Fic: What Lay Onward and What Behind, Chapter 1 (Rated R)
I cannot resist another offering to seasonal-spuffy (hallowed be thy name!), a spanking-new-fic that will be finished in the next week. Thanks again to the mods and all my fellow participants for this spectacular round of Seasonal Spuffy!
Title: What Lay Onward and What Behind
Author: feliciacraft
Continuity: Set a decade after "Chosen"
Warning: Buffy/Other
Length: ~3400 Words
Rating: R
Betas: All4Spike (who speedily ran the piece through her fine comb), spuffy-luvr and dragonyphoenix, for their special guest critique, who are just the kind of critics a writer's dreams are made of. Thank you all so much! This is a work in progress, so all remaining errors are mine.
Author's Note: Since my wonderful f-list has encouraged me to hold fast and steady to my own artistic vision and not to pander, note the Buffy/Other (F/M) in this story. Also: I've never been to Japan or Cambodia (layovers don't count, I think). Let me know if anything doesn't ring true. Otherwise, much praise is due to Google.
Feedback: Yes, yes and yes please! Won't you be so kind?
“Buffy, will you marry me?”
Her mouth was full of chocolate brigadeiro, her body running on adrenaline from the jetlag, so for a moment the words didn’t connect, like one of those unfinished kids’ dot-to-dot drawings. There they remained, one two three four five words, suspended in mid air, resemblant of something vaguely familiar yet ominous.
She swallowed, food as alibi for her delay in response, the dark chocolate sliding down her throat more bitter than sweet.
He somehow took her silence as tacit encouragement. Mumbling, “Ought to do this right,” he pushed off the table to kneel in front of her with so much enthusiasm that she felt, through her strappy sandals too delicate for slaying, the tremors from his knee meeting the restaurant floor. He had on a full grin showing gleaming teeth, but something else was sparkling and stealing her focus. Her eyes gravitated towards it: oooh, shiny.
If his words had carried any ambiguity to begin with (which they obviously hadn’t), there was no mistaking the one-kneed pose. Or the rock.
The world seemed to have stilled around them, a strange belljar effect that muffled the clamouring of pans and pots from the kitchen, as well as the traffic outside over rain-drenched asphalt. Her thoughts, such as they were, were magnified, bounding back in endless echos, until the overlaps canceled one another out, and she was left with a complete blank.
“What?” she said with all the eloquence she could muster, staring at Jason if as he were a complete stranger…who’d just turned into a demon.
She felt a hand pick up both of hers, eager and slightly sweaty, reaching for understanding. Then the ring made contact with her finger, and the second--the second it did, she wanted to withdraw, as a deluge of memories came rushing forward. Memories of a situation much as this, yet ridiculously different: in a previous life, literally, under a spell that would one day turn wistful instead of regrettable, with a man who wasn’t a man, in a town that wasn’t a town anymore.
“Just say yes, and make me the happiest man on earth,” said the man in front of her, as if a cruel joke, lip-synching to another’s--the other’s--voice, the one in her mind’s eye.
The words--or something else--stung, and she found she couldn’t focus on the scene before her. Everything waged an impediment: the twinkly chandeliers set deliberately on dim mood lighting, the votives casting a warm glow and soft shadows on her dinner companion, the ambient music, too measured, too constrained, Bach or Handel--one of her mother’s favorites--she recognized as much. Nothing matched her inner turmoil, her thoughts in disarray.
She had saved Jason while scouting out demon activities on a tip. That had been four years ago, during her “see the world” phase, six since the last time she’d seen him alive, not that she was counting. She assumed that he had moved on, and of course by he she meant Spike--she could say his name now without it feeling like someone was squeezing her heart like a stress relief ball. See? She had moved on as well.
There had been a phone call or two in the beginning of the six years, notably one animated conversation featuring a dragon after the whole L.A. fiasco, a very him thing to latch onto and boast, hiding his pain behind the action play-by-play--they’d lost so many in that battle, sacrificed so much. Truly one for the history books. Angel certainly was never the same again.
And so it had somehow fallen to Spike to call Giles and give him Hell, apparently quite motivated about that last part, after relaying all the official facts, recounting all the losses. It just so happened that she’d come to talk to Giles, who’d waved her in while doing his best not to wince at some of the choice bits of Spike’s vocabulary. And making out only that it was a direct line from L.A., she’d grabbed the receiver and demanded the truth, realizing only then that it was Spike on the other end.
