Post Chosen ficlet
Tue, May. 8th, 2007 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alwaysjbjTitle: Save All My Ashes for My Return
Author: Always_jbj
Rating: G
Word Count: 336
Characters/Pairing: Buffy
Note: Post Chosen. Buffy's having a hard time letting go.
Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
still_grrr prompt 012
She sat cross-legged on the floor of her room; the heavy canvas resting in her lap.
Letting go was hard. Harder than it should have been—at least that’s what they tell her.
It had been seven months.
Seven months, two weeks and four days, to be precise. Time enough, they say, for her to have finished grieving—for her to have let him go. But she couldn’t let him go.
Her hand moved absently over the duffle; the coarse fabric worn smooth from countless such caresses. Inside were the few hastily gathered things he’d stuffed in there that morning; a couple of changes of clothes, a few beat-up cassette tapes filled with loud music and incomprehensible screaming that supposedly passed for singing, a couple of well worn books, and a photograph. A pitiful collection of remnants for so long lived a life. So long, and yet too short. Far too short.
Miraculously, his scent still lingered. She delved into the bag’s depths, burrowing her hand into the soft folds of his tee. She pulled the photograph out from between the pages of a book, smiling through her sadness at his happy, laughing face. It was one of those photo booth shots; him and Dawn from back before she’d driven a wedge between them. Dawn was pulling silly faces and they were both laughing. Dawn would want the photograph, of that she was sure—if she knew it existed. She slid it carefully back inside the book, burying it between layers of dark denim before carefully re-closing the bag and sliding it back into the shadows beneath her bed.
Climbing into bed, she rested her hand above its hiding place, turning her face into the mattress and inhaling, as if she could breathe him in through the layers of foam.
She closed her eyes, damp lashes fluttering closed as she whispered good night.
‘How could she let him go,’ she wondered, ‘when to do so would be to lose all she had left of herself?’
Author: Always_jbj
Rating: G
Word Count: 336
Characters/Pairing: Buffy
Note: Post Chosen. Buffy's having a hard time letting go.
Written for
still_grrr prompt 012She sat cross-legged on the floor of her room; the heavy canvas resting in her lap.
Letting go was hard. Harder than it should have been—at least that’s what they tell her.
It had been seven months.
Seven months, two weeks and four days, to be precise. Time enough, they say, for her to have finished grieving—for her to have let him go. But she couldn’t let him go.
Her hand moved absently over the duffle; the coarse fabric worn smooth from countless such caresses. Inside were the few hastily gathered things he’d stuffed in there that morning; a couple of changes of clothes, a few beat-up cassette tapes filled with loud music and incomprehensible screaming that supposedly passed for singing, a couple of well worn books, and a photograph. A pitiful collection of remnants for so long lived a life. So long, and yet too short. Far too short.
Miraculously, his scent still lingered. She delved into the bag’s depths, burrowing her hand into the soft folds of his tee. She pulled the photograph out from between the pages of a book, smiling through her sadness at his happy, laughing face. It was one of those photo booth shots; him and Dawn from back before she’d driven a wedge between them. Dawn was pulling silly faces and they were both laughing. Dawn would want the photograph, of that she was sure—if she knew it existed. She slid it carefully back inside the book, burying it between layers of dark denim before carefully re-closing the bag and sliding it back into the shadows beneath her bed.
Climbing into bed, she rested her hand above its hiding place, turning her face into the mattress and inhaling, as if she could breathe him in through the layers of foam.
She closed her eyes, damp lashes fluttering closed as she whispered good night.
‘How could she let him go,’ she wondered, ‘when to do so would be to lose all she had left of herself?’
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no subject
Date: 8/5/07 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/07 08:36 am (UTC)I imagine that whatever bits and pieces Spike had collected over the years would have been blown up along with his crypt...so he'd only really have what was upstairs, which was never really a lot, and what was in his coat. And yeah, I think Buffy would do most of her grieving in private, afterall he was her vampire!
no subject
Date: 8/5/07 03:30 am (UTC)That was the sound of me, getting punched in the gut. A lot of power in a little space, here!
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Date: 8/5/07 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/07 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/07 08:40 am (UTC)I like to think she did, too. In fact I am sure she would have... I honestly do believe that she loved him, and that she realised that in those last few days. But even if she didn't, he was her friend, so she would have grieved for him even if just for having lost a friend.
no subject
Date: 8/5/07 03:50 am (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 8/5/07 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/07 04:13 am (UTC)Very nice. This feels very right; Of course she mourned for him. But she'd do it privately.
no subject
Date: 8/5/07 08:44 am (UTC)I think so, too... Buffy was always a very private person, especially with her emotions... and the others may have (to varying degrees) tolerated Spike's presence at the end... but none of them wanted him there or really cared about him... he was hers to mourn.
no subject
Date: 8/5/07 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/07 08:46 am (UTC)Now she just needs to find out that he's alive and go get her vampire back! Which of course in my oh-so-happy world (the one in my head) she does!! lol
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Date: 8/5/07 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/07 08:50 pm (UTC)Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed this!
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Date: 8/5/07 06:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/07 08:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/07 10:43 am (UTC)I'm a masochist !
no subject
Date: 8/5/07 12:32 pm (UTC)Thanks, sweetie. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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Date: 8/5/07 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/5/07 06:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/5/07 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/5/07 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/5/07 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/5/07 06:48 am (UTC)Oh, yes... my Buffy always loves Spike, too... at least eventually! lol
And I like to think they will always find each other, somehow!
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Date: 9/5/07 05:15 am (UTC)I'm soooooo hoping to see something along these lines in the s8 comics, but so far those suckers are NOT impressing me.
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Date: 9/5/07 06:49 am (UTC)Am not (and never have been) a comic fan, so I'm choosing to remain blissfully ignorant! lol
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Date: 9/5/07 02:16 pm (UTC)I think what dissapoints me the most is that Joss had so much time to think of something really awesome, but IMO (so far) he hasn't. :(
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Date: 9/5/07 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/5/07 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/5/07 03:56 pm (UTC)*loves*
no subject
Date: 12/5/07 05:58 am (UTC)