This week's Open on Sunday theme is "punishment".

"Do You Want to be Punished?"

The English countryside is verdant, rolling hills of green. There's soft life everywhere, trees, bluebells, lupine and campion. Even the clouds are gentle.

The interior of Willow's head is not quite so gentle.

She understands what she's done: murder, the oldest taboo. It makes no difference that the man she killed was himself a murderer. It makes no difference that he took from her what she most loved. The bare fact, the act committed, takes up her entire mind.

Rupert asked if she wanted to be punished. She goes to him, her hands folded, and accepts the punishment he offers.

"The Fledgling" part 36 Homicide/Angel

MUNCH

So, it occurs to me, right in the middle of tracking the biggest conspiracy of my life and fantasizing about Kay’s enhanced cleavage, I want to go home. Yes, that’s right, even through the two-great tastes-that-taste-great togetherness of it(see how insidious advertising is? Even dead people quote it. I weep for my nation.)
I miss cloudy skies and cold nights. And cobblestones. Whoever thought I would care about cobblestones? Buildings built before last Thursday. Places where every third person isn’t blonde. And my old apartment was already pretty dark, I have no need of a fancy lair. It’s just not my scene, the consort bit.
The Princess feels I’ve withdrawn from her, and is trying to drown her sorrows again. This time with some gardener from Belize with a great...hose, who doesn’t even speak English. I didn’t expect to be irreplaceable, but that is just insulting. I’m not going to stick around for that. And I know she’s nursing two grand passions. One for Angelus and one for Counselor Herrenvolk. No matter what I do, I can’t compete with that.

L.A. can never be my town. People smile too much here and too many women have silicone or saline in strange places. But I know what you want to know. Do I miss humanity? Yes, and no. But Balmer is easier to get to. There is a prophecy somewhere that says some vampire is gonna get a do-over on the whole homo sapien trip, but I know I’m not that guy. He’s a hero...I’m the guy who breaks into bookstores to impress a woman that I haven’t the guts to make prey...you know what I’m saying, babe?
It took forever to even begin to sort it out, my concentration’s gotten so rusty. But I’ve got nothing but time to read these days. And I don’t exactly have a flair for languages, since I kept getting kicked out of Hebrew school for being a smartass. But I will not have Kay thinking Wesley is smarter than me. If she ever asks about that stupid “shanshu” thing, I want to have the answer ready for her. She’ll really love...that.

What kind of stupid name is “shanshu” anyway? It sounds like a waterpark attraction or something. Something kids come to the zoo to feed...not a great transformation.Eh, who needs it? I haven’t been through all this to tap-dance to the tune of some prophecy. I’m not sure why, really, but what? I need a reason now? Why should my unlife be any different than the sad shambles of my life?

It bothers me to think of leaving Drusilla. It surprises me how much. But she’s a job by herself. She talks too much and I’d be afraid to leave her in my place by herself because she’d set the place on fire or something. Maybe I should just cut out some afternoon, early, before she wakes up. Because she could get around me with those big green eyes...I know she could, even though you’d hardly expect a monster to be so schmaltzy, right?

Excellent Munch angst. I love that he wants to get back to Bawlmer - the homesick vampire detective is a perfect fit..

My second punishment-theme drabble. Why yes, I am in a dark mood today.

Resurrection

"Do you trust me?"

She lays spreadeagled, her eyes open just enough for her to be able to watch him. He's a shock-haired slash against the shadows of his own crypt, slowly pulling off leather. He's rampantly erect; his own eyes are lasers in the dark. She sees his face, wanting to ridge and furrow.

"Do you trust me?"

The manacles on her wrists and ankles are the real thing. Not even slayer strength is getting her out of these. Truth is, she isn't trying.

The only thing she trusts Spike for is to punish her for being alive again.

If there is anyplace less Munchlike than LA, I can't imagine it. Texas, maybe. Thanks, though, although it's scary how close to the surface that always is...that Munch thing. Almost eerie. Know what I'm saying, babe? Can't help feeling I skipped a step, someplace. Very tempted by "Punishment" not sure if I should do it.

I tell you what, love, it really suits my mood today.

Hell, so far? It's the only thing that suits my mood today.

