ficpost: "The Five Games You Play In Heaven" (multiple pairings)
Title: "The Five Games You Play In Heaven"
Fandom: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer and Angel
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through NFA. The rest of the header is behind a spoiler-cut for that reason.
Featured Characters: Amanda, Anya, Cordelia, Dennis, Fred, Gunn, Jenny Calendar, Jonathan, Lilah, Tara, and Wesley
Pairings: Mentions of canonical pairings involving all of the above, extra-canonical pairings between them, and intimations of yet more pairings. All the featured pairings are het or femslash.
Notes: Thanks to karabair, who suggested the dilemma posed in the first story. Apologies to Mitch Alboum, from whom I riffed the title.
Disclaimer: If I owned them, would they all be dead?
Summary: Five afterlives that might yet be; everyone is surprised.
Words: 4353
The Five Games You Play In Heaven
1. Cliff-Shag-Marry
Cordelia was the most surprising thing he encountered, and her boredom the least surprising.
"I've done the whole heaven shtick before, right? And it took me maybe all of a week to get bored of it. A week! And I've been here for like, at least a month."
"Six months," Wesley said with a sigh. "Although your time of death is inexact. Mystical deaths are always tricky to calculate."
Cordelia wasn't at all fazed by Wesley's presence, which unnerved him until she explained, "You always show up unexpectedly, right? Waving your guns or your broadsword or whatever, dashing in like you're going to save us. So it's totally no surprise that you'd show up at the door to my cottage in hell with a gaping chest wound and be all, 'Oh, hello, Cordelia. Care for some tea?'"
Wesley frowned at her. "I assumed that of all of us, you at least would make it to heaven."
"Well, limbo then. Whatever. It's not like I was paying attention in religion class. Oh, wait, it's not like we even had religion class at Sunnydale High."
"Nor at the Watchers' Academy."
"Great! So, we're dead, we're lost, and we're bored out of our skulls." Cordelia pouted fiercely, then suddenly smiled in a way that Wesley hadn't seen in years. "We should totally play a game to pass the time."
"Have you got Scrabble?" Wesley asked, only half-joking.
Cordelia dismissed him with a wave. "Pshaw. Like I'd subject myself to the geekdom of word games. We'll play cliff-shag-marry. You first. Angel, Spike, Gunn." She grinned wickedly.
"Err..?"
With an elaborate eyeroll, Cordelia explained. "You pick one to kill -- that's cliff, duh -- and one to marry and one to, you know, do."
"Angel, Spike, and Gunn?" Wesley was beginning to feel this wasn't the sort of game he wanted to play, but with Cordelia, there were seldom any choices.
"Come on. I'm waiting."
"We do have all eternity," Wesley reminded her. "I'm thinking. A cliff wouldn't kill Angel or Spike, but shagging Angel might get me killed. The same goes for Spike, though for different reasons. Ergo, I'd, er, shag Gunn --"
"You totally would," Cordelia affirmed. "You did, didn't you?"
"It was a long time ago," Wesley said, then continued with the game. "Neither Angel nor Spike would make an especially good marriage partner, but Spike's gloating if I tossed Angel off a cliff would be even more insufferable than Angel's if I got rid of Spike -- so! Marry Angel, shag Gunn, and Spike goes over the cliff."
"You are totally overthinking this. Come on. Do me."
"Ah..." he searched for the names of movie stars Cordelia might have heard of. "Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, and, er, Matt Damon."
"Easy. Shag Angelina, marry Sean, and cliff Matt. All right -- Lilah, Faith, and..." he waited for the word "Fred," had already steeled himself in preparation for hearing her name, but Cordelia grinned especially wickedly and said, "and me."
Wesley stared at her.
"Well? You shagged Gunn without thinking twice."
Wesley knew the subtext of the game had become more loaded, but did his best to ignore it and focus on the task. "Well, Lilah goes over the cliff, of course."
"Of course? Of course? Wesley, you spent like, the six sexiest months of your mostly celibate life in the woman's bed. And she gets an 'over the cliff, of course'?"
"She's already dead."
"So'm I. And with the demony bits, I have a better chance of surviving than Ms. Evil Lawyer."
Wesley was uncomfortably aware of the next choice he'd have to make, and though it was only a game he hesitated before saying, "Watchers can't marry their Slayers. It's in the rulebook."
Cordelia actually snorted at that. "And that's going to stop you? Puh-leeze. Just say you want to shag her brains out and be done with it."
Wesley's feelings for Faith were complex and over-examined -- after she escaped from prison the previous year, he'd resumed his habit of dreaming about her, always nightmares, and praying for her salvation, a word he hadn't even known was in his lexicon. He feared and hated and wanted and loved Faith -- but even if he were permitted, even if she were willing, he wouldn't marry her. "All right. Shag Faith, then."
"Well?" Cordelia's expression was pure evil -- not the calculating schemes of the previous year, but an evil all her own, the enticing enchantment she'd possessed in high school.
"Lilah over the cliff, make lo -- shag -- Faith -- and marry you." He couldn't keep his voice quite steady as he said the last.
"Aww," she grinned. "All you had to do was ask."
And Wesley knew that this was neither heaven nor a game, but something far beyond both of them.
2. Spin The Bottle
If you'd asked Tara a week ago, she'd have said, "No, no, there's no heaven, per se. Lots of heavens, but no one big, capital 'H' Heaven." That was her usual answer. Lots of possibilities and no certainties, lots of potentialities and no actual honest-to-Goddess one anything. She didn't think she could be surprised when she died, but here she was, sitting under a tree on a picnic blanket and feeling mostly confused and a little sad. She looked around and, seeing no one, called "Willow?"
