Buffy has felt so impersonal to all the world around her lately that it was fitting that she would find her only solace in granite,
"Hey mom."
She sat down in front of her mother's tomb stone and crossed her legs. She placed a wooden stake beside her; graveyards, she had learned, was the place where a good woody would help you the most.
"Hello perverted mind, it's been awhile since I've seen you." She took a deep breath and let it slowly exhale, "So, mom, sorry I've visited you not so much lately. Well, at all, really. Kind of feeling grave myself." She giggled, "Spike's right, that is a pretty good pun. Oh yeah, Spike, you know, he's not so evil anymore. Well he's still got all the soul of a Vanilla Ice album but, you know, it's his heart...metaphorically speaking, 'cause it's a shriveled. Wow, I'm blowing this moment, huh? You know I miss you, a lot, when I'm not being totally self-obsessed anyway, and it blows that I'm like that, like, it's totally immature and selfish and I just don't know how to set it right. You know, you use that R word often enough it kind of loses it's meaning. Hah That's totally an Angel thought, all philosophistic...and I'm trying way too hard. Oh Dawn's still alive. I saved her, pretty cool huh? Sacrificed my life and everything. And...that topic feels like a downer. But what's not, y'know?"
Buffy turns around and lays down where her head is laying next to the tombstone that reads "JOYCE SUMMERS". She takes another deep breath and let's it exhale,
"Got my ass kicked today, that was so not fun. Not only that, but I got my ass kicked by a rodeo clown reject. Well, demon anyway...
I wonder, is it sad that laying here feels more like home than anywhere I've been since I've returned?"
The low growl of the Demon who had been watching her from the trees spoke, surprising her, "Not sad at all."
Buffy, surprised, sits up, grabs her stake, and is on her feet with her body bent down and coiled, ready to spring, "Can't you count bozo? We don't fight 'til tomorrow, your idiotic schedule, not mine."
"I'm real sorry to bother you Slayer. I reckon that might sound ironic coming from me, but I am. I just had to talk to you, is that alright, and can I call you Buffy? Saying Slayer sounds...pedantic? Is that the word?"
"Uh..."
"It's just, I gotta know Buffy, what went wrong? I mean, what's it like to return from the dead? How do you feel?"
"Umm..."
"Can I approach?"
Buffy reaffirmed her attack posture to which the Demon responded:
"Hey Hey, come on now I really don't feel like fighting anymore tonight. I just...it's just that years have stretched while I've waited for the universe to choose me to be a part of something interesting. And here you are Maybe the most curious narrative the world has ever put together."
"Uh..."
"Oh I see; I think I just want to understand my place in this story. See which cog I am in this machine and maybe, if I learn how all the cogs work I can picture what kind of machine we are actually running here."
"Huh?" Buffy's posture had now slackened and the stake she was holding was dangling loosely in her grip.
"It's a simile. I was likening the universe to a machine and us to cogs. I was saying that by understanding the people in the universes I could perhaps understand what the universe's purpose is."
"Is today like national English day?"
"So, can I approach?"
Buffy, befuddled, shrugs, "What the hell."
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Giles had just found an interesting diagram inscribed in one of his title less books in his library, "Oh! Oh! Look at this! Is this your demon?"
Xander and Willow walked over and looked over his shoulder, "Huh. Kinda maybe. Add on a ridiculously huge hat and a poncho and I think you might have yourself a winner. Congratulations Giles. Your prize is a-"
"Still not the time Alexander."
"Woah! Hey! That's a cheap shot! So what's the skinny on the bad the ugly and the uglier?"
"Well, this is just a generic diagram of your normal Avergog demon."
"So this guy that just kicked Will's magic ass is just your run of the mill Aburgio demon?"
"Hey!"
"Avergog. And, well, yes, it would appear so. However, I've never been taught, or have ever seen, an Avergog to distinguish itself from the pack. They live, they eat, and they die."
Willow looks with a smirk over at Xander who in a preemptive defensive maneuver says, "You make the joke you're thinking of young lady and I will...well, I'll probably cry, so, ya, back off!"
The door to Giles' apartment gets kicked open and Spike stalks in, his black coat is flowing and ruffling with each step, "Buffy!" An pause of silence follows as they stare at each other, "Buffy's not here?" Giles, Xander and Willow reply in the negative with a slow shake from side to side, "I would have thought she'd come back here after the tussle."
"Tussle, what tussle?"
"Some bloody demon thinks he's John Wayne. I've met John Wayne and let me tell you, Wayne's prettier...well, I suppose not by much."
Giles takes off his glasses, a bit irritated, "My God, can no one focus around here? Is Buffy alright?"
"Well yeah, got her ass kicked good though. Demon left after delivering a beating going on about doing it right tomorrow."
"And Buffy, where'd she go?"
He had started pacing, agitated, "I have no sodding idea, but, ah blow this, I'm gonna go find her." He then turns to leave, and as he does so, Willow stands up, "I'm going with him."
"No."
"Giles, I can help."
"Willow, recent events would indicate you can't. I understand you're used to the magic by now, however, this demon, whatever it is, has proven that against him you're no more than the damsel in distress."
"But-"
"Getting yourself killed will in no way help anybody."
"Fine", She goes back to Giles' big chair and plumps down.
"However," He said, "I suppose a little locator spell wouldn't hurt."
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The Demon and Buffy found themselves sitting together, cross legged, facing Buffy's mother's tombstone,
"Mother?" The Demon asked,
"Yeah."
"What kind of demon got her?"
"The Life kind."
"Oh. That is the only thing more scary than us."
Buffy snorted, then there was a pause, and then she asked, "So what's your deal anyway?"
"I'm sorry. I pick up things pretty fast but I don't remember ever encountering that phrase before, what's it mean?"
"Umm, your story, why you do what you do."
"Oh. I suppose it's related to poker, 'your deal', what hand you're playing maybe? Seven duece."
"Huh?"
"My deal is seven deuce, I just happened to get lucky on the flop."
"Please stop with the nonsense. It's hard enough to make sense of things without people puking random words and calling it a sentence."
"Right. Well, I was created wrong. I had more sensibilities than those of my kind. They wanted to eat, eat, and eat, and they wanted to do it alone. Flesh, blood, the death of mortals, that's what they all wanted; me, I just wanted some friends, a life, I wanted to feel. But mischievous life, who created me with these wants, provided no way to obtain them. I became depressed and I have no idea how much time passed. Then, one day, I saw Hamlet."
"Who's that?"
"It's a play, Shakespeare."
"Oh. You know for a dead bald guy people sure do mention him a lot."
"Yes, well, it was beautiful, it was the first time I ever felt connected to anything, and it was from a mortal. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that man can feel the same despair I felt. I became obsessed with the stories men tell one another. After you read enough, and see enough, you see the same threads run through every story and, by extension, existence."
"And you want to kill me because of that?"
"Yes, I suppose. Silly, isn't it? But I truly believe I can feel the will of the universe coursing through me, that the depression I felt was only an extension of my awareness I didn't belong, that I had other things to do. So my life consists of sitting and waiting until something strikes me worth doing."
"And I'm worth doing?"
"You, Buffy, are the thing I find worthiest of doing."
Buffy begins to laugh and that confuses the Demon, "What did I say?"
"I'm sorry, it's not you, it's my perverted mind. It's all like, Argh! I will twist the words you hear to make them sound sexual!"
"Oh. Well...hey, I don't suppose you'll tell me you're story? It seems fair."
"Do you have all night? Well, it all begins with a stuffy Watcher and a silly little prophecy..."