Drabble and stuff..

[shadowkat]

[Have the remanents of a sick headache that appears to be going around my work place. So we'll see how much I write tonight. Part of me just wants to fall asleep in front of the TV set. Slept horridly last night - dreams about math classes, my favorite, not. But the day has turned out to be a pretty one. So all is not bad.]

For those reading this drabble...not sure how it is going. Reread some of it and it made me feel a tad tired. Could just be my mood, though.



Buffy stared at him for a while, leaning against his mantlepiece, back framed by photos of dead souls, sipping his prune juice. Wondering, as she sipped her water, how long they'd been talking. It felt like forever and no time at all.
His last few words saddened her, as if he felt that his life was a waste of space, and should by all accounts be over and done with. She supposed, from one perspective, he was right. He had been alive a long time, yet that wasn't really living was it? Rushing about causing mayhem like some perpetually twisted teenage punk? That's what vampirism had done to him, caused him to go through a violent yet expanded adolescence. He hadn't really begun to grow up until he'd met her, and in a way they matured together. Or at least that was one way of looking at it. She wasn't quite sure how he did.

"The way I see it," she began, carefully choosing her words. "Each stage in our lives is another book, not a chapter or a stanza of a poem, but a different poem entirely." She glanced up at his shelves. "The first chapter in my life's history might be for instance - the Little Princess, the next a really dark version of Brother's Grimm..."

"So what's it now? Little Women?"

Ah, the snark, she'd missed it. "Not quite. What I'm trying to say is we aren't the same people any more, Will. Our past is important, sure. But only to the point in which it informs who we are, where we've been. There's no use retreading those same old paths over and over again or re-reading those books.
We've changed, we've grown, we've moved forward...we've-"

"We've become cookies?"

"What?" She felt her cheeks flush crimson. "Oh god. He told you, didn't he?" She hid her face in her hand.

"The cookie dough speech? Oh yeah. Ranted about it, actually." He chuckled, clearly amused. "Not one of your better analogies, Summers."

She shook her head, laughing. "No...but I was under quite a bit pressure around that time."

"Won't argue with you there." He tilted his head and studied her a moment. "I realize we're different people now and all that. Living a whole new book, as you so eloguently put it. But humor me - what exactly did you feel for me back then?"

"What do you think I felt for you?"

He shrugged. "Never been completely sure. After I met Fred, I decided what you felt for me must been sort of similar to what I felt for her. Not love, exactly, well not the hearts and flowers sort of love that we poets go on about, more friendship. Sense of gratitude combined with compassion, I guess.
Something like that. Difficult to put it into words."

She looked down at her hands and studied them. Turned one of them over and stared for a few moments at the scar, slight, barely visible, where she had burned herself long ago in the hellmouth, holding his hand. Faith had suggested she get a skin graft or remove it somehow, but she preferred to hold on to it, for some of the same reasons she held on to her wrinkles and the other scars from her battles. War wounds, Faith called them. Badges of honor.

"What did you decide you felt for me?" She didn't look up from her hands, just waited for his response, even though she could more or less guess what it might be.



Off to eat, sleep and relax.

Comments

[deevalish.livejournal.com]

Oh, s'kat that was mean.

I'm still enjoying this. I reread this yesterday and I don't get the feeling of tired. I feel something like a comfortable quiet companionship. The setting informs a stillness to the whole piece, that is not to say that it's in stasis. No, not at all. I'm not the best when it comes to expressing exactly what I feel but there it is.

[graffitiandsara.livejournal.com]

She might be able to guess what his answer is, but I can't! Need more!

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

This felt quite serene, and centred, the feeling I am getting from your Buffy. I love her maturity, and the way she is still trying to figure life (and Spike) out.
Please, ma'am, may I have more?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I like this - the slow pacing is right for what's going on. They've got a long way beyond snappy wisecracks traded in the midst of life-or-death action.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Agreed on the slow pacing. It all contributes to the sense of two people really listening to each other. Something they always seemed to have the potential to do in the rare quiet moments on the show. I like the quiet.