Re: M.I.A.?

["B. Harvey" <honouredfool@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here I am!
Apologies to the list but in recent times my RL has become a colossal 
mess of paper deadlines, poverty, house sitting adventures and shitty, 
shitty work hours. I'm officially putting the fic I was going to write, 
Exit Music, on hold because I can't maitain the specific mood for writing 
long ass stories like that long enough to actually write the stupid things. 
Instead I'm going to tear a page from the book of Anne-Lise (writer of 
"Anne-Lise's Snippets" in case you were wondering)(he mutters in a snide ass 
aside) and just toss off little tidbits when I'm up to it. Such as what 
follows. Naturally the standard disclaimers apply, I don't own the 
characters, claim no rights, expect no rewards and acknowledge that I'm just 
messing around with the creations of Joss Whendon and Co.

^^^
The smoke fills my lungs in a comforting burst, the nicotine 
disappating through my body and taking some of the edge off, if only for a 
few seconds. A sharp black spike of PAIN stabs into my brain as the 
expansion of my chest works its magic on the hairline fractures in my 
ribcage. I gasp in a sick combination of pain and the pleasure it brings 
me. I look at the faces around me in our little corner of the almost new 
Sunnydale High, the skatepunks, greasy haired metal freaks, thugs and 
criminals, the smoke pit denizens, and I know that no matter what happens, 
who hits who, who yells at who, what the cheerleaders say about us, I know 
that bar none, I am the toughest kid at Sunnydale High. No one can touch 
me.
When Buffy kicked it there was no one to look after me for a while. 
Giles picked up and hauled ass back to England, Xander and Anya were all 
wrapped up in there own thing and Willow and Tara went off on some sort of 
witch quest thing to harness their powers, or stregthen them or something, I 
wasn't really paying attention, what with burying my sister and all. That's 
when I started with the cigs. And the drugs, but we won't talk about that. 
I toughened up though.
Buffy came back, but it wasn't the same. "The world's a hard place 
Dawnie, you have to learn to protect yourself." Smack. "Fight back! Hit 
me!" Whomp.
I hit back. Not very good at first, but I got the hang of it. The 
sound of a fist hitting a bare stomach sounds a lot like a piece of beef 
hitting the counter at the butchers. A nice wet THWACK to it. Yeah, Buffy 
came back alright. And I got tougher.
Willow came back when she heard that Buffy had returned. Tara didn't 
though. I never asked.
Willow ran straight into Buffy's open arms. Straight into Buffy's 
bed. Buffy was never gentle with me, always telling me I had to learn to 
defend myself. She never hit Willow out of nowhere. But I got tougher.
She did it because she loved me. I know how that sounds and that's 
not what I mean. I'm not some lonely little girl dating a guy old enough to 
remember Top 40 music from the year she was born, telling her friend's he 
only hits her because she makes him so angry, and it's all her fault. It 
was all Buffy's fault that she hit me, all her fault that I hit back. She 
knew, she knew the whole time she was back.
It took her about a year to bring me up to an acceptable level of 
toughness. I could smash wood with my fists, kick in three different 
directions before I landed a standing jump, I could use a sword, shoot a 
crossbow, wield a stake or even a small axe, shoot a gun. Willow figured 
out that the monks made me tougher, you know, just in case. In a year I was 
tough enough to take a vamp almost as fast as she could. In a year she was 
gone.
The note they left said everything. Once you had been to a place 
like she had been you could never leave it and not want to race back every 
second of every day. For an entire year every cell in her body screamed for 
relief, every little electric impulse that fired through her brain, that 
made her soul her soul longed to be back there. So she went. And Willow 
went with her. I was two days shy of eighteen. I was alone again. I got 
tougher.
I fight a lot, a lot of the time, a lot of things. People, 
Vampires, other demons, my demons. I like to fight. It feels good. When 
you've beaten something death with your bare hands, something that would 
have killed you if given half a chance; when your fist has pulped the face 
of your child molesting best friend's guidance counsellor, when you feel the 
satisfying smack of justice against the bruised and battered face of evil 
you feel good. When your ribs crack from an unexpected blow, when your nose 
is broken in three places, when there are cuts on your face and battered 
knuckles that will never heal, then you feel alive.
When they let her out of jail Faith came back to Sunnydale. We live 
in my house, the Summers House. On Revello Drive. Just the two of us. She 
doesn't hit me. I don't hit her. We hit other stuff. And other people. We 
fuck each other. And I get tougher.
^^
The End.

HF.

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