whedonland20in20: 20 drabbles
Disclaimer: Being the property of their respective copyright holders, Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse and Firefly, its characters or any other publicly recognisable names don’t belong to me in any way, shape or form. No copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Okay. Here you go. Actually, this is madness. I mean real madness. I've always been a graphic maker and have participated in many 20in20 challenges, but this time I was too bored of Photoshop and icon making and somehow ended up writing. I wrote some stories before and liked most of them myself, but I never wrote so many drabbles within one or rather two days. Since English still isn’t my first language there most certainly are some mistakes. Moreover, I haven’t watched anything Whedon for a long time. As I said: Madness!
If you don’t like stories full of angst, don’t read them, because many of them are exactly that. Or at least keep in mind that I warned you.
Hope you enjoy nonetheless, at least a bit.
All drabbles are 100-110 words.
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, Dollhouse, Firefly
Word Count: 100 to 110
Rating: PG-13
Genre: mostly Angst (character deaths)
01. Opposites (Buffy, Faith)
Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane. Two Slayers, the good and the rogue.
One turned dark, murdered, tortured, and went to prison. The other died, for a second time, to save her family, the world, and was resurrected.
One was helped by an ensouled vampire, the last to understand her, and whom she fought when he turned evil himself, to help him recover his soul. The other was helped by a vampire with an inhibition to kill, in a way forcing him to find a soul.
For many years they had been fighting each other. Now they had fought, side by side, for the first time, opposites of the same coin.
02. Lost (Dawn)
Lost. She was lost and had lost everything. Her whole family was gone. Of course, there still were her friends, Willow, Tara, Xander, Giles and Spike. But whatever they did, they never would be her family. The family she was sent to invade. That was what she was. An implanted memory. A hidden key to another world.
However, everything felt so real. It had become real and it hurt so badly. Seeing her mother die of natural causes and Buffy give her life to save hers, had devastated her. More than once she had felt alone, a lost key in the sea of life.
03. Colour (Xander)
It was a night like any other, whatever that meant in Sunnydale. Xander was about to enter the old mansion, followed by the others who chatted and laughed about something he hadn’t heard, when they nearly knocked him over. He had stopped abruptly and taken a step back, waving his hand in the door frame. He knew he must look weird and didn’t need to imagine their raised eyebrows and the looks they exchanged. If he weren’t so startled himself, he would have laughed with them. However, the lack of colour when he reached out was alarming and he finally understood why people called it Black and White Mansion.
04. Cold (Sierra)
It was so cold. Why was it so cold? She didn’t know. The only thing she was certain about was that something, someone, was missing.
She could feel his arms that weren’t there, his warm breath tickling her neck which now was freezing, the security he had given her every night. He was gone and she couldn’t remember anything, not his coy smile, not his scars, not the shared adventures. Everything was wiped, again, and again.
Despite their lost memories, they had found each other, day after day, night after night.
But tonight was different. Victor wasn’t there and Sierra knew it.
05. Memory (Angel)
Memories - how he hated them. They haunted him. They were burning inside, constantly and forever. They never stopped, never rested.
He knew it was his curse, the one thing that was ever able to hurt him. The one thing he had deserved the most. Every single time when he closed his eyes he could see them, their faces, their tears. He could hear their screams or their begging, their last sounds of human life. He could smell their fear and feel their pain. For more than a hundred years it had been his pain. An everlasting pain, he would never forget.
It was the perfect punishment.
06. Two (River)
Two by two...
They would find them, one day they would find them. Her. And then Simon. And the Captain. All of them. And they would kill. Not her. No. Never her. They needed her. But all the others. She knew it. It would happen. One day it would happen.
Two by two...
River tilted her head and stared into the void, standing on the balustrade in the belly of her new home.
Kill. But they would lose. She would fight and they would lose, everything. Nobody took her family from her. Not again. Never again.
Two by two...
... hands of blue.
07. Eyes (Giles)
Her eyes still stared at him, blind, cold, dead eyes. He knew he would remember this image forever. It would haunt him all his life. Whatever he would do, wherever he would go, this moment would be stuck in his mind, her eyes, everywhere, every time, always.
For a moment all the happy moments were gone, wiped from his memories. Only the horror and the devastation remained which he felt when he saw her, lying on the bed, the music playing in the background, the roses...
