“Yes, Agent Scully, I do. I just took some time to do some freelance demon fighting. Freelance as in free. I would complain, but hey...it’s a family thing. You know?”

I just literally heard JAR say this, in my head. Damn.

I think you need something more at the end of this one line of Kay's dialogue:

“Thirty. I’m thirty-four...I’ve paid my dues, huh?”

Something to make Charles' response to her a response. Either that, or he needs to to tell her his own age. Because at the moment, his comeback:

“I grew up fast. Being disadvantaged and all.”

is a bit out of left field. So something like "Yeah, well, not as young as I look, Scully. I'm (insert whatever age). Grew up fast, being disadvantaged etc."

Are they going demon-hunting together? Because hoo mama, that would make me really intensely happy.

I'm thinking she would think he's the best partner, yeah. How old is our friend, anyway? A little older than Cordy? I'm glad you thought Gunn's voice was ok. I worried about it. One thing I knew though is that, for Gunn, "It's a family thing." is a complete sentence.

V!Giles and Spike, re: obsessions

"Darkness? In Xander?" He considered the painfully earnest young man he'd watched grow up. "I know there are things in his past he doesn't talk about, but once he got out of his parents' house he seemed much happier."

Spike sighed. "The whelp's very, very good at facades. If you're not looking close, all you see is the happy-go-lucky overgrown puppy. That's what he wants you to see."

"Since when did you start looking closely at Xander?"

"I was stuck in his basement for a long time, I saw a few things he wishes I hadn't. But it was that night with Glory. Ripper, you should have seen him. Him against an army, and he faced down the whole bloody lot of 'em."

"Guns make men brave."

"Guns make cowards brave. Guns make brave men make hard choices. Harris made the choices." Spike picked up the whiskey bottle and stared at it. "He went somewhere dark that night. Someone had to. I don't think he's come back yet."

Giles studied Spike for several moments. "And are you hoping he does make it back? Or that he gets lost there?"

A predatory smile curled across Spike's face. "There? 'There' is where we are, Ripper. I like having Harris here in the dark. He's not quite comfortable here yet. There's just a few more steps left before he realizes that he's wasted over on the other side."

"You're being uncharacteristically patient about it all, I must say. It's been months since we finished Glory." He reached over and grabbed the whiskey from Spike, took another swig, and handed it back.

Spike tapped his forehead. "You can teach an old dog new tricks, if you kick him in the head often enough. And Harris knows me too well to fall for anything direct. There are enough obstacles in his life for him to trip over."

Giles became aware of an odd sense of outrage. "And you're throwing Buffy over for Xander? The Vampire Slayer for a--well, he's a very nice young man and all, but he's no Slayer."

"And he's not going to be more than a very nice lad while he's still trying to fit in with goody two shoes brigade. There's potential there, mate. Be honest now. In all the years you've known him, have you never once looked at him and thought about the possibilities? I know what you used to call fun. Never once did you have a picture in your head of him on his knees in front of you--"

"No," Giles said firmly. "I haven't." He ignored the disbelieving grin. "So you're exchanging your Buffy-obsession for a Xander-obsession."

Spike's pensive look came back. "Not exchanging, no."

"Oh, for heaven's sake. Collecting the whole Scooby set, are you?"

"No, I'm leaving Red for you." The leer faded. "With Buffy--you said it right, La Belle Dame Sans Merci. I can't help myself. I still want her. I'm just not sure if I want to drag her down to me or . . ."

"Or pull yourself up to her," Giles said softly. He was treading on very thin ice here. Sometimes Spike was willing to admit to the instincts of a shy young poet, but sometimes the merest mention of the name William made bodies scream.

Spike only nodded slowly. "Nothing cuts deeper than that look of suspicion she gives me. Angelus couldn't inflict pain the way she can. And I disgust myself for letting it get to me."

"The man versus the demon." Giles braced himself for a reaction, but Spike let it go. "Whereas this thing with Xander . . ."

The tension fled Spike's shoulders. "That's pure. In a very impure way, of course. Uncomplicated. You get the feeling that playing with him for a few centures would be a festival of claws and snarls and good times."

Giles blinked. "Centuries? My god, you're not saying— What are you saying? I'm not spending the next several decades listening to Xander Harris natter."

"Oi, who said I'd let you? Don't have to hang around, you know. You could spend your time on Red. Or why else are you spending so much time on our Willow's . . . education?"

He drew himself up with dignity. "She's starving for knowledge, she's going to find it somewhere. Better through me than willy nilly, when she could wreak untold havoc."

Spike still smirked. "Plus you get to give her those little hugs and let her gaze at you adoringly. Not that that has any bearing on anything."

"Of course not."

"Perish the thought."

"Indeed."

"No, I'm leaving Red for you."

Mom! (Or perhaps, Amy!) Connie broke me! Again.

