Fic: Which Today Is (1/1)
Title: Which Today Is
Author: Georgiana C. Cupcakes (cidercupcakes)
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supernatural
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mild language.
Words: 2787
Notes: Buffy Summers/John Winchester. Post-"Chosen" for BtVS, mostly pre-series for SPN (with a bit of pre-series for BtVS as well...look, it's a time travel story, okay?).
Disclaimer: Kripke, Whedon, etc.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Buffy asked, at the same time John did. She didn't know whether they ought to smile at each other or glare at each other, and neither did he, apparently; they only looked at each other.
Missouri wasn't insulted at all. She smiled, that was it -- she just smiled. "You see," she said, and chuckled as she gathered up their tea.
Neither of them did. Buffy had a sinking feeling they would, though. She wondered if he did too.
Sammy was easiest to deal with, his needs most basic. Food, sleep, diaper change, cuddle.
"He just wants someone to hug him," Dean said one night, when Sam wouldn't stop fidgeting on the bed, and making fussy little noises. Their Dad was on edge and that put Buffy on edge, too, because among other things she was still totally aware that she was the trespasser here, in their space and their time. Their spacetime, for that matter. There was already a Buffy here, after all, a two-year-old one whose family wasn't in pieces but in its prime, if the Summers family ever had a prime, which didn't seem likely, but anything was possible. She was an extra. Superfluous -- which, even though it had 'super' in it, wasn't a good thing to be, not when you were talking about your entire freaking existence.
Dean had been darting around all evening, the truck and then the hotel and then the room, eyes big and having to be yelled at when he got into bags of weapons or opened the door or ran the water for too long or any number of other kiddie-sized sins. He was sitting up now.
"Go to sleep, Dean," John said from the doorway. Dean looked at him for a little longer and then slid back under the covers. Buffy picked Sam up, when John didn't move, and sat next to Dean on the bed, because it was the furthest from the door. She tried to remember holding Dawn like this. Her arms had been a lot smaller then, and God knew how many worlds weaker, but that smell of Baby, the Baby Smell. That was -- it made her heart hurt, made it ache and ache with things her brain couldn't put together.
Sammy settled down as she cuddled him, and Dean's eyes were slightly open. He must've thought she couldn't tell, that he was sneaking a glance. She gave him a smile, a secret one, and he, finally, returned it.
She fell asleep there, instead of in her bed. Sammy woke her up; he had squirmed down out of her arms and was blowing raspberries on her stomach. He was very pleased with himself, and woke up ungodly early, which Dean did too. She had totally forgotten how early you woke up when you were little. The trip had reminded her. Not awesome.
There was a pleasantness about her, gently sloshing around in her brain and her chest, even having to wake up early. It dried up as she woke, though, and that didn't take long. There was only the feeling of wrongness left, the feeling of being a little out of sync. She handed Sammy to John, but Sam wasn't having it and began to whine about it, and John handed him back. She must've looked as bewildered as she felt. She had to. Her eyes felt big, anyway. John was smiling.
"Hey, Dean," he said, as she hunted for a diaper -- that must've been what the smile was about, and she reminded herself to punch him extra-hard when they practiced this evening -- "you want waffles, buddy?"
"Yeah!" In daylight, this whole routine got easier. That didn't vary, apparently. No matter what you did, where you were, the whole being happy thing was easier when you had sunshine and morning. To say nothing of the promise of waffles.
"Okay." John knelt down to hold the squirming Sam steady while she changed him. "We'll go for waffles after Buffy showers."
"Oh, whatever, you're way ranker than I am." She didn't know if this was the path to take. The verbal path. It seemed like he was in a good mood, for some reason, God only knew why with guys. God, he was such a Guy. The kids were gonna be total moody Guys too, she could tell. How could they not, with him as an example. Guys. But it was sunny, and he was smiling at her as she handed him the dirty diaper. "I mean, it can't be good for the kids, that smell you give off. Thank the Polka-Dotted Lord the windows come down in the truck; they need some ventilation."
He laughed, and picked Sammy up. Dean had pulled the curtains open. At least sunrise had passed, so it wasn't that early. She turned away from the sun, and took one of the towels, and closed the bathroom door behind her.
There was only one bed at the dump in Texas. They were too tired and sore to complain. John was spreading the extra blanket on the floor when she sat down on the bed.
"Don't be a dumbass," Buffy said. They slept with the kids between them.
Sammy woke Dean up the next morning, and Dean woke them up reading Sammy "Sam Who Never Forgets".
It would've been a good time for an Awkward Moment, probably, but she was still too sore and tired to have one, and that meant John definitely had to be, so they just looked at each other and dragged themselves up out of bed, with identical -- she guessed, that tired one looked about like hers felt -- smiles changing faces over the kids' heads.
He let her have the shower first, and shaved while she was standing under the spray and being aware of how much she ached.
"I'll pay for breakfast," she said.
"You don't have any money," he said. His voice didn't sound far away, but it didn't sound close either, on the other side of the bathroom and with the water running. She did, it just wasn't eighties money. And everyone thought her credit cards were fakes, seeing as they didn't expire until 2009. So he was kind of right.
"I pawned a couple of things." Some jewelry. It hadn't been worth much to start with, and places like that always tried to rob you anyway, but she'd done some strategic lifting of very heavy things and she'd got a little more than she might've. She opened the curtain just far enough to look at him. He had just washed his face, and blinked at her over his towel. "Look," she said, "just let me, okay? Don't be a dumbass." Apparently that was the theme of the night.
"Okay," he said, and smiled. He hung up the towel, and she didn't close the curtain just yet, and they looked at each other for a second. It must've been that Awkward Moment.
It wasn't really all that awkward, though, or else it was awkward in a different way that she expected it to be, with the steam clotting about them and Sam squealing about something and Dean shrieking back out on the bed. In the end, he cleared his throat, and she cleared hers, and the curtain was too thick for her to make out anything once she closed it, but the rush of cool air told her he'd left.
He paid for the pancakes while she was in the bathroom.
"I'm gonna kick your ass," she said, as she was unstrapping Sam from his baby seat.
"You always do."
"Yeah," Buffy said, "but this time I'm gonna hold back even less." He was getting better at this, though, so that was something she'd started doin ganyway. He'd been a pretty good fighter to begin with, but she'd managed to make him better.
If you ended up here, Buffy, it's got something to do with him, so you'd better start teaching him. She's the best there is, John, I can tell that much.
She had stopped wondering how much longer it would be. She hadn't thought of that first day with Missouri in almost three days. Buffy wondered if that was bad.
They ended up in California, because Buffy had a dream, and that seemed as good a place to go as any, for all that John muttered about Slayers and stared when she mentioned that oh, yeah, she had these future-tellingy dreams too.
She took the kids for a walk in a park one day, while John was talking to people. The sunshine wound about them -- California sunshine was different, she didn't care what anyone said, the Texas sun and the Ohio sun and the Vegas sun were all different, but she knew the California sun best.
The routine had become, you know, routine; maybe that was why it happened. Maybe she needed a reminder. Maybe she needed to play the conversation over more often. Honey, I don't know when you're going to get home, but I know you two have to stick together -- you can teach him; best I can figure it that's why you're here -- don't you roll your eyes at me, John Winchester, this girl's seen more than you have in a fraction of your time. If you don't listen to her it's going to get a whole lot worse, I know that -- she thought of it again after their picnic.
There was a woman and a man with a baby, a toddler, a little blonde-haired kid who wouldn't stop grabbing things. "Oh my god," she said, when the man swooped her up after another escape attempt.
"What?" Dean was looking where she was looking, and eyeing the woman's baby, the woman's toddler. "Do you know her?"
"Buffy!" Mom yelled, and Buffy almost yelled What? back, except she remembered just in time that she must be yelling at the baby, who was making another break for it.
"They are precious," Mom said, because their paths crossed on the way out.
"Thanks," Buffy said, and was surprised at how easily she smiled over Sammy's head while she strapped him into his stroller. She thought about saying "Yours, too," but it seemed tacky.
Buffy didn't remember this day at all.
She didn't remember much from that age, though. That was probably normal.
That night, after Dean and Sam were asleep, she pulled John outside. "They're not my kids." There should have been an exclamation point at the end of that; she wanted to shout it, she wanted to make sure it wasn't true, make sure it couldn't be true, make sure there was something for sure here.
The kids were asleep on the other side of the window, though. They took forever to fall asleep again. She didn't yell. She said it again, or started to say something like it. "They're not my -- "
"They're mine." John didn't turn away, just kept hanging onto the railing, staring out at the parking lot like it was some kind of impressive vista. Which it wasn't.
