Here I go again... *sigh*
Mar. 7th, 2006 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calic0catYes, it's the first part of yet another WIP. Believe me, if I could put these plot bunnies off while I finished up something else, I would. :P Oh well, I guess something new's better than nothing at all, right? *sheepish grin*
Title: untitled
Part: 1/?
Author: Calic0cat
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing: S/X (eventually)
Rating: FRT (for now)
Warnings: profanity
Notes: Post-"The Gift" BtVS AU.
*****************************
"The Council feels that, in light of the previous involvement of you and your... associates... in the Slayer's duties, you should be more than capable of dealing with any of the standard minor difficulties associated with proximity to a Hellmouth. We will, of course, be in touch, should anything significantly exceptional, such as an approaching apocalypse, require our attention. Good day, Mr. Harris."
The call ended with an abrupt click and a dialtone. Very carefully, Xander set the phone back in its cradle. "And a fucking good day to you too, Mr. Travers," he muttered bitterly. "Dammit!" He grabbed a cheap blown-glass scrying sphere from a shelf and flung it against the tile floor. It shattered in a satisfyingly loud and messy explosion.
They were so fucked.
Buffy was dead. Giles and Anya were both gone. Giles had packed up and gone back to England weeks ago, and Anya had accompanied him "because he's in no state to make the trip alone, and it will be an interesting experience". Oh, she'd implied at the time that she'd be back, but Xander had known better. After escaping the dark insanity that was Sunnyhell, only a complete idiot would actually come back.
Yep, an idiot just like the one now standing behind the counter of the Magic Box. Oxnard might not have been much to write home about, but it hadn't been Sunnydale. Yet where was he now?
In Sunnyhell, running a goddamned magic shop, since his work absences during the whole Glory fiasco had cost him yet another job, and with Giles and Anya both gone, *someone* had to run the damn store. For however long he could keep it going, that is, considering that he'd never managed to keep a job in retail for longer than a few weeks. Of course, the whole unscheduled-absence-due-to-impending-apocalypse and lateness-due-to-a-long-night-of-patrol thing hadn't exactly gone over too well either, so his employment problems might not have been entirely the fault of his general suckage at retail. At least now, he could just close the shop or open a bit late whenever he was occupied with Hellmouthy business.
And that, of course, was taking up more of his time than ever, now that there was only him, Tara, and Willow - okay, fine, and Spike and the Buffy-bot, if you wanted to get picky - to patrol the damn city now that Buffy was gone.
He was a complete idiot - hell, they all were - but, hey, Sunnydale was 'Home Sweet Hellhole'. They couldn't just pack up and go, abandoning the place to the demons and hoping that somebody else would stop the next apocalypse. Tempting though that might sound from time to time.
They were *so* fucked.
With an equally satisfying crash, another scrying ball joined the first.
Oh, sure, it wasn't like they were completely helpless in the Slayer's absence. Hell, they'd survived when Buffy'd gone on her little unsanctioned vacation from slaying before, and they hadn't had Spike's help back then. Nor had they had the Buffy-bot. But they hadn't exactly had a lot of luck at keeping the vamp population down, either, and the Big-and-Nasties had just kept getting bigger and nastier and more numerous over the years. And, this time, they didn't even have Giles around for research, backup, and general morale boosting. Tara and Willow were getting pretty damn good with the mojo, but magic couldn't solve everything; an awful lot of demons were completely unaffected by spells. They'd been rather painfully reminded of that little fact when they'd run into that damn Tomato-thingy smack-dab in the middle of the university campus just the other day.
'Day', as in, 'time when Spike couldn't help', which might not have been all that bad if it weren't for the fact that the damn demon happened to *feed* on magic, growing bigger and stronger with every spell cast anywhere near it, meaning that Wills and Tara were pretty much out of the picture. The bot hadn't done too badly against the demon at first, but the damn thing didn't *adapt*. It had a set of standard Buffy-moves, all of which it executed exactly as programmed.
Xander reached for the basket of scrying spheres again.
*Exactly* the same standard moves.
Every. *Crash.* Single. *Crash.* Fucking. *Crash.* Time. *Crash.*
Given an opponent with an IQ higher than its shoe size and a fight that lasted long enough for it to notice the bot's predictability, the bot's effectiveness dropped. A lot.