There'd been only the slightest pause on the other end of the line, then the conversation had resumed, easy peasy. She’d made all the right noises over the international wire--she’d been at the new Council in London, he in L.A.--gasping at the dramatic turns, laughing at moments of inevitable goof, sighing over the hard-fought conclusion of uncertain triumph.
It was only afterwards--after the phone call, after the meeting with Giles, after returning to her temporary room at the Slayer school’s residence hall--that she’d realized that there hadn’t been a single personal remark or romantic outburst of any kind. No promises to follow up or arrangements to meet face-to-face, no repetition of his favorite three little words to her, no acknowledgement of her own admission down in the Hellmouth, while their clasped hands had burned in unison, before he had pushed her to safety.
It shook her, initially. There's only one thing I've ever been sure of, he’d said, once upon a time, looking up at her with so much love in his eyes, so much longing, so much humanity, that it was not fair that he was a vampire. But the truth was, she had always counted on his love to be there, as clear as day, as inevitable as night, even when he couldn’t be there physically. Even, as she realized, when she had thought he was gone forever.
She was not going to call him back and throw a tantrum over lack of attention like a kid with separation anxiety or worse, a lover spurned. He’d always come after her, and, well, she’d quite enjoyed that, being pursued, even if she hadn’t let on at the time. And when he didn’t this time, and after her anger faded over his not coming after her, the sting faded too, and she eventually settled on the Gilesian idea that it was for the best. That’d seemed the winning belief since the beginning, and at any rate going with it was easier than fighting it.
The activation of all the Potentials had released her from her singular obligation, thus extending by no insignificant margin the estimated expiration date on a slayer. She could finally, to some degree, have normal, if normal would have her. She was in a new world, and romantic tangles dating back to the old one...well, it was best if she’d leave them well alone, as Giles would say, and move on. And with the whole world as her oyster, and her being so handy with the sword, there was no reason to pin all her hope on one vamp. None at all.
So when she met Jason, doing what she did best despite her effort to quit, there was no particular reason that he should’ve been on her mind. The night shift manager at her hotel in Tokyo had been unwilling to recommend nighttime activities without making prior arrangements for transport, and so with a strategic application of gentle pressure over probing questions, she was able to pry the real reason out of him. There had been a string of attacks, animalistic in nature, though eyewitnesses were unable to pin down the exact species of the attackers. Taking into account the rest of the evidence, Buffy put her bet on demons.
From there it was just a matter of tracking the demons down, ultimately to a dark alley tucked away in a corner of Tokyo forgotten by time, overshadowed by skyscrapers and illuminated mostly by reflected light from a lone streetlamp a zigzag of walls away. When she had made short work of the demons, ruining a new red tee in the process--the one with the cute cat screenprinted towering over a Tokyo cityscape, Godzilla style--Jason had been the last to stumble out.
Instead of hurrying past her, disappearing into the darkness as did the couple before him, holding each other up and averting eye contact with Buffy, as if she were a sight more frightful than the demons she’d just slain, saving their hinds--instead of what most people did, he’d taken his time approaching her, composing himself with real courage or false bravado.
Backlit, dark leather jacket creaking as he limped up to her, he had called out, “Nice work, love” with a British accent--Giles would later call it Estuary English, but to Buffy, with a certain vampire not on her mind, it was close enough, instantly granting him a double-take.
She cupped her hand to shade her eyes from the spillover light from the streetlamp, and stared, as the man with a medium build, a brown buzz cut and a kind face stepped forward, a look of bemusement and relief spreading into a genuine smile.
“Well, that was a close call,” he said, stepping forward and extending a hand. “Jason. How do you do?”
“Uhm, hi. I’m Buffy. Nice to meet you.” Her hand shot out of its own volition to save her manners, and she realized, too late, that it was slippery from green demon blood. They shook on it.
She noticed him shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Are you hurt?”
“Mostly just my pride. Could rather use a drink. You in?”
Before Buffy knew what she wanted she was pushing onto her feet, chair legs scraping the floor in discordant screeches, turning clusters of whispering heads at nearby tables. The blood rushing away from her head did not help. Lest she would lose her nerve, she avoided making eye contact with Jason. Their connected hands, up ‘til now awkwardly stretching to follow her body’s movements, loosened over the strain and inevitably, broke apart.
And then she was free.
