From: badbard <tiger_by_night@xxxxxxxxx>
7
Sometimes it gets unbearable, being in love with my
best friend. I touch her and she thinks nothing of
it. I drown in her eyes, gasping for air as she
smiles guilessly and looks away. Into the eyes of
the
Angel.
Sometimes I pray the demons will be sucked into hell
where they belong. Sometimes my prayers come true.
But the fallen angels tumble back to earth and the
gods gleefully claw off their faces and I see the
truth. They are demons one and all. They want my
soul to torture and my body for their temple. They
want to possess me.
"The Slayer is for me," hissed Dionyssus, twisting
my
tongue to form his words, to work his wicked will.
My
left hand shot out, grabbing Buffy's shoulder,
gouging
my fingerprints into her flesh. Yanked her close to
me, so we stood chest to heaving chest, choking on
our
terror.
"Oh God," gasped Buffy, closing her eyes so she
wouldn't have to study the ancient evil in mine.
"Yessssss," chortled Dionyssus, "I am here, sweet
maiden." Tiny Willow sobbed for Buffy to save her.
To save herself. "Strange," rumbled the wine god,
raising my left hand to rake gnarled claws down
Buffy's wan face. "So much power. So very easy to
break you and take it all away." Buffy shook as hot
tears slid down her cold cheeks. Where was the
Slayer? What had Giles done? What was I supposed
to
do? Crash the housewarming party the lost gods were
throwing in my body?!
Buffy shifted against me. Dionyssus groaned
throatily. Buffy took a breath. Buffy jerked up
her
knee and stomped her heel down. Hard. Dionyssus
let
go. Dionyssus roared his indignation to the
neighbourhood.
"Shut the hell up!" screamed the old lady next door.
"Put the mongrel out of its misery!" yelled the guy
from across the street.
My bedroom door burst open with a bang.
"Willow, what in the world?" groused my mother,
looking extremely put out. Oh goody. My parents
had
come home.
I whirled around, power flaring from my fingertips,
hair wisping along the ceiling.
"Jesus Christ!" Mom yelped. She scrambled
backwards,
bumping into my father as he topped the stairs.
"Please, Honey, we're Jewish," he reminded her
mildly,
before shoving her aside in order to give me a good
talking to.
"Honey?!" Mom screeched as she tumbled downstairs,
"We're Jewish for Christ's sake! I knew we never
should've moved to America. Or Sunnydale.
Especially
Sunnydale."
"Look, Willow, Honey," began Dad, before he actually
got a good look at me. He blinked. At length he
mumbled, "you do something different with your
hair?"
"Die, foolish mortal," boomed Dionyssus, advancing
with my left hand outstretched, skittering iced blue
arcs. Dad cleaned his glasses. Buffy had the
presence of mind to grab his arm and herd him to
safety. I caught snatches of her explanation as she
guided him downstairs.
"Sleepover...bad breakup...stuck tongue into
electric
socket...no that wasn't a roar...she's getting a
cough...will turn loud music down...better the devil
you know in the daughter you don't...have you tried
the new restaurant outta town...no we don't have any
restaurants in city limits....don't have
anything....Sunnydale...crappy...really sucks..."
My right hand rose, pulsating with green light. I
watched in fascination as the hand of the huntress
closed over the wine god's withered appendage,
bathing
it with holy light, delivering devine retribution.
"I hate my family," grated Dionyssus, digging his
claws into the meaty flesh of my right palm.
Artemis
screamed but held on.
"No male, god or mortal dares do harm to my chosen,"
she insisted, voice raspy with effort. "There is a
heavy price to pay. The hunter becomes the hunted."
I blinked. My left hand had just been turned into a
rabbit's paw. I blinked again. Buffy bounded back
into my room, slamming the door behind her.
It was her turn to blink. "Not seeing the bright
side," she muttered as she approached me cautiously.
"What have you done to me, woods witch?" screeched
Dionyssus, shaking his cute and cudly paw in
outraged
humiliation.
"She's got you hopping mad," observed Buffy less
than
helpfully.
"Die!" roared Dionyssus, shaking his fuzzy white paw
in Buffy's smirking face. This time she didn't
freeze
up. This time she grabbed Faith's dagger and moved
in
for the amputation.
"I've been lookin' for a lucky charm," she grinned
as
Dionyssus began twisting my head about, searching
frantically for an exit. "I'd love to see your paw
dangling from my rearview mirror. It'll remind me
of
my bad hare days!" Dionyssus' paw went to cover my
mouth in abject terror. "Got your foot in your
mouth?" snarled the Slayer, moonlight ghosting off
her
blond hair, lighting her pale eyes with the fury
that
heats in cold fear's wake. "Allow me to shut you
up,
permanently."
The voices in my head gibbered with horror. There
are
no advantages to being an immortal stuck in a dying
mortal's body. Death is incomprehensible to those
who
live forever. The gods have no heaven or hell, no
afterlife, no faith in their own paltry inventions.
I
didn't know what would happen to them if Buffy
started
carving but I could feel their confusion, their
roiling attempts at resistance. Power bubbled up
through my veins again, melding shields about my
trembling body, convalescing into swords and spears
which broke into glittering blue shards as
unpracticed
ancients lost focus.
Buffy ignored the light show. Clenching her knife,
she stalked a circle around my shivering staticy
form,
looking for her opening. I saw her clench her teeth
and curve her upper lip, I saw her stop thinking and
surrender to instinct. She could no longer remember
being the Slayer but she was the Slayer regardless.
I
was terrified of her. This wasn't the old Buffy, or
even the shade I'd glimpsed under my covers. I'd
met
this Buffy before, back when Buffy d...died and I
hadn't known how to tell her what that had done to
me.
I've never let on about the endless summer nights
I'd
lain awake, trying to bury the horrible knowing.
Buffy had died. Buffy had died and she was in L.A.
and I had no way of checking that she was okay.
When Buffy came back she was...well, she wasn't
okay.
She was bad in a mean to Cordy way, not bad in the
good, Buffy you're so sexy in that leather corset
way