To Dance
Title: To Dance
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing/Characters: Buffy/Spike, Hank, Willow, Xander
Author: knittedshadow
Rating: PG-13
Words: 350
Description: She’s five and on ice for the first time. Tiny feet in tiny skates, a bundle of overcoat and mittens. She pushes herself round and round the empty lake as her father watches from the bank.
Challenge: Written for word_pictures, screencap #3
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and ME just won't hand over the BtVS cast to me however many times I offer them money. Or sweet chocolately goodness.
To Dance
She’s five and on ice for the first time. Tiny feet in tiny skates, a bundle of overcoat and mittens. She pushes herself round and round the empty lake as her father watches from the bank. Night has fallen and moonlight dapples the frozen surface. When she falls for the first time she does not get back up but lies on her back, gazing at the stars, her arms outstretched to the sky. Her father hurries to her side, fearful of broken bones or chilled limbs but when he asks her what she’s doing, she just whispers,
“I’m dancing”.
She is older, moving against another body, two faces strange and half dipped in shadow. Lit in a way that makes them almost unrecognisable. It’s this freedom, this feeling of being utterly unknown that lets her melt against him, because the body behind her, that anonymous body, can be anyone she wants.
She revels in the warmth pressing through her, heat that she concentrates on so fiercely that she forgets her hands ever skimmed over muscle that was pale and cold. Want, that darkens his eyes and pushes away the old cliché of, “I wasn’t enough”. And need, that presses up against her and clutches soft hands to sharp hips.
Something darker than attraction is passing between them and she wonders whether she’s the only one that feels that tug of desperate longing. She closes her eyes. The stars she wished to dance with so long ago have faded now and the darkness they leave behind is suffocating. On the shadowed dance-floor she can forget those stars ever shone and convince herself that life was meant to be like this.
But Willow pulls her out of the dark when the song finishes, angry and hurt and hisses “What are you doing?” And for a moment, caught in the light Buffy’s face is bare, loss and emotion in every feature but it flickers out as quickly as it came and when she meets Willow’s gaze her eyes are unreadable. She whispers “I’m dancing”.
And it’s all she’s ever done.
ETA: This just won an award over at word_pictures so yay! here it is:
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing/Characters: Buffy/Spike, Hank, Willow, Xander
Author: knittedshadow
Rating: PG-13
Words: 350
Description: She’s five and on ice for the first time. Tiny feet in tiny skates, a bundle of overcoat and mittens. She pushes herself round and round the empty lake as her father watches from the bank.
Challenge: Written for word_pictures, screencap #3
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and ME just won't hand over the BtVS cast to me however many times I offer them money. Or sweet chocolately goodness.
To Dance
She’s five and on ice for the first time. Tiny feet in tiny skates, a bundle of overcoat and mittens. She pushes herself round and round the empty lake as her father watches from the bank. Night has fallen and moonlight dapples the frozen surface. When she falls for the first time she does not get back up but lies on her back, gazing at the stars, her arms outstretched to the sky. Her father hurries to her side, fearful of broken bones or chilled limbs but when he asks her what she’s doing, she just whispers,
“I’m dancing”.
She is older, moving against another body, two faces strange and half dipped in shadow. Lit in a way that makes them almost unrecognisable. It’s this freedom, this feeling of being utterly unknown that lets her melt against him, because the body behind her, that anonymous body, can be anyone she wants.
She revels in the warmth pressing through her, heat that she concentrates on so fiercely that she forgets her hands ever skimmed over muscle that was pale and cold. Want, that darkens his eyes and pushes away the old cliché of, “I wasn’t enough”. And need, that presses up against her and clutches soft hands to sharp hips.
Something darker than attraction is passing between them and she wonders whether she’s the only one that feels that tug of desperate longing. She closes her eyes. The stars she wished to dance with so long ago have faded now and the darkness they leave behind is suffocating. On the shadowed dance-floor she can forget those stars ever shone and convince herself that life was meant to be like this.
But Willow pulls her out of the dark when the song finishes, angry and hurt and hisses “What are you doing?” And for a moment, caught in the light Buffy’s face is bare, loss and emotion in every feature but it flickers out as quickly as it came and when she meets Willow’s gaze her eyes are unreadable. She whispers “I’m dancing”.
And it’s all she’s ever done.
ETA: This just won an award over at word_pictures so yay! here it is: