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

[herotypical]

[ 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. ]

Comments

[deadpoet]

I've made a lot of people go poof. Doing it while they're in the air? Not quite that good.

[herotypical]

...Maybe she got sucked somewhere like this.

[ maybe that's what the bermuda triangle did. ]

[deadpoet]

And never came back? So much for time standing still.

[herotypical]

Somewhere like this. Not somewhere identical to this. How many alterna-dimensions and demon worlds and pockets of weirdness must there be? Billions? Hundreds of billions?

Or maybe she just ran away.

[deadpoet]

Or died. Planes were bloody deathtraps in those days.

[herotypical]

See, I was trying to avoid the dreariest option. On purpose. And there you go and...bam.

Death-talk.

[deadpoet]

Photography. She also liked taking pictures. After my new unlife, I didn't get too many options to see what I looked like anymore, what with my difficulties with mirrors. She was what made me realize my look was in a bit of need of improvement.

[herotypical]

Oh?

[ she'd never thought of spike looking any different than his current iteration. ] Improvements like what?

[deadpoet]

The hair for one. I felt a bit too bland.

[herotypical]

But -- see -- now you're caught in a cycle of upkeep that you can't even mirror-monitor. And I thought Valley Girls were supposed to be shallow...

[deadpoet]

The only mirrors I've ever needed are the eyes of women. That lets me know if I've got it right or not.

[herotypical]

Are you trying to make me laugh?

[ because it might be close to working. derisive laughter still counts, right? ]

[deadpoet]

Never. I wouldn't subject myself to that sort of thing.

[herotypical]

[ whatever he said, it didn't matter. whatever had happened? also didn't matter. buffy could -- for the moment -- see past spike's poor choices and his unfortunate doings. ]

Well. Thanks. For what you're apparently not actually subjecting yourself to.

[ and for the draft. but that gratitude is clumsier. less certain. more painful. ]

[deadpoet]

You're welcome. [Smugly. More smug than he should be. But hell, it beats being direct about things.]

[herotypical]

[ silence stretches. on and on. one might even thing that buffy had wandered off, until... ]

You're happy for her, aren't you? [ willow. ] You probably think she's as good as escaped.

[ so fresh. so new. so still prepared to not miss the ones who leave. ]

[deadpoet]

Of course I am. But it's not like I don't get why you're not.

[Which is the whole problem to begin with.]

[herotypical]

Is that so? [ she uses sarcasm to hide her surprise. ] And here I was still thinking you thought I was a dummy for getting so attached to here. Being here. Other people being here, with me.

She was making some really great progress, y'know. Magic-wise. Teaching people.

[deadpoet]

She'll manage the same back home, won't she? But you're trapped and used to it. Like that old bloke in Shawshank.

[He gets it in a very terrible sort of way.]

[herotypical]

[ ugh. that little shot of warmth and good-will isn't quite lost in the comparison -- but it is masked. ]

Can't I please be someone who isn't a librarian?

[herotypical]

I CHANGED MY MIND I DON'T WANT THE PIRATE ANY MORE COME SWEEP ME OFF MY FEET SPIKE.

[deadpoet]

I AM ON MY WAY

CAN I JUST SAY IT'S ABOUT BLOODY TIME

[herotypical]

TRY TO AVOID THE SUNLIGHT IN YOUR DESPERATE RUSH.

[deadpoet]

THANKS BUFFY

YOU ALWAYS ARE LOOKING OUT FOR ME

[herotypical]

WHAT CAN I SAY.

YOU'RE IN MY HEART.