She would later claim to have no memory of bolting for the restaurant door after dropping a whispered, “I’m sorry,” ignoring stunned looks across the room mirroring one another so much that they merged into a single collective simulacrum for public outcry that she mentally slew. Along the way she pushed past a large party of patrons coming into the bar area of the restaurant full of balloons and flowers and celebratory smiles, and brushed off, as politely as she could manage, a concerned hostess inquiring as to the nature of her distress first in Portuguese, then in English. Never mind that she’d just arrived in São Paulo the same day and couldn’t even recall the direction of her hotel; she just knew she had to get away, fast.
On the sidewalk, at the approaching valet’s encouraging smile, she took off in the opposite direction, on foot, uncaring of the tail-end of the storm dissolving into a fine drizzle all around her. In the pool of light escaping the restaurant, it had looked like a shimmery curtain. Or, memories called forth another image, like the shower of cherry blossom petals the first time they’d met.
It had been the beginning of April, during the height of Japan’s national cherry blossom, or sakura, frenzy. She’d wanted to experience the world she kept risking her life to save, and being the administrative genius that Giles was, he’d invented sabbaticals on the spot, and footed her bills on partial pay, even though she’d never formally accepted a position within the Council and was technically just an occasional consultant. Consultant on retainer, Giles had emphasized, as if that’d tether her to the Council, to him, and lend their undefined relationship some permanence.
Sakura season, as Buffy later learned, typically lasted a mere two weeks, a heartbeat in the pulse of global weather patterns. It arrived on no set date each year with spring, sweeping through Japan from south to north, from lowlands to mountain ranges. A zealous concierge at the hotel in Angkor, Cambodia had watched the news of the beginning of sakura on the hotel’s shiny new TV in the lobby, and suggested Japan as the next destination. Madam’s timing couldn’t have been more auspicious, said the middle-aged peasant-cum-concierge, whose affinity with crops and farming cycles had been ingrained in her bones. Tourism had been such a new industry in Cambodia that the shiny, grand hotels built with grander prospects in mind were often gutted of essential personnel during planting season. Peasant workers would heed the call to newly plowed ancestral fields to transplant rows of rice seedlings, instead of staying put to serve lines of foreign travelers arriving once a week straight from the airport, only to leave again the same way, before the rice seedlings could take root.
She had traveled to Cambodia on a yogi’s advice from her previous stop in India, who had counted on the magnificence of Angkor Wat, the most impressive Buddhist monument ever constructed, to bring her closer to spiritual transcendence. That goal had proven elusive--impressive though the ruins no doubt were, it turned out that the Chosen One, prophesied, mystically empowered, twice killed only to be twice resurrected, and the Source to share her power with all Potentials, was a hard one to Enlighten. The Buddhist concept of Saṃsāra--perpetual cycle of birth and death with no rest in sight--she didn’t need religion to grasp; she was living it. So she’d shrugged off any higher message or deeper understanding, played the average New Age tourist from the West, and booked a flight to Japan to experience the transience the cherry blossoms symbolized in the Buddhist life cycle, the way that most unenlightened people do: with lots of photos and souvenirs.
Buffy had always drawn comfort from being equipped--part and parcel of being the Slayer--with an internal GPS. Cemeteries, moonless nights, new cities--whatever the situation, she never got lost. That night, it was as if something had got dislodged in the fight, or a wire got crossed, but a few turns walking alongside Jason, and she’d been dumbfounded to find herself suddenly before a park with yozakura in full swing. A crowd in high spirits had been holding a night celebration under the blossoming cherry trees, seizing the transience with yakitori and sake as if their lives had depended on it.
Simple wooden tables and benches, dressed up with covers of shocking red and softened with silk cushions and mostly occupied, had lined the park, intersecting rows of cherry trees. Naked lightbulbs humming from make-shift wires had mingled with delicate rice paper lanterns swaying on strips of twine. There’d been music in the air--a traditional Japanese tune of melancholy wafting in between louder, quick-tempoed J-pop. The smells of tangy barbeque and sweet and spicy umeshu--plum wine, layered with the fresh fragrance of cherry, had tantalized. The juxtaposition of everything together should have been jarring and uninviting, yet somehow it had all added up to an atmosphere of warm, imperfect perfection.
“When in Rome…?” With a sideways glance at her, Jason had made a beeline for the nearest table, already calling out “Sumimasen!” for a menu from one of the servers standing by, with a practiced confidence that Buffy had envied.
