From the livejournal archives: Buffy, Scarecrow and Mrs. King drabble
Ctrl+alt+del
(Giles)
The only extant copy of the needed volume is four thousand miles away. Fortunately, someone has transcribed it onto that tangled mess known as the information Superhighway. Must hurry.
-Cannot find server.-
Unreliable contraptions. Perhaps if I...oh dear.
The pointer thingie is supposed to move, but it won't. The browser is frozen, as useful as a brick.
Bloody hell! The fate of the world, not to mention my slayer's life, is on the line.
Time is running out. I must get the inscription.
Only one thing left to try. Something Willow taught me once, for use in great need.
Ctrl+alt+del.
Desk Soldier
(Billy Melrose)
Pacing helps. Yelling doesn't help but I do it anyway. Francine gives me that look--she's wondering why I bellow. I'd explain it to her but she has to find out for herself if she wants to reach her potential. Amanda seems to understand. She cringes too, but then glances sympathetically afterward.
Lee knows. He knows because he yells for the same reasons I do.
The phones ring. Or they don't ring. I know they're out there and may or may not be alive anymore.
Missed check-ins. Late nights. Cassette tapes with horrifying demands thrown on my desk.
I pace.
Coifed
(Francine Desmond)
She didn't sleep the night before. Hollow inside, memories.
As soon as the sky is light she dresses. Two hours on the hair. Nails. Lipstick. Foundation. Blush. Earings. Heels. Nylons. Eyeliner. Jewelry, nothing gaudy. The essence of professionalism.
It's a mask, a role as crucial as any played while working undercover. Its purpose is to hide the weakness from herself, more than from others. She knows she's at tear's edge, that she's in a business where people you like and laugh with over drinks might not be alive the next day.
She knows this. It doesn't make the hurting easier.
Dead Giveaway
(Scarecrow)
When she told me I was just doing my job, my stomach bottomed out. It was a new sensation. I'd been scared before. This wasn't just scared.
I felt detached, as if I'd slipped into a darkly alternate world.
It wasn't Amanda.
It looked and sounded like her.
She only nodded at my assurances that the agency would pay for damages.
(Where was the effusiveness, the talking with her hands?)
It made sense out of the last few days. It made my present moment a hell.
Follow her. Play along. It was the only way to save the real Amanda.
Buffy and Giles are the property of Mutant Enemy. Francine, Scarecrow, Billy, Amanda, and Francine belong to WB/Shoot the Moon Productions.