There was no answer, only a powerful surge of energy trying to tear her away. She grabbed at the nearest tree trunk and held on tightly, mentally summoning powers to bind herself to the tree. That was when she got the first big surprise. Vines threaded around her arms and back and she was tied tightly to the oak, which seemed to grow bigger and stronger at her touch. Magic had always flowed everywhere for her, but magic now seemed to be everywhere, everything. She thought the word butterfly, just as a test, and one landed on her vine-covered arm.
"Pretty cool, huh?"
"Hey," she said softly, realizing, suddenly, that if this was a heaven, its inhabitants would be ghosts. She wasn't frightened but thought it best to be cautious.
"Hey yourself. Need help with that?"
"N-no." Tara thought herself out of her bonds and was quickly free. She gave the tree a gentle pat to show it that there were no hard feelings, but that they had to go their separate ways now. Well, she'd go hers, and the tree could stay where it was. "I'm Tara," she said. She was still whispering but had killed the stutter.
"Jenny Calendar."
"O-oh!" Jenny wasn't what she'd expected -- very vibrant for a dead woman, and so sensual, so cocky when she smiled. Her hair was dark and she wore a long skirt, but otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to tell she was a gypsy. Tara struggled to recognize the gleam of power she knew must be present.
"So, you were Willow's girl, huh?"
"Y-yeah. Yes." Jenny looked at her carefully but not unkindly. "She told me about you. I'm glad there's someone here I know." Jenny nodded carefully. "I'm not going to see my mom, am I?"
"It's complicated, sweetie. For now, we need to get you settled in."
"But -- but she's here, right?" Tara felt more frightened than she had since meeting Willow. Suddenly the loneliness of her situation was too much.
"She was powerful, wasn't she?"
"Magical," Tara added. "Will Willow be here? I mean, not now -- but eventually, when she's ready. She'll come for me?"
Jenny nodded again.
After a few weeks, Tara decided the place where she was should be called a little heaven. It did seem little. There were a few huts scattered over pretty green hills, and the place where people came to sit and pray by the forest's edge. Never the forest, just its edge. Tara felt like she was on the edge of all sorts of discoveries, like she might suddenly start singing and not be able to stop, with no demons involved, just her and the feeling of the air on her skin. The magic of this place was controlled and unrestrained at the same time. If you weren't careful, you might wake to find your dreams were true.
Nothing seemed real except the magic, and even that was hyper-real. Tara thought of her mother, and wished for her, but that was one wish that she couldn't make material even here. Except Jenny, all the people here were difficult. She saw them, going about their business, praying, singing sometimes, never together, always alone, usually surrounded by their own clouds of fairy dust and visible daydreams. They were as flimsy as the air.
Jenny was solid and carried a laptop with her, which she claimed was internet-ready and got amazing download speeds. Tara would find her by the forest, wearing headphones and listening to bootlegged songs. She was something like Willow when Tara didn't think too hard.
"There's a secret to this place," Jenny told her. "Have you figured it out?"
"Heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be?"
Jenny laughed. "That's not a secret."
"Hard to miss, really."
Once she figured that out, Jenny conjured a bottle of champagne. "Congratulations, Tara. You were twenty-one, right?"
Tara couldn't bring herself to embrace the past tense like Jenny did. I thought Rupert was pretty hot. I was a major hacker in my day. I liked girls too, you know. Tara still thought of herself as alive.
"My birthday's in November," she said.
"Excellent. Then I won't even feel the slightest bit guilty about getting you drunk. You ever been drunk?"
"No." She took a deep breath of the too-thin air. "But it's about time, right?"
"It sure is."
Being drunk in the little heaven was unreal, fantastic -- a fantasy. Tara sipped from a glass made of nothing and her hand in front of her seemed to quiver like a living thing. Jenny's laughter came from far away; the bottle floated between them without either woman making it happen. The sun above them became a moon and Tara tilted upside down, stared at the sky and wondered what colors it could be. She reached out a hand for the bottle and it fell to the ground but couldn't break, just spun lazily around in swooping circles until it stopped, open end toward Jenny.
Jenny laughed and said with a slight slur, "You know wha that means, righ?"
"The bottle never spun," Tara said. "I spun it. I always choose my lovers."
"Me too," said Jenny, grinning, suddenly not drunk. "Me too."
3. Dress-Up
"You -- you finally got here!"
Cordelia twirled around, expecting to see -- she didn't know. Her grandfather, maybe, or Skip with another stupid task -- she had her finger ready to tell him what she thought of being an errand girl for any Powers, ex- or not. Hell, she was hoping to see Doyle again, but she did have intimate acquaintance with the powers that sucked and knew that that was too much to hope for. There was probably some stupid rule against seers meeting up again after they'd finished their duty tour, or maybe just a rule against people named Cordelia being happy. She was really, really hoping that her time with the Powers was up and she could now kick back and enjoy the pearly beaches of heaven or whatever.
"Cordy." She definitely didn't recognize the kid's voice, and he dressed even worse than Doyle had. Like, ugly. The shirt had to go. What did he think it was, 1950?
"Who are you, and how do you know my name?"
"You don't -- you don't recognize me?"
She looked at him closely, but his disheveled appearance provided no clues. Just an ordinary kid with brown hair and a sad smile. Then suddenly something clicked. "Dennis?"
"No longer phantom," he said, a little sadly. Well of course the guy was sad. If you've been a ghost for pretty much forever, it's gotta hurt a little when you realize you're still wearing the stupid dorky clothes you died in. Well. She had officially kicked the public service gig, but that didn't mean she couldn't help a friend in need.
"Dennis, my roomie, we have got to go shopping."