Oddly enough, it had been the casual assumption that she would of course join him, as if they were old friends arriving for a pre-arranged meetup, and not a pair of rescuer-rescuee thrown together by a single demon-infested incident, that had caused Buffy to let down her guards and take a chance.
She’d taken the seat opposite of him, guilty wiping her hands on the red cloth covering the bench, while he’d peeled off his leather jacket to drape over the bench. The swing of his jacket disturbed a low-hanging branch, causing an explosion of faint pink petals to rain down on both of them, rousing a squeal of delight from Buffy. Just like that, countless flowers had met their premature but spectacular demise.
In the same moment, Buffy had realized that contrary to her belief, she had not been living with purpose, heading straight for any real destination ordinary or transcendental--not even careening towards a semi-destination. She’d been drifting, a transient, staying passive while allowing external influences encountered on a chance meeting to set and reset her life’s course. When the drifting ended, where would she end up? With her boot, she’d nudged a scatter of petals that had landed on the nearby grass; they’d bruised and curled on impact.
That night, they’d out-Romed the Romans in merrymaking, until the yozakura had wound down, tables emptying, lights going dark one row at a time. Eventually it had been just the two of them, locked in a passionate kiss that seemingly had no beginning and no end, until Buffy had paused for breath to find that they’d outlasted even the furniture: all around them benches had been neatly stacked, upside down on the tables, to signal in no uncertain terms the end of business.
They’d left soon after for his hotel room, and made love ‘til sunrise.
The man on his knees, offering up forever for all the world to see. She’d felt blindsided on both occasions, and only had an excuse for the first, magic-induced, time. But with Jason, they’d always been casual, hadn’t they? He was a road warrior in the employ of a global conglomerate that saw fit to dispatch him around the world, sometimes on short notice, coordinating this and that that apparently had to be done face-to-face, always a flight away. She was a semi-retired warrior who had worked hard over the years to be unemployable excepting the occasional Council assignment, never setting down roots, always on the move.
Their lives would intersect over the years, here and there, between his contract negotiations and her vampire nest dustings, in comped five-star hotel rooms with a different view each time. Usually he’d been the one to reach out, forwarding her his work-dictated availability that’d been communicated to him on company letterhead, occasionally making Buffy feel as if she was scheduling a doctor’s appointment instead of arranging a dalliance with a familiar face. From time to time she’d reciprocated the gesture, moments of weakness when the perpetual aloneness inevitably turned lonesome, and he’d always been there for her, just a flight away.
He had even met the gang, if it could still be called that, accompanying her to Council obligations and personal special occasions that called for a date. Dawn had seemed to like him well enough, although the way her eyes had widened at Jason’s accent hadn’t gone unnoticed. Giles had seemed relieved that she’d found a human who would have her, apparently quite the “once in a generation” feat to him. Xander, well, Xander had been happy to just have another guy in their little family, quick as he’d always been to warm up to a stranger. Willow had been the only one whose reaction had been neutral, her witchy eyes darting from Buffy to Jason and back to Buffy again, as if trying to see through their sham to the depth of her heart.
She had thought their arrangement would go on like that, an odd constancy for which progress would be hard to define, with the two of them drawing closer, each meeting the other halfway, only to pull apart again. Had she missed any signals? There’d been no pressure, no serious talks about where they stood, what it all meant, and she’d enjoyed her space, her freedom. She hadn’t have to think, have to feel, have to explain, have to remember. She’d rather liked it. She’d thought he had, too.
And now--now, he’d gone and ruined it. All because he’d tried a key on her heart, which had led to her discovery of the lock around it, the fact that there had always been a lock. With that realization, the glamour on her carefree life had lifted like fog in the midday sun, and abruptly, just like the first time she’d been on the receiving end of a marriage proposal, the spell had ended.
Too much, too much were the repressed memories newly unshackled, unrelenting, superimposed onto the reality before her, projected right into her mind’s eye. The two proposals seemed to be unfolding in real time and on rhythm with her breathing, faster and faster until she was hyperventilating. The world spun in mockery of her pain, throwing in her face funhouse mirror-reflected rain-slicked sidewalk over toppled skyscrapers under distorted pedestrians drenched in harsh lights…
A sharp tune cut through the mental haze and she locked onto it, as if it were a beacon back to civilization, until she recognized the source. There was no hesitation, once she had fished out the offending cell phone (“Jason calling… Answer. Decline.”) from her handbag, in turning the damn thing off. She couldn’t face him after running out like that, not now, perhaps not ever. It was sad, ending their relationship that way. What they’d had been beautiful, she thought. But she’d never been good at saying good-bye.
