Damsel in Distress, My Ass

Somehow, the personal diary of another person has fallen into your hands. It can be an enemy, lover, sibling, parent, friend, object of desire, stranger…anyone. Would you read it? Write a fic about your discovery, dilemma and the results.

It wasn’t until mid fight that Buffy realized she’d left her diary out on the bed. She’d just tossed a vampire across the alley and into a brick wall when it hit her like…well a ton of bricks.

“Crap,” she muttered as she pulled the vampire up by the very seventies lapels of his shirt. “So opinion poll, you’ve got a new girlfriend that you don’t know much about and she leaves her diary out on your bed. What do you do?” The question was asked very diplomatically as Buffy slammed Seventies Vamp up against the wall and held him there.

He reached up to try and strangle her and she dodged out of the way, giving him a dirty look. “We’re trying to have a civil conversation here.”

“Civil? You’re dangling me a couple feet off the ground up against a wall,” the vampire informed her dryly.

“My bad but you can’t blame me if I don’t believe that you won’t try to kill me,” Buffy said as she ducked a punch and delivered a hard jab to his stomach. “Now opinion poll.” She might have stepped back to give the vamp a chance to recover. After all there was no use having an opinion poll if your polling audience was dust. “Girlfriend that you don’t know very well leaves her diary out on your bed. Do you read it?”
“Duh,” the vampire rolled his eyes and executed a leg sweep that Buffy easily hopped.

And for his answer, he received the heel of her hand full force to his nose, which resulted in a lot of blood and a broken nose.

“Bitch!” he yelled, grabbing at his nose.

“Hey. You’re the one who just said you’d read my diary,” Buffy told him as she backed off, circling around slowly.

“No. You said my girlfriend.” He was whining now, a little nasal-y and she really shouldn’t have broken his nose. They always got bitchy when she did that.

“And everyone knows that when you start asking about friends and hypotheticals you’re really just talking about yourself. This is standard psych 101 stuff.”

That was when he caught her with a left hook right across the jaw. It was hard enough to send her sprawling across the alley into a stack of wooden crates housing a couple of cat-sized rats. Buffy wrinkled her nose and sprang to her feet just as the vampire launched himself at her. She grabbed his wrist and slung him around hard, richoeting him into the wall.

“But see you’re a blood sucking, evil, soulless bastard and Danny’s a sweet guy so opinion poll says he’s not reading my diary.”

Really she should just end it but Buffy was just getting started. She graciously gave the vampire some time to get to his feet. It took him a while and it occurred to her maybe she was being too hard on him, particularly if she wanted to keep him alive for this little impromptu conversation.

“Slayer, I don’t know what the hell your issues are but do you really think this is the time to be working them out?”

Oops, she was pretty sure she’d broken one of his ribs because now he sounded all breathy and achey and she might have felt bad for him, except that she’d caught him stalking a very nice, pretty barista from the coffee shop around the corner.

“Buffy, it’s Buffy not Slayer and where else exactly do you expect me to work out my issues. What was your name again?” She took a couple of steps back, still on her guard and damn she’d dropped her stake somewhere.
“Domingo,” he responded as he stalked toward her, obviously looking for his opening. She let her left shoulder drop, ankle twisting a little and really it was totally believable considering she had on two inch heeled boots. The ankle twist and stumble was really a ploy to grab the shattered piece of wooden crate on the ground but Domingo took the bait like a fish and a giant worm…or something like that.

“Your parents must have really hated you,” Buffy quipped as she swept his legs , sending him sprawling on his back. “You know the conversation has been nice and the combat subpar but I need to be going now. I ordered Chinese when I saw you stalking and it should be done about now.”

Stake through the heart, dust in the alley and the Chinese place was just putting out her order. Really the timing was perfect. Buffy carried it back to Danny’s, let herself in with her key and put the Chinese on the coffee table.

“Honey, I’m home!”

She glanced at the bedroom as she passed, seeing the diary in the same place she’d left it and Danny was still out on the balcony. She walked out and sat down on the concrete behind him, legs on either side of his. She leaned in and kissed the back of his neck. “Best boyfriend ever. There’s Chinese on the table but I’m thinking I should take a shower first and you should come with me.”

