Title: Masks (1/1)
Author: Zephyr
Summary: Just a fun little piece set after
Halloween.
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Love it.
Archiving: If you want it. Just let me know so I
can go see.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns Buffy, the show and its
characters. But the
green and black feather is mine.
Light filtered through grimy windows into a small
costume shop. The shop
had been abandoned by its owner, a man who enjoyed
summoning the forces of
darkness in his spare time. Now the thick scent of
exposed cardboard
filled the air. The feet of two teenage girls made
puffs of dust as they
padded along the floor. One had red hair and the
other was blonde, except
when they tried on a few of the wigs that were still
laying around.
The previous owner vacated the place in a bit of a
hurry, fearing for his
life at the time. There were all manner of things
left over, which had not
been packed into boxes and taken. A few wigs here,
some props there. And
a whole box of masks.
"Buffy," said the redhead with a worried grimace,
"are you sure we should
be doing this?"
"Willow, relax," said the blonde. "What's Ethan
going to do, come back to
Sunnydale to call the cops on us? Horrors!"
"But, but... what if we turn into things again?"
said Willow. "Like last
time, with the costumes, and the being dead...
Buffy, I don't want to be
dead again."
"That'll teach you to take the ghost costume next
time," Buffy said with a
grin. "Besides, I thought you made a cute ghost."
She moved along before she could see the bemused
expression cross Willow's
face. Willow followed her, nevertheless, as they
turned into a dark corner
in the back of the shop. It was here that they
found the box of masks,
which up until now had been collecting dust. The
box was made of wood and
covered in chipping white paint, with yellowed
streaks and splotches.
"Ooh, fun," said Buffy, holding up several masks in
turn to see what they
were. Willow peered over her shoulder.
"Yeah, right up until they turn you into a... what
is this?" Willow asked,
holding up one in particular. It was roughly
triangular, and appeared to
be made of real wood on the inside. The outside was
covered in red scales,
with two slits carved for the eyes and a bump for
the nose. Over the eye
slits were two small horns. An elastic band across
the back rather ruined
the effect.
"I don't know," Buffy said. "Looks... demony."
"Right," Willow agreed, placing the mask back in the
box
triumphantly. "Which is why we should leave." She
put her hand on Buffy's
shoulder and tried to pull the other girl away with
her. But Buffy was the
Slayer, and a Slayer is rarely moved very far if she
doesn't want to
be. Buffy just looked up at her and lifted a white
mask to her face.
"C'mon, Will. How do I look?" she asked.
"Like a princess," Willow said before she could stop
herself. "And
remember," she tried to cover her slip, "last time
you looked princess-y
with something from this shop you turned into one.
And not a really bright
one as I recall."
Buffy playfully swatted Willow's hand, which was
still on her
shoulder. Willow jerked it back reflexively, but
Buffy pretended not to
notice.
"Hey! I wasn't myself," she said.
"Well," Willow said, "you did seem to know what a
'demon' was. Except that
your classification somehow included anything with
two lights and
wheels." She smiled at the memory. Buffy would
have been amusing if the
situation had not been so dangerous, and in
retrospect Willow found the
whole thing very funny.
"How should a an eighteenth... seven...
really-long-time-ago noblewoman be
expected to know what a car is? Hmm?" Buffy was
quickly losing the mock
battle, and she knew it.
"Well, I suppose you were a little different,"
Willow conceded, and Buffy
nodded triumphantly. "I mean, you had your hair a
different color, and you
don't have that vapid expression most of the time."
"That's righ-- what do you mean, most of the time?"
Buffy exclaimed, and
Willow just shrugged and smirked. "Oh yeah, well,
you... you made a really
cute ghost." Willow's eyes went wide, and Buffy
started smirking instead.
"What... what kind of a retort was that?" Willow
stammered. "Was that a
retort? And what do you mean, I looked cute? I was
all... scantily
dressed. And dead! Buffy, I was dead and scanty!"
"Oh, I don't know about that, Will. Scanty isn't
really PC, you
know. Maybe..." Buffy paused for a moment.
"skin-enhanced?"
"No! No! No skin!" Willow said. "Hey look,
another mask." She held it
up to her face, covering her growing blush. It was
a white theatre mask,
mouth curved down in tragedy. Buffy's eyes flicked
up to meet Willow's
green ones, peeking out from the slits in the white
plastic. Willow seemed
to be pouting, but the mask made her pout into a sad
frown.