Jenny Calendar was dead, killed by Angelus, and with her a part of himself.
08. Food (Mal)
He couldn’t remember the last time they had had proper food. Since Miranda they were floating through space, hiding in the dark, evading every spark of human life. All the time they had lived from their stocks which now had nearly vanished. He eventually was forced to make a decision. The others, his crew, his family, trusted him, their captain. If someone had asked him, although they never would, he wouldn’t have known what to say, he didn’t know what to do. Every decision could be his very last, and even worse, it could mean the death of them all.
09. Wrong (Topher)
Why couldn’t he think, see or hear anything else than WRONG, all the time?
It was as if someone was haunting him. Monitoring every single move he did, constantly stating WRONG. Failure was the only fear he had ever known, and this was the worst. As if someone wanted to make sure that he would never forget his mistakes, his wrong decisions. His extreme self-confidence, his egoism and his ambitions had been the catalyst for the recent events. His inventions had turned the course of the world; they had guided the human race in an apocalyptic war.
He had felt like God in the Dollhouse and had been so wrong.
10. Magic (Willow)
Everything had started so harmlessly, so naive, a flying pencil and a little spell. How did she end up with murder? She had skinned a human being in blind wrath. Of course, she had seen many deaths before, demons, vampires, evil forces planning on taking over the world, her world.
Fighting on the right side for the well-being of humanity had been her life for the last years. Until... Until when? She had lost herself a long time ago. Feeling the power she possessed, the pure force she could unleash with the tilt of her head had taken her over.
Title: Category - One Episode: Not Fade Away
Fandom: Angel the Series
Characters: Lorne, Lindsey, Wesley, Connor, Angel, Illyria, Gunn
Word Count: 100 to 110
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst (character deaths)
Category - One Episode: Not Fade Away
Lorne
He had never killed a man. Even violence had never been his first choice, if it was even one at all. All he ever wanted was music. What had he gotten himself into? Where were the good times when he just was the host at “Caritas”?
One last time he looked at Lindsey who didn’t expect anything, at least until he saw the gun. Lindsey said something but Lorne didn’t get the words. He knew what he had to do since Angel had told him his plan. How could he have declined? The others risked their lives tonight.
Thinking of them, Lorne pulled the trigger.
Lindsey
No, no. This couldn’t be. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. This was not how his life should end. Not the green party demon, not Lorne. Not after all the years he had spent in hell with Wolfram & Hart.
Lindsey McDonald, shot by a singing “happily ever after” demon. Shot by the one of Angel’s flunkies, he would never have suspected of ending someone’s life. This was certainly not what he had deserved.
Killed by one of the ensouled vampires, fine. Killed by Wesley, Gunn or the Illyria. He would have been okay with them though not entirely happy.
But Lorne? Never!
Wesley
All in all it had been a good life. He had learned a lot over the last few years that had changed everything. However, he didn’t regret many things. His treason and the months alone were one of the few. There was one hesitation he would never forgive himself.
He could see her. He could see her right before his eyes.
The Old One was turning herself back into the former and original occupant of her body, turning human, just to comfort him.
One last kiss with her image before his eyes closed for the last time, hoping that he might see her again... soon.
Connor
He, the miracle, had come back to fight, to fight alongside his father, his real one. The human offspring of two vampires, raised in a different dimension, guilty of drowning his father, member of the wrong side in an apocalypse, before his memories were altered for a better life, was finally where he belonged, where he wanted to be.
He knew this was right, saving Angel, and helping him to fight his enemies. Since his new, happy memories were mixed with his original, dark ones, with his rage and hate, it had begun to dawn on him. It had taken time, but eventually he understood he was loved.
Let’s Go To Work
There they were. Four lost souls waiting for a demonic army. They had lost everything - their families, their friends, their loves, their worlds. The resurrected Old One in the stolen body of a friend, who could feel her heart pulsating from time to time. The cursed vampire who was fighting demons, foremost his own, to repay the sins of his past and help the helpless. The boy who had lost his sister to the fangs of the night. And the vampire with the spark inside him, who had burned to save the Slayers.
It was a lost battle and yet, they would never give up.
Let’s go to work...
Title: AC (addition to Category)
Fandom: Angel the Series
Characters: Doyle, Cordelia, Fred, Harmony
Word Count: 100 to 110
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst (character deaths)
AC
Doyle, Cordy, Fred
If they still had lived, would they have given their lives tonight? Would they have died with them?
