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None of them understand, but that's okay. None of them could possibly understand how it is to hate your life so much that you want to crawl into someone else's body and live there for awhile.
I mean, when I was in there, I actually felt like I was Buffy. I mean, a more fun version of Buffy, but still Buff, you know? Like, people appreciated me, treated me like a person who makes a difference. Treated me like a person.
I guess blonds really do have more fun.
As me, I get respect. Yeah, okay: I like that. And I induce fear, and lust, and a crazy little high in most strangers. Nice, nice. But what else I get is a lot of is "Slut. Tramp. Useless nothing."
But Buffy's body--god, I can still feel her skin underneath my hands...or would it be, under her hands? Whatever. Anyway, smoothing down the creases in my leather pants became a whole new experience. She was...so soft. Softer than me. She felt like...I don't even know. I've never felt anything that soft.
suede you always felt like suede
But when I was inside her body, I felt like a person again, you know? I always thought that I just wanted her, her pretty skin and her soft hair, and those lips against mine, but now that thought just kinda turns me off. I want to be her. Again, I mean. For real this time. I mean, the whole nice little mom and cutie-pie boyfriend and sweet little friends. But I had that chance and I fucked it up. Just like me, huh? I shouldn't have tried to leave the country; I should have stayed there and then just taken up her life as though it were a discarded shirt. Then when she came after me I could have just beat the hell out of her before she had a chance to say anything to Giles and then stayed her. Buffy, defender and iradicator of all evil.
Evil being me.
But when I saw her in my body--it didn't even phase me. I just beat her, called her a worthless nothing, called her a murderous bitch--all the things everyone used to call me. And I didn't mean me, I meant her. At that instant I felt like Buffy, as if it is that body, with it's innocent green eyes and sweetly curled blond hair that makes her the person she is. I wonder if she felt the same disreality, felt the way that I always feel--like a murderous slut. Like I'm nothing.
I don't think so. She was still Buffy in the eyes. Aching beneath the skin, as if it hurt her to even be in my flesh for an instant.
there are days i feel your twin
peekaboo hiding underneath your skin
In my body I feel somehow more powerful, though, despite the fact that she has beaten me in it so many times, including stabbing me in the ribs, something that hurts still. Just a slight twinge, as though the knife had struck bone when it broke into my flesh. I dunno. Maybe it did. I didn't exactly stick around the hospital long enough to find out.
But then, she beat me in my body too, so I don't think it's body strength that lends her fighting ability and unbeatable air, but rather, some internal Buffy-strength that gives her that extra edge.
Or maybe I was just out of practice.
But whatever. Shit. You know, now I have sympathy for that demon chick. You know, the one that lost her powers last year? I overheard B. and Willow discussing her once. She lost her power center, and now so have I. I lost my gift from the Boss. I lost one of the two gifts he ever gave me, and now it's gone forever. No hope of getting it back, because I crushed it beneath my heel.
jets. are revving yes revving
and this. has power over me.
The other thing, my fucking knife--I'm sure Buffy probably still has it. I can just picture her, on the roof of my stylin' apartment (I really wonder what happened to that beautiful place), dropping the knife on the ground beneath her and running off like a fuzzy little bunny as I made my swan dive.
I can picture her going back and getting it after everything was over, bringing it back to her house and washing it off it the sink, using dish soap and a rag. Same damn thing I used to wash the mayor's guy's blood off my shirt. Blood swirling around the drain, tinting the water pink and red.
That's a real Buffy thing to do, taking my knife home after she had stuck it into my gut. Going back and making it into some sister thing, like she was doing it for me. "She would have wanted it this way," is how she'd rationalize it to herself. How she probably did rationalize it to herself.
But what she'd really be thinking as she ran her hands over that hard, cold piece of steel is that she was getting a shiny new toy. That knife was made to gut. Gut people, too; it was no damned hunting knife. That thing was fucking beautiful, curved and elegant. Heating up in my hand when I drove it into someone's flesh.