"I'm somehow not surprised," said Dennis with a smile, then clapped his hand over his mouth. "Sorry -- I've been talking to you for so long that it's hard to remember you can hear me now."
"Hey, not a problem. I totally like, invented foot-in-mouth disease."
"I know," Dennis said, then blushed. "Oops."
Cordelia put an arm around his shoulder. "It's okay, Dennis. From this day forward, you and me are going to be a whole new us. And we're starting at the mall."
"There's, uh, no -- mall -- here."
"No mall?" Cordelia looked straight up towards where the Powers ought to be. "I don't rank heaven after all that vision crap you put me through? The hell with this! I want a mall!" She looked back at Dennis, now standing in front of a very pricey looking department store. "See? A whole new Cordy."
"And a whole new Dennis," he said, somewhat tentatively, then reached for her hand. Well, okay. He hadn't had any physical contact at all for fifty years. The guy deserved to hold her hand.
He turned out to have truly dreadful taste in clothes, which was probably just her bad luck. Xander? Terrible dresser, she couldn't even be seen with him. Doyle? Not even touching that. Angel -- well, okay, but the bad luck regarding Angel more than cancelled out the good luck regarding his fashion sense. And Groo, well, Groo looked his best when he wasn't wearing any clothes. Still, Dennis didn't have to personally relive five decades of bad fashion decisions. Polyester, leisure suits, Hawaiian shirts, and wing-tipped shoes that he apparently couldn't bear to part with. "You're hopeless," she said, as Dennis handed her a gorgeous red shirt that was just her size. "But this is fabulous! Eee! I'm trying it on." She ducked into a fitting room, shouting over the thin dividing wall, "Dennis, you're amazing."
She admired herself in the mirror while Dennis thoughtfully folded her old shirt, and she asked, "So, I have a question. How come you're so good at knowing what I should wear and so, well, you know --"
"Tasteless and tacky?"
"Did I teach you those words?"
Dennis nodded. "I spent a lot more time thinking about your body than mine for the past -- oh."
"Foot in mouth once again," Cordelia said with a grin. "You definitely learned from the best." She thought about Dennis for a minute, or maybe thirty seconds -- it didn't take her that long to make up her mind -- then said, "Hey, you think this mall has a Cinnabon?"
"Do you want one?"
"I could die for a mochachino, if I hadn't, you know, already wasted my death on helping the helpless and all that."
"There has to be a Cinnabon," said Dennis. "Heaven has everything you want."
She tilted her head and looked at him hard. "And does it have everything you want?"
"Oh." He didn't take his eyes off her and said quietly, "Yes."
4. Anywhere But Here
Fred was cradling him and her eyes filled with tears, and soon they would be together, soon. Soon. If he focused on her wobbling lower lip and the tendrils of hair that brushed her shoulders then there wasn't any pain and the remembrance that she was lying was pushed back from the center of his mind. Fred was holding him and he was dying, but this was acceptable, because she was already dead, and soon they'd be dead together. Soon. Soon.
When he opened his eyes again he was surprised for a moment that she was gone, and it took him another moment to realize that he wasn't looking at Illyria either. He blinked through the contact lenses that suddenly didn't itch anymore. "Lilah?"
"Are you sure?" The voice was only slightly familiar and had never been intimate for him. Not Lilah. "I don't have a lot of time, you know."
"Eve?" He struggled to sit up; she looked the same as ever, a sweet smile just creeping over her perfect, girlish features. "Eve. Where am I?"
"Eve? Is that what she called herself?" The girl giggled. "Cute. I suppose you'll want a name for me, too?"
"Eve's fine," he said. "Just tell me where I am."
"Can't do that," she giggled. "But I can tell you where your lover -- excuse me, lovers -- are."
Wesley said nothing.
"In fact, since they're both ours, we can make you an extra special deal." She crooked her finger at him and when he moved a step closer, her voice fell to a whisper as she explained.
"But I have to choose." He frowned.
"That's the deal. After all, Ms. Morgan and Ms. Burkle were both, uh, liabilities. I'm not sure Wolfram and Hart wants either one of them to be relocated. But because we love you so much, we're offering you this deal. If I were you, Wes, I'd take it." When she called him Wes, she sounded more like Lilah than like herself, whoever that was.
He sighed and chose.
When Lilah awoke, she stretched a hand out automatically to make sure no one had stolen anything in the night -- nope, scarf still wrapped around her neck to hide the scar, purse still tucked close to her waist; she even had her pillow, or what was left of it after the last demon attack, keeping her hair off the ground. A good morning. She smiled and reached for the purse so she could reapply her lipstick, but her fingers brushed hair instead of leather. She pulled away automatically, then sat up and leaned over the sleeping girl next to her. When she saw that it was Fred, she laughed without humor and shook the bitch awake.
"Winifred Burkle. I do declare."
Her mimicry might not have been accurate, but it obviously stung; it took Fred a minute to regain her composure enough to come back with, "Lilah Morgan -- what are you doing in heaven?"
"Heaven?" Lilah laughed pleasantly. "The day I see heaven will be the day it falls into the boiling pits of hell. Which is scheduled for a millennium from Tuesday, if I'm not mistaken. The real question is, what are you doing in hell, and why isn't Wes with you?"
"I'm dead; he's not?"
"He's not?" Lilah choked on a laugh. "And how do you think Wes survived the apocalypse? Held a book over his head to ward of the big bad demons?"
"Wesley's strong; you know that." Lilah waited, yes, there it was. The clean scent of recognition and fear. "Apocalypse? What -- how do you know?"
"Word gets around," Lilah said with a grin. "Especially when you're living in the biggest, baddest Big Bad of them all. Welcome to hell, Fred."
