Disclaimer: They're not mine, and this one isn't anyone's.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Every night, while Willow and Giles hunt for a cure,
Buffy hunts
for a way out. And she always finds one.
Ratings Note: Um, PG?
For Te, because it never ceases to amaze me when we have the same kinks.
*
At first they locked her door, stood in her way, tried
to tempt her with
food or the scent of their bodies. But she was stronger than they and
she
knew what she wanted. Lately they don't try so hard to stop her or
to make
her hold the sharp wood. She prefers to work with her hands.
Her boy
watched her do it, leaping on a cold thing's back, an arm around its
still
throat and the other hand seizing its jaw, tearing its head off, riding
the
dust to the ground. She showed him over and over. Finally
he went back to
the others and mouthed at them, and now she comes and goes as she likes.
The boy follows her most nights, but she keeps him safe. It's easy
now.
She knows without words that she's more powerful than she's ever been.
She comes home before dawn, satisfied and hungry. There is always
something to eat made ready, fresh cool water, a clean place to sleep.
In
the daylight hours she allows them to mouth their familiar sounds at
her,
offer her more food; she lets the girl stroke her hair and lean on
her
shoulder when they sit to watch the little people in the box. From
time to
time her people try to magic her. She can taste it on the air,
their
nervousness and hope, long before they approach her, before she smells
the
books, the seeds and leaves, old bones and fermentation. It used
to make
her afraid, but not any more. Each time, the thing they want doesn't
happen. Their sadness pulls at her, but not their spells.
They don't understand. (The boy backing away from her when she steps
toward
him meaningly, wanting her but not taking.) Sometimes they look
at her as
if she were injured or sick. (The old one's face, his indrawn breath,
the
night he tracked her to where she'd found boys who didn't back away.)
They
want her to be different.
But she sees her people alive and whole. She has hunted the cold
things
and the monsters almost out of existence. They are troubled about her,
but
about nothing else.
She's happy. She can wait. Eventually they'll get used to it.
*