"Will, don't worry so much," Buffy said, frowning at
her friend's
frown. "Be happy! See?" She held Comedy up to her
own face for a moment,
then handed it to Willow. The hacker shyly took it,
and held the two masks
in her hands as if weighing them.
"That's sweet," she said, smiling at the Slayer.
"But I don't want you to
have to wear the sad one to match."
Buffy shrugged, smiling in return. Their eyes met
again, and it was a few
moments before Buffy spoke.
"I, uh... well, just forget them, then. We don't
need them." She took the
masks from Willow's hands and tossed them onto an
empty shelf behind
her. "Ooh, look." Having already forgot the white
masks, Buffy pulled a
large feather from the box. It was soft and fluffy,
and colored in stripes
of black and green.
"Did it fall off one of the masks?" Willow asked.
"I don't know," Buffy said, "but I don't think so.
It doesn't look like it
was attached to anything."
"Must have gotten mixed up, then."
"Yeah."
"Oh, hey!" Willow exclaimed, pulling out a wrinkled
green mask with a long
nose. "I'm a witch!"
"Very funny, Will. Though, I think that's a
goblin."
"It's not. If I had the hat, you'd see..."
"No hats here, I think. Or broomsticks. Much as
this place could use one."
"Yes, well..." Willow harumphed softly and discarded
the green face. The
floor was getting messier, now, and the box emptier.
Buffy played with a
few of the masks, pawing through them and flipping
them over. She'd
suggested this on a whim. Ethan had cleared out --
she'd made extra sure
of that earlier -- and it was something... something
to do with
Willow. She was starting to tire of the masks now,
but she would never
tire of a certain redhead.
Said redhead was digging down to the bottom of the
crate. She came up with
a small cardboard box.
"Wonder what this is doing in here?" she murmured.
Turning around, she
popped it open. Buffy tried to peek over her
shoulder.
"What's that?"
"You'll see."
"Will..." Buffy said. She was mildly surprised when
Willow turned around
and nothing seemed to have changed. Then the
redhead grinned, revealing
pointed plastic teeth.
"I'm a vampire! Grr! I'm going to eat you now!"
"Down, Will. Don't make me slay you."
"Aw, you wouldn't slay me. 'Cause then I'd be all
dead, and you wouldn't
have anyone to make fun of... you."
"But you made such a cute ghost," Buffy said,
looking her friend up and
down. Willow blushed again, silently cursing her
cheeks and her
circulation. "Besides, you're too warm and snuggly
to be a vamp."
"Yeah. Complete non-vamp, that's me," Willow said.
Buffy noticed the
small dip in her chin and eyes.
"Hey," she said. "Warm and snuggly are of the good.
Along with cuddly,
nice to be around, and beautiful."
"Aw, Buffy."
"It's true," Buffy said in a tone that would not
allow
disagreement. Willow ducked her head. Buffy
reached out a hand and nudged
Willow's head back up, meeting her eyes. "It's
true. You're beautiful...
skin-enhanced or not."
Her grin widened as she realized that she'd finally
pushed Willow far
enough. Shrieking, she fell back as the redhead
pounced on her in a flurry
of dust and hair.
"Now, missy," Willow said in a tone that was meant
to be stern -- really it
was. "There will be no more of that."
"Of course not," Buffy said. "If you don't want me
to tell you you're
beautiful, I can stop. But if you want me not to
tell you that you're
drop-dead gorgeous, you'll have to say please."
"Buffy!"
"Though you would look good in leather," Buffy
decided, closing her eyes
delicately to enjoy the image. They lay there for a
while more, Buffy's
eyes closed and Willow's mouth hanging open in
disbelief. Willow dragged
her eyes across Buffy's chin and neck.
"Buffy?" she asked after a few moments, unsure of
what was going on.
"Willow," Buffy said. It was a simple statement on
the surface, but
beneath it was so much more, if only Willow wanted
to see it. The shy
hacker pushed herself away, sitting quietly beside
the box of masks. She
half-heartedly rifled through it with one hand,
before turning it over onto
the floor.
"You really think I'm beautiful?" Willow asked,
staring across the dusty
corridor. Buffy moved a bit closer.
"Always," she said. She pushed aside some of the
mess on the floor. "You
don't need masks, Will. You're beautiful for what
you are."
"So why are we here?" Willow inquired. She always
picked out the little
things, Buffy thought. Specifically the little
things that might imply she
was anything less than utterly enchanting.
"I thought it might be fun to snoop," Buffy said
with a familiar
grin. Willow pouted for a moment longer, then
joined her, unable to resist.