Her delivery was perfect, but the twat wasn't biting. "Um, Lilah? Look around. Rolling hills, perfect lakes, sands of time, gorgeous clothes," Lilah looked down automatically. Fred was right about one thing, at least. She was still attired perfectly. "I'm pretty sure this is still the same heaven where I had tea in the Hall of Champions yesterday."
"Hall of Champions?" Lilah rolled her eyes. "And to think that we have to have tea at a knock-off temple that looks like a badly refurbished 1950s Hollywood studio apartment. Maybe I should reconsider this life of evil. Oh, wait -- it's far too late for that. My fate is sealed."
"Look, I can go back to my apartment, get my equipment, test the atmosphere again; I have very detailed records of all the changes over the past six months. It's very interesting; you know how they say that when it rains, angels are crying? Well, obvious puns about our mutual friend -- er, mutually my friend and your mortal enemy -- it turns out to be more accurate than you might think. There's a definite correlation between the morale of --"
Lilah slapped a hand over Fred's mouth just hard enough to make her stop talking. In the silence, she could hear her thoughts again, but unfortunately, the feeling of Fred's skin under her hand, smooth and dimpled and fresh, was enough to make rational thought about her situation difficult. Might as well use that to her advantage. She'd known a lot of heroes -- Angel being the most memorable -- and if there was any sex at all in heaven, well, she'd be damned, if she wasn't already.
It was hard to kiss Fred, all arms and legs and scrawny, and not think about Wesley, but luckily Lilah had a lot of practice in the area of not thinking about Wesley. Obviously Fred had more difficulty, and she reacted to Lilah like she would have to a man, trying to swoon into her arms. Lilah grabbed her shoulders and kissed her again, hoping that her tongue was conveying the message that swooning was not appropriate behavior around Lilah Morgan. Grovelling was fine, lust was expected, oral sex was appreciated, but swooning was out of the question.
Fred was a quick learner.
"Now," Lilah said when they'd finished, "can you honestly tell me that's your idea of heaven?" Fred looked at her thoughtfully, and Lilah didn't quite like the way Fred's brown eyes traced over her hips and stomach. "Well?"
"Heaven would be like Texas," Fred said, "only bigger in every direction. Bluer skies and rounder hills" -- she illustrated that image like she'd been making love to Lilah for a lifetime -- "and gorgeous women, men too, wherever you looked."
"And Gucci. It wouldn't be heaven without Gucci."
"And Gucci," Fred agreed lazily. "So who do you think pulled the strings to land us both in heaven? I didn't have a snowball's chance in Texas, and God knows you didn't."
Lilah was, for once in her death, speechless. She recovered quickly, though; she always did. She looked away and muttered, "Wes, you bastard. You shouldn't have."
5. Dungeons and Dragons
"Well look who finally woke up. Anyone want him on your party, or do we have to start over again?"
"I'll take him." The voice was high and feminine, slightly shaky. Definitely not anyone he knew, though admittedly the number of female people he'd known in recent years was pretty small. Not Fred, not Cordy, definitely not Harmony. He sat up and faced the girl -- young, very young, and white -- very white. "Hi," she said. "I'm Amanda. You've played before, right?"
"Played... what?"
"The game involves dungeons," said another unfamiliar female voice. "But no whips or costumes."
"We could play with costumes." The same tiny kid who'd announced it when he woke up. "But you guys won't."
"Whenever I suggest costumes, Jonathan suggests that I'd be happier at an adults-only game. Like I want to go to all the trouble of finding a new group of gaming partners. Besides, I've attended some adults-only parties, and they aren't nearly as entertaining as you might think. No, you people will just have to adapt to my ideas about costuming."
"Maybe next round," said a middle-aged balding man he didn't recognize. In fact, Gunn thought, glancing around the table, none of these people was familiar, though the setting was. Roleplaying looked pretty much the same the world 'round.
"Are you in?" The short kid had the same exasperated expression that every Dungeon Master ever wore when his players were chatting instead of rolling.
"Sure," he said with a shrug, and hauled himself to his feet.
"Oooh, goody. Do you want to play for money? You want to play for money, right?"
"Anya." The DM gave her a dirty look. "D+D is a spiritual experience. We don't taint it with tawdry betting."
"Besides, he doesn't have any money." Amanda smiled at Gunn and he smiled back a bit warily. "Do you?"
"Flat broke," he said. "I left the company credit card in my other suit." The players stared at him, and he looked down. Yeah. Blood-stained shirt, big scrapes on his arms, and his hand was still clutched like he was gripping a sword. It was difficult even for him to believe that the week before, he'd dressed up in a three-piece suit and defended a mass murderer before a biased jury and a bought judge. "Been awhile since I've played, too. Got a spec sheet?"
"Of course," said Amanda, and Gunn noticed that she had a real sweet smile. It was almost too bad that she was --
"Hey."
"What's wrong?" This from Anya, the betting blonde.
"Last thing I remember, I was fighting for my life in an alley and my guts were dripping outta my stomach."
"And they're getting all over this nice carpet, too," Anya told him.
"I'm dead, aren't I?"
"Yep," Amanda said with an apologetic shrug. "Me too."
"We're all dead. I died quite heroically."
"Stabbed in the back," said Jonathan.
"Heart attack," added the bald guy.
"So this is like... the afterlife?"
"Not what you expected, is it? Mortals have always had such strange beliefs about their deaths. I'm glad I don't have to worry about that anymore."
"You're mortal too, Anya," Jonathan reminded her.
"I was," she retorted.
"But wait, so like -- this is heaven. Sitting around playing D+D."