~ To be Continued... ~
Title: What Lay Onward and What Behind
Author: feliciacraft
Continuity: Set a decade after "Chosen"
Warning: Buffy/Other
Length: ~3400 Words
Rating: R
Betas: All4Spike (who speedily ran the piece through her fine comb), spuffy-luvr and dragonyphoenix, for their special guest critique, who are just the kind of critics a writer's dreams are made of. Thank you all so much! This is a work in progress, so all remaining errors are mine.
Author's Note: Since my wonderful f-list has encouraged me to hold fast and steady to my own artistic vision and not to pander, note the Buffy/Other (F/M) in this story. Also: I've never been to Japan or Cambodia (layovers don't count, I think). Let me know if anything doesn't ring true. Otherwise, much praise is due to Google.
Feedback: Yes, yes and yes please! Won't you be so kind?
“Buffy, will you marry me?”
Her mouth was full of chocolate brigadeiro, her body running on adrenaline from the jetlag, so for a moment the words didn’t connect, like one of those unfinished kids’ dot-to-dot drawings. There they remained, one two three four five words, suspended in mid air, resemblant of something vaguely familiar yet ominous.
She swallowed, food as alibi for her delay in response, the dark chocolate sliding down her throat more bitter than sweet.
He somehow took her silence as tacit encouragement. Mumbling, “Ought to do this right,” he pushed off the table to kneel in front of her with so much enthusiasm that she felt, through her strappy sandals too delicate for slaying, the tremors from his knee meeting the restaurant floor. He had on a full grin showing gleaming teeth, but something else was sparkling and stealing her focus. Her eyes gravitated towards it: oooh, shiny.
If his words had carried any ambiguity to begin with (which they obviously hadn’t), there was no mistaking the one-kneed pose. Or the rock.
The world seemed to have stilled around them, a strange belljar effect that muffled the clamouring of pans and pots from the kitchen, as well as the traffic outside over rain-drenched asphalt. Her thoughts, such as they were, were magnified, bounding back in endless echos, until the overlaps canceled one another out, and she was left with a complete blank.
“What?” she said with all the eloquence she could muster, staring at Jason if as he were a complete stranger…who’d just turned into a demon.
She felt a hand pick up both of hers, eager and slightly sweaty, reaching for understanding. Then the ring made contact with her finger, and the second--the second it did, she wanted to withdraw, as a deluge of memories came rushing forward. Memories of a situation much as this, yet ridiculously different: in a previous life, literally, under a spell that would one day turn wistful instead of regrettable, with a man who wasn’t a man, in a town that wasn’t a town anymore.
“Just say yes, and make me the happiest man on earth,” said the man in front of her, as if a cruel joke, lip-synching to another’s--the other’s--voice, the one in her mind’s eye.
The words--or something else--stung, and she found she couldn’t focus on the scene before her. Everything waged an impediment: the twinkly chandeliers set deliberately on dim mood lighting, the votives casting a warm glow and soft shadows on her dinner companion, the ambient music, too measured, too constrained, Bach or Handel--one of her mother’s favorites--she recognized as much. Nothing matched her inner turmoil, her thoughts in disarray.
She had saved Jason while scouting out demon activities on a tip. That had been four years ago, during her “see the world” phase, six since the last time she’d seen him alive, not that she was counting. She assumed that he had moved on, and of course by he she meant Spike--she could say his name now without it feeling like someone was squeezing her heart like a stress relief ball. See? She had moved on as well.
There had been a phone call or two in the beginning of the six years, notably one animated conversation featuring a dragon after the whole L.A. fiasco, a very him thing to latch onto and boast, hiding his pain behind the action play-by-play--they’d lost so many in that battle, sacrificed so much. Truly one for the history books. Angel certainly was never the same again.
And so it had somehow fallen to Spike to call Giles and give him Hell, apparently quite motivated about that last part, after relaying all the official facts, recounting all the losses. It just so happened that she’d come to talk to Giles, who’d waved her in while doing his best not to wince at some of the choice bits of Spike’s vocabulary. And making out only that it was a direct line from L.A., she’d grabbed the receiver and demanded the truth, realizing only then that it was Spike on the other end.
