Humour

Spike scowled down at his arm as Giles wrapped the tourniquet around it, then glanced up at where Willow was leaning against the sales counter. "You're sure this is the best way, Red?"

Willow nodded. "Vampire blood, freely given, is the best substitute that doesn't cost an arm and a leg."

"Literally?" Dawn asked.

"Be that as it may," Spike broke in, "but contrary to appearances, I'm not very sanguine about this."

Dawn snickered. Giles looked up and said with some asperity, "You want the G'vasn demon gone as much as we do, and I'm very phlegmatic about your sanguinity."

Willow and Dawn both started giggling. After a second, Willow got out, "Stop, you're making me biluous."

Dawn slid to the floor, laughing helplessly. Tara, on the other side of the room, broke in solemnly with, "I think we should stop before Mr Giles becomes choleric." Then she burst into giggles as Willow joined Dawn on the floor.

Spike and Giles gave all three girls a glare, as Buffy and Xander stared blankly. "Maybe they're all possessed?"

"....could be?"

The beginning of my Sweet Charity entry: Eventually House/ Buffy-- Giles noticed that Buffy was not quite herself as they trained together that morning in the late spring.It was nothing definitive, just a certain muting of her lively color. Nonetheless, it disturbed him enough that he wasn’t able to enjoy the relative peace of a training session absent Buffy’s poppy and ephemeral patter. He finally understood why parents worried when it was too quiet.Come off it, Rupert old man, for all you know, she might be nursing the weekend’s hangover. But that was more like Hemery High’s rebellious homecoming queen than any Buffy he ever met. Not that he quite felt comfortable asking. Even three weeks after what he’d come to think of(in a rather P.G. Wodehouse fashion) as the Stevedore Incident, he found himself feeling shy around Buffy at the strangest times.

”Buffy, love, are you all right?” he asked, thinking her health was a damned sight more important than the pathetic bruised vanity of aging hipster.

The endearment startled her, and her eyes widened. They looked beautiful, but they also glittered with fever.”Yeah, Giles, you know I don’t fight well when I’m leading from the left. Or maybe it’s the Communists.”

”Pardon?”

She smiled weakly. “You know...the red hordes.” He cleared his throat, tried to aim for his usual librarian- Brit tone. “Quite.” He was afraid, or as Ripper might have said, freaked out. He was afraid he’d scare her, but she didn’t seem to notice.

”Although I haven’t had cramps that have been bad since I was called, so I guess everything has its advantages, even a world-altering destiny. I could still try again. If you’ll give me a minute.”

• **
  

The next thing Buffy knew, she was waking up in her own bed, with only the haziest memories for how she got there and the comforting sounds of her mother and Giles talking in low voices about what should be done for her next. Or actually, it *would* be comforting if she wasn’t able to pick out words like “demon” “New Jersey” and “meningitis”. If not for that, though, she’d feel like a little kid with two actual parents again, even if they liked to eat wacky chocolate and, like, plug in “Nights in White Satin” or something. She was worried that she had something beyond even the scope of Slayer healing; maybe she would grow the tail this time.

But it wasn’t till she got to the East coast that it started again. Instant replay with the thoughts that weren’t hers.

Thankfully, though, her mother and Giles were like closed books, so far. But she heard her waitress’ thoughts about her divorce on the road so clearly, her head hurt.

• **
  

A few days later, Dr. Lisa Cuddy faced her most talented employee. “I have a case for you.”

”I’m busy,”

”You’re not doing anything.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not done.”

“You owe me,”

”Yeah, I know. You tried to get me to rehab, and I said ‘no, no, no’. Heard it.”

Cuddy tried a different tack. “You’ll like this one, House. She’s eighteen, very flexible, and, if you like the occult, some people say she can save the world.”

House made a skeptical face and flicked some imaginary dirt off his cane, while pondering if he should risk stalling Cuddy till General Hospital came on.She had taken her vow to stay on top of him very seriously after the Tritter fiasco, if not as literally as his most fevered imaginings would like. It was not as easy to pull things on her as it once was, although Greg House liked nothing as much as a challenge, whatever the circumstances.

“Introduce her to Wilson,” he said, feigning disinterest. “They’d have a lot to chat about.”

”Okay,” Cuddy continued. “My mistake for treating you like a grown diagnostics professional, when clearly you are younger than she is.”

“You make that mistake a lot. But you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.”

Distracted, Cuddy said, “Jung?”

“Close. Dr. Phil.”

“Anyway, my last pitch is that she’s Breck-girl gorgeous. When she’s not spiking a fever at least.”

“Okay,” House got up to follow Cuddy, who muttered at (continued...)

( continues...) his shallowness.

