SUMMARY: BtVS, Buffy/Spike, kissing.  Post-Wrecked.  Buffy ponders
what her life has come to.

ARCHIVE:  Please.  As often as possible, and wherever you like.


Make Me Forget, by Mercutio (mercutio@europa.com)


So much for believing in miracles.

Buffy wiped demon gunk off a pair of Dolce & Gabbana jeans.  It was
ironic really.  She didn't have enough money to pay the electric
bill, or any idea where to get the money either, and yet she was
wearing clothes that cost twice as much as the bill.  The wardrobe
of the spoiled princess she'd been, even if she'd had no idea at
the time that that was what she was.

Still, it was what she had, short of trading them in at Goodwill
for more appropriate demon fighting clothes.  And since this was
the last time she was likely to be able to wear Dolce & Gabbana
for... well, quite possibly ever, she was determined to wear them. 
As Buffy Summers goes out with style.

She trudged through the graveyard, grimly patrolling the Hellmouth. 
God, her life was so bleak.  Her mom had taken care of everything,
and Buffy had never realized how good she really had it.  Until she
didn't.

She couldn't pay the bills that were slowly reaccumulating after
Giles had given her that very timely check.  *Guilt money*, part of
her whispered.  She couldn't make the mortgage payments on the
house -- was only able, in fact, to buy groceries, because Willow
was doing it.  They were going to lose the house, if she didn't do
something.  Maybe even if she did.  The sensible thing to do was to
sell it now while she might be able to make something from it,
rather than waiting to be foreclosed on.  Not that even that would
help the problems for very long.  When she wasn't having nightmares
about heaven (not that they were nightmares precisely, except for
the waking up part), she was dreaming about living elsewhere, and
sad and angry by turns that her house was gone.  Which was
ridiculous, a little, because it was just a place to live, and not
ridiculous at all, because it was like the last evidence that her
mother had ever existed, and, in any case, when the house was gone,
she had no idea where they were going to live.  Not with Willow,
who was already living with them.  With Xander, whose apartment was
barely big enough for himself and Anya?  With Spike, in his crypt? 
Suitably ironic as it was that a vampire slayer could be reduced to
the same level as her prey, it wasn't what she wanted for Dawn. 
And she couldn't go to Angel.  Just couldn't.  Not with the Spike
thing looming over her, and certainly not away from the Hellmouth. 
If she could have gotten away from the Hellmouth, she would have
gone already.

She was trapped.  Doomed.

Taxes needed to be filed -- but once she did that, the IRS would
probably take the house outright, as Buffy didn't have the money to
pay taxes on her mother's income for the last year.  Her mother had
always used December's receipts to pay for the year before, only
this year there had been no December.  One way or another, they
would all be homeless by the end of the year.  Or living off of
someone else's charity.  She imagined living in the decrepit
dankness of Spike's crypt and shuddered.  Because there was no way
anyone was renting an apartment, much less a house, to anyone in
her financial situation.  The non-payment of bills these last few
months only made it that much worse.

She had to get a job.  Not that she hadn't been trying -- and
failing miserably.  Not that it would help.  Not that it would do
more than put a band-aid on a gushing neck wound.  But because it
was the only thing she could do other than give into the despair
and black depression threatening to overwhelm her.

Buffy looked at the door in front of her.  Spike's crypt.  Her feet
had brought her here, consciously or subconsciously.

The door opened before she could push on it.  "Well, hello, Slayer. 
Fancy meeting you here--"

"Shut up, Spike."

"Is that any way to greet your lover?  Or can't you even bring
yourself to think about me like..."

Buffy put her hand over his mouth.  "Not now, Spike.  Please.  I
need you to make me forget for a while."

His eyebrow rose.  She didn't know if it was because she'd said
'please' or because she'd said she needed him.  It was true anyway. 
And it didn't matter, because he pulled her into his arms, and as
soon as she let her hand drop, started kissing her.

"Thank you," she whispered, as his mouth moved down to her neck.

"For what, love?" he asked, nibbling at her skin.

"For this.  For being someone I can count on."

"Always, love.  Always."


-the end-