Okay, so it wasn’t like cutting her hair or rock climbing would matter much if she were dead either. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true, she thought. At least when I’m up there in heaven I can look back at my life and see all the things that I enjoyed about my life, and is the rat race I’ve been part of, is that something I’ve really enjoyed? No. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed it for a little while, but it’s so fake, all of it, and I never felt like me. I kept waiting for the fun to start, for what people saw at home to be in my own life. I forgot as one of those that weave a story for the folks at home, that it’s just that – a story. None of it is really real. Doesn’t it mean something that when I needed to get away from all that crap I went to the one person that I could always be myself with?
She had to admit, she felt irresponsible. After working so hard for so long it was difficult to just take some time off. She felt reckless. As if she was playing hooky. In high school, Spike was always the one cutting class and trying to get her to go with him. The one time she did, she felt anxious. She kept looking over her shoulder expecting that at any minute she was about to get caught. And she had. The next day, she’d received detention and it was a horrible, horrible moment when she had to look at the Vice Principal as he told her she was to report for detention after school, the look of disappointment evident on his face. Buffy was the good girl, the straight A student, involved in almost every club, her name behind any even the school funded, and she’d been gotten “in trouble”. Still, to this day, it made her shudder to remember.
Things were different now though. She was under no rules save for her own. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself. Her phone, she’d shoved in a drawer so she wouldn’t be tempted to open it and listen to her gazillion messages of everyone wondering where the hell she was. Each time she passed by that drawer though, it got a little bit harder not to take just a peak.
Heaving a sigh, Buffy shook her head. No. This is my life and I’m going to do what I want and how I want and damn it all if everyone, even Spike, doesn’t like it.
With that thought in mind, Buffy lay down to get some much needed rest. There was a tattoo she’d been thinking about getting in the morning…
Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Spike rapped on Buffy’s door. He’d heard her milling around in there and was wondering what she had planned for the day. Plus, he was worried that she was still peeved at him for his sage words of advice that he never seemed to follow himself. Hadn’t he always marched to the beat of a different drummer and told Buffy that what she needed to do was loosen up a bit? So why he was now telling her to get a hold of herself, he wasn’t sure. Only think he could come up with was that Buffy had always been the straight-laced one, the one that had it all together and he was always the one that flew by the seat of his pants, got himself into trouble, and somehow still landed on his feet. She was attempting to reverse their roles without even realizing it and it was cause for concern.
“Buffy? What are you doing?” he asked through the door, trying to discern by the movements inside what she was doing. Knowing her she was attempting to make a rocket to the moon out of a few household appliances a la Better off Dead.
The door swung open and a fresh faced, sweet scented Buffy greeted him. She wore black straight leg pants, black v-neck top and black flats.
“Hey, I was wondering if Buffy was in here, Audrey,” Spike greeted her, grinning.
She shot him a mock glare and grabbed her black hand bag from the top of her dresser. “Audrey Hepburn always was favorite of mine,” she said haughtily and walked past him, pushing him slightly out of the way.
“Where are you off to this morning, my little daredevil?” he asked following her, appreciating the tightness of her pants around her bum.
Keeping her head held high, she headed for the front door and without turning around, answered him. “I’m going to get a tattoo.”
Spike froze. “What?”
“I’m going to get a tattoo,” she said simply, sounding put out that she had to answer him again.
Her hand had just closed around the doorknob when Spike sprang into action. He lunged forward and grabbed her forearm, spinning her to face him. “Oh, no, Princess, I don’t think so.”
Buffy glared up at him and tried in vain to yank her arm free of his grasp. “Why not?” she demanded.
“It’s a tattoo, Buffy. That’s permanent ink on your skin. I don’t even have one!”
“So? I have to use you as some kind of ruler by which I made the decision on what I should get?”
“Everyone will see it on you!”
“Well,” she said softly, “not everyone.”
Crossing his arms about his chest, Spike looked down at her, narrowing his eyes. “And just where do you presume to get this tattoo?”
She looked up at him, pouting, her succulent bottom lip protruding. “On my lower back,” she said petulantly.
For a minute he was distracted by her pout, thinking, Oooh, pouty….look at that lip, before what she said sunk into his head. “What?!” he roared. “Your lower back? Are you daft?”
She grinned, suddenly seeming to enjoy his outburst. “You know what they say, right? Tattoo on the lower back, might as well be a bull’s eye.”
He was too stunned at her words to make a move quick enough to halt her. She was out the door in a flash as he stared after her, mouth gaping open.
When he came to, he rushed out the door, nearly smashing his foot on the swinging door in the process. “Buffy, wait!” he shouted as she started to climb in her car.
“Now what?” she asked tersely.
“Don’t take that tone with me, missy!” he shouted after her, bounding up to her car. “Just look, let me shower and get dressed and I’ll come with you.”
She hesitated, frowning slightly. “You won’t talk me out of it?”
“Could I?”
“No.”
“No, well then, at least let me help you find a respectable one.”
She gave him a look and rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
She is going to be the death of me, Spike thought as they made their way back to the house. When did I become my father? And to a grown woman!