does she play the viola? does she embroider? - [Fic: BtVS] Don't Overthink (Buffy/Satsu)

Title: Don’t Overthink
Author: quirkytaverna
Fandom: BtVS
Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Satsu
Timeline/Spoilers: Season Eight comic
Rating/Warning: Pretty veiled references to girlsex. You know you’re there.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no gain, don’t sue please.
Summary: When Buffy and Satsu end things, there’s one more night before the goodbye
A/N: about 1,100 words. Etc!



When it was over, Buffy wasn't sure how to say it delicately, so she just said it: “Bet that didn't help you get over me.”

“It didn’t make me cry, either.” Satsu’s voice floated back to Buffy through the dark, a dark they could both see through; no longer a cover for secret looks and vulnerable bodies. Buffy smiled.

She could see it in the dark when Satsu smiled too, the sweat sheening off her smooth skin. Her teeth gleamed in a way that – for once in her life, in her bedroom, it felt – didn’t feel sinister, didn’t feel vampire. Her lips, Buffy knew, would still be moist.

“Good. I mean – no. I mean, good.”

“Thank you,” Satsu said, and Buffy cracked a little when she heard the way Satsu’s words hit the back of her throat, marinated, before they met air. And soon she would be gone.

“Don’t thank me.”

“Don’t thank me,” Satsu replied. Buffy looked down at her hands, covered herself with the sheet.

“I wasn’t going to.”

*

As they lay there in the dark, Buffy sort of wished she could call Willow. It would break this, though, whatever kind of moment as it was, and as much as Buffy hoped she could just summon some sort of gay-fairy-godmother, she’d just have to accept that sometimes reality had limits and she was all on her own - oh.

Willow? she thought, screwing her face up in concentration. She meant to lean away from Satsu, but somehow found herself curled towards her, hair brushing her bare breasts. Willow heard thoughts sometimes. She knew that, and – oh, soft – and –

Buffy, I know what you’re doing right now, came the warmth of Willow’s thoughts, and Buffy wondered how she managed to carry that no-nonsense teacher voice through into her brain.

I - Will. It’s awkward. Like this wasn’t? But she really wanted advice. She needed to know – was she doing the right thing? What if she never saw Satsu again (even if that was kind of the point)?

Stop over-thinking. Like a wise Ms. Buffy Summers once said to me, came Willow’s voice (with a side-order of nostalgia), and if Buffy wasn’t suspended in a slightly-afterglow-tinged post-coital, pseudo-breakup moment, she would have smiled.

How strange that now Willow was the one that didn’t overthink; how unusual to know Buffy Summers occasionally lived solely in her thoughts.

Right, Buffy thought. She nodded. Don’t overthink. Don’t make this any more than it is or can ever be. It would never work. It could never work.

“Why are you nodding?”

Satsu. Crap. “I was… agreeing with you.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Satsu pointed out, warm and puzzled, and Buffy rested her head on Satsu’s shoulder, feeling heat radiate into her chin; dozy, now, and quieted by the closeness.

And calm down! Willow told her. And don’t call here again.

Yes, Mom, Buffy thought, before remembering to add, “Uh, I was just agreeing. With myself.”

Crap!

“Agreeing about what? I really didn’t say anything.”

“I know. I know, I was agreeing to, uh…” – Crap! – “I don’t know. I’m nervous,” Buffy admitted finally, honest.

“We’ve been here before,” Satsu pointed out, wry. Buffy felt Willow leave her mind with a sort of dignity; it looked like Buffy was on her own. She kind of wished she could have some of that dignity, though. That would be nice.

“I know,” she replied, after a pause.

Satsu drifted a hand to land on Buffy’s hair, gently stroking. “And you don’t have be here any more. Again,” she pointed out, her voice too quiet, too full, for Buffy to bear.

“I’m sorry, you know,” Buffy said, and she meant it. She’d never meant to draw Satsu into the wreckage of her life this way, had never intended to bring her into the wasteland otherwise known as ‘Buffy’s Love Life’.

But here they were, in limbo and seemingly limbless, suspended by shared sweat, the scent of sex, and awkwardness in the back of the throat.

Satsu looked steadily at Buffy, no regret in her clear eyes. “I’m not.”

*
They slept. Somehow, they slept.

Buffy woke early, when the light hit her closed eyelids, when the warmth crept around the bed. It was dawn, she knew, or at least just past it: the safe hour back again, the early light where monsters (mostly) kept away. Where she could regroup and rest and take a minute to prepare for the next challenge. It was the Slayer’s way.

It was Satsu’s way, too, so Buffy could hardly even be surprised when she opened her eyes to an empty bed. When she realised the bundle clasped to her chest were empty blankets, a sweat-stained pillow, and nothing more.

She was gone.

Buffy hadn’t expected anything else. That had been the deal, after all; this had been one last night before the split, before they were separate again, before they were alone: solitary figures both, because no matter what Buffy might have changed about the Slayer mythology and methodology they would always be alone; their real and metaphorical demons both would see to that.

Clutching the navy sheets to her body, she got out of bed. There was no need to try and call out for Satsu – she wouldn’t be in the other room. Buffy knew that because she knew herself and she knew Satsu. And when she found the note…

The note. It was folded on the dresser and propped like a tent card, one horizontal fold, with Satsu’s neat, small hand spelling out Buffy’s name on the front. And when Buffy found it, she knew she didn’t need to read it.

Stop overthinking, Willow had said, and she’d been right. It had happened. It was over. And besides, she knew what the note said already. (Buffy – I’m always here – Satsu). She picked it up, held it delicately in her hand. For a flash of a second, she remembered Kendra, proud and strong, and Faith’s with-abandon laughter, and then her mind settled on the way Satsu’s hair would fall over her flushed cheeks when she looked down and smiled.

Buffy bowed her head and kissed the note, then turned to dress. Once that was done, she’d walk away, head up: it sucked, but she was still alive. Still fighting. She’d live for it to suck another day, and then, maybe on the next, it would suck less.

Stop overthinking. Survive. That was all.

*

fin