herotypical | voice + action ✪ there must be some way to bring the hero home

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voice + action ✪ there must be some way to bring the hero home

[ after a week of agonizing combat, buffy summers returns home with only exhaustion on her mind. despite all the excitement and crisis, there's little left to do other than collapse onto her bed and fall into a sleep fit for a weary, worn-out soul. morning sees her feeling no less -- shudder -- zombieish. the horror of the last week is bone-and-marrow deep and has yet to fully make itself known in her system. the slayer is running on auxillery humanity, stringing herself along from second to second until she can find a friendly face. find willow and...

and all she finds is an empty room. an empty closet. empty drawers. her best friend is gone. deported while she wasn't even looking. come the afternoon, after she's gotten the first onslaught of emotions out of her system, buffy sits alone on the empty bed. she addresses her journal: ]

Willow and I have this game we like to play. Willow Rosenberg. She was in town...but now she's not. [ a pause allows buffy to catch her breath. to stay strong. ] We call it 'Anywhere But Here' -- self-explanatory, really. Pick a fantasty-elsewhere to be and a fantasy-someone to share it with. I'm not talking about the obvious ones: home or family or anything even remotely whiffing of responsibility. I'm talking about fun. I'm talking about pure escapism. I'm talking Daniel Craig on the beach or Amy Yip at the waterpark.

I'll go first. Show you how it's done. [ but which escape route from reality should she take? ] The '88 Winter Olympics. The Saddledome. Calgary, of all places. Brian Boitano is taking the time to personally skate me through his gold medal routine. Perhaps there's hot chocolate involved. I, being made entirely of my own imagination, copy each move perfectly.

Got it? Good. Because now it's your turn.

[ when her broken little tribute to an absent friend is finished, she'll be searching out her injured pirate (wherever he may be convalescing) and it's off to good spirits, where she can be found working a shift behind the bar. ]

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[Not really one for the game, and kind of busy cleaning up the mess the ghosts made of the tea shop, she doesn't answer Buffy or anything. At least not in the usual way.

Instead she shows up at Good Spirits later. Everyone around here could use a drink, huh?]

Hey.

Sheena. [ a polite smile. a business smile. ] What can I getcha?

Something that's not gonna flatten me. [Drinking is not the actual reason she came to the bar.] I'm not exactly an expert at this.

In that case...[ buffy glances over her shoulder, sizing up her bottles. ] Split a weak screwdriver with me?

Oh. Uh, sure. [No idea what that is, but "weak" seemed to fit her standards.]

Anyway I brought you something if you want it. [Which she sets on the bar. Little metal tin.]

[ buffy reaches for her cocktail shaker but...

hmm. her head cocks. the little metal tin is infinitely more interesting. if the slayer has anything in common with her pirate-boyfriend, it's that never-ending instinct to touch. to pick up and examine and investigate and learn and...

yep. her fingers snag the tins edges. ] Funny -- [ wry; humourous; dry ] -- it's not even my birthday.

[ but a previous conversation lurks in the back of her mind. ]

Edited 2012-11-01 19:45 (UTC)

[Well if or when she opens it, it's full of little pouches of loose tea leaves. The smell matches the tea she asked for the last time she ever asked for a tea delivery.]

I thought maybe you could use it. ...After all that. [She doesn't know what happened on the draft, really. Not yet. But she can tell it was rough on everybody.]

[ ah. the lurking memory is vindicated. buffy lifts the contained and pops its lid, sniffing. promptly, she closes her hand around the tin and swallows hard and glances first -- just briefly -- at sheena's eyes. a little nod. there soon followed the soft pop of the lid slotting back into place. ]

Much obliged. All kinds of much. [ in one smooth move, she pockets the tea. deep breath.

then: ] I hope you like orange juice.

Uh, yeah, it's okay. [She doesn't miss the look or the swallow or the nod. But commenting on them would kind of invalidate them, wouldn't it?] You're not gonna play some trick that has me staggering home later, right?

[For all its wording, the tone of that tease stays firmly anchored in gentle territory. Something big's up.]

[ and there she is -- business-smiling again. buffy pours a liberal amount of orange juice into her shaker. ]

Us mostly-teetotallers gotta band together, right? You have my word. No funny business.

[Yeah. Sheena knows about having a business smile.]

You've got that right. Thanks.

[While Buffy makes with the shakes, Sheena looks around the place a little bit. Gauging the crowd, or lack thereof.]

Happy belated Halloween, by the way.

[ a half a shot of vodka. and then she tucks the shaker's lid back into place. ]

Ahaha...you, too, I guess. [Halloweens have been worse than this past one. So much worse.] Sorta. It's kinda hard to- I mean. [Even she doesn't know what she's trying to say until something entirely different comes out.]

Y'know this Sunday it'll be five years.

[ a half-smirk. ice and drink rattle and swish as she gives the cocktail a lazy shake. ]

That so? God. I can't figure out whether it's creepy or comforting to be reminded that people've been here a whole year more than me. I already feel so...[ veteranish. it'll be four years come may. ]

I'd say sorry, but...

[ when has that ever helped, here? ]

[The four-year mark was also rougher than this one. She just can't seem to figure out why.]

That's okay, I keep forgetting that there're people who have been here only a year less than me. So it works out.

[ finally, she pours two low glasses about half-way full of vodka and orange juice. maybe a dash of grenadine in there to make it look pretty.

and a cherry on top. ]

Maybe...maybe the official year count gets a little hazy beyond the third. I don't know. Better minds than mind are probably stumped.

[ she passes one glass over to sheena. ]

Hah, yeah, maybe. [Things about time and progress have been on her mind lately. Sheena picks up the glass and sips the result.] Hey, not bad. I dunno if I'd've pick orange juice on my own.

See. I like mixing with OJ 'cause it masks the booze without all those pesky, tummy-upsetting bubbles. Like in soda.

Yeah but isn't some orange juice kinda sour?

[Not this one. This one's great. A weird mix of breakfasty and...drinking.]

...See the bit of red? [ she swirls her glass, disturbing a reddish haze amongst the orange. like a sunset in a glass. ] That's a super sugary syrup. It kinda cuts through the worst of the sour. Old bartender's trick.

Yeah, that'll do it I guess.

[Sheena takes one very long sip. It isn't the first time she's come to Good Spirits outside of an experiment, but it feels like it.]

It's gotta be rough to talk about, but you can if you wanna. [She's counting on Buffy to pick up on the subject change.]

I'm afraid there's not much to say. Just another lousy battlefield with hard choices and harder realities. I think this was the bloodiest one yet, Sheena.

[ buffy doesn't know sheena well, but she knows her well enough to know the ninja didn't deserve any sugarcoating. ]

Yeah? Where'd you end up going?

Another enclosure. Roughly the same size as us only hella more advanced. [ a long drink of her screwdriver. eyes closed. ]

It was called Vaskoth. Probably still is, though I'm not sure it's gonna be habitable again for a long time.

[Sheena just watches her for a few moments. She's seen that kind of look and posture before.]

So you guys...lost? It got destroyed?

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