“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".

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“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.

• * *

Thanks, hon. Right back at you.

Deb, Erika, my hat's off to both of you, as always. Fine stuff.

Deb, I swear, you're going to make a writer out of me yet.

That change works very nicely, I'ma do it. Then I read over and see if I can spot other tellishy places myself.

Also, your fic? Great. The slash works pretty well, though I'm not 100% convinced it would happen. Still, I'm very tough to convince that my characters would ever have sex with each other. Faith and Xander confused me, and that's canon. =)

I'm a little lost on yours, erika, as I didn't read whatever came before I started hanging out here. Or at least I'm not familiar with the character. Is there introductory material posted online somewhere, that I can read?

Which, babe? I've got three...balls in the air right now. AIFG. But I write crossovers, mostly. Claire and Jack used to be on L&O together. That story is the Calendar case as presented on L&O. Tim Bayliss is my fictional boyfriend from Homicide...he has a few issues, poor baby. Mostly with a case that got away. The murder of an eleven-year-old girl, Adena Watson. Kay and Munch are crossed with Angel for my H:LOTS/A:ts crossover(as far as I know the first of its kind) Hint: He's not a vamp on TV. I've got finished fics, but they are lengthy. Or do you want a Homicide primer? Be warned, I'm passionate on the subject...I'm a rare crime junkie buffista.

Love the L&O x-over stuff!

Thanks, Sumi. The dialogue's kind of a bummer, too on point. No davinos or anything.:) I found shell's H:LOTS primer thing. Girlfriend talks too much, but her heart's in the right place. And she hated "Defender..." but I'm over it. Now.She just thinks Timmy's hers, poor dear. Hers and Billy Tallent's. [link] ETA: And she kind of ignores the Munchkin, except for that dumb gallery thing. I'm not too happy about that. Edited one last time to say I couldn't find one for L&O. If anyone does let me know, although more people have seen it than H:LOTS. Although Deena did tell me she never watched one, which boggled me, considering how omnipresent the series is.

Gordon Pratt: I promised somebody I wouldn't do this during the week anymore, but it's fun when it's wrong. More "People V. Angelus" BTVS/L&O “Fine,” McCoy said, “we’ll do it.”

“Excuse me?”Claire said, her green eyes wide, “Do what?”

“Empanel the undead. We are going to follow the letter as well as the spirit of the law in this one. I want this conviction, Claire.”
“You used to talk about me like that. And now it’s my turn to say ‘You can’t be serious.’

“It’s not hard,” Jack said. “There are three hundred neck ruptures a year in Sunnydale. Pretend you’re in Chicago. The dead there are surprisingly civically active.”

The rare flash of levity made Claire smile in spite of herself. “Ha ha. If anything happens to me while I’m doing that, I’ll haunt you..”

“It would be impossible for you to do that more than you already do, darling.”

“Likely story. One I’ll consider in the cemetery with Mike Logan.”

“I really wish you’d take Lennie,”
“ What would he do? Wisecrack them to death? Besides I like the leverage.” Editor's note: I typed "cemetery" and "Logan" and my A/C quit working. Y'all did this to me, I swear. I used to be hearts and flowers...now I'm Emma Zoole.

erika, for the new readers? Might work to put the fandoms atop each entry ("Homicide:Life on the Streets/AtS Crossover" or whatnot.)

Nova, I have trouble with Faith and Xander. But that Harmony/Faith thing - I could see Faith, not so much in need of solace herself, but with the confusion of the world emptying out around her, somehow needing to offer it. And the only person in that collection she could offer it to - Wes and Gunn both, in their own ways, being as strong as she is herself - would be Harmony.