lena7623

No Rest For The Wicked Awards

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:33:48 GMT

Someone nominated me for the 'No Rest For The Wicked Awards' awards! *squee* I don't have a clue who did it, but thank you and I am so flattered it hurts, but it's a good hurt.

It was for the 'Mutual Comfort' story with Giles and Cordy. I'm just so jazzed right now I can barely think. Yay!

FIC: Mutual Comfort (Giles and Cordelia) PG

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:16:43 GMT

Title: "Mutual Comfort"
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse
Warnings: Mentions of Death
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1875
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: After Buffy runs away at the end of season 2, Giles is all alone, until Cordelia decides that she needs comfort b/c Xander broke up with her and, well, Giles is about all she really has.

Cordelia knocked on Giles’s door for the fourth time, once again not getting an answer. Of course, Buffy had ran away, his girlfriend had been recently killed by her ex-boyfriend turned homicidal maniac, and lots of other stuff happened. Of course, another thing that happened was that Xander broke up with her. Yeah, Xander, the king of dorks, had broken up with her, Cordelia freaking Chase, queen extraordinaire. She had wanted someone to talk to, and her former Cordettes weren’t taking her calls. Of course, she had told them off just so that she could date Xander, so that wasn’t exactly shocking to her. So, this pretty much left Giles, since she would never stoop to talk to Willow at a time like this.

With a huff, she finally pulled out the key that she had swiped from Xander and opened the door. She still wasn’t sure what anyone but maybe Buffy had been doing with a key to Giles’s apartment, but now she was glad that he had one. “Giles? Are you home?” she called out. She shut and locked the door behind her after walking inside. She set her purse down on the sofa as she walked inside. This place was a little neater than when she last saw it the night Jenny Calendar died, but it was still much messier than Giles usually kept anything.

She heard a grunt come from the little kitchen area, and walked in to see Giles sitting on the kitchen floor with a bottle of scotch in one hand. “God, could this be more pathetic?” Cordelia muttered to herself as she picked Giles up off the floor. “Come on, Giles. I had wanted someone to talk to, but it’s not like you’ll be of any use until you sober up.”

“I should have done something more,” Giles mumbled, letting the bottle fall to the floor. It fell over and spilled on the floor. “Maybe she wouldn’t have run away if I had taken better care of her.”

“Are you talking about Buffy?” Cordelia asked. “She had a lot of her own problems, like killing her crazy ex and all that.” No one knew for certain what happened, but Angel had disappeared, and they were all still alive and not sucked into hell, so he had to be dead. If she had avoided killing him, then she probably would have eventually of came back. “Right now we need to focus on me, and I guess you, too, since I had come over here to talk about my problems.”

Giles gave her a funny look, but didn’t say anything in protest as she half carried/half dragged him over to his sofa. It was thankfully clear of crap at the moment, so nothing hindered Giles’s collapse onto it. She looked at him and shook her head. “Buffy should be here to see this,” she mumbled to herself as she went back into the kitchen and poured the scotch down the sink. It looked expensive, but it was the last thing that Giles seemed to need around
here right now. “She should be here to see what she’s doing to people by taking off like this.”

Cordelia actually got that Buffy was going through a hard time. Even her mother had thrown her out of her own home. Of course, she knew that Giles, Willow, or even Xander would have offered her a place to stay until her mother got over the whole ‘I’m a slayer’ business. Honestly, even Cordelia herself might have done it. It wasn’t like they didn’t have dozens of rooms in her home. She would probably even barely have to see her. It wouldn’t have been that bad. Plus, it would kind of by like having a sister, which Cordelia herself would have always of loved to have. Being an only child in a giant home sucked hard sometimes.

But no, she took off instead, and left her beloved Watcher to wallow in his own alcoholic pity. Cordelia sighed as she looked him over. “I need to get some coffee in you,” she said, starting a coffee pot to start going. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?

A few minutes later, she found out just how hard it could really be. She handed him the cup of coffee, and, whatever alcohol was still in his body seemed to fly away at the first sip.

“Cordelia, what did you make this with?” he asked as he coughed and sputtered.

“Coffee grounds?” she offered with a slight smile. Even if it wasn’t that good, and it obviously wasn’t, it seemed to pull some of the alcoholic stupor out of him. “Sorry, it’s my first time. The cook usually makes it at home.”

She wasn’t sure why he smiled at her comment, but he did. “Thank you for trying,” he said, setting the coffee aside. “So, not that I don’t appreciate it, but why did you come over here?”

She sighed again. She had almost forgotten why she had in the ‘save Giles from the kitchen floor’ crusade she had been on. “Xander broke up with me.”

“He did?” Confusion spread across Giles’s face. “Why on earth would he do that?”

“I think he’s carrying some weird torch for Willow. Doesn’t make sense to me, since she’s all into Oz and everything. Of course, she so obviously had a thing for him for years, so, once he expresses his thing to her, she’ll get her thing back right away and they’ll be all over each other.” Cordelia frowned. “Kind of makes me want to gag.”

Giles shook his head. “I’m not sober enough to understand all of that yet,” he said. “I can’t believe that Xander dumped you, though. Silly boy.”

Cordelia arched an eyebrow at him. “He is a silly boy. Actually, that’s not descriptive enough. He’s a jackass. Do you really think so, though?” It had actually stung like hell when he had done so. He had said something like ‘they just were from different worlds’ or something like that. It was something idiotic and probably copy written somewhere.

“Yes, I do think that he’s a silly boy, or a jackass, as you said,” Giles said to her. “Considering that Willow is now with Oz, I don’t think he stands a chance if he really does carry a torch for her.”

“I doubt that will last, anyway,” Cordelia said to him, sitting down with a huff. “I think that she’ll drop Oz as soon as she knows Xander’s feelings for her.” She knew that he had feelings for her. She knew that when she began to date him, and actually date him, not the meetings in the closet that they had been having before. Still, she looked the other way. “Of course, if Willow won’t take him for some reason, then he’ll just go after…”

She was going to say Buffy, but Buffy was gone. Still, Giles seemed to know just what she was going to say, because she watched as his face fell. Stupid Buffy! “I’m sorry, Giles,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to bring her up.”

“She hasn’t even called anyone since she ran away,” he said softly. “Not her mother, not me, not Willow or anyone. I’m not even sure if she’s still alive.” He hung his head low, and Cordelia could see a few unshed tears brimming his eyes.

“No, don’t talk like that,” Cordelia said, turning to face him. “Buffy’s like, a superhero. She can take care of herself just fine. Sure, she could drop us a postcard, letting us know that she’s doing OK, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t need to. We all *know* that she’s OK, right?”

He rubbed his eyes and looked up at her. “I can only believe that you are correct,” he said, but the look in his eyes said that he wasn’t truly convinced.

Cordelia wrapped her arms around his neck. “You just need to keep believing,” she said, hugging his neck tightly. She felt him stiffen slightly for a moment before hugging her back. This made her realize that she so rarely saw him touch anyone or be touched. When was the last time this man got a hug, anyway? “It’s really all we can do until she walks through the door and says…”

“What are you doing?”

The both of them jerked away from one another to see a slightly dirty and rough looking Buffy standing at the door, a large duffle bag slung over her shoulder. She was starring at them quizzically. “Of all the things I thought that I’d come home to see, Cordelia hugging anyone, much less Giles, is the last thing I expected.”

Before Giles could react, Cordelia jumped off of the couch and wrapped Buffy in a hug. Later, she would claim that emotions had overridden her common sense, obviously. “Buffy! Thank God you’re OK. Where have you been?”

Buffy awkwardly patted her on the back until Cordelia let go. “LA for a little while. I needed time to myself. Besides, your mom throwing you out will make you want to take off, well, that and killing someone you loved.”

Giles stood up and, as soon as Cordelia had pulled away, he wrapped Buffy in a hug as well. She seemed to be more expecting this, because she actually hugged him back. “It’s good to have you back here, Buffy. You can stay here as long as you need.”

“Thanks,” she said, letting the bag drop to the floor. “I realized that I shouldn’t be alone right now, anyway. Probably the last thing I need.” Buffy looked over at Cordelia again. “Seriously, though, why were you hugging Giles?”

“It’s called mutual comforting, Buffy,” Cordelia said, putting her hands on her hips. “It’s what two or more people do when they are both hurting emotionally, whether for the same or different reasons.”

Buffy looked at Giles. “Giles, I think Cordelia is a pod person. You might want to step away.”

“Is it really that strange for me to comfort someone?” Cordelia asked.

“Xander broke up with her, Buffy. She’s going through a tough time right now as well,” Giles said to her. “I promise you that she’s not a pod person.”

“OK,” Buffy said, relaxing a little. “I’m sorry to hear about you and Xander. What happened?”

“He’s an idiot. Why would you break up with the hotness that is me?” Cordelia asked, doing a little twirl. “Something about us not being compatible or something. I thought we were past that, but no. I think he’s still carrying a torch for Willow. He asked about her way too much too often.”

Buffy shrugged. “Maybe, who knows? Do you guys mind if I get some rest?” They both nodded, and Buffy picked up her bag and started up the stairs to what Cordelia assumed was Giles’s guest room. “Oh,” she stopped and turned around. “It’s not that weird for you to comfort someone. Just…different.” She finished her trip up the stairs, shutting the door behind her.

“I told you that she was fine,” Cordelia said to Giles, sticking her tongue out at him just like a five year-old would. “Remember, superhero equals Buffy, or is it the other way around?”

To get the muse going again

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:32:33 GMT

The first ten people to comment in this post get to request a drabble of any pairing/character of their choosing from me. In return, requesters should post this in their journal, offering in return fanworks of the kind they enjoy doing. Fic? Icons? Meta?

"Old Slayer" 14/14

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:26:38 GMT

Title: "Old Slayer" 14/14
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse, Original characters
Warnings: Violence, Language
Rating: R, just in case
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: AU. In the show, Buffy was the first to have been brought back from the dead. What if she wasn't? And what if Giles had a slayer previous to Buffy. This takes place during the last 4 ep. of Season Three, when Giles calls for some old help from an old friend.

“So, are you going to go and pack up the rest of her things?” Buffy asked as she looked up at her Watcher. The two of them were standing in the airport in Sunnydale. Rupert Giles was booked on a flight back to New Orleans to help pack up Danielle’s apartment and to pick up her dog.

“Yes, I think that it’s the right thing to do,” he responded to her.

“We both do,” Danielle said, hobbling a little as she returned from the bathroom. “You’re the one who invited me to live with you, after all.”

The hospital after the graduation ceremony had been full of people, but there were far less casualties than what they had expected. Only the Principal and two students had died in the attack, which no one was even bothering to try and explain at the moment. Who could?

Danielle remembered it all through a haze. Wesley screaming something about how he was supposed to watch over Danielle and make sure that she didn’t get hurt, someone else begging her to hang on, and then being in an ambulance while the EMTs tried to keep her heart pumping so that they could get her to the hospital. Things got even hazier after that. She was almost sure that she died again, but no one would tell her whether that happened or not. Why couldn’t she stay alive?

Didn’t matter, since she was alive now. When she woke up in the hospital, Rupert was there, sitting their asleep in the chair next to the bed. She had to poke him awake. He hugged and kissed her until she complained about not being able to breath, and then kept doing it for another minute before she had to push him off.

After she finally managed to get him off of her, he proposed to her. It would be romantic if she hadn’t been half-dead at the time. Still pretty damn romantic, in her opinion. Of course, this required her to do things like a change in job, or at least job location. Her superior hadn’t been that shocked to hear about her getting engaged. It seemed that everyone in her precinct had suspected she had gone to see some old flame or something to that affect. Her now former partner was thrilled, although sad to lose her.

Buffy had thought that all of it was romantic, plus she had seen the practical side of now having both an extra Slayer and a cop around. As she said in the hospital, she now might be able to avoid things like those pesky murder charges.

Danielle kind of worried about what she was getting into.

Still, she was so very glad that things seemed to finally be settling into place for her. She already had been hired by the police department in Sunnydale. Seemed like they could always use more cops. Of course, this meant playing dumb a lot, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t done that before.

Now, in the airport, the main thing that Danielle could think about was seeing her dog, Odin, again. “Let’s get going, already,” she said to Rupert. “Our plane will be leaving soon.”

“Are you sure that you’ll be alright?” Rupert asked Buffy, already picking up his bag so that he could leave as well.

“Don’t you know? Summers are always quite in Sunnydale,” Buffy told him with a grin. “Now get going, already. Don’t miss you plane.”

Rupert and Danielle exchanged quick goodbye hugs with Buffy and turned to leave. Rupert wrapped his arm protectively around Danielle’s waist as they walked to the gate. Even with the stupid hole still healing in her side, Danielle was pretty sure that she was as happy as she could possibly be.

Old Slayer 13/14

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:24:20 GMT

Title: "Old Slayer" 13/?
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse, Original characters
Warnings: Violence, Language
Rating: R, just in case
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: AU. In the show, Buffy was the first to have been brought back from the dead. What if she wasn't? And what if Giles had a slayer previous to Buffy. This takes place during the last 4 ep. of Season Three, when Giles calls for some old help from an old friend.

“We’re going to need more than just a bigger boat,” Willow said. “We’re going to need a tank for this!”

“Or a volcano full of lava,” Danielle interjected. “Anyone got one of those laying around?”

“A tank might not be a bad idea,” Buffy said.

Everyone turned to her. “Excuse me, but where are you going to procure a tank?” Rupert asked her.

