Fic: Life- an experiment (3/?)
While doing research for my thesis-of-awesome, I came across this:
And Dawn isn't even completely human, as we will see
Which isn't all that profound or astute... but it reminded me of
And I decided that I needed my Dawnie and Elena to have a moment with each other. Even if it was just a second of mutual understanding.
And hey - shiny thing of all the shiny? I have my own Dawn-centric AU which is pretty badass... mostly in the sense that within it, ALL CROSSOVER IS POSSIBLE NO MATTER WHAT. I haven't quite gotten there in the writing that I've posted on lj (mostly because of lack of beta/confidence).
Here's the little bit of breakdown you need to know to read this segment: alt-AU, right after "Chosen" Dawnie spends some time in Tibet with Oz, then does some homeschooling in Italy with Buffy, but after the "great battle" in LA - Cordy insists that Dawn stay nearby and she ends up at UCLA. The hilarity? She lives with Phantom Dennis & Spike :)
In Tibet, the circumstances of "You are the Key to Reality" finally come to light - she is taught to meditate into the space between reality, which she uses initially to rewrite herself (change certain aspects of the monk's version of her) - within that space she can get to any dimension/reality. (There's this theory, that every choice we make splits the universe in two, creating an infinite number of outcomes/realities. In this AU - I include fiction: aka- anything written as fiction by anyone has the same possibility for split, the same infinite possibility of reality.) Which basically means that in my AU - Dawn can pass in and out of any reality/story/narrative/fiction/place ... and therefore a visit to Mystic Falls is not just possible - it fits and it's lovely.
Title: A Slip
Fandom: BtVS/AtS and tVD crossover
Characters/Pairings: Dawnie, Elena
Rating: PG
Series: Life- An Experiment
Disclaimer: In Joss we trust | I haz no beta, all mistakes are my own. Also - done in a rush!
Summary: There's this little town where vamps can walk in the day
"There's been a slip."
Dawn looked up from the stack of papers that currently littered the desk she had co-opted at the Hyperion. Occasionally Cordy would sit very still near the desk and sniffle a little, stroking the scratched hardwood... but only when she thought no one was watching. Dawn knew within seconds of sitting down that it had once belonged to Wesley. It still made her nervous, sitting here and using this space that was so full of someone else's memories.
"Illyria?"
But the blue-haired king had picked up the snow-globe Xander had sent from Tokyo and Dawn knew there was no getting answers now. She squinted down at the ancient Sumerian text she was trying to translate and wrinkled her nose. It was just about time for a coffee break... make that ice cream.
"There's been a slip!"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "I heard you the first time. Now leave me alone."
A set of brawny, work-hard hands slammed down on the books, causing Dawn to jump.
"Oz?!"
"Dawn, there's been a slip."
"This should be interesting," Illyria murmured before dropping the snow-globe to the ground and walking slowly out the door, brushing past a very worried Cordy and Spike.
Dawn looked up at Oz expectantly, but he seemed to have a morbid fascination with the broken snow globe on the ground. She heard him mutter under his breath, "Something that doesn't belong..."
"Oz? You're kinda freaking us all out, here." Cordy's voice cracked a little, causing Spike to raise his eyebrows quizzically.
Oz straightened up and shook his head, as if to clear his vision. "It's like this, Willow sent me word a few weeks ago that there was some weird rumblings in Virginia. And then last week, Xander mentioned some weird vampire sightings. We didn't think much of it, sent a Slayer troupe in to investigate... they aren't like our vampires..." his voice trailed off and he looked at Dawn significantly.
Spike scoffed in the hallway, "Lost his bloody mind. All vamps are the same..." Cordy elbowed him hard in the ribs, "oof! I mean... you know... most of the time."
Most of this exchange was lost on Dawn.
"Not like... ours???" Dawn stood up. "To Virginia."
Oz nodded.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mystic Falls had a bar, rather than a coffee shop, Dawn discovered after a few minutes of aimlessly driving. The air inside almost crackled with the overabundance of the supernatural. Dawn felt almost nauseous as she settled into a secluded booth. A charmingly normal blonde boy took her order and smiled a little too cheerfully. She sensed a couple of drunk men at the bar were sizing her up, but she tried to ignore them.
She was there to find Betty. Or... Beth... was it Bonnie? Something that started with a B. A high school student with enough magick to send Mystic Falls back to ... wherever it belonged. Oz encouraged her to make it quick, to not get involved in the local drama. Apparently a Slayer that they had sent in the week previous had become attached to the town and refused to leave, or to do her job. The very idea of vampires walking around in the daylight and living alongside humans filled Buffy with all sorts of Slayer-angst.
