores it in the trunk of her car, and grabs her cell to place a call.
"Buffy?" Dawn's voice is bright and sparkling and Buffy feels tension spill out of her body at the sound of it. She leans against the side of her rental, staring up at the sky, at the brilliant stars that war with the sound of her little sister on the other side of the States. "I'm so glad you called. What are you doing?"
"Nothing much," Buffy tells her, "looking at stars. Wondering if you're free for a drop-in visit."
"Always," Dawn says, and Buffy smiles.
Yeah, she thinks, time to go home.
~ end ~