Disclaimer: I owneth not the BTVS characters…
Disclaimer# 2: Prepare to be confused. It's part of the fun....just keep plowing through and all will make sense...like a fog lifting....heh...
Spoilers: None unless you haven’t seen Season six to date
Angst: Mild
Rating: PG 13 for adult humour, some nudity, and mild violence towards garbage cans….
Description: A strictly "what if" romp through Sunnydale…. Don’t be put off by weird times and places…everything written has a reason…or maybe that’s…nothing is reasonable… trust no one…la-la-la…etc.
Feedback: Of course! let me know if this is fun or just giving you a headache! lafemmenikit@hotmail.com
THE LATE SHIFT
Chapter One: William The Fuddy-Duddy
Wheat-a-bix, beer, and cheese…Buffy likes cheese. I pile more cheese into the basket, and figure that more cheese requires more beer. It’s a basic mathematical fact, I’m certain. Awfully nice of them to let you help out with the bloody research. Soon you’ll be trolling around town in an apron, Spike, you git.
I pay for the snacks at the counter, and pocket the change. I like to think of it as commission. Making me come out in a storm to fetch them ‘goodies’ is not my idea of ‘helping out’. I’m a hunter, a well-honed killer, and a mercenary of the dark forces…..and the extra change, well… It’ll be enough for next week’s Soap Opera Digest…..
In the parking lot, I strap the food down on my bike, looking, I’m sure, mysterious and unflappable in the rain, without any sort of protection. Even so…I’m freezing my yabos off out here…. Hey..even the undead get a little chilly.
" Spike?" Comes a voice from behind me. Tara. She is standing under a red umbrella, and bundled into an oversized coat and galoshes. I envy her that coat right now. I picture myself wearing it, furry collar and all. The freezing undead have no room for dignity. Of course, I’m not going to steal her coat. I’m actually very glad to see her. It wouldn’t look right, me bouncing around her like an overzealous puppy, so I do the next best thing.
" Well if it isn’t the good witch of the Northside. You put on weight, or is it the coat?" That came out all wrong. I mentally slap a palm to my forehead. She must know me better than I think because she smiles.
" I’m h-happy to see you too, Spike." She says. Now I figure it’s time for me to do it right.
" I haven’t seen you around since you dumped Red." Ouch. I’m starting to think I might have a bit of a problem expressing myself. Can’t bite? Well then, William, say things that do. This time Tara doesn’t smile. You’re a monster. A bleeding monster, Spike.
She drops her gaze from mine.
" Oh, hey, I’m sorry. You know me, always stickin a foot in it." I say and she gives me a half-hearted smile that I recognize right away. The same one Willow has been walking around with for weeks. They must shop the same aisle in that great big market called DE-NIAL.
" It’s alright." Tara says. Lie. It's not really alright. I don’t even need keen vampire senses for that one.
" They all miss you." I say, proud that I managed to get something out that doesn’t weep for chivalry.
" I miss… them too." She says, not so much to me as to herself. She smiles again. This time with a little more behind it. Not a lot, but enough to know that my hunter-gatherer skills are improving. Go out to buy snacks, come back with a much missed Scooby. I’ll be the hero of the hour. The Little Bit will be so happy. Willow will smile again, and all will be right with the world.…. I start my motorbike.
" Climb on." I tell her.
" I live right d-down the way here. I’ll be fine walking." She says. I can see it in her eyes. Fear, hope..the whole bit. Somewhere, buried deep in her subconscious, she wants me to lie to her. I rev the motor.
" It’s like in the movies. The surly rebel guy revs his bike..the girl hops on without question. They drive off. Don’t go ruining my moment." I say, and rev my bike again. She puts her small bag and umbrella on my snacks, and straps it down, then slips a leg over the bike and holds on.
" Home, right?" she says into my ear.
" Right!" I fib, pulling out of the lot. Home. Magic Box…Whatever.
Pulling up in front of the Magic Box, I park the bike. I noticed that the moment I had sped past her dorm, her nails had dug relentlessly into my sides. She was my prisoner and she knew it. The closer we came to the Magic Box, the harder she dug in those bloody talons of hers.
I hand her her umbrella as she gets off the bike.
" I told you home." She says.
" Millons of years of evolution, and you still don’t get the whole ‘be specific’ thing." I say, rubbing feeling back into my sides.
" MY home, Spike. The Magic Box is no one’s home." When she’s really pushed out of shape, she looses that endearing little stutter. It’s my signal that I’ve done my job… and well.
" Home is relative…if you want to be picky about it…the whole bleedin Earth is home…" I motion for her to come inside. She hesitates, looking like a wet cat. Angry, and sullen, and unpredictable.
" You tricked me Spike."
" Then I’ve still got it." I say and held open the door wider. I believe it takes a little cunning and trickery to make things run smoothly on the Hellmouth.
I think it is less my charm and good will that brings Tara in and more the terrible clap of thunder that rattles the light posts on the street and sets off car alarms all down the block. She rushes into the shop just as someone..or something… else is leaving. I don’t so much see them, as feel them brush by me, and rush out into the night. Demon? Ghost? What is bloody hell was going on in here?
" Spike?" Tara says from the shop, and now I start to worry.
It was dark inside. I try the lights, but they are already switched on. Power must be out. I feel Tara side up to me and take my arm.
" Something’s wrong." She says.
" Hullo?" I call out. No answer. I had left them all sitting around the table doing research not twenty minutes earlier. Something is indeed very wrong. I take out my lighter. It lends a miniscule amount of light to the store, enough to see that the table is empty, and that there are clothes everywhere. The clothes that they had been wearing…All of them. Around their chairs. Xander, Willow, Buffy, dawn, and Anya. All gone. Deteriorated.
" What’s going on?" Tara said. Her voice sounds a little soggy, like she is going to start the water works any minute. She was now holding onto my arm as though I too might disappear.
" Everybody’s gone." I say and realize that my voice is sounding a little watery around the edges too.
" Where did they go?" She asks, more to herself again than to me.
" This is Sunnydale. They are most likely in the worst imaginable circle of hell right now….
" You always this optimistic?" Tara grouses.
" Yes." I say, and look for some candles to light.
Chapter Two: That’s What little Girls are Made of
Wake up Xander. Something is very, very wrong.
Sometimes I hear Anya say that in her sleep. It usually ends with " ….the cash register is gone…it’s just gone…!" Signaling me that she is having one of her nightmares again. It is then my duty as the burly man-fiancé-type to save her from a world where she has no money, and everything in the store is marked down to half price…or, heaven forbid…free.
Today the little voice in my head sounds much more like my own. I pull the blankets over my head, trying to block out the morning sun.
Morning sun?