Doyle, Cordelia and Fred were dearly missed. No day had passed with the others not thinking of them. Like so many before them, they had fought for the helpless, the underdogs, everyone without hope or money to be on the winning side of life.
They had risked everything, chosen a life which was dangerous. They were born as demon, had chosen to become one or had spent years of their lives in other dimensions.
They would. And they would have been proud to do so.
Doyle
Half demon, half human, he had never belonged to one side as kind of creature only few were willing to accept. For all his problems, he had been lucky. Nobody would see who he really was, always hiding behind his human features even after his demonic genes had manifested. What was worse, he had never accepted his proper nature, let alone admitted who he was.
He had turned down to help others when his visions appeared and changed his life. Working with Angel had made him aware he wasn’t alone, wasn’t the only one.
Standing here, he knew giving his life in return was the least thing he could do.
Cordelia
Once she had been the star at High School. Never would she have thought it wasn’t a good life, until the day she met the Scoobies. Suddenly, true friendship was something she never wanted to miss again. Angel Investigations was another step into this life, even though her visions had nearly destroyed her and forced her to become partly demon, before... She didn’t like that part of her story.
These days were only a gift. She would die, very soon. And though she was sad, she was happy because her life had changed for the better.
It wasn’t wasted, it had been worth it.
Fred
Science had always been important for her, though she never would have expected to die as a result of her enquiring mind.
The years in Pylea had changed her, but even though she eventually discovered that her professor had sent her, fearing her being superior, she had never blamed science.
Wesley’s arms around her body comforted her, while they were lying on her bed, her mind drifting away, being taken over by something, someone, else. She could feel her life being sucked out of her. This was the end, and the only two things she thought about were Wesley and, deep down, her growing curiosity about the sarcophagus.
Harmony
Harmony Kendall, who had loved the mirror like nothing else, had valued her appearance above everything. Until Graduation Day, the day when everybody had decided to fight against the forces of evil, against mayor and a horde of bloodthirsty vampires. Some of her friends had given their lives, some had been lucky and survived, and some had been turned over, had become creatures of the night. Never would she age again, an advantage, granted, but the fact that she would never be able to see her own reflection in a mirror ever again was the true horror of her new life.
Notes: Okay. Here you go. Actually, this is madness. I mean real madness. I've always been a graphic maker and have participated in many 20in20 challenges, but this time I was too bored of Photoshop and icon making and somehow ended up writing. I wrote some stories before and liked most of them myself, but I never wrote so many drabbles within one or rather two days. Since English still isn’t my first language there most certainly are some mistakes. Moreover, I haven’t watched anything Whedon for a long time. As I said: Madness!
If you don’t like stories full of angst, don’t read them, because many of them are exactly that. Or at least keep in mind that I warned you.
Hope you enjoy nonetheless, at least a bit.
All drabbles are 100-110 words.
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, Dollhouse, Firefly
Word Count: 100 to 110
Rating: PG-13
Genre: mostly Angst (character deaths)
01. Opposites (Buffy, Faith)
Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane. Two Slayers, the good and the rogue.
One turned dark, murdered, tortured, and went to prison. The other died, for a second time, to save her family, the world, and was resurrected.
One was helped by an ensouled vampire, the last to understand her, and whom she fought when he turned evil himself, to help him recover his soul. The other was helped by a vampire with an inhibition to kill, in a way forcing him to find a soul.
For many years they had been fighting each other. Now they had fought, side by side, for the first time, opposites of the same coin.
02. Lost (Dawn)
Lost. She was lost and had lost everything. Her whole family was gone. Of course, there still were her friends, Willow, Tara, Xander, Giles and Spike. But whatever they did, they never would be her family. The family she was sent to invade. That was what she was. An implanted memory. A hidden key to another world.
However, everything felt so real. It had become real and it hurt so badly. Seeing her mother die of natural causes and Buffy give her life to save hers, had devastated her. More than once she had felt alone, a lost key in the sea of life.
03. Colour (Xander)
It was a night like any other, whatever that meant in Sunnydale. Xander was about to enter the old mansion, followed by the others who chatted and laughed about something he hadn’t heard, when they nearly knocked him over. He had stopped abruptly and taken a step back, waving his hand in the door frame. He knew he must look weird and didn’t need to imagine their raised eyebrows and the looks they exchanged. If he weren’t so startled himself, he would have laughed with them. However, the lack of colour when he reached out was alarming and he finally understood why people called it Black and White Mansion.
