Challenge #078
Title: The Six Degrees of Pleasant Surprise
Fandoms: BtVS, Gilmore Girls, Anita Blake, Harry Potter, Highlander, Batman, and then BtVS (again).
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Six unexpected, but not unpleasant, things.
▬Surprise Reunion▬
She knocked three times, then waited.
Moments later, an eternity for her, the door swung open.
"Hi."
"Cordelia?!" Richard Gilmore was so surprised he dropped his paper, "What are you doing here?"
"Joining you for Thanksgiving?"
He nodded absently, then frowned: "Where are your parents?"
"Mom's in some fancy foreign hospital, daddy's off in the Bahamas... I think."
Gathering himself, Richard bent and retrieved his paper. "So it is true."
"That daddy's been a little forgetful with the IRS the past few decades? Yeah, it's true."
"Does Maureen know?" he asked, hoping against hope that his niece was here under his little sister's direction. Hoping that his sister hadn't become as disinterested and self-absorbed as their mother. He took in Cordelia's closed-off expression and had his answer even before she opened her mouth.
"No. She's been bouncing from one European specialty clinic to another the past few months. I haven't seen her in almost a year." Cordelia took a deep breath, trying to speak past the sobs that kept bubbling up in her throat, "Our house was repossessed last week and most of m-my things were c-confiscated." She looked down at her shoes, muddy and scuffed from walking here from the bus stop through the rain. "Can I stay here with you? For the holiday? Just while I figure things out?"
Richard reached out and gently tipped her chin up, "My dear, you can stay as long as you like."
▬End Ficlet▬
▬Surprisingly Sexy▬
Patty smiled appreciatively at the sight of a firm male behind. She could tell just from that one piece that he was a stranger to their town. Not many Stars Hollow men had a tousch you could bounce a quarter off of, she should know.
"Hello dear, looking for someone?"
He turned and smiled flirtatiously, "I think I've just found her."
Patty smiled coquettishly, "Oh honey, I don't think you could handle me."
"But I bet I could learn a lot while I gave it the ol' college try."
"Jason!"
Mr. Delicious turned at the sound of the irate female voice, a small woman bundled in a thick black-wool trench coat marched up and glared at him. Mr. Delicious - Jason - smiled sweetly down at her, "Yes?"
"Have you found a gas station yet?"
"Why no, I was jus - "
"Yeah, I know what you were 'just' - "
"Right down the street, young man. At the corner of Booker and Main, look for the big yellow sign shaped like a crayon." Patty beamed at him as he cast slightly relieved blue eyes her way, turning the expression into a polite smile when the woman's gaze followed. "The sign says, 'Sal's Fish & Bait', but you tell him Patty sent you and he'll get you your gas."
"'Sal's Fish & Bait'?"
Jason grabbed Anita's arm and steered her away, with a muttered, "Small towns," to pacify her. Miss Patty cocked her head to the side to watch him walk away. She sighed, too bad really. He looked over his shoulder at her and winked, eyes knowing. This time Patty flushed.
Turning towards Luke's, the dancing teacher set off singing throatily:
"Life is a cabaret, old chum! Come to the cabaret!"
A/N: I love that song.
▬End Ficlet▬
▬Ssssurprisssing Coincsssidence▬
Harry bounced off someone's back and fell, hard. Scrambling to his feet, he muttered an apology and started off again. Dudley and his cronies couldn't be too far behind and it was just his luck that Mrs. Adams had requested he stay back today: no crowd for him to get lost in.
"You, boy! Stop!"
He froze at the sound of the cool, cultured feminine voice. Turning around he apologized again, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't look where I was going. It was an accident, won't happen again, I'm sorry."
She blinked at his rapid speech, eyes narrowing as she took a deep breath. "What's wrong, little boy? Why are you frightened?" She smiled at him, and though there was something oddly sharp and dangerous in her face, he relaxed.
"My cousin's coming," he said as if it explained everything. For him, it did.
"Ah," she looked about, pausing as her gaze caught on something. "Would your cousin happen to be an overweight blonde boy with several equally grotesque friends?" Her lip curled faintly and her eyes lightened a shade or two as she inspected the gang.
Harry nodded and resumed looking for an appropriate escape.
"Ssssilly child, you are sssafe with me. Only an imbecssssile would dare challenge me."