“Not a literal tank, Giles,” Buffy corrected him. “We need to prepare to go to war for this.” She walked away from the book to sit down in a chair. “We need to arm everyone, and I do mean everyone, all of the kids at graduation. Everyone needs to get together on this.” Buffy looked around at everyone. “So, am I crazy?”

Willow tried to smile at her. “Well, crazy is such a strong word, Buffy.”

“Let’s not rule it out, though,” Rupert said with a shake of his head.

Buffy turned to look at him. “You don’t think that it can be done.”

“I didn’t say that. I might, but just not yet,” he corrected her.

Cordelia rolled her eyes and sat down. “I personally don't think it's impossible to come up with a crazier plan.”

Oz, who had hung back from speaking since he arrived with Willow, said, “We attack the Mayor with humus.” Everyone turned to stare at him. “I’m just trying to keep things in perspective.”

"Thank you,” Cordelia said sarcastically. “My point, however, is, crazy or not, it's pretty much the only plan. Besides, it's Buffy's, and she's slay gal, you know, Miss little likes-to-fight. So...”

Xander interrupted her. “I think that there’s a ‘yea’ somewhere in there.”

“Well, I am going to need every one of you for this, especially you, Xander. You are kind of my key guy, here,” Buffy said, looking over at him.

Xander looked very surprised. “Me, key?” He paused to take a deep breath. “Okay, - pride, - humility…and here is the mind numbing fear.” He sighed. “What do I have to do?”

“Do you remember any of your military training from when you became soldier guy?” Buffy asked him.

“Soldier guy?” Danielle asked. “Is this another week of living in Sunnydale?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Cordelia said. “Some of them turned into their costumes last year for Halloween.”

“Talk about trick or treat,” Danielle said.

“Yeah, it pretty much sucked for everyone but me,” Xander said. “Yeah, I remember my training. You needing another rocket launcher?”

Danielle’s eyes widened at the thought of all the laws being broken during this exchange. Seriously, she could do a lot more than just lose her job just for being here, taking part in the conversation. Of course, sometimes there were more important things than a person’s job, like saving the world and whatever.

Buffy regretfully shook her head at Xander. “A rocket launcher is not going to get it done. I mean, it took a volcano to kill one of these things last time.”

Rupert got up and walked toward her. “Um, Buffy, all of this is rather depended on your being able to control the Mayor.” He turned to look at all of them. “How are you, or any of us really, going to do that?”

“He’s got to have a weakness of some sort,” Buffy said, putting her head in her hands, seemingly thinking it over. “What about Faith?”

Danielle nodded. “Yeah, he thinks of her as a surrogate daughter, right?” Buffy responded by nodding. “Threaten her, and maybe we can distract him long enough to take him out…somehow or another. Xander, think you can procure a tank?” She was only half joking with the last part.

“Maybe not a tank, but I think I’ve got an idea or two up my sleeve,” Xander said with a grin.

“Well, if that isn’t the shock of the century, then I don’t know what is,” Cordelia said with a roll of her eyes.

“So, we have figured out the weakness of the Mayor,” Wesley said. He had picked up the papers that Danielle had procured about the Ascension at some point. Danielle hadn’t been paying enough attention to him to really know when. He tended to blend into the background for her like that. “Now, we need to figure out a plan in order to kill him.”

“Thank you, Oh Master of the Obvious,” Xander groaned. “Surely your insight will save us all.”

“No need to be a jackass just because he can read big words, Xander,” Cordelia snapped at him.
Danielle sighed. She could sense yet another fight coming on. “Alright,” she snapped. “That much is clear. Xander, why don’t you and Buffy work out that ‘tank and army’ plan? I’m going to go and get supplies.”

“What sort of supplies?” Rupert asked.

“Got a contact with a Catholic priest in this town?”

***

After a visit with the priest in town, Danielle was sitting at the library table, emptying shotgun shells of their pellets and replacing them with wooden rosary beads that had been blessed by a priest. Not exactly something that was easy to come by, but the priest they had talked to understood what was going on. Besides, Rupert had to of been getting all of that holy water from somewhere all of these years.

“What are you doing?” Wesley asked, sitting down across from her. Cordelia was putting away books in boxes, and Wesley had been helping her. For some reason, he saw fit to come over and talk to her.

Danielle looked up at him. “Get bored with books for once?” she asked.

“They don’t quite hold the allure when they are being packed away as when you are reading them,” Wesley admitted to her.

Danielle could see bits of Rupert in him, although maybe that was just due to his Watcherness and Britishness. Then again, they were both book nuts, so maybe resemblances were there somewhere.

She gave him a little bit of a half-smile. “I’m replacing the pellets in these shotgun shells with rosary beads,” she told him. She picked up another shotgun shell, popped off the top with a set of pliers, dumped the pellets out, and poured a small handful of rosary beads back in, quickly replacing the cap and hammering it back into place. “Shotgun shells usually don’t work worth a damn against vampires, but there work like magic. If you hit them in the heart, they even dust. Of course, aiming a shotgun is a bit of a bitch.” She got an idea. “Do you know how to shoot?”

Wesley looked down at the table. “Actually, yes. I was top marksman at the Watcher’s Academy as well as Head Boy.”

“Seriously, what is Head Boy?” It sounded flat out awful to Danielle, but Wesley seemed quite proud of it.

“It’s like Class President, of sorts,” Rupert answered from behind her. “I got a hold of the shotguns you wanted. I’d rather you not ask where I procured them from.”

“In order to keep my mind as clear of law breaking as possible, sure, why not?” Danielle said. She had already told Xander and Buffy at some point that night that she didn’t want to hear anything about what they were doing for her own plausible deniability purposes. “I believe this makes you on shotgun duty, Wesley,” she told him, sliding one of the shotguns over to him. “I don’t believe that there will be the usual problem of police officers hearing shots to worry about tomorrow.”

Danielle was pretty sure that she caught Wesley briefly give her a real smile before British stoicism came back down on his face. “For now, you can help me with these shells,” she told him, sliding an extra set of pliers over to him.

***

Danielle and Wesley had finally finished off all of the shells by four in the morning. Danielle wasn’t sure what the extra part of the plan was for the Mayor, since she merely plugged her ears when Buffy and Xander came back in with a bunch of boxes around three-thirty, but it looked like something severe. Of course, that was what the needed at this point.

Now they were all finishing up packing up the library, while Rupert was driving the books back and forth. They had realized that there would be an eclipse during the Ascension, so that at least put Angel back in the game as well. Everything seemed to be falling into place for them.
Soon enough, graduation was at hand.

Danielle was pretty sure her eyes were going to soon start bleeding. Like the rest of them, she might have gotten an entire hour of sleep the night before, but was so wired from a mixture of fear and excitement that she felt like her skin was buzzing. She was hiding out in the library with Angel, Wesley, and the others at the moment, watching the graduation ceremony from the window.

“Is he actually going to try and give a speech?” Danielle asked as the Mayor started to talk.

“Well, he is pure and unadulterated evil, you know,” Angel said back to her.

“That bastard. Oh yeah, he’s going to die now for sure,” Danielle replied.

Then the Mayor started to grimace in pain and babble on about his destiny. “Finally, for fuck’s sake,” Danielle whispered. This meant that they needed to start moving in and get near the students.

“I thought that he might torment us and finish the bloody speech,” Wesley muttered as they rushed through the hallways.

They got outside just as he was changing into his pure demon form, which still looked mostly dragon like to Danielle. She didn’t have time to ponder this, though. The eclipse was coming just as they got outside as well, which meant that vampires would be coming soon.
Danielle heard Buffy scream ‘now’ which meant that all of the other students were pulling out their weapons as well. It seemed fitting that all of the students get a chance to fight for their lives at the moment. It was their graduation from Sunnydale as well, after all. Time to step up to the fight.

Danielle looked toward the front steps of the school just in time to see Faith leading an army of vampires up and into the courtyard where the ceremony was supposed to be taking place. Two students were manning what appeared to be fire shooters* at the Mayor demon, so that left the vampires to most of the rest of the students, plus the three of them. *I have went completely stupid and forgotten what they are called, but you remember the scene, right?*
Oh, well, there were the archers as well. Xander was leading them. Seemed that, in all of that military training that he had gained, he now knew how to lead an army. Good thing, that knowledge.

The first line of vampires went down with the arrows, while Danielle and Wesley took out two more that had been at Faith’s left and right with their shotguns. When Faith looked in their direction, Danielle just grinned and waved at her. This seemed to piss the girl off enough to cause her to come after her.

“Go that way!” Danielle shouted at Wesley, who took off in the opposite direction from her. Danielle ran closer toward the school, with Faith in hot pursuit. Danielle took out another random vampire along the way that had just finished off some blond girl (poor thing) along the way before sheathing her shotgun and grabbing a pistol she had hidden away in a bush before Faith tackled her from behind.

Danielle went down, rolling around in the grass before she could kick the girl off with her foot. They both jumped up at the same time. “You really think that you’re going to take me out with a pistol?” Faith asked, grinning at her.

Danielle just fired a shot at her, hitting her in the shoulder. “You’re going to have to do better than that,” Faith said, gearing up to rush at her, only to be surprised by Buffy coming up from the side and stabbing her, with her own knife left behind at the high school, in the stomach.

“You really let you anger distract you too easily,” Danielle said, lowering the gun. “It’s a shame. You could have been a good Slayer. Instead, you’re just a waste of space.”

A roar of either pain or anger came just as Faith slipped to the ground. This meant that the Mayor had seen them, just as they had planned earlier. Kill Faith in front of him to anger him enough so that he’s not thinking clearly. They both watched as the Mayor knocked one of the fire kids out of the way, him landing on the ground with a sickening thud, and start in their direction.

“Oh mother of god,” Danielle muttered. The next thing she knew, the Mayor was in front of her and, with a flick of his paw, tossed her in the air as if she were a doll. She didn’t feel like she had enough time to scream before she slammed into a tree, back first.

She hadn’t even realized she had been impaled by a branch until it broke off and she fell to the ground. That was some pain that she had never felt in all of her years of being a cop and a Slayer, and she had even died once. She heard Buffy taunting the Mayor, like she had told her to do, but couldn’t concentrate enough on the words through all of the pain she was feeling.
She could hear crashing, glass breaking and walls shattering, and pushed herself up against the tree so she could watch. She had only let Buffy and Xander tell her enough so that she was glad to be far away enough to watch what would happen next. She watched as the school exploded into a firey ball, hoping that Buffy had gotten out alive.

“Good going, kid,” Danielle mumbled. She watched through a haze as someone, Wesley maybe, rushed over to her.

“Danielle!” That was the last thing she heard before everything went black.

Old Slayer 12/?

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:39:40 GMT

Yeah, guardian_erin , this has been sitting on my computer for the last seven months. True proof that I suck, and suck hard. I'm trying really hard to get back into the swing of things, though. Hopefully, Chapter 13 will be done soon, since I am actually back to writing it for the first time in forever!

Yay!

Title: "Old Slayer" 12/?
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse, Original characters
Warnings: Violence, Language
Rating: R, just in case
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: AU. In the show, Buffy was the first to have been brought back from the dead. What if she wasn't? And what if Giles had a slayer previous to Buffy. This takes place during the last 4 ep. of Season Three, when Giles calls for some old help from an old friend.
Beta'd by: Guardian_erin is a life saver with this story. She seems to understand that I'm a rambler and reminds me that people like shorter sentences. I swear that I didn't mean to make Baby Jesus cry!! Also, she showed me that listening to "Feel Like Making Love," during the last part of this chapter is both fitting and hilarious. Just try it.

Danielle and Rupert arrived at the library, where Buffy was inconsolable. “Faith shot him with an arrow!” Buffy exclaimed as soon as they rushed into the room. “At first I just thought that she had bad aim and missed his heart, but then he got sick!” Buffy stepped out of the way to show Angel lying on the table, gasping for air, which was kind of strange, since vampires don’t need to breath. Then again, people gasp for air when they are in pain. Old human reflexes still seem to stick around after almost three hundred years, it appears.

Danielle walked over to the table to look over the wound in Angel’s shoulder. It was red all around the wound and oozing blood. “A vampire’s wound shouldn’t look like this,” Danielle said, more to herself than anyone else.

“It’s poison,” Angel gasped, making Danielle jump back just a little. She didn’t think that he was still able to talk. “I can feel it.”

“That’s not too shocking,” Wesley said, carrying a book as he came out of the shadows. “Faith and the Mayor want you distracted from the Ascension tomorrow.”

“Do you just live here?” Danielle snapped. She was already getting tired of people just popping out of nowhere on her. Was that just a thing in Sunnydale, popping out of the shadows like some old Hollywood monster?

Wesley didn’t dignify her with an answer. “I’ve been researching it since Buffy brought him in,” he said, sounding proud of himself. “I think I’ve found what it is. ‘Killer of the Dead’ is what it’s called. No known cure.”

“There is one cure,” Rupert said quietly.

Everyone turned back to him. “What is it?” Buffy asked. Danielle could see the tears gleaming in her eyes. “Tell me, Giles. The suspense is killing Angel here.”

“The blood of a Slayer is the only way to reverse the effects,” Rupert told her.

Danielle watched as Buffy’s face set into a determined look. “Good.”

“Good? What did I miss?” Xander asked as he walked in. Danielle was sure that Buffy had called everyone as soon as Angel got sick from the poison.

“No, it's perfect. Angel needs to drain a Slayer, then I'll bring him one.” Buffy started to head for the door, but Danielle stopped her.