It had started taking more hits from the Tomato-demon than it was landing, and had ended up in a twitching, smoking heap. Which had left him to handle the huge monstrosity more-or-less by himself, while Willow and Tara tried to keep the whole fight hidden behind a glamour. Oh yeah, that had been a barrel of laughs.
*Crash.*
Not.
*Crash.*
By the time he'd finally split the thing wide open with a hastily-acquired emergency axe from one of the dorms, the demon had come awful damn close to splitting *him* wide open. Maybe it was time to start looking into body armour. Kevlar - it does a body good.
*Crash.*
Especially when facing a seven-foot-tall Tomato demon with the claws of Wolverine and strength of the Hulk.
*Crash.*
And yeah, he knew it was really a T'm-a-tah demon - accent on the final syllable - but Tomato sounded a lot funnier, and the fact that the Scooby Gang could no longer afford a goofy klutz in the bunch didn't mean that they didn't still need a good laugh every now and then. Like, say, along about when they were trying to drag a stinky demon carcass and a couple of hundred pounds of robotic junk out of sight until they could figure out how to deal with them. Willow swore that the bot could be fixed, but... Well, he'd believe that when he saw it.
Even if the bot *could* be fixed, it was nothing more than a stopgap, something to help hold back the nasties until the new Slayer's arrival. Which was fine. It was just a matter of time before the new girl arrived, right? They'd be more than ready to help her get settled in.
Except that the new Slayer had already arrived.
*Crash.*
In Cleveland.
*Crash.*
The Watchers Council, in its infinite wisdom, had screwed them - and Sunnydale - over royally. Despite the fact that Hellmouthy activity in Cleveland was barely even a blip on the radar compared to good ol' Sunnyhell, the Council had just given them the brush-off. Okay, so maybe it shouldn't be all that surprising - the Council had never liked the Scooby Gang's involvement with the Slayer, so Xander supposed that it made sense that the Council didn't want the new Slayer anywhere near them - but still... Somehow, none of them had expected this.
*Crash.*
They were so fucked.
Xander reached for another sphere, discovered that the basket was empty, and reached for the nearest alternative, not particularly concerned with what it was. Everything on that shelf was cheap junk anyway. Giles could just take it out of his wages - except, hey, that'd be a lot easier if he was actually getting *paid*. He really needed to talk to Giles about that little detail. Raising his arm, he prepared to add whatever-the-hell he'd just picked up to the growing pile of sparkling junk littering the tile floor.
A cool, firm grip caught his wrist from behind. "Ordinarily, mate, I'd be the last t' interfere with a lovely spot o' violence and destruction, but I don't think any of us 'r' needin' any more bad luck."
"Aah!" Xander jumped and spun, pivoting around his trapped arm. And thank whoever for vampiric speed and reflexes, because Spike managed to catch the scrying mirror that he dropped in the process, and, yeah, they *so* did not need any more bad luck. "Dammit, Spike, could you *please* not sneak up on people! I didn't think you'd be up yet."
They'd moved Spike into the basement of the shop after his rescue from Glory. It wouldn't have made much sense to take him back to his crypt, since he'd been taken from there in the first place. And afterwards - well, somehow, they'd just never gotten around to kicking him out again. It was more convenient to have him right there for research, training, and patrolling, anyway, and, though he was vocally insistent that he only helped because he'd promised Buffy that he'd look after Dawn, he'd been surprisingly helpful with all three tasks.
He'd even, with much grumbling, watched the shop on several occasions, when Xander had had to go meet with Dawn's teachers.
"Little hard to sleep with all the crashing goin' on up here. Wouldn't want to miss out on a good fight." Spike looked pointedly from Xander to the glass shards on the floor. "Nothin' quite like a spot o' senseless violence 'n' destruction to cheer a bloke up, right, mate?"
Xander gave a derisive snort and snatched the mirror out of Spike's grasp, placing it back on the shelf. "Yeah, right." Looking at the mess on the floor, he placed his foot on one of the larger shards and systematically ground it into dust. "Don't think there's enough breakable shit *in* this place for that job, pal."
"Alright, out with it, Harris. What's wrong now? Nibblet skippin' classes again?"
Xander gave another derisive snort. "I wish." If only that were all that was wrong. "We are *so* fucked."
"Spit it out or..." Spike growled irritably.
