Received. But today's been slightly crazed with the busy. The magic box that lets my home computer talk to the internets is currently not. Letting it, that is. So I printed it out for better perusal tonight. Comments inside 48 hours. Promise.

Heya, I need a Brit to look over a comic script to make sure my Brit speak is up to snuff. The folks who do the Wallace and Gromit comic have an open audition period, so I have a short for them, but want to make sure that I have the right tone to it.

This is a crossover fic I'm working on for a fic exchange. Comments, criticism, derisive laughter all welcome. Angel/HP, set after the Angel series finale and before Half-Blood Prince:

Remus did not want to be the sort of person who went to bars alone and wound up sitting alone, hunched over enough drinks for five people as he worked on silently killing all those empty hours and all those too-active brain cells. But he wasn't sure what other sort of person he could be.

He'd stop, eventually. In the meantime, however, he ordered another scotch and tried not to think about Sirius, or Harry, or James, or Lily, or the full moon. It was easier, here, in a Muggle bar. No one was likely to start drunken ramblings about the return of You-Know-Who, or whether or not The Boy Who Lived was a liar or a hero. There were no firewhiskey-lubricated rants over how werewolves should be rounded up and pumped full of silver bullets. There were no convoluted argument about how the Ministry of Magic was holding back important information because they didn't want to look bad.

Strangely enough, the talk of subway bombings and Iraq and rigged elections was almost comforting. It reminded him that the world didn't need magic to make an utter mess of things.

He was less surprised than he should have been when a young woman walked right up to him and sat down. She stared at him for a moment, head cocked to one side, and then she said:

"You do not belong here." It was a statement. It was a challenge. One moment, he could have sworn that her eyes were dark brown. But even as he looked at her, they shifted to a cold, lavender blue.

Remus didn't even bother to sigh wearily. It was more efficient simply to toss back another mouthful of cheap scotch. "Tonks, if that's your idea of trying to jolly me out of a mood, I wish you'd--"

Then she tilted her head to one side again, and there was something about the motion that was very much not human. Remus found himself sobering up very quickly.

"Why is it simpler to come a place like this?" she said. "I do not understand it? You have lost people, haven't you? I can see that you have fought a fight that those around us would not understand and that you, too, were the only one left standing. Tell me--why do we come here? Why am I drawn here?"

Remus had no idea how the hell to answer this woman, with her blunt, nearly--what was the muggle word?--robotic questions. The more time he spent with her, the more he could practically smell the reek of magic pouring off of her. Old magic. If she went anywhere in Wizarding territory, the Aurors would probably piss themselves wondering what to do about her.

If he were a little more sober, he might have run, but he was not and so he raised what was left of his drink and swirled it around in the dim light, watching amber slosh up the sides of his glass. "Liquid forgetfulness," he said, half-smiling. "And in a place like this, people generally don't bother you. So you can just sit around and try to remember while at the same time you're trying to forget."

She nodded sharply. He thought he could see blue fading down out of her hairline and into her face. Her eyes shifted between warm brown and inhuman blue a few times before settling at blue once more. "I understand," she said, but Remus suspected she didn't, not really.

"A scotch for the lady," he told the bartender. "And another for me, if you would."

Of course, he didn't understand, either. "Remus Lupin," he said, holding out a hand. She took it in hers, and he could sense the tremendous strength behind that tentative, awkward grip. It took her a moment to answer in kind, as if she had to choose from among several different possibilities.

"Illyria," she said.

"Pleased to meet you, Illyria."

The bartender brought their drinks. He raised his, and after a moment, she raised hers and they touched glasses. And as the evening drew on into morning, they both realized that it was in places like these where one could find others (continued...)

( continues...) who could hear your stories and perhaps understand something of what they all meant and what you had lost.

Aww, Remus. Lovely.

Oooh, me like-y. Now can they go fight crime together?

What Theo said. I'm not even a Potter fan, but I liked all the feelings you were able to evoke in just that little bit. Is there more? Or going to be more?

Thanks for the encouragement, all. This is for a fic exchange in which I need to turn in multiple short crossovers, so it's a one-shot for now. Still, I may expand it later.

Err... this is for Shrift. And Lee. And, umm. Whoever else thought it would be a good idea. SPN genderswap/Scooby Doo femslash.