“Buffy, if Angel drains all of Faith’s blood, it will kill her,” Danielle said, holding on to Buffy’s arm to keep her from leaving.

“For justice, it’s not un-poetic,” Buffy replied, trying to pull away. “And it won’t kill her if she’s already dead.”

“I’ve got a better idea that won’t kill anyone,” Danielle told her, pulling her away and into the office, slamming the door behind the two of them before anyone could follow. She leaned against the door as she told Buffy her plan. “Instead of killing one Slayer and spoon feeding her to him, what about the two of us both giving blood to him? Do you think it matters if he gets it from two or one?”

Buffy seemed to think on it for a moment, then smiled. “No, I guess it doesn’t, but what about Faith?”

“We’ll deal with Faith when the time comes, tomorrow.” Danielle continued to lean against the door as others knocked on it. “There’s no need to become like Faith just to save someone. There are better ways, ones that no one has to die, at least not yet.”

“OK, your idea is way better than mine, that’s for sure,” Buffy agreed. “For all I know, Faith would find a way to prevent me from feeding her to him.”

“She is probably expecting you to come and find her now as we speak,” Danielle told her. “It’s better this way.” She opened the door, only to have Xander and Rupert spill through the doorway. “Bring Angel in here, because we have an idea to save him.”

“But you guys said that the only cure was the blood of a Slayer,” Xander protested. “What are you going to give him otherwise?”

“The blood of two Slayers,” Danielle answered. “Buffy and I will both give blood to Angel. Hopefully it will be enough.”

Xander looked at the two of them with a confused expression until it seemed to dawn on him.
“You know, I knew that all of this ‘I’m the only one’ stuff was just an act,” Xander said with a grin. “You never were the only one, were you, Buff?”

“It’s nice having a non-crazy extra Slayer on hand,” Buffy said with a grin.

“I thought I recognized you,” Wesley said, standing behind Xander and Rupert. “I saw a picture of you once. I thought you died.”

“Ever heard of CPR?” Rupert asked him. “It works miracles, including having another Slayer called before I could revive her.” Rupert turned to glare at Wesley. “If you tell the Council that she’s still alive, I’ll beat you to a bloody pulp.”

Wesley visibly gulped. “I didn’t have that intention,” he said, taking another step back. “In the eyes of the Council, she’s fulfilled her duty.”

“And I still have to work for you guys because?” Buffy asked. “Oh wait, the other Slayer is a loon, that’s right.”

“She has proven herself to be past saving at this point,” Wesley told her.

“Let’s get Angel, and we can discuss problems the Council has later, guys,” Danielle reminded them. She wasn’t exactly thrilled to have to say that she was a Slayer, but the time for cover stories really had come and gone.

Xander and Rupert left and carried Angel into the room a few seconds later, and Danielle could hear others arrive as they laid him out on a little couch that Rupert had in his office. “We need people to hold him down while we do this,” Rupert said. Him and Xander got on both sides on him. “The demon inside of him hasn’t had human blood for a while, and it might try to break free. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“Buffy….you shouldn’t do this,” Angel wheezed. “So much can go wrong.”

“You’re right,” Danielle said before Buffy could. “We need your help for tomorrow, though.” The look on her face said that she wouldn’t be doing this otherwise. “Let’s get this over with, alright?”

“I’ll go first,” Buffy said, reaching for one of the many knives that they had just lying around this place. “As soon as I start going limp, pull me away.” She took the knife and cut open her wrist, pressing it to Angel’s lips. He tried to turn his head away, but Buffy just followed his head and, soon enough, he started to drink.

After a little while, Buffy’s legs started to give, and Danielle pulled her away before they buckled. “Are you ok?” Danielle asked, pulling out a first aid kit and starting to fix Buffy’s wrist.

Buffy nodded. “I’m fine, just a little light headed.” Wesley walked over. “Let him take care of me. Go take care of Angel.”

Danielle sighed, and took the same knife that Buffy used. She walked back over to where Angel was laying. He looked a little better, but still needed more.

“I don’t like this,” Rupert said as Danielle cut her wrist.

“And I’m dying to do this,” Danielle said sarcastically. “This is something that needs to be done.” She pressed her wrist to Angel’s mouth, and, this time, there was no hesitation before he started to drink. “I still don’t understand how anyone can enjoy this.”
Before Danielle could get lightheaded, Angel pushed her away and sat up. The wound on his shoulder had almost completely healed now. Danielle sat down and Rupert doctored up her wrist.

“So, now can we get back to dealing with the Mayor wanting to turn into a big scary demon thing?” Cordelia poked her head in and asked. She had arrived at some point, along with everyone else. “We’re pretty sure we figured out what kind of demon that the Mayor is going to turn into.”

“We’re listening,” Buffy said, now sitting next to Angel. He looked very much back to normal, well, normal for a blood-sucking fiend, anyway.

“We’ve been doing some more reading on the guy that Faith killed, Mr. Wirth, and it seems that he headed an expedition in Hawaii, digging in old lava beds near a dormant volcano.” Cordelia walked into the room, followed by Willow. “Willow looked him up on the internet.”

“I’m not fascinated yet,” Buffy said. She was practically cooing over Angel at the moment, but Danielle figured that she might be acting the same way if the person she cared most about almost died.

Willow shook her head. “He found something underneath. A body, buried by an eruption.” She handed Buffy a printed out sheet of paper. Danielle walked over to see the vague form of something very large, and probably very deadly. “Mr. Wirth thought that it might be some heretofore undiscovered dinosaur.”

Angel cleared his throat. “You guys think that it’s a demon?”

Rupert stood up. “Yes, that would be something that the Mayor would want to keep a secret. If it's the same kind of demon he's turning into and it's dead, it means that, well, he's only impervious to harm until the Ascension. In his demon form, he can be killed.”

“Great. So all we need is a million tons of burning lava,” Danielle said, sighing. “We're saved.” Her maudlin feelings were coming back full force if that was the only way to kill the guy.

“Well, it’s a start, anyway,” Angel commented.

“You know, I think I have another idea,” Rupert said, leaving the office and heading to one of the bookshelves. He pulled out a book after looking over the titles for a few minutes. The local villagers near the volcano site that Mr. Wirth worked on made reference to the legend of Ollokai.” He showed everyone the book, which was about Hawaiian legends. “Now that I’m thinking about it, it might be a bastardization of Olvikan.”

“Who's Olvikan?” Xander asked.

Wesley ran over to another bookshelf. “I know it's a demon, a very old one. We might have a picture.”

Danielle smiled. “It's a good thing no one ever wanted to check any of these books out, huh?” She looked over the bookshelf in what had to be the occult section. “There are kids out there that could do serious damage with any of these.”

“Yes, it was very convenient,” Rupert said. He flipped through the book as everyone gathered around to look at the picture. Buffy reached over and flipped open the picture, not once, but twice, like a centerfold.

Danielle’s eyes widened as Xander said, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

Why I've Been MIA

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:51:27 GMT

Hey everyone. I haven't meant to go missing for six odd months, but, well, things have been very busy in my life. I'm getting married on March 7th (yay!), and I'm finally graduating college at the end of February. Due to everything going on, it has kind of sapped my creative energy. I want to get back into writing, though, and hope that I will start making updates again very soon.

Sincerely,

Jess

Vacation 1/1

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:17:45 GMT

Title: Vacation
Author: lena7623
Rating: PG13
Genre: Comedy, little bit of drama, romance
Word Count: 4403
Character (Pairing): Cordelia/Wes
Disclaimer: Joss is God, and I am a lowly worshiper who writes fanfic. You guys know the drill.
Vacation 1/1

Pimping

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:21:19 GMT

Are you a fan of Cordelia Chase? Would you like to write a pairing with your favorite character and Cordelia Chase? Or, are you like me and can't turn down a good ficathon? Well, if you're any of the above, go to fall_for_cordy. Sign ups are until August 31, and, while they are only going for one month, there are still several available dates. I sign up for any random one that I see in hopes of branching out my writing. I have fun with these, plus my story for this one is already half done, so I figured I'd pimp this one a little bit.

"New Ideas" 3/?

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:49:03 GMT

Yeah, I know I should be working on my unfinished story for summer_of_giles</lj>, but instead I added another chapter to the story that I originally wrote for Every Slayer Needs a Watcher Ficathon for allthejellies</lj>way back when. Yeah, I know, major procrastinator right here. Hey, at least I'm working on something. I've been a busy chick lately, both with the writing and real life telling me that I am the suck at technology. What I would give for a typewriter to work over the internet. That would rock my freaking world, let me tell you.

I babble. Here's my story.

Title: "New Ideas” 3/?
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse
Warnings: Hmm…a little language. Dirty thoughts. Not too much badness going on.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: After spending a lot of extra times with Giles for the first time in a while, Buffy realizes just how much her feelings for him have changed. The story starts just after Season 5, Episode 1 “Buffy VS. Dracula” but Riley left Buffy over the summer and Dawn doesn’t appear out of nowhere.
Beta'd by: This is just me. If you catch something, let me know. Also, if you'd like to beta it for me, let me know. You can check out earlier chapters by clicking 'new ideas' on my tags.

“And he asked you out during the middle of a battle?” Willow asked, sounding giddy even though it was about three in the morning. Giles had dropped Buffy back off at her dorm after they had went through a few more cemeteries, but Buffy could hardly concentrate on vampires and demons anymore. She had a date with Giles!!

“Yeah, he totally did. Can you believe it?” Buffy sighed and laid back onto Willow and Tara’s bed. She had knocked on their door to wake the two of them up again, but they had actually been expecting it this time and were waiting up for her. Willow knew that Buffy went out patrolling with Giles nearly every night, and Buffy could only surmise that Willow was expecting Buffy to either get a date or possibly, but certainly not likely, get her heart broken. Either way, Willow was awake, and now Buffy could share her joy with her.

Tara, who had went briefly down to the kitchen in the common area, brought in three steaming mugs of tea for them to drink. She walked in through the door and set the tray down onto the bed, picking up a mug for herself and sitting down next to Willow on the bed.

“Thanks, Tara,” Buffy said, grabbing a mug for herself and taking a sip. Tara had picked a raspberry flavored tea, Buffy realized with a grin. She found it to be very tasty.

“I told you, already. He’s got it for you, probably as bad as you’ve got it for him.” Willow took a sip of her tea and giggled. “I told you that I’m right about these things.” She set her mug aside for a moment. “Ooh! You should get him to sing for you!”

“Yes, he sings The Who excellently,” Tara added.

Buffy had heard about the adventure that had led to everyone finding Giles in the coffee shop singing his heart out with a guitar. Tara, Willow, and Anya had commented about how sexy it was, and Buffy had just brushed the thought of Giles being sexy aside at the time, although now she was kicking herself over doing that. Maybe she would have saved herself a bit of heartache with Riley if she had. He didn’t cause too much, but even what he had caused had hurt like hell.

Of course, now all Buffy wanted to do was to nag him to death until he would sing for her. She didn’t think that would work too well, however. Before she could think of a way to convince him to sing for her, another troubling thought had appeared in her head.

“Oh god, what am I going to wear?” she asked with real panic in her voice.

Willow giggled. “I’m sure that we’ll find you something suitable to wear for a dinner date.”

*****

Luckily for Buffy, the next day was a Saturday. That meant that she could sleep in a little in the morning and not have to suffer through classes, all the while only thinking of Giles. Willow had shooed her out of the room with promises of helping her pick out an outfit last night, and Buffy woke up to the sound of gentle knocking on her door.

Buffy grumbled, but got up out of the bed and answered the door. “Wow, you slept hard,” Willow said, looking Buffy up and down.

Buffy took a glance in the mirror on her dresser, seeing that her hair was sticking up and her sushi pajamas were twisted and rumpled. She grinned and nodded. “It was kind of a late night.”

“When is it not a late night for you?” Willow walked past Buffy and headed straight to her closet. She opened the door to it and started to look through it. “You should probably wear something dressy but not too dressy. Do you know where he’s taking you?”

Buffy shook her head. “When did you get so knowledgeable about first date attire?”

Willow looked over her shoulder at Buffy and smiled. “I think I learned it from you, actually. That or maybe it’s just innate girl knowledge.” She looked back at the closet. “Do you have anything that he hasn’t seen you in before? You shouldn’t wear something old and known to a first date.”

Buffy walked up to the closet and, after shuffling through it for a few moments, pulled out a light blue strapless dress. “I just bought this the other day,” Buffy said, holding it up to her body so that Willow would get an idea of how it might look on her. “Is this ok?”

“Yeah, I think that will work perfectly,” Willow said, taking the dress from her and setting it on the bed. “Now, please go take a shower so that your hair isn’t sticking up straight off of your head.”

“It’s not sticking ‘straight’ up,” Buffy mumbled, but still grabbed her shower stuff and headed out to the bathroom. After getting herself presentable, and dealing with the ‘ick’ factor of discovering vampire dust in her hair, she came back to find Willow rummaging through her shoes.

When Buffy loudly cleared her throat, Willow looked up with a grin. “I was trying to find you some shoes. I was thinking something with a chunky heel, but summery. Ooh, cork-heel!” Willow held up Buffy’s cork heels with the ankle strap as if she was Indiana Jones discovering an ancient artifact. “This will do.”

“Once again, I must ask where you suddenly got the fashion sense. Didn’t this used to go the other way around?” Buffy eyed her friend quizzically.