"Yeah," Buffy said. "They're yours. Kids aren't what I do, okay? I don't do families, I wreck families, there's gods and secretaries and green things. And cancer. I do demons, okay, I do vampires and monsters, I stay with the monsters. I'm not baby-sitting anymore."
John's hands tightened on the thin metal railing. The paint was gritty, flaking off. "Yeah," he said. "Fine."
It all ceased quickly, in the end; they were in the desert one day and she squeezed his hand before going for a walk.
There was a door. She walked through it, into the Cleveland HQ. That was that.
She was investigating a nest in God Knew Where, Ohio, when she became aware that someone else was there. She could see in the dark, but they were human -- she heard a heartbeat in the noise of the night (Jeez, it was noisy at nighttime out here in Butt-Ass Nowhere), slowly fading in from all the ruckus -- and wouldn't be able to. "Look," she said, "whoever you are, if you're hurt, I'm here to help. I promise."
"Buffy?" A light came on. An actual light, not a metaphorical brain one. A battery-powered camping lantern. They stared at each other, and she smiled and waved.
"You're," he began, and laughed instead. Even in her line of work, time travel was pushing it, so she couldn't really blame him. That was sci-fi, not horror or fantasy, which was more up their alley. The whole blending of genres thing strained credibility in ways that demons didn't, if you were used to demons, anyway, which she was, and so was he, for that matter.
"Yeah," she said, and shrugged.
"You're the same," he said. "Jesus."
"And you...would be even more clearly having a midlife crisis if you were seen with me than before."
He laughed again. The lantern got put on the table. He took her face in his hands, and looked at her. "I know who you are now," he said.
She didn't know what he meant by that. "Oh."
"You're the best there is."
"Oh." She laughed. He let go, hands falling away into the darkness of the space that surrounded them, but she didn't move away just yet. "Well, you know. That's what they say, but mostly I've just managed to live longer. I mean, really, that's just math, you know?"
"It's something."
She sat on the table, and managed to smile at him in spite of herself. Maybe it was just how ridiculous this whole thing was, maybe that was why she didn't feel as serious about it as she might have.
"So are we gonna have to have a peeing contest, or something, to see who gets this? I mean, you know, maybe you wanna show off for your time-traveling trophy girlfriend, right?"
He laughed outright at that, and sat next to her on the table, putting his bag down. He didn't take his hand off of it, though. He was cautious-er. He'd lost more, probably. He was almost as wanted as she was, according to Will's FBI-computer tomfoolery. He hadn't taken out an entire town, though, so she was still pretty much at the top of the list as far as destruction of property went.
She wondered -- she couldn't help it -- who had more collateral damage. Whose body count was higher.
"You fly solo," he said.
"Less so, now." She was getting better at the teamwork thing. The new girl, Satsu, was really good, good enough that they'd run missions together. "You do, though."
"It's the way I learned."
Buffy felt like she should apologize for that. She knew that's probably not what he'd meant, not what he wanted. She looked at her sneakers. "I'm sorry," she said.
He laughed again. It was quieter this time. There was a touch on her back, a hand, but it didn't stray any further. It didn't touch heavily in the first place, just alighting there, on the bumps of her spine. She didn't wear armor. Xander was always after her about that. Everyone else wore armor, why didn't she, she was setting a bad example, you're no kid anymore yourself, Buff. She wasn't, by Slayer standards, either. Not by Hunter standards, but the two were miles and miles and possibly continents away from being the same thing, not least because one of them had the choice.
"You got nothing you owe me," he said at last.
She laid her head on his shoulder. He moved his hand, down and further, until his arm was around her waist. His chin rested on her head -- the stubble scratched, even through her hair. She wasn't used to guys with stubble, so she noticed this detail the way she might not have any others. She noticed the others anyway, 'cuz, superhuman senses, but the stubble was what stuck in her mind.
It was getting late. When he gave a soft sigh, when there was some arbitrary change, she used that, and slid off the table, picking up her sword.
"I'll let you have this one," she said, slipping it back into the sheath and hoisting it over her shoulder.
John grinned, his hand lingering on her face. "You sure?"
"Don't be a dumbass," she said. She thought about asking him if he wanted to come to Scotland. She knew he wouldn't, though.
"Not making any promises."
That was the only time they kissed, that and the one time after, before they both went their separate ways, the darkness congealing about them.
Buffy didn't look back. She didn't know if he did, but she doubted it.