There'd been only the slightest pause on the other end of the line, then the conversation had resumed, easy peasy. She’d made all the right noises over the international wire--she’d been at the new Council in London, he in L.A.--gasping at the dramatic turns, laughing at moments of inevitable goof, sighing over the hard-fought conclusion of uncertain triumph.
It was only afterwards--after the phone call, after the meeting with Giles, after returning to her temporary room at the Slayer school’s residence hall--that she’d realized that there hadn’t been a single personal remark or romantic outburst of any kind. No promises to follow up or arrangements to meet face-to-face, no repetition of his favorite three little words to her, no acknowledgement of her own admission down in the Hellmouth, while their clasped hands had burned in unison, before he had pushed her to safety.
It shook her, initially. There's only one thing I've ever been sure of, he’d said, once upon a time, looking up at her with so much love in his eyes, so much longing, so much humanity, that it was not fair that he was a vampire. But the truth was, she had always counted on his love to be there, as clear as day, as inevitable as night, even when he couldn’t be there physically. Even, as she realized, when she had thought he was gone forever.
She was not going to call him back and throw a tantrum over lack of attention like a kid with separation anxiety or worse, a lover spurned. He’d always come after her, and, well, she’d quite enjoyed that, being pursued, even if she hadn’t let on at the time. And when he didn’t this time, and after her anger faded over his not coming after her, the sting faded too, and she eventually settled on the Gilesian idea that it was for the best. That’d seemed the winning belief since the beginning, and at any rate going with it was easier than fighting it.
The activation of all the Potentials had released her from her singular obligation, thus extending by no insignificant margin the estimated expiration date on a slayer. She could finally, to some degree, have normal, if normal would have her. She was in a new world, and romantic tangles dating back to the old one...well, it was best if she’d leave them well alone, as Giles would say, and move on. And with the whole world as her oyster, and her being so handy with the sword, there was no reason to pin all her hope on one vamp. None at all.
So when she met Jason, doing what she did best despite her effort to quit, there was no particular reason that he should’ve been on her mind. The night shift manager at her hotel in Tokyo had been unwilling to recommend nighttime activities without making prior arrangements for transport, and so with a strategic application of gentle pressure over probing questions, she was able to pry the real reason out of him. There had been a string of attacks, animalistic in nature, though eyewitnesses were unable to pin down the exact species of the attackers. Taking into account the rest of the evidence, Buffy put her bet on demons.
From there it was just a matter of tracking the demons down, ultimately to a dark alley tucked away in a corner of Tokyo forgotten by time, overshadowed by skyscrapers and illuminated mostly by reflected light from a lone streetlamp a zigzag of walls away. When she had made short work of the demons, ruining a new red tee in the process--the one with the cute cat screenprinted towering over a Tokyo cityscape, Godzilla style--Jason had been the last to stumble out.
Instead of hurrying past her, disappearing into the darkness as did the couple before him, holding each other up and averting eye contact with Buffy, as if she were a sight more frightful than the demons she’d just slain, saving their hinds--instead of what most people did, he’d taken his time approaching her, composing himself with real courage or false bravado.
Backlit, dark leather jacket creaking as he limped up to her, he had called out, “Nice work, love” with a British accent--Giles would later call it Estuary English, but to Buffy, with a certain vampire not on her mind, it was close enough, instantly granting him a double-take.
She cupped her hand to shade her eyes from the spillover light from the streetlamp, and stared, as the man with a medium build, a brown buzz cut and a kind face stepped forward, a look of bemusement and relief spreading into a genuine smile.
“Well, that was a close call,” he said, stepping forward and extending a hand. “Jason. How do you do?”
“Uhm, hi. I’m Buffy. Nice to meet you.” Her hand shot out of its own volition to save her manners, and she realized, too late, that it was slippery from green demon blood. They shook on it.
She noticed him shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Are you hurt?”
“Mostly just my pride. Could rather use a drink. You in?”
Before Buffy knew what she wanted she was pushing onto her feet, chair legs scraping the floor in discordant screeches, turning clusters of whispering heads at nearby tables. The blood rushing away from her head did not help. Lest she would lose her nerve, she avoided making eye contact with Jason. Their connected hands, up ‘til now awkwardly stretching to follow her body’s movements, loosened over the strain and inevitably, broke apart.
And then she was free.
