*****
Buffy's having The Dream.
It always starts off the same: she's running through a city, utterly alien, yet she knows exactly where to go... where to hide. The slayer strength comes in handy around here, leaping over fences and running her unknown pursuers (lurks?) ragged, until she finds a place to hide. An abandoned squat halfway up a disused building.
"They almost got you," says the voice, and Buffy knows who it is without turning.
Buffy doesn't know her name, but feels the connection anyway. She's like Faith, but not like Faith. Like Buffy but without being anything like her. The tattoos, the piercing, the two-toned hair all perfectly constructed to project an image of 'don't mess with me', but Buffy can sense the loss and heartache underneath.
"They never get me," Buffy says, like always. The same conversation, like two actors reading the same lines night after night.
"Luck runs out. Eventually." The girl cocks an eyebrow.
"It's not eventually yet," Buffy replies, and finally turns. When she wakes up, she never quite can remember who starts it, but she drives her fingers into the girl's thick hair and pulls her close. Painted lips meet painted lips, and Buffy's drowning in the sensation. She's forgotten it's a dream, all she feels is the girl (slayer?) in her arms, so much like Faith, but different.
They sink to the floor, and hands meet bare flesh, soft and silky. Buffy's moaning in her sleep, her hips bucking, but she's forgotten she's dreaming and she doesn't wake up.
She feels the connection with the girl again, not just physically, but mentally, and she sees them as they are: two slayers, the last of the old, and the first of the new. Buffy suddenly sees that her urgency to touch the girl (Meleka?) is more than a yearning, she wants (needs) to pass on her power, her knowledge; and as she climaxes, Buffy sees a flash and sees how it ends.
The girl kisses her, softly and gently, the urgency gone.
"Thank you," she says, and smiles. She's beautiful, Buffy realises, she's just like me.
And that's when Buffy wakes up. She doesn't remember the specifics, the flashes, the slayer. All she remembers is a beautiful girl, and a powerful feeling of loss, hopelessness and despair. Buffy hopes for The Dream every night, and like every night when she has it, she starts to cry.
A million miles and generations away, Meleka Fray sleeps.
She never dreams.
End, 11/12/01