"And was it?" she asked.
"Anything's fun when you're there," Buffy said.
Then she noticed Willow's
playful glare. "Sappiness meter?"
"Rising fast."
"Like the thermometer in a fridge that just broke
down in Arizona?" Buffy
asked.
"Maybe not quite that fast."
"So you don't mind if I keep going?"
"For now."
"All right then... and may I just say, you light up
the room just by your
presence, you snuggly cuddle-bunny you, and--"
"Stop," Willow finally groaned.
"Stop, what?"
"Stop, please."
"All right, my Willow-tree," Buffy said with a
satisfied smirk on her
face. Willow looked at her strangely, and for once
she wasn't quite sure
what was crossing the hacker's mind.
"What did you call me?"
"Um, lots of things."
"No," Willow said. "Just then."
"My Willow-tree?" Buffy asked, and saw Willow nod
slightly. She sensed
that the mood in the room had changed. "Sorry,
thought the sappiness meter
needed one last push. Arizona, you know."
"I am, you know," Willow said, piercing Buffy with
her green gaze.
"What? A sappy tree?" Buffy asked. Immediately,
she realized this wasn't
quite the right thing to say. Willow's eyes were
trying to tell her
something, beseeching her.
"Yours," Willow said.
And then everything started to click into place.
The glances, the
stares... but still, what do you say to something
like that?
"Me too," Buffy said. "Yours, I mean. I am."
Willow grinned widely, her
tongue pressing against the inside of her teeth in
the most delectable
way. Buffy blinked a couple of times before the
grin became
infectious. "Your..." she searched for a good
appellation, sticking her
hand into the pile of masks for inspiration.
"Robot?"
Willow giggled as Buffy held the gray plastic
robo-mask to her face. It
had little green and red light stickers, and there
were painted-on wires
crisscrossing it.
"My Buffy-bot? And what's in your programming
today?"
"You're computer girl, Will. You tell me."
"Buffy?" Willow asked, her plaintive tone making
Buffy drop the robot face
and slide over to sit next to her.
"Yeah?"
"What are we doing?"
"I thought you might know," Buffy confessed, and the
two girls fidgeted
with the hems of their shirts.
"What do you want to be doing?" Willow asked after a
while.
"I... don't know. I'm sorry, Will, it's just..."
"Angel?"
"Well, yeah," Buffy said, looking down at the floor.
"And, the whole two-girls thing?"
"Nah. Not that. Not when it's you. I mean, hey,
it's not like you're a
demon or anything."
"Sure I am. See?" Willow grinned, exposing the
plastic vampire
teeth. Buffy chuckled a little, and the rapidly
declining mood was boosted
a little.
"Right. I'd forgotten about the necessary slayage
somewhere among the...
necessary talkage."
"Talkage. Yeah. Uh, what kind?"
"Hmm?"
"What kind?" Willow repeated. "Of talking, I mean.
Are we doing the
what-next talk, or the
what's-your-favorite-ice-cream talk, or... or the
this-can't-work talk? Buffy, we're not doing the
this-can't-work talk, are
we?"
"I... I hope not," Buffy said. "I really do."
"Well, sometimes that's enough," Willow said. "But
still... Angel? And
the guys?"
"Angel... this will hurt him. But, as much as he
assured me he doesn't go
in for the old-time nobility... he's still been
around for, what, hundreds
of years. Over in Ireland, and England, and
probably even Europe. And
here's me, California high-school girl, destined to
die at the hands of
some nasty thing -- again."
"Buffy, don't talk like that."
Buffy smiled, and said, "Okay, Will, enough with the
morose. For now. But
still, Angel is a big boy, and he can deal. I mean,
Willow, he's older
than Giles. Did you ever think about that?"
"I try not to."
"Right. And the guys? They'll deal too. They'll
have to."
"Oh. Ohh. Well, then... but, Buffy?"
"Yeah?
"Why me?" Willow asked. Buffy stared at her in
wonder and disbelief.
"What do you mean, why you? Will, don't you
want..."
"Of course, I want. But... why would you? Really?
I'm not a champion
like you or Angel. I'm just--"
"You're not just anything, Will," Buffy broke in.
"But--"
"Tell you what," Buffy said. "I'll stop talking
about how I'm probably
going to be dead in a few years, and you stop
pretending that you're
anything less than a beautiful and intelligent young
woman. Deal?" Willow
was blushing again, and both friends were close to
tears. Silently, Willow
ducked her head. Buffy chose to take the gesture as
a nod.