When she saw headlights through the fog, though, she waved.
Author: Georgiana C. Cupcakes (cidercupcakes)
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supernatural
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mild language.
Words: 2787
Notes: Buffy Summers/John Winchester. Post-"Chosen" for BtVS, mostly pre-series for SPN (with a bit of pre-series for BtVS as well...look, it's a time travel story, okay?).
Disclaimer: Kripke, Whedon, etc.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Buffy asked, at the same time John did. She didn't know whether they ought to smile at each other or glare at each other, and neither did he, apparently; they only looked at each other.
Missouri wasn't insulted at all. She smiled, that was it -- she just smiled. "You see," she said, and chuckled as she gathered up their tea.
Neither of them did. Buffy had a sinking feeling they would, though. She wondered if he did too.
Sammy was easiest to deal with, his needs most basic. Food, sleep, diaper change, cuddle.
"He just wants someone to hug him," Dean said one night, when Sam wouldn't stop fidgeting on the bed, and making fussy little noises. Their Dad was on edge and that put Buffy on edge, too, because among other things she was still totally aware that she was the trespasser here, in their space and their time. Their spacetime, for that matter. There was already a Buffy here, after all, a two-year-old one whose family wasn't in pieces but in its prime, if the Summers family ever had a prime, which didn't seem likely, but anything was possible. She was an extra. Superfluous -- which, even though it had 'super' in it, wasn't a good thing to be, not when you were talking about your entire freaking existence.
Dean had been darting around all evening, the truck and then the hotel and then the room, eyes big and having to be yelled at when he got into bags of weapons or opened the door or ran the water for too long or any number of other kiddie-sized sins. He was sitting up now.
"Go to sleep, Dean," John said from the doorway. Dean looked at him for a little longer and then slid back under the covers. Buffy picked Sam up, when John didn't move, and sat next to Dean on the bed, because it was the furthest from the door. She tried to remember holding Dawn like this. Her arms had been a lot smaller then, and God knew how many worlds weaker, but that smell of Baby, the Baby Smell. That was -- it made her heart hurt, made it ache and ache with things her brain couldn't put together.
Sammy settled down as she cuddled him, and Dean's eyes were slightly open. He must've thought she couldn't tell, that he was sneaking a glance. She gave him a smile, a secret one, and he, finally, returned it.
She fell asleep there, instead of in her bed. Sammy woke her up; he had squirmed down out of her arms and was blowing raspberries on her stomach. He was very pleased with himself, and woke up ungodly early, which Dean did too. She had totally forgotten how early you woke up when you were little. The trip had reminded her. Not awesome.
There was a pleasantness about her, gently sloshing around in her brain and her chest, even having to wake up early. It dried up as she woke, though, and that didn't take long. There was only the feeling of wrongness left, the feeling of being a little out of sync. She handed Sammy to John, but Sam wasn't having it and began to whine about it, and John handed him back. She must've looked as bewildered as she felt. She had to. Her eyes felt big, anyway. John was smiling.
"Hey, Dean," he said, as she hunted for a diaper -- that must've been what the smile was about, and she reminded herself to punch him extra-hard when they practiced this evening -- "you want waffles, buddy?"
"Yeah!" In daylight, this whole routine got easier. That didn't vary, apparently. No matter what you did, where you were, the whole being happy thing was easier when you had sunshine and morning. To say nothing of the promise of waffles.
"Okay." John knelt down to hold the squirming Sam steady while she changed him. "We'll go for waffles after Buffy showers."
"Oh, whatever, you're way ranker than I am." She didn't know if this was the path to take. The verbal path. It seemed like he was in a good mood, for some reason, God only knew why with guys. God, he was such a Guy. The kids were gonna be total moody Guys too, she could tell. How could they not, with him as an example. Guys. But it was sunny, and he was smiling at her as she handed him the dirty diaper. "I mean, it can't be good for the kids, that smell you give off. Thank the Polka-Dotted Lord the windows come down in the truck; they need some ventilation."
He laughed, and picked Sammy up. Dean had pulled the curtains open. At least sunrise had passed, so it wasn't that early. She turned away from the sun, and took one of the towels, and closed the bathroom door behind her.
There was only one bed at the dump in Texas. They were too tired and sore to complain. John was spreading the extra blanket on the floor when she sat down on the bed.
"Don't be a dumbass," Buffy said. They slept with the kids between them.