"Do you have any idea what you're getting into?" There's a half-second's worth of warning between the growled-out words and the toned, freckled arm shooting out and trapping Velma smack in darkest corner of the library, pressing her spine up against the books and making her glasses slip halfway down her nose.

The face leaning down into hers is close enough that she can see it with perfect clarity, even without the lenses. She knows it from the hallways and from gym class. Doreen "Dean" Winchester, recent transfer, terror of third period, baddest of the bad girls, and the last person she expects to find anywhere near a book, let alone back in section 130, paranormal phenomena. Velma opens her mouth once, twice, three times before she realizes she can't quite figure out how to form words, the angry hazel glare stunning her into some sort of temporary aphasia.

"You kids, out there last night," Dean continues, her face now so close that Velma can practically count every single freckle on it, even the ones that hide like chameleons, little round dots just a half shade deeper than the surrounding skin, some of them shadowing their more obvious brethren, the secondary stars in a binary system composed of melanin instead of luminous plasma. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

Two and two fall together in a flash: the voice shouting at them to get out, the shotgun blast; Dean's their mysterious rescuer. Velma blinks, hard, and moves reflexively to push her glasses back into place. There's not enough space between them, and the back of her hand brushes against the edge of the Superman insignia on Dean's shirt, which happens to be right over Dean's...

"Jinkies," she whispers, startled by the contact and by Dean's harsh intake of breath, one Velma thinks has somehow sucked all the available oxygen out of the library, because she's starting to feel lightheaded. And she flashes on every whispered rumor she's heard about Dean and half the cheer squad, every speculative glance she's seen Dean throw Daphne's way in the locker room, every inappropriate daydream that Velma's ever intended to ask someone about, some day.

Dean's eyes, stern and serious, keep Velma pinned to the stacks like a frog in a dissection tray. "Get a thrill out of haunted houses? Didn't have enough trouble to get into and had to go looking for some? What is it?"

And Velma finds her voice, finally. "Something or someone in the old Beckford place has been scaring people for weeks. We were just trying to get to the bottom of it like we always do."

For some reason, when Dean's eyes close, Velma doesn't feel any less trapped. She can see Dean's jaw clench, the clean lines of her face tightening in anger. "Son of a..." She lets her voice trail off, her lips slowly and distinctly forming the numbers as she silently counts to ten. "Christ, I don't have time for this," she mutters, opening her eyes. "Look, it'll all be taken care of, just keep clear of there, okay?"

"Why?" Velma squares her jaw and pulls herself to her full height, which still leaves her staring at that stupid S. The back of her hand feels scalded from the earlier contact. She wishes she were taller, or stronger, or just not affected by the soap and leather smell of Dean's skin. They're standing so close together that one deep breath would push them to touching.

"You say you've done this sort of thing before. You believe in ghosts? Things that go bump in the night? You have the tools to take on a poltergeist or some son of a bitch pissed off spirit who couldn't figure out when the hell to let go? Shotguns, rock salt, holy water?"

She shakes her head, pushing away the bone-deep chill she felt in the front parlor of the abandoned mansion, the way whatever she saw had flickered and changed before her eyes, the way it vanished with the shotgun blast. "Why should I? None of that's real. (continued...)

( continues...) It's always people, just using the unexplained to their own benefit."

Sandy eyebrows shoot upward, and Dean's face relaxes into a patronizing smile that doesn't come anywhere near her eyes. "If you're so sure about that, then why are you back here in ghost stories?" She lets out a low chuckle that ruffles Velma's bangs, and waits for the answer Velma can't give her. When it doesn't come, her arms loop down, lifting Velma up until her eyes are even with Dean's and the back of her head is pressed against section 127, the unconscious and the subconscious.

Dean's mouth is hot and hard and unexpected against her own. Velma whimpers against it, wrapping her legs around Dean's waist and feeling like she's just solved the biggest mystery ever. One hand holds her steady, fingertips caressing the small of her back through the thick orange wool of her sweater, while the other one slides across the bare skin of her knee, under her skirt and up the inside of her thigh. Then, as suddenly as it started, it stops. She's standing again on shaking legs, Dean a foot or two away, arms at her sides, face unreadable.

"I mean it," Dean says quietly. "Stay away from there tonight. It's no place for amateurs."

Mute again, Velma nods.

Dean smiles, leans in and brushes a quick kiss across Velma's slightly-parted lips. "Good girl," she whispers, and walks away.