12 Days of Fic-A-Thon: Day 11
On 11th Day of Reg's Improbable and Ridiculous and Completely Insane Ficathon, regala_electra gave to thee -
Eleven drabbles and drabblets featuring BtVS/AtS characters!
Rating: R
Spoilers: Everything from the series finales are fair game.
Author's Notes: Requests are noted. This is what I call the Non-B/A day of my drabbles, and I just realized I have no Angel/Spike in my drabble series. Hmm. This is Not Cool. I shall have to do some Angel/Spike in another 'day,' because hell yes to the A/S. Well, at least there's sex and a little femslash. Mmm.
Feedback: I say to thee, 'hell yes, and it is muchly needed to feed the student stuck in the middle of exam week.'
*
Leaving Neverland
(Dawn as The Key)
What if, she thinks, and there's a name on her tongue just begging to be realized. What if, she thought, and if was released, maybe she'd turn around, and there it would be, waiting for her, like always, and she clap hands together, and yes, there would be joy, and peace, and in the end, a sacred silence.
What. If.
She does not believe in such trite things, so when the shadows follow her, when she finds darkness even in the brightest, most tranquil days, she makes a wish for it to end, and it does, in the end, not unlike magic, not unlike power.
If what she thinks is real, then what she believes in is nothing, and either way, she's not going to say it.
*
for coppersinger
Homewarming Gift
(request: happy Buffy/Wes)
It's quite sudden, really, honestly, and happens after he unwraps the gift, protesting that he hasn't celebrated his birthday for a long, long time. And when he opens it, he finally comes to terms with it. It's so clear.
It's there all along.
He visits her because he has nowhere else to go. But he stays longer and longer because he cannot imagine being without her good humors, her quick wit, her minimalist stories, often peppered with a sadness beyond the striking youthfulness captured in her warm complexion.
So he kisses her with a slow, gentle ease, and does indeed say with the strongest conviction, that this is the best gift he ever hoped to receive.
*
for callmesandy
Bedside Manners:
(request: Buffy/Gunn)
The air conditioning broke down again, and she can only stand this silence until the oscillating fan comes back her way and she slowly grounds out, "Luuuuuuuke, I am your faaaaather."
There's a dry chuckle from the bed, the sort coming from someone hoping not to tear the stitches.
She smiles brightly, fanning him personally with a handmade fan, and she decides to end the bedside game. "You tell me one true thing, and I'll tell you one lie."
"He really wanted to keep that dragon's head."
She nods at him, checking his bandages one more time, before curling up against his solid form, not noticing the slight slick of sweat and purposely ignoring the warmth projecting from his body.
She kisses the side of his face and says, "I wish he survived."
*
Young Connor Plays It Safe:
(request: Connor)
Sometimes he makes a journey to that alley in the dead of night. He's come to know the dead of night, the way there's nothing living anymore, life's gone and fled, and it's hard, with this double-edge of memories, and him teetering, knowing that if he looks down, he'll see he's not standing on anything but a knife.
Yet it makes it anyways, hoping for some sign to remain, - he used to track demons so easily, and his father the tracks should be there, waiting plainly for his discovery.
But he lost the trail months ago and he knows he's keeping a promise, to live that happy, peaceful life that isn't his not really.
If he concentrates on the lie, settling the double memories, sorting through the divisive perspectives, then he can say that just a man died here - Dad.
Of course, he knows better, deep down where it matters, and the battles are far from over, but are no longer within his grasp.
He takes the route his father would have wanted and continues on with his life, journeying back, and finding home just before dawn.
*
The Cheshire Dragon:
(request: Lilah and Spike)
A ghost sat next to another ghost, only of course, she was completely dead and he was only mostly, or rather, sort of dead. She raised a glass to him, a clink of ice cubes in alcohol, and drained it quickly, one hand holding on to the scarf tied round her neck.
"They can't see me, of course," she explained. "The Partners felt I was too close to the - well, you'd know all about closeness, hmm? Angel's history made a fascinating read."
He scowled and thought of running through some more walls, but hesitated. "Got any of the ghostly liquor for the undead? Or did you need to vent with someone who doesn't care?"
