alltheroads | post-btr } { heaven only knows how much i've missed you

Current Mood: annoyed

Entry tags:

post-btr } { heaven only knows how much i've missed you

The world's ending.

It's the only thing that's on the news right now, and Buffy isn't entirely sure why she keeps turning on the TV, expecting to see something different, but she does. Every so often she clicks the button on the remote and in an instant she's clicking it back off again. She doesn't want to hear about how the world is ending. She doesn't want to think about how another place she's come to call home is going to be swallowed into a black hole of nothingness.

(At least this time around, it isn't her fault.)

Still, she carries on with business as usual. She gets up in the morning, goes to work, manages what few students actually bother to show up, and heads home at the end of the night again. She knows she should check in with friends, and make sure everyone has someone to go with when the world ends. (She should make sure she has someone to go with when the world ends.) But she doesn't, at least not yet. Whenever she thinks about who she would want there when it was all coming to an end, her thoughts inevitably drift back to Sam, and that's not something she's going to get back.

It's easier not to think about it. Even if she always finds herself thinking about it anyway.

This morning, however, was different. For one, she's waking up in the middle of somewhere very brightly lit. For another, it's so not her room at the Kashtta. For a third - she just very nearly got beaned in the head with a football. She's clearly batting a thousand with this particular rabbit hole - unless she's been kidnapped, in which case, someone is getting punched in the face.

All the same, she pushes herself into a sitting position and looks around at what must be a college campus of some kind. Which would be great - at least it's not some kind of primitive cage fighting world like the last time - except for the fact that she is barefoot in cupcake pajamas with no weapons to speak of.

She's also fairly certain there are twigs in her hair.

Really, this is A plus all around.

She sighs a bit as she pushes up onto her feet, one hand coming up to run her fingers through her tangled hair, while her eyes scan the scene for any sign of trouble. "I know the stupid things are acting up, but you'd think that they'd give up on the whole mini-adventure gig."

Nope. Never, Buffy. Though this adventure might not be as mini as you think.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sam falls.

It happens unexpectedly, and without his permission - if he could've chosen, his choice would've landed him somewhere much different. He takes one wrong step in Grant Park and he is hurtling into another world entirely, one of sunshine and bittersweet promises. There's Stanford, there's law books, and there is no Dean. There is no Buffy, and he hasn't stumbled on a single demon since his arrival, though he's searched for them, almost as if willing them to come. If they're here, it means eventually one or the other might follow, doesn't it? This is what he wanted for the longest time. He wanted to be able to walk away from the life he'd believed his father to saddle them with long before he ever learned to hold a gun in his hand - and he wasn't much older than that when he did learn. It isn't the world he wanted, the one his father brought them, whether he was meant for it or not. This world of ghouls and blood and prophecies.

He'd wanted this. He'd wanted sunshine and law school and the promise of a different life.

The last time he saw her was at the ball, with the library that had only just formed, looking beautiful in a gown the way only Buffy Summers is able to. Somehow beautiful and powerful all at once; it had always drawn him in, right from the start. A moth to a flame. But he never gets to keep anything. He couldn't keep Jess, he couldn't keep Buffy, and Dean keeps slipping through his fingers in between the cracks of the universe.

Sam is alone, but he builds himself back up the best way that he can. His last class of the day has just finished, and he's crossing the campus in an effort to get to the parking lot when he sees her, in all her cupcake glory. Sam has to blink to make sure she is real. Part of him is convinced she can't be - he wants it too much for it to be true. The rifts don't work that way. They take from you - they don't just give it back. But the more he stands there, only faintly hearing what she is saying, the more it appears to him that it's really happening. His heart aches in painful jolts, and when he speaks, his voice isn't exactly steady. He almost doesn't want to, like if he says her name, she'll dispel like smoke.

"... Buffy?"

She hears her name in that voice and she freezes.

Buffy, as a rule, does not get lucky. She doesn't come out on top when it comes to her love life. She finds small moments of happiness that are quiet and fleeting and then they're ripped away from her, often without warning. She doesn't get them back, all she gets is the pain to try and build herself into something stronger, so the next time she doesn't get caught off guard, but she still does, every time. Things certainly don't get given back to her.