The small boy raised his tousled black head to smile at her, "Dudley IS an imbecile."
Her eyes widened, "You underssstand me, boy? You ssspeak?"
"Of course I ssspeak, doesssn't everybody?"
She smiled down at him, and this time he had wit enough to see the feral intensity in the look. "We have not yet been properly introducsssed, my boy. I am Melanie Lakssshmi, what do othersss call you?"
"I'm Harry Potter," he said absently, watching as Dudley and company passed by.
"It isss a pleasssure to meet you, Missster Potter."
He frowned at the odd tone in her voice, "The pleasssure isss all mine."
"Not yet," she smiled slowly, "Not quite yet, my dear boy. But it will be. Oh yesss, it will be..."
A/N: I'm really surprised more people haven't connected these two. She's trying to breed her people back into existence, and he talks to snakes. They'd make a perfect(ly creepy) couple.
▬End Ficlet▬
▬Surprise! You're Alive!▬
Hermione woke up screaming.
"Whoa, whoa! Calm down!"
She ignored the voice and its owner, instead looking down at her own stomach and prodding at the blood-soaked material that stuck to her flesh. Peeling the collar of her shirt away, she looked down and gasped at what she saw: pale, smooth flesh, unmarred by any scars or blemishes. Nothing to indicate she'd been the recipient of any major injuries made, for example, by a broadsword.
"You're alright."
At last she looked up, squinting in the pale morning light. "Alright? Alright? You stabbed me!" Hermione scrambled to her feet and advanced on the flustered man, "You gutted me with your great big, bloody sword! Now I wake up covered in my own blood, and what I assume to be various bits of lopped-off viscera, with no injuries to speak of, and you tell me that it's ALRIGHT?!" She backed off a few steps and scowled at him, "I may be many things but currently, 'alright' is not on the list."
"You... died."
She snorted, "So I gathered, then what?"
"You... woke up?" He smiled ruefully, "I would have been more - aware - of your presence if you had been a norm. But the preemie buzz melded with Polonius's and I thought you might have been his student."
Hermione sighed, "What am I?"
"You are an immortal," Adam explained slowly, watching her carefully while he waited for the other shoe to drop. "You just experienced what we call 'first death'. You won't age or change, really, until someone or something removes your head. You can die, but it won't, erm, stick. The flipside is that other immortals will be trying to kill you and take your energy, your life-force. We call that a 'quickening'."
"Are you going to try and kill me?"
He smiled lopsidedly, "I believe I already have." Seeing her exasperated expression he continued, "No. No, I'm not. As I am the first immortal to come upon you since your death I am honor-bound to train you and take you on as my student."
Hermione scowled at him and the decidedly disgruntled tone he had adopted towards the end of the explanation, "Please don't put yourself out on my account, I'm just the girl you gutted."
It was Adam's turn to frown, "You know, some immortals specialize in just killing newbies..."
"I'm sorry, it appears being murdered disagrees with me!"
A/N: Herms can be pretty short with people who aren't Ron or Harry.
▬▬▬
▬Sparkly Surprises▬
Amanda sighed with pleasure as the contents of the safe came into view: "Pretty!"
"But not yours."
She spun and smiled at the figure blurred by shadows. "Ah, but possession is nine-tenths of the law," her lips quirked at the corners, one diamond-encrusted platinum bracelet swinging from her fingers.
"Put the trinket back, you're coming with me."
"Not the most flattering invitation I've received, I'll consider it."
He moved forward, revealing broad shoulders encased in a black Kevlar suit with the sigil of a bat sitting on his breastbone. He seemed to fill the small room and Amanda almost sighed at the picture he made. Almost.
"That wasn't a request, ma'am."
"Pity I never took well to orders. Comes from my contrary nature, I suppose."
"Contrary as in cat? You are the Cat, I presume."
"Yes, yes, robbing Gotham's rich blind." She scoffed, "They MUST be blind to wear some of the trash I've picked up. Your... Mrs. Robinson? Yes, she has the best taste I've seen all week." Amanda pouted, "Couldn't you have waited till tomorrow to catch up? I had a lovely little heist planned, a very MYSTERIOUS character that Bruce Wayne. I wonder what sort of TRINKETS he has hidden away..."
"Curiosity killed the cat."