She dropped her glass and it didn't shatter, and rolled past her feet, until it vanished, rolling into a doorway. "Figured you were too stupid to manipulate. And not smart enough to ask about the offers."
She vanished slowly, soon all that was left was a translucent grin, and even that disappeared soon after.
"Fuck," he said, after blinking, "I need a bloody drink."
*
for stephanierb
Through the Looking Glass:
(request: Wes/Faith)
"How does the little crocodile," she muses, head tilted backwards over the edge of the bed, examining an upside-down late nite movie about - well fuck knows. "Shit, I don't know the rest."
"Ah yes, American education," comes the disdainful, sarcastic voice somewhere along the juncture of thigh and hip, but not really close to where it counts. This is the lazy period, after being fucked for so hard and so long, that more sex doesn't really matter, although touch, and the half-burned sensations jolting through the nervous system are really, really enjoyable. And she's a goddamn hedonist when it comes to more.
"Gonna give me lectures, Wes? I can do some nasty damage especially when I'm half out my mind."
"Hmm," he says against the side of her hip, a rough scratch of unshaven face, and a long pause. "Have you ever read Alice in Wonderland?"
She closes her eyes. "No, but I saw the movie." A waft of smoke runs across her unseeing eyes, a crocodile ensnaring his prey with welcoming claws and wide open jaws.
A mouth pressing hard against her throat, the body weighing down against her, and he says, "the madness was only a dream. Or it was all merely in her mind. Frankly, I think the clearest course is that everything is real, and she was just an illusion."
She opens her eyes and looks up at the mirror, at their bodies, the way her legs open deliberately and yeah, she gets that.
*
for doyle_sb4
Chase the Moon Across the Sky:
(request: Nina)
There's a dream she had about a moon once. She's quite sure it. It wasn't just any moon, it was blood red and when she reached out to touch it, she grasped it tightly in claws, and it shattered.
The shards broke away and melted into the earth and she never changed again, never had to lock herself up because there's no cure, no end it, and she stopped painting in shades of red and found herself obsessed with blues.
Because you see, when the moon became broken, everyone changed with her and there won't be any thoughts of 'what if' because it's already happened.
So now she chases the moon across the sky and paints against black velvets and doesn't care that when she wakes after the moon, she is out in the open, with only the rising morning to greet her as she slowly dissolves back into reality.
No, instead, she'll use a deeper shade of blue, until it darkens to near-black.
*
for netweight
Fear and Loathing While Slaying:
(request: Buffy/Faith)
The least of her worries is coming across herself once again, but then, the concern with having to see herself lessens after several turns in the Hall of Mirrors, and fuck who really thought this is a godamn clever place for drunks and gamblers?
She should ask B how hard it would be to burn this motherfucker down; it had been one of Buffy's more interesting and less tight-wound stories, the burning of the gym.
But, she doesn't have time to think about it - of the warm glow of the first wave of drunkenness flushing Buffy's face as she carefully set down her glass and always was never centered on the coaster, how'd she could just sit back like that, and the light would soak into her skin like some godamn painting, and when she'd pout just slightly, as though the secrets shared between them were bound by some magical bond, and it was all just the first rush, and in the morning, their heads would be clear.
She doesn't think about it, because she hefts the axe and brings it down cleanly, leaving nothing but shattered mirrors and a large mess in her wake.
*
for fb2wendy
Argument #607:
(request: Faith/Spike)
Knaves, the lot of 'em. That's how it began, or rather, that's how it started.
- No really, that's how it bloody well started. You see... -
Okay, yes, there was alcohol.
- Wait, I'm not telling the story, love? -
Fuck no, you were wasted.
- Not to ruin your image of all that is good and unsullied, but you were pissed out of your mind and shortly out of your pants. -
Your pants came off first and before we got to the room, and you again muttered about knaves and pies -
-Pies! I'd never say anything about a pie, I was talking about tarts. Bloody well was being an oracle, knowing I'd get saddled with my very own personal tart. -
"...ahem. Are those your wedding vows?"
What? Oh, carry on, Elvis, this is how vampires communicate, verbal skills have never been one of their strong points.
