milliways_bar | (no subject)

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buffy summers

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"That's not even a real drink," Buffy is informing the bar, over the top of her (half-full) glass. "I mean, come on. It's a hazing ritual, right? Or -- or some kind of nasty potion ingredient. Or made of some kind of nasty potion ingredient, like that one Willow did with the dried mongoose nipples."

The bar is smugly silent.

Buffy looks at the bottle of Moxie -- still nearly full -- and shudders. "Can I just have some water?"

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"Buffy!" Ava exclaims.

"I'm not a werewolf!"

"I know!" Buffy says, brightening. "I mean, I theorized! I guessed. But confirmation is nice. It was that thing with people thinking they were other people, right?"

"--Totally!" Ava agrees, wide-eyed.

"How did you know? I mean, I guess I did figure it out later ..."

"Somebody else," she says quickly. "Told me. About it. I-I definitely didn't think I was a coke addict or -- your hair looks nice. Maybe because you're combing it again now that you're you?"

Ava blinks, running a hand idly through her (indeed shinier and smoother) hair.

"You thought you were a coke addict?" she says.

Beat.

"Dude, this was the weirdest disease ever."

Buffy sighs.

"I broke open one of my favorite necklaces because I was convinced it was where I'd hidden my stash. I'm just glad I didn't find any powder, because sometimes vampire dust kind of -- collects."

She makes a face. And then blinks.

"That's what Moxie tastes like!"

Ava blinks, derailed.

"--Who?"

Beat.

"I mean what?"

"Vampire dust!"

She eagerly holds out the bottle.

"Ew!" Ava replies, pleasantly.

(But examines it anyway.)

"It ... um. Looks like soda."

"Sure, it looks like soda," Buffy says darkly.

"Taste it."

Ava takes the alleged soda cautiously and sniffs it.

"... Will it turn me into a vampire?"

Buffy blinks.

"It didn't turn me into a vampire." She pauses, and runs her fingers over the bridge of her nose, just in case. No bumpies. "It's just disgusting."

"Why couldn't I have thought I was a Coca Cola addict?" she adds, poking her still half-full glass with one of those fingers.

"Wait a minute," Ava says suspiciously.

"There's no cocaine in this, right?"

"I -- I don't think so," says Buffy, squinting at the ingredients list. "Hey, but Coke used to have coke in it, right?"

She frowns at the Moxie. "I don't think cocaine is why it tastes so bad. Or else you wouldn't have coke addicts, you'd have people wandering around complaining about how coke tastes like death and bad root beer, and we wouldn't have to have those PSAs about your brain being eggs."

"You're really not making me want to drink this," Ava complains.

But curiosity gets the better of her, and, raising the drink to her lips, she takes a womanful sip.

"... Ew," she agrees, her face scrunching.

"That actually does taste a little like death."

"Death, and a hint of skunk." Buffy wrinkles her nose. (But not in a vampire way.) "See?"

"In conclusion," she says, a moment later, "that thing where we thought we were other people was weird."

"Extremely," Ava affirms with a grimace, holding the Moxie out at arm's length.

"I didn't even realize that's what it was." This time she gives her drink a pensive look instead of a death glare. "I thought it was somebody -- else. In my body."

Ava frowns.

"What do you mean?"

Buffy hesitates a moment before she answers. "Like -- possession, I guess? I just assumed that some coke addict out there had taken over my body."

Ava ponders this, reminded fleetingly of the First Evil wearing Buffy's face.

"... Huh," she says, after a moment.

"That probably makes about as much sense as anything else." Pause. "That would make you think you were somebody else."

A pause.

"I had to eat a rabbit."

Buffy starts to ask if it was cooked, and stops.

She knows the answer, and she doesn't want to hear it.

"One time my friend Xander was possessed by a hyena," she says instead. "And our school mascot was this little pig..."

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