For the first time, his companions' faces registered real surprise. Amanda finally broke the silence. "Of course this is heaven. What else could it be?"
Fandom: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer and Angel
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through NFA. The rest of the header is behind a spoiler-cut for that reason.
Featured Characters: Amanda, Anya, Cordelia, Dennis, Fred, Gunn, Jenny Calendar, Jonathan, Lilah, Tara, and Wesley
Pairings: Mentions of canonical pairings involving all of the above, extra-canonical pairings between them, and intimations of yet more pairings. All the featured pairings are het or femslash.
Notes: Thanks to karabair, who suggested the dilemma posed in the first story. Apologies to Mitch Alboum, from whom I riffed the title.
Disclaimer: If I owned them, would they all be dead?
Summary: Five afterlives that might yet be; everyone is surprised.
Words: 4353
The Five Games You Play In Heaven
1. Cliff-Shag-Marry
Cordelia was the most surprising thing he encountered, and her boredom the least surprising.
"I've done the whole heaven shtick before, right? And it took me maybe all of a week to get bored of it. A week! And I've been here for like, at least a month."
"Six months," Wesley said with a sigh. "Although your time of death is inexact. Mystical deaths are always tricky to calculate."
Cordelia wasn't at all fazed by Wesley's presence, which unnerved him until she explained, "You always show up unexpectedly, right? Waving your guns or your broadsword or whatever, dashing in like you're going to save us. So it's totally no surprise that you'd show up at the door to my cottage in hell with a gaping chest wound and be all, 'Oh, hello, Cordelia. Care for some tea?'"
Wesley frowned at her. "I assumed that of all of us, you at least would make it to heaven."
"Well, limbo then. Whatever. It's not like I was paying attention in religion class. Oh, wait, it's not like we even had religion class at Sunnydale High."
"Nor at the Watchers' Academy."
"Great! So, we're dead, we're lost, and we're bored out of our skulls." Cordelia pouted fiercely, then suddenly smiled in a way that Wesley hadn't seen in years. "We should totally play a game to pass the time."
"Have you got Scrabble?" Wesley asked, only half-joking.
Cordelia dismissed him with a wave. "Pshaw. Like I'd subject myself to the geekdom of word games. We'll play cliff-shag-marry. You first. Angel, Spike, Gunn." She grinned wickedly.
"Err..?"
With an elaborate eyeroll, Cordelia explained. "You pick one to kill -- that's cliff, duh -- and one to marry and one to, you know, do."
"Angel, Spike, and Gunn?" Wesley was beginning to feel this wasn't the sort of game he wanted to play, but with Cordelia, there were seldom any choices.
"Come on. I'm waiting."
"We do have all eternity," Wesley reminded her. "I'm thinking. A cliff wouldn't kill Angel or Spike, but shagging Angel might get me killed. The same goes for Spike, though for different reasons. Ergo, I'd, er, shag Gunn --"
"You totally would," Cordelia affirmed. "You did, didn't you?"
"It was a long time ago," Wesley said, then continued with the game. "Neither Angel nor Spike would make an especially good marriage partner, but Spike's gloating if I tossed Angel off a cliff would be even more insufferable than Angel's if I got rid of Spike -- so! Marry Angel, shag Gunn, and Spike goes over the cliff."
"You are totally overthinking this. Come on. Do me."
"Ah..." he searched for the names of movie stars Cordelia might have heard of. "Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, and, er, Matt Damon."
"Easy. Shag Angelina, marry Sean, and cliff Matt. All right -- Lilah, Faith, and..." he waited for the word "Fred," had already steeled himself in preparation for hearing her name, but Cordelia grinned especially wickedly and said, "and me."
Wesley stared at her.
"Well? You shagged Gunn without thinking twice."
Wesley knew the subtext of the game had become more loaded, but did his best to ignore it and focus on the task. "Well, Lilah goes over the cliff, of course."
"Of course? Of course? Wesley, you spent like, the six sexiest months of your mostly celibate life in the woman's bed. And she gets an 'over the cliff, of course'?"
"She's already dead."
"So'm I. And with the demony bits, I have a better chance of surviving than Ms. Evil Lawyer."
Wesley was uncomfortably aware of the next choice he'd have to make, and though it was only a game he hesitated before saying, "Watchers can't marry their Slayers. It's in the rulebook."
Cordelia actually snorted at that. "And that's going to stop you? Puh-leeze. Just say you want to shag her brains out and be done with it."
Wesley's feelings for Faith were complex and over-examined -- after she escaped from prison the previous year, he'd resumed his habit of dreaming about her, always nightmares, and praying for her salvation, a word he hadn't even known was in his lexicon. He feared and hated and wanted and loved Faith -- but even if he were permitted, even if she were willing, he wouldn't marry her. "All right. Shag Faith, then."
"Well?" Cordelia's expression was pure evil -- not the calculating schemes of the previous year, but an evil all her own, the enticing enchantment she'd possessed in high school.
"Lilah over the cliff, make lo -- shag -- Faith -- and marry you." He couldn't keep his voice quite steady as he said the last.
"Aww," she grinned. "All you had to do was ask."
And Wesley knew that this was neither heaven nor a game, but something far beyond both of them.
2. Spin The Bottle
If you'd asked Tara a week ago, she'd have said, "No, no, there's no heaven, per se. Lots of heavens, but no one big, capital 'H' Heaven." That was her usual answer. Lots of possibilities and no certainties, lots of potentialities and no actual honest-to-Goddess one anything. She didn't think she could be surprised when she died, but here she was, sitting under a tree on a picnic blanket and feeling mostly confused and a little sad. She looked around and, seeing no one, called "Willow?"
