The Dummy's Guide to the Care and Maintenance of Vases, Part 8 of 9
You know how, when an author is trying to make a character act surprised, they always say that their mouth dropped open or they grew pale? Well, Willow doesn't grow pale, because there are limits, but her mouth definitely drops open. Huh. Never actually seen that happen before.
She just sort of stands there, looking like a Republican who just learned that the War on Drugs was over and the drugs won, the hand holding the gun drooping loosely. Part of me notes that this really isn't the safest way to hold a gun. A second part points out, yeah, but I don't think that gun safety is really top of her list of priorities right now. The first part adds that she could hurt someone, such as, to take an example at random, me. The second part submits for consideration the idea that maybe not hurting me isn't at the top of her list of priorities either. At this point a third part, which fortunately controls my legs, decides that it might perhaps be a good idea to try to restrain the homicidal gun-toting vampire and pins her against the wall.
It's a pretty familiar position.
Willow didn't have much of a chance to feed; I'm standing in a pool of blood from the dead girl. I remember the first time I saw a dead body - at least, the first time that I saw a dead body that wasn't walking around trying to date high schoolers - I was astonished by how much blood there was. It was like somebody had punctured a water balloon. Now I'm just vaguely annoyed that I'm going to have to walk around in bloodstained sneakers because I can't afford new ones.
I really should be more upset about this. I mean, that girl is dead. Somebody out there loved her just as much as I love Willow and Buffy, and they're going to wait for her and she isn't going to come home. I should be thinking about that. I should be thinking about how it's my fault for making exactly the same mistake I spent years warning Buffy against. I should at least be thinking about how I've screwed up my life so badly that I'm going to have to kill my best friend. Again.
I shouldn't be thinking about how much it sucks that I'm going back to keeping my girlfriend behind the toilet in magazine form.
I can feel her trembling. At least, I think she is. The stake I'm pressing against her back is definitely shaking, although that could just be me.
“I tried,” she finally says, in a small, defeated voice. “It was so hard.”
I don't say anything. She gives a very high-pitched, shaky laugh.
“I thought maybe I could do it the way smokers do,” she says. “I mean, wean myself off it gradually, you know? Because they don't make a patch for killing people. But it's - I mean, that was all I had to do. Just wandering around the streets at night, trying not to think about how easy it would be.”
She leans her forehead against the wall.
“I tried so hard,” she says.
Why does everything always have to be so hard?
I have to kill her. I have to kill her quickly, because I don't quite understand why I have to kill her. When she killed a puppy, I was furious. I could fit killing a puppy into the list of things I knew about her. Murder is too big. It won't fit inside my head.
Staking a vampire isn't as hard as it looks, given these conditions. Get the stake between the ribs and it's just a few inches of clothes and muscle. It's no harder than pushing a thermometer into a turkey. Except, of course, that it isn't a turkey. It's a vampire, and I love her very much.
She's whimpering. I don't think she's aware that she's whimpering.
In one motion, I drop the stake, yank her head back by her hair and slam her forehead into the wall. She goes limp, and I pick her up.
Yeah, I just knocked a girl half my weight unconscious. I feel all manly. Give me a child to abuse and a dog to kick and I can win the fucking Manliness Olympics. It's a very long walk home.
I put the cuffs on her and chain her to the iron bed. She wakes up halfway through, but she doesn't struggle. She just lies there, staring up at me with big eyes in the darkness.
At least I know the chains should hold her. She's the one I bought them for, after all.
I can't stay there with her. I put on ANGEL IS A TWATBASKET and head out. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I want a lot of it.
Sooner or later, she's going to break out, because she's smarter than I am. Sooner or later, she's going to kill again. Sooner or later, more people are going to be dead because of me.
I wish that people were machines. I wish that we went from knowing what we should do to doing it without pause or thought. I wish that I were dead, and thinking of nothing.
This whole consciousness thing is way overrated.
Next