“Ok, I admit it. I started reading Cosmo in high school. A girl’s gotta get her facts from somewhere, right?” Willow giggled, looking a little sheepish. “I know I said that maybe it was innate girl knowledge, but apparently I was born without that gene. I have to learn all of mine.”

Buffy smiled and rolled her eyes. “Alright, your secret is safe with me.” She unwrapped her hair from the towel on her head. “So, do you really think that this is a good idea? I mean, yeah, I have recently been converted to the Giles is Hot fan club, but is this really a good idea? Me and Giles? Slayer and Watcher, together?” Buffy sat down on her bed, still wrapped up in the other towel.

Willow sat down beside her, the cork-shoes still in her hands. “I think it’s a great idea, actually. The both of you deserve to be happy. You make each other happy. I’ve seen how you two look at each other when you think that no one else is looking. You’re made for each other.” She smirked a little. “Besides, in high school, I took plenty of peeks at some older Watcher’s diaries, and it seems that it happened more often than it didn’t.”

Buffy gasped, not needed to ask just exactly what that ‘it’ was. “Are you serious?” Willow nodded, and Buffy squealed. “No wonder he wouldn’t let us read those things!”

“Well, I’m sure that there were other reasons, but that was more than likely one of the reasons. Think of it this way, though. Usually, according to those diaries, Watcher’s and Slayers lived together, either as a guardian/ward relationship or…as whatever. In some of the older ones, they usually married the Slayer off to the Watcher so that people wouldn’t ask too many questions, but that was like, way long ago in the middle ages. Still, when two people are spending so much time together, sparkage is bound to happen.” Willow was practically a little Giles with her sometimes long-winded explanations, at least in Buffy’s opinion.

“Okay, it’s a little weird to marry a young teenager off to a Watcher, but even that I can buy for the period. Didn’t they like to marry girls off at like, thirteen?” For Buffy to think of anyone being married at thirteen was a little on the icky side, but that was apparently how things were done back then, at least according to her World History class.

Willow nodded. “Yeah, they usually did. Luckily, we’ve grown as a species since then.” She smiled. “Like how being gay is more okay now, which I am all for.”

“Of course,” Buffy said, smiling back at her. “Well, now all I’ve got to do is get ready.”

“Did Giles say where he was taking you?” Willow asked.

“No, he said that it was going to be a surprise.” Buffy couldn’t wait to see what Giles had up his sleeve. “I just know that he’s going to be picking me up here at seven.”

“And you get to ride around in the new hot convertible car! How awesome is that?”

*****

Buffy walked outside at six fifty-five, ready for her date with Giles. He pulled up at seven o’clock on the dot, and Buffy hopped into his car. “You look lovely tonight,” Giles told her with a shy smile.

Willow had obviously made the right choice with the dress. “Thanks,” Buffy said with a grin. Willow was definitely getting a big present after tonight for picking out this dress. “So, where are we heading tonight?”

“It’s supposed to be a surprise,” Giles said, taking the car out of park and driving away from Buffy’s dorm. “It wouldn’t exactly be a surprise if I told you now, would it?”

Buffy considered pouting, knowing that it usually helped her to get her way, but she figured that they would be there soon enough. “No, I guess that it wouldn’t.” She relaxed back into the car seat, intent upon waiting this out until they got there.

This lasted for exactly thirty seconds. “So, can I have a hint?” Buffy asked, smiling sweetly.

Giles didn’t take his eyes off the road, but she saw him smile. “Good things come to those who wait.”

“You’re enjoying making me wait, aren’t you?” Buffy asked him, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling back at him. He looked so handsome when he smiled.

“Immensely,” he retorted. Buffy scoffed at him, but laughed just the same. “Alright, I’ll give you one hint. What’s your favorite food?”

Buffy thought for a second. She had never said what her favorite food was. Even though she was skinny, she loved all food on principle that it all tasted good to her. Then it hit her in the head: she had proclaimed her love of Japanese food once when Willow brought over some sushi to the library in high school. “You found a Japanese restaurant?”

“You would be amazed at how many different places there are to eat here in Sunnydale,” Giles told her.

Even though he had now told her what type of food they would be eating, Buffy still had a lot to be amazed by. First off, that Sunnydale had its own Japanese restaurant. Secondly, that Giles would even eat sushi, much less take her out to a restaurant. “I’m surprised that you even like sushi. Most people are icked out by the thought of raw fish.”

“Not all sushi is made of raw fish, Buffy. There are many different types,” Giles said. He made a turn and suddenly they were pulling up to a restaurant called ‘Shoguns.’ “Some of it is cooked. I happen to like sushi.”

“Well, you really do learn something new every day,” Buffy said. “I’d like to learn a lot more about you.” Buffy had to admit that there was so much about Giles that she didn’t know, but now she was very interested in learning.

Giles cleared his throat and, once they were parked, pulled off his glasses for a moment to polish them. Buffy had learned over the years that one reason he polished his glasses was a stalling tactic to figure out what to say next. She could see him blushing a little, too. She made him blush!

Giles slipped his glasses back on. “Well, shall we?”

“I’d love to,” Buffy said, smiling at him. He got out of the car and, before she could open her own door, opened it up for her. Such a gentleman! This was beyond awesome.

"Butterflies" 1/1

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:40:24 GMT

I originally wrote this ficlet last year, but, for summer_of_giles, I revised it and added a bit to it. The story that I originally intended to post will hopefully be up for their 'post if you missed you day/didn't finish your stuff' day on the 31st. *Crosses fingers* Here's to hoping.

Title: "Butterflies" 1/1
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse
Word Count: 610
Warnings: Mention of Character Death and suicidal thoughts
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: Takes place b/w Season 5/6. The rest of the gang are helping Giles pack up his apartment after Buffy's death.

He wrapped each glass individually in newspaper, placing each one carefully in a box. He had always told himself that this day would one day come. One day Buffy could die, and he would have to leave and return to England. Knowing that this day would come did not help how he felt about this. He felt as though he had failed Buffy. He had failed her as a Watcher. He had tried to protect her from everything that could hurt her, and, as he had watched her throw herself from the top of that rusted pile of metal, he realized that there was one thing that he had neglected to protect her from: herself.

He knew that she was tired of living at point. He could see it. In this past year, she had lost both Riley and her mother, and both had been crushing blows to her. At the idea of losing her sister as well, she had jumped. Giles could see the allure of it, though, to just quit. In the ensuing summer, he had felt it several times himself. He knew what other Watchers had done once their Slayers were gone, why their journals ended so abruptly. They had followed that pull.

Now he was following another pull: to be alone. He couldn’t stand to be in Sunnydale anymore. He couldn’t take how everything and everyone reminded him of her. Every time he saw one of her friends, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking back to years gone by, of all of the children laughing together in the library. When he saw Dawn, he could feel the hate growing inside of himself. Despite what he knew to be true, he blamed Buffy’s death on her just as much as if Dawn had pushed her over herself. Buffy did it to save Dawn from doing it herself. When he walked around town in patrols, every place made him think of Buffy: the remains of the high school, the coffee shops, even the graveyards seemed to have a lingering essence of Buffy. Even his own home still smelled of her perfume.

Giles couldn’t handle this, anymore. He’d break if one more thing reminded him too much of Buffy.

“Are you sure about this?”

Giles had forgotten that Xander was even there. He remembered that Tara and Willow were packing up his books in the other room as well.

“Yes….yes, I do believe that this is the right thing to do.” Giles taped up the box of glasses that he had just packed, even though it wasn’t quite full just yet. He had noticed that something was out of place.

“Giles, is everything ok?” Xander asked. Giles didn’t seem to hear him as he walked to the kitchen counter, where a small barrette was sitting.

Buffy had worn it over last winter. It was a butterfly-shaped barrette with rhinestones on it. He had always thought that these things detracted from her natural beauty, especially with all of the glitter. She didn’t need things like that, but she wore them anyway. After a night of patrolling, she had stopped by here on her way home. She had removed it from her hair while she “raided the fridge.”

He picked it up, twisting it around in his hands. He remembered watching as her silky blond tresses tumbled out of the barrette, and how she tossed it onto the counter carelessly, quickly forgetting about its existence as she told him about her patrol for the evening while she made herself something to eat.

“Giles?” He felt Xander’s hand on his shoulder.

Giles let his head hang down as he started to cry.

Live Again 1/1

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:45:44 GMT

Title: Live Again
Author: </a></b></a></div>lena7623
Pairings, Characters: Spike/Cordelia
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2136
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: After Buffy dies, Spike accompanies Dawn to Los Angeles when she goes off to live with her father.
A/N : One of the several pairings that I could work with for the "Love is Everywhere" Fest. I had a tone of fun writing what I could. Hope you guys enjoy them. Please ignore my lack of suitable icons for this. I don't usually write for these characters and have nothing on backup.

Coming back to find out that Buffy had died in some apocalyptic battle had been shocking. Sure, Cordelia had only been able barely to tolerate Buffy at the best of times, but she had always figured that the Slayer would always be there, hanging around Sunnydale and fighting vampires because that was just what she did. Cordelia had been saddened by the death, but she knew that the world wouldn’t stop because of the loss.

Angel was another story, however. He looked devastated when Willow broke the news. He went up to his room and didn’t speak to anyone for days. Finally, Cordelia couldn’t take it anymore and went up to his room a few days after Willow left to check on him, only to find the place empty except for a note saying that Angel had left to go and find himself. So that kind of left Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, and even crazy!Fred in a bind. They still had Angel Investigations to run! They couldn’t just shut the business down while Angel went off on a trip of self-exploration.

So, they kept the business going and kept taking cases. It was kind of like when Cordelia, Gunn, and Wesley had been on their own before Angel got his epiphany, but now they had a nutty taco lady as their barely seen sidekick. Hopefully, this time, nothing would try to implant its spawn inside of her head and leave her with and ugly bald spot.

Suddenly, as if Cordelia had sent out a homing beacon for him, Angel breezed through the front door as if he had never been gone. “Angel!” she called out, rushing to him and giving him a hug. “When did you get back?”

“Just now. I spent the past few weeks on a ship getting back, actually,” Angel said, hugging her for a second and then pulling back. “How’s business been?”

“Busy, as usual. We’ve been keeping up with everything while you’ve been gone.” Cordelia smiled brightly at him. “Gunn and Wesley are out on a case right now.” She was getting good at that homing beacon thing, because the two of them walked through the door, covered in what appeared to be purple slime. “And now they are back and tracking…very gross stuff on the floor that I just waxed yesterday! Ew!”

“Not even a ‘hi, how are you’?” Wesley asked, setting his axe down in the box that they had set aside for weapons that needed to be cleaned. “We could have life threatening injuries and you’re complaining about what we’re tracking in.”

“If you had life threatening injuries, you wouldn’t be able complain about my complaining,” Cordelia shot back. “Now please go away and change so that you aren’t also dripping on my floors.”

“Didn’t realize that they were your floors,” Gunn said as the two of them headed upstairs to more than likely shower and change into spare clothes that everyone kept here for such occasions.

“They’re mine if I have to clean them,” Cordelia said with a huff. She turned back to Angel to see him grinning. “And just what are you smiling about, mister?”

“You’re just a little den mother, aren’t you?” Angel shook his head with a grin. “I’ve missed all of you, you know? I never should have taken off.”

“Well, I could have told you that, Angel.” Cordelia spotted a couple of bags sitting behind him. He must have set them down as he walked in. “Ooh, did you get me a souvenir?”

“Maybe, but I thought that we’d all go out first, have some fun at Caritas, maybe?” Angel asked.

“Wait, did you just talk about yourself and fun in the same sentence?” Cordelia laughed. “Maybe that trip did you some good. Sounds like a blast, though.” She ran up the stairs to inform everyone else that Angel had suggested a night of fun, which had to mean either a terminal vampire disease or an imminent apocalypse.

*****

Spike was going to keep his promise to the Slayer, even if it killed him. Dawn decided that she wanted to live with her father after everything had settled, and Spike followed her out to LA. Dawn told him that she couldn’t stand being in the old house anymore. Everyone helped pack it up and Dawn’s father had it put up for sale. Since he had missed Joyce’s death and subsequent funeral, Hank Summers was treating his remaining daughter like a queen, and he was basically allowing her to do anything that she desired.

It was Spike that was keeping her on a leash. Hank bought the idea that Spike was a friend of Buffy and Dawn’s and he seemed okay with Spike and Dawn hanging around LA together. Hank appeared to be happy that someone could make Dawn do her homework and kept her out of serious trouble. It was strange to Spike that Hank was so tolerate of everything, but the man seemed to willing to understand anything as long as he got to spend time with his one remaining daughter.

Spike had heard of a club in the city that let demons in without questions. It was neutral ground, and it even had a spell to reinforce that. It also had karaoke, and, as soon as Dawn heard that, she wanted to go. Even though Spike taking Dawn to a club would cause poor Buffy to spin in her grave, he couldn’t turn Dawn down. Besides, he’d be there to watch her, and it wasn’t like anyone could hurt her there anyway.

Caritas was full of all kinds of demons, some of which Spike couldn’t even identify. He watched as Dawn’s eyes lit up at the scene. “Don’t act too giddy,” Spike warned her. “Don’t talk to anyone without me being there right beside you, got it?”

“Alright, I get you,” Dawn said with minimal pouting. “Can I get a drink?”

“Only a soda,” Spike replied. Dawn pouted. “Your sister would rise from her grave if I let her teenage sister drink alcohol in a bar, so don’t even try that.” With a sigh, Dawn stopped pouting and made her way to the bar. Spike followed directly behind her, sitting at the bar beside her when she sat down.

