BtVS: In the A.M. (2/7)
Title: It's 3 a.m., I Must be Lonely
Series: In the A.M.
Author: Vashti
Fandom: BtVS
Character(s): Buffy, Oz, Spike, OC
Rating: PG-13 for series
Summary: Buffy still can't sleep.
Length: 1060 words
Disclaimer: I don't know you. You don't know me. Let's keep it that way.
Notes: This was written quite some time ago. I'm pretty sure you can date it just from the tech mentioned. Anywho, finally reposting in no small part due to Draegan88 expressing an interest in any other Buffy/Oz stories I might have written.
§§§
It’s 3 A.M., I Must Be Lonely
by Vashti
Buffy stared at the dead computer monitor. Turn it on or don’t turn it on? Turn it on or don’t turn it on?
It was all just another excuse not to go back to sleep until she absolutely had to. Maybe she’d just sit in Oz’s chat room and see if he showed up. Dawn wasn’t until about seven. She could wait it out until five thirty or so…
Many moments passed before Buffy realized she was staring at the desktop and not a blank screen. Funny, she still remembered the login password. Or did she? She might have pressed the Escape button. On a whim she hit the Windows button. Log off Buffy... showed clearly, directly above the Shut Down option. She’d logged in without thinking about it. Heck, she’d turned on the computer without thinking about it. Any more internal monologue and she probably would have logged into the internet.
But all this conjecture, all the little things she did-wondering if she logged in, whether to turn the computer on, wondering if she about the ‘net-were all to kill time. “Time is so overrated,” she muttered to herself, slowly shaking her head as she clicked the internet icon. She should talk to Will about getting DSL. Who was she kidding? Buffy wanted a quicker way online about as much as she wanted a bullet to-
Actually…
“Well, duh I wanna log on,” she whispered to the computer, something of her former self showing through. If Angel could have heard it he would have cringed. They all would have.
Although she had saved the avatar she had made the night before, she created another making the effort to get in as many details as possible. The avatar BUFFY already exists. Do you want to overwrite it? the computer asked.
Did she?
(Did she? Did she? Did she? Didshe? Didshe? didshe? didshe didshe didshedidshedidshe dishedishedishe diji . . .)
Buffy blinked once, twice, shaking her head. Why were bugs crawling across her monitor? Screen saver, right. She remembered those but she didn’t remember programming this one as her default. Must remember to change it, she thought. She wiggled the mouse.
The avatar BUFFY already exists. Do you want to overwrite it?
No. Well, she didn’t think she wanted to. No, definitely not. See, Buffy told herself, decisions weren’t so hard to make after all. Maybe there was a Save As thing she could do. Bad as the first version was, she wanted to keep it. It was her after all-all symbolic and everything. The next ten minutes saw Buffy trying to figure out how to save both programs under the same file. In the end she was forced to rename the old version. “Proto-Buffy? No, that sounds like the Buffy-Bot. Hey, how ‘bout… Bleh,” she shuddered, backspacing furiously. “No way. Pre-Buffy? Pre-Buffy.”
BUFFY has been renamed PRE-BUFFY.
BUFFY has been saved.
“Woo hoo,” she deadpanned, ready to move into the chat room.
Buffy: Hello? Anyone here?
That was silly. Obviously no one was there. The room was empty. Wait, no, there was someone on the room list set as AFK, whatever that was. Sighing Buffy “sat” in the same place she had with Oz. An umbrella she hadn’t noticed last time was up, shading her from the bright sunlight. The breeze was the same. She liked this breeze: not too hard, not too soft or she’d have been giggling. So not in a giggling mood.
BBV: what’r u doin’ here?
Buffy: Uh, this is my friend’s chatroom. I was invited.
BBV: Oz?
Buffy: Oz
BBV: wonder why he let you in here
Buffy scowled at the screen.
Buffy: you know what, I don’t need this. if you see Oz tell him I was here
BBV: goin' so soon? aww, where's the fun in that?
Rolling her eyes she logged out. Maybe a late night patrol wouldn't be so bad after all. Not bothering to ponder it as she had going online, she got up from the computer the moment the screen went black. Moving silently in the dark she dressed, gathered her things and headed into the night.
