Sounds good, Victor.

This just popped into my head, so I wrote it. Crit useful.

---

One Thing That Should Have Happened in Sunnydale

In the garden of the charming house at 1630 Revello Drive, something is shimmering.

The two people in the garden, a young woman and her closest male friend, don't notice this phenomenon. They're deep in conversation, they're both tired, and besides, it's a bright afternoon. A light breeze stirs the roses and perennials, someone in a nearby house is playing the piano, and just inside the line of the property, something shimmers.

There's no way to tell what it might be. It has no shape, not yet - the general effect is of something looking for a shape to achieve. Rose petals from the Lady Fortevoits stir and sift downward to the lawn. For a moment, as they pass through the shimmery bit of air directly in their path, they alter subtly, a bizarre prismatic effect, a kaledeiscope of scent and beauty in flux.

The shimmer grows brighter, stronger. The thing that has drawn it here is coming, growing closer, darkness and rage and danger. Something shivers free of it, looking remarkably like an arm.

Upstairs, two women of the house have been drowsing and making love. They're up out of bed, lazy, replete.

The conversation between the two in the garden goes on. The shimmer is now a steady pulse: danger, warning, alert, be wary, something wicked this way comes. Another projection pops free of its source, and then another, this time surmounting the weak shine that has become a steady throbbing glow, strong as a heartbeat.

The thing that has drawn it here comes into the garden. There is madness, the frustration of being thwarted in his eyes, and in his voice. He has a gun. He lifts it; he points it.

Warren Warren Warren

For a moment, the garden is frozen, a stasis of disbelief and inevitability. The darkness with the gun stares, his small eyes forcing themselves into a parody of width and concentration aimed towards the two who stand, shocked and unmoving.

The shimmer moves. It grows. Six feet tall, seven, ten, it defines itself as a woman, a bright light of a woman who was once and now is not, or is something else. She has eyes, this creature; they're fixed on the darkness with the gun that she called Warren.

The gun motionless in his hand, Warren stares beyond the two. Both of them snap out of their inertia and begin to move, the girl launching herself at him. He seems to be unaware of her as she knocks him to the earth, pulls the gun from his hand, flips him over on his stomach, yells for her companion to get something with which to bind him.

The shimmer, the bright growing light, the woman who was called here by Warren's intent, is gone as though she has never been.

In the upstairs bedroom, the two women laugh, and discuss breakfast.

When the police arrive, Warren is whispering one word, over and over and over, not stopping, a continual loop of a name: Katrina?

• * *

deb, don't we wish. as i said at PF, i missed the katrina thing, but this is potent nontheless.

The things that has drawn it here is coming,

agreement issues.

his small eyes forcing towards the two who stand, shocked, unmoving

'forcing towards' seems awkward. 'Compelled past,' perhaps?

AUs give me a happy, sometimes. A poignant happy, but a happy.

oooh. I like that Deb.

'forcing towards' seems awkward.

It's not only awkward, it's incomprehensible. What the hell? I have NO idea what I was trying to write there. Off to fix - and I caught the typo on thing-things. See also change to Buffy's and Xander's reaction.

edit: Perkins, thankee.

Wow - something weird happened in the copying process.

That line, in my Word directory, reads

The darkness with the gun stares, his small eyes forcing themselves into a parody of width and concentration aimed towards the two who stand, shocked and unmoving.

Fixed it here, but whoa, creepy, gremlins in the 'net.

The darkness with the gun stares, his small eyes forcing themselves into a parody of width and concentration aimed towards the two who stand, shocked and unmoving.

Ah yes. I figured it must be a gremlin or a typo. This is much better.

it also had the nice emboldened title in the middle of a sentence a third of the way down the page, but it copied over here normally.

Man. Now I feel as if I ought to sacrifice a goat to it, or something.

Edits (finally) made on the part one of "When You Are Tired of London ."

Probably won't get a new part tonight, as I'm wiped, still at work now and need to work at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Fay, talking about Gaiman and something he wrote, inspired this:

It is not sunset over the Parthenon that lays a sharpened kiss
Upon the universe held captive in a jar writhing and screaming.
The old man in Sunderland deaf, pats it and leaves it in the dark,
Then goes to eat his shark's teeth soup, ground fine and ragged;
Sings foolish songs of time and hope smacking his lips; never
Blinking at the shadows of other things or the glitter in the fire.

The shadows grow bold, glitter finer, striving for freedom from the fire
As the man from Sunderland dreams of acid love and a Lamia's kiss
And mutters darkly in his dreams, reviles the eaters of plums. Never
A one for simple joys, sweet, tart and cold; he revels in the screaming
Of the ritual critics, chanting with each breath and breathing ragged,
The universe crumbling in the dust under the stairs, infused full dark.

The old man chokes at a tightening collar, thick rubber and dark.
They glitter in the shadows, pull it taut, drawing him to the fire.
The rose bush thorn on the glass taps louder, tapping against the ragged
Wind, slaps against the window, his eyes, acid Lamia's stinging kiss.
The universe has stopped; but the nightingale takes over screaming.
Two old women and a weasel find their vacation crumbling at never.

The universe crumbling in the jam-jar, the glass edge, here is never.
They turn and stumble back to the party, bumping heads in the dark.
The nightingale awakens them to their fate with her broken screaming.
They dance, angry, writhing, in the death throes of the Universe fire
While the old man writhes against the choking of the Lamia's kiss,
The universe crumbles in the jar, trapped, with edges turning ragged

There's no hope for the universe, trapped in the dark, turning ragged
Is a law broken somewhere? Gryphons shouldn't marry, no never.
And vampire's can't, won't dance unless the dance is your last kiss.
Reality continues to crumble; goldfishes howl at the moon in the dark.
Something's broken somewhere. The mystery won't return to the fire.
The old man remembers the jam-jar, writhes to hear the screaming

The mystery with the dog collar has taken all his breath for screaming.
The rose bush taps its message, fighting, as the wind pulls it ragged.
The man's numb hand falls on his library card, throws it in the fire.
There never was a library card, nor a universe, nor a mystery, never.
Jar breaks, the universe skirls free from the cupboard, from the dark;
Lamia turns to cardboard, curls blue in the fire after a benedictory kiss.

The paper kiss burns worse than acid. The old man screaming,
forever in the dark, train rocking over paved time, turned ragged
Women forever and never in twilight, all their heads of light, on fire.