There was no answer, only a powerful surge of energy trying to tear her away. She grabbed at the nearest tree trunk and held on tightly, mentally summoning powers to bind herself to the tree. That was when she got the first big surprise. Vines threaded around her arms and back and she was tied tightly to the oak, which seemed to grow bigger and stronger at her touch. Magic had always flowed everywhere for her, but magic now seemed to be everywhere, everything. She thought the word butterfly, just as a test, and one landed on her vine-covered arm.
"Pretty cool, huh?"
"Hey," she said softly, realizing, suddenly, that if this was a heaven, its inhabitants would be ghosts. She wasn't frightened but thought it best to be cautious.
"Hey yourself. Need help with that?"
"N-no." Tara thought herself out of her bonds and was quickly free. She gave the tree a gentle pat to show it that there were no hard feelings, but that they had to go their separate ways now. Well, she'd go hers, and the tree could stay where it was. "I'm Tara," she said. She was still whispering but had killed the stutter.
"Jenny Calendar."
"O-oh!" Jenny wasn't what she'd expected -- very vibrant for a dead woman, and so sensual, so cocky when she smiled. Her hair was dark and she wore a long skirt, but otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to tell she was a gypsy. Tara struggled to recognize the gleam of power she knew must be present.
"So, you were Willow's girl, huh?"
"Y-yeah. Yes." Jenny looked at her carefully but not unkindly. "She told me about you. I'm glad there's someone here I know." Jenny nodded carefully. "I'm not going to see my mom, am I?"
"It's complicated, sweetie. For now, we need to get you settled in."
"But -- but she's here, right?" Tara felt more frightened than she had since meeting Willow. Suddenly the loneliness of her situation was too much.
"She was powerful, wasn't she?"
"Magical," Tara added. "Will Willow be here? I mean, not now -- but eventually, when she's ready. She'll come for me?"
Jenny nodded again.
After a few weeks, Tara decided the place where she was should be called a little heaven. It did seem little. There were a few huts scattered over pretty green hills, and the place where people came to sit and pray by the forest's edge. Never the forest, just its edge. Tara felt like she was on the edge of all sorts of discoveries, like she might suddenly start singing and not be able to stop, with no demons involved, just her and the feeling of the air on her skin. The magic of this place was controlled and unrestrained at the same time. If you weren't careful, you might wake to find your dreams were true.
Nothing seemed real except the magic, and even that was hyper-real. Tara thought of her mother, and wished for her, but that was one wish that she couldn't make material even here. Except Jenny, all the people here were difficult. She saw them, going about their business, praying, singing sometimes, never together, always alone, usually surrounded by their own clouds of fairy dust and visible daydreams. They were as flimsy as the air.
Jenny was solid and carried a laptop with her, which she claimed was internet-ready and got amazing download speeds. Tara would find her by the forest, wearing headphones and listening to bootlegged songs. She was something like Willow when Tara didn't think too hard.
"There's a secret to this place," Jenny told her. "Have you figured it out?"
"Heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be?"
Jenny laughed. "That's not a secret."
"Hard to miss, really."
Once she figured that out, Jenny conjured a bottle of champagne. "Congratulations, Tara. You were twenty-one, right?"
Tara couldn't bring herself to embrace the past tense like Jenny did. I thought Rupert was pretty hot. I was a major hacker in my day. I liked girls too, you know. Tara still thought of herself as alive.
"My birthday's in November," she said.
"Excellent. Then I won't even feel the slightest bit guilty about getting you drunk. You ever been drunk?"
"No." She took a deep breath of the too-thin air. "But it's about time, right?"
"It sure is."
Being drunk in the little heaven was unreal, fantastic -- a fantasy. Tara sipped from a glass made of nothing and her hand in front of her seemed to quiver like a living thing. Jenny's laughter came from far away; the bottle floated between them without either woman making it happen. The sun above them became a moon and Tara tilted upside down, stared at the sky and wondered what colors it could be. She reached out a hand for the bottle and it fell to the ground but couldn't break, just spun lazily around in swooping circles until it stopped, open end toward Jenny.
Jenny laughed and said with a slight slur, "You know wha that means, righ?"
"The bottle never spun," Tara said. "I spun it. I always choose my lovers."
"Me too," said Jenny, grinning, suddenly not drunk. "Me too."
3. Dress-Up
"You -- you finally got here!"
Cordelia twirled around, expecting to see -- she didn't know. Her grandfather, maybe, or Skip with another stupid task -- she had her finger ready to tell him what she thought of being an errand girl for any Powers, ex- or not. Hell, she was hoping to see Doyle again, but she did have intimate acquaintance with the powers that sucked and knew that that was too much to hope for. There was probably some stupid rule against seers meeting up again after they'd finished their duty tour, or maybe just a rule against people named Cordelia being happy. She was really, really hoping that her time with the Powers was up and she could now kick back and enjoy the pearly beaches of heaven or whatever.
"Cordy." She definitely didn't recognize the kid's voice, and he dressed even worse than Doyle had. Like, ugly. The shirt had to go. What did he think it was, 1950?
"Who are you, and how do you know my name?"
"You don't -- you don't recognize me?"
She looked at him closely, but his disheveled appearance provided no clues. Just an ordinary kid with brown hair and a sad smile. Then suddenly something clicked. "Dennis?"
"No longer phantom," he said, a little sadly. Well of course the guy was sad. If you've been a ghost for pretty much forever, it's gotta hurt a little when you realize you're still wearing the stupid dorky clothes you died in. Well. She had officially kicked the public service gig, but that didn't mean she couldn't help a friend in need.
"Dennis, my roomie, we have got to go shopping."