Erika, I can't wait to see how effortlessly Gunn gets Kay's back in a demon-fighting crunch. Oh, this is going to be so much fun. Intersting possibilities for Wesley-jealousy, as well. If there was tension over Fred, just think how much more they'd compete to get the attention of a female leader-type -- the best bits of Angel and Fred combined.

Yeah, that was my thinking,Karl...along with Kay thinking they were strictly Amateur Hour and she needed to stick around, help the kids out.(And if she happened to spare her Visa and settle things up with a certain vampire, no skin off her back, huh?) Vamp!Giles and Willow...wibble. And with all that, and my apparently compulsive drive to mimic Howardspeak, I forgot to greet my "knight in white satin armor" properly. Karl, you're good for my ego as always, babe. A bond between two people is wonderful thing...add three or four and it's fantastic.

Somebody in the Angel thread yesterday said they hoped "Xander's in Africa" would spawn some fic. I woke up with this vignette in my head. And I don't have time for new stories, darn it.

Jacob Malone, worried father, stared at the man who might be his last hope. The doctors at the Nairobi hospitals all said there was nothing wrong with Natalie, nothing physical. His sixteen-year-old daughter seemed normal as ever, and she was upset that the situation had disturbed the family's world. People were beginning to talk. Malone's job with the Kenyan government always teetered on the brink of "native jobs for native people" catastrophe, but he had grown up in Africa. He himself would have been born in Nairobi except for his father's demands that no child of his would be born in a--well, best just to say that Gregory Malone's retirement back to England had been a welcome event on all sides.

"Mr. Vorsana, you say you can help my daughter? It's been months now, and no one has been able to do anything. My Nat's a good girl, she doesn't want to be like this, but . . ."

The Eastern European expatriate sitting across from him in the market cafe stirred his coffee and nodded. "But she still insists that there are monsters."

Malone sighed. "Yes. She panics about being out at night, and she won't let any of us out of the house without crosses and such. I know the incident with the lorry door was an accident, but she put her fist through it without even trying. Marie, my wife, is frightened."

Vorsana nodded. "Any mother would be, if she suspected her daughter was . . ."

Malone clenched his hands together. "Natalie's gone mad, hasn't she."

Vorsana was taking a breath to answer when a voice behind him spoke. "No, Mr. Malone, she hasn't. Natalie's probably more sane than a lot of people."

The new arrival, American by the accent, was a young man in dusty khakis, with sun-darkened skin, unruly dark hair curling out from under a worn broad-brimmed hat, an eyepatch, and a good smile. Vorsana curled his lip.

"Harris. The last I heard of you, you were out in the Serengeti with those wildlife researchers. Hyena hunting territories, wasn't it?"

The smile became more sardonic as the new arrival played with the broken fang that hung from the fetish bead necklace he wore.. "Yes, it was. But something told me to get back to town. By the way, Rupert Giles says hello."

Malone saw Vorsana flinch. "Mr. Vorsana, who is this?"

"Mr. Malone, this is Xander Harris. The more provincial of the local folk call him The One Who Sees."

Harris looked uncomfortable. "It's not like I asked them to."

Malone studied the new arrival. The young man seemed friendly enough and less mysterious than Vorsana. "What is it that you see, Mr. Harris?"

Harris' voice became weary, and his mouth tightened with some painful knowledge. "I see the monsters, too, Mr. Malone. I know they're real. Your daughter is not mad. Life might be simpler for all of us if she was. Then we could all pretend none of it is real."

Harris looked uncomfortable. "It's not like I asked them to."

I love this. Great fic.

Hee. Yes, that's a great line, and very Xander.

Today's Open on Sunday challenge is a weirdie - dictionary.com's words for your birthday, use as both title and in the drabble. So.

Anodyne

Angel curled on the bed, shivering.

He never saw the arrow Faith hit him with. He hadn't needed to; the fast leak of whatever nameless toxin she'd smeared it with through his system told him what was what. Curable, yes - with the blood of a Slayer.

Not a problem, she'd told him, and gone out into the night, to hunt for Faith. She'd come back empty-handed, but with a cure nonetheless. My blood, she'd insisted, take it. She beat him down, forcing the issue.

As she spasmed, orgasming beneath him, he understood what she was to him: his ultimate anodyne.

Second birthday word (from my birthday in 2000, I think):

Peremptory

So many things she remembers of Tara.

She remembers sensitivity, a skin so thin an eggshell seemed tough in comparison. A full, almost babyish lower lip, that would want to quiver at a perceived unkindness.

She remembers humour, sidelong glances over someone else's head, sharing a joke in silence that would leave them both laughing in the privacy of their bed long after the joke was gone.

Most vividly, though, she remembers passion, the only time Tara ever showed force rather than strength: the peremptory pressure of her lips to Willow's own, an end to conversation, a command to love.