Origin and Season One (Ch. 3)
Character: Buffy Summers
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1027
Setting: pre-Pilot
- Midnight Musings -
Buffy stared at the ceiling from the top of her neatly made bed, absently fingering Mr. Gordo as she kicked off her socks. She was hot. Yesterday, she would have opened the window, but tonight she was afraid to, and she'd shut the curtains only a few minutes after turning off the lights. Even with them shut, she imagined something lingering outside, watching her, but at least she wouldn't be able to see it.
She stared up at the ceiling, and at the little plastic glowing stars she'd posted there as a kid, not really seeing them. She was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep.
She was The Slayer, capital T. The Chosen One. She was like one of those comic book figures, Electryza or something, some fantastical warrior amazon thingy destined to save mankind. The more she thought about it, the more insane she felt, but she'd seen a vampire tonight with her own two eyes, and had killed it with her own two hands. Killed.
She placed Mr. Gordo over her head, exhaling into his stomach.
Killed. She'd never killed anything except, like, ants before, but tonight she'd jammed a stake through a heart. She'd killed him, watched as he exploded into nothing.
But he'd been trying to kill her, with the kind of blind rage she associated with crazoids from bad slasher films. She'd been taken to the cemetery to watch a monster crawl from the grave and target the first thing he saw-her-so one of them could kill the other.
She thought of the Slayer she'd seen today on the steps of Hemery High, Abby, of the Slayers she'd been seeing in her sleep for the past few weeks. Is this what is was for them, what it now was for her? Demons and beasties, every night a gamble that you'd survive long enough to see another? She was fifteen years old. This morning she'd been thinking about the supreme dullness of history, the ugliness of gym clothes, boys, the back-to-school dance. Tonight she was thinking about death and vampires.
None of this seemed real.
Something creaked. Her door.
She shot up, Mr. Gordo flying from her face and down to the floor as she landed beside him.
“Dawn,” she hissed, heart racing. “You're supposed to be asleep.”
“When you kiss Tyler, do you use your tongue?”
She blinked at her sister, who was standing there in one of their Dad's old t-shirts, which swallowed her almost whole. She was clutching her bear.
“What?” she said weakly.
“My friend Jessie said when you stay out late with boys it's to kiss with your tongue. Frenching.” She paused, “Is that what all French people do?”
“Go to bed,” she growled, returning to her own, grabbing Mr. Gordo in the process.
Dawn took that as an open invitation to her room, shutting the door behind her before joining Buffy on the bed. “So, were you out frenching Tyler?”
“I was out slaying monsters,” she replied to Mr. Gordo, not looking at her.
“So you were.”
“Sure, whatever.” She wondered if she would leave on her own or if she was going to have to bodily remove her.
“Buffy...” her voice seemed smaller, and Buffy finally looked at her. “Should Mom and Dad fight so much? I mean, does everybody fight like that?”
She felt a tightness in her gut that had nothing to do with vampires or Slayers. “I don't know, Dawn,” she said almost as quietly, looking away.
“You shouldn't have stayed out so late,” her tone was insistent.
“I won't,” she knew as she said it that it was a lie.
“I don't want them to fight anymore.”
“I don't either.” That much was true.
“Why would you want to kiss a boy anyway?”
She smiled thinly. “You will too, one day.”
“But it's gross.”
“I'll be sure to remind you when I find you in the back of some car with some guy.”
“A car?” she repeated. “Why do you kiss in a car?”
Her cheeks colored, but the darkness hid it. “You just do.”
“It's a thing?”
“It's a thing,” she affirmed.
“Oh.” That was all she said.
Boys. Tyler. Tyler who she'd meant to see today, but hadn't. She wasn't sure if she was going to look for him tomorrow or not, or what she was going to say. 'Hi, sorry, but I had an after-funeral to go to. You know how those things are.'
But it wasn't like she'd missed a date or anything. She said she might wait for him after practice, not that she would. It would be fine.
She refocused. Dawn was apparently out of questions, and she was falling asleep where she sat, bear and all.
Sighing, Buffy reached over and smoothed the hair out of her face. “Come on, Mom'll kill me and then you and then me...again if she sees you out of bed.” She slid off her bed.
Dawn followed. “You can't die die twice.”
“She'll resurrect me and kill me again,” she corrected, opening her door and gently pushing her out.
“Like a zombie?”
“Yes, a beautiful, fashion-conscious zombie.” She walked the few steps to her sister's room, then stopped.
“Would you smell bad?”
She shook her head. “Never.”
“Oh.” She just stood there, staring up at her.
After a beat, Buffy chin-nodded toward the bed. “Go to sleep now?” she asked.
Dawn nodded and shuffled into the room, fingers wrapped around her bear.
“Door open or closed?”
“Open.”
Nodding, Buffy swung it only part-closed, then headed back to her own room, where she plopped ungracefully onto her mattress. For a moment, she stared up again at her plastic stars, but then she turned over and shut her eyes.
She was done thinking for the night. The Slayers would leave her alone now that she'd joined them, she was hopeful of that much. Everything else could hold till tomorrow.
Whatever that may bring.
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