Minutes…ago…seconds maybe…we were sitting around the table…researching…what?… something about the storm…and .. then there was light..light everywhere..and Dawn was screaming…and…. I’m reaching for Anya…but I can’t find her….and….
And now I’m in bed? I’m in a strange bed…in a strange place…an oddly familiar….but wholly strange….
Before I can make the connection on my own, the bedroom door bursts open.
" Are you going to sleep all day?" The woman at the door says.
" N-no." I squeak.
" Up-Up-Up! You’ll be late for school."
" School….?" The eerie feeling is leaving….now cold dread is seeping in. I KNOW this room.
And why isn’t she looking at me like the Big bad Wolf who just ate her daughter. No boys allowed! I’m not supposed to be in here! I pull back the blankets.
Nightgown: Pink.
Fuzzy, knobby socks: shaped like pigs with cute, droopy, eyes.
Legs: ….bald…
Oh God…. This isn’t….happening….
" Willow? Are you sick? Is there something wrong?" Mrs. Rosenberg asks from the door.
" I’m….(just a little Xander this morning) …fine….Mom." I manage.
She shuts the door and I bound out of the bed and to the wall mirror. The reflection that stares wide-eyed back at me is not only Willow….but Willow from…oh
God….. oh God….
High school.
I’ve died and gone to Sunnydale High.
To be continued…….
Thanks so much for the feedback!!! (squeaking my rusty writer's gate)....and yes...this only gets weirder....and weirder.
Chapter Three: Strong, Like an Amazon?
" Whassa…humma….huh?" I hear myself say. The class snickers, and I’m left wondering the basics…you know them:
How the heck did I get here?
Why is everyone laughing at me?
Why are they all in gym clothes?
…and why the doily-knitting hoo am I in gym class???
" You want to join our class Miss Summers?" The teacher chides at me. Everyone laughs again.
Okay, so I’m thinking…
first thing…uh…. no…. I definitely do NOT want to join in, and second…Miss Summers? The name’s Rosenberg. I’m just a little confused right now, possibly nightmaring, most likely crazy, and I’m not going to let on. I’m not going to freak out… I’m going to play it cool….no babbling…
I look across the net at the gym teacher. She’s getting ready to launch the volleyball at my face, I just know it. She has a gleam in her eye as she sets up the ball. I’ve seen that gleam before…
years ago…in high school.
Mrs. Ruthman.
Girl’s Volleyball.
Second period.
The original Terminator had been a direct rip off of this woman’s personality ….. she could not be stopped…she could not be reasoned with. Back then, the rumour had been that Mrs. Ruthman was part matriculator, part demon… looking back at Sunnydale’s glowing reputation, I suspect the rumours were all true.
At least half the female population of Sunnydale to date still totes around serious emotional scarring due to the numerous beatings endured from Ruthman’s well-placed serves. And here I am….again….
… I’m in hell.
Somehow I died and went to hell.
I knew it was bound to be like this, an eternity of gym class. Blocking volleyball missiles forever and ever…. On a vicious, karmic turnstile of undeterminable evil…
And to prove it….THWACK! She serves the ball. Aimed straight and true, right at my face.
SWACK! I bat the ball away from my face in self-defense. It hits the net, of course…and keeps on going, right through.. The ball hits the floor with a pop like a gunshot and then just lies there, like a lump of deflated Wilson carnage. I whip my hair back in blonde defiance. Take that, Ruthman!
Blonde? Blonde…I really am… I’m blonde… and extremely strong….and…
" Great going, Summers." A classmate growls at me. I feel my face, my long blonde tresses….
Oh. My. God. I’m Buffy. I’m Buffy Summers!
As I’m staring down at the deflated leather lump of teen torture withering on the hardwood gym floor, some of my panic quells. Maybe this isn’t hell after all. Maybe…just maybe…when good geeks die…
They come back as Slayers….
But then what do Slayers become?
Chapter Four: Let’s Hear It In Something Like a Minor Key
I. Am. In. Hell.
I am the Slayer. The chosen one. I have taken on death, the end of the world, and creatures of all shapes and sizes. But I can not …no…I WILL NOT… go through puberty again!
I close the medicine cabinet again and look into my sister’s face. I touch my cheeks, my hair… she’s been sneaking my conditioner! But that’s beside the point because I AM DAWN right now and that just isn’t right. In fact…as much as I’ve had to endure lately…this was outright sadistic.
Downstairs the front door crashes open, and I hear footsteps on the stairs.
" Buffy!!! Buffy!!!" Comes the frantic scream. Anya appears in my bathroom door. She is wearing a small robe over a negligee, no shoes, and a face wrought with panic. Her hair is in disarray. When she sees me, the colour washes out of her cheeks.
" Anya?? It’s me..Buffy. What’s happening?"
" I’m not Anya." She snivels, trying to bravely keep herself together. I would recognize that snivel anywhere.
" Dawn…?" She nods, staring in a sort of abject horror at her own face as she talks to me.
" I woke up in bed and I was Anya…and Xander was screaming…and… I was so scared" I stop her.
" Wait…you woke up…in bed…with Xander???" She nods again, chewing on one of Anya’s nails and talking around the finger.
" …But I don’t think it was Xander, because he kept pointing at me and screaming like a girl…"
"Okay…so Xander’s not himself either….then where am I?"
" Huh?"
" Where’s my …er…body…who has it? Is everyone in town like this?"
" I don’t know…..Buffy…I’m scared."
" I am too. Don’t I look scared?" I make an eek face to try to cheer her up and calm her down, though I’m the Costco werehouse of emotional turmoil right now.
" Don’t do that." Dawn says, sullenly. Fresh tears spring to her eyes.
" What?"
" That face. It creeps me out to see… me making that face at…me…. You know what I mean…"
" Sorry. Let’s get you some clothes..and then we’ll fix this..." We move out of the bathroom and into my room, which, for the time I try to pretend isn’t a strange travesty version of my room from like junior high or something. The early 90's = very bad year for decorating.
" Hey Buffy." She says as I’m rummaging through my closet for a shirt that wasn’t neon and would fit her.
" Hmm?"
" If we end up…having to stay like this…I’ll be older than you."
" We aren’t staying like this." I insist.
" But if we did…I would be..like the older sister… the boss kinda."
" No…you wouldn’t."
" And you’re like…the dumb old key."
" Dawn…You aren’t even a key anymore. Not really. You don’t open anything."
" Great. I feel REAL special now. You wanna shove me under a mat and forget about me? You can do that, you know. Guess you don’t need to cut copies…cuz I-don’t-open-anything." She says sourly. I hand her a normal green shirt and non-ripped jeans. She slips them on over the negligee.
" Now is sooo very not the time for a Hellmark Card moment, Dawnie. Let’s find my body and then we can fall back into our classic blaming patterns. Deal?"