I don't know anything about that. That's why my Munch is so good...cause I'm such a sunbeam.
I'm trying to quit The Fic, but "just when I think I'm out something pulls me back in". And the more I think I should quit, the more bunnies I get.
Homicide drabble on Punishment:

Tim wants Risley Tucker to pay. He knows he is an unlikely instrument of justice, but he hopes that the arabber will be haunted by the intensity of his eyes. He enjoys handling the old man roughly, knowing that no matter what Bayliss does it’s still a fairer fight than Adena faced. Sometimes at night, Tim has helpless dreams, where he wakes up gasping, certain a serrated knife is waiting for his own midsection. He should pay for that too, for helping to create a world where neither an expert marksman nor the Angel of Baltimore can be safe.

And because I'm trying to save fic for weekends, and left sj hanging, "People V. Angelus" L&O style. crossover BTVS/L&O (I did the Calendar case as a "Homicide" last year. I'm still too proud of it.) First half of the post is Law(cops) second Order(legal eagles)Except in Sunny D. instead of the Big Apple.

“I sent him out to prevent a felony.”

”What’s a Watcher, Miss Chase?”

She sighed, looked bored, tossed her hair, all of teendom’s greatest hits that Lenny remembered from when the girls were young. He deserved it a lot more then, though he hated to think about it. “You didn’t hear about it from me.”

“We’ll pinkyswear on it, Miss Chase.”

“Cordelia. My mom’s Ms. Chase.. The Scoobies are gonna hate me for this.”
“Cordelia, a teacher’s dead. That’s more important than what your friends think.”

“They’re not my friends. But I did promise. You ever promise somebody something, even though you didn’t really like them?”

“I’m a cop,” Lenny said. “That’s what we do. Along with eating donuts and closing out bars with “Danny Boy”
After Cordelia told her story, Lenny felt even more confused. It just didn’t wash. A five-foot-nothing cheerleader wanna-be who inherited an ancient destiny that allowed her to save the world multiple times by the time she was sixteen. With the help of an undercover demonology expert. Uh huh, sure, makes as much sense as those pink elephants you used to see on Saturday nights, he thought.
It made him depressed, but if Buffy had been trained to be a dealing or killing machine by the time she was sixteen....or a drunk like him, it would have made more sense. The streets, jails, and living rooms were full of those, all over America. God, Briscoe, you’re getting old, if fighting the good fight makes you suspicious. But he’d fought a lot of good fights and lost. And thanks to sobriety, he could remember them all. Ain’t clean living grand?

A few weeks later: Angelus had been apprehended, at great manpower costs to SPD.

Several of those officers might never make it off permanent disability.Jack McCoy hated to think about that. If it was war the vampire wanted, it would be war that he would have. Within limits, maybe just within, but within. Schiff was already talking deal, but Jack thought Angelus should sweat this one. Let him cool his heels wearing a face mask and drinking pigs’ blood at county for a while. He did break a popular teacher’s neck, allegedly, he reminded himself.

Claire looked tense, and just not like her normal self as she read the latest paperwork. “Whoa,” she said.

“Good morning to you, too. What’s up?”

“You’re not gonna like it. Motion to dismiss People V. Angelus.”

“You can’t be serious. On what grounds?”

“His lawyer says because the jury pool is human, Angelus will not be tried by his peers.”

“That’s just ridiculous. What sort of wet-behind-the ears, Legal Aid trick is that?”

“Look, I didn’t write the motion, just read it. And I wish we could dismiss this as a beginner thing, but we can’t. He’s got Lindsey McDonald, Jack. If anyone could sell this trumped-up civil liberties defense, he could.”

“I’ve faced talented lawyers before, believe it or not. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.”

“You know what I mean. McDonald’s not just good, he’s creepy good. I saw him at a conference and he left the other guy a gibbering idiot.”

“Why don’t you get excited by me like that?”

“No. I mean literally. He didn’t speak for six weeks. Now is not the time to get all Irish and poetic, Jack.”

MEEEEP!

Lyndsey as Angelus' lawyer?! I'd forgot that possibility.

Dear lord, do I love my internet wife. erika? You rock like a rockin' thing, woman.

“Why don’t you get excited by me like that?”

Bwah!

I love it. Thanks, erika.

Also, wonderful drabbles, Deb.

since everyone's ficcing, here's some more of "The Long Road".

---

“Not shitting you, yo. It was, like, I don’t know – we go to bed and wake up, and sometime between moonlight and morning, we’re cult objects and killers. They wouldn’t take our money. They couldn’t get our asses out fast enough.” She yawned cavernously. “It got stronger every day. We’d stop in a town, check for potentials, take them with. Within a day or two, a few would disappear, and so would a whole lot of people. I don’t know what’s happening, or why. But there are fewer people out there than there were a week ago. Trust me on this one. Maybe you didn’t notice – up here in this big glass tower, and anyway, you don’t get out during the day and you’ve had other stuff to deal with. But outside LA? The herd’s being culled, Angel. We don’t know any more than that.”