Was it her imagination, or did she detect some new threat in his tone?
Regardless, Amanda smiled at him and winked, preparing for her departure. "But satisfaction brought it back. Goodbye, Batman, I'm sure our next meeting will be VERY... satisfying." Blowing a kiss, she leapt for the rope leading to her escape and shimmied down, fleeing for the window she's used to enter and darting over the roof as quickly as her feet would take her.
She jumped back into a shallow alcove she'd kept prepped for a quick escape and watched the dark shadow of the Bat glide past. Smiling a secretive little smile, Amanda began planning her next encounter with the MYSTERIOUS vigilante.
She'd always been a sucker for a man in black.
Glancing down at the delicate bag she'd filled while they bantered, she grinned.
Satisfaction indeed!
A/N: Obvious AU, she'd make an interesting Catwoman, no?
▬▬▬
▬Surprise Pairing▬
She disappeared after that night. The night when everything was laid bare and all secrets were let out of their little hiding places. The night she kissed death and then killed him, again. The night she realized that everything she'd feared from the night her parents didn't believe her till now had been nothing, NOTHING compared to one simple, horrifying truth.
She'd come back wrong.
All wrong.
Not a little wrong.
There was something bubbling up inside her like vomit, thick and hot. It ate at her insides and her conscience and her morals. All her fight and fire and heart was being gobbled up, consumed and destroyed. The tatters that remained insisted that she leave before she inflicted more pain on her friends. The new her that didn't really care insisted that she leave before THEY inflicted more pain on HER.
So she hopped on a bus and went back to the worst place she'd ever been. The wrongest, the dirtiest, the ugliest corner of hellish existence that Earth had to offer. She went home to where the crazies lived in a place named after their skulls.
The Hollows.
She found a man who made her broken self laugh, something she didn't think was possible. How could you laugh when everything was about pain? That was easy, he patiently explained, you made others feel it too and marveled at their innocence that they had not seen it before.
Life was funny: it was pain and doomed love and a struggle to survive that you never won.
He was Joker, she was Harley Quinn.
Somehow, they made it work.
A/N: Insane and blonde? C'mon, SOMEONE had to have seen the possiblities!
▬▬▬
PS: can we get a batman tag?
Fandoms: BtVS, Gilmore Girls, Anita Blake, Harry Potter, Highlander, Batman, and then BtVS (again).
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Six unexpected, but not unpleasant, things.
▬Surprise Reunion▬
She knocked three times, then waited.
Moments later, an eternity for her, the door swung open.
"Hi."
"Cordelia?!" Richard Gilmore was so surprised he dropped his paper, "What are you doing here?"
"Joining you for Thanksgiving?"
He nodded absently, then frowned: "Where are your parents?"
"Mom's in some fancy foreign hospital, daddy's off in the Bahamas... I think."
Gathering himself, Richard bent and retrieved his paper. "So it is true."
"That daddy's been a little forgetful with the IRS the past few decades? Yeah, it's true."
"Does Maureen know?" he asked, hoping against hope that his niece was here under his little sister's direction. Hoping that his sister hadn't become as disinterested and self-absorbed as their mother. He took in Cordelia's closed-off expression and had his answer even before she opened her mouth.
"No. She's been bouncing from one European specialty clinic to another the past few months. I haven't seen her in almost a year." Cordelia took a deep breath, trying to speak past the sobs that kept bubbling up in her throat, "Our house was repossessed last week and most of m-my things were c-confiscated." She looked down at her shoes, muddy and scuffed from walking here from the bus stop through the rain. "Can I stay here with you? For the holiday? Just while I figure things out?"
Richard reached out and gently tipped her chin up, "My dear, you can stay as long as you like."
▬End Ficlet▬
▬Surprisingly Sexy▬
Patty smiled appreciatively at the sight of a firm male behind. She could tell just from that one piece that he was a stranger to their town. Not many Stars Hollow men had a tousch you could bounce a quarter off of, she should know.
"Hello dear, looking for someone?"
He turned and smiled flirtatiously, "I think I've just found her."
Patty smiled coquettishly, "Oh honey, I don't think you could handle me."
"But I bet I could learn a lot while I gave it the ol' college try."
"Jason!"
Mr. Delicious turned at the sound of the irate female voice, a small woman bundled in a thick black-wool trench coat marched up and glared at him. Mr. Delicious - Jason - smiled sweetly down at her, "Yes?"