" Deal." She says, pouting.
" Okay then…. Best bet…the Magic Box." I say lead the way.
" Alright…but you better not do any gung-ho-ey Slayer stuff with that body, Buffy. You’re renting."
to be continued....
Chapter Five: The Demon’s in the Details….
Bunnies.
Bunnies did this.
I always get ‘the look’ from the group when I suggest that the twitchy little four-legged pods of evil, enrobed in downy-soft fur could be responsible for anything like this…but they have never seen a bunny in action. I’ve been around far longer than any of them (except, perhaps Little Dawn). They don’t know the true cataclysmic destructive potential of the bunny. Oh, they’ll carve little chocolate idols of them and keep them as pets, but one cute little eight-foot Chaos demon comes by and it’s kill-kill-kill…. Their priorities are all screwed up.
This is so something a bunny would do. Take a person out of a perfectly productive research session to…
Wait.
No. This is even more sinister than even that carnage-seeking, Easter Bunny bastard is. You know, the one that leaves fuzzy baby chicken embryos lying in wait for unsuspecting children…. And if you think bunnies are bad…you should see the bloodbath one of those baby chickens can ensue…it’s all… Private Ryan who????
This is definitely not the work of that furry fiend…this is something truly devious. I’m thinking a Matrimony Demon. Nathos…or Binamomnon.
This is some sort of commitment thing. A slap in the face of impending marriage. You want to marry him, Anya…well…walk around in his clumpy inexpensive shoes, and baggy briefs for a few hundred years….that’ll teach ya! This is a total lesson-learning thing and I’m supposed to find the moral to the story and everything will go back to normal. I get it now!
So…..the important thing in a involuntary out-of-body experience is to stay calm…..
Okay.. I might have already screwed that one up with the screaming and the watching my one and only body run out of the apartment and to who knows where.
And can I just say ick on the choice of bodies to put me in? Xander’s is all big and lumpy, and as sexy as I’ve found the hair on his legs to be at times of weakness…the pelt just plain itches when you’re wearing it. I really don’t think he’ll mind if I shave some of this off. He’s very understanding that way.
In fact…where is Xander? Kind of an important part of the lesson-learning couple thing, wouldn’t you think? Just like him to leave at the very hint of danger….ooh…look….he left The Wallet, that’s a good sign, right?
And since I’m in possession of The Wallet, the situation is not entirely hopeless.
Now all I have to do is shave Xander’s body, find the half-naked me wandering the streets, and learn my matrimonial lesson before opening the Magic Shop at nine.
Hey…profits wait for no one….
Chapter Six: Beware the Jabberwonky
coming soon…..
Sorry that I couldn't tag this one onto the last one...My computer is giving me guff.
Chapter Six: Beware the Jabberwonky
Sometimes, just sometimes, candles don’t lend a romantic ambience to a room. Sometimes the flickering flames see themselves more fit to create jittering, spooky shadows in every corner they cannot quite reach, and cause scores of dancing demons against the walls they can.
Spike lights the last of the candles and flicks his lighter closed with a snap of the wrist. He returns to my side quickly. I’m guessing he doesn’t want to be alone anymore that I do right now. We stare in impotence at the piles of familiar clothing on the floor.
My mind is churning, trying to find rhyme or reason behind what has happened here. The room seems heavy with some sort of power that I can’t quite place. Not quite dark…not quite…
Spike reaches down to pick up a blouse. Pink, with a cute little fuzzy white kitten face. Willow’s shirt. I’d been with her when she bought it. In fact…she had invited me in the dressing room while she tried it on, and the rest was…..
Not quite silence…
I can’t afford the luxury of breaking into crazy hyena, laughing/tears over the meaning of that pink shirt. I need my wits about me. I need to find out what happened.
" It’s still warm." Spike says, turning it over in his pale hands. It crackles with static. Tendrils of energy snake over the material, over the vampire’s hands. He drops it back down next to her jeans, quickly. The static courses across a belt buckle and fades back into the clothing. " You see that?" He asks me.
" Yes. D-did it hurt?"
" No. It was sort of…tickly." He looked immediately embarrassed at the description he had come up with, and played it off by cocking his head back and trying to look tough. I kneel by the pile of Dawn’s clothes. When I run my hand over them, a tingly course of energy surges into my hand. Nothing mystical, nothing supernatural…just good old fashioned rubbing your shoes on the carpet static.
Little blue tendrils of light spark the tips of my fingers. I watch them slither from the shirt..to the pants….and under the table to a spot in the floor.
" Spike?" He catches the awe in my voice, and crouches down beside me. I rustle the clothing again, and we watch the static crackle it way to the same smeary point in the floor. He did the same with Buffy’s clothes, though frankly I think he was taking his time working up the energy on them. The effect was the same though. The energy seemed to trail its way to the same spot.
I reach out, to run my hand over the spot in the floor… mainly to see if the energy was stronger here…and I hear Spike begin a warning not to touch it….
" I won’t." I say…but it’s no use. He’s gone, and It’s just me there….looking back at me.
Outside…the storm is gone…and the morning sun is creeping through the closed windows of the shop and my eyes ache something awful. I can’t help but stare into my face…it hovers above me…just before I feel the threads of unconsciousness creeping around the edges of my vision….
" Tara?" I see myself say to.... myself. " Something bloody wonky is going on."
Gratefully, before I can respond, darkness sweeps over me and I am blissfully unconscious. Somewhere…far away from this pillow of blackness, I hear my voice again
" I’d better get you out of the sun, Blondie, before you sizzle…."
..... TBC
Chapter Seven: Brillig
I’m sitting in a cold, dank basement, smoking. Or watching myself smoke rather. Spike has procured the cigarettes and lighter from the jacket I’m wearing. He’s on his eighth already and I’m getting ready to protest. I really am…those are MY lungs he’s charring….but right now, actually, I’m thinking I could use that smoke.
I’ve been a vampire for at least an hour.
Spike peers through the threads of smoke at me. Squinting one of my eyes in a comical facsimile of his bad-boy look. On my face it looks like I’ve got something in my eye.
" You aren’t going to start that retching stuff again, are you? I can’t watch that again. Your body has a weak stomach…and I don’t want to join you." He says
He seems very much at ease with my body…happy even. I’d hit the smug bastard if he didn’t have my face…and I didn’t have a chip in this head that would send pain raging through me.
" You’re going to need to eat soon." Spike says, I watch him grapple with my hair.
" How do you function with this bloody mop on your head?"
" I’m not going to eat." I’m starving. " I won’t" I say as I stare at the packet of blood he’s brought me.
" Stop being a priss and eat up. You’ll need your stregnth." I turn my face away. He sets the blood on a shelf near me. " Fine. You sit down here and starve my body to another death…and I’ll go and try to find out how to fix this."