- Oh, you better like paddles... -
Love 'em. Can't wait to try them out on you, get some color on that skin. Short story long, you pissed me off, I was horny, and I don't want to know where you got this ring, mostly because I'm pawning it for a cross in a couple of hours. And that's how we fell in love.
- Psycho. -
Poser.
"...I now pronounce you..."
*
for eleniangel
When In Rome:
(request: Buffy/Wes)
He's not a tourist, she can tell that, so she waits until he sees her and he steadily makes his way across the street; there is no smile greeting her.
It is strange to see him, he is a strange man now, like someone wearing the uptight body of Wesley and deflating it, starving it, letting it grow stuffy, and bringing an alien, distant spirit. It is as if he has seen the depravities of the world, joined in, and survived, for all the good it is to survive.
She invites him over to her house, not expecting much, and finding that conversations turn so easily to work, and he has become quite a master of easing out of such talk until there is nothing left to speak of. So they make their way to the bedroom and shed off clothing and not a word is spoken of others - she doesn't even care if he has someone, and she almost hopes he does - and all that matters in the end, is the body, is the flesh against her own, skin discovering skin as though this is the first time such an event has ever occurred.
And in the morning, he is gone, and she continues on with her new, wonderful life with a brittle determinedness.
*
for stars91
Contemplation Sans Redemption:
(request: Faith, anyway you [i.e. me] like it)
Faith has had some very weird dreams lately. They haven't been terrible, mostly because in them, she has had some fantastic, and mostly kinky, sex with, well everyone. She tries not to judge her subconscious, mostly because the hardwired parts that go into crazymode don't go away, and it's better weird fucking dreams then the shit she's done in her past.
Plus, dreamlogic she decides, is different from real-logic. Most of her lovers in the dreamworld are no longer here; dead and gone, or very up on the straight and narrow (jesus, if B was any straighter, she could used as freakin' unit of measure).
Then, she also wonders where she fits in at the end of things, whether it's with Wood, or Buffy, or hell, even just a random stranger in some wicked little town, but she's come to realize what her dreams are really about.
No matter the person she's fucking, she's always herself. So huh. Sex can lead to epiphanies.
But not fucking miracles.
The End
Eleven drabbles and drabblets featuring BtVS/AtS characters!
Rating: R
Spoilers: Everything from the series finales are fair game.
Author's Notes: Requests are noted. This is what I call the Non-B/A day of my drabbles, and I just realized I have no Angel/Spike in my drabble series. Hmm. This is Not Cool. I shall have to do some Angel/Spike in another 'day,' because hell yes to the A/S. Well, at least there's sex and a little femslash. Mmm.
Feedback: I say to thee, 'hell yes, and it is muchly needed to feed the student stuck in the middle of exam week.'
*
Leaving Neverland
(Dawn as The Key)
What if, she thinks, and there's a name on her tongue just begging to be realized. What if, she thought, and if was released, maybe she'd turn around, and there it would be, waiting for her, like always, and she clap hands together, and yes, there would be joy, and peace, and in the end, a sacred silence.
What. If.
She does not believe in such trite things, so when the shadows follow her, when she finds darkness even in the brightest, most tranquil days, she makes a wish for it to end, and it does, in the end, not unlike magic, not unlike power.
If what she thinks is real, then what she believes in is nothing, and either way, she's not going to say it.
*
for coppersinger
Homewarming Gift
(request: happy Buffy/Wes)
It's quite sudden, really, honestly, and happens after he unwraps the gift, protesting that he hasn't celebrated his birthday for a long, long time. And when he opens it, he finally comes to terms with it. It's so clear.
It's there all along.
He visits her because he has nowhere else to go. But he stays longer and longer because he cannot imagine being without her good humors, her quick wit, her minimalist stories, often peppered with a sadness beyond the striking youthfulness captured in her warm complexion.
So he kisses her with a slow, gentle ease, and does indeed say with the strongest conviction, that this is the best gift he ever hoped to receive.
*
for callmesandy
Bedside Manners:
(request: Buffy/Gunn)
The air conditioning broke down again, and she can only stand this silence until the oscillating fan comes back her way and she slowly grounds out, "Luuuuuuuke, I am your faaaaather."