§§§
“La-da di, la-da da. La-da di, la-da da. She’s homeless, she’s homeless…”
“Pretty awful singing there, Pet. You’ll scare the demons away.”
Buffy turned. “It obviously isn’t working.”
“Aw, now that’s just cruel.” Spike pouted clownishly. “Hurts right here, it does,” he clutched his dead heart and staggered back among the tombstones.
Buffy walked by.
“Wait up then.” He touched her arm. She spun around. “What’re you doing up so late? Don’t you have a Nibblet to take care of in the morning, or are you letting the witches handle the household now?”
Ready to light into him, Buffy raised herself up to her full height-and collapsed in on herself. The exchange with Oz came back to mind. “It’s 3 a.m., I must be lonely,” she shrugged and walked on.
Spike was stunned. Had she just let him in? “Then you came looking for me?” He sprinted to catch up.
“Hardly.” She threw a disgusted look over her shoulder. “Darnit! I don’t know,” she exclaimed sitting, suddenly, on a stone sarcophagus.
So suddenly that Spike overshot her. “Don’t know, Pet?” he asked, slowly walking back to her. “Want t’talk about it?”
Buffy snorted. “No!” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. “Yes. But not with you.”
“Then why are you here?” He kneeled at her dangling feet. “Why aren’t you waking up Red or Xapper or making a long distance call to the Watcher? Oh right, they don’t know that they’ve screwed it all up. I forgot, you trusted me with that little tidbit.”
“God, Spike, if you’re gonna rub me confiding in you in my face, I don’t know why I’m here.”
“You obviously told me for a reason.”
“Because you’re the only one it won’t hurt!” she screamed. “ ‘Sides, you can’t help me either,” she whispered softly, the dead-cold creeping back into her voice.
Gently, Spike touched her knee. “Let me help you.”
“How?” she asked sullenly.
He shrugged. “You wanna talk? Let’s talk. What’s this ‘It’s 3 a.m., I must be lonely’ rot about?”
Buffy opened her mouth and words came out and, if asked how she would classify those words, she would have had to say she talked.
Fin[ite]
Series: In the A.M.
Author: Vashti
Fandom: BtVS
Character(s): Buffy, Oz, Spike, OC
Rating: PG-13 for series
Summary: Buffy still can't sleep.
Length: 1060 words
Disclaimer: I don't know you. You don't know me. Let's keep it that way.
Notes: This was written quite some time ago. I'm pretty sure you can date it just from the tech mentioned. Anywho, finally reposting in no small part due to Draegan88 expressing an interest in any other Buffy/Oz stories I might have written.
§§§
It’s 3 A.M., I Must Be Lonely
by Vashti
Buffy stared at the dead computer monitor. Turn it on or don’t turn it on? Turn it on or don’t turn it on?
It was all just another excuse not to go back to sleep until she absolutely had to. Maybe she’d just sit in Oz’s chat room and see if he showed up. Dawn wasn’t until about seven. She could wait it out until five thirty or so…
Many moments passed before Buffy realized she was staring at the desktop and not a blank screen. Funny, she still remembered the login password. Or did she? She might have pressed the Escape button. On a whim she hit the Windows button. Log off Buffy... showed clearly, directly above the Shut Down option. She’d logged in without thinking about it. Heck, she’d turned on the computer without thinking about it. Any more internal monologue and she probably would have logged into the internet.
But all this conjecture, all the little things she did-wondering if she logged in, whether to turn the computer on, wondering if she about the ‘net-were all to kill time. “Time is so overrated,” she muttered to herself, slowly shaking her head as she clicked the internet icon. She should talk to Will about getting DSL. Who was she kidding? Buffy wanted a quicker way online about as much as she wanted a bullet to-
Actually…
“Well, duh I wanna log on,” she whispered to the computer, something of her former self showing through. If Angel could have heard it he would have cringed. They all would have.
Although she had saved the avatar she had made the night before, she created another making the effort to get in as many details as possible. The avatar BUFFY already exists. Do you want to overwrite it? the computer asked.
Did she?
