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Jun. 29th, 2007 11:08 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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still_grrrTitle: Nachos
Author: biggrstaffbunch
Rating: G
Word Count: 815
Prompt: 020, Bring out your dead: Free for All!
Characters/Pairing (if any): Buffy
~*~
The first thing Buffy does when she gets back from Heaven is look in her closet.
She's not sure why. Maybe it's autopilot. How does one act when one is resurrected, anyway? Last time it happened, she kicked vampire butt and danced the night away in a pretty dress.
She doesn't think that'll work so well this time around, somehow.
For one thing, there's almost no pretty dresses left. Buffy's brow creases in confusion as she takes in the sheer uniformity of her closet. Turtlenecks, gauzy blouses, jackets. Jeans and black pants stacked up in a towering pile, and the latest in kick-ass footwear. But nothing utterly feminine. Dreamy, ethereal. Buffy remembers the dresses she used to wear back in high school, when she was still going with the idea that her life could be anything other than Slaying.
Slowly, as the truth set in, her wardrobe became strictly Slayage-ready. She thinks it's appropriate, then, that they buried her in a dress that stretched and moved with her limbs. Easy to move around in. Easy to kill in, as if they anticipated this happy scenario.
She looks down at the black dress, lying haphazardly on the floor. Not bad, she guesses. Standard black, very simple. She thinks it might have been her mom's, and would smell it to see if Chanel still lingers, but she knows that all she'll pick up is the scent of dirt and bones and smoke. Smells like death, and it's familiar, even though that's no comfort.
Heaven smelled like nachos. Well, she thinks it did. In reality, it probably didn't smell like anything. Buffy knows this. Or she thinks she does. She's not...she's not sure of anything concerning that place. Just that it was warm. Like eternal sunlight. And that she didn't want for anything, didn't regret anything, wasn't consumed by worldly pain any longer. That's all she knows, and it's enough.
Enough to make her really want some nachos. Gooey and cheesy and piled high so that she can keep filling the emptiness in her gut. She's thinner, inexplicably. Bonier, and darker, and when she shuts her eyes, all she can see (and feel and hear and taste) is the dark, thick, silent decay lurking in the coffin she woke up clawing her way out of. She wants to know how to be herself again. No, it's too soon for that. Her room is unfamiliar, the bed is uninviting, and the pictures make her head hurt. No, she wants to know how to go back to before.
Before she knew what Heaven was and that she had a place there. A place the people she loved took her away from, because they thought she was in Hell.
Should she have been in Hell? Is that what she deserved? Did someone make a processing mistake and send Buffy upstairs instead of down, and next time this happens (and Buffy knows by now that there'll be a next time) she's screwed? If someone gets a chance at nachos, is it their last chance at nachos? Forever?
Eternity is so long, Buffy thinks wearily, and time here moves so much slower than she thinks it's supposed to. Another lifetime to make mistakes, and it isn't fair, because she's supposed to be done. Done with all this. She earned her reward, and it was taken from her, and now she's not sure how to get back in the game. How to be a player again.
Second chances come so rarely, and the thing of it is, Buffy never wanted another. Now it's an exercise of preparation, waiting. Just waiting for the next time (and there will be a next time) to come.
She ends up stepping into an old pair of sweats and falling right to sleep. Too many thoughts in her head to stay awake, and when she dreams, she dreams of slipping under drifts of sand, until the soft white fills her nose and ears and mouth and eyes. She dreams of being taken under, consumed by infinity. The First Slayer paws at her grave, and a red rose springs up where her fingers claw at the sand.
The next morning, before going downstairs, Buffy opens the suitcase that was still unpacked from her days at UCS. Underneath all of her old-life, she unfolds the filmy, fluttery cotton dress from the enjoining spell dreams. Red flowers dot the white print, and Buffy fingers the dress thoughtfully. Thinks of the desert stretching out limitless before her, and of being given to the earth to swallow her whole.
She thinks she ought to look nice in the event that it happens.
So she irons the dress, and the fabric hangs pristine and clean from the hanger in the back of her closet.
Just in case.