Sammy woke Dean up the next morning, and Dean woke them up reading Sammy "Sam Who Never Forgets".
It would've been a good time for an Awkward Moment, probably, but she was still too sore and tired to have one, and that meant John definitely had to be, so they just looked at each other and dragged themselves up out of bed, with identical -- she guessed, that tired one looked about like hers felt -- smiles changing faces over the kids' heads.
He let her have the shower first, and shaved while she was standing under the spray and being aware of how much she ached.
"I'll pay for breakfast," she said.
"You don't have any money," he said. His voice didn't sound far away, but it didn't sound close either, on the other side of the bathroom and with the water running. She did, it just wasn't eighties money. And everyone thought her credit cards were fakes, seeing as they didn't expire until 2009. So he was kind of right.
"I pawned a couple of things." Some jewelry. It hadn't been worth much to start with, and places like that always tried to rob you anyway, but she'd done some strategic lifting of very heavy things and she'd got a little more than she might've. She opened the curtain just far enough to look at him. He had just washed his face, and blinked at her over his towel. "Look," she said, "just let me, okay? Don't be a dumbass." Apparently that was the theme of the night.
"Okay," he said, and smiled. He hung up the towel, and she didn't close the curtain just yet, and they looked at each other for a second. It must've been that Awkward Moment.
It wasn't really all that awkward, though, or else it was awkward in a different way that she expected it to be, with the steam clotting about them and Sam squealing about something and Dean shrieking back out on the bed. In the end, he cleared his throat, and she cleared hers, and the curtain was too thick for her to make out anything once she closed it, but the rush of cool air told her he'd left.
He paid for the pancakes while she was in the bathroom.
"I'm gonna kick your ass," she said, as she was unstrapping Sam from his baby seat.
"You always do."
"Yeah," Buffy said, "but this time I'm gonna hold back even less." He was getting better at this, though, so that was something she'd started doin ganyway. He'd been a pretty good fighter to begin with, but she'd managed to make him better.
If you ended up here, Buffy, it's got something to do with him, so you'd better start teaching him. She's the best there is, John, I can tell that much.
She had stopped wondering how much longer it would be. She hadn't thought of that first day with Missouri in almost three days. Buffy wondered if that was bad.
They ended up in California, because Buffy had a dream, and that seemed as good a place to go as any, for all that John muttered about Slayers and stared when she mentioned that oh, yeah, she had these future-tellingy dreams too.
She took the kids for a walk in a park one day, while John was talking to people. The sunshine wound about them -- California sunshine was different, she didn't care what anyone said, the Texas sun and the Ohio sun and the Vegas sun were all different, but she knew the California sun best.
The routine had become, you know, routine; maybe that was why it happened. Maybe she needed a reminder. Maybe she needed to play the conversation over more often. Honey, I don't know when you're going to get home, but I know you two have to stick together -- you can teach him; best I can figure it that's why you're here -- don't you roll your eyes at me, John Winchester, this girl's seen more than you have in a fraction of your time. If you don't listen to her it's going to get a whole lot worse, I know that -- she thought of it again after their picnic.
There was a woman and a man with a baby, a toddler, a little blonde-haired kid who wouldn't stop grabbing things. "Oh my god," she said, when the man swooped her up after another escape attempt.
"What?" Dean was looking where she was looking, and eyeing the woman's baby, the woman's toddler. "Do you know her?"
"Buffy!" Mom yelled, and Buffy almost yelled What? back, except she remembered just in time that she must be yelling at the baby, who was making another break for it.
"They are precious," Mom said, because their paths crossed on the way out.
"Thanks," Buffy said, and was surprised at how easily she smiled over Sammy's head while she strapped him into his stroller. She thought about saying "Yours, too," but it seemed tacky.
Buffy didn't remember this day at all.
She didn't remember much from that age, though. That was probably normal.
That night, after Dean and Sam were asleep, she pulled John outside. "They're not my kids." There should have been an exclamation point at the end of that; she wanted to shout it, she wanted to make sure it wasn't true, make sure it couldn't be true, make sure there was something for sure here.
The kids were asleep on the other side of the window, though. They took forever to fall asleep again. She didn't yell. She said it again, or started to say something like it. "They're not my -- "
"They're mine." John didn't turn away, just kept hanging onto the railing, staring out at the parking lot like it was some kind of impressive vista. Which it wasn't.