"Have you found a gas station yet?"
"Why no, I was jus - "
"Yeah, I know what you were 'just' - "
"Right down the street, young man. At the corner of Booker and Main, look for the big yellow sign shaped like a crayon." Patty beamed at him as he cast slightly relieved blue eyes her way, turning the expression into a polite smile when the woman's gaze followed. "The sign says, 'Sal's Fish & Bait', but you tell him Patty sent you and he'll get you your gas."
"'Sal's Fish & Bait'?"
Jason grabbed Anita's arm and steered her away, with a muttered, "Small towns," to pacify her. Miss Patty cocked her head to the side to watch him walk away. She sighed, too bad really. He looked over his shoulder at her and winked, eyes knowing. This time Patty flushed.
Turning towards Luke's, the dancing teacher set off singing throatily:
"Life is a cabaret, old chum! Come to the cabaret!"
A/N: I love that song.
▬End Ficlet▬
▬Ssssurprisssing Coincsssidence▬
Harry bounced off someone's back and fell, hard. Scrambling to his feet, he muttered an apology and started off again. Dudley and his cronies couldn't be too far behind and it was just his luck that Mrs. Adams had requested he stay back today: no crowd for him to get lost in.
"You, boy! Stop!"
He froze at the sound of the cool, cultured feminine voice. Turning around he apologized again, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't look where I was going. It was an accident, won't happen again, I'm sorry."
She blinked at his rapid speech, eyes narrowing as she took a deep breath. "What's wrong, little boy? Why are you frightened?" She smiled at him, and though there was something oddly sharp and dangerous in her face, he relaxed.
"My cousin's coming," he said as if it explained everything. For him, it did.
"Ah," she looked about, pausing as her gaze caught on something. "Would your cousin happen to be an overweight blonde boy with several equally grotesque friends?" Her lip curled faintly and her eyes lightened a shade or two as she inspected the gang.
Harry nodded and resumed looking for an appropriate escape.
"Ssssilly child, you are sssafe with me. Only an imbecssssile would dare challenge me."
The small boy raised his tousled black head to smile at her, "Dudley IS an imbecile."
Her eyes widened, "You underssstand me, boy? You ssspeak?"
"Of course I ssspeak, doesssn't everybody?"
She smiled down at him, and this time he had wit enough to see the feral intensity in the look. "We have not yet been properly introducsssed, my boy. I am Melanie Lakssshmi, what do othersss call you?"
"I'm Harry Potter," he said absently, watching as Dudley and company passed by.
"It isss a pleasssure to meet you, Missster Potter."
He frowned at the odd tone in her voice, "The pleasssure isss all mine."
"Not yet," she smiled slowly, "Not quite yet, my dear boy. But it will be. Oh yesss, it will be..."
A/N: I'm really surprised more people haven't connected these two. She's trying to breed her people back into existence, and he talks to snakes. They'd make a perfect(ly creepy) couple.
▬End Ficlet▬
▬Surprise! You're Alive!▬
Hermione woke up screaming.
"Whoa, whoa! Calm down!"
She ignored the voice and its owner, instead looking down at her own stomach and prodding at the blood-soaked material that stuck to her flesh. Peeling the collar of her shirt away, she looked down and gasped at what she saw: pale, smooth flesh, unmarred by any scars or blemishes. Nothing to indicate she'd been the recipient of any major injuries made, for example, by a broadsword.
"You're alright."
At last she looked up, squinting in the pale morning light. "Alright? Alright? You stabbed me!" Hermione scrambled to her feet and advanced on the flustered man, "You gutted me with your great big, bloody sword! Now I wake up covered in my own blood, and what I assume to be various bits of lopped-off viscera, with no injuries to speak of, and you tell me that it's ALRIGHT?!" She backed off a few steps and scowled at him, "I may be many things but currently, 'alright' is not on the list."
"You... died."
She snorted, "So I gathered, then what?"
"You... woke up?" He smiled ruefully, "I would have been more - aware - of your presence if you had been a norm. But the preemie buzz melded with Polonius's and I thought you might have been his student."
Hermione sighed, "What am I?"