There's a dry chuckle from the bed, the sort coming from someone hoping not to tear the stitches.
She smiles brightly, fanning him personally with a handmade fan, and she decides to end the bedside game. "You tell me one true thing, and I'll tell you one lie."
"He really wanted to keep that dragon's head."
She nods at him, checking his bandages one more time, before curling up against his solid form, not noticing the slight slick of sweat and purposely ignoring the warmth projecting from his body.
She kisses the side of his face and says, "I wish he survived."
*
Young Connor Plays It Safe:
(request: Connor)
Sometimes he makes a journey to that alley in the dead of night. He's come to know the dead of night, the way there's nothing living anymore, life's gone and fled, and it's hard, with this double-edge of memories, and him teetering, knowing that if he looks down, he'll see he's not standing on anything but a knife.
Yet it makes it anyways, hoping for some sign to remain, - he used to track demons so easily, and his father the tracks should be there, waiting plainly for his discovery.
But he lost the trail months ago and he knows he's keeping a promise, to live that happy, peaceful life that isn't his not really.
If he concentrates on the lie, settling the double memories, sorting through the divisive perspectives, then he can say that just a man died here - Dad.
Of course, he knows better, deep down where it matters, and the battles are far from over, but are no longer within his grasp.
He takes the route his father would have wanted and continues on with his life, journeying back, and finding home just before dawn.
*
The Cheshire Dragon:
(request: Lilah and Spike)
A ghost sat next to another ghost, only of course, she was completely dead and he was only mostly, or rather, sort of dead. She raised a glass to him, a clink of ice cubes in alcohol, and drained it quickly, one hand holding on to the scarf tied round her neck.
"They can't see me, of course," she explained. "The Partners felt I was too close to the - well, you'd know all about closeness, hmm? Angel's history made a fascinating read."
He scowled and thought of running through some more walls, but hesitated. "Got any of the ghostly liquor for the undead? Or did you need to vent with someone who doesn't care?"
She dropped her glass and it didn't shatter, and rolled past her feet, until it vanished, rolling into a doorway. "Figured you were too stupid to manipulate. And not smart enough to ask about the offers."
She vanished slowly, soon all that was left was a translucent grin, and even that disappeared soon after.
"Fuck," he said, after blinking, "I need a bloody drink."
*
for stephanierb
Through the Looking Glass:
(request: Wes/Faith)
"How does the little crocodile," she muses, head tilted backwards over the edge of the bed, examining an upside-down late nite movie about - well fuck knows. "Shit, I don't know the rest."
"Ah yes, American education," comes the disdainful, sarcastic voice somewhere along the juncture of thigh and hip, but not really close to where it counts. This is the lazy period, after being fucked for so hard and so long, that more sex doesn't really matter, although touch, and the half-burned sensations jolting through the nervous system are really, really enjoyable. And she's a goddamn hedonist when it comes to more.
"Gonna give me lectures, Wes? I can do some nasty damage especially when I'm half out my mind."
"Hmm," he says against the side of her hip, a rough scratch of unshaven face, and a long pause. "Have you ever read Alice in Wonderland?"
She closes her eyes. "No, but I saw the movie." A waft of smoke runs across her unseeing eyes, a crocodile ensnaring his prey with welcoming claws and wide open jaws.
A mouth pressing hard against her throat, the body weighing down against her, and he says, "the madness was only a dream. Or it was all merely in her mind. Frankly, I think the clearest course is that everything is real, and she was just an illusion."
She opens her eyes and looks up at the mirror, at their bodies, the way her legs open deliberately and yeah, she gets that.
*
for doyle_sb4
Chase the Moon Across the Sky:
(request: Nina)
There's a dream she had about a moon once. She's quite sure it. It wasn't just any moon, it was blood red and when she reached out to touch it, she grasped it tightly in claws, and it shattered.
The shards broke away and melted into the earth and she never changed again, never had to lock herself up because there's no cure, no end it, and she stopped painting in shades of red and found herself obsessed with blues.
Because you see, when the moon became broken, everyone changed with her and there won't be any thoughts of 'what if' because it's already happened.
