perpetual anticipation is good for the soul but it's bad for the heart

[maxxx]

Comments

[daydrinker]

Granola, at least.

( He likes to poke fun either way. )

Lead the way to the research.

( And likely, Josiah's life-size portrait in the library. Intimidating.

Jeremy and Dawn return from their walk around the grounds.

"Everyone in this coven is very blessed be," Jeremy says, waving to another set of very friendly witches. "Does it scream Stepford to you?"

Maybe it's just his experience with witches in general. Everyone seems happy. Devoted. Not conflicted. Or, violent. )

[ooglyboogleys]

Not this coven.

[Dawn had done her research about the local covens on behalf of Willow, if she wanted to make some more witchy allies, and the Gemini Coven come up on her research list.]

Everything I learned about them prior to meeting Jo had been messy and bloody. I think the blessed be is a bit of overcompensation for a shady past.

[barely]

The twins' curse.

( And other things, he assumes may have happened. Very old rites. Sacrifice. Shady probably only scratches the surface. )

[ooglyboogleys]

[She nods in agreement.]

If they want to get their white witch on to try and clear out some of that bad juju, I can't really say I blame them.

[barely]

As opposed to... dark witchery.

( He considers this, eyeing a nearby group engaged in discourse. )

But the two aren't... that far apart.

[ooglyboogleys]

No, they're not. It's all about intent and your own energy.

[Or at least that's what she's learned from the outside.]

And even the whitest witches can make a big mess if they don't think everything through.

[barely]

Yeah, uh, my ex -- brought me back from the dead once, but then died herself. She uh - actually had a lot of close calls.

( Life never gave her a break. )

[ooglyboogleys]

Coming back from the dead is always messy too. I remember when Willow tried to bring my sister back she had to literally climb out of her own grave, and had a lot of trouble readjusting.

[She can imagine Jeremy went through something similar.]

Coming back and then immediately losing her must have been really rough.

[barely]

She asked me to fake messages to her friends, to my sister, too. That was harder. Not to mention my school believing I had dropped out because of a drug problem and hadn't died. -- It wasn't an easy transition back.

( Damon took care of that for him. )

[ooglyboogleys]

That's ... wow.

[For all her teenage girl drama with dead people coming back to life, things hand never gotten that bad.]

I think saying it wasn't easy is probably an understatement.

[barely]

It wasn't the last time everyone had thought she'd died. And she came back to life around mid-semester. She became a kind of anchor between this world and another one called the Other Side. It kind of housed a lot of the spirits of the dead that hadn't crossed over. And they literally crossed through her. She had it hard. Always.

( She put it on herself some of the time, but not others. Not then. )

[ooglyboogleys]

[Dawn nods, because she gets that.]

Seems like things are better for her now, though. She has her own life?

[barely]

Yeah. She travels a lot. I think losing Enzo really pushed her. She's only recently returned to the states. Full disclosure, I also dated her for a time. But, it's long gone.

( Way over. )

[ooglyboogleys]

I get it. Exes are complicated.

[Dawn's had her fair share.]

But I'm glad you've been able to remain friends. Also glad that you guys are done, or that would have been awkward.

[barely]

Or, poly, and I've learned I don't do great with -- I'm a one girl guy.

( But Dawn knows this! Give him a second because he went on a tangent. )

Your sister had to climb out of her own grave?

[ooglyboogleys]

Yeah.

[Oh, how to explain this? It's not a point in her life that she enjoys revisiting, but since Jeremy did a big share, she can do one too.]

Well, you know how Buffy's the Slayer, right?

[barely]

Yeah, yeah, I know.

( Does dying come with the slayer territory? )

[ooglyboogleys]

Well, sometimes people would send her things to protect them. And a while back, one of those things was me. They took this magical ball of glowy light called the Key, turned her into a girl and made Buffy and our mom believe that I had always been there.

[As well as everyone else around, but Buffy and Joyce were the important ones.]

Turned out there was this god that was trying to get a hold of the Key so that she could go back to her hell dimension, but couldn't find it because she didn't expect a pre-teen girl, but eventually it all came out and she used my blood to open this portal that was going to end the world.

My blood opened it so my blood had to close it. But Buffy realized that because the monks made me her sister, her blood was my blood. So she took the swan dive so I didn't have to.

[barely]

( They -- if he's following this correctly, Dawn wasn't a girl. She was a magical ball of glowing light. )

She sacrificed herself for you.

( For all intents and purposes, Dawn was Buffy. Dawn was her sister. She did that for her. He'd do anything for Elena. And Bonnie, at one time. And his friends. )

How'd she crawl out of her grave after that?

[ooglyboogleys]

They kept it from me, but all of them were trying to find ways to bring her back. They did this complicated spell ... but didn't think to dig her up before they did it.

[Sometimes her sister's friends were just ... really dumb.]

So they walked away thinking that it didn't work when Buffy didn't just magically appear in front of them but it did work and she was there so ... she dug herself out.

[barely]

Fuck.

( He doesn't know what... to even say. )

That had to mess her up. I couldn't even imagine...

[ooglyboogleys]

That year after she came back was really rough.

[She can't even really blame her sister for being depressed. Even the ill-advised tryst with Spike makes sense, in hindsight, even with the horrors it entailed.]

But she's a lot better now. And apparently dating your sister's ex-boyfriend.

[She got the rundown from Jo. She knows all the deets now.]

[barely]

Yeah, I still can't -- what are the odds? Last I checked Stefan was in -- ( Okay. ) Europe.

( Still. Europe. Is. It's big. It's very big. )

Guess it's crazy we found each other, too. Good-crazy.

[ooglyboogleys]

Very good-crazy.

[Dawn is pleased with the Jeremy-shaped space he's been taking up in her life, and she wouldn't trade it, regardless of the strange coincidences they're finding themselves in.]

But maybe it would be worth it to arrange a getting all of our coincidences in one place one day.

[barely]

Like a double date?

( Sorry, guy brain takes over. Those are so exhausting. )