"We'd heard some of this, of course." There was a sense of disturbance, visible on his face. "Not that things were this drastic. Sunnydale went boom, what? About five weeks ago? If people are disappearing at this rate, we should be on it."

"Yeah." She thought for a moment, her brain feeling sludgy with lack of sleep. "Of course, what with this company you're running being All Bad All The Time and Associates, I guess it's possible that your people are involved in the whole thing from the wrong side. Any chance they'd been disappearing people and not telling you?"

"Yes." He hated having to say it; his jaw was locked with reluctance. "Look, Faith, you look wiped. Let me set you up in one of the guest suites -"

"No." She got to her feet. "No offense, man, but this place gives me the total flamey creeps. I'd have nightmares here. Not a good place for a slayer. Don't sweat it - I have access to mondo bucks, I can do a hotel. But can we get together in the morning, and figure this out?"

"Of course. Let me call my secretary, she'll find you a room and take you over there - she's a vampire, but keep the stake in the pocket, OK? And Faith - sleep easy."

• * *

The motel, a nondescript little place on the edge of Beverly Hills, had a neon palm tree out front, parking for the cruiser, and a room on the ground level near the pool. It also had surprisingly comfortable beds.

"Is this OK?" Harmony, roused or rousted from whatever she'd been doing by a peremptory command from Angel, showed no resentment. She'd met Faith downside, asked her what level of comfort and privacy she preferred, dialed one number, and found this Summer Palms Motor Lodge. "I mean - Angel said you didn't want anything too fancy."

"Yeah, this is great. Thanks - good find. A little weird, finding a room this easy. I wonder if the rest of the hotels in LA are half-empty?" Faith sat on the bed, kicking her shoes off, tucking her legs into a semi-lotus. "So, Angel tells me you used to hang with Cordy, back in Sunnydale. What happened?"

"I got bitten during graduation." Harmony understood Faith's question at once. "I'm lucky to not be dust - I was, like, the most naive vampire ever. I screwed up, and then I screwed up some more. Angel let me keep this job. If he hadn't..."

Her voice trailed off. Faith watched her; there was something in Harmony's face, a kind of sorrow, perhaps even regret. It startled her. For a moment, Harmony had looked alive, suffering, in a way that only the souled are supposed to be able to suffer. "Hey," she said, and without thinking, reached a hand out to Harmony. "Whoa. Are you crying?"

They were, in fact, tears. "I'm sorry," Harmony mumbled. She wasn't a decorative weeper; her face immediately got blotchy, and her lower lip wobbled. "I just - I haven't been able to sleep, the past month or so."

Something, an instinct kept in a pocket of Faith's subconscious, stirred to life. "Trouble sleeping," she said slowly. "You mean, like, nightmares? Or what?"

"Nightmare, singular. Same dream. Over and over and -"

She broke down completely. The force of her weeping moved like a small storm, her blonde hair swaying, her shoulders buckled and wretched. Faith got off the bed and took the girl in her arms.

It hadn't happened this way since prison, not with a woman. Sex had been scarce, pretty far down the to-do list since Sunnydale went up; a couple of times with Robin, and that had been fun, but she'd backed off. There was something about the son of a dead Slayer wanting to screw a Slayer at all that creeped her out. And she wasn't B, either - she'd never done a vampire.

Harmony was cool to her touch, her skin soft but chilly. She kissed the girl, breast, belly, the inside of both knees. Faith found a small scar on Harmony's lower abdomen, a pucker about an inch long. Appendix, she thought hazily, and laid her tongue against the scar, one hand holding the girl's thigh, the other busy elsewhere...

Harmony cried out, once, twice. The tears had stopped.

They lay on the bed for awhile, not touching. The encounter had not been meaningless, but it was done, and they both knew it.

"I'd better head out." She fumbled around for the heels that had come off while Faith held her legs in place. "Sunrise, not so good."

"Cool. Before you go, though, do me a small favor, OK? Tell me about that dream you've been having."

There was a flash of something in Harmony's eyes; for a moment, Faith thought she could smell fear. "You think it might be important?"

"Fuck yeah. Why else would I ask?"

They sat by the pool, Faith smoking. As the dream that had kept Harmony from sleep since right after the Sunnydale hellmouth had imploded spooled in detail for her consideration, Faith began to understand.

• * *