Except for the times they do.

She closes her eyes for a moment because if the rift is screwing with her than she was going to take the moment to hope against hope that this is real. She turns, and there he is.

Sam. Her Sam. There, in the flesh and okay.

She doesn't bother to say anything, just launches herself at him because words seem a little inadequate at the moment and right now she needs proof of the fact he's actually real and not some crazy, messed up figment of her imagination.

If there is anything they strongly share in common, it is their lack of good fortune.

If something can go wrong, it often does in Sam's life. That had begun to change when he ended up in Chicago. As though the curse had suddenly been lifted. It isn't as simple as that, and he never allowed himself to fully delude his own mind and heart into believing it, but things could be different. Things were different and Buffy was a big part of that. After Jessica, he didn't know it was possible to fall in love again. Not the way that he did. He'd let himself have something that was just his, something that made him happy, and it was snatched away from him without warning.

The way his brother was snatched from him without warning, and Sam hasn't seen him since. (In truth, the Winchester brothers are so co-dependent that the only manner in which Sam could possibly have reached this point in his life is if he was forcibly removed away from Dean's side and vice versa, but that is a tale for another time.)

He isn't thinking about any of this. Thoughts have flown out the window as he stands there in his impossibly tall glory, staring at her like she can't possibly be real. It isn't until she's launched herself at him that Sam is jerked into action, moving toward her in time to catch her. His lips part, as though he is about to say something, something worth saying, but instead he just swoops in to catch her mouth with his instead.

You will have to forgive him for his lack of words, Buffy. He may be too busy kissing the hell out of you right now.

Oh, no. Buffy is not complaining about the kissing. She's not sure she would have a whole lot of words either at the moment. In fact, if anything the kissing confirms the fact that it's really him, her Sam, and she will kiss him forever if she could - even through the frat boy catcalls, her morning/post rift breath and all the stares, she does not care.

She can't, because eventually they both have to breath, but she'll hold onto it for as long as she can. And when she does break the kiss, she stays close, arms tucked around his neck almost as though if she lets him go he may disappear again. And then she smiles.

"Hi."

"Hi."

If Sam's voice sounds breathless, that's because he is. His hands almost tentatively lift themselves up to frame her face, almost as though needing further confirmation that she isn't a figment of his imagination. His eyes burn with it, and a tightness in his throat doesn't let him speak immediately. A pause stretches between them, and he shakes his head almost dazedly.

"I thought I'd never see you again," he admits, completely unaware of frat boys, of the cupcake pajamas, of the whole absurdity of this situation. There's them.

Buffy doesn't really care either because it's Sam and he's here, and she's honestly feeling a little dazed and it's not completely due to the fact that she just fell through a hole in time and space. Her hands come to rest on his shoulders, almost as though she's reassuring herself that he's actually there.

"Me too," she admits softly, before a smile crosses her face. "They kept talking about the rifts collapsing and all I could think was that you weren't ... there. I couldn't leave with you. Everything just felt ... wrong."

"Wait. The rifts collapsed?"

Sam keeps a hold on Buffy's waist, keeping her close to him. She is tiny (and so much larger than life, in other ways) and his hands nearly span the whole of her waist. His forehead is still resting lightly against hers, his voice no louder than a whisper when -

"Get a room!"

Buffy closes her eyes at the outcry, rolling them slightly before turning back to him. "Do you? Have a room? Because I think this might be a conversation better had without the frat boy viewing party."

"Yeah," he says after a dumbfounded moment. If anything could jerk him out of his dazed reverie, this would be it. His hand softly runs down her arm until it finds her own, linking their fingers together. "It's off campus but it shouldn't be too far away. Are you hungry or anything?"

They could get food on the way there. Or anything else she might need. His mind is already racing with the possibilities as he tries wrapping his head around the fact she's here.

She slides her fingers between his, letting him lead the way. Sam knows the terrain better than she does and she trusts him not to steer her wrong when he can help it. She picks her way over the sticks and twigs, before giving a bit of a shrug. "I could eat." Food is always an important part of any Slayer's day. "Also shoes. Shoes would be good at some point."