So now she chases the moon across the sky and paints against black velvets and doesn't care that when she wakes after the moon, she is out in the open, with only the rising morning to greet her as she slowly dissolves back into reality.
No, instead, she'll use a deeper shade of blue, until it darkens to near-black.
*
for netweight
Fear and Loathing While Slaying:
(request: Buffy/Faith)
The least of her worries is coming across herself once again, but then, the concern with having to see herself lessens after several turns in the Hall of Mirrors, and fuck who really thought this is a godamn clever place for drunks and gamblers?
She should ask B how hard it would be to burn this motherfucker down; it had been one of Buffy's more interesting and less tight-wound stories, the burning of the gym.
But, she doesn't have time to think about it - of the warm glow of the first wave of drunkenness flushing Buffy's face as she carefully set down her glass and always was never centered on the coaster, how'd she could just sit back like that, and the light would soak into her skin like some godamn painting, and when she'd pout just slightly, as though the secrets shared between them were bound by some magical bond, and it was all just the first rush, and in the morning, their heads would be clear.
She doesn't think about it, because she hefts the axe and brings it down cleanly, leaving nothing but shattered mirrors and a large mess in her wake.
*
for fb2wendy
Argument #607:
(request: Faith/Spike)
Knaves, the lot of 'em. That's how it began, or rather, that's how it started.
- No really, that's how it bloody well started. You see... -
Okay, yes, there was alcohol.
- Wait, I'm not telling the story, love? -
Fuck no, you were wasted.
- Not to ruin your image of all that is good and unsullied, but you were pissed out of your mind and shortly out of your pants. -
Your pants came off first and before we got to the room, and you again muttered about knaves and pies -
-Pies! I'd never say anything about a pie, I was talking about tarts. Bloody well was being an oracle, knowing I'd get saddled with my very own personal tart. -
"...ahem. Are those your wedding vows?"
What? Oh, carry on, Elvis, this is how vampires communicate, verbal skills have never been one of their strong points.
- Oh, you better like paddles... -
Love 'em. Can't wait to try them out on you, get some color on that skin. Short story long, you pissed me off, I was horny, and I don't want to know where you got this ring, mostly because I'm pawning it for a cross in a couple of hours. And that's how we fell in love.
- Psycho. -
Poser.
"...I now pronounce you..."
*
for eleniangel
When In Rome:
(request: Buffy/Wes)
He's not a tourist, she can tell that, so she waits until he sees her and he steadily makes his way across the street; there is no smile greeting her.
It is strange to see him, he is a strange man now, like someone wearing the uptight body of Wesley and deflating it, starving it, letting it grow stuffy, and bringing an alien, distant spirit. It is as if he has seen the depravities of the world, joined in, and survived, for all the good it is to survive.
She invites him over to her house, not expecting much, and finding that conversations turn so easily to work, and he has become quite a master of easing out of such talk until there is nothing left to speak of. So they make their way to the bedroom and shed off clothing and not a word is spoken of others - she doesn't even care if he has someone, and she almost hopes he does - and all that matters in the end, is the body, is the flesh against her own, skin discovering skin as though this is the first time such an event has ever occurred.
And in the morning, he is gone, and she continues on with her new, wonderful life with a brittle determinedness.
*
for stars91
Contemplation Sans Redemption:
(request: Faith, anyway you [i.e. me] like it)
Faith has had some very weird dreams lately. They haven't been terrible, mostly because in them, she has had some fantastic, and mostly kinky, sex with, well everyone. She tries not to judge her subconscious, mostly because the hardwired parts that go into crazymode don't go away, and it's better weird fucking dreams then the shit she's done in her past.
Plus, dreamlogic she decides, is different from real-logic. Most of her lovers in the dreamworld are no longer here; dead and gone, or very up on the straight and narrow (jesus, if B was any straighter, she could used as freakin' unit of measure).
Then, she also wonders where she fits in at the end of things, whether it's with Wood, or Buffy, or hell, even just a random stranger in some wicked little town, but she's come to realize what her dreams are really about.
No matter the person she's fucking, she's always herself. So huh. Sex can lead to epiphanies.
But not fucking miracles.
The End