Sam laughed under his breath as she asked if he was drunk already. Though he wasn't exactly at the stumble over his own feet state of drunk yet, he could definitely feel his body relaxing in his seat that would prove horrible if he needed to pass a finger-to-the-nose sobriety test.
"No, not drunk. Still holding my own against you, lightweight," he teased. He looked up, smile fading a bit as she mentioned them saving each other. Honestly, he had always thought it was Buffy who saved him, not the other way around. She had seemed so natural in her own skin--playing both normal girl and Slayer, but now, tonight, he finally realized that she had felt as alone as him in their world.
"If I was your normal, we obviously had issues," he said with a faint smile, taking another long drink from his beer.
And then she asked the question that he had forced himself to stop thinking about months ago. The ultimate of the "what ifs" that haunted him about the choices he had made in his life.
You ever wonder what would have happened if I'd
( ... )
They'd had issues alright, both of them. Buffy with her residual ones from Angel and making the scary step of leaving the Hellmouth to go to college, Sam with the one's from breaking away from the fight with Dean and his Dad.
She hadn't been in-line for making a friend-slash-potential-boyfriend thing but--Sam had just kind of happened. And before Buffy had known where she was, she'd found someone she trusted completely. And she didn't do that easy.
"Yeah, well, we're both freaks," she told him with a resigned smile. Both freaks together and totally something she could live with. Totally something she'd liked living with until the call home
( ... )
To say that Sam was relieved was an understatement. He was glad that he hadn't been the only one haunted by the "what ifs" of their relationship this whole time.
"That's not sad," he said with a small shake of his head. It was hopeful. She'd still had hope, and he had given up on his, trying and failing at moving on to another girl, another life.
"I'm gonna...I'm gonna probably regret telling you this cause it makes me a complete asshole but..." He took another drink, trying to find courage at the bottom of his bottle. "I loved Jessica. More than anything, but I... I would have hurt her in the longrun. Because, just...no matter how much I loved her, no matter how much I could have tried, she just...."
He swallowed hard, not sure how she would respond to the words that were tumbling out of his mouth. "She wasn't you."
And there it was. That ball of guilt he'd kept hidden in the pit of his stomach after Jess' death, that he had unwittingly made Jess his Buffy substitute.
She was pretty sure that was sad and suspected Sam was just being nice by saying otherwise. Who admitted, potential ability to blame it on the alcohol or not, that you thought about a life you could've had all the time?
That even when you were happy - and she'd admit there'd been a lot more of that in the previous year than she'd had that year before - there was still something kind of... Missing.
It had been simple with Sam. Simple and kind of easy and okay, they'd been living the Mother of all Double Lives but even when that had come out it'd been okay and she'd realized that maybe love didn't have a whole armful of angst attached onto it all the time.
She blinked at him, wondering what he could possibly regret telling her when he himself knew everything about her and then some and--Then, he told her
( ... )
Sam watched as Buffy fidgeted with her bottle before finally pushing it away before it exploded into shards of glass in her tense hands. His throat felt suddenly dry as he watched the relaxation from earlier fade as she went into full alert mode, and he feared that opening up that can of worms had placed a nail in the coffin of their friendship
( ... )
She remembered talks where Sam had expressed the exact same want she had - about hanging up their stakes for good and leaving this fight behind. Being safe. Having the 2-point-5 children and the white picket fence...
It had taken her Mom dying and her severe sense of Slayer Duty to kick in for Buffy to realize she was never going to have that - it was a dream, a way far off, never-going-to-be-attainable dream...
Yet now it was.
She hadn't had much time to process it, really. Two days since she'd activated every potential slayer in the world - from now on every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer - and she didn't have to be. Not any more. Not a dream, now, she realized
( ... )
"No, not drunk. Still holding my own against you, lightweight," he teased. He looked up, smile fading a bit as she mentioned them saving each other. Honestly, he had always thought it was Buffy who saved him, not the other way around. She had seemed so natural in her own skin--playing both normal girl and Slayer, but now, tonight, he finally realized that she had felt as alone as him in their world.
"If I was your normal, we obviously had issues," he said with a faint smile, taking another long drink from his beer.
And then she asked the question that he had forced himself to stop thinking about months ago. The ultimate of the "what ifs" that haunted him about the choices he had made in his life.
You ever wonder what would have happened if I'd ( ... )
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She hadn't been in-line for making a friend-slash-potential-boyfriend thing but--Sam had just kind of happened. And before Buffy had known where she was, she'd found someone she trusted completely. And she didn't do that easy.
"Yeah, well, we're both freaks," she told him with a resigned smile. Both freaks together and totally something she could live with. Totally something she'd liked living with until the call home ( ... )
Reply
To say that Sam was relieved was an understatement. He was glad that he hadn't been the only one haunted by the "what ifs" of their relationship this whole time.
"That's not sad," he said with a small shake of his head. It was hopeful. She'd still had hope, and he had given up on his, trying and failing at moving on to another girl, another life.
"I'm gonna...I'm gonna probably regret telling you this cause it makes me a complete asshole but..." He took another drink, trying to find courage at the bottom of his bottle. "I loved Jessica. More than anything, but I... I would have hurt her in the longrun. Because, just...no matter how much I loved her, no matter how much I could have tried, she just...."
He swallowed hard, not sure how she would respond to the words that were tumbling out of his mouth. "She wasn't you."
And there it was. That ball of guilt he'd kept hidden in the pit of his stomach after Jess' death, that he had unwittingly made Jess his Buffy substitute.
Reply
That even when you were happy - and she'd admit there'd been a lot more of that in the previous year than she'd had that year before - there was still something kind of... Missing.
It had been simple with Sam. Simple and kind of easy and okay, they'd been living the Mother of all Double Lives but even when that had come out it'd been okay and she'd realized that maybe love didn't have a whole armful of angst attached onto it all the time.
She blinked at him, wondering what he could possibly regret telling her when he himself knew everything about her and then some and--Then, he told her ( ... )
Reply
Reply
It had taken her Mom dying and her severe sense of Slayer Duty to kick in for Buffy to realize she was never going to have that - it was a dream, a way far off, never-going-to-be-attainable dream...
Yet now it was.
She hadn't had much time to process it, really. Two days since she'd activated every potential slayer in the world - from now on every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer - and she didn't have to be. Not any more. Not a dream, now, she realized ( ... )
Reply
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