" I- I want to help." I say softly. He looks down on me from the stairs.
" It’s really disturbing to see me being such a wuss." He says.
" I’m dead. I’m cold, I’m hungry, and I’m going to have to drink blood, Spike…. A little sympathy is in order."
" Try it for a thousand or so years and see what you think." He says. I merely stare at him. He rolls his eyes, sighs loudly, comes back down to me, and picks up the packet again. " You get used to it…really." I shake my head.
I’m not getting used to this. No way. I’m aching for something, anything to eat… I choke back a sob.
" Let’s get you fed, and us out of this." He says, more tenderly than I’ve ever heard him. He puts an arm around my shoulder. " You know, you’re a good lookin bloke." He says, trying to make me laugh. I give him a little smile.
The jingle of the front door upstairs, and the sound of footsteps.
" Is there someone down there?" Comes a voice from the door upstairs.
" Buffy!" I call, relieved to hear the dulcet voice of the Slayer. She can fix this. Whatever happened here…she’ll know what to do. Buffy comes down the stairs. There is something about her…the softer cut of her features, the longer hair, the gym clothes. She couldn’t be more than fifteen…
" Spike?" And then she sees Spike, in my body, oogling her. " Tara?"
" Slayer?" Spike says. His accent sounding bizarre coming from my mouth. Buffy pulls Spike into a ginger hug. I’m standing here, stunned. I’ve never known Buffy to be so overtly friendly with me before. She's almost...coyly intimate. If I had the warmth, I would be blushing right now.
" It’s me. It’s Willow, ….. I’m so….. happy to see you." She says to a very surprised and slayer-smooshed Spike. " She pushes away a little to look into Spike's face, looking a little embarrassed about being so forward. Truthfully, it HAD been weeks since we had seen eachother. And right now, she looks into my face with no clue that I am not in there.
" I’m sorry…" Willow-Buffy says to Spike-me. Buffy's cheeks burn red with Willow's embarassment.
Willow. My Willow. She is alive, and ....for the most part…all right.
Alive is all I could ever ask for.
I didn’t want to acknowledge it earlier. I couldn’t. But I had been haboring a secret dread that I would never see Willow again. That I would never be able to tell her how much I miss her, or hold her close, or watch her hand wrestle with Miss Kitty, to kiss her, or to be the first person who makes her smile every morning. If I had given into thoughts that Willow was gone forever…I would not have been able to function.
I would not have been able to breathe…
and now…
Willow isn’t lost to me.
Relief and realization flood through me. I fall to my knees on the filthy, cellar floor and burst into loud, heart-wrenching sobs that surprise even me.
…and I prove once and for all…that even cool, sarcastic, seemingly unflappable vampires can cry like babies.
.....TBC
Okay...for those of your who have been able to follow the switcheroo so far...brava! For those of you who are like me...(I keep a chart in front of me while I write..).this is about to get easier....
The confusion was purposeful...you'll notice that by the end of this chapter...as the characters figure out who it who... so does the storyteller...and they are called by the name of the person they really are.
And since Tara is my favourite 1st person storyteller...the task will fall to her to basically tell the rest of the tale..... which also will clear up a lot.
Now....on with the show....
Chapter Eight: Is you Is, or Is You Ain’t My Baby?
Okay. Seeing Spike on his knees, crying is very…very weird. I pull back a slightly from Tara to see her leering disgustedly at the lump of weeping vampire on the floor.
One thing I know. Hell Dimension, Nightmare, alternate space-time-continuum or not…Tara Maclay does not leer.
" Get off the floor! I just knicked those pants last Tuesday! Gah!" Tara grumbles loudly from my arms. Okay….this is so not Tara…in there ….then….???
Spike looks up at me from the floor. There’s something about his eyes, the way he holds his head, almost as though letting phantom hair fall to obscure his face, that makes me slip the rest of the way out of the arms of the beautiful woman in front of me.
" I-I’m so happy to see you!" Spike wails at me from the floor. Tara rolls her eyes at him.
" Oh Bloody Hell." She says rakishly beside me.
" Tare?" I ask, and the blonde vampire on the floor nods vigorously. I reach out to stroke Spike’s cool cheeks. " Oh my poor baby…what’s happened to you?"
" Hey?" Tara’s voice grates behind me, insulted.
" I’m really happy to see you too." I say. Trying to be as gentle as possible. I find I haven’t quite tapped into Buffy’s ability to control her Slayer-like strength. The image of that poor gym door I ripped off its hinges as I hurried to leave gym earlier keeps me concentrating VERY hard on being careful. I stroke Spike’s lips with my thumb, very gently indeed. Hoping that Tara, MY Tara, trapped in there can feel me loving her very much. I kiss her forehead. She is chilly to the touch, but I don’t care.
" I miss you." I say under my breath so only she can hear it. Spike’s arms tighten around my waist, and I know that she’s heard me.
When this is over…when we fix this….we have a lot to talk about…..
The basement is suddenly very quiet.
" This is getting interesting." Tara’s says in a very definite Spike accent. He watches, awe-filled, obviously intrigued by this new twist of events.
" I am going to be sick.." Dawn’s voice comes from the top of the stairs. She points directly at me.
" Kiss him again with that mouth and I’m kickin your ass…whoever you are in there."
I guessing she’s obviously NOT Dawnie with a vocab like that. " That body is like…ten..you pedophile!" She says.
" It’s about fifteen, actually." I say. I don’t think I’ve ever realized just how much Dawn looks like Buffy until she stakes me with an angry scowl…..
" I was kinda enjoying the view myself, dear." Spike says from inside Tara, twisting her pretty face into his patent wry smile. Anya peeks around Dawn’s shoulder on the stairs and sees my Spike-Tara and me in a torrid-looking embrace.
" And a big-ol eww to this scene." Anya says in a very Dawnie sounding way.
Okay…confusion Meter set to stun. Who is who here?
" Okay. Introductions. Please." I say in my "take-charge-girl" voice…that sounds a lot like a squeaky little teenaged Buffy at the moment. Very disappointing indeed.
Dawn raises her hand.
" Buffy Summers. Owner of the body you are now using to destroy any ounce of self respect I have….. for myself." Anya lifts her hand behind Buffy.
" Dawn, here."
" It’s me, Willow. And Spike is Tara." I say.
" So Tara is…??" Buffy starts. Spike tries to look surly in Tara’s body…. It doesn’t quite work on the pretty witch.
" …..so Tara is Spike?" There’s a hint of humour in Buffy’s realization. She tries not to smile.
" Yeah? Well at least I can vote." Spike says nodding off to me in her fifteen year-old body.
" Not in my body you can’t." Tara says from my continued embrace. She takes her voting rights VERY seriously.