04. Cold (Sierra)
It was so cold. Why was it so cold? She didn’t know. The only thing she was certain about was that something, someone, was missing.
She could feel his arms that weren’t there, his warm breath tickling her neck which now was freezing, the security he had given her every night. He was gone and she couldn’t remember anything, not his coy smile, not his scars, not the shared adventures. Everything was wiped, again, and again.
Despite their lost memories, they had found each other, day after day, night after night.
But tonight was different. Victor wasn’t there and Sierra knew it.
05. Memory (Angel)
Memories - how he hated them. They haunted him. They were burning inside, constantly and forever. They never stopped, never rested.
He knew it was his curse, the one thing that was ever able to hurt him. The one thing he had deserved the most. Every single time when he closed his eyes he could see them, their faces, their tears. He could hear their screams or their begging, their last sounds of human life. He could smell their fear and feel their pain. For more than a hundred years it had been his pain. An everlasting pain, he would never forget.
It was the perfect punishment.
06. Two (River)
Two by two...
They would find them, one day they would find them. Her. And then Simon. And the Captain. All of them. And they would kill. Not her. No. Never her. They needed her. But all the others. She knew it. It would happen. One day it would happen.
Two by two...
River tilted her head and stared into the void, standing on the balustrade in the belly of her new home.
Kill. But they would lose. She would fight and they would lose, everything. Nobody took her family from her. Not again. Never again.
Two by two...
... hands of blue.
07. Eyes (Giles)
Her eyes still stared at him, blind, cold, dead eyes. He knew he would remember this image forever. It would haunt him all his life. Whatever he would do, wherever he would go, this moment would be stuck in his mind, her eyes, everywhere, every time, always.
For a moment all the happy moments were gone, wiped from his memories. Only the horror and the devastation remained which he felt when he saw her, lying on the bed, the music playing in the background, the roses...
Jenny Calendar was dead, killed by Angelus, and with her a part of himself.
08. Food (Mal)
He couldn’t remember the last time they had had proper food. Since Miranda they were floating through space, hiding in the dark, evading every spark of human life. All the time they had lived from their stocks which now had nearly vanished. He eventually was forced to make a decision. The others, his crew, his family, trusted him, their captain. If someone had asked him, although they never would, he wouldn’t have known what to say, he didn’t know what to do. Every decision could be his very last, and even worse, it could mean the death of them all.
09. Wrong (Topher)
Why couldn’t he think, see or hear anything else than WRONG, all the time?
It was as if someone was haunting him. Monitoring every single move he did, constantly stating WRONG. Failure was the only fear he had ever known, and this was the worst. As if someone wanted to make sure that he would never forget his mistakes, his wrong decisions. His extreme self-confidence, his egoism and his ambitions had been the catalyst for the recent events. His inventions had turned the course of the world; they had guided the human race in an apocalyptic war.
He had felt like God in the Dollhouse and had been so wrong.
10. Magic (Willow)
Everything had started so harmlessly, so naive, a flying pencil and a little spell. How did she end up with murder? She had skinned a human being in blind wrath. Of course, she had seen many deaths before, demons, vampires, evil forces planning on taking over the world, her world.
Fighting on the right side for the well-being of humanity had been her life for the last years. Until... Until when? She had lost herself a long time ago. Feeling the power she possessed, the pure force she could unleash with the tilt of her head had taken her over.
Title: Category - One Episode: Not Fade Away
Fandom: Angel the Series
Characters: Lorne, Lindsey, Wesley, Connor, Angel, Illyria, Gunn
Word Count: 100 to 110
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst (character deaths)
Category - One Episode: Not Fade Away
Lorne
He had never killed a man. Even violence had never been his first choice, if it was even one at all. All he ever wanted was music. What had he gotten himself into? Where were the good times when he just was the host at “Caritas”?
One last time he looked at Lindsey who didn’t expect anything, at least until he saw the gun. Lindsey said something but Lorne didn’t get the words. He knew what he had to do since Angel had told him his plan. How could he have declined? The others risked their lives tonight.
Thinking of them, Lorne pulled the trigger.