The man behind the bar waltzed right up to them. “Welcome to Caritas!” he shouted over what appeared to be a Chaos Demon screeching his way through ‘Wind Beneath My Wings.’ “I’m the Host and, by the look on the young lady’s face, I can tell that you’re new here. This is a haven and oasis for one and all, which is why your young friend here was able to get in at all. What are your names, cupcakes?”

“I’m Dawn, and this is Spike,” Dawn said, gesturing to Spike with her thumb. “Why is the guy with the antlers butchering a Bette Midler song, and I never thought that I could say that someone would do worse that Bette Midler.”

“Bette has her good points, even if her song selection can be a little shoddy,” the Host said with a grin. “I’m able to read people when they open themselves up and sing in front of me. I can see their futures and set them on their paths. Want me to do a reading for you two?”

“Sure!” Dawn exclaimed before Spike could even think to object. He wasn’t one for knowing futures. It just didn’t seem right to him, personally. Still, if Dawn wanted to sing and play with the fortune teller, then so be it. He’d just tell the guy to keep his own future secret and tell Dawn something pretty.

The fortune teller handed Dawn a book of songs that she could sing and, soon enough, he was convinced to get up on stage and sing “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher with Dawn. He was positive that Buffy was looking down from heaven right now, laughing her ass off at the two of them. Dawn, even with all the enthusiasm that she put forth, sounded more like a screeching cat than a person singing and, while Spike could sing, he was no opera singer himself. Spike was fairly certain that now he had lost any ability to terrify anyone, human or demon, because he had let the Bit talk him into singing Sonny and Cher in front of others.

“You must really love that kid,” the Host said as they came off stage. “You don’t exactly look the type to be a fan of Cher, if you know what I mean.”

“Not a bit,” Spike told him. “So, you gonna tell Dawn her fortune or not?”

The Host wasn’t quite looking at the two of them, but was instead looking toward the doorway. “I don’t need to. Your futures just walked inside the door.”

Spike turned around and, once he saw who first billowed inside, groaned. “Oh no, not that pounce!” Spike had known that Angel and his crew lived and worked in LA. Hell, before he was chipped, he came by looking for the Ring of Amara, although the crew that Angel had back then didn’t look much like the one that came walking through the door tonight. Instead of the half-breed, it was the Watcher, a man who looked like he had just walked out of a gang, and…a much more grown up looking Cordelia. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad.

“Spike,” Angel growled. “Just what the hell do you think that you’re doing here, and why is Buffy’s little sister in a club?”

“Having a drink, singing some Cher, just enjoying the night, yeah?” As annoying as he was, it was so much more fun to torment Angel. “It’s a free country.”

“I can be anywhere that I want,” Dawn said. “I made Spike bring me here. He’s my guardian…well, technically, my dad’s my guardian, but Spike looks after me.”

Cordelia looked over the two of them sitting at the bar. Dawn had grown up a lot since she had last seen her, but Dawn had barely been out of elementary school when she last saw her. Luckily, for her sanity, Cordelia could see that Dawn was cradling a soda in her hands. She didn’t figure that Lorne would serve her alcohol in the coke, so she felt alright. Even though, during one of her random conversations with Willow, she had heard that Spike was now one of the good guys, it was still really weird to see him with his arm protectively around Dawn’s shoulders. It was kind of sweet, though.

Angel was still getting in a twist over Spike being in the same zip code as him, though. “Why are you two here, though? I thought that Dawn lived in Sunnydale.”

“I moved in with my dad this summer, and Spike came with me,” Dawn told him. “He said that he did it because he wanted to keep an eye on me, but I think that it is because…” She didn’t get to finish because Spike covered her mouth with his hand.

“It’s not nice to be telling secrets, Bit,” Spike muttered in her ear before standing up. “We’re here now, so you’re just going to have to learn to share this fine city.”

Angel looked as if he was going to say something else, possibly something in the negative, but Lorne interrupted. “Look, kids, you’re all on the same side of things. Now, why don’t the lot of you try to play like good kids and share the playground?”

Angel continued to glare at Spike, and all that Spike could do was grin at him back some more. Maybe being stuck with Captain Forehead wouldn’t be all that bad. He always could stir him up into a tizzy so easily. He walked right past Angel for the moment, though, and to Cordelia. “So, can I buy the lovely Miss Chase a drink?”

Despite herself, and the daggers that Angel was glaring into Spike’s back, Cordelia said, “Sure, a Cosmopolitan.”

Dawn leaned over the bar a little as Lorne starting making up the drink. “So, what did you see for our futures?” she asked him.

Lorne smiled. “I’ll tell you yours in a bit, but, for Mr. Blondie over there, I saw her.” He pointed right at Cordelia. “He does need someone to mend up his heart.”

Dawn nodded. That had been what she was going to say before Spike covered up her mouth. She missed her sister, she really did, but Spike was still alive, and Dawn figured that what Buffy would really want him to do now was live and enjoy the time that he has left on this world. She had wanted all of them to live for her. Hopefully now, with this new start, they would.

Grieving 1/1

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:43:04 GMT

Title: Grieving
Author: </a></b></a>lena7623
Pairings, Characters: Giles and Illyria
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 829
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: After the events of "Not Fade Away," Illyria goes to Giles.
A/N : One of the several pairings that I could work with for the "Love is Everywhere" Fest. I had a tone of fun writing what I could. Hope you guys enjoy them.

Giles was sitting in his den, reading a book. It was supposed to be a quiet evening, just like the evening before it. He had recently retired from active duty as a Watcher. He still went in during the day to the new headquarters of the Council to help train the younger generation of Watchers, but he no longer had a Slayer under his direct guidance. Buffy would always be his Slayer, but she didn’t need any real guidance, anymore. He was proud to be able to say that, that he had trained her enough so that she could stand on her own now. The two of them met at least once a week for lunch or dinner, but now they usually met as friends and equals instead of Watcher and Slayer or teacher and student. He liked the new arrangement, and Buffy seemed to as well.

When he heard a knock at his door, he was surprised. If anyone needed him, which was rare, they would call him first. He was even more surprised when he opened the door, only to find, instead of anyone that he knew, a blue woman standing on his doorstep, shivering and bloody. “I was told to look for Rupert Giles. He told me to find Rupert Giles if things went wrong.”

“I’m Rupert Giles,” he said, stunned by her appearance. “Who told you to find me? What went wrong? Who are you?” A lot of questions to throw at a woman who had more than likely been in a fight, but this was a great shock, to have a woman just show up at his home, much less a blue one.

She didn’t answer him at first, instead just brushing past him and walking into his home. “No one recognizes me in this time, but once all would have trembled before me.” Giles through that she might be in shock. “I am Illyria.”

Suddenly his memory kicked in: Wesley calling him, telling him what was happening to Fred, and Giles being unable to help him with it. Willow wasn’t even on this plane at the time, so he couldn’t offer her help. Wesley, desperate at the time, had taken it the wrong way. Of course they had all been wary when they found out that Angel and the rest of them signed up to work for Wolfram & Hart, but they didn’t necessarily think of the lot of them as going completely evil.

“Wesley told me to find Rupert Giles in England if the battle went badly,” Illyria told him, sitting down in a chair. Giles grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her, and she allowed this without acknowledging it. “We were supposed to strike a blow to the Senior Partners. I knew that this was a foolhardy exploit, but I believe that the half-breed wanted to make himself a martyr. I think that they all did.”

Giles paused. He had been looking around for his first aid kit while listening to her talk. “Are you telling me that they are all gone?”

“All of them. Angel and Spike are ash. Angel fell to a dragon and Spike was taken by a troll. Gunn fell to the group of vampires that surrounded him as he fought bravely. Wesley…” She paused, as if getting choked up. “He was murdered by Vail.” Giles could hear the emotion in her voice as she talked about Wesley that was missing from the others.

“May I?” Giles gestured to the first aid kit that he finally found and, with a nod, Illyria moved the blanket so that he could start to tend to her many wounds.

“Wesley did this for me earlier,” Illyria said as Giles started to clean a large gash on her shoulder. “He told me that there was nowhere else that he’d rather be. He spent his last hours with me.”

Giles stayed silent as he tended to her many wounds. If she were anything less than the living god that she is, she wouldn’t be alive. He also listened to her as she talked, mostly about Wesley. If he didn’t know any better, and he wouldn’t be so foolhardy as to suggest it, he would think that Illyria, the god who once made millions quake, was in love with Wesley. He could tell that she was starting the grieving process, though.

“He was my guide in this world. He was the one who was teaching me about it.” Illyria looked at him and, for a second, he forgot that she was older than he could even calculate, that she had considered humans to be beneath her. All he could focus on was her blue eyes. “Will you be my guide now?”

Who knew what she would think tomorrow? Her grief might be clouding her judgment. For that matter, who knew what he would think? What would Buffy and the others say about her? Still, he couldn’t turn her down. “Yes, I will.”

New Family 1/1

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:40:49 GMT

Title: New Family
Author: </a></b></a></div>lena7623
Pairings, Characters: Knox and a surprise
Rating: R
Word Count: 590
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: Knox leaves after a night of work to discover someone waiting on him.
A/N : IOne of the several pairings that I could work with for the "Love is Everywhere" Fest at good_evil. I had a tone of fun writing what I could. Hope you guys enjoy them. Please ignore my lack of suitable icons for this. I don't usually write for these characters and have nothing on backup.

It had been a long night in the Science division, and Knox was making his way to his car in the parking garage. Fred had turned him down for a date recently, and he was using work as a way to deal with his pain. He was starting really to like her, and, instead of choosing him, she chose the head of the Research division, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Knox was starting to contemplate requesting for a transfer to a different branch. That might help make him feel a better, a fresh start. Fred had been so promising, though. He was starting to draft his request in his head when he heard a giggle.

The parking garage was almost devoid of cars, so it did not make sense for someone to be roaming around the garage, giggling. At first, he just chalked it up to lack of sleep, until he heard it again. “Hello?” he called out. “Is anyone there?”

The giggle had sounded far off, which is why he jumped when he heard the breathy voice whisper in his ear, “I’m right here,” from behind him. He turned around to see who it was, and the person who appeared before him…was Fred.

“Fred? What are you doing here so late at night?” She had not been in the labs when he left, so why was she here? Was she meeting her new boyfriend?

Fred smiled at him. Somehow, she looked different from normal, but he could not put his finger on why. “I’m here to see you, lovely boy.”

Knox stared at her for a moment. “What do you need? Is there something in the lab that you need help with?” Not that Fred ever needed help. She was so smart and pretty; she could handle anything that came in front of her.

Fred kept smiling at him and shook her head. “No, I wanted to see you.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips.

Knox jumped back after a moment, startled. “I…I thought that you didn’t…” He trailed off, surprised at her kiss.

Fred giggled. “No, sweet boy, only you.” She leaned forward again to kiss him and, this time, he did not pull away. She kissed his lips for only a few moments, and then started to make a trail of kisses across the side of his face and down his neck. He was just about to suggest going to a more private place than the parking garage when he felt a sharp pain at his neck.

Fred’s arm snaked around his waist, pulling him tightly to her and preventing him from getting away. He could hear her…feel her drinking his blood. Did Fred get bitten by a vampire when she left from the labs earlier? Did she go out with someone after work and take a dance with the wrong guy? He started to ask her, but the question died on his lips when she pulled away from his neck and, in the now quickly darkening garage, he could see that it was not Fred at all, but a lovely brunette woman in an antiquated white Victorian dress of lace. “But…you were Fred.”

“I wear many masks,” the woman said, now with a clear British accent coming out. “Everyone took my family away, so I’ve decided to create a new one. You can induct the Texan into our family tomorrow night if you’d like, though.” She laughed and took out a knife, slitting open a vein on her wrist. “Drink from Mummy, and live forever.”

Sister to Play With 1/1

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:36:25 GMT

Title: Sister to Play With
Author: </a></b></a>lena7623
Pairings, Characters: Drusilla, Wesley, and Cordelia
Rating: R
Word Count: 589
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: Drusilla creates a new family after everyone destroys her old one.
A/N : One of the several pairings that I could work with for the "Love is Everywhere" Fest for good_evil. I had a tone of fun writing what I could. Hope you guys enjoy them. *Yes, I was very busy with these.*

Wesley woke up in his own bed, even though the last thing that he remembered doing. He looked at the foot of his bed, and saw Drusilla sitting there, and the memory of the night hit him. The last thing that he remembered was being out on a mission with Gunn. They were following a lead on a case when Drusilla had gotten the both of them from behind. He did not remember what had happened to Gunn, but now he felt ravenous, and kind of wished that Gunn was around, so that he could feed on him.

Drusilla smiled at him. “Is my new son hungry?” Wesley nodded, already feeling his face changing and his fangs coming out. “I brought my new little boy a present.” She left the room for a second and, from the other room, Wesley could hear someone struggling against ropes. He could hear her (and he could tell that it was a woman) panting through her gag, struggling to get free. A moment later, Drusilla returned, dropping a woman onto his bed.

The woman turned to look at him, and Wesley could see that it was Cordelia, sweet Cordelia. “Do you like the present that Mummy brought you?”

Wesley nodded, pulling the gag off out of Cordelia’s mouth. “Wes, please don’t do this,” Cordelia begged. “We can fix this. We’ll make it work; just please don’t do this.” He could see the tears falling down her beautiful cheeks and leaned down to lap some of them up.

