SA! I tried to respond at LJ and the buggery system won't let me post; it's giving me:

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Bastards. I lurve the way the story is going, though.

Ick. Well, most of this stuff is complete, story-wise. I'm just working on beta-passes and sense-making now.

Two others, I'ma taking my time.

This Time (Buffy, c. season one)

It starts with curiosity.

She's begun to understand Giles's habits, his patterns of living: she knows that when she comes in at two, he'll be stirring cream into his coffee, and if she pokes her head into the library before ten he'll just point irritably towards the center of the floor, her cue to begin the sets of kicks and punches he's walked her through.

They are still learning each other, a new Slayer with her Watcher, but even after a month in Sunnydale she's noticed how easily they fell into their roles. They bicker, but it's mostly good-natured. He knows what he can put her through, what her limits are, and how to push them. She spends more time with him than she has any one person, and while seeing Xander and Willow are the highlight of her day, she's growing used to their routine.

That's when she notices the books. There are books everywhere, occult encyclopedias and roughly translated volumes of prophecies and almanacs, with the rare literary novel mixed in. But she's seen the books Giles is most engrossed in, and they're all of the same nature: small, brown, hand-bound. A date imprinted on the top, from year to year. There's always a different one, unless one volume is especially thick, and more than once she has to bang something loudly on the circulation desk to draw his attention from the worn pages.

She goes to the library one day, at an hour she knows he will be out, and finds one of the books lying under files loosely stacked on Giles's desk. She takes the book in her hands, feeling its weight and gently rifling the pages with her fingers. The cover reads 1587-1604 and when she's reading she realizes this is something she vaguely knows from history, but it's even more important that this is part of her past. Her lineage.

She doesn't notice when Giles walks in, when he sees her and sees what she is reading. He stands, visibly frustrated, and cleans his glasses. For a moment he seems stuck in indecision, but he finally leaves, and Buffy lifts her head, thinking she's heard something when the soft brush of the swinging door settles.

Later, she carefully places the book where she found it, and when she walks home her head is filled with the words of another Watcher about another Slayer. She feels desperately lonely, though it's paired with the realization that she is perhaps less alone than she has ever been in her life. Buffy is finally starting to realize what being the Slayer means, and suddenly she runs, flying down the sidewalks and through the graveyards, cutting through the forest and reaching the bluff where people come to make out and have sex. She looks over Sunnydale and understands the concept of duty, and it is the tales of other Slayers that make her feel whole.

The next day, she comes into the library at two and Giles is stirring cream into his coffee. On the table there are stacks and stacks of small brown volumes, and he motions for her to sit down and starts to explain just where she came from.

You Want This (Angel, season five speculative; no spoilers save the one everyone knows.)

Spike wants to move. It's late, and he's hungry, and right now he's really bored. He kind of wants that chocolate muffin Fred left in the lounge because he can't remember actually ever eating a chocolate muffin, and he wants to see what it tastes like.

He sighs and rustles a little, but not too much because he's been told not to move. Not that he usually takes commands from anyone, but there's two fucking people in the world for whom he does what he's told, and lucky for him they're both alive. Figuratively speaking.

He looks over at Angel, who only has one eyebrow raised and both eyes on his paper, but somehow that one eyebrow seems to convey both, "Do you honestly think you're going anywhere?" and "If you're good, you'll get a chocolate muffin." So he sits relatively still and watches the ceiling. He thinks he must have even less patience now than he did when he was still a vampire, which seems remarkable, but he never used to bounce his knee when he was a vampire and now he has the serious and mind-numbing compulsion to do just that.

Angel makes a quiet suggestion for him to turn to the left a little, and he does, feeling a ripple of air over his skin that makes him shiver. He sees Angel smirk a little and makes a face at him, but whatever. He has a nice view for himself, anyway, in this position, and occupies himself by watching the muscles in Angel's arm shift as he draws thin, quick lines, his fingers jumping all over the page.

Spike never sees the picture until months later, and then he blames this not-being-preternatural thing on how he managed to walk right by the detailed sketch in the hallway every day. He inspects it, pleased with the results.

SA, these are complete charmers. I'm getting them now, as vignettes; that bit of Watcher-Slayer was especially moving for me, because it nailed them, and they were always and still are my two favourite characters (although Wes, as he evolved, is close behind).

As Deb goes, so goes my nation.

Or, the relationship between those two characters was my favorite on the show, and this captures it. Perfectly, I think.

Hey, thanks, kids. I've been systematically disemboweling my plot bunnies, and there's was a scribbled note about Buffy finding the Tales of the Slayer (said note was made while I was reading Volume One of the short stories in Nashville and eating bad greek food) and I was feeling kind of nostalgic for season one.

psst.... if someone wants to write me kinky Ethan/Buffy, I'd be very happy.

no, I don't understand it either.

must have something to do with the monkeys at work...

Plei, I'll write you some shortshort kinky Ethan/Buffy.

But I want some feedback, madam.

SA, those were both very gorgeous. I loved the image of Buffy feeling the connection to the long history of the Slayers, and I really, really, schmoopily want Angel to sketch Spike. That's my big wish for the next season: angst everywhere, of course, but at least One.Damn.Moment of connection. One moment of quiet to speak of everything that has gone on before. Or will everything that has gone before be nothing but pain?

Oh, damn ... there's another plot bunny behind me, and it keeps whispering "You were my Yoda!" in a betrayed voice. You don't get that pissed if you didn't care. Bugger, where's the Bunny-Be-Gone?