16 DRABBLES: BtVS (Christmas calendar drabbles)
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all its characters belong to Joss Whedon, not to me. I am making no money off this.
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December 2, 2004
Song: Madonna - I deserve it
It’s always just around the corner.
She’s still blond, but she changed to a different brand twelve years ago. She’s still slim and strong and pretty, but it takes a little more effort these days. She’s still the Slayer, but she doesn’t go out on patrol anymore. Her niece Anya does and never asks her for advice. She has a good watcher.
She always thinks it should be Angel, or Spike, or Faith. Faith’s been dead for seventeen years now.
In the end, she simply doesn’t look, but Dawn tells Giles that Buffy saved her daughter from a car accident.
~*~*~
December 3, 2004
Song: Rufus Wainwright - Instant Pleasure
So that’s the deal:
They hunt, they slay, they have sex. It’s always fast, always rough, always violent. No one knows what they’re doing, sometimes not even they themselves.
They kiss, they fumble and they come. There is no deal; they never talk about it. Faith wouldn’t want it any different, not even when she watches Oz brushing his thumb over Willow’s hand, not even when she interrupts Buffy and Angel when they kiss.
Want. Take. Have. Faith tightens her grip on her new knife. Want. Take. Have. The deal is simply that she can’t want what she can’t have.
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December 4, 2004
Song: Tori Amos - Winter
It’s dark, and Willow’s boots go Crunch crunch crunch as she walks through the snowy New England forest.
She can see the moon through the leafless branches of the trees. It’s a clear night; the stars shine brightly in formations whose names she doesn’t let herself remember.
“I’ve never seen it snow.” Tara’s voice, wistful. She hadn’t been in Sunnydale the winter it had.
“I’ll show you one day.”
Willow arrives at the clearing Faith had told her about. She shivers and pulls her coat around herself more tightly.
It’s been four years, and Tara should be here with her.
~*~*~
December 5, 2004
Song: Bright Eyes - Sunrise, Sunset
She sometimes dreams.
It’s about the dark place, the one where she was small and unclean unclean unclean. She can hear her laughing at her, red hair and dark dark eyes. She’s the only thing she sees then, the only thing that matters. Horrifyingly beautiful, beautifully horrifying. She knows her better than herself, then and always, and she’ll make love to her and she’ll kiss her, kiss her, kiss her, wishing it was Glory she sees, Glory she worships.
She makes no sound when she dreams, she bites her lip and in the morning she’ll wince when Willow kisses her.
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December 6, 2004
Song: Jefferson Airplane - Today
It’s been so long, so very long. Willow knows the exact number of weeks, days and hours, but she has stopped counting seven hours ago. Or something. In the end she didn’t know what she was counting anymore - the time Tara had been gone, the time in which she hadn’t used magic, the time it would take for Tara to come back. It’s doesn’t matter anymore, now. Willow is wrapped around her, and for the first time in weeks she isn’t afraid to open her eyes. It’s not a dream - Tara is here with her, she’ll be there always.
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December 10, 2004
Song: Damien Rice - The Blower's daughter
Tara knows it’s a mistake, she’s known there was something different, something wrong about the town even before she met Willow, but tonight she doesn’t care. She’s wandering through the dark streets of Sunnydale - the lights are out and by now Willow and her friends have probably found Oz, and they’ll have kissed and made up and Tara doesn’t want to go home right now just to find her room empty.
That’s when she notices the small kitten, huddled up in a corner outside a very shady-looking bar, and she scoops her up and she immediately knows her name.
~*~*~
December 12, 2004
Song: Remy Zero - Twister
She remembers: she cannot speak. A gash of blood, stain, strawberry-red, so pretty, her smile. Her smile, hand clasped in hers, a surge of breathless power, they were so, laughing, together. Floating on a cloud in a club to a song on her birthday flowery dresses, flowers on their dresses, Lethe’s bramble beautiful betrayal and hurt but her smile. Her smile, it never leaves her, it never left her, not when it was dark not when she woke up shivering, you’re my everything turns to white a stain of red strawberry blood sprinkles. One last time, her voice: Your shirt.
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December 14, 2004
Song: U Penn Off the Beat - Landslide
Xander hasn’t always loved Anya. There was a time when she was overbearing and annoying, and he sometimes wondered what he had done to deserve this. He still isn’t sure when that changed, but all of a sudden she was still overbearing and annoying while he was wondering what he had done to deserve her. He wishes he could go back to the way things were before, wishes he wouldn’t wake up and expect her to be lying next to him. He wishes he could’ve said goodbye, but now she’s gone and she’d only granted the wishes of women anyway.