"Yeah, yeah. Just, gimme a minute." Trying to get his thoughts in order, Xander waved dismissively, unfazed by the warning. The chip wouldn't let Spike hurt him, even if the vampire actually wanted to. And, after the whole mess with Glory, and everything they'd been dealing with since then, he wasn't entirely sure that Spike *would* want to hurt any of the Scoobies. The rest of the world was most likely still fair game - well, unless Dawn pouted at him, she had the vampire quite firmly wrapped around her little finger - but probably not any of the Scooby Gang. Probably.
"Harris..."
"Okay, okay. Impatient much?" Xander crushed another glass fragment with the toe of his shoe. "Had a letter from Anya this morning. She's not coming back. Still haven't heard from Giles himself, but it doesn't sound much like he is either.
"And..." He hesitated, then raised his eyes to meet Spike's. "Spike, I just got off the phone with Travers. The Council's sent the new Slayer to Cleveland. They will, and I quote, 'be in touch, should anything significantly exceptional, such as an approaching apocalypse,' require their attention. In other words, 'don't call us, we'll call you'. We're on our own."
"Bloody hell."
They both reached for the shelf of ugly clay fertility fetishes.
*Crash.*
They were so fucked.
Title: untitled
Part: 1/?
Author: Calic0cat
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing: S/X (eventually)
Rating: FRT (for now)
Warnings: profanity
Notes: Post-"The Gift" BtVS AU.
*****************************
"The Council feels that, in light of the previous involvement of you and your... associates... in the Slayer's duties, you should be more than capable of dealing with any of the standard minor difficulties associated with proximity to a Hellmouth. We will, of course, be in touch, should anything significantly exceptional, such as an approaching apocalypse, require our attention. Good day, Mr. Harris."
The call ended with an abrupt click and a dialtone. Very carefully, Xander set the phone back in its cradle. "And a fucking good day to you too, Mr. Travers," he muttered bitterly. "Dammit!" He grabbed a cheap blown-glass scrying sphere from a shelf and flung it against the tile floor. It shattered in a satisfyingly loud and messy explosion.
They were so fucked.
Buffy was dead. Giles and Anya were both gone. Giles had packed up and gone back to England weeks ago, and Anya had accompanied him "because he's in no state to make the trip alone, and it will be an interesting experience". Oh, she'd implied at the time that she'd be back, but Xander had known better. After escaping the dark insanity that was Sunnyhell, only a complete idiot would actually come back.
Yep, an idiot just like the one now standing behind the counter of the Magic Box. Oxnard might not have been much to write home about, but it hadn't been Sunnydale. Yet where was he now?
In Sunnyhell, running a goddamned magic shop, since his work absences during the whole Glory fiasco had cost him yet another job, and with Giles and Anya both gone, *someone* had to run the damn store. For however long he could keep it going, that is, considering that he'd never managed to keep a job in retail for longer than a few weeks. Of course, the whole unscheduled-absence-due-to-impending-apocalypse and lateness-due-to-a-long-night-of-patrol thing hadn't exactly gone over too well either, so his employment problems might not have been entirely the fault of his general suckage at retail. At least now, he could just close the shop or open a bit late whenever he was occupied with Hellmouthy business.
And that, of course, was taking up more of his time than ever, now that there was only him, Tara, and Willow - okay, fine, and Spike and the Buffy-bot, if you wanted to get picky - to patrol the damn city now that Buffy was gone.
He was a complete idiot - hell, they all were - but, hey, Sunnydale was 'Home Sweet Hellhole'. They couldn't just pack up and go, abandoning the place to the demons and hoping that somebody else would stop the next apocalypse. Tempting though that might sound from time to time.
They were *so* fucked.
With an equally satisfying crash, another scrying ball joined the first.
Oh, sure, it wasn't like they were completely helpless in the Slayer's absence. Hell, they'd survived when Buffy'd gone on her little unsanctioned vacation from slaying before, and they hadn't had Spike's help back then. Nor had they had the Buffy-bot. But they hadn't exactly had a lot of luck at keeping the vamp population down, either, and the Big-and-Nasties had just kept getting bigger and nastier and more numerous over the years. And, this time, they didn't even have Giles around for research, backup, and general morale boosting. Tara and Willow were getting pretty damn good with the mojo, but magic couldn't solve everything; an awful lot of demons were completely unaffected by spells. They'd been rather painfully reminded of that little fact when they'd run into that damn Tomato-thingy smack-dab in the middle of the university campus just the other day.