But that's not the point. I'm not trying to romanticize my fucking knife; this isn't about my knife. It's about Buffy, and the way she can make me feel.
She's so fucking perfect that it makes my head ache. Blond and beautiful like some soap opera girl, strong and brave and innocent. A muffin in the army and a mother who cares. A father figure and her little groupies, her friends. The Scooby gang. And I hated being a part of her perfect background, her perfect life. I didn?t want to be a guest spot while she was star of the fucking series. I got tired of it, tired of her earnestness, and the way she really, really cared about everyone.
Even me.
not because
you feel something
or don't feel something for me
but because. mass. so big.
it can swallow swallow her whole star intact.
But the thing with Buffy is, you can never tell who her real friends are. What makes, say, Willow different from some girl B. saves on the street? Who can tell where the manufactured concern for citizen welfare ends, and real friendship begins?
Not me, that's for damn sure. I always thought that there was something there between me and Buffy, something concrete. I always figured that if we couldn't be lovers, we'd be sisters. After all, we were the same--Slayer blood. And that was really okay with me for awhile: fighting side by side, synchronized slaying, always someone to call up and get out a little energy with.
But no. As soon as I kill this guy--ram my stake into his chest, every bit of my strength behind it--she's all for turnin' me in. And I was freaked, not wanting to say that, yes, I killed this guy and yes, I enjoyed it, feeling his human flesh give under my hands. But then I looked at his eyes and saw the light in them dim as he died...
And I freaked. What do you do when your entire waking mind shuts down? When your body goes on autopilot--staking the first thing in your way, going back to the scene of the crime and dragging his heavy corpse to the river? All of this without your consent.
You protect it. Protect yourself. Maybe it was an accident, but I'd have been in jail for murder nonetheless. And she wanted me there; she wanted me to tell them, tell the Council when all they wanted was to lock me up as well.
So I protected myself. Went to the Mayor and struck a deal. Does that make me evil?
Maybe not, but everything I did afterwards sure did.
call me 'evil' call me
'tide is on your side' anything that you want.
In the beginning, it was just work. Go to the Mayor, give him some info, go home to my new place and sleep for a couple hours. Maybe pound a baddie or two. But nope, can't kill the vamps cause they work for the Boss. And I gotta go deliver something, gotta tell the Boss about Willow, gotta not flinch when he tells me he's gonna get someone to kill her. Gotta, gotta, gotta. And soon enough it's like being back with the Scoobies, only the Mayor actually cares about me, and he wants me to kill people.
I admit that I liked the freedom--being able to go out and vent on whoever I wanted to, whoever the Boss wanted me to. Being able to do my own thing, enjoy my life, dance and fight and fuck and there was no one there to stop me, no one! Not even B., not til that night on the rooftop when I almost wanted her to kill me.
And I also liked the Mayor. Loved him, maybe. Do you know how long its been since I loved somebody? Long enough that I don't know how to recognize it in myself anymore. Can't tell between affection and love, lust and greed anymore. Which is why I never knew what I wanted to do with Buffy.
If I wanted to do anything. I dunno, I kinda think it would be sort of like screwing my sister, if I had one. I was right before, we're the same--Slayer blood and all that. All that and more.
But I guess she's lucky. After all, its not everyone who gets to meet up with their own personal Tyler Durden, live and in the flesh. Not everyone can say that they faced their darker half and triumphed.
So if I did anything at all for her, it was give her a sense of triumph, let her know that she's better than me. Superiority is something B.'s never been lacking in, but hey--can never have enough self-esteem, right?
anybody knows you can conjure anything
by the dark side of the moon. boy. and if
you keep your silence silencer on
you'll talk yourself right into a job.
out of a hole into my bayou
But I forgot someone who did face their own--doppelganger? Is that it? Whatever. Red, when she conjured up her vamp twin from another world. Looking at someone with your face; that's a trip, and I know from experience. But it's gotta be especially weird when she's got a thing for leather and licking chicks on the neck.
Really, that was a big warning sign, if you ask me. (Like I?m one to talk.)
