Fic writing for a Photo Prompt
For a challenge at gameofcards to write a fic prompted by this photo. Not the best writing, here, but a lot of the songs are good, and I really like imagining this post-Season 7 moment as, really, a road trip.
Name: catko
Team: clubs
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Post Season 7.
Rating: G.
Summary/Notes: Inspired by a bunch of songs, listed and linked at the end. I really recommend the Tom Waits.
Word count: 1025
The desert was purplish in dusk. Giles pulled out of the truck stop, shuddering the school bus onto the highway in a swirl of sand and dust. Hot coffee, a bus full of young survivors munching on salty and sugary snacks, the road stretching ahead.And fresh batteries, he reminded himself, as he squinted at the label on the cassette tape lodged in the (obviously) aged boom box bungeed to the dashboard. “DESERT SONGS.” In perhaps his first purely happy thought of the past many weeks, he silently thanked the long-gone, unknown, and no doubt much beleaguered-it had been a school bus driver, right?-unsuspecting benefactor who had stashed that under the driver’s seat God knows when. With a slightly wolfish grin, he leaned forward on the steering wheel and pushed PLAY.
“Well, I'm running down the road tryna loosen my load
I've got seven women on my mind,
Four that wanna own me, Two that wanna stone me,
One says she's a friend of mine.”
“Take it easy, take it easy,” he sang along, Then he chuckled to himself. Quite inappropriate to his current circumstances, but really, what song would possibly be appropriate for this current circumstance? He amused himself trying to think of lyrics that might incorporate battling the First Evil, averting world - but not town - destruction, and heading off into the great Unknown. All the while the tape whirred, and the music played.
“We're on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin' that ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride.”
Not like they had any choice, Dawn thought, as she slumped down in her seat, picking at the peeling pebbly green vinyl. Road to nowhere, that’s for sure. She stared out the window at the endless stretch of highway, and felt herself start to cry. Shockingly, for the first time since they pulled away from the smoking hole that had been their home-her friends, her stuffed animal collection, everything that they had known. Sure, a lot of what they’d known had been horrible and evil, but still. It was what they had known. Who the heck knew what was going to happen now?
“Well, I sing by night, wander by day.
I'm on the road and it looks like I'm here to stay.”
Xander tapped his foot to the honky-tonk piano, sucked on his Slurpee, and felt his spirits lift a little. Wasn’t so bad, being on the road. Sure, not the romantic way, hitching a ride on a flatbed truck, more like a battered yellow schoolbus filled with little girls. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers. And no-one right now was more like a beggar than him. Maybe he could take up singing for a living, get a guitar and get stuck in Lodi again. Was that anywhere near here?
“With the cost of livin’, and the price of dyin',
Well it look like to me this time I wont be buyin’ ”
Sure enough, they didn’t have much, barely even the clothes on their back, but they were alive. And Xander might not know much, but he did know this: that being alive warn’t no small thing. Strangely soothed by his little fantasy, he slid down on his seat, closed his eyes, and thought about sleep.
“I have spoken with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of the devil,
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone.”
Willow let the sound of the music curl around her in the now-darkened bus, watching the headlights flicker on the road ahead, Xander snoring next to her. Out of the cool night and the singer’s words slashed the vivid memory of the bone-rattling surge of darkness and power that had captivated her. A feeling she’d spent the last part of her life trying to forget, to atone. Hmph. Start an apocalypse, stop an apocalypse, she thought, almost pertly. All in a life’s work, huh?
“There's a weight that's pressing down
Late at night you can hear the sound
Even the noise you make when you sleep
Can't swim across a river so deep.”
Buffy felt her heart lurch as she jolted awake. For a moment she stared around at the darkness, feeling the vibration and hearing the mingled breaths and snuffles around her. She had just been-where? in a place of warmth and the softest of bright lights, wrapped in a glorious haze that was just like…oh yeah. Just like heaven. This time, it was just a dream. Wiling herself to come back to reality, she let remembrance flood back. Okay. Sunnydale destroyed, escape on a bus, full of Potentials, and…she stood up and shakily made her way to the front of the bus, where she sank down behind the driver’s seat, and put her hand on Giles’s shoulder. He glanced back with a slight smile and reached up to pat her hand. She leaned forward, pressed her forehead against his sturdy back, and sighed.
“Life's like a road that you travel on
When there's one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind.”
Giles grimaced at the sound of the vocalist, not at all to his liking, but had to admit that these lyrics were rather suitable for their situation. Maybe he was just getting fanciful at this late hour. Or a touch of desert fever? He looked at the moonlight shimmering across the long road, thought about the journey ahead, to who knew where they'd find their home, and decided to pull off for the night.
“Well I stumbled in the darkness
I'm lost and alone
Though I said I'd go before us
And show the way back home
Is there a light up ahead
I can't hold on very long
Forgive me pretty baby but I always take the long way home.”
Songs
“Take it Easy” by The Eagles
“Road to Nowhere” by Talking Heads
"Endless Highway" by The Band
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2
"Keep The Car Running" by Arcade Fire
"Life Is A Highway" by Tom Cochrane
“Long Way Home” by Tom Waits
.