" Bite me." He says to her. Giving her a two-fingered salute.
" Would if I could,…but you can’t." Tara mumbles at him. She sounds tired, and even for a vampire…Spike’s pallor looks a little more ashen than usual. She sees the concern on my face, and tries to pull Spike’s lips into a smile.
"What’s wrong?" I ask her. When she looks away, and doesn’t answer me, I put the question to Spike. " What’s wrong with her?"
" She won’t eat." He says.
" Won’t eat?….Won’t eat what?" He raises one of Tara’s eyebrows in answer. You know exactly what she won’t eat, Willow…. And if she doesn’t eat…she’s going to die….and you can’t loose her again…you just can’t…
I hold her just a little bit closer and look at our little mismatched group.
" Okay… we have to figure out what’s going on and get out of this. Right away."
Buffy and Dawn come the rest of the way down the stairs.
" Will’s right. We need to find out why only we changed…."
" That’s just it. It’s not just us…it’s everything….." Came my voice from the stairs. And there I am! Sixteen if I’m a day, and wearing the single worst outfit I’ve ever seen. Orange tights, a long yellow shirt, white high-tops, and ill-placed fuzzy green barrettes. I look like I got dressed in the dark….. with my feet.
"We don’t belong here. This isn’t HOME. There’s a bunch of weird stuff going on out there, and I can’t understand it, and Buffy can’t slay it, and she’s all over Spike in a non-staking …kind of romance book cover way, and I’m babbling… And to me that just spells trouble."
Comfort babbling. Only one true champion….
" Alexander Lavelle Harris…where have you been!!??" I scold him. Trapsing around Sunnydale in my body, I’ll bet!
" Whoa! Hey…Ixnay on the Lavel-ay Aim-nay!" He says in a near panic.
" Your middle name’s Lavelle?" Spike and Dawn say in near unison. Xander brings my body down to the basement floor.
" I’m assuming that the little Mini-Buffy there with the world of damning Xander knowledge is my dear friend, Willow…so might I suggest keeping all other factoids to yourself or I’m going to recount for the group here my morning full of retainers, training bras, and Garfield days of the week underwear."
" Xander!" I shout. My face smiles smugly back at me.
" Today is Tuesday…right?" He asks. I’d give anything to wipe that smirk right off my face….but right now…there are more pressing things to worry about…and I figure…I can kick his butt just as well when I’m back in my own body….
TBC…..
Chapter Nine: Not so much the Queen of the Damned…More Like a Lady in Waiting
Willow waits downstairs with me while the rest of the gang go up to shut all the daylight out of the Magic shop so I can join them. I am grateful for Willow’s proximity. Having her near gives some semblance of normalcy…until, of course, I look over at her, hear her talk, or think about the reality of the situation. Then things are very un-normal indeed. It comes over me in waves, and each time she catches the look of quiet desperation on my face, she walks over and puts a hand on me, trying to still my grinding emotions. It doesn’t so much soothe me as unnerve me. I can’t put words to what I am feeling…not yet…so I remain quiet….not speaking too much…not looking her in the eye….
" I think about you….a lot." Willow says, finally.
" You think about me." I say. I haven’t moved from my knees. One good thing about being undead is the total lack of pins and needles in the ol underused extremities. I look up at her.
" I-I think about you all the time. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I mean. I don’t know if you…feel about me…" She is turning very red. Her hands smoothing the creases out of her gym shorts nervously. " …I just hope you don’t…I’m…" I’m a little stunned when Willow starts to cry. It hurts more than life itself to see her in tears. Even if they are coming from Buffy’s eyes, they are Willow’s tears. I dip my head to look up into her face.
" All the time, like…at dinner? I mean…you look at cooked carrots and think.Tara?" I am trying to make her laugh, but it just makes things more awkward as she starts to sob in earnest. I might be picking up some of Spike’s glorious habits. I seem to say the wrong things at the wrong time….
" That was supposed to make you laugh, not cry." I say miserably. That does get Willow laughing between sobs.
" I’m crying because it’s stupid." She says.
" What? Me?" I take her very warm hand in my cold ones.
" That I actually DO think about you over cooked carrots. Over bread…over everything…"
I can feel my heart beating, throbbing, in the space just behind my ears. An odd sensation is taking over me. My heart isn’t beating. My heart does not beat. I’m hearing her heart, doing a strange calypso in her chest.
And then things get strange.
I am suddenly able to SMELL the colour of Willow’s shirt. Pale yellow. It smells of the acrid ink they used to dye the cotton-wool blend. I can make out the pungent, bleached scent of the wool, and quite oddly beneath it….. to the creature from whence the wool had come. I know if I concentrate hard enough, that I can delve past all of spots of musty earth the wooly creature had been, and make out the smell of a dandelion that had brushed against its leg, three days before it had been shorn.
All of this flickers, like a lightening storm, through my minds eye, through my senses, and very nearly drives me and my entire body mad.
I feel as though I’m squeezing Willow’s hands too hard, because I could feel each and every delicate bone in her fingers, and her heartbeat in her palms. Willow’s heart seemed to be beating even faster than before.
I have never in my life felt such an intense rush of the corporal world. Intense pleasure, and pain, and yearning…
This must be what love feels like. I think, but I must have said it out loud because Willow leans back. Her expression is very passive, but I can smell fear all around her, and her heart beat has sped up a fraction more. Her eyes are very sad as they lock with mine.
" Tara….your face…." She says. Her voice is stoic…but laced with…something…fear….and everything falls into place. This isn’t what love feels like…
It’s what hunger feels like.
My face has morphed into something unspeakable. I instinctively shove her away and spin into the darkest corner of the basement. I try to muffle the sounds of my horrified sobs so that she can’t find me. The very thought that I could…that I would…ever…
" Tara!" I hear the pain in her own voice as she stands where I left her…in the middle of the basement. Alone.
" Tara…we’ll fix this." She says. " But you have to keep up your strength. You have to eat something."
" That’s the problem, Love." Spike says. I can’t see him, but I can hear my voice thick with his inflections. " She was about to eat something…..YOU."
" S-she wouldn’t." Willow says, not sounding at all sure of herself.
" No…she CAN’T…big difference. Take that little chip out of there and…who knows." I cover my face.
" Shut up, Spike." Willow says in warning.
" I’m just saying you’d better convince her to eat the blood I brought her, or it’s going to drive her bloody mad. No pun intended."
" We just have to fix this…"
" Well until you do…Blondie’s living in an all-you-can-eat buffet…without a knife and fork. And it’s no way to live….or not live…"
" What would you know about it….?" Willow grated out. The question answered itself before it was even completed.
Of course Spike knew.
And it suddenly struck me, more than it ever had before…the life that Spike had etched out in the world. The lonely, sad, hungry existence that he met with each day….
