Challenge #59 Punishment
This weeks challenge: Punishment
Take it however you like. Could be from not watching TV to someone being 'bad' ;)
1. Mona Lisa Smile
A little half smile plays across her lips as Buffy looks out over the crater that had been Sunnydale. Her sister is safe, as are her friends. She should be giddy that they made it out alive.
What nobody realizes, is that her half smile is also a half-assed attempt at keeping her broken heart from screaming out its torment. She hears Faith say: "We made it, we won" and resists the urge to scream: "Not everybody made it. Do any of you remember Spike?" That's her cross to bear. Her punishment for not saving the man who saved her.
BtVS – Season 5 – Post The Gift – Spike & Dawn2. Fatherhood Sucks
Dawn's so angry at him. The way she slams her door in his face is like a stake through the heart. Spike knows he's doing the right thing – not allowing her to go to the party with Ricky, the pimple faced geek.
If her grades don't pick up, the school will start looking into her home life. If they find out Buffy is gone, he'll lose Dawn, too.
He pleads with her to let him help. English Lit was always his strong suit. She tells him she wishes she had died on that tower.
Spike wonders who is being punished.
BtVS – Season 4 - Tara3. Two Hundred Miles
She sits on the bus, hour after hour, watching the miles go by. As each mile ticks off, Tara adds another tally strike on her mental pad. The first mile is for all their loads of laundry she'll never have to do again. The fifth mile is for their meals she'd never have to cook again. The tenth mile is for all their put downs she doesn't have to listen to. Fifty miles for her soaring spirit. Two hundred miles for her new life.
Tara hopes that each mile she leaves behind hurts them as much as it heals her.
BtVS – Season 4 – Something Blue - Willow4. Penance By The Spoonful
Measure, pour, stir, drop, bake. I'm sorrys in discs of flour and sugar and chocolate. I'm sorry Giles, for taking your eyesight. Chocolate chips for you. I'm sorry Xander, for almost getting you killed. Yummy oatmeal raisin. So sorry Buffy, for making you kiss another vampire. Butterscotch drops will help. Sorry, Spike… well, not really, but chocolate chips will shut you up.
Each spoonful of batter grew heavier. Willow transferred her apologies and agitation to the batter. By the time each cookie was baked, they reeked of her pain and suffering.
Chocolate would never be enough to disguise her failures.
BtVS – Season 5 – Post The Gift - Giles5. Loss
Control. Since childhood, Rupert Giles' life was all about control. His parents forced him to control his emotions. It wouldn't do to allow his passions to overrule his common sense. He had to see all possible solutions to a situation, and handle it with certainty. He was groomed to be a Watcher. Proper, staid and rule bound.
Ripper escaped the tweed for a few years, only to fall prey to common sense and the call of duty. He had a Slayer to Watch.
And now, she's dead.
Another drink, and another – he's a failure as a Watcher. Bring on oblivion.
BtVS – Season 6 – Post Hell's Bells – Xander/Anya6. How Could You
"Christ, Anya. You said you loved me. I don't understand how you could sleep with someone else so soon after we… after we didn't… hell, woman. I know I fucked up." Xander is grateful for the distance the telephone allows them. "But you had to sleep with Spike of all creatures!"
Closing his eyes, he envisions all that smooth skin spread out before him. All he'll never have. Legs entwined as they moved together, hands petting and stroking… the images make him hard. Short blond hair, glorious blue eyes and cheekbones to die for.
"I'll never forgive you, Anya. Never."
AtS – Season 3 - Lorne7. All Ears
There are days he wishes he'd never left Pylea. No music sounds better and better as the night wore on, and the 'singers' become more bellicose with each off-key note that pass their lips.
The S'lugith demon singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" should be dropped head first off Mt. Fuji. Images of splattered brains and twisted limbs make Lorne wistful. The Fyarl warbling "Crazy" would look lovely packed off in a straight jacket and shot full of Thorazine.
Instead, Lorne tells each one what they demand to know of their futures, and silently, secretly wishes to be left alone.
AtS – Season 5 – Post A Hole In The World - Wes8. What If?
Wes sits alone in Fred's bedroom, surrounded by the things she held dear. Her Dixie Chicks poster, her coffee mug, the little blue haired Troll doll she kept for good luck… all made him grieve for her loss.
How could they have allowed her access to that bloody sarcophagus without supervision? Why had he not been there with her? He was in charge of all things mystical, was he not? Had he known… had he iseen/i… perhaps Fred would still be alive.
Instead, that atrocity in Fred's skin haunts him with his failure. He wishes it were he who died.
AtS – Season 7 – Underneath – Angel/Lindsey9. All for the Love of Him
The arrogant little shit! The sneer, the cockiness… the accent was different but all too reminiscent of William. All balls to the fore and fuck the consequences. Angel would take care of that. Lindsey MacDonald would have his balls ripped off and the vampire was pretty sure they'd grow back – just like his heart. Two tidy piles of messy organs in the basement.
As he advanced on Lindsey's prone form, Angel awoke… feeling far too much like Angelus for his liking. At Wolfram & Hart, the struggle to maintain his soul grew harder every day. Remembering Connor made him stay.