"I'm somehow not surprised," said Dennis with a smile, then clapped his hand over his mouth. "Sorry -- I've been talking to you for so long that it's hard to remember you can hear me now."
"Hey, not a problem. I totally like, invented foot-in-mouth disease."
"I know," Dennis said, then blushed. "Oops."
Cordelia put an arm around his shoulder. "It's okay, Dennis. From this day forward, you and me are going to be a whole new us. And we're starting at the mall."
"There's, uh, no -- mall -- here."
"No mall?" Cordelia looked straight up towards where the Powers ought to be. "I don't rank heaven after all that vision crap you put me through? The hell with this! I want a mall!" She looked back at Dennis, now standing in front of a very pricey looking department store. "See? A whole new Cordy."
"And a whole new Dennis," he said, somewhat tentatively, then reached for her hand. Well, okay. He hadn't had any physical contact at all for fifty years. The guy deserved to hold her hand.
He turned out to have truly dreadful taste in clothes, which was probably just her bad luck. Xander? Terrible dresser, she couldn't even be seen with him. Doyle? Not even touching that. Angel -- well, okay, but the bad luck regarding Angel more than cancelled out the good luck regarding his fashion sense. And Groo, well, Groo looked his best when he wasn't wearing any clothes. Still, Dennis didn't have to personally relive five decades of bad fashion decisions. Polyester, leisure suits, Hawaiian shirts, and wing-tipped shoes that he apparently couldn't bear to part with. "You're hopeless," she said, as Dennis handed her a gorgeous red shirt that was just her size. "But this is fabulous! Eee! I'm trying it on." She ducked into a fitting room, shouting over the thin dividing wall, "Dennis, you're amazing."
She admired herself in the mirror while Dennis thoughtfully folded her old shirt, and she asked, "So, I have a question. How come you're so good at knowing what I should wear and so, well, you know --"
"Tasteless and tacky?"
"Did I teach you those words?"
Dennis nodded. "I spent a lot more time thinking about your body than mine for the past -- oh."
"Foot in mouth once again," Cordelia said with a grin. "You definitely learned from the best." She thought about Dennis for a minute, or maybe thirty seconds -- it didn't take her that long to make up her mind -- then said, "Hey, you think this mall has a Cinnabon?"
"Do you want one?"
"I could die for a mochachino, if I hadn't, you know, already wasted my death on helping the helpless and all that."
"There has to be a Cinnabon," said Dennis. "Heaven has everything you want."
She tilted her head and looked at him hard. "And does it have everything you want?"
"Oh." He didn't take his eyes off her and said quietly, "Yes."
4. Anywhere But Here
Fred was cradling him and her eyes filled with tears, and soon they would be together, soon. Soon. If he focused on her wobbling lower lip and the tendrils of hair that brushed her shoulders then there wasn't any pain and the remembrance that she was lying was pushed back from the center of his mind. Fred was holding him and he was dying, but this was acceptable, because she was already dead, and soon they'd be dead together. Soon. Soon.
When he opened his eyes again he was surprised for a moment that she was gone, and it took him another moment to realize that he wasn't looking at Illyria either. He blinked through the contact lenses that suddenly didn't itch anymore. "Lilah?"
"Are you sure?" The voice was only slightly familiar and had never been intimate for him. Not Lilah. "I don't have a lot of time, you know."
"Eve?" He struggled to sit up; she looked the same as ever, a sweet smile just creeping over her perfect, girlish features. "Eve. Where am I?"
"Eve? Is that what she called herself?" The girl giggled. "Cute. I suppose you'll want a name for me, too?"
"Eve's fine," he said. "Just tell me where I am."
"Can't do that," she giggled. "But I can tell you where your lover -- excuse me, lovers -- are."
Wesley said nothing.
"In fact, since they're both ours, we can make you an extra special deal." She crooked her finger at him and when he moved a step closer, her voice fell to a whisper as she explained.
"But I have to choose." He frowned.
"That's the deal. After all, Ms. Morgan and Ms. Burkle were both, uh, liabilities. I'm not sure Wolfram and Hart wants either one of them to be relocated. But because we love you so much, we're offering you this deal. If I were you, Wes, I'd take it." When she called him Wes, she sounded more like Lilah than like herself, whoever that was.
He sighed and chose.
When Lilah awoke, she stretched a hand out automatically to make sure no one had stolen anything in the night -- nope, scarf still wrapped around her neck to hide the scar, purse still tucked close to her waist; she even had her pillow, or what was left of it after the last demon attack, keeping her hair off the ground. A good morning. She smiled and reached for the purse so she could reapply her lipstick, but her fingers brushed hair instead of leather. She pulled away automatically, then sat up and leaned over the sleeping girl next to her. When she saw that it was Fred, she laughed without humor and shook the bitch awake.
"Winifred Burkle. I do declare."
Her mimicry might not have been accurate, but it obviously stung; it took Fred a minute to regain her composure enough to come back with, "Lilah Morgan -- what are you doing in heaven?"
"Heaven?" Lilah laughed pleasantly. "The day I see heaven will be the day it falls into the boiling pits of hell. Which is scheduled for a millennium from Tuesday, if I'm not mistaken. The real question is, what are you doing in hell, and why isn't Wes with you?"
"I'm dead; he's not?"
"He's not?" Lilah choked on a laugh. "And how do you think Wes survived the apocalypse? Held a book over his head to ward of the big bad demons?"
"Wesley's strong; you know that." Lilah waited, yes, there it was. The clean scent of recognition and fear. "Apocalypse? What -- how do you know?"
"Word gets around," Lilah said with a grin. "Especially when you're living in the biggest, baddest Big Bad of them all. Welcome to hell, Fred."