He looked back up when he heard Drusilla clap, seeing her smiling at him. “I think I found me a good son,” she said to him, and he could not help but lap up the praise. It was more than he had ever gotten from his own parents. “Angel and Buffy took away my family. Buffy took Spike and Angel burned Darla and I. I decided to make a new family from his new one.”

Drusilla reached over and stroked Wesley’s hair. “Now eat up, so that you’ll grow up and be strong. Once you’re done, we’ll have to get daughter something to eat.”

Cordelia seemed to realize what was in store for her. She started to struggle as Wesley pulled her into his lap. “No Wes don’t!” she screamed, only it was too late because, as soon as she said ‘don’t,’ Wesley sunk his teeth deep into her throat. He tried to drink from her slowly, so that he could savor it. She tasted better than the finest wine that he had ever had. Nothing compared to the taste of blood as it slid over his tongue and down his throat. She struggled, but soon she went limp. Wesley could hear Cordelia’s heat beat as it slowed to a crawl. It was the greatest symphony that he had ever heard.

Drusilla tapped him on the shoulder, and Wesley pulled away from Cordelia. “Now let me just feed her the medicine to make her all better.” She opened her wrist and put it to Cordelia’s mouth. Wesley watched in fascination as Cordelia started to suckle at the wrist, and he listened as Cordelia’s heartbeat slowed even further until it finally stopped. “Now we’ve just got to wait for your sister to wake up. Does my favorite little boy want a sister?”

Wesley nodded eagerly. He hugged Cordelia to his chest, not noticing as Drusilla cut the bindings away. Now he could truly have the family that he had always wanted, with a mother who loved him and, soon enough, a little sister to play with.

"Old Slayer" 11/?

Sun, 18 May 2008 19:18:54 GMT

Title: "Old Slayer" 11/?
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse, Original characters
Warnings: Violence, Language
Rating: R, just in case
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is God, and I'm just a lowly worshipper. None of this is mine...blah, blah, blah.
Summary: AU. In the show, Buffy was the first to have been brought back from the dead. What if she wasn't? And what if Giles had a slayer previous to Buffy. This takes place during the last 4 ep. of Season Three, when Giles calls for some old help from an old friend.
Beta'd by: Guardian_erin is a life saver with this story. She seems to understand that I'm a rambler and reminds me that people like shorter sentences. I swear that I didn't mean to make Baby Jesus cry!! Also, she showed me that listening to "Feel Like Making Love," during the last part of this chapter is both fitting and hilarious. Just try it.

“They’re bigger? Well, that’s fantastic.” Sure, Danielle knew that she was being the pessimist again, but how could she help it? “We were expecting big. Exactly how big are we talking here? Are we talking, say, house big, dragon big, or more like ‘don’t even bother, we’re all gonna die’ big?”

“The last one,” Anya replied in a matter of fact tone. “What are the rituals being used? Maybe I can help you pick out what demon it is.”

“Well, the Mayor needed something called the Box of…Grav-locks?” From what Danielle could tell, Buffy could not remember how to pronounce anything.

“It’s Gavrock, Buffy. It’s a box with an infinite amount of spiders that are the size of most dinner plates that the Mayor needs to eat.” Danielle looked over to see Wesley standing in the doorway. He must have been one of the several people that Rupert called when the ‘night off’ got ruined. Danielle could spot an unhappy Cordelia behind him, dressed up even more than usual. Could this have possibly interrupted a date between the Watcher Junior and Cordelia? If only Wesley was that interesting.

Everyone filed in and sat around the table as Anya retold her story. “However, the Box of Gavrock doesn’t ring a bell. It must be a different demon than Lo-Hash.”

“Well, there must be something that you can remember that would be useful,” Buffy snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

Before Anya could say anything else, Danielle heard the library doors opening again. Thinking that it might be Angel, Danielle looked up, only to have her heart jump up through her throat, out of her mouth to escape, and go running for its little life. It was the Mayor coming through the door, with the same creepy smile plastered on his face. If Danielle did not know any better, she would think that it was tattooed on his face.

“So, this is the inner sanctum.” Everyone at once pulled away from the Mayor’s presence. Danielle caught Buffy moving the newspaper with the professor’s murder on the front page, taking it off of the table and putting it behind her back. “Faith tells me this is where you folks like to hang out, concoct your little schemes. I tell you, it is just nice to see that some young people are still interested in reading in this modern era. So, what are kids reading nowadays?”

Buffy made another grab for one of the books that Danielle had been reading, but the Mayor beat her to it. He opened it up to where Danielle had been reading and started to recite the words out loud. "‘The beast will walk upon the earth and darkness will follow. The several races of man will be as one in their terror and destruction.’ Aw, that is kind of sweet. Different races coming together.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “You never even get a little tired of hearing yourself speak, do you?”

The Mayor chuckled. “That’s one spunky little girl you’ve raised.” He looked Rupert directly in the eye. “I’m going to eat her.”

It was only after the shots rang out that Danielle realized that she had drawn her gun and fired three shots into the Mayor’s chest. She watched as the Mayor staggered back, and then regained his balance. “Whoa! Well now, that was a little thoughtless.” He looked down and watched as the three bullets pushed themselves out of his chest. He bent down and picked up the bullets, putting them in his pocket. “You’re an officer of the law. You of all people should be setting a better example for all of these private citizens than just going around and willy-nilly shooting people, Officer Smyth.”

Danielle just glared at him. “That’s Detective Smyth to you.” She kept her firearm raised, ready to fire again. She knew that it would not do more than knock him back, but that would be enough to give them time to get out of there if it was necessary. “Now get the fuck out before I check and see if I can shoot fast enough to take your head off. I’m sure it would be an interesting study to see how long it would take for it to grow back.”

The Mayor just smiled again and took a deep breath. “I smell fear. That is smart. Some of your deaths will be quick, if that’s worth anything.”

“I believe she said to get the fuck out,” Rupert said from beside her.

The Mayor turned to start to leave. “Well, see you at graduation.” He stopped at the door, but did not turn around as he continued to speak. “You don’t want to miss my commencement address. It’s going to be one heck of a speech.”

Danielle did not lower her weapon until she could hear the door to the front of the school open and close, taking the now whistling Mayor out with it. “That man is far too happy-go-lucky for his own good,” Danielle said as she re-sheathed her weapon.

“That was really cool,” Xander said from behind her.

“Look, I’ve told you guys all that I know. I know that I don’t want to be in town for graduation when the Mayor starts to get all ‘people-eater,’ so...can I go now?” Anya was already inching her way to the door.

“Go ahead and get out of here,” Buffy said. Anya did not need to be told twice, running for the door and clearing out of there.

“Well, there goes my date,” Xander said with a sigh. “But still, that was really cool.” He headed out, seemingly to try and calm her down.

“That was also incredibly reckless,” Wesley said, walking around her and coming out so that he was standing in front of everyone. “You could have accidently shot someone or the Mayor might try and cause trouble for us now.”

“The Mayor has bigger problems than one lady cop who lost her temper in a fit of protectiveness,” Buffy said to him. “He’s thinking more about his Ascension. He doesn’t really have the time to meddle with us.”

“And I’ve been on the force for almost ten years, Mr. Pryce,” Danielle snapped. “I greatly resent the fact that you think that my shooting is so terrible after all of that training that I might unintentionally hurt someone. I only shoot the people I mean to shoot.” One good way to piss off any cop is to tell them that their shooting skills suck.

“There’s nothing else that we can do tonight, I don’t believe.” Rupert seemed to sense that it was starting to get volatile in here again. “Go home, and try to not think about this so much. We can regroup tomorrow.”

“Do you still think that I should go by the Professor’s house?” Buffy asked.

“If Angel is going to go with you, then you should go ahead and go tonight. If you’re going by yourself, then I suggest that you wait until tomorrow.” Rupert looked at her. “I don’t want you to go there by yourself at night when any vampire can enter that place after you.”

“I’ll call and let you know if we go tonight or not.” Buffy started to head out of the door.

“Call me at home. I don’t think that any of us should stay here anymore tonight,” Rupert said and Buffy was out the door. Everyone stared at him for a minute before he said, “I mean it this time. Go home.”

“Didn’t I already hear something about a night off once?” Cordelia asked. “I don’t want to go home and get comfortable only for you to change your mind again.”

Rupert shook his head in exasperation. “Sorry to disturb your evening of whatever it was that you were doing, but we had learned something important that might save your life on graduation. We thought that you would like to know about it.”

Cordelia sighed. “Well, thanks for the heads up. You promise that there will be no more interruptions, though?”

“Yes, Cordelia, I promise. Now go and enjoy your night.”

“Ok,” she said, turning to look at Wesley. “Can we finish our date now? I didn’t dress up just to be in the library all night.” Instead of listening to him stutter what Danielle knew would eventually lead to an affirmative answer, Cordelia just took him by the hand and lead him out of the room.

After they were gone, Danielle and Rupert were alone. “So, didn’t you mention something about getting the hell out of here?” Danielle asked him.

“Yes, let’s get out of here and try to not think about the Ascension any more tonight,” Rupert said to her.

“Do you think that’s possible? This thing is kind of hanging over our heads,” Danielle replied, not really believing that they could so easily put aside something as big as the Ascension.

He took her by her hand. “Let’s just get out of here and try to relax. We’ll see how it goes.” With a nod, she followed him out of the door. They left and by the time that they had reached his apartment, Buffy had already called. She left a message saying that she had gotten a hold of Angel and they were going to go over there together. They were going to see if they could find anything that would tell them what the professor knew so that the Mayor would send Faith over to take care of him.

“Well, it seems as if that will be taken care of.” Danielle watched as Rupert deleted the message on his answering machine. “So, are you hungry? We could order out. Sunnydale has a great Thai food restaurant. I remember Thai being your favorite.”

“It still is,” Danielle said with a smile. “I can’t believe that you remembered that after all of this time.” She settled in on the sofa as Rupert called and ordered food for them. It also appeared that he remembered exactly what her favorite dish was, because he ordered it for her without having to ask her what it was.

By the time that the food arrived, they were wrapped up in deep conversation that was a mixture of memories and different stories of what they had been doing for the past ten years.

“You know,” Danielle started as Rupert stood up and got the food at the door, “I kind of miss the earring that you used to have in your ear.” She remembered that he had worn an earring in one of his ears back in New York City, but he did not have it in anymore. If she looked hard enough, though, she could spot the old hole where the earring had been.

“I didn’t think that an earring matched the image of a librarian, so I stopped wearing it.” He went into the kitchen, and came out a few minutes later with some plates and silverware for them. “I seem to remember a certain hairstyle that included cotton-candy colored strands.”

Danielle started to fill a plate with food for her, smiling. “Yeah, well, a friend of mine told me that pink hair wouldn’t exactly get me accepted into the police academy, no matter how strong I was.” She took a few bites of her food. “Not that I really wanted to give up the glorious pink mane. I just wanted to make sure that I got hired.”

“That is very true.” He fixed his own plate, setting back and beginning to eat. “I guess that we both have images to keep up.”

“Are you going to continue being the librarian at the high school after Buffy graduates?” Danielle knew that he would stay wherever Buffy went, but working at the high school would no longer be necessary.

“I actually haven’t thought too much about it.” He turned to her and smiled. “I think that’s the first time in days that you haven’t put an ‘if’ before anything that is beyond graduation.”

“Huh…you’re right.” Of course, she was in a better mood than she had been in for days. That probably had a lot to do with it. “Who knows, maybe I’ll live past the day after tomorrow. I certainly hope so.”

They finished their meal in silence, but Danielle was thinking to herself. She knew why she was feeling so defeatist about her ability to survive this. Sure, she was a Slayer and could handle herself. Also, she had been a cop for ten years. She had been shot at. She had dealt with gang violence. Yet, she felt as if she were in over her head about this. It was not that she felt that the Mayor would not be defeated. She was pretty sure that she was going to die.

Danielle had been dealing with vampires and demons for over ten years. She had even averted an apocalypse or two in her time. Still, since moving to New Orleans, she had mostly been doing upkeep on the city. Nothing supernatural really happened there, other than a couple of vampires or demons from time to time. Sure, there was lots of voodoo, but most practitioners were not much of a problem for her. Hell, most of them did not actually cause any problems. They really kept to themselves. Danielle just felt like she was completely out of her range.

When they finished eating, she took the plates and went to the kitchen to wash them and to put the leftovers into the refrigerator. As she was washing one of the plates, she heard Rupert come into the kitchen. “You’re worried, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I keep having this bad feeling that I am going to die.” She did not turn around to face him as she spoke, instead continuing to wash the same plate. “I’ve never dealt with anything quite as daunting as a Mayor, with all the resources of both the town and the supernatural population, which is very large in Sunnydale, turning himself into a giant pure demon…whatever, and frankly, I’m terrified of what might happen next.” Suddenly, all she wanted to do was hurl the plate she was holding as hard as she could against the wall, but instead she calmly set it to dry in the dish drainer.

She turned around to face him. “I just…I worry, a lot. Not about anyone else’s abilities…” She paused for a moment. “Well, maybe Wesley’s abilities, but not yours or any of those kids or certainly not Buffy’s. It is my own abilities that I worry about. I am used to being the one with the bigger fighting power. It’s been a long time since I’ve dealt with anything close to this magnitude and I’m worried that maybe I’m too old to be able to handle this.”

