Piece Of Cake Easy As Pie
A furniture store a few blocks away from the drug store was closed for good. Buffy and Xander broke in. There was still an old sofa in the back. Two of its legs were broken, like if two people were carrying it, and one of the people dropped their end. Maybe on their foot.
Buffy and Xander decided to sleep off the cabdriver, and the drugstore clerk, and the pharmacist, and the pharmacist's holy water misting. They nestled on the sofa, slightly inclined, but not too uncomfortable. Seeing as they were so close, Xander made his move. Buffy looked down at his hand resting comfortably on her boob like it was some kind of a hand pillow. Buffy lifted his fingers off her boob and twisted them backwards till Xander said, "OK, OK, OK". Then they cuddled up and went to sleep.
Everything was kind of swimmy. The smoke from the grave fire smelled funny to Buffy. Willow's eyes were huge. Willow gulped then held her breath. Everything was in slow motion. Willow was chanting. Buffy could follow the curves of her mouth as they shaped every strange word. Willow was throwing some sparkly, black powder on the fire. It was kind of pretty. Buffy was smiling at her.
The look on Willow's face turned cold. She threw some of the powder into Buffy's eyes. Buffy couldn't see. She felt something cut her arm. She could feel that Willow was very close, and she grabbed her. Willow was still chanting, and Buffy felt dizzy. Buffy had to stop her. She grabbed her throat. Too hard.
Willow felt soft and small as Buffy held her. Still warm. Buffy drank her. And even when she tasted the funny taste of magic, she didn't stop. This was Willow. This was it. All they could ever have.
When Willow was empty, Buffy let her go - eyes open, hair a little over her face, a few drops of blood leaving trails on her pale skin before they dripped into the dirt.
Buffy half awoke and turned over throwing her arm over Xander's cold chest. Xander mumbled Willow's name in his sleep.
Not far from where Buffy and Xander slept on a broken couch, Giles stood over the grave of Buffy Summers. Once again, he held a stake in his hand and stared at a body of a young woman recently dead. This time there would be no ill-timed interruption from a grieving mother. He was ready to expertly thread the stake through her ribcage and into her heart before she awoke. Any minute now.
"Are you gonna stand there all day?" Cordelia complained from behind him. "Some us aren't dead. Or undead. Some of us have school, you know."
"This isn't easy," he said in a gravelly voice.
"Sure it is. Give me that," Cordelia said as she swiped the stake from his hand. She plunged it into Willow's chest.
"You missed the heart," Giles told her. Willow had no reaction to the intrusion. Cordelia tried again.
"Was that it?" she asked.
"No. A little to the left."
"That was it, right?"
"Yes," Giles said feeling sick. The butchering was over. The corpse had no reaction to any of the stabbing to which Cordelia had subjected it. Willow was truly dead. Giles did not feel relieved.
tbc