“What do you mean ‘okay’?”

”Okay I’ll take the case. Duh.”

Even as she started to say it, Cuddy knew it was pointless, and worse, made her sound like Cameron. But she couldn’t stop herself. “Don’t you feel pathetic? Using your gifts on such shallow criteria.”

“You know, Lisa(and in spite of herself, Cuddy felt warm to him when he said it, as if it wasn’t on her nameplate, but was a reminder of their shared college days.) “sometimes I do. But try telling that to little Greg.”

”I’ll pass,”

”When I called it ‘Little Greg’, that wasn’t a size thing.”

“Never mind. Just really never mind.”

Not sure what you'd call this....poeti-filk? Based on something Neil posted in his journal.

Alan Moore knows the score.

Neil Gaiman summoned the daemon,

but Alan Moore knows the score.

Grant Morrison sang the orison,

Neil Gaiman summoned the daemon,

but Alan Moore knows the score.

Michael Carey drove the ferry,

Grant Morrison sang the orison,

Neil Gaiman summoned the daemon,

but Alan Moore knows the score.

Warren Ellis climbed the trellis,

Michael Carey drove the ferry,

Grant Morrison sang the orison,

Neil Gaiman summoned the daemon,

but Alan Moore knows the score.

Jamie Delano dared the volcano,

Warren Ellis climbed the trellis,

Michael Carey drove the ferry,

Grant Morrison sang the orison,

Neil Gaiman summoned the daemon,

but Alan Moore knows the score.

Garth Ennis shot the menace,

Jamie Delano dared the volcano,

Warren Ellis climbed the trellis,

Michael Carey drove the ferry,

Grant Morrison sang the orison,

Neil Gaiman summoned the daemon,

but Alan Moore knows the score.

the beginning of a bit of Wire fic:
Corwood gave me the idea, actually. What season five might look like to Alma.
Part one

At first, Alma couldn’t believe her good luck when Templeton told her he liked her copy, although it was a forgettable story buried on Metro.She felt foolish about doing it, but she’d been Googling his work more than a few nights. The man had some chops, she thought,”I liked your story about the twins serving in Iraq, too. Very moving. Put me right in the middle of it.”

She was surprised to see the tough reporter look embarrassed, like he was scuffing his toes in the dirt. “Aw, I’m just a humble instrument. You know? I’m just honored to have the opportunity to bear witness, right?”

“Exactly. My parents don’t understand why I took this job, instead of PR where I could make money and go to lunch. But, you know…” she shrugged, as if the concept was too big to put words on.
‘Nobody ever changed the world selling running shoes.”

“Exactly. You have such a great perspective, Scott.” A snort issued from Roger Twigg’s little cave. “That’s one way of looking at it, kid.”

Alma was kind of afraid of Roger Twigg. Sure, he was a legend and all that, but he was dried out and cynical and fried from the crazy hours, and she hated it when he called her “kid”. And she was afraid that if she got to know him she’d wake up thinking ten minutes had passed and it really had been twenty years and she’d be every bit as dried-up and strung-out as Twigg himself. Ew. He had no idea how to talk to women either. He was a relic.Not like Scott. He listened, even if she did sometimes catch him yearning over her more than she felt comfortable with. ‘Be careful, girl,” Alma’s friend Carmen said to her. “Maybe he’s got Jennifer Lopez issues.”

“It’s not like that. He respects me.”

But she had to admit it was a bit like that.

In Apocalypse, I mentioned that a backup of old hard drives allowed me to find a forgotten script. While trying to track down more info about it, I found something.

An uncompleted W/T fanfic I started back in WC's BitchFic thread.

Let's just say I am closing a lot of my unresolved open loops lately, and know that I know it is out there, I need to finish it, slowly or fast, it simply needs to get done.

But I can't even find the BitchFic archive. So I dug around on my backup, and found it. It had no name, hopefully in the process of finishing it, it will find its name.

It's been five years since I touched it, and I need to reacquiant myself to the versions of the characters I had in my head back then, so I am going to start reposting it, editing it as I go along until we hit the new stuff.

I hope everyone will forgive my indulgence...

this thread is very indulgent. feel free.

Looking at some of the episode guides, I have reminded myself when I set this. This was set in the window between Older and Far Away and As You Were in season six. Here are some story points to remind one of that time. Willow and Tara are broken up but the coldness of Tara towards Willow has thawed because of the events of Buffy's birthday party when everyone was sealed into the Summer home. Willow is going cold turkey from her magic addiction. Spike and Buffy are in the middle of their destructive sexual relationship, with the only one aware of it is Tara ( Dead Things final scene.) The Summer's finances are a constant concern with the episode DoubleMeat Palace are only a few episodes in the past.