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December 15, 2004
Song: Portishead - Glory box
As soon as she hears the door close, Dawn slips into her sister’s room. She knows Buffy would kill her if she knew she was here, but Buffy’s gone and her mom for once isn’t downstairs crying. Dawn opens the closet and pulls out the big trunk. She lifts the lid to peer inside: A crossbow, some bolts and arrows, five stakes. She picks up a stake and weighs it in her hand. It must be really cool to be the slayer, Dawn decides; and not for the first time she wishes she was as special as her big sister.
~*~*~
December 17, 2004
Song: Kristen Hersh - Your Ghost
"Hello?" Willow calls, but it seems that for the first time in months, the Summers’ house is empty.
She frowns and wraps her arms around herself, a little uncomfortable. She hasn’t been alone in the house since forever, not ever since she came back from England. There has always been someone around her; Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Anya, Kennedy, a nameless potential.
She walks upstairs to Buffy’s old room and doesn’t look at the half-open door across the hall. Willow enters her room and closes the door behind her before sitting down on the bed. She wishes it wasn’t so quiet.
~*~*~
December 19, 2004
Song: Vienna Teng - Lullaby For A Stormy Night
It takes Buffy a while to realize what the collapse of Sunnydale means.
There is no Espresso Pump anymore, the cinema will never show weird subtitled movies about food again. The college, the library, the hospital, they’re all gone. It feels weird to have no home to come to; no matter how often Faith tells her she’ll get used to it, she still hasn’t after eleven months. She often misses her mom, but it’s when it’s April and she is standing outside a flower shop that it hits her, and she tightens her hand arout the bunch of lilies.
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December 20, 2004
Song: Sarah McLachlan - Black
She knows exactly what she has to do. One step at a time, fast, faster, faster to the Magic Box. She can almost see herself walking along the street; boots, jeans, white shirt sprinkled with red. It’s pretty, it’s dirty, she should change. She won’t.
She wraps her arms around herself and shivers. She pushes her way through the people, a car screeches to a halt. She shouldn’t be cold, she thinks, it’s May, May’s a warm month and she can see the sun is shining. It really shouldn’t be. She’s going to change that. Willow’s going to change everything.
~*~*~
December 21, 2004
Song: Thea Gilmore - My beautiful defence
With a stiffled yawn, Willow closes her book. It is late and Tara has already fallen asleep. Willow looks over to her bed where her girlfriend is curled up on top of the covers; she is beautiful.
Thinking of Tara as her girlfriend is still new and exciting and makes her smile. She undresses quietly, careful not to disturb Tara, before turning off the lights and lying down next to her. Willow wraps herself around Tara, one arm around her waist, chin on her shoulder. She breathes in Tara’s scent and sighs, content.
They won’t be cold, they never are.
~*~*~
December 22, 2004
Song: The Shins - Kissing the lipless
It’s always a game, and she is damned good at it. She always greets them with a smile, the college boys in their cars. They buy her dinner and she laughs at their jokes and touches their arm and later they make out in the car. Sometimes they go to the dorm where they have sex next to an unread copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets lying on top of the nighttable.
It’s never a big deal, and when they drop her off at home, she kisses them goodbye.
It’s how the game is played, and Cordelia could never be a loser.
~*~*~
December 23, 2004
Song: Ben Folds - Philosophy
Buffy doesn’t want Faith. It’s never about what Buffy wants anyway, and the few times she does get what she wants, things never turn out well.
So Buffy ignores Faith; she doesn’t listen to her comments about the way she feels after slaying, she doesn’t look at her when she’s all flushed and sweaty and hot, and she doesn’t kiss her back.
But Faith wants and takes and has, and kisses her again, and so everything’s right even though it’s wrong, and so every day, every night, with every kiss and every touch Buffy shows Faith she doesn’t want her.
~*~*~
December 24, 2004
Song: Dar Williams - The Christians and the Pagans
They’re walking hand in hand, each holding a bag with gifts. They’re on their way to the Summers’ house and Willow’s bouncing along the way. Tara bounces with her; today they don’t have to help Buffy save the world. She called earlier to tell them to bring cookies and something for the gravy, so they stopped at the supermarket before dinner.
The sun is shining and it’s warm; they’re both glowing. Willow waits with ringing the bell for a moment. “Mistletoe,” she says and leans over to kiss Tara; when Dawn opens the door they both grin innocently. “Happy Holidays.”
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