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fandomweekly2023-05-26 03:08 pm
badly_knitted) wrote in fandomweekly2023-05-26 03:08 pm
Entry tags:
[#180] Infected (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Theme Prompt: #180 - Eavesdropping
Title: Infected
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating/Warnings: PG / None
Bonus: No.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Slaying a demon leaves Buffy with an exciting new power that ends up being more of a curse.
A/N: Not really happy with this, but it was all I could come up with.
It wasn’t as if Buffy had deliberately chosen to eavesdrop on her friends, and everyone else. It was the stupid demon’s fault; she’d tracked two of them, killed one, got some of its blood on her, and then her hand had started itching like crazy, which would’ve been annoying enough.
But then Giles had told her that particular species of demon was capable of infecting others with an aspect of itself, and that had been seriously worrying. What aspect? The one where her skin would turn all scabby like the demon’s? Or the one where she’d have no mouth? Seriously, people needed to be clearer about stuff like that!
Thankfully, the only thing that happened was that she gained the ability to read minds, which was kinda cool, at first anyway. Okay, so some of the students at Sunnydale High were seriously disturbing, the boys especially. She hadn’t minded hearing them think how beautiful she was, but when they started thinking in more graphic terms… Yeah, that had been a real turn-off. Did boys think like that all the time? It was a little scary knowing how… obsessed they could be.
Still, at the time that had been a minor downside, overshadowed by the other possibilities. Take her English lit class, for instance. Buffy could pick whatever she wanted from her classmates’ minds, especially Nancy Doyle’s. Nancy was forever showing off how clever she was, but for once Buffy got to totally upstage her, and surprise Willow with her ‘knowledge’ of the reading they’d been supposed to do. Which Buffy had totally skipped. Slaying demons took up a lot of her time; sometimes Buffy had to sacrifice some of her homework in favour of keeping the streets of Sunnydale safe from the things that lurked in the dark. Besides, it seemed safe enough to treat literature as low priority in the hierarchy of lessons; when would she ever need to know anything about Shakespeare?
So she’d impressed Ms. Murray using Nancy’s knowledge, and a few bits plucked from the teacher’s mind, and it had felt good to be seen as the brainy girl for once. Weird, but good. Then something Ms. Murray said had given Buffy the idea of reading Angel’s mind, only that had proven to be a non-starter. It wasn’t that he had no thoughts, just that she didn’t have access to them despite her new power, something about reflections and the way vamps didn’t have them.
It was all downhill from there. Where once eavesdropping on people’s thoughts had seemed fun, giving her insight into the inner workings of everyone’s minds, in reality she was invading their privacy, hearing things they never would have wanted anyone else to know. Xander thought about sex all the time, Willow was starting to feel resentful at Buffy knowing more about Oz than she ever would, and Oz was having an existential crisis, in his usual calm and unflappable way.
The worst part was that Buffy couldn’t turn it off, or even block the thoughts out. They were in her head constantly, and not just the fun thoughts either; she was privy to everyone’s doubts, and fears, and insecurities. She was starting to feel guilty, ashamed, like she’d been caught peeking through windows, and on top of that, it was giving her a headache. How long was it going to last?
Then, through all the clamour filling her head, she heard a thought worse than any other.
‘This time tomorrow, I'll kill you all!’
It stopped Buffy in her tracks; someone was planning a killing spree and she had no idea who it was, couldn’t even tell if the voice was male or female… All the voices were starting to blend together, so many and so loud that she couldn’t take it anymore, and everything went black as she collapsed.
When she regained consciousness and told everyone what she’d heard, she was hit by the realization of how useless her new power was. She could hear everyone’s thoughts, but in a crowd she couldn’t tell who was thinking what. She had no way of identifying the potential murderer; she knew something bad was gonna happen and could do nothing to prevent it. She was the Slayer, she was used to being the one who saved lives, but how could she stop a killer she couldn’t identify?
Unable to do anything to help, Buffy let Giles drive her home. At least it was quieter there, away from people, where she could rest. Settled in her own bed, in her own room, her headache eased, but she was painfully aware of how no one, not even her own mother, wanted to be in range of her mindreading abilities.
Turned out someone plotting mass murder wasn’t the worst thing she could overhear. She really hadn’t wanted to know what her mom and Giles had gotten up to the night all the adults had started behaving like teenagers. Someone seriously needed to invent brain bleach, or a way of erasing certain memories.
Soon, even being alone in her room wasn’t enough to block out the voices in her head, and not long after that, her brain was so full of other people’s thoughts that Buffy was no longer aware of anything.
When she awoke again, it was to find herself alone in her own head; the relief was indescribable. Telepathy was awful, no one should have to hear other people’s thoughts. No one should have to live with that. It hadn’t been the handy gift she’d thought it would be; instead, it had been a curse that had isolated her from everyone she cared about. Well, everyone but Angel, the only person whose presence hadn’t caused her pain and distress.
But there’s still someone out there plotting murder, and Buffy can no longer listen for their tell-tale thoughts. Solving that problem will have to be done the old-fashioned way, with a lot of legwork, and a bit of luck. Maybe that’s how it should be.
The End
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Yes, I think that's how it would have felt, she would have been completely overwhelmed and just shut down because her mind couldn't cope with so many other people's thoughts.
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