Dawn sipped her soda and wondered how, exactly, she was supposed to find a witch in all this mess... when a girl walked in the door. A girl just about her height, with long dark hair - not unlike her own - and a small, petite face that reminded Dawn of her sister. She was laughing when she entered, her hair swaying away from her face. She was accompanied by a young, blonde female vampire who was also giggling, and a very pretty girl with long, dark, gently curling hair...
Oh Dawn straightened. Bonnie
Three hours later
Dawn had watched the three girls play pool, eat a mass quantity of french fries and cheeseburgers, and talk about everything under the sun. The blonde little busboy kept them well-supplied, hovering always near the table... though Dawn couldn't put her finger on his exact interest. The two "men" at the bar, who had been steadily drinking since long before Dawn arrived, were also surreptitiously interested in the trio's every move, but neither had moved from their stools. At one point two boys - one possibly a werewolf, but Dawn couldn't quite figure him out - came in, played an awful game of pool while actually watching the trio, began arguing and both left in a huff.
Dawn yawned and pulled out a few bills to leave at her table. Tonight she wouldn't confront Bonnie. Tonight she was going back to the hotel and getting a good sleep. Vampires apparently didn't hunt in this town and so she was pretty sure another night wouldn't do much harm.
On her way out she brushed past another young vampire with tall hair. She kept her laughter in until she was outside.
"Why are you laughing? You look kinda nuts."
Dawn looked over her shoulder and drew in a breath, the young blonde vampire had her arm around the brunette and was smiling at her.
"Oh it's just... that guy..." she snickered. "He reminds me of someone I know," she shrugged.
The brunette walked closer toward her, "Someone you know?" She cocked her head to the side, "Someone you know... well?"
Dawn nodded. "Very well."
"Like family?" Bonnie whispered.
Dawn didn't hesitate, "He is family."
The girl touched her arm gently, "I understand."
Dawn looked over at her, this thin girl who somehow reminded her of Buffy, but also of herself... "We are the same..." This girl who seemed like someone she must of known once, she wasn't quite human...
Dawn?
It was sudden, but Dawn felt as if she must know everything about this girl, this place, these friends... she looked at the girls all together and realized for the first time how envious she had been while watching them.
It became clear, in that simple touch from the girl, how lonely Dawn felt when watching these girls share their lives so simply with each other.
Dawnie...
Dawn grabbed the girl's hand, filled with a sense of urgency: "What's your name?"
As if names mattered, they were so similar, she could walk away now and still know this girl as well as she knew herself.
"Elena." The answer was simple and direct. Almost as if she had expected Dawn to already know. It was the tone that Buffy gave sometimes, after a years of being known...
Dawnie?!
... it was hard to go back to being unknown.
"I'm Dawn." She nodded to the other two, one of whom she needed to talk to ... but about what she couldn't remember...
Dawn!!
... there was a mission at stake, she was sure.
"Elena...?" There were so many things Dawn wanted to ask.
How do you live, knowing...
Dawn, please?!
How do you get up every day, without trying to deny...
Dawn, it's time...
"Dawn - you're slipping," Bonnie's eyes were misting up with tears.
PLEASE?!?!
"Can I come back?" Dawn grasped for the trio's hands. There were things they needed to know about her world... there were things she had to know about theirs... there was so much-! They could have been-!
Dawn blinked and gasped, choking on air being thrust into her lungs. She looked up at Spike's worried face staring at her. She was sitting on her bed, curled up as if she had been meditating... had she been??
"Spike? How long?"
"Only a few hours... I only woke you because..." he gestured toward her face and she reached up.
Her face was wet with tears, stiff from the salty rivers drying into her skin. She rubbed her hands together, trying to get the blood flow to return to her fingers. "Sorry," it was less than a whisper but only slightly more than a breathe.
Spike let out a huge sigh and sprawled out on the bed, "'s been a long day."
Dawn wrinkled her nose, "Is that goo?"
"Intestines, more likely," he said with a smirk.
Just as she was about to squeal and kick him off her clean comforter, Conner poked his head through the door and held up a bag of what appeared to be take-out from her favorite Thai restaurant. "Food?"
Dawn twinkled a little and ran to the living room, grasping at the remote, "Guys. You are going to love this show!"
**** opening quote from: Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon
**** tVD screencap from: This fancy place of awesome
[EDIT] It should be noted, at this point, that I have yet to see tVD 3.14... so I'm having some withdrawals.
