small things

It was hot that summer, I remember that much clearly. Red would come home from class and be all dewy, tell me it was a hundred degrees in the shade, that I was lucky I couldn’t go out while the sun was still up. Trust me, it was blazing enough at night, too. Nary a breeze in the moss-covered cemeteries out on patrol. Might not have much in the way of body temperature, but I could tell when it was cloying like that, and I didn’t much care for it.

Still, couldn’t stop me from donning the trusty old thing no matter what. Superficial, I suppose, but it was part of me – second skin and whatnot. Does it seem bleeding absurd beyond all measure to wear a huge leather coat in the middle of the hottest summer on record? Hell, yeah. But even a hundred days after the Slayer dove from that tower to her death, I was still feeling a bit like punishing myself for not saving her. Suffer that failure through sweating it all out, suppose that was the idea.

When there wasn’t killing some beasties or watching over the niblet, there was drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. Sometimes alone, sometimes I put up with Harris just to have somebody to talk to. We actually did that a lot then, he and I. Bit odd when I think about it now, but at the time it didn’t seem so. Everybody was wandering about in a haze of mope and such, so nothing was as it would’ve normally been.

Usually after the little bit had gone to bed, I’d stick ‘round the house, sit out on the back porch, look at the stars, have a smoke, try to feel whatever peace I possibly could. And sometimes, if the ‘bot was out having a slay or being tinkered on by Will, I’d find myself drawn to Buffy’s room.

I’d go up there, lean my tired body against the closet doors, sit on the floor, and just have a cry. Not the sort of thing I fancied doing in front of anybody, obviously, but when I was alone, I simply couldn’t help it. Nobody to watch, nobody to judge, nobody to tell me to snap the hell out of it ‘cause she never loved me anyway.

No eyes on me at all, except those of her ridiculous stuffed pig. Every time I’d be sobbing my eyes out thinking of her, that sodding bit of fluff and felt would be staring down at me with its little button eyes.

That was really the only thing that could ever get me to stop being weepy, that stupid, silly pig.

When things got real tough to handle, right before she wound up clawing her way out of the grave, I’d slip the damn thing in the pocket of my duster when we all went out to do our duty. Be punching some nasty thing in the face, staking a fledgling, and I’d feel the weight of it in there, like a small bit of comfort, like a little piece of the Slayer was out there fighting by my side.

It’s the small things that keep you sane.