Five drabbles for underground/under/ground
A Mother's Love
Joyce just watches as her baby girl disappears into the darkness, back straight, sword in hand. The door clanks shut behind her and it is like the ringing of a bell sounding her daughter's execution. Joyce doesn't know when this slayer thing happened. She wants to call Buffy back, to ground her, punish her, lock her in her room. She wants to be the mother again. But instead she limps to the cabinet and gets out the bottle, the one Hank had once joked would be their companion during Buffy's teenage years. He hadn't known how right he would be.
Betrayal in Silence
Jenny hadn't thought Angel's absence would gape like this. As she watches Buffy hide teary, darting eyes, her mouth hurts from the secrets pulsing hotly against her lips.
Rupert comes over, touches her wrist, permissible comfort in front of the students. She wants to pull her hand away so he won't feel her pulse beating my fault, my fault against his fingers. She wants to whisper to him that she's a liar, that under Jenny Calendar hides Janna Kalderash. She wants to know that he'll love her anyway. But she's unsure and pins her lips together, keeping the secrets in.
Claustrophobia
“Faith, you okay?”
No, she's not a-ogoddamn-kay.
Her mom once had this freaky boyfriend. She remembers being nine, driving in her mom's clunker, clutching her life in a box.
“He's got a house and some cash. He'll treat us good, he just...doesn't wanna see you.”
That apparently meant her bedroom was the basement. Which might have been okay with lights. Living underground was for moles, not kids.
“Faith?” Buffy calls from the tunnel's enterance.
“Yeah.” She jogs past Buffy. Her mom's dead, she's three thousand miles from Boston and she can deal with her own demons.
Sorrowful Mysteries
Her sister Asnath is dead. Mama said that it was sickness but Drusilla knows better and not only because she saw the maid scrubbing her hands raw trying to get all that blood out of the sheets. Fear lies under everything in the house. Her hand trembles even as she holds her rosary. She dreamed this. She doesn't understand why God is testing her. She needs to see the priest.
In her haste she doesn't remember to tell Beulah not to invite anyone in. Unfortunately, her absentmindedness coincides with her secret admirer deciding that a more direct approach is required.
Ungrateful and Not Dead
The beast catapulted toward him and he tried to think of an appropriate passage to recite. Eyes closed, he didn't see Angel flying toward him until the vampire tackled him to the ground.
“Thank you,” he said automatically. Angel barely nodded before throwing himself back into battle. Wesley stayed leaning against a crypt.
“You understand, of course.” Travers's voice holds politeness for his father laid over ridicule for Wesley himself. “Saving a vampire would be a complete breach of protocol.”
Wesley thinks of Angel, sicker than anyone he's ever seen, and swallows. “Of course, I understand.”
Joyce just watches as her baby girl disappears into the darkness, back straight, sword in hand. The door clanks shut behind her and it is like the ringing of a bell sounding her daughter's execution. Joyce doesn't know when this slayer thing happened. She wants to call Buffy back, to ground her, punish her, lock her in her room. She wants to be the mother again. But instead she limps to the cabinet and gets out the bottle, the one Hank had once joked would be their companion during Buffy's teenage years. He hadn't known how right he would be.
Betrayal in Silence
Jenny hadn't thought Angel's absence would gape like this. As she watches Buffy hide teary, darting eyes, her mouth hurts from the secrets pulsing hotly against her lips.
Rupert comes over, touches her wrist, permissible comfort in front of the students. She wants to pull her hand away so he won't feel her pulse beating my fault, my fault against his fingers. She wants to whisper to him that she's a liar, that under Jenny Calendar hides Janna Kalderash. She wants to know that he'll love her anyway. But she's unsure and pins her lips together, keeping the secrets in.
Claustrophobia
“Faith, you okay?”
No, she's not a-ogoddamn-kay.
Her mom once had this freaky boyfriend. She remembers being nine, driving in her mom's clunker, clutching her life in a box.
“He's got a house and some cash. He'll treat us good, he just...doesn't wanna see you.”
That apparently meant her bedroom was the basement. Which might have been okay with lights. Living underground was for moles, not kids.
“Faith?” Buffy calls from the tunnel's enterance.
“Yeah.” She jogs past Buffy. Her mom's dead, she's three thousand miles from Boston and she can deal with her own demons.
Sorrowful Mysteries
Her sister Asnath is dead. Mama said that it was sickness but Drusilla knows better and not only because she saw the maid scrubbing her hands raw trying to get all that blood out of the sheets. Fear lies under everything in the house. Her hand trembles even as she holds her rosary. She dreamed this. She doesn't understand why God is testing her. She needs to see the priest.
In her haste she doesn't remember to tell Beulah not to invite anyone in. Unfortunately, her absentmindedness coincides with her secret admirer deciding that a more direct approach is required.
Ungrateful and Not Dead
The beast catapulted toward him and he tried to think of an appropriate passage to recite. Eyes closed, he didn't see Angel flying toward him until the vampire tackled him to the ground.
“Thank you,” he said automatically. Angel barely nodded before throwing himself back into battle. Wesley stayed leaning against a crypt.
“You understand, of course.” Travers's voice holds politeness for his father laid over ridicule for Wesley himself. “Saving a vampire would be a complete breach of protocol.”
Wesley thinks of Angel, sicker than anyone he's ever seen, and swallows. “Of course, I understand.”