And Dawn isn't even completely human, as we will see
Which isn't all that profound or astute... but it reminded me of
And I decided that I needed my Dawnie and Elena to have a moment with each other. Even if it was just a second of mutual understanding.
And hey - shiny thing of all the shiny? I have my own Dawn-centric AU which is pretty badass... mostly in the sense that within it, ALL CROSSOVER IS POSSIBLE NO MATTER WHAT. I haven't quite gotten there in the writing that I've posted on lj (mostly because of lack of beta/confidence).
Here's the little bit of breakdown you need to know to read this segment: alt-AU, right after "Chosen" Dawnie spends some time in Tibet with Oz, then does some homeschooling in Italy with Buffy, but after the "great battle" in LA - Cordy insists that Dawn stay nearby and she ends up at UCLA. The hilarity? She lives with Phantom Dennis & Spike :)
In Tibet, the circumstances of "You are the Key to Reality" finally come to light - she is taught to meditate into the space between reality, which she uses initially to rewrite herself (change certain aspects of the monk's version of her) - within that space she can get to any dimension/reality. (There's this theory, that every choice we make splits the universe in two, creating an infinite number of outcomes/realities. In this AU - I include fiction: aka- anything written as fiction by anyone has the same possibility for split, the same infinite possibility of reality.) Which basically means that in my AU - Dawn can pass in and out of any reality/story/narrative/fiction/place ... and therefore a visit to Mystic Falls is not just possible - it fits and it's lovely.
Title: A Slip
Fandom: BtVS/AtS and tVD crossover
Characters/Pairings: Dawnie, Elena
Rating: PG
Series: Life- An Experiment
Disclaimer: In Joss we trust | I haz no beta, all mistakes are my own. Also - done in a rush!
Summary: There's this little town where vamps can walk in the day
"There's been a slip."
Dawn looked up from the stack of papers that currently littered the desk she had co-opted at the Hyperion. Occasionally Cordy would sit very still near the desk and sniffle a little, stroking the scratched hardwood... but only when she thought no one was watching. Dawn knew within seconds of sitting down that it had once belonged to Wesley. It still made her nervous, sitting here and using this space that was so full of someone else's memories.
"Illyria?"
But the blue-haired king had picked up the snow-globe Xander had sent from Tokyo and Dawn knew there was no getting answers now. She squinted down at the ancient Sumerian text she was trying to translate and wrinkled her nose. It was just about time for a coffee break... make that ice cream.
"There's been a slip!"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "I heard you the first time. Now leave me alone."
A set of brawny, work-hard hands slammed down on the books, causing Dawn to jump.
"Oz?!"
"Dawn, there's been a slip."
"This should be interesting," Illyria murmured before dropping the snow-globe to the ground and walking slowly out the door, brushing past a very worried Cordy and Spike.
Dawn looked up at Oz expectantly, but he seemed to have a morbid fascination with the broken snow globe on the ground. She heard him mutter under his breath, "Something that doesn't belong..."
"Oz? You're kinda freaking us all out, here." Cordy's voice cracked a little, causing Spike to raise his eyebrows quizzically.
Oz straightened up and shook his head, as if to clear his vision. "It's like this, Willow sent me word a few weeks ago that there was some weird rumblings in Virginia. And then last week, Xander mentioned some weird vampire sightings. We didn't think much of it, sent a Slayer troupe in to investigate... they aren't like our vampires..." his voice trailed off and he looked at Dawn significantly.
Spike scoffed in the hallway, "Lost his bloody mind. All vamps are the same..." Cordy elbowed him hard in the ribs, "oof! I mean... you know... most of the time."
Most of this exchange was lost on Dawn.
"Not like... ours???" Dawn stood up. "To Virginia."
Oz nodded.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mystic Falls had a bar, rather than a coffee shop, Dawn discovered after a few minutes of aimlessly driving. The air inside almost crackled with the overabundance of the supernatural. Dawn felt almost nauseous as she settled into a secluded booth. A charmingly normal blonde boy took her order and smiled a little too cheerfully. She sensed a couple of drunk men at the bar were sizing her up, but she tried to ignore them.
She was there to find Betty. Or... Beth... was it Bonnie? Something that started with a B. A high school student with enough magick to send Mystic Falls back to ... wherever it belonged. Oz encouraged her to make it quick, to not get involved in the local drama. Apparently a Slayer that they had sent in the week previous had become attached to the town and refused to leave, or to do her job. The very idea of vampires walking around in the daylight and living alongside humans filled Buffy with all sorts of Slayer-angst.