--finis--
This is an excerpt from a longer fic of Buffy snapshots, Four Outfits Buffy Never Wore, And One She Did. Check it out if you so desire…
Author: biggrstaffbunch
Rating: G
Word Count: 815
Prompt: 020, Bring out your dead: Free for All!
Characters/Pairing (if any): Buffy
~*~
The first thing Buffy does when she gets back from Heaven is look in her closet.
She's not sure why. Maybe it's autopilot. How does one act when one is resurrected, anyway? Last time it happened, she kicked vampire butt and danced the night away in a pretty dress.
She doesn't think that'll work so well this time around, somehow.
For one thing, there's almost no pretty dresses left. Buffy's brow creases in confusion as she takes in the sheer uniformity of her closet. Turtlenecks, gauzy blouses, jackets. Jeans and black pants stacked up in a towering pile, and the latest in kick-ass footwear. But nothing utterly feminine. Dreamy, ethereal. Buffy remembers the dresses she used to wear back in high school, when she was still going with the idea that her life could be anything other than Slaying.
Slowly, as the truth set in, her wardrobe became strictly Slayage-ready. She thinks it's appropriate, then, that they buried her in a dress that stretched and moved with her limbs. Easy to move around in. Easy to kill in, as if they anticipated this happy scenario.
She looks down at the black dress, lying haphazardly on the floor. Not bad, she guesses. Standard black, very simple. She thinks it might have been her mom's, and would smell it to see if Chanel still lingers, but she knows that all she'll pick up is the scent of dirt and bones and smoke. Smells like death, and it's familiar, even though that's no comfort.
Heaven smelled like nachos. Well, she thinks it did. In reality, it probably didn't smell like anything. Buffy knows this. Or she thinks she does. She's not...she's not sure of anything concerning that place. Just that it was warm. Like eternal sunlight. And that she didn't want for anything, didn't regret anything, wasn't consumed by worldly pain any longer. That's all she knows, and it's enough.
Enough to make her really want some nachos. Gooey and cheesy and piled high so that she can keep filling the emptiness in her gut. She's thinner, inexplicably. Bonier, and darker, and when she shuts her eyes, all she can see (and feel and hear and taste) is the dark, thick, silent decay lurking in the coffin she woke up clawing her way out of. She wants to know how to be herself again. No, it's too soon for that. Her room is unfamiliar, the bed is uninviting, and the pictures make her head hurt. No, she wants to know how to go back to before.
Before she knew what Heaven was and that she had a place there. A place the people she loved took her away from, because they thought she was in Hell.
Should she have been in Hell? Is that what she deserved? Did someone make a processing mistake and send Buffy upstairs instead of down, and next time this happens (and Buffy knows by now that there'll be a next time) she's screwed? If someone gets a chance at nachos, is it their last chance at nachos? Forever?
Eternity is so long, Buffy thinks wearily, and time here moves so much slower than she thinks it's supposed to. Another lifetime to make mistakes, and it isn't fair, because she's supposed to be done. Done with all this. She earned her reward, and it was taken from her, and now she's not sure how to get back in the game. How to be a player again.
Second chances come so rarely, and the thing of it is, Buffy never wanted another. Now it's an exercise of preparation, waiting. Just waiting for the next time (and there will be a next time) to come.
She ends up stepping into an old pair of sweats and falling right to sleep. Too many thoughts in her head to stay awake, and when she dreams, she dreams of slipping under drifts of sand, until the soft white fills her nose and ears and mouth and eyes. She dreams of being taken under, consumed by infinity. The First Slayer paws at her grave, and a red rose springs up where her fingers claw at the sand.
The next morning, before going downstairs, Buffy opens the suitcase that was still unpacked from her days at UCS. Underneath all of her old-life, she unfolds the filmy, fluttery cotton dress from the enjoining spell dreams. Red flowers dot the white print, and Buffy fingers the dress thoughtfully. Thinks of the desert stretching out limitless before her, and of being given to the earth to swallow her whole.
She thinks she ought to look nice in the event that it happens.
So she irons the dress, and the fabric hangs pristine and clean from the hanger in the back of her closet.
Just in case.
--finis--
This is an excerpt from a longer fic of Buffy snapshots, Four Outfits Buffy Never Wore, And One She Did. Check it out if you so desire…
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