The little part of me, that wasn’t hating him for being in my body right now…actually felt sorry for him…..
" Let’s get you ladies upstairs…we need everybody working to fix this." Spike says, and departs.
TBC……
Chapter Ten: Things That Go Bump in the Night…. Generally Find Bruises in the Morning
Am I the only one at this table with the creepy feeling that this isn’t going to be an easy fix?
They all seem jovial….smiles wide, laughter easy…and much more optimistic than I had imagined they would be in a situation like this.
They are afraid.
All I smell in this room is fear. Fear that we are all going to live out the rest of our lives in this carnival funhouse version of Sunnydale. In these bodies….
"We have to get this fixed by eight tonight." Xander says, toying with a lock of Willow’s long hair. " This body has a curfew…"
I stare at the sheet-covered window in my direct line of vision. Concentrating…trying not to think about the band of pain searing in the pit of my stomach or how weary I feel. I’m really trying not to be the downer in our little soiree of joy here… so I remain quiet. Willow holds fast to my hand. Giving it reassuring if not Buffy-sized squeezes from time to time. I’m really very grateful to have her close.
" Okay…start from the beginning." Spike says. I can feel him eyeing me nervously as he speaks to them, most likely wondering how long I’m going to let his body go on like this.
" Like I said…we were all sitting around the table. The power went out. There was a swirly light. And then we were basically screwed….end of story." Xander said, playing with a lock of Willow’s hair.
" Different places, different bodies…" Anya added. She had come in sporting Xander’s body not ten minutes earlier…at the stroke of nine to open the store as usual..as though nothing had happened.
" Different times." Dawn finished. They all turn to the young girl in Anya’s body. " What? Don’t tell me you didn’t notice." She says.
Each of the Scoobies sit back, mental gears grinding.
" Oh my gosh." Willow says. " On my way to the Magic Box…I went from Sunnydale High 1996 through Main Street…before they had put in the new court square…which was…
" 1981 or 82." Xander says incredulously.
" And the Magic Box is right out of the present…"
" Not quite. It’s like the Magic Box from Last week." Anya says, and pats a heavy little table. "I remember moving this old thing last Friday. It’s been bugging me for months….and putting the big table here. She crosses her Xander arms. " Now I guess I won’t be asking Xander to move it for me this time."
" Ha. Ha." Xander says, crossing his thin little Willowy arms in defiance
" Wait…and the house…our house is all wonky too. My room was a bad flashback to the early nineties, and the rest of the house was… more current." Buffy pipes in.
" And your bodies." I say under my breath. They all look at me, almost as if I had shouted.
" Yeah, our bodies are all from different times." Xander says. " Mine is obviously from pre-haircut era….who let me grow my hair out THAT long??"
" My body hasn’t changed at all." Dawn says, pointing at Buffy in her body. " And neither has Anya’s or Spike’s ….or Tara’s."
" Mine’s easy." Spike says, pointing at me. " My body hasn’t changed much for a hundred some odd years. Of course it’s not going to show."
" And I’m just recently mortal….and…. in a no offense-meaning-way…so is Dawn. Our bodies don’t have much to pick from."
" It’s all starting to make sense…except for the being here, and the getting back part." Xander chimes in.
I’m sinking lower into the chair… trying to make myself as small and unnoticeable as possible.
Maybe they won’t….
" That doesn’t explain Tara." Buffy says. Again…all eyes are on me.
I look at the window again. I can feel the sunlight pulsing against the other side….
I could make it to that window, pull off that sheet and go to dust before they could stop me. Before I have to tell them everything…. Before they find out….
Instead, I shrug. I look at my pale hands…
" I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m not from Sunnydale." I say.
A little bit of the truth to cover up a big fat lie, Tara?
Chapter Eleven: Drinking Miss Mimsy Borogroves
Eight hours, and seven snacks breaks later, we come to the conclusion that we have no clue what’s happening and even less of a clue how we are going to fix it. The research books aren’t helping. Everything dealing with body swapping ranges more on the ‘looks like you’re stuck this way forever… so sorry…’ tangent. During this time, I have slowly tried to sequester myself from the group. Being hungry and weak has made me more than a little bit irritable, and I don’t want to inflict my mood on them. I’ve found myself looking a little more than sultry at them… and it disturbs me…not to mention…them.
Pretending to inspect the shop, I quietly part from the group to hole up in my new spot of choice. The basement. I’m wondering if I’m doomed to lurk in soggy old cellars for the rest of my new and wholly unnatural life. Scenes of some dark, musical, Nosferatu origin flicker in my head as I skulk around down here, wallowing in self-pity. Trying on my television Vampire persona…
I am a creature of the night….blah…blah….blah…
"Tara?" Willow says. I just about a mile into the air. I pray Goddess she didn’t see me doing my hunched over impression.
She’s got a cup in her hand and even as far away as she is from me right now… I can smell it. Blood. My stomach does the dance of a vampire disgusted by the need to drink…but needing none-the-less. How very Angel of me.
" Don’t bring that down here." I say. But she does.
" I can’t stand to watch you like this." She says. " You have to eat."
" We aren’t going over this again." I say testily. It’s odd how Willow can pull Buffy’s face into a Willow-hurt look. I’m immediately sorry, but I don’t move to her. I can’t while she is holding that cup.
" I know what you’re thinking…you’re thinking eww and a half on the whole blood thing. I don’t blame you." She lifts the glass to look at the dark liquid inside.
" So I put it in a cute little Scooby Doo cup…see?" She raises her eyes to me with a wry smile. " And a cool little crinkly straw." She tweaks the straw. Bendy straws. She remembered.
I told her once that when I was little…anything I didn’t like drinking…medicine…and such…I could drink through a bendy straw…it made it better and actually kind of fun. Besides…if you put the straw far enough back …you didn’t even taste the medicine….
She had me at an impasse. At this point it was only fear and pride stopping me from drinking that.
" I’m a vegetarian." Fear says.
" Who loves sassy eggs?" Willow asks.
" It’s a person, Will. I’ll be drinking some poor..sad… person." Pride says. Willow holds the cup out.
" I had Spike deliver this up special for you. It’s a Rosenberg, December, 2001. Vintage year."
" What??"
" If you’re not into the whole spicy, sexy Jewish blood… I’ve got something in a Tara Maclay on stand by…but without the Scooby cup…only I come with the special cup. Plus there’s something about drinking your own blood…that’s a lot like…being licked by yourself when you’re a vampy chick…. Been there…done that… and blech."
We gave blood last year, at the campus blood drive.
" Thank heavens the Blood Bank hadn’t turned into a Fosters Freeze or something." She says, as though she could read my thoughts. She walks across the basement floor, still holding out the glass. " I have to admit. I’ll be a little insulted if you turn your nose up at my blood."