'Day', as in, 'time when Spike couldn't help', which might not have been all that bad if it weren't for the fact that the damn demon happened to *feed* on magic, growing bigger and stronger with every spell cast anywhere near it, meaning that Wills and Tara were pretty much out of the picture. The bot hadn't done too badly against the demon at first, but the damn thing didn't *adapt*. It had a set of standard Buffy-moves, all of which it executed exactly as programmed.
Xander reached for the basket of scrying spheres again.
*Exactly* the same standard moves.
Every. *Crash.* Single. *Crash.* Fucking. *Crash.* Time. *Crash.*
Given an opponent with an IQ higher than its shoe size and a fight that lasted long enough for it to notice the bot's predictability, the bot's effectiveness dropped. A lot.
It had started taking more hits from the Tomato-demon than it was landing, and had ended up in a twitching, smoking heap. Which had left him to handle the huge monstrosity more-or-less by himself, while Willow and Tara tried to keep the whole fight hidden behind a glamour. Oh yeah, that had been a barrel of laughs.
*Crash.*
Not.
*Crash.*
By the time he'd finally split the thing wide open with a hastily-acquired emergency axe from one of the dorms, the demon had come awful damn close to splitting *him* wide open. Maybe it was time to start looking into body armour. Kevlar - it does a body good.
*Crash.*
Especially when facing a seven-foot-tall Tomato demon with the claws of Wolverine and strength of the Hulk.
*Crash.*
And yeah, he knew it was really a T'm-a-tah demon - accent on the final syllable - but Tomato sounded a lot funnier, and the fact that the Scooby Gang could no longer afford a goofy klutz in the bunch didn't mean that they didn't still need a good laugh every now and then. Like, say, along about when they were trying to drag a stinky demon carcass and a couple of hundred pounds of robotic junk out of sight until they could figure out how to deal with them. Willow swore that the bot could be fixed, but... Well, he'd believe that when he saw it.
Even if the bot *could* be fixed, it was nothing more than a stopgap, something to help hold back the nasties until the new Slayer's arrival. Which was fine. It was just a matter of time before the new girl arrived, right? They'd be more than ready to help her get settled in.
Except that the new Slayer had already arrived.
*Crash.*
In Cleveland.
*Crash.*
The Watchers Council, in its infinite wisdom, had screwed them - and Sunnydale - over royally. Despite the fact that Hellmouthy activity in Cleveland was barely even a blip on the radar compared to good ol' Sunnyhell, the Council had just given them the brush-off. Okay, so maybe it shouldn't be all that surprising - the Council had never liked the Scooby Gang's involvement with the Slayer, so Xander supposed that it made sense that the Council didn't want the new Slayer anywhere near them - but still... Somehow, none of them had expected this.
*Crash.*
They were so fucked.
Xander reached for another sphere, discovered that the basket was empty, and reached for the nearest alternative, not particularly concerned with what it was. Everything on that shelf was cheap junk anyway. Giles could just take it out of his wages - except, hey, that'd be a lot easier if he was actually getting *paid*. He really needed to talk to Giles about that little detail. Raising his arm, he prepared to add whatever-the-hell he'd just picked up to the growing pile of sparkling junk littering the tile floor.
A cool, firm grip caught his wrist from behind. "Ordinarily, mate, I'd be the last t' interfere with a lovely spot o' violence and destruction, but I don't think any of us 'r' needin' any more bad luck."
"Aah!" Xander jumped and spun, pivoting around his trapped arm. And thank whoever for vampiric speed and reflexes, because Spike managed to catch the scrying mirror that he dropped in the process, and, yeah, they *so* did not need any more bad luck. "Dammit, Spike, could you *please* not sneak up on people! I didn't think you'd be up yet."
They'd moved Spike into the basement of the shop after his rescue from Glory. It wouldn't have made much sense to take him back to his crypt, since he'd been taken from there in the first place. And afterwards - well, somehow, they'd just never gotten around to kicking him out again. It was more convenient to have him right there for research, training, and patrolling, anyway, and, though he was vocally insistent that he only helped because he'd promised Buffy that he'd look after Dawn, he'd been surprisingly helpful with all three tasks.
He'd even, with much grumbling, watched the shop on several occasions, when Xander had had to go meet with Dawn's teachers.
"Little hard to sleep with all the crashing goin' on up here. Wouldn't want to miss out on a good fight." Spike looked pointedly from Xander to the glass shards on the floor. "Nothin' quite like a spot o' senseless violence 'n' destruction to cheer a bloke up, right, mate?"