Dawn sipped her soda and wondered how, exactly, she was supposed to find a witch in all this mess... when a girl walked in the door. A girl just about her height, with long dark hair - not unlike her own - and a small, petite face that reminded Dawn of her sister. She was laughing when she entered, her hair swaying away from her face. She was accompanied by a young, blonde female vampire who was also giggling, and a very pretty girl with long, dark, gently curling hair...
Oh Dawn straightened. Bonnie
Three hours later
Dawn had watched the three girls play pool, eat a mass quantity of french fries and cheeseburgers, and talk about everything under the sun. The blonde little busboy kept them well-supplied, hovering always near the table... though Dawn couldn't put her finger on his exact interest. The two "men" at the bar, who had been steadily drinking since long before Dawn arrived, were also surreptitiously interested in the trio's every move, but neither had moved from their stools. At one point two boys - one possibly a werewolf, but Dawn couldn't quite figure him out - came in, played an awful game of pool while actually watching the trio, began arguing and both left in a huff.
Dawn yawned and pulled out a few bills to leave at her table. Tonight she wouldn't confront Bonnie. Tonight she was going back to the hotel and getting a good sleep. Vampires apparently didn't hunt in this town and so she was pretty sure another night wouldn't do much harm.
On her way out she brushed past another young vampire with tall hair. She kept her laughter in until she was outside.
"Why are you laughing? You look kinda nuts."
Dawn looked over her shoulder and drew in a breath, the young blonde vampire had her arm around the brunette and was smiling at her.
"Oh it's just... that guy..." she snickered. "He reminds me of someone I know," she shrugged.
The brunette walked closer toward her, "Someone you know?" She cocked her head to the side, "Someone you know... well?"
Dawn nodded. "Very well."
"Like family?" Bonnie whispered.
Dawn didn't hesitate, "He is family."
The girl touched her arm gently, "I understand."
Dawn looked over at her, this thin girl who somehow reminded her of Buffy, but also of herself... "We are the same..." This girl who seemed like someone she must of known once, she wasn't quite human...
Dawn?
It was sudden, but Dawn felt as if she must know everything about this girl, this place, these friends... she looked at the girls all together and realized for the first time how envious she had been while watching them.
It became clear, in that simple touch from the girl, how lonely Dawn felt when watching these girls share their lives so simply with each other.
Dawnie...
Dawn grabbed the girl's hand, filled with a sense of urgency: "What's your name?"
As if names mattered, they were so similar, she could walk away now and still know this girl as well as she knew herself.
"Elena." The answer was simple and direct. Almost as if she had expected Dawn to already know. It was the tone that Buffy gave sometimes, after a years of being known...
Dawnie?!
... it was hard to go back to being unknown.
"I'm Dawn." She nodded to the other two, one of whom she needed to talk to ... but about what she couldn't remember...
Dawn!!
... there was a mission at stake, she was sure.
"Elena...?" There were so many things Dawn wanted to ask.
How do you live, knowing...
Dawn, please?!
How do you get up every day, without trying to deny...
Dawn, it's time...
"Dawn - you're slipping," Bonnie's eyes were misting up with tears.
PLEASE?!?!
"Can I come back?" Dawn grasped for the trio's hands. There were things they needed to know about her world... there were things she had to know about theirs... there was so much-! They could have been-!
Dawn blinked and gasped, choking on air being thrust into her lungs. She looked up at Spike's worried face staring at her. She was sitting on her bed, curled up as if she had been meditating... had she been??
"Spike? How long?"
"Only a few hours... I only woke you because..." he gestured toward her face and she reached up.
Her face was wet with tears, stiff from the salty rivers drying into her skin. She rubbed her hands together, trying to get the blood flow to return to her fingers. "Sorry," it was less than a whisper but only slightly more than a breathe.
Spike let out a huge sigh and sprawled out on the bed, "'s been a long day."
Dawn wrinkled her nose, "Is that goo?"
"Intestines, more likely," he said with a smirk.
Just as she was about to squeal and kick him off her clean comforter, Conner poked his head through the door and held up a bag of what appeared to be take-out from her favorite Thai restaurant. "Food?"
Dawn twinkled a little and ran to the living room, grasping at the remote, "Guys. You are going to love this show!"
**** opening quote from: Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon
**** tVD screencap from: This fancy place of awesome
[EDIT] It should be noted, at this point, that I have yet to see tVD 3.14... so I'm having some withdrawals.