" Eww, Willow. Let’s not go there." I take the cup from her hand. I don’t look into it.
" Just think of it as really interesting Bloody Mary…light on the Mary." I smile.
" I’ll try." I say softly.
" I can get you a celery stick if it helps." She offers.
" No. This is fine." I say. I want to hug her, but instead I meet her eyes.
" Thank you." I say. She smiles…a sweet Willow smile under a Buffy visage.
" I’ll give you two a little privacy." She says, nodding at the cup in my hand. And then she does.
I listen to the door close. Now it’s just me and the cup.
Make a note to lay a big ol kiss on that Willow Rosenberg when this is all over with.
A little burst of optimism fires on all of my mental cylinders
Were going to fix this. Things will go back to as normal as the Hellmouth can be…and Willow and I are going to have a good, long talk.
Things are looking up.
I tweak the straw. It crinkles merrily back at me.
TBC……
Chapter Twelve: You spell it….W-H-A-M-M-Y, Willow...
Not that I’m complaining……
Okay… I’m complaining.
I mean, given the current circumstances I think we all have pretty much eight to ten years of pent up free-range complaining coming to us; Living on the Hellmouth and all.
So where was I? Ah yes…indeed…
I have a teeny tiny little gripe. Actually it’s kind of a two-parter.
Part one: Why couldn’t Spike have been transferred into the body of an eighty-year-old Math teacher? Because
Part Two: With Puberty-Time Buffy’s body comes Slayer-sized raging hormones.
Frankly, I don’t know how she survived her teen years.
It’s nearly four p.m. The sun’ll be down in about forty minutes, but for now it’s seen fit to torture me by sneaking in a thin thread of light through the far window and placing in directly through Tara’s amber highlights. I’m mesmerized, and can’t help staring unabashedly at her face as she reads her research book. The line of the jaw. A place I’ve kissed a half a million times or more. The gentle upturn of the lip… in her gentle Mona Lisa smile…. Again with the million kisses….and then she looks up at me from across the table, blue eyes piercing me, taking me by surprise. I inhale…. Just a little too audibly….
" Something wrong, Red?" Spike asks, lip curling back in a very UnTara-like smirk. And I’m garishly reminded that Tara isn’t in there. Not only that, but that I’ve been caught ogling Spike for the umpteenth time today.
Spike knows what I’m thinking. His smirk grows into one of his outright leers. I clear my throat and look away….and right into Tara’s curious gaze. Though she is in Spike’s visage…she has an uncanny way of making Spike look a lot like her. With the quirk of a questioning eyebrow and a soft tilted smile, she looks like a pale, undead older brother of the woman I love.
SMACK goes my trusty mental palm to forehead. I feel the heat of embarrassment rise from my neck into my face as I quickly look down into my book again….
Research…research….electrical storm….body swapping….concentrate…concentrate….
" Um…Will?" Buffy says from Dawn’s concerned face.
Play it off, Rosenberg…
" Yeah Buff?" I glance up…hoping I look as cool as a cucumber. I guess I failed because her expression only grows grimmer.
" You…me…outside." She says in a stern voice only the real Buffy can get away with. I follow her out the door and to the edge of the sidewalk. She is toying with a lock of her sister’s hair and staring out across the street to the Happy Puppy Donut Palace, (that so happened to burn down over ten years ago).
I walk up next to her and follow her gaze to the neon dog in a chef’s hat, sporting a knife and fork in each paw. His neon tongue clicks from one side of his chops to the other….
(Back....forth…back....forth….very hypnotic…very weird ...)
" Dawn’s been using my conditioner." Buffy says, not taking her eyes off that neon tongue….
Back…forth...
(Okay…off topic much?)
" Really?" I say non-commitally, and wait. If anyone is the queen of random yet pertinent segue …it’s Buffy.
" Yeah…you know sisters. They borrow things…in the end, it’s all okay….live and let live…you know."
(Okay…Buffy is losing her segue edge)
" I don’t have a sister. I wouldn’t know." I say, hoping to prompt her into coherence. The Happy Puppy must be scrambling her thoughts with his evil puppy tongue..
back…forth….Hun…gry……do….nut….Pup….py….
" I think of you like a sister. And that’s not because I’m in my sister’s body right now…though it does make it a little more poignant." She says. I rip my gaze from the Happy Puppy and look at her. She is still staring off.
I’m deeply touched, so I hug her tightly, but with Buffy-like caution…. Wouldn’t want to croosh any fragile little Dawnie bones.
" Aww….thank you…Buff…" She pats my back gently. Not letting go of me as she continues. " So as my honorary sister, I feel within my rights to just say it." I pull back, feeling all warm and glowy from her confession.
" Thanks for saying it. Really." I say. We both turn back to look at the donut shop. We stay this way for some time, listening to the buzz-click of the neon tongue.
We finally part, and she looks disconcertingly into her own face.
" Okay….If you use my fifteen-year old body to have sex with Tara in Spike’s body, I’ll never forgive you."
She says simply before giving me another sweet sisterly squeeze, and walking inside.
At least she made it sound simply said.
I turn back to my new-found friend for advice….. Was I even THINKING about doing that???
He buzzes and clicks, licks his puppy lips….
Even the Happy Puppy could see it all over my face.
I HAVE to get out of this body before things get out of hand……
TBC…..
Glad you caught that! Haha...
The Spike thing actually hit me last night in my feverish fugue. I seriously sat up in bed and thought...if Angel sired Spike that would make him less than two-hundred! (some English Majors sadly have no math skills to speak of)
As for the Music Box.... Freudian slip. My bad. I used to work in a shop called the Music Box... I guess in some ways it will never leave me.
Feel free to bring up any discrepancies you find... I take crits pretty well. I'll fix the mentions you made.
Take Care and Enjoy
Wicchi
Chapter Thirteen: As the World Churns…
Buffy comes back into the shop looking a little frazzled. I figure the whole thing had been triggered when Willow and I exchanged that little bit of high-octane eye contact a little bit ago.
Buffy casts a look my way now as though thinking that it’s too bad I’d end up a Cajun entrée.. or she’d take me out there for a good talking to as well.
…What did I do?
Almost a forever later, Willow comes back in to the shop. She sets a box of donuts down on the table with a slightly manic-looking dog on the lid. She and Buffy fix each other with knowing expressions. For a brief moment I get a very distinct pod-people vibe off the two girls. They gaze almost lovingly at the cartoon dog. Buffy even looks a little tempted to run her fingers reverently over the cardboard.
" As if things could NOT get any worse, Will." Xander says from his chair, staring in ardent fear at the box as though it’s full of glazed puppies and not pastries.