.
Name: catko
Team: clubs
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Post Season 7.
Rating: G.
Summary/Notes: Inspired by a bunch of songs, listed and linked at the end. I really recommend the Tom Waits.
Word count: 1025
The desert was purplish in dusk. Giles pulled out of the truck stop, shuddering the school bus onto the highway in a swirl of sand and dust. Hot coffee, a bus full of young survivors munching on salty and sugary snacks, the road stretching ahead.And fresh batteries, he reminded himself, as he squinted at the label on the cassette tape lodged in the (obviously) aged boom box bungeed to the dashboard. “DESERT SONGS.” In perhaps his first purely happy thought of the past many weeks, he silently thanked the long-gone, unknown, and no doubt much beleaguered-it had been a school bus driver, right?-unsuspecting benefactor who had stashed that under the driver’s seat God knows when. With a slightly wolfish grin, he leaned forward on the steering wheel and pushed PLAY.
“Well, I'm running down the road tryna loosen my load
I've got seven women on my mind,
Four that wanna own me, Two that wanna stone me,
One says she's a friend of mine.”
“Take it easy, take it easy,” he sang along, Then he chuckled to himself. Quite inappropriate to his current circumstances, but really, what song would possibly be appropriate for this current circumstance? He amused himself trying to think of lyrics that might incorporate battling the First Evil, averting world - but not town - destruction, and heading off into the great Unknown. All the while the tape whirred, and the music played.
“We're on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin' that ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride.”
Not like they had any choice, Dawn thought, as she slumped down in her seat, picking at the peeling pebbly green vinyl. Road to nowhere, that’s for sure. She stared out the window at the endless stretch of highway, and felt herself start to cry. Shockingly, for the first time since they pulled away from the smoking hole that had been their home-her friends, her stuffed animal collection, everything that they had known. Sure, a lot of what they’d known had been horrible and evil, but still. It was what they had known. Who the heck knew what was going to happen now?
“Well, I sing by night, wander by day.
I'm on the road and it looks like I'm here to stay.”
Xander tapped his foot to the honky-tonk piano, sucked on his Slurpee, and felt his spirits lift a little. Wasn’t so bad, being on the road. Sure, not the romantic way, hitching a ride on a flatbed truck, more like a battered yellow schoolbus filled with little girls. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers. And no-one right now was more like a beggar than him. Maybe he could take up singing for a living, get a guitar and get stuck in Lodi again. Was that anywhere near here?
“With the cost of livin’, and the price of dyin',
Well it look like to me this time I wont be buyin’ ”
Sure enough, they didn’t have much, barely even the clothes on their back, but they were alive. And Xander might not know much, but he did know this: that being alive warn’t no small thing. Strangely soothed by his little fantasy, he slid down on his seat, closed his eyes, and thought about sleep.
“I have spoken with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of the devil,
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone.”
Willow let the sound of the music curl around her in the now-darkened bus, watching the headlights flicker on the road ahead, Xander snoring next to her. Out of the cool night and the singer’s words slashed the vivid memory of the bone-rattling surge of darkness and power that had captivated her. A feeling she’d spent the last part of her life trying to forget, to atone. Hmph. Start an apocalypse, stop an apocalypse, she thought, almost pertly. All in a life’s work, huh?
“There's a weight that's pressing down
Late at night you can hear the sound
Even the noise you make when you sleep
Can't swim across a river so deep.”
Buffy felt her heart lurch as she jolted awake. For a moment she stared around at the darkness, feeling the vibration and hearing the mingled breaths and snuffles around her. She had just been-where? in a place of warmth and the softest of bright lights, wrapped in a glorious haze that was just like…oh yeah. Just like heaven. This time, it was just a dream. Wiling herself to come back to reality, she let remembrance flood back. Okay. Sunnydale destroyed, escape on a bus, full of Potentials, and…she stood up and shakily made her way to the front of the bus, where she sank down behind the driver’s seat, and put her hand on Giles’s shoulder. He glanced back with a slight smile and reached up to pat her hand. She leaned forward, pressed her forehead against his sturdy back, and sighed.
“Life's like a road that you travel on
When there's one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind.”
Giles grimaced at the sound of the vocalist, not at all to his liking, but had to admit that these lyrics were rather suitable for their situation. Maybe he was just getting fanciful at this late hour. Or a touch of desert fever? He looked at the moonlight shimmering across the long road, thought about the journey ahead, to who knew where they'd find their home, and decided to pull off for the night.
“Well I stumbled in the darkness
I'm lost and alone
Though I said I'd go before us
And show the way back home
Is there a light up ahead
I can't hold on very long
Forgive me pretty baby but I always take the long way home.”
Songs
“Take it Easy” by The Eagles
“Road to Nowhere” by Talking Heads
"Endless Highway" by The Band
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2
"Keep The Car Running" by Arcade Fire
"Life Is A Highway" by Tom Cochrane
“Long Way Home” by Tom Waits
.
.