Her delivery was perfect, but the twat wasn't biting. "Um, Lilah? Look around. Rolling hills, perfect lakes, sands of time, gorgeous clothes," Lilah looked down automatically. Fred was right about one thing, at least. She was still attired perfectly. "I'm pretty sure this is still the same heaven where I had tea in the Hall of Champions yesterday."
"Hall of Champions?" Lilah rolled her eyes. "And to think that we have to have tea at a knock-off temple that looks like a badly refurbished 1950s Hollywood studio apartment. Maybe I should reconsider this life of evil. Oh, wait -- it's far too late for that. My fate is sealed."
"Look, I can go back to my apartment, get my equipment, test the atmosphere again; I have very detailed records of all the changes over the past six months. It's very interesting; you know how they say that when it rains, angels are crying? Well, obvious puns about our mutual friend -- er, mutually my friend and your mortal enemy -- it turns out to be more accurate than you might think. There's a definite correlation between the morale of --"
Lilah slapped a hand over Fred's mouth just hard enough to make her stop talking. In the silence, she could hear her thoughts again, but unfortunately, the feeling of Fred's skin under her hand, smooth and dimpled and fresh, was enough to make rational thought about her situation difficult. Might as well use that to her advantage. She'd known a lot of heroes -- Angel being the most memorable -- and if there was any sex at all in heaven, well, she'd be damned, if she wasn't already.
It was hard to kiss Fred, all arms and legs and scrawny, and not think about Wesley, but luckily Lilah had a lot of practice in the area of not thinking about Wesley. Obviously Fred had more difficulty, and she reacted to Lilah like she would have to a man, trying to swoon into her arms. Lilah grabbed her shoulders and kissed her again, hoping that her tongue was conveying the message that swooning was not appropriate behavior around Lilah Morgan. Grovelling was fine, lust was expected, oral sex was appreciated, but swooning was out of the question.
Fred was a quick learner.
"Now," Lilah said when they'd finished, "can you honestly tell me that's your idea of heaven?" Fred looked at her thoughtfully, and Lilah didn't quite like the way Fred's brown eyes traced over her hips and stomach. "Well?"
"Heaven would be like Texas," Fred said, "only bigger in every direction. Bluer skies and rounder hills" -- she illustrated that image like she'd been making love to Lilah for a lifetime -- "and gorgeous women, men too, wherever you looked."
"And Gucci. It wouldn't be heaven without Gucci."
"And Gucci," Fred agreed lazily. "So who do you think pulled the strings to land us both in heaven? I didn't have a snowball's chance in Texas, and God knows you didn't."
Lilah was, for once in her death, speechless. She recovered quickly, though; she always did. She looked away and muttered, "Wes, you bastard. You shouldn't have."
5. Dungeons and Dragons
"Well look who finally woke up. Anyone want him on your party, or do we have to start over again?"
"I'll take him." The voice was high and feminine, slightly shaky. Definitely not anyone he knew, though admittedly the number of female people he'd known in recent years was pretty small. Not Fred, not Cordy, definitely not Harmony. He sat up and faced the girl -- young, very young, and white -- very white. "Hi," she said. "I'm Amanda. You've played before, right?"
"Played... what?"
"The game involves dungeons," said another unfamiliar female voice. "But no whips or costumes."
"We could play with costumes." The same tiny kid who'd announced it when he woke up. "But you guys won't."
"Whenever I suggest costumes, Jonathan suggests that I'd be happier at an adults-only game. Like I want to go to all the trouble of finding a new group of gaming partners. Besides, I've attended some adults-only parties, and they aren't nearly as entertaining as you might think. No, you people will just have to adapt to my ideas about costuming."
"Maybe next round," said a middle-aged balding man he didn't recognize. In fact, Gunn thought, glancing around the table, none of these people was familiar, though the setting was. Roleplaying looked pretty much the same the world 'round.
"Are you in?" The short kid had the same exasperated expression that every Dungeon Master ever wore when his players were chatting instead of rolling.
"Sure," he said with a shrug, and hauled himself to his feet.
"Oooh, goody. Do you want to play for money? You want to play for money, right?"
"Anya." The DM gave her a dirty look. "D+D is a spiritual experience. We don't taint it with tawdry betting."
"Besides, he doesn't have any money." Amanda smiled at Gunn and he smiled back a bit warily. "Do you?"
"Flat broke," he said. "I left the company credit card in my other suit." The players stared at him, and he looked down. Yeah. Blood-stained shirt, big scrapes on his arms, and his hand was still clutched like he was gripping a sword. It was difficult even for him to believe that the week before, he'd dressed up in a three-piece suit and defended a mass murderer before a biased jury and a bought judge. "Been awhile since I've played, too. Got a spec sheet?"
"Of course," said Amanda, and Gunn noticed that she had a real sweet smile. It was almost too bad that she was --
"Hey."
"What's wrong?" This from Anya, the betting blonde.
"Last thing I remember, I was fighting for my life in an alley and my guts were dripping outta my stomach."
"And they're getting all over this nice carpet, too," Anya told him.
"I'm dead, aren't I?"
"Yep," Amanda said with an apologetic shrug. "Me too."
"We're all dead. I died quite heroically."
"Stabbed in the back," said Jonathan.
"Heart attack," added the bald guy.
"So this is like... the afterlife?"
"Not what you expected, is it? Mortals have always had such strange beliefs about their deaths. I'm glad I don't have to worry about that anymore."
"You're mortal too, Anya," Jonathan reminded her.
"I was," she retorted.
"But wait, so like -- this is heaven. Sitting around playing D+D."
For the first time, his companions' faces registered real surprise. Amanda finally broke the silence. "Of course this is heaven. What else could it be?"