Xander gave a derisive snort and snatched the mirror out of Spike's grasp, placing it back on the shelf. "Yeah, right." Looking at the mess on the floor, he placed his foot on one of the larger shards and systematically ground it into dust. "Don't think there's enough breakable shit *in* this place for that job, pal."
"Alright, out with it, Harris. What's wrong now? Nibblet skippin' classes again?"
Xander gave another derisive snort. "I wish." If only that were all that was wrong. "We are *so* fucked."
"Spit it out or..." Spike growled irritably.
"Yeah, yeah. Just, gimme a minute." Trying to get his thoughts in order, Xander waved dismissively, unfazed by the warning. The chip wouldn't let Spike hurt him, even if the vampire actually wanted to. And, after the whole mess with Glory, and everything they'd been dealing with since then, he wasn't entirely sure that Spike *would* want to hurt any of the Scoobies. The rest of the world was most likely still fair game - well, unless Dawn pouted at him, she had the vampire quite firmly wrapped around her little finger - but probably not any of the Scooby Gang. Probably.
"Harris..."
"Okay, okay. Impatient much?" Xander crushed another glass fragment with the toe of his shoe. "Had a letter from Anya this morning. She's not coming back. Still haven't heard from Giles himself, but it doesn't sound much like he is either.
"And..." He hesitated, then raised his eyes to meet Spike's. "Spike, I just got off the phone with Travers. The Council's sent the new Slayer to Cleveland. They will, and I quote, 'be in touch, should anything significantly exceptional, such as an approaching apocalypse,' require their attention. In other words, 'don't call us, we'll call you'. We're on our own."
"Bloody hell."
They both reached for the shelf of ugly clay fertility fetishes.
*Crash.*
They were so fucked.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 08:27 pm (UTC)You know what?
I really REALLY like this! *grins*
Believable shifts from canon, and very much like that you've got Spike and Xander bonding over breaking things. *giggles* Hope none of it's expensive. LOL
Would truly like to see more of this soon! :)
~Tis
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:34 am (UTC)Thanks! I'm really enjoying writing this one.
Believable shifts from canon,
One of my favourite types of stories is the "what-if-*this*-happened-instead" variety. Sometimes the slightest of changes can have a very big effect.
and very much like that you've got Spike and Xander bonding over breaking things. *giggles*
*grins* Sometimes, there's no better stress-reliever than a little bit of senseless destruction. Especially when the circumstances causing the stress are beyond your control. What better bonding experience could there possibly be for these two?
This has been one very persistent plot bunny, so I imagine there will be more ready for posting fairly soon. *crosses fingers*
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 09:24 pm (UTC)I used to have an old broken brick pile on the back lot..and when I got pissed off I took all the chipped and cracked glassware that I saved on purpose, and threw it at the brick pile..heee
Sos I can relate!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 09:36 pm (UTC)Hopefully there's more of this soon!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:53 am (UTC)More soon, I hope.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 10:09 pm (UTC)Can't wait to see where you go from here.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:58 am (UTC)Yep, it just would not leave me alone. This is one plot bunny with very sharp, pointy fangs.
As for Giles - yeah, he really wasn't thinking too clearly - or about anyone else other than himself - when he ran off like that. Yes, he was hurting too, but he didn't exactly make things easier for anyone.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:07 am (UTC)Shakatany
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 10:08 am (UTC)As for Faith - nope, Faith is not dead. But the Council's real big on remembering and learning from history...
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 10:26 am (UTC)Shakatany
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 10:59 am (UTC)Any subsequent deaths of Buffy had no effect on the Slayer-line.
Big hint there... *smirks*
As for the two Slayers and the First Evil's return versus the all-the-Potentials-are-now-Slayers thing - yeah, that one stinks of "plothole" (aka someone forgot to re-read the show's 'bible'), frankly. I haven't completely decided what to do with it just yet, though it's highly tempting to do what the show did and just ignore that little detail.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 11:14 am (UTC)I am incredibly dense and not getting your hints about the Slayers--did Faith "die" and resurrect and cause another to be chosen or is Travers lying?
Shakatany
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 12:12 pm (UTC)I'm not planning on taking things up to S7 by any means, but I also don't want to ignore the fact that having two Slayers was supposed to create an imbalance and cause a problem. However, I think I'm just going to assume that, now that there's already been two Slayers and the FE is already loose, going from one to two Slayers again won't have any further effect.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-09 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-11 05:48 pm (UTC)