I have to wonder if B. felt the same sense of unreality when she first saw me. You know, "Hey, that's my face!" Very Parent Trap, you know? Cause that's what I felt when I first saw her. Me, me, me, hiding underneath all that vanilla-scented skin.
And I know, coming from a crazy chick like me, this just sounds psycho. But no, listen up. One and the same, inside and out. Why do you think that her blood cured Angel, just like mind would have? Slayers, girlfriend, the Chosen Two. Similar and yet so different, same blood, different hair and eyes and skin. Light and dark, blond and brunette...opposites. Just like first grade.
But under all that surface, we're undeniably the same. Same blood, same flesh, same bones. Slayers. Which makes me wonder how she could hate me so much. How I can hate her so much.
I think, for her, its cause I'm everything she's not. Her polar opposite, all the dark qualities that she prefers would remain in the dark, nonexistent. Sexually unrestrained, unbound by law or conscience, livin' large, with my own laws dictating what I think and do.
I'm everything she could be.
As for why I hate her...well, we've already covered that. She's got everything I want: a mother, a "Daddy" (cause she killed mine, babycakes, and paybacks a bitch), circle of friends, the cutie commando.
Angel.
Don't know why that one affects me as much as it does, but it does. I think cause he knows Buffy in ways I never can, even after having been inside of her skin. Because she defended him and wanted me to go to fucking jail.
Because she nearly killed me for him, the ditched him as soon as Mr. Aryan Nation showed up.
Not that I entirely blame her, cause he's a muffin in the sack. Big hard muscles, warm, everywhere, and he definitely takes care of business. Made sure I was all done before he finished. Not too bad with his hands either.
But what he said afterwards--"I love you." When was the last time someone said that to me? I think it was my Mom. Mommy. Right before she threw that bottle at my head.
With Mom, "I love you" always preceded a smack upside the head, or worse. I think she wanted me to realize that even if she hit me, she still loved me.
Or maybe it just made it easier for her to use her fists.
Whatever. Point is, I'm uncomfortable with the sentiment. Hell, look what I did to Xander, and he just wanted to "talk." Strangled that idea right out of him.
i'm sure that you've been briefed my
absorption lines. they are frayed and i fear.
my fear is greater than my faith
but i walk. the missionary way.
But that's not important right now. I've left all that far, far behind me, along with my defeat. The question now is, what to do next?
I'm on a bus and I don't know where I'm going. I grabbed a ride on the back of a truck, hitchhiked for about two days, and then I freaked. I hate not knowing whats going to happen. So at the next stop I cornered a girl and beat the hell out of her. Lucky me, she was a little rich girl, so I've got about two hundred leftover and stashed in my pack. Bought a bus ticket to the first big town, and it happened to be LA. So I do know where I?m going, but not where this path is going to take me. Whats in LA, besides a bunch of movie star wannabes?
Fuck it though. I like the thought of it, all that darkness that I can just blend in with. Never been there before, but I'm sure I'll fit in.
From Boston to Sunnydale to LA. Wicked strange vacation, huh? But this isn't a vacation; this is my life. I'm a survivor, and a survivor always has to keep moving. Like a shark.
I dreamt that. I'm having strange dreams again; Buffy dreams. Not the ones of her chasing me, killing me, like I had in Sunnydale. In these we are friends, upstairs in her bedroom at her Mom's house. Folding down the edges of the sheets on that bed over and over again. Little sister is coming.
And that brings me a memory that is not even a memory at all. I can't explain it; its more something that's coming than something that has already passed. Giles would call it a prophetic dream.
I've never had one of those before. I mean, unless you count the ones I had during my coma, that black hole of unconciousness. The ones where Buffy killed the Boss, stuck a knife right into his throat...and then came after me.
Not that I blame her. I am her enemy and all that.
But beyond that, I'm her sister. The second Slayer, the one who shares her blood. The one who shares all her ties, even those of kin.
Little sister's coming. And I'm going to LA.
call me 'evil' little sister. I guess
i'd do the same. little sister.
you'll forgive me one day.