“You’re telling the man over a decade older than you that you feel too old to do this?” Rupert asked her with a grin.

That seemed to break her moroseness. She may have been looking for a reason to laugh at this point, but damnit, she would take anything that she could get. What started as giggling quickly spread into doubled over laughter. Rupert laughed with her, and soon they were on the floor, leaning against the cabinets as they continued to giggle.

“Feel better?” Rupert asked her, looking over.

“It did a little. That did put it into perspective.” She sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. “You seem awfully optimistic about all of this. How do you feel about what we’re about to face, even if it’s a flying dragon thing that breathes fire?”

He moved and put his arm around her waist, and she nestled into his side. “I have faith in everyone around me, including myself, and you. I think that you’ll come through this just fine, Danielle.”

Danielle took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to use it as a way to calm herself down. Instead, all she did was notice that Rupert smelled exactly the same to her as he smelled all those years ago. He used the same aftershave and cologne, something warm and spicy that she never knew the name of. He had also always smelled faintly of leather, probably from leather bound books, and he still smelled that way. This just caused her to get riled up in a completely different way.

Danielle looked up at him, getting ready to say something, but she completely forgot it when she saw that he was looking right at her. When he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, it was both terribly shocking and perfectly natural to her. When Rupert deepened the kiss, it made Danielle think of being in JFK airport again, tears pouring down her face, which were only stopped because of the pure surprise that occurred when Rupert kissed her that first time. It had been over before she could react, with him turning away and rushing to his plane.

This time she could analyze it more. Rupert’s lips were soft, and he brought up a hand to cup her face. With his free arm, he wrapped it around her waist, pulling her closer so that she was sitting in his lap. She adjusted herself so that she was now straddling his lap, so that she could be more comfortable and still be facing him.

He kissed her again, but pulled away after a moment. “Would you…ah…I hope that this isn’t too forward, but…would you like to…?” Rupert looked up toward the staircase.

Danielle quickly caught his drift. “It’s been ten years, Rupert. Tearing my clothing off and going at it on the kitchen floor wouldn’t be too forward at this point.” To say that her patience had worn thin would be an understatement. Lust, love, a ten-year wait, and just the last month of tension had basically killed her ability for subtly.

Rupert just chuckled and, once Danielle had gotten off of his lap, led her up to the bedroom.

********

It was a ringing phone that woke her up. At first, she couldn’t believe that it had really happened. She checked under the sheet to see that yes, she was naked, so that made her a believer. She had definitely just had sex with Rupert.

Of course, the sleeping, naked Rupert lying next to her with his arm draped around her waist could have told her that.

Danielle groaned and pulled the sheet over her head, hoping to block out the infernal noise that seemed to want to interrupt her happy moment. She had shut her eyes and was hoping to get back to sleep when she felt Rupert stir.

“Is that the phone?” Rupert asked, still sounding more asleep than awake.

“No, it’s a bad dream. Go back to sleep,” Danielle said with a smile. The phone stopped ringing, seemingly agreeing with her assessment.

“Perhaps you’re correct,” Rupert said, pulling her closer and kissing her. “I don’t think that I can go back to sleep, though.”

“Well, we don’t have to sleep,” Danielle said. She was going to say more when the phone started to ring again.

“It might be important,” Rupert said, still kissing her in between words.

“Probably should answer it, then,” Danielle said, not stopping, either.

It took another minute for him to get downstairs and answer the phone, but the phone call seemed to be brief, because he was back quickly and grabbing for clothes. “I take it that something happened?” Danielle asked, sitting up.

“Apparently Faith shot Angel with an arrow and, while she missed the heart, it seems to have been poisoned. Buffy was crying too much for me to understand much more than that. They’re both at the library right now.” When Rupert said ‘Faith,” Danielle hopped out of bed, starting to grab for clothes as well.

"Mistakes" 2/?

Sun, 11 May 2008 09:14:37 GMT

I started this for winter_of_angel, but it kind of grew on me as I wrote it, and I didn't have enough time at the time to make it as long as I wanted, so here's part two of "Mistakes." I figured that I should work on one of my many WIPs before doing anything else for still_grrr, even though I love writing for it as well.

For those that care, as soon as it's beta-d, there will be another chapter of "Old Slayer" coming.

I have also noticed that I badly need at least one icon of Angel.

Title: "Mistakes" 2/?
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse
Warnings: Character Death
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is god, I'm just a lowly worshiper, blah, blah, blah.
Episode Rewrite: Ats Season Three, Episdoe 17 "Forgiving"
Summary: What if Angel succeeded in what he started at the end of the episdoe "Forgiving?" Spoilers for up to that episode.
Beta'd By: Just me this time.

Angel had taken his friend out of the hospital through the window and was now hidden away with him in a cheap motel room that wasn’t in the Hyperion. He couldn’t take Wesley back to the Hyperion. He couldn’t face the accusing stares of everyone over what he had done. He had both killed his friend and condemned him to a life that he would despise all in one night. If his friends didn’t stake him on the spot at this point, he wouldn’t be surprised.

He had laid Wes out on the lumpy cheap bed that the motel provided, both anxious for his friend to wake up and dreading it at the same time. He hadn’t ever sired a vampire while he had a soul. Well, there was the time on the submarine, but he hadn’t even stuck around long enough to find out what happened to the guy. He didn’t know if Wes would wake up as a rampaging vampire with a thirst for blood and the knowledge on how to get it, or if anything that was Wes would still be in there.

Angel knew that the smartest thing to do right now was to stake Wes. He had even carried along a stake, just for that purpose. However, every time that he got up to do it, he could only stare at Wes’s sleeping frame and would back down again and again. All that Angel really wanted to do right now was go stand on the roof of this building and wait for the coming sunrise, but he didn’t think that this decrepit place could hold his weight, and bringing the deaths of people by causing the collapse of a building was *not* what he needed right now.

Angel was actually starting to wonder why it was taking so long for him to wake up. It had been hours. If the sun rose, Angel was just going to tell himself that it didn’t work. It didn’t always take. Sometimes the demon couldn’t take a hold in the body for some reason or another. When he was Angelus, he figured out that it didn’t work with truly holy nuns and priests. He had tried, and they just wouldn’t wake up. God looking out for his own, possibly.

When Wes finally stirred, Angel nearly jumped out of his skin. He prepped the stake again. If he even showed a hint of evil soullessness, then Angel could stake him. He was sure of it. When Wes opened his eyes, it wasn’t hunger that he saw in them. It was anger.

Wes was on Angel before he had the chance to react, shoving him hard against the wall. Angel could have easily pushed him off, but the shock of it caused his inaction. “What in the bloody hell did you do to me, Angel?” Wes screamed at him, slamming him against the wall again.

Well, of all the scenarios that Angel had prepared in his head, this wasn’t it. He knew that he was staring at Wes, his Wes, and not some demon who had set up house in his body. That didn’t make sense. That wasn’t how it worked. He felt the stake slip from his hand as the words started pouring out of his mouth. “I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t thinking clearly, Wes. I didn’t go in there to kill you, I swear.”

Wes pulled away from him, shaking with anger. “That wasn’t what I was talking about, Angel. Why didn’t you leave me for dead? You should have left me dead!” Wes slumped down onto the floor. “I lost Connor, Angel. I deserve to be dead. I betrayed all of you.”

“We’ll get him back, Wes. We can fix all of this,” Angel said, trying to sound reassuring.

“Like you ‘fixed’ me, Angel?” Wes laughed bitterly. “I’m not sure how much I trust your ability if I’m your prime example!”

Angel sat down on the floor next to Wes, sighing as he did it. Sighing was a human gesture, but if there ever was a time that he felt vulnerably and stupidly human, now was it. “You’re really you, aren’t you?”

“In all my training in the Council I’ve never read of a vampire who’s soul survived the initial turning.” Angel couldn’t help but hear the scholar in Wes at the moment. If this was anyone else, Wes would be fascinated.

“It never worked on any of the nuns or priests I tried it on,” Angel offered. “I always figured that it didn’t work on holy people. They all just died, though. It was like their body rejected it completely.”

Wes snorted. “I’m far from what anyone could consider holy.” Wes pulled his knees up to his chest. “I remember something, though. It was like a nightmare. I was fighting with something, a demon, but it wasn’t any species that I was familiar with. I think I won, though.”

“Maybe that has something to do with it,” Angel said, sneaking a glance at Wes. Unlike every other vampire who had woken up that he had seen, Wes didn’t wake up with his vampire face on. Usually, you were so hungry when you woke up that it came up naturally.

“Do the others know anything?” Wes asked.

“I kind of stole you out of the hospital window, so I don’t think so,” Angel answered. Now he could see that he shouldn’t have went into that hospital room by himself. He should have taken Fred or Gunn up on their offer to go inside with him. Maybe with them in the room, he could have controlled himself.

“I’m sure that they know something by now, with the empty hospital bed,” Wes replied. “What should we do now?”

“I suppose we should tell the others,” Angel said, dreading it already.

“That’s going to go over well,” Wes said with a shake of his head.

Participation Banner from Still_Grrr

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:47:45 GMT

They picked my favorite Wesley picture for it, so it had to be showed off. I mean, come on, who doesn't like a cute Watcher in leather?

Fic: What to Do 1/1 (Giles, Faith, and Wesley gen)

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:32:52 GMT

Title: "What to Do" 1/1
Author: Lena aka Jess
Fandom: Buffyverse
Warnings: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1707
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is god, I'm just a lowly worshiper, blah, blah, blah.
Summary: Set in an AU, Faith flees Kakistos with her Watcher, Wesley, to seek help from the Watcher in Sunnydale, Rupert Giles.
Beta'd By: Just me this time.

I wrote this for the tweedandtea Giles Hurt/Comfort Ficathon. Hope you guys like it.

Faith was in a panic. That showed Wesley just how bad the situation really was. He certainly felt like he was on death’s door. She always played the cool and confident bad-ass woman, even when he told her that the master vampire Kakistos was known to be in their area. She just kind of brushed his concern aside at the time. And yet, he knew that she could rescue him when Kakistos and his minions kidnapped him, as long as he didn’t die before she got there. It seemed as though Kakistos was saving the worst for when his number one lieutenant, Mr. Trick, brought in Faith to watch his torture and likely slow death from the injuries. It wasn’t as if Kakistos had waited for Faith to be brought in to get started: Wesley’s ten broken fingers and the numerous knife cuts covering his body were testimony to Kakistos’s inability to wait. However, he had been more than pleased when Faith had came flying in, killing more vampires left and right than he had thought possible. If he were in a more suitable state, he would congratulate her. Instead, all he could do was weakly thank her profusely for coming for him as she carried him out the door and into the coming sunrise. She had waited for the sunrise in hopes that they wouldn’t be followed.

Now, they were in a tiny hotel room outside of Boston, where Faith was trying her best to attend to his injuries, but only seemed to become more and more frustrated.

“I should have come in sooner. If I had…” Faith looked to be on the verge of tears, something that Wesley thought that he would never see.

“If you had, then we both might be trussed up and being tortured slowly until we both died.” He tried to sit up, but Faith only gently held him down. If he sat up, he might bleed more. “You
did the right thing by waiting until near dawn. You were magnificent in there.”

Faith let out a shaky sigh. “What do we do now? As soon as Kakistos figures out where we are, he’ll just come for us again, won’t he?”

“Yes,” Wesley admitted, “but I have an idea. I think that it’s time for us to visit the other slayer in Sunnydale, California.” Hopefully they would be willing to help.

Faith thought that the drive would never end. To get them to Sunnydale, she had hotwired a car for them. Wesley had put up a weak protest, but he wasn’t in any condition to really complain about her choice in their mode of transportation. What she would have preferred to do was take him to a hospital, but Wesley insisted that the important thing to do was to go and see a Mr. Giles and Buffy Summers in Sunnydale. Buffy was supposed to be the wicked number one Slayer, but what kind of bad-ass Slayer had a name like Buffy? It sounded like the name of a cheerleader in Faith’s opinion.

Wesley wasn’t doing so good, either. He had this very big gash in his side that kept oozing blood. Faith kept bandaging it up, but it wasn’t healing right. Wesley kept mumbling something about it maybe being mystical, which put Faith even more out of her league. She was good at killing stuff, but she couldn’t keep a cactus alive, much less an entire human being. She just hoped that this Mr. Giles would be able to do something.

When they reached Sunnydale, Faith and Wesley checked into a hotel and, against Faith’s wishes, Wesley insisted that she go right away to Mr. Giles. She didn’t want to leave Wesley alone in a hotel. Vampires could enter hotels, and Wesley was in no condition to defend himself. Still, he insisted that she go right now, while it was daylight outside. After surrounding him with every cross that she could find, she set out for Sunnydale High School, where Wesley said that Mr. Giles was.

For a town that was full of vampires and other demons, Sunnydale High School had no security to speak of. Of course, maybe the reason that no one questioned who she was was because she was the right age to be a high school student. Of course, she got her GED months ago, so school wasn’t necessary for her anymore. She actually preferred it that way. Faith never had the patience for school anyway.

When she walked into the library, it was empty except for a lone man standing behind the desk, engrossed in a book. From outward appearances, Faith had to guess that he was Mr. Giles. He looked like a slightly older version than her Watcher; everything from the tweed to the glasses screamed ‘Watcher’ to her. It took a closer inspection to see the muscles underneath the white button-up shirt. She could also spy the weapons that were locked away in a cage across the room. Yeah, this was the right guy, alright.