She would later claim to have no memory of bolting for the restaurant door after dropping a whispered, “I’m sorry,” ignoring stunned looks across the room mirroring one another so much that they merged into a single collective simulacrum for public outcry that she mentally slew. Along the way she pushed past a large party of patrons coming into the bar area of the restaurant full of balloons and flowers and celebratory smiles, and brushed off, as politely as she could manage, a concerned hostess inquiring as to the nature of her distress first in Portuguese, then in English. Never mind that she’d just arrived in São Paulo the same day and couldn’t even recall the direction of her hotel; she just knew she had to get away, fast.
On the sidewalk, at the approaching valet’s encouraging smile, she took off in the opposite direction, on foot, uncaring of the tail-end of the storm dissolving into a fine drizzle all around her. In the pool of light escaping the restaurant, it had looked like a shimmery curtain. Or, memories called forth another image, like the shower of cherry blossom petals the first time they’d met.
It had been the beginning of April, during the height of Japan’s national cherry blossom, or sakura, frenzy. She’d wanted to experience the world she kept risking her life to save, and being the administrative genius that Giles was, he’d invented sabbaticals on the spot, and footed her bills on partial pay, even though she’d never formally accepted a position within the Council and was technically just an occasional consultant. Consultant on retainer, Giles had emphasized, as if that’d tether her to the Council, to him, and lend their undefined relationship some permanence.
Sakura season, as Buffy later learned, typically lasted a mere two weeks, a heartbeat in the pulse of global weather patterns. It arrived on no set date each year with spring, sweeping through Japan from south to north, from lowlands to mountain ranges. A zealous concierge at the hotel in Angkor, Cambodia had watched the news of the beginning of sakura on the hotel’s shiny new TV in the lobby, and suggested Japan as the next destination. Madam’s timing couldn’t have been more auspicious, said the middle-aged peasant-cum-concierge, whose affinity with crops and farming cycles had been ingrained in her bones. Tourism had been such a new industry in Cambodia that the shiny, grand hotels built with grander prospects in mind were often gutted of essential personnel during planting season. Peasant workers would heed the call to newly plowed ancestral fields to transplant rows of rice seedlings, instead of staying put to serve lines of foreign travelers arriving once a week straight from the airport, only to leave again the same way, before the rice seedlings could take root.
She had traveled to Cambodia on a yogi’s advice from her previous stop in India, who had counted on the magnificence of Angkor Wat, the most impressive Buddhist monument ever constructed, to bring her closer to spiritual transcendence. That goal had proven elusive--impressive though the ruins no doubt were, it turned out that the Chosen One, prophesied, mystically empowered, twice killed only to be twice resurrected, and the Source to share her power with all Potentials, was a hard one to Enlighten. The Buddhist concept of Saṃsāra--perpetual cycle of birth and death with no rest in sight--she didn’t need religion to grasp; she was living it. So she’d shrugged off any higher message or deeper understanding, played the average New Age tourist from the West, and booked a flight to Japan to experience the transience the cherry blossoms symbolized in the Buddhist life cycle, the way that most unenlightened people do: with lots of photos and souvenirs.
Buffy had always drawn comfort from being equipped--part and parcel of being the Slayer--with an internal GPS. Cemeteries, moonless nights, new cities--whatever the situation, she never got lost. That night, it was as if something had got dislodged in the fight, or a wire got crossed, but a few turns walking alongside Jason, and she’d been dumbfounded to find herself suddenly before a park with yozakura in full swing. A crowd in high spirits had been holding a night celebration under the blossoming cherry trees, seizing the transience with yakitori and sake as if their lives had depended on it.
Simple wooden tables and benches, dressed up with covers of shocking red and softened with silk cushions and mostly occupied, had lined the park, intersecting rows of cherry trees. Naked lightbulbs humming from make-shift wires had mingled with delicate rice paper lanterns swaying on strips of twine. There’d been music in the air--a traditional Japanese tune of melancholy wafting in between louder, quick-tempoed J-pop. The smells of tangy barbeque and sweet and spicy umeshu--plum wine, layered with the fresh fragrance of cherry, had tantalized. The juxtaposition of everything together should have been jarring and uninviting, yet somehow it had all added up to an atmosphere of warm, imperfect perfection.
“When in Rome…?” With a sideways glance at her, Jason had made a beeline for the nearest table, already calling out “Sumimasen!” for a menu from one of the servers standing by, with a practiced confidence that Buffy had envied.
Oddly enough, it had been the casual assumption that she would of course join him, as if they were old friends arriving for a pre-arranged meetup, and not a pair of rescuer-rescuee thrown together by a single demon-infested incident, that had caused Buffy to let down her guards and take a chance.