"Good. No more of that, then. Now... hug?"
"Sure."
They turned around where they were sitting and
embraced, pushing aside some
dust and debris. Neither could see the other's
smile, but there was
something in the way they moved against each other,
something that affirmed
their choice.
"Um, Buffy?" Willow asked tentatively.
"Yeah, Willow?"
"Should we, uh..."
"What?"
"Should we kiss now? I mean, we don't have to, if
you don't want to,
because, well, if you don't want... but it would be
nice, if we did, even
though we don't--"
Willow's speech was cut off suddenly, and was nearly
joined by the
circulation to her brain as Buffy touched lips with
her. They brushed
against each other, tasting each other's soft
mouths. Buffy pulled back
after a few seconds.
"More, later," she said, as Willow's face showed
something between
disappointment and hope. "After I tell..."
"I understand," Willow said. "Later."
"Yeah. Later."
They sat there in silence, letting the sun filtering
through the windows
warm them. They were both gazing down at their
clasped hands.
"Will?" Buffy said. "Would you think that I'm a
horrible person if I said
I didn't want to wait?"
"Let me think," Willow said, putting on an
expression of mock concentration
and resting a finger on her chin. Buffy nudged her
playfully. "All right,
the vote is in. I don't think you would be a
horrible person at
all. Quite the opposite, in fa--"
She was cut off again as Buffy pulled her into a
deeper kiss, running her
tongue along the redhead's lips, which opened
freely. They softly began to
explore each other.
"Ow."
"Ow."
"Ow, ow."
"I forgot about those," Willow said sheepishly. She
popped out the vampire
teeth, sticking them back in the box. "I must have
been distracted."
"Gee, wonder why?"
"Well, that went and spoiled the mood, didn't it?"
Willow said. Her tone
was light, but her eyes told Buffy that she was
slipping back into self-doubt.
"Well, I'm still in a good mood," Buffy said. "If
you need cheering up,
well, I hear that there are ways..."
"Buffy! Not... not here!" Willow exclaimed,
suddenly sitting up and
looking around. "Ohmygod, I forgot we were still
here. What if, what if
somebody comes in? What if Ethan comes back, and
lays some sort of naughty
evil curse on us?"
"I don't think he'll be back this soon," Buffy said,
trying to calm her
down. "And you know we don't need evil curses to be
naughty."
"Buffy!"
"Hey. I actually meant that in a strictly
non-innuendo-y way. Really."
Willow glared at her, finding this hard to believe,
but Buffy just found
the expression cute. As usual.
"We should still, um, relocate," Willow said, and
finally Buffy agreed with
her.
"Yeah. Concerns of privacy aside, this shelf is
starting to dig into my back."
"I told you this was a bad place," Willow joked.
"Hey, I think we did good here. Don't you?" Buffy
asked.
"Yeah. But... are you sure? About me?"
"Yes, I'm sure," Buffy said, looking into Willow's
eyes and trying her best
to make the shy girl believe her. "It's you and you
only from here on
out. And, hey," she continued, seeing Willow start
to duck behind her
hair. "you don't have to hide from me, Willow."
"I know," Willow whispered. "It's just..."
"I know," Buffy echoed. "But you have to believe
me. Willow, I... I love
you."
Willow smiled at her, and it wasn't a smirk or a
quirk or a prelude to a
giggle. It was an all out, ice-cream eating grin
that warmed Buffy up
inside and out.
"Love you too, my Slayery Buffy-bot."
"Well then," Buffy said, offering her arm, which
Willow took. "Let's go."
As they stepped over the mess they had made and
headed towards the exit,
Buffy noticed that the green and black fluffy
feather had somehow drifted
away and landed in the middle of the floor.
"Willow, can I ask you something?" she said,
sounding distracted.
"Anything."
"Do you ever have... fantasies?"
Willow smacked her playfully on the arm, but before
they left she reached
down and snatched up the feather, twirling it in her
free hand. "What?"
she said. "It's pretty."
"Sure is," Buffy said, and they headed off to find a
more comfortable place
for sitting, and talking, and possibly other things.
And if anyone
wondered why the two girls were walking down the
street arm in arm wearing
grins like Cheshire cats in fields of catnip, they
would, sadly, be left
wondering for quite some time.
* * *
FIN
Zephyr
"Don't worry, Will, you still wear the smarty-pants
in the family."
-Buffy, in "Out of My Mind"