"You are an immortal," Adam explained slowly, watching her carefully while he waited for the other shoe to drop. "You just experienced what we call 'first death'. You won't age or change, really, until someone or something removes your head. You can die, but it won't, erm, stick. The flipside is that other immortals will be trying to kill you and take your energy, your life-force. We call that a 'quickening'."
"Are you going to try and kill me?"
He smiled lopsidedly, "I believe I already have." Seeing her exasperated expression he continued, "No. No, I'm not. As I am the first immortal to come upon you since your death I am honor-bound to train you and take you on as my student."
Hermione scowled at him and the decidedly disgruntled tone he had adopted towards the end of the explanation, "Please don't put yourself out on my account, I'm just the girl you gutted."
It was Adam's turn to frown, "You know, some immortals specialize in just killing newbies..."
"I'm sorry, it appears being murdered disagrees with me!"
A/N: Herms can be pretty short with people who aren't Ron or Harry.
▬▬▬
▬Sparkly Surprises▬
Amanda sighed with pleasure as the contents of the safe came into view: "Pretty!"
"But not yours."
She spun and smiled at the figure blurred by shadows. "Ah, but possession is nine-tenths of the law," her lips quirked at the corners, one diamond-encrusted platinum bracelet swinging from her fingers.
"Put the trinket back, you're coming with me."
"Not the most flattering invitation I've received, I'll consider it."
He moved forward, revealing broad shoulders encased in a black Kevlar suit with the sigil of a bat sitting on his breastbone. He seemed to fill the small room and Amanda almost sighed at the picture he made. Almost.
"That wasn't a request, ma'am."
"Pity I never took well to orders. Comes from my contrary nature, I suppose."
"Contrary as in cat? You are the Cat, I presume."
"Yes, yes, robbing Gotham's rich blind." She scoffed, "They MUST be blind to wear some of the trash I've picked up. Your... Mrs. Robinson? Yes, she has the best taste I've seen all week." Amanda pouted, "Couldn't you have waited till tomorrow to catch up? I had a lovely little heist planned, a very MYSTERIOUS character that Bruce Wayne. I wonder what sort of TRINKETS he has hidden away..."
"Curiosity killed the cat."
Was it her imagination, or did she detect some new threat in his tone?
Regardless, Amanda smiled at him and winked, preparing for her departure. "But satisfaction brought it back. Goodbye, Batman, I'm sure our next meeting will be VERY... satisfying." Blowing a kiss, she leapt for the rope leading to her escape and shimmied down, fleeing for the window she's used to enter and darting over the roof as quickly as her feet would take her.
She jumped back into a shallow alcove she'd kept prepped for a quick escape and watched the dark shadow of the Bat glide past. Smiling a secretive little smile, Amanda began planning her next encounter with the MYSTERIOUS vigilante.
She'd always been a sucker for a man in black.
Glancing down at the delicate bag she'd filled while they bantered, she grinned.
Satisfaction indeed!
A/N: Obvious AU, she'd make an interesting Catwoman, no?
▬▬▬
▬Surprise Pairing▬
She disappeared after that night. The night when everything was laid bare and all secrets were let out of their little hiding places. The night she kissed death and then killed him, again. The night she realized that everything she'd feared from the night her parents didn't believe her till now had been nothing, NOTHING compared to one simple, horrifying truth.
She'd come back wrong.
All wrong.
Not a little wrong.
There was something bubbling up inside her like vomit, thick and hot. It ate at her insides and her conscience and her morals. All her fight and fire and heart was being gobbled up, consumed and destroyed. The tatters that remained insisted that she leave before she inflicted more pain on her friends. The new her that didn't really care insisted that she leave before THEY inflicted more pain on HER.
So she hopped on a bus and went back to the worst place she'd ever been. The wrongest, the dirtiest, the ugliest corner of hellish existence that Earth had to offer. She went home to where the crazies lived in a place named after their skulls.
The Hollows.
She found a man who made her broken self laugh, something she didn't think was possible. How could you laugh when everything was about pain? That was easy, he patiently explained, you made others feel it too and marveled at their innocence that they had not seen it before.
Life was funny: it was pain and doomed love and a struggle to survive that you never won.
He was Joker, she was Harley Quinn.
Somehow, they made it work.
A/N: Insane and blonde? C'mon, SOMEONE had to have seen the possiblities!
▬▬▬
PS: can we get a batman tag?