She’d taken the seat opposite of him, guilty wiping her hands on the red cloth covering the bench, while he’d peeled off his leather jacket to drape over the bench. The swing of his jacket disturbed a low-hanging branch, causing an explosion of faint pink petals to rain down on both of them, rousing a squeal of delight from Buffy. Just like that, countless flowers had met their premature but spectacular demise.
In the same moment, Buffy had realized that contrary to her belief, she had not been living with purpose, heading straight for any real destination ordinary or transcendental--not even careening towards a semi-destination. She’d been drifting, a transient, staying passive while allowing external influences encountered on a chance meeting to set and reset her life’s course. When the drifting ended, where would she end up? With her boot, she’d nudged a scatter of petals that had landed on the nearby grass; they’d bruised and curled on impact.
That night, they’d out-Romed the Romans in merrymaking, until the yozakura had wound down, tables emptying, lights going dark one row at a time. Eventually it had been just the two of them, locked in a passionate kiss that seemingly had no beginning and no end, until Buffy had paused for breath to find that they’d outlasted even the furniture: all around them benches had been neatly stacked, upside down on the tables, to signal in no uncertain terms the end of business.
They’d left soon after for his hotel room, and made love ‘til sunrise.
The man on his knees, offering up forever for all the world to see. She’d felt blindsided on both occasions, and only had an excuse for the first, magic-induced, time. But with Jason, they’d always been casual, hadn’t they? He was a road warrior in the employ of a global conglomerate that saw fit to dispatch him around the world, sometimes on short notice, coordinating this and that that apparently had to be done face-to-face, always a flight away. She was a semi-retired warrior who had worked hard over the years to be unemployable excepting the occasional Council assignment, never setting down roots, always on the move.
Their lives would intersect over the years, here and there, between his contract negotiations and her vampire nest dustings, in comped five-star hotel rooms with a different view each time. Usually he’d been the one to reach out, forwarding her his work-dictated availability that’d been communicated to him on company letterhead, occasionally making Buffy feel as if she was scheduling a doctor’s appointment instead of arranging a dalliance with a familiar face. From time to time she’d reciprocated the gesture, moments of weakness when the perpetual aloneness inevitably turned lonesome, and he’d always been there for her, just a flight away.
He had even met the gang, if it could still be called that, accompanying her to Council obligations and personal special occasions that called for a date. Dawn had seemed to like him well enough, although the way her eyes had widened at Jason’s accent hadn’t gone unnoticed. Giles had seemed relieved that she’d found a human who would have her, apparently quite the “once in a generation” feat to him. Xander, well, Xander had been happy to just have another guy in their little family, quick as he’d always been to warm up to a stranger. Willow had been the only one whose reaction had been neutral, her witchy eyes darting from Buffy to Jason and back to Buffy again, as if trying to see through their sham to the depth of her heart.
She had thought their arrangement would go on like that, an odd constancy for which progress would be hard to define, with the two of them drawing closer, each meeting the other halfway, only to pull apart again. Had she missed any signals? There’d been no pressure, no serious talks about where they stood, what it all meant, and she’d enjoyed her space, her freedom. She hadn’t have to think, have to feel, have to explain, have to remember. She’d rather liked it. She’d thought he had, too.
And now--now, he’d gone and ruined it. All because he’d tried a key on her heart, which had led to her discovery of the lock around it, the fact that there had always been a lock. With that realization, the glamour on her carefree life had lifted like fog in the midday sun, and abruptly, just like the first time she’d been on the receiving end of a marriage proposal, the spell had ended.
Too much, too much were the repressed memories newly unshackled, unrelenting, superimposed onto the reality before her, projected right into her mind’s eye. The two proposals seemed to be unfolding in real time and on rhythm with her breathing, faster and faster until she was hyperventilating. The world spun in mockery of her pain, throwing in her face funhouse mirror-reflected rain-slicked sidewalk over toppled skyscrapers under distorted pedestrians drenched in harsh lights…
A sharp tune cut through the mental haze and she locked onto it, as if it were a beacon back to civilization, until she recognized the source. There was no hesitation, once she had fished out the offending cell phone (“Jason calling… Answer. Decline.”) from her handbag, in turning the damn thing off. She couldn’t face him after running out like that, not now, perhaps not ever. It was sad, ending their relationship that way. What they’d had been beautiful, she thought. But she’d never been good at saying good-bye.
~ To be Continued... ~