"Yeah," Buffy said. "They're yours. Kids aren't what I do, okay? I don't do families, I wreck families, there's gods and secretaries and green things. And cancer. I do demons, okay, I do vampires and monsters, I stay with the monsters. I'm not baby-sitting anymore."
John's hands tightened on the thin metal railing. The paint was gritty, flaking off. "Yeah," he said. "Fine."
It all ceased quickly, in the end; they were in the desert one day and she squeezed his hand before going for a walk.
There was a door. She walked through it, into the Cleveland HQ. That was that.
She was investigating a nest in God Knew Where, Ohio, when she became aware that someone else was there. She could see in the dark, but they were human -- she heard a heartbeat in the noise of the night (Jeez, it was noisy at nighttime out here in Butt-Ass Nowhere), slowly fading in from all the ruckus -- and wouldn't be able to. "Look," she said, "whoever you are, if you're hurt, I'm here to help. I promise."
"Buffy?" A light came on. An actual light, not a metaphorical brain one. A battery-powered camping lantern. They stared at each other, and she smiled and waved.
"You're," he began, and laughed instead. Even in her line of work, time travel was pushing it, so she couldn't really blame him. That was sci-fi, not horror or fantasy, which was more up their alley. The whole blending of genres thing strained credibility in ways that demons didn't, if you were used to demons, anyway, which she was, and so was he, for that matter.
"Yeah," she said, and shrugged.
"You're the same," he said. "Jesus."
"And you...would be even more clearly having a midlife crisis if you were seen with me than before."
He laughed again. The lantern got put on the table. He took her face in his hands, and looked at her. "I know who you are now," he said.
She didn't know what he meant by that. "Oh."
"You're the best there is."
"Oh." She laughed. He let go, hands falling away into the darkness of the space that surrounded them, but she didn't move away just yet. "Well, you know. That's what they say, but mostly I've just managed to live longer. I mean, really, that's just math, you know?"
"It's something."
She sat on the table, and managed to smile at him in spite of herself. Maybe it was just how ridiculous this whole thing was, maybe that was why she didn't feel as serious about it as she might have.
"So are we gonna have to have a peeing contest, or something, to see who gets this? I mean, you know, maybe you wanna show off for your time-traveling trophy girlfriend, right?"
He laughed outright at that, and sat next to her on the table, putting his bag down. He didn't take his hand off of it, though. He was cautious-er. He'd lost more, probably. He was almost as wanted as she was, according to Will's FBI-computer tomfoolery. He hadn't taken out an entire town, though, so she was still pretty much at the top of the list as far as destruction of property went.
She wondered -- she couldn't help it -- who had more collateral damage. Whose body count was higher.
"You fly solo," he said.
"Less so, now." She was getting better at the teamwork thing. The new girl, Satsu, was really good, good enough that they'd run missions together. "You do, though."
"It's the way I learned."
Buffy felt like she should apologize for that. She knew that's probably not what he'd meant, not what he wanted. She looked at her sneakers. "I'm sorry," she said.
He laughed again. It was quieter this time. There was a touch on her back, a hand, but it didn't stray any further. It didn't touch heavily in the first place, just alighting there, on the bumps of her spine. She didn't wear armor. Xander was always after her about that. Everyone else wore armor, why didn't she, she was setting a bad example, you're no kid anymore yourself, Buff. She wasn't, by Slayer standards, either. Not by Hunter standards, but the two were miles and miles and possibly continents away from being the same thing, not least because one of them had the choice.
"You got nothing you owe me," he said at last.
She laid her head on his shoulder. He moved his hand, down and further, until his arm was around her waist. His chin rested on her head -- the stubble scratched, even through her hair. She wasn't used to guys with stubble, so she noticed this detail the way she might not have any others. She noticed the others anyway, 'cuz, superhuman senses, but the stubble was what stuck in her mind.
It was getting late. When he gave a soft sigh, when there was some arbitrary change, she used that, and slid off the table, picking up her sword.
"I'll let you have this one," she said, slipping it back into the sheath and hoisting it over her shoulder.
John grinned, his hand lingering on her face. "You sure?"
"Don't be a dumbass," she said. She thought about asking him if he wanted to come to Scotland. She knew he wouldn't, though.
"Not making any promises."
That was the only time they kissed, that and the one time after, before they both went their separate ways, the darkness congealing about them.
Buffy didn't look back. She didn't know if he did, but she doubted it.
When she saw headlights through the fog, though, she waved.