Lindsey
No, no. This couldn’t be. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. This was not how his life should end. Not the green party demon, not Lorne. Not after all the years he had spent in hell with Wolfram & Hart.
Lindsey McDonald, shot by a singing “happily ever after” demon. Shot by the one of Angel’s flunkies, he would never have suspected of ending someone’s life. This was certainly not what he had deserved.
Killed by one of the ensouled vampires, fine. Killed by Wesley, Gunn or the Illyria. He would have been okay with them though not entirely happy.
But Lorne? Never!
Wesley
All in all it had been a good life. He had learned a lot over the last few years that had changed everything. However, he didn’t regret many things. His treason and the months alone were one of the few. There was one hesitation he would never forgive himself.
He could see her. He could see her right before his eyes.
The Old One was turning herself back into the former and original occupant of her body, turning human, just to comfort him.
One last kiss with her image before his eyes closed for the last time, hoping that he might see her again... soon.
Connor
He, the miracle, had come back to fight, to fight alongside his father, his real one. The human offspring of two vampires, raised in a different dimension, guilty of drowning his father, member of the wrong side in an apocalypse, before his memories were altered for a better life, was finally where he belonged, where he wanted to be.
He knew this was right, saving Angel, and helping him to fight his enemies. Since his new, happy memories were mixed with his original, dark ones, with his rage and hate, it had begun to dawn on him. It had taken time, but eventually he understood he was loved.
Let’s Go To Work
There they were. Four lost souls waiting for a demonic army. They had lost everything - their families, their friends, their loves, their worlds. The resurrected Old One in the stolen body of a friend, who could feel her heart pulsating from time to time. The cursed vampire who was fighting demons, foremost his own, to repay the sins of his past and help the helpless. The boy who had lost his sister to the fangs of the night. And the vampire with the spark inside him, who had burned to save the Slayers.
It was a lost battle and yet, they would never give up.
Let’s go to work...
Title: AC (addition to Category)
Fandom: Angel the Series
Characters: Doyle, Cordelia, Fred, Harmony
Word Count: 100 to 110
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst (character deaths)
AC
Doyle, Cordy, Fred
If they still had lived, would they have given their lives tonight? Would they have died with them?
Doyle, Cordelia and Fred were dearly missed. No day had passed with the others not thinking of them. Like so many before them, they had fought for the helpless, the underdogs, everyone without hope or money to be on the winning side of life.
They had risked everything, chosen a life which was dangerous. They were born as demon, had chosen to become one or had spent years of their lives in other dimensions.
They would. And they would have been proud to do so.
Doyle
Half demon, half human, he had never belonged to one side as kind of creature only few were willing to accept. For all his problems, he had been lucky. Nobody would see who he really was, always hiding behind his human features even after his demonic genes had manifested. What was worse, he had never accepted his proper nature, let alone admitted who he was.
He had turned down to help others when his visions appeared and changed his life. Working with Angel had made him aware he wasn’t alone, wasn’t the only one.
Standing here, he knew giving his life in return was the least thing he could do.
Cordelia
Once she had been the star at High School. Never would she have thought it wasn’t a good life, until the day she met the Scoobies. Suddenly, true friendship was something she never wanted to miss again. Angel Investigations was another step into this life, even though her visions had nearly destroyed her and forced her to become partly demon, before... She didn’t like that part of her story.
These days were only a gift. She would die, very soon. And though she was sad, she was happy because her life had changed for the better.
It wasn’t wasted, it had been worth it.
Fred
Science had always been important for her, though she never would have expected to die as a result of her enquiring mind.
The years in Pylea had changed her, but even though she eventually discovered that her professor had sent her, fearing her being superior, she had never blamed science.
Wesley’s arms around her body comforted her, while they were lying on her bed, her mind drifting away, being taken over by something, someone, else. She could feel her life being sucked out of her. This was the end, and the only two things she thought about were Wesley and, deep down, her growing curiosity about the sarcophagus.
Harmony
Harmony Kendall, who had loved the mirror like nothing else, had valued her appearance above everything. Until Graduation Day, the day when everybody had decided to fight against the forces of evil, against mayor and a horde of bloodthirsty vampires. Some of her friends had given their lives, some had been lucky and survived, and some had been turned over, had become creatures of the night. Never would she age again, an advantage, granted, but the fact that she would never be able to see her own reflection in a mirror ever again was the true horror of her new life.