taxonomites | 036: [ location: castle summers ] / [ visual ] unwelcome visitors

Buffy is washing the dishes. It's a very mundane task of course, and the broadcast isn't terribly exciting. Soap, running water, annoyed mumbling about Dawn and fossilized lasagne, a little humming to the radio - which is playing some happy-sounding salsa music, the Summers kitchen staple.

At a certain point, she pulls the rubber gloves off her hands, pausing to lean against the sink, take a deep breath and stare into the plughole for a minute or two. There's a lot on her mind, evidently. When she finally comes back to herself, she turns to leave the sink, and then there's a gasp as she stops in her tracks, paralyzed with shock.

Her mother is standing beside her. Her mother, standing there silent and pale and unmistakeably dead. She doesn't know whether to scream or to throw her arms around the apparition. "Mom...?" She asks, in barely more than a whisper. "Mom, are you really here?" Still rooted to the spot, her vision already beginning to swim with hopeful tears, she lifts her hand, about to reach out and touch the ghost. She stops, however, when she notices that her mother isn't even looking at her. No, she's looking right past her. Through her. Behind her.

With a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, she turns, painfully slowly, feeling every single hair on the back of her neck prickle with the presence of death. She turns to meet the empty gaze of... herself. Only not quite herself, exactly. A version. A version of herself in decay. In the process of decomposition - an informative insight into how she must have looked in the coffin, before her friends brought her back. Her eyes widen with horror as she just stares for a heart-stopping second, and then turns back to look at her mother, only to find her gone. Her head whips around again, back to her cadaverous double, to see that she too has vanished.

There's a moment where she teeters on the edge of sinking to the floor to just cry. Pushing down that urge and steeling herself, she instead fumbles with the tablet, her hands trembling. When she speaks, her voice is mostly level. Mostly. It's also filled with anger.

"Whoever's doing this, the ghosts? Whatever you are, whatever you want, you have no right to use her face. You want to play with me? Fine. But don't you dare use her, because I swear to god I will find you."

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I'll be right over.

---

And about fifteen minutes later, Max is at the castle. It doesn't take her too long to find Buffy, and when she does, she moves quickly to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey," she says softly, offering her a small smile that's meant to be reassuring. "You still feeling creeped out?"

Buffy looks up when Max arrives, returning the smile to show that she's okay. The past fifteen minutes have been spent cleaning things unnecessarily, and now she's finally taken a seat at the table.

"Kinda," she admits, honestly. "But the ghosts haven't come back for an encore, so that's a plus. Thanks for coming." She gestures at the kitchen in general, as she continues. "Can I get you anything? I have all the essential ingredients to make a kickass peanut butter and jelly sandwich. ...it's possible I need to go shopping."

Max laughs, softly. "You and me both. I should probably work on finding a job first, so I have the money to buy food."

That having been said, she shakes her head at the offer of food. "No problem. Had you seen any...before then?"

This is not what she came here to ask Buffy about, but it's a step in the direction she wants to take.

"We still need to get our world-class security business off the ground," she jokes, with a mild sympathetic smile. She remembers the lameness of unemployment very well indeed. The smile melts into a frown at Max's question, however.

"Have I seen any ghosts before?" She says, as if clarifying the question for herself. "Yes and no. Not exactly. I've seen... manifestations. Traces left behind that wake up for whatever reason. Usually because there's magic involved, or some kind of big evil. Or big evil magic." She pauses, to get herself back on track. "But nothing like this before. This is new."

"Oh - no. That...wasn't my question," she says, looking down and away. Maybe this isn't such a good idea, but she's come this far.

"I was wondering - why did you see yourself?"

"Oh." Well, that's a very different question. Buffy hesitates a little before answering, not because she doesn't want to tell Max, but mostly because she's not entirely sure how to phrase her response.

"Well, I don't know." Which is true - the usual rules don't seem to apply in Taxon. She takes a deep breath, before launching into it. "But... it could be because I've been dead before. Twice, actually. The first time I drowned, just for a few minutes, and Xander managed to give me CPR. Second time was... longer. I had a coffin and everything. They buried me in this really pretty dress. It was all very tasteful." She's trying to cushion the weirdness with levity, though it's probably not working too well. "Anyway, my friends brought me back using magic, and here I am. All alive and kicking. But I guess that could be why I'm seeing zombie-me. You know, scare tactics or whatever."

Max listens with her hands folded in front of her, nodding in the appropriate places. It makes sense and it doesn't, she still doesn't entirely understand magic and won't pretend to. But she knows better than to scoff and say it's impossible, especially after all the different things she's seen since she's been here.

"It makes sense, I guess," she says softly, looking down after a moment or two. "Maybe I'll see myself, too."

Buffy is glad that Max accepts that what she's saying is the truth - it's so much more complicated explaining things when the other half of the conversation is convinced that you're crazy. She's surprised by Max's response though, and her eyes widen at the revelation.

"You've died too?" She asks, perhaps displaying a lack of tact, but there aren't really any more sensitive ways of putting it.

"In the technical sense of the word, yeah," she says, nodding. "I got shot in the heart. It's not the same thing, I know, but..."

She trails off, suddenly feeling a little awkward. And guilty, for comparing what she went through to what Buffy's been through. You're supposed to be comforting her.

"Close enough," she finishes that sentence for Max, not resenting the comparison at all. It's actually a little comforting to know that they share something like this in common. She's keen to know more.

"I completely understand if you don't want to talk about it, but... how did you survive?" Most people wouldn't live after being shot in the heart, she imagines.

"Heart transplant," she answers, tugging the collar of her shirt down a bit before remembering that the scar is virtually invisible by now. "My brother - not technically my brother, but that's how I saw him - he gave it to me."

It is comforting, and she's glad Buffy's willing to talk about it. She hadn't brought it up before because she thought it was her business to bring it up (she was still angry on Buffy's behalf that Angelus had taken it upon himself to inform her about it).

036: [ location: castle summers ] / [ visual ] unwelcome visitors

[ voice//location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]

[ location: castle summers ]