As I reread this a few times, I realize that this story was an attempt on my part to 'get' lesbian relationships. Not in the guy way, the way it is presented in male-oriented porn, but how it really is. Plus, at this time this was a damaged relationship and the power dynamics of the characters are reversed, making it interesting to extrapolate from. Finally, I think my fondness for the Willow/Tara characters and relationship makes them easiest for me to 'get it,' to so speak, so that if I am ever going to 'get' lesbian relationships, it will start through their prism.

And that is way too much thinking and thought experiments to start off a story, but as I am submerging myself back into it, I find myself having to directly examine what the hell is going on in order to 'crash' back into it.

This was written in alternating POVs, so I will probably post one POV a day for the time being...

Willow examined herself in the window of the consignment store next to the Magic Shop. There were vintage clothes on display, presumbly the nicest there, but thankfully she knew better to go in, Buffy had repeated the annual 'fashion lesson' after she brought down Willow just inches from going out the house's door a few mornings ago. And with that memory it gave her mind the excuse it needed to wander off her self-examination and her precautions to the thought that perhaps Buffy could solve her money problems by merely reselling vintage clothes of some of the more well-dressed vamps she dusted but then there was the whole dusting problem and having to rip the clothes off the vamp before they went all poofy which Willow was sure that Buffy after Angel had no desire to see any vampire in the buff (buff! Buffy! feel the funny!) but a charm of cloth constancy would save the clothes except for the hole in the chest but that could be fixed with a phased stake resonating back onlyinto a heart and then Buffy wouldn’t have to work all the time and they could spend more time together because all Willow had was time and time and thinking of cleverer ways to pass the time…

Oh hey, charms and ghost stakes are magic, and MAGIC IS BAD!

No thinking about charms, spells, curses, incantations, the musty old books (oh, how she missed the smell of the musty old books, only allowing herself now to indulge in them when there was research, rather than skipping about in them, reading and learning and experimenting and frolicking and casting…

What was that about Magic again, you know, it being BAD?

Focus past that.

And not by Focusing on the ambient energies that crackled under Sunnydale's surface.

Information and thoughts had always tumbled through Willow. At first it had been programs and commands and the languages of logic but then of leylines and symbolic runes and the languages of power. The obsessive thoughts of magic was one of the signs that she was nervous. Well, being more obsessive that usual, thinking of it constantly rather than every other minute...

Is that what Xander meant about how he (and all boys) thought?

The mental slap she gave herself derailed herself back.

She hated doing this.

She needed to do this.

She felt the Higgs bosons jumping just within her skin, lightening her one second, intensifying the next. She needed to finish her physics homework.

The loop of thoughts, recriminations and desires, especially desires, needed to be stilled.

She looked in the window again, seeing her reflection

Seeing the hat on the other side of the window.

It looked nice, and retro, and her hair would just peek out from underneath, nice and baggy and shapeless and could conceal…

Well, this not obsessing and not getting distracted was not going very well, now was it?

She hadn’t thought it would be so easy to shoplift from the Magic Shop. But after everyone sat down to talk with Dawn about her shoplifting after Buffy's birthday, it turned out it was so easy. Anya ranted about it, planning to shackle an Eeyer by the doorway to stop it from happening ever again but Xander persuaded Anya that the 4 foot incisors Eeyers spat out would shorten customers' shopping time leading to smaller purchases.

But it was still so easy.

Willow wondered how she never even thought about it. All that temptation in small and affordable and thus very concealable packages.

But now that she knew, it was all that she thought about, preying on her mind, heckling with reminders on just how easy it would be fix things, with just a pinch of that, sniff of this, and a spoonful of sugar to wash it all down.

So, here she was, outside the shop, double-checking her clothes to make sure that there weren’t places to hide even a single vial. Just black leggings with no pockets, open sandals that hide nothing and a flowery loose shirt that couldn’t hold anything if it tried. A school book to be carried, not stowed away in a cavernous bag. A transparent plastic pencil bag to carry her highlighters, green and (continued...)

( continues...) purple and yellow and the organizational chart she hadn't updated since fourth grade and the great red highlighter debacle, her keys and cloth wallet. She even went without a bra today, not that she really needed it, just so her décolletage wouldn’t attract anything. Not that it ever attracted any attention.

She missed Tara.

It was only for the next few days. She would go back to her old, normal clothes. The ones from when she was not loved, unattractive and unnoticeable. Once the thought wasn’t so fresh, once she got it back under control, everything would be fine.

Control made everything fine. Really.

With that reassuring thought, she turned and walked towards the shop.

And that damn bell rang as she entered, warning everyone she was entering.

She so was going to fix that one day.