(Did she? Did she? Did she? Didshe? Didshe? didshe? didshe didshe didshedidshedidshe dishedishedishe diji . . .)
Buffy blinked once, twice, shaking her head. Why were bugs crawling across her monitor? Screen saver, right. She remembered those but she didn’t remember programming this one as her default. Must remember to change it, she thought. She wiggled the mouse.
The avatar BUFFY already exists. Do you want to overwrite it?
No. Well, she didn’t think she wanted to. No, definitely not. See, Buffy told herself, decisions weren’t so hard to make after all. Maybe there was a Save As thing she could do. Bad as the first version was, she wanted to keep it. It was her after all-all symbolic and everything. The next ten minutes saw Buffy trying to figure out how to save both programs under the same file. In the end she was forced to rename the old version. “Proto-Buffy? No, that sounds like the Buffy-Bot. Hey, how ‘bout… Bleh,” she shuddered, backspacing furiously. “No way. Pre-Buffy? Pre-Buffy.”
BUFFY has been renamed PRE-BUFFY.
BUFFY has been saved.
“Woo hoo,” she deadpanned, ready to move into the chat room.
Buffy: Hello? Anyone here?
That was silly. Obviously no one was there. The room was empty. Wait, no, there was someone on the room list set as AFK, whatever that was. Sighing Buffy “sat” in the same place she had with Oz. An umbrella she hadn’t noticed last time was up, shading her from the bright sunlight. The breeze was the same. She liked this breeze: not too hard, not too soft or she’d have been giggling. So not in a giggling mood.
BBV: what’r u doin’ here?
Buffy: Uh, this is my friend’s chatroom. I was invited.
BBV: Oz?
Buffy: Oz
BBV: wonder why he let you in here
Buffy scowled at the screen.
Buffy: you know what, I don’t need this. if you see Oz tell him I was here
BBV: goin' so soon? aww, where's the fun in that?
Rolling her eyes she logged out. Maybe a late night patrol wouldn't be so bad after all. Not bothering to ponder it as she had going online, she got up from the computer the moment the screen went black. Moving silently in the dark she dressed, gathered her things and headed into the night.
§§§
“La-da di, la-da da. La-da di, la-da da. She’s homeless, she’s homeless…”
“Pretty awful singing there, Pet. You’ll scare the demons away.”
Buffy turned. “It obviously isn’t working.”
“Aw, now that’s just cruel.” Spike pouted clownishly. “Hurts right here, it does,” he clutched his dead heart and staggered back among the tombstones.
Buffy walked by.
“Wait up then.” He touched her arm. She spun around. “What’re you doing up so late? Don’t you have a Nibblet to take care of in the morning, or are you letting the witches handle the household now?”
Ready to light into him, Buffy raised herself up to her full height-and collapsed in on herself. The exchange with Oz came back to mind. “It’s 3 a.m., I must be lonely,” she shrugged and walked on.
Spike was stunned. Had she just let him in? “Then you came looking for me?” He sprinted to catch up.
“Hardly.” She threw a disgusted look over her shoulder. “Darnit! I don’t know,” she exclaimed sitting, suddenly, on a stone sarcophagus.
So suddenly that Spike overshot her. “Don’t know, Pet?” he asked, slowly walking back to her. “Want t’talk about it?”
Buffy snorted. “No!” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. “Yes. But not with you.”
“Then why are you here?” He kneeled at her dangling feet. “Why aren’t you waking up Red or Xapper or making a long distance call to the Watcher? Oh right, they don’t know that they’ve screwed it all up. I forgot, you trusted me with that little tidbit.”
“God, Spike, if you’re gonna rub me confiding in you in my face, I don’t know why I’m here.”
“You obviously told me for a reason.”
“Because you’re the only one it won’t hurt!” she screamed. “ ‘Sides, you can’t help me either,” she whispered softly, the dead-cold creeping back into her voice.
Gently, Spike touched her knee. “Let me help you.”
“How?” she asked sullenly.
He shrugged. “You wanna talk? Let’s talk. What’s this ‘It’s 3 a.m., I must be lonely’ rot about?”
Buffy opened her mouth and words came out and, if asked how she would classify those words, she would have had to say she talked.
Fin[ite]