“Hey, are you Rupert Giles?” When he looked up at her, she didn’t even give him a chance to respond. Something in her gut just told her that it was him, and her gut was hardly ever wrong.
“I’m in a tight situation here. I’ve got my Watcher with me, and he’s in wicked bad shape.” She looked down at her feet for a second and bit her lip. She was trying to push back the tears that were threatening to come forth. Wes was all she had and, if this guy couldn’t fix what was wrong with him, then she was fucked and she knew it. “His wounds keep bleeding. I don’t know why. I keep patching them up but they just keep bleeding.”

“Where is he now?” His voice made her look back up at him. He had moved from behind the desk to about a foot from where she stood. She realized that she hadn’t even moved from the doorway.

“He’s…well, just follow me.” She turned and walked back out of the door, only looking back once to make sure that he was following her.

Rupert Giles had been told about the Boston Slayer and her Watcher. This time the Council had the intelligence to inform him after she had been called and who had been assigned to her. He had even been sent a photograph of each of them, just in case one ever showed up, along with a little information about each of them. Now he was incredibly thankful of the Council’s foresight, because otherwise he would have been very confused by the teenager who had shown up in his library.

He ended up driving the both of them to the motel that the girl had told him about. Once she led him inside of the motel room, he could see why the girl was so distressed. He had met Wesley Wyndam-Pryce once or twice before, and was well acquainted with his father. Pryce had always looked to him like he had a stick shoved a little too far up his arse, but the man propped up on the bed before him was nothing like he had appeared a few years ago when he had met him.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” Giles said, trying to keep calm at the injuries that he saw before him. The man was lucky to still be alive.

“No,” Wesley coughed, and shook his head. “Anyone can enter a hospital. It’s not safe.”

“I kept saying that he should go to a hospital, too, but he won’t listen to me, either.” Faith looked over at Giles. “Will you please help?”

“If you won’t go to a hospital, then you certainly can’t stay here,” Giles replied. “Anyone can enter a hotel as well.” With some help from Faith, Giles managed to get Wesley into the car without hurting him further and drove the two of them to his home. At least there, no one was going to be entering the building at their leisure.

Once they helped Wesley into his home and onto his couch, Giles took apart the bandaging that covered the deep gash on his side. “He cut me….with some sort of sacrificial knife,” Wesley said as Giles cleaned the wound. “It’s not healing properly.”

“Do you remember what the knife looked like?” Giles asked.

Faith answered that one. “If it’s the one that I sliced Kakistos’s face open with, then it’s really old looking and it has ancient Greek symbols on it.” With a nod from Wesley to confirm Faith’s report, Giles finished up doing as much as he could with the wound at the moment.

“It sounds like a ritually cursed dagger,” Giles said, walking over to his bookshelf and started looking through the titles for the right one on ancient master vampires. He remembered that the entry on Kakistos mentioned something about a dagger that he liked to use on victims. After finding the book that he wanted, he pulled it from the shelf and flipped it open. “Yes….Kakistos has a dagger that he likes to use for special occasions. He had a witch ritually curse it hundreds of years ago just for him.”

“Can you….can you fix this?” Faith asked him. Giles looked up at her and could see the pleading in her eyes. From what little he knew about her from the file that the Watcher’s Council had sent him, she didn’t have any family to speak of. Her father died in an oil rig accident when she was five and her mother had been an abusive drunk until she ran away from home at the age of fourteen. The council had found her when she was sixteen, and she had been training with Wesley for the last two years. He had to be the only real family that she had.

“It will take a ritual to ‘un-curse’ the wound, so to speak, but yes, I believe I can fix this.” He was then practically bum rushed by Faith in a quick but tight hug.

She pulled away quickly, though, seemingly embarrassed. “Sorry about that, but thanks, you know?” She gave him a slight smile.

“You’re very welcome, Faith.”

Faith; pairing or gen; AU version of Season Three: Faith rescued her watcher from Kakistos' torture chamber, and shows up on Giles' doorstep on the run and with a badly injured Wesley in tow.

To whomever gave out this prompt, I hope that I did it justice.

Award for "Children of the Night"

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:52:06 GMT

I seem to be getting good at this.

Roommates Suck 1/1

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:01:08 GMT

This is for a prompt of crack!fic for still_grrr. This week you are supposed to insert yourself somehow. This is what I came up with.

Title: "Roommates Suck" 1/1
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse
Warnings: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 608
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is god, I'm just a lowly worshiper, blah, blah, blah.
Summary: Takes place near the end of season 1 of Angel. Cordelia, Angel, and Wesley get a very special visitor.
Beta'd By: Just me this time.

Ah...Season Three, my favorite. I popped the DVD of the second disc into the DVD player and settled back in on the couch. The roommates were gone, so I was left alone in the Buffy-induced bliss. I loved watching Giles in the library, doing his librarian thing and being all hot. Poor thing doesn't even get any loving this season, unless you count the one night thing he had with Buffy's mom, which I really don't. Unfortunately, I only got through about five minutes of the Homecoming episode before a scene that I didn't remember popped up on the screen.

I leaned forward a little, watching as the camera panned to the library, where Giles was sitting, alone, while reading a book. He had his tweed jacket off and his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. Suddenly, he shut the book and looked...well, if I didn't know any better, he looked directly at the camera. The camera closed in on him, and he smiled and said, "Hello, Jessica."

I fell off of the sofa in surprise. Did the TV just talk to me?

"Jessica, I know you can hear me," Giles said.

"Um...hello." Have I cracked? Have the four years of college finally killed my brain? "How do you know my name?"

"I know all about you, actually. I know that you've been watching us a lot, but I'm sure that you didn't realize was that I was watching you back." Giles pulled off his glasses, putting them into his shirt pocket. "I'm a Watcher. That's what we do." He stood up from where he was sitting, coming even closer to the screen. "However, I've grown tired of just watching as of late."

"Have you now?" I asked, my voice shaking just a tad. Did someone just slip acid into my Coke while I wasn't looking? I mean, my roommates like playing pranks, but this is ridiculous. "How come?"

"Yes, I have. I want to meet you. Wouldn't you like to meet me? Come and be in Sunnydale?" He smiled at me again. Damn, his eyes were freaking hypnotic!

"Other than the fact that your town is crawling with vampires, sure, I'd love it," I admitted. "How can I do that, though? You're in the TV, and I'm...well, not."

He reached his hand out and suddenly it came right through the TV! I jumped back a little. "Don't be afraid, Jessica. Just take my hand and you can be here with me as long as you'd like."

Very tempting offer. School sucks, anyway. Just as I was reaching for his hand, suddenly the earth started shaking, and I was being pulled back. I reached out my hand as much as I could...

...and smacked my roommate Trevor right in the head. "Jessica, wake up. You fell asleep on the couch again."

"It's my damn couch, so I'll sleep on it as long as I like," I growled. He interrupted my favorite dream. "I thought that you weren't coming back until after two in the morning."

"Party died quickly. Another night of Buffy? Did you have that dream again where Giles asks you to join him in the TV?" Trevor grinned at me. My roommates know about my little Giles obsession. Trevor is the only guy I know who loves the show as much as I do, so he doesn't frown
upon my love as much as others do.

"Yeah, we had just gotten to the part where he reaches out his hand when you woke me up," I said, sitting up. "You couldn't have given me five more minutes?"

"Hey, what are roommates for?"

Roommates suck ass.

Still_Grrr Award!!

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:37:00 GMT

I won an award at still_grrr ! *Does the happy dance*

AU Meme

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:15:19 GMT

Taken from antennapedia

The Hypothetical AU Meme: Take any one of the fandoms you know I write in, and give me a type of AU (space opera AU, pirate AU, superhero AU, Ancient Rome, etc). I will then explain what story from your chosen fandom I would write for your chosen type of AU.

"Children of the Night," 1/1

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:03:56 GMT

Another still_grrr ficlet.

Title: "Children of the Night" 1/1
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse
Warnings: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 660
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is god, I'm just a lowly worshiper, blah, blah, blah.
Summary: Takes place near the end of season 1 of Angel. Cordelia, Angel, and Wesley get a very special visitor.
Beta'd By: Just me this time.

Cordelia was sitting at the front desk when the most beautiful women she had ever seen walked in. Cordelia wasn't typically one to admit that another woman was prettier than she was, but this girl was model beautiful. Her luminous blond hair cascaded down to her waist. Her alabaster skin seemed to glow like a pearl. Her gray eyes seemed to hint at the stormy personality that was hidden within. She only wore a simple black strapless dress, but on her it may have well of been a Gucci original made specifically to fit only her.

Angel and Wesley seemed to have seen her as well from Angel's office, because they both came out and starred at her for a moment as well. The woman smiled when she saw Angel. "Father, it's good to finally meet you."

Hearing the name 'father' seemed to snap everyone out of their awe. "Say what? Vampires don't reproduce that way," Cordelia said. She now eyed the woman in suspicion.

"But I am! I am the daughter of Angel and his true and only love, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have traveled from the future to give you the utmost of important messages. I beg of you; you must listen to me," she said, tears brimming her perfect eyes. "My name is Aria Sorrow, and I am here to help with the coming trails and tribulations."

Cordelia could see that Wesley was starting to get suspicious as well. "And just how would you help us with these 'trails and tribulations?'" He took his glasses off to polish them.

"I am a dhampir, the child of a vampire and a human. I have all of the vampire's strengths and none of their weaknesses. I am strong and fast. I am immortal. Nothing can beat or hurt me. I am the chosen one picked by the gods to fight against the coming darkness."

"I thought I was the champion here," Angel mumbled. With an unnecessary sigh, he leaned against the wall. Cordelia could see that he wasn't buying this for a moment. "So, Wesley, should you take this or should I?"

Wesley seemed to catch what he meant. "Actually, I believe that Cordelia would be best for this." He turned to her and smiled. She now knew what he meant as well. "Cordelia, if you please?"

Cordelia stood up and walked around the desk. She walked over to Aria Sorrow so that they were face to face. "Now, let me tell you everything that is wrong with everything that you've said. First off, vampires can't have children. Technically, with the being dead and all, they really can't. Second, when Angel does do the nasty with Buffy, he goes all 'grrr' and evil. If he got loose like that again, I don't think that Buffy would live long enough to bear a child. And third, we all know that pretty people reproduce ugly children. Plus, Aria Sorrow? Who the hell named you? You can't exist!"

Aria Sorrow screamed in pain. "Nooo!!! Logic, my only weakness!" She spun in a circle and erupted into a green flame, only leaving behind a puff of smoke and a nasty smell. "Ewww, she smells like rotten eggs," Cordelia said, holding her nose.

"I think that might be brimstone," Wesley said, walking over to the scorch mark left by Aria Sorrow. "You didn't even mention that time travel is theoretically impossible."

"Next time you can tell the weird freak thing that they can't logically exist," Angel said. "I wonder who sent it."

"Probably Wolfram & Hart. You would think that that they would send something harder to vanquish." Wesley was still staring at the scorch mark on the floor. "I wonder how they did it."

"Well, they probably didn't expect me and my super powers of snarkiness." Cordelia sat back down at her desk with a grin, pulled out a can of air freshener from a drawer, and sprayed the room.

"Champion Thing" 1/1

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:47:28 GMT

Last of three still_grrr ficlets for today.

Title: "Champion Thing" 1/1
Author: Lena
Fandom: Buffyverse
Warnings: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 434
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is god, I'm just a lowly worshiper, blah, blah, blah.
Summary: Angel is just lying around, thinking about life.
Beta'd By: Just me this time.

Angel was lying down on his bed, starring up at the ceiling. Tonight had been a good night. They had gone in, saved the innocents, and killed the bad guy. He couldn’t stop himself from being glad that they had done it and proud of how well it had went. Things were starting to become a science, really. Cordelia would have a vision, Wesley would research it until they knew exactly what they were dealing with, and then they would all go in together and kill it. Strangely, this was probably the happiest that he had been since being with Buffy in Sunnydale, but he still wasn’t ‘losing the soul’ happy. He still understood that they were really only making a small difference in the whole ‘good vs. evil’ war, and that seemed to be enough to keep him…him.

Cordelia ran into the bedroom, bringing him back down to earth and also reminding him why he wasn’t completely happy. It wasn’t his bed that he was really lying on, but Cordelia’s. He had been staying here until they got a new base of operations because Wolfram & Hart blew up his offices, which contained his apartment. “Hey, Brood Boy, I just had a vision. Want to come out and hear about it?”

“I wasn’t brooding,” Angel said, sitting up.

“No, you were just sitting alone, on Cordelia’s bed, staring up at the ceiling and not doing anything but being lost in your own thoughts,” Wesley said, walking into the room behind her, holding a large book in his hands. “That doesn’t sound like brooding at all.”

“I could just be thinking about other things than just brooding,” Angel said, swinging his legs off the bed and standing up.

“Well, whatever you’re doing, stop doing it and come do your job.” Cordelia put her hands on her hips and looked at him. “Now it’s the time to be all Dark Avenger or whatever you want to call yourself.”

Instead of responding to her, he just smiled and walked past her, the coat he hadn’t bothered to take off yet billowing out behind him as he walked. He’d never admit it, but he kind of liked it when Cordelia called him stuff like that. It was better than Brood Boy at any rate.

He could hear Wesley comment from the other room, “Does he just constantly have a fan blowing around him? How does he billow all the time?”

“I guess it’s a Champion thing,” Cordelia replied. Angel knew that it was going to be impossible for him to wipe the grin from his face now.