I think the idea of a soul mate is…

Soul mates are bad M’kay? Sorry, I was watching South Park last night. Do not judge me for my TV choices. I don’t sleep much.

So here’s the deal. I was sixteen when I met him and at first I wanted to hate him. He was smug and fanatical and smarmy. He was too good looking, too stalkery and too old for me. He just kept showing up at the most inopportune times spreading bad omens and gossip. So what if his gossip was usually reliable. No one likes a Gossip Gabby. He was always there and never, ever there. Push and shove, hot and cold. Contradictory much? We weren’t soul mates we were…anything but. The problem was, neither of us could deny there was something there between us. And that something wouldn’t go away no matter how much we beat it. He didn’t want it. I didn’t want it and we gave it stern talking to’s but you know kids these days, they just never listen.

And then…I went away for three months, came back and I was mean to him; he got jealous and that’s when whatever it was we had twisted.

I spent a lot of the next two years crying. Without meaning to, he became the reason I hate my birthday and I emo at Christmas. He is the reason I can’t stand Valentine’s Day or red roses. Prom is bitter sweet and that old song ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ sucks. I was in love and I loved him but love is never ever easy. It’s not about smiles and flowers, fluffy puppies and Pantene commercial hair. It’s hard. It hurts. It takes work and did I mention it hurts? During those two years I also became unequivocally convinced that he is my soul mate. The thing is, you watch The Princess Bride (Unarguably the greatest movie ever) or Cinderella (it’s all about the shoes) or Ice Castles (it’s a great movie) and soul mates work. Sure they have some problems and he goes away or she goes away or whatever but then he buys her some shoes and they live happily ever after.

Guess what? It’s a lie. I mean…it’s a lie I like to buy into it as much as the next girl but it’s still a big fat lie right there along with the good guys always wear white, the bad guys wear black and good always wins. In fact, what they should do is tell you that soul mate=love=perfect happiness=pain=run away as fast as you can. So…then he left and there was more pain but at least there was an end to the pain, you know? And we still saw each other occasionally. LA and Sunnydale weren’t that far apart. If I needed help he’d show up. If I needed to chew his ass out for coming to my rescue without telling me, I’d show up. He was there for me when my Mom died. And when I got so lost we both agreed it was better that he not be there. He showed up to rescue me again and then went away to be my second front. Now he’s doing his thing and I’m doing mine. And I still know that if the world ends, he’ll show up or I will.

Somewhere along that screwed up way there was Riley and Spike. I cared about both of them. A lot. They weren’t my soul mates though. Xander tried to convince me Riley could be but Riley had too many issues with what I am and what I’m never going to be. I’m not the apple pie girl you take home to your Mom. And Spike and I…we’re better as great friends. I thought that soul mates were a one thing. You know? You get one and when that doesn’t work out, you just spend the rest of your life looking for someone that can live with the way your soul mate screwed you up. And then I met Danny and there was this instant connection (and wow that sounds so E-Harmony. Shut up. One of the girls signed me up against my will). It was one of those past lives things. You know what I mean? You know you’ve never met this person and yet you’re still convinced you know them? Yeah, anyway…is he my soul mate? God I hope not because I can’t handle another one. It will kill me and I’ll put a great big Do Not Resuscitate order on my corpse. What I’m hoping for is a little bit of normality. It’d be nice just to be in love and have it not be literally or figuratively a world ending situation. I mean sure we’ll fight but I don’t want it to be the end of the world. I don’t want him to go to Hell and back for me. Just down the street and around the corner would be great. Stalking me isn’t required but I have to admit a little bit of obsession is nice. Kissing him doesn’t make me want to die, but my knees do get a little jellified and that’s a good thing. Dying is bad and wanting to die is worse. I don’t want Danny to be my soul mate. I’ll settle for The Guy and he might be. I don’t know. It’s too soon to tell. The only thing I do know:

Soul mates are seriously overrated.