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31_days2006-06-15 02:46 pm
fic-claims-lj.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2006-06-15 02:46 pm
[15 June '06] [Buffy the Vampire Slayer] 'Summer in Rome'
Title: Summer in Rome
Day/Theme: June 15 '06/shaved ice, slow fan, summer heat
Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Dawn, hints of onesided Dawn/Spike
Rating: PG-13
Summer in Rome is burning, slow and excruciating, and why don’t they just all set themselves on fire and save themselves three months of this, Dawn thinks.
Her Coke is so cold it burns in her throat.
Everything burns.
The fan in the corner is slow and rattling; she grits her teeth to stop herself breaking it.
---
Dawn wonders how those stupid, stupid monks had managed it. How did they create memories like hers, ones that come back to her with a smell or a taste or a touch?
She thinks it’s a lie, half the time, or a dream, and comforts herself with that.
She’s probably been dreaming since she was fourteen, which is good because it means Tara hasn’t died but also bad because she never really got those gorgeous shoes she wanted.
She adds would never have come to this horrible city and wouldn’t have cracked lips and sunburn to the list, which tilts the balance.
She smoothes her skirt, and thinks about California.
---
She used to dream about what it would have been like, if they’d never attacked the First Evil and the First Evil had never attacked them. If they’d stayed in that perpetual waiting state.
In her dreams she was always colder than she should be.
---
She knows about Spike, and that whole still-being-undead thing, but it’s all very secret and she mustn’t tell Buffy, which she rather likes.
She enjoys having a secret about Spike, because it’s like having Spike all to herself and though she did, she really did get completely and irrevocably over her fourteen-year-old crush, it’s nice.
She wonders if they’d look good in bed together, better than him and Buffy, then wonders if she’s being callous.
---
She drinks alcohol now, it’s allowed, though she thinks the taste could be improved with chocolate.
She’s probably the youngest person in the world to drink legally, and savours that.
She’s the youngest person to do a whole lot of things.
She drinks a lot and then curls up on the sofa, barely any clothes on, and it seems to be the only way she can sleep, some nights. Buffy finds her and they yell and get all het up and sweaty and horrible again.
She’s tempted to fill a coffin with shaved ice, and go to sleep there, but it would seem macabre and most people who sleep in coffins look deformed half the time.
She doesn’t like the associations. It’s too real.
---
It’s summer in Rome, hazy and lazy and blistering. The sunlight clings to Dawn’s bare skin, to her face and her arms, too hot. She’s restless, and only thinks in strange thought-patterns.
It’s just so hot here.
Dawn still doesn’t think of this place as home.
Day/Theme: June 15 '06/shaved ice, slow fan, summer heat
Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Dawn, hints of onesided Dawn/Spike
Rating: PG-13
Summer in Rome is burning, slow and excruciating, and why don’t they just all set themselves on fire and save themselves three months of this, Dawn thinks.
Her Coke is so cold it burns in her throat.
Everything burns.
The fan in the corner is slow and rattling; she grits her teeth to stop herself breaking it.
---
Dawn wonders how those stupid, stupid monks had managed it. How did they create memories like hers, ones that come back to her with a smell or a taste or a touch?
She thinks it’s a lie, half the time, or a dream, and comforts herself with that.
She’s probably been dreaming since she was fourteen, which is good because it means Tara hasn’t died but also bad because she never really got those gorgeous shoes she wanted.
She adds would never have come to this horrible city and wouldn’t have cracked lips and sunburn to the list, which tilts the balance.
She smoothes her skirt, and thinks about California.
---
She used to dream about what it would have been like, if they’d never attacked the First Evil and the First Evil had never attacked them. If they’d stayed in that perpetual waiting state.
In her dreams she was always colder than she should be.
---
She knows about Spike, and that whole still-being-undead thing, but it’s all very secret and she mustn’t tell Buffy, which she rather likes.
She enjoys having a secret about Spike, because it’s like having Spike all to herself and though she did, she really did get completely and irrevocably over her fourteen-year-old crush, it’s nice.
She wonders if they’d look good in bed together, better than him and Buffy, then wonders if she’s being callous.
---
She drinks alcohol now, it’s allowed, though she thinks the taste could be improved with chocolate.
She’s probably the youngest person in the world to drink legally, and savours that.
She’s the youngest person to do a whole lot of things.
She drinks a lot and then curls up on the sofa, barely any clothes on, and it seems to be the only way she can sleep, some nights. Buffy finds her and they yell and get all het up and sweaty and horrible again.
She’s tempted to fill a coffin with shaved ice, and go to sleep there, but it would seem macabre and most people who sleep in coffins look deformed half the time.
She doesn’t like the associations. It’s too real.
---
It’s summer in Rome, hazy and lazy and blistering. The sunlight clings to Dawn’s bare skin, to her face and her arms, too hot. She’s restless, and only thinks in strange thought-patterns.
It’s just so hot here.
Dawn still doesn’t think of this place as home.