Connie - thank you. I don't post a lot, but I try my best to keep up, especially with all the Buffista Fic. I just love this story.

Ahhh... More V!Giles fic on an otherwise crappy day. Thank you so much, Connie.

BTW, I absolutely adore the way Xander and Baynar interact. I always got the idea that Xander would be a cool dad.

Yay, Connie.

KAY

It’s weird. As much as I’ve thought I’d had a death wish lately, when I thought the monster inside Munch was gonna suck the life out of me, I still wanted to fight. The image of the fangs still creeped me out, but not as much as what I’d almost let him do in my dreams.
Cause I’ve been doing my research, huh? When the Angel gang is out on another job, or de-sliming the streets, or whatever the hell they do(I’ve been trying to research that, too, but they don’t have a Board. If I do what I’m thinking, and stick around, learning the demon-fighter thing, things are just gonna have to get more organized, no matter how much Wesley loves his dusty little engravings. These streets are crazy now...who the hell cares what happened in the fourth century? Not Kay Howard, anyways, even though I like how it sounds when Wesley says it.

I couldn't work like this. Where was I? I’m getting all ranty, like the Munchkin, huh) Anyway, I looked up the dreams I’ve been having...the next step would be my drinking his blood, probably after we have sex. Then DreamKay is on the Transylvania Express. Jesus...in real life I don’t always like it when a guy leaves his toothbrush, and in my sleep, I give up my soul?! The next thought is “Think about it, Kay. No more mammograms.” No more heartbeat. No more nutrition from solid food. No more awkward post-shooting sex with Ed Danvers. It was decent before, even good(nothing like I told Frank, though) but since the shooting, he gets freaked by the scars on my chest...wants the lights out and he’s always asking about my diet...and well, worrying that I’m over-exerting, huh? (Feel free to edit that part out later. I was just being woman-to-woman, but I don’t want it on the news, right?) They are pretty dramatic, but not too bad for a woman who’s been ripped open and stuck together with duct tape.
I think Ed just doesn’t want to think about how vulnerable somebody he knows could be. Victims are those people with their names on the file folders, right? Not somebody you love...somebody you kiss. I don’t want to make Ed the bad guy here...I’m sure it’s the same feeling that drove me to consider suicide on a rooftop in Tinseltown, huh? Vampire Munch would probably think the surgical scar by my heart is sexy. It’s like a zipper or a lightning bolt and it intersects my breast and he thinks everything’s sexy, anyway. Or he did when he was a person. And I think a lot of vampires are just urges with fangs.
If I were a younger woman, I might put a tattoo there, some kind of climbing vine with flowers on it. But you have to wait a year for the skin to recover, and I’m too old for that kind of nonsense(and I can just imagine the variations of that story circulating the coffee room, huh? Before the ink dries, it’ll get around that I have some kind of holographic sexual suggestion there, some new erogenous zone that if a guy touches it, he can drive me insane. I might not know demons, but I know the guys, God help me. )Against my will, the image of Munchkin kissing the raised white ridge of my surgical scar floods me with feelings. I have to back him up and fast...my soul’s at stake.

I’m halfway through my Dirty Harriet spiel when I realize I can’t even fake it. In addition to leaving the stake Wesley gave me on the dresser at the Hyperion, the pants I covered myself with only look like they have pockets. Son of a...am I felony stupid, or what? Survive getting shot by a dirtbag only to die because I’m dumb. But instead of lunging on me, and covering me with his cape like Bela Lugosi, he stands there smirking and making a dirty joke...like Munch. He looks relieved when I tell him to give it a rest. Probably like foreplay to him by now.

Speaking of foreplay, it was probably incredibly easy for that undead bitch to get her fangs in him. Munch is too forthcoming with women. One good kiss and he’s in love. Two good kisses and I gotta spend the next office party entertaining the latest Psycho Squeeze. He probably fell for the hair toss, that little thing where you touch a guy’s arm to show him how close you wanna get, and if I had to guess, she laughed at his jokes. (Just cause I don’t play games doesn’t mean I don’t know how to play,huh? And if you laugh at Munch’s jokes, he’ll follow you anywhere.) And knowing him, he didn’t twig to what was going on till it was too late.
Such a smart guy, with such a big blind spot. I get choked up when I think of what happened next. The intense pain, the random funeral and burial that asshole Bernie arranged on the cheap. I would have been there...it's the least a friend could do, but the way it turned out, I guess his brother being a creep was lucky. If I had known all that, they'd have to work on my heart again. I already met Bernie once, when he came by with some paperwork after Crosetti...well, after Crosetti. He called me Legs. I hate him, honestly, although after what happened, it feels creepy to say stuff like that.

erika, I have no idea how to highlight the section II want - I'm on a mac and it doesn't love me - but that whole introspective thing there just floors me. I love her when she's being honest with herself and doing it in a purely female way; Kay's big thing with herself, one of them anyway, always seemed to me to be about her believing she had to feel like one of the boys to stay even. And she so didn't.

And the idea of her whipping AI into shape - probably over Cordy's outraged screams - is a thing of purest beauty.

Yeah...I think she likes being, you know, one of the guys some of the time. I think she's very proud of being macha, but when something's really bothering her, it's a liability. Like when her sister had the biopsy, and Beau's like "Wanna talk about it?"
And she says "You're a MAN!" like "You're a complete, stupid, piece of shit."(Which he kind of is, but not that second.)
And even I've noticed that a lot of times on Angel they don't know where each other is(oh, gonna need the jaws of grammar here) But that would drive Kay crazy. Cause Gee taught them "Your partner is like your lover. He should never be far from your thoughts."

Connie, I love the Xander and Baynar interaction. This story is so comforting for some reason. It makes me feel flinchy, waiting for whatever's coming next.

Erika, that's just wonderful. I love the inner dialogue and the characters and you're the one who made them real to me.

To me there is no higher calling. Except maybe the actual "working for God" which circumstances have not fitted me for.Jeez, dramatic much? But it makes me proud to read that, especially when what I hear from fandom can be summarized by the new tag. And I hope each story brings me closer to being able to do the same for characters of mine. Sometime.(And I love the Dumpster scene...the response is great, and I thought it was funny...I still do. But I'm not Dumpster Sex Woman.)

It makes me feel flinchy, waiting for whatever's coming next.

Not the most unwise of reactions . . .

I love the Xander and Baynar interaction. This story is so comforting for some reason. It makes me feel flinchy, waiting for whatever's coming next.

this. I'm too familiar with connie's work to get too comfy.

erika, the introspection is masterful.

More, please. Both of you.