" It’s Kinda cute." Dawn says, and he looks at her as though she’s gone insane.
" I used to have nightmares about that dog when I was a kid. The tongue… the back…and forth thing…like a slathering metronome, counting off the moments before his jaws of death opened to devour me….."
" Now you’re talking, Honey." Anya says, patting his Willow knee and casting wary glances at the smiling dog on the box.
Spike opens the box and looks a little disappointed.
" No Spike…there aren’t actually puppies in the BOX." Buffy says disgustedly. He makes my face all innocence, which should make me happy, but unnerves me instead.
" I was just hoping for a few maple bars. I like maple bars." He pouts, closing the lid.
" I tried to get an assortment." Willow says, hands on hips, looking like she has more to say… " So you want to hear the strange part?"
" There’s a strange part to donut purchase?" I prompt her. She beams at me for giving her the much needed set up for a Willow story.
" So I go into the Happy Puppy Donut Palace and order a dozen and some coffees….."
" And where’s the Java, Will? I’m not seeing the Java-like drinks…." Xander interrupts. Willow throws a great Buffy version of the Willow-Resolve-Face at him.
" Listen to my story, Xander, and you might find out." She says slowly, between teeth.
" Okay…okay…" He says. Willow pissed in a Slayer’s body…not a safe combo and he knows it.
" So he hands me the donuts… and starts to pour the coffee…when the donut shop just…disappears. Well not so much disappears as turns into something completely else. I’m standing there…my box of donuts and me…and the store is just….changing… "
" What did it change into to?" Spike asks. I’m watching him as he reaches back into the box for a donut. Nicotine, deep fried pastries… he’s having a ball with my body. Where will it end???
Buffy moves to the front window to look out at the stores across the way.
" Okay…remember after the Happy Puppy burnt down and they rebuilt and put in new stores…?" Willow asks Xander.
" Of course…the old post office became a music store and the Donut shop became a…." Xander’s expression brightens Willow’s face. He’s grinning from ear to ear…wanting to hear her say it. Waiting for the words to come from Willow herself.
" Tell em where you were. Willster." He says.
" So I’m standing there with my hands full of donuts in Doug’s Adult Book and Toy Emporium, circa 1992. A very strange and seedy experience if there ever was one, I tell you."
" Wait. The store just morphed around you? You didn’t feel anything?" I ask.
" The only thing I felt was that I was suddenly standing next to the two dollar bargain bin in a scary porn shop, Tare." Willow says. " Poof….like that." I’m thinking I would have paid good money to see the look on her face when it happened.
" So not only is Sunnydale all Wonky-like…but it’s still wonking as we speak? Right under our noses?" Spike asks.
" Does this make our situation worse or better?" Dawn asks hopefully, starting to bring a fingernail to her mouth…Anya bats it down.
" Depends on how you look at it." I say.
" Or if you keep your eyes closed." Spike adds, always the cheerleader.
" So basically we’re in a great big karmic slot machine, and what we have to figure out is who’s pulling the handle." Anya says from her chair. Buffy continues to peek out at the street.
" Easy enough," Xander says, dripping sarcasm. " I’m going to take a whack at it and say it was Miss Scarlet in the Porn Shop with the….. candelabra."
" Xander…" Willow chides him. I’m glad she does. Now is certainly not the time to be cracking jokes…This is a serious….
" Okay…then the fuzzy hand-cuffs and the whip…." He offers…watching Willow turn Buffy’s face three shades of red. I’m sure if I could…I’d be hitting the same colours over here.
Okay…maybe he was slightly off-based with the whole whip thing…but how in the Sam Hill did he know about the fuzzy hand cuffs….?
" Um…guys….?" Buffy says from the window. From the tone in her voice I’m guessing that what she’s seeing out there is so very much NOT what we want to hear about in here.
I’m suddenly thinking the cracking of jokes is a very good think indeed….
TBC…
Hope you have a great weekend!!!....sorry this was so late coming...
Chapter Fourteen: In Scary Movies, This is the Scene Where We DON’T Go and Check out that Big Rickety Grey House….Uhm….Hello????
Darkness has fallen.
I do not know this by the mere absence of light, or by the formidable increase in my fellow Scooby’s caffiene intake.
I can feel it in my head, in my blood, pulling at every cell of my being…. Calling me to the outside…to join the children of the night….to be one with the darkness….
That, and possibly the fact that from where I am sitting I can see that Xander’s diving watch has a cute little smiling moon that tells him when it’s time for bed.
I’m itching to get out of the Magic Box…for even just a little while. I think I can safely say we all have a little case of the stir-crazies.
Even with this in mind, we are all very reluctant to see what Buffy has discovered out that window. We sit for what seems like an eternity, watching the Slayer chew her bottom lip. Whatever it is cannot be good. And for that reason, we sit, almost pretending she hadn’t said anything.
" Well I need a smoke." Spike says finally, standing up and pulling out his cigarettes. I’m up and around the table faster than even I expected. I take hold of him before he gets to the door…Being careful not to bruise my arm with his steely fingers. That would hurt the both of us…possibly me more than him right now. I pinch the pack out of his surprised hand.
" You are not going to put another one of those in my lungs, Spike."
" Whoa-ha-zowie!" Xander hoots, standing up from the table and knocking his chair over. " The whole ‘now you see me, now I’m over here’ thing is creepy, Tare."
" Geesh! Tara! Let us know when you’re going to do that!" Anya chimes in.
" Come on, Blondie. It’s all I got left." Spike says. He tries on one of my kitteny pouts for good measure. I’m lucky it’s a pout I know all too well. I perfected the darn thing. It doesn’t phase me one bit. I’m a rock. A veritable dam of will power.
" No." I say and stand my ground. I try on one of his menacing scowls to counter my pout. It works.
" Gah! You’re getting good with the face." He says, impressed.
" I’ve been practising." I admit. He thinks I’m joking…but sadly I’m not. There’s not much else to do when you’re in a basement, in a vampire’s body…drinking blood from a Scooby cup.
" Uhm….GUYS…." Buffy repeats, not taking her eyes off whatever is out there.
" Just one last fag and I’ll call it quits." Spike gives me the scout’s honor sign. I personally think he’s just giving everyone in the room behind him the old two-fingered ‘howd-ya do’
" You were never a scout." I say, certain I’m right. He shrugs.
" Uh…hello? GUYS…." Buffy says again.
" Ate a scout leader once. That should count for something." Spike makes my face beam with puckish mirth. Not wanting his to make that face again, I give in…just a little. I shake a single out of the pack for him.
" One. The LAST one. And then you stop trashing my insides. Deal???"
" Scout’s Honor." He admonishes. " I’ll even let you walk me if it makes you feel bette
at: 4/1/02 11:29:03 am