As well as other clothing, but if she's just going to be hiding out at Sam's for a while she doesn't really need it for a while. Until then she can just borrow his.

The visual of Buffy wearing one of Sam's button-down shirts is so adorable that this is clearly what needs to happen.

"I don't think mine will fit," he points out, the faintest sign of a dimple appearing on his cheek. The truth is he's more emotional about this than he's letting on. He'd started to feel like he'd never see her or Dean again; that he would be alone, and ~~his co-dependency~~ he doesn't know that he would've been able to handle that.

But he doesn't steer her wrong. He leads her to his one bedroom apartment, housed away from the campus if only due to Sam's research on rifts and the supernatural he didn't want anyone snooping around in.

It does. She's also fairly certain he has a few t-shirts she can swim in, which is one of the benefits of being tiny when your boyfriend is enormous. All of his clothing covers all the important parts when needed.

"Just temporarily. Until I get a job and get some money so I can buy my own."

Or just until she disappears from this universe, but that's something she's trying not to think about right now.

Buffy may have any t-shirts of his she so desires. Sam is also trying to think of whether or not he has food in his apartment beyond the odd salad here and there. If not, they're going to have to order take out, but he has a feeling that Buffy won't mind.

And no. No disappearing from this universe. Not allowed. Nuh-uh.

"Hey, you don't have to worry about that right now," he tells her. He'll help her with whatever she needs. As for a job - well, her nighttime job will definitely be going nowhere. This place is filled with creepy crawlies.

Yay creepy crawlies. That's definitely a step in the right direction as far as keeping her occupied is concerned. Not that she has any weapons or gear, but she'd figure it out. She usually was one to improvise anyway.

"Oh no?" She raises an eyebrow as she takes a step closer to him, bumping him lightly with her shoulder. "What do I have to worry about?"

At that light shoulder bump, Sam slings his arm around her own shoulder, tucking her into his side.

The gesture is familiar, but it had also become a memory, so it feels good now to have it again. "Catching me up on what I've missed?" Sam offers with a crookedly helpless smile. Chicago wasn't ideal, but for as long as Dean and Buffy were there, it had been the closest thing to stability Sam had had in years.

"Hmmm. Let's see." She takes a deep breath as she curls into him a bit. Not enough to knock him over as they walk, but just enough to remind her that he's there. This is real. It feels insanely surreal, but she's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. At least not yet.

"I figured out my second form. I'm told I resemble a swallow. I don't really remember much of it." Mostly because it happened when she wasn't really herself and she doesn't want to talk about that or worry him, so she's going to just move on. "Dean hasn't gotten himself eaten by anything yet. Looney is still standing. I moonlighted as a circus ad for a day, that was fun."

She's mostly focusing on the happy. Again, she doesn't want to be depressing.

"The rift still thinks naked Damon Salvatore is a good idea for a Christmas present. I really think it needs to check it's standards and set them a little higher."

"A swallow," Sam repeats after her, a fond smile starting to tug at his lips.

He lived in Chicago long enough to understand being a shapeshifter there is a hell of a lot different than being a shapeshifter back home, and as it is, he never had the stalwart prejudice toward supernatural beings that Dean does. Sam befriended angels and demons alike, knew a werewolf or two.

Life was different there. He kind of misses it.

The rest of Buffy's speech is sadly cut short when he hears Damon's name. Sam's eyebrows climb up a bit high, his distaste for Damon still readily apparent. Naked Damon, no less. "That guy was still around?"

She laughs a bit. Not in a dismissive way, but in a Damon was pretty much her new Spike sort of way. Annoying, tries to hard to be charming, and never goes away. Ever.

"Yes, Damon is still around, unfortunately. Granted, I only ever saw him for special occasions." Like naked Christmas presents. "But every once in a while I did get to see him when the Rift made him sparkle."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

post-btr } { heaven only knows how much i've missed you

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

i just like using this icon, tbh.

it's a very pretty icon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject