fic: what a world
fic: what a world
fandom: true detective / btvs
characters: buffy/rust(/maggie), audrey/dawn, marty, macie
word count: 1340
recipient: kikimay requested a crossover for the october meme
setting: post-S7 of Buffy, sometime in maybe 2005/6? Audrey and Dawn are actually canonically about the same age (as far as I can figure, since True Detective is neglectful with ages, but Audrey is a teen in 2002 when her parents divorce, so I'm placing them as being the same age because there's no proof otherwise) and Buffy ended in 2003 when Dawn was a sophomore in high school... so ... somewhere in their first year of college is when this takes place.
[It's a whole other world down here]Dawn has been living in the dorms in Louisiana long enough to have a girlfriend with parents who want to meet Buffy. So she packs a suitcase, leaves detailed instructions for feeding the cat that followed her home that one time, and packs extra sleeping pills for the flight.
She meets him in a corner drugstore a half mile from the house she’s meeting Dawn at and she’s pulling restlessly at the prim skirt she put on that morning, staring at the bottles of wine and wondering what the hell she’s doing.
Maggie likes wine. The father will like it if you bring whiskey.
Does he have a name, the father?
Yeah, dickwad.
Dawn always sounds a bit muffled in their phone conversations, a bit like she’s underwater or much further away than Louisiana. She always laughs when Buffy mentions it and says softly, It’s a whole other world down here.
He pulls out a wine, reaching over her head, and leaning over her shoulder to put it in her hands. He smells like smoke and metal, his fingers are long and lean on the bottle. She turns and he doesn’t move, it looks like an embrace (it feels like something she can’t explain), his face is gaunt and his eyes don’t seem to see her. She should ask him about the wine, she should thank him, she should push him away.
Instead, she stays very, very still.
The way you do around a wild animal out of its cage.
Even the most tame animals still carry about them a taste of feral possibility.
He doesn’t feel tame at all, his chest less than an inch from hers, his long neck angled down to look at her curiously. As if she were the wild thing nestled in his trap.
It’s a good wine, he drawls out.
I don’t know anything about wine.
Neither do I.
She smiles and it is quick. He smiles back and it is soft and languid.
(They have sex in the back seat of her rental car in a dark corner of the parking lot. Her face is lit up by passing cars, but he remains in the shadows.
He’s a good ten years older than anything she should be messing with. She’s a bit too innocent for anything he has to offer her.
They fit inside each other like a hand and glove.)
A woman with brown hair and soft eyes opens the door and Buffy could swear she knows absolutely everything about her within a split second. Like being opened up and dissected in the span of mere seconds.
She’s Maggie, the mother, and she greets Buffy with a warm hug, leading her into a living room where three girls are curled up watching television, happy as a pile of warm wiggling puppies.
There’s introductions of course and Buffy smiles her best guest smile and Maggie’s warm hand on her arm gives her more strength than she thought she needed to get through something so simple.
She hands Maggie the wine and talks too fast, Dawn rolls her eyes in the background.
What is it mom?
Oh it’s nothing. Just a silly thing.
Is the wine all wrong? I don’t know anything about wine.
Maggie’s smile is sad, Oh no, this is one of my favorites! It’s just that…
Mom? Audrey’s voice carries in it a soft warning.
This is the wine Rust always brought. You girls remember your dad’s old partner, right? She throws the last over her shoulder as she heads to the kitchen, but not before Buffy noticed the tears in her eyes.
She looks back at the girls, waiting for one of the daughters to follow their mother, to inquire, to be daughterly and concerned.
Macie stands up and snorts, She cries more over that fucking loser than she ever did about dad.
Dad is a tool, Mace.
Fuck you, Audrey. And fuck this happy family dinner. She slams the front door on her way out.
Dad says he’s coming tonight. But I’ll bet he won’t show. So don’t worry, you won’t have to deal with him.
Buffy thinks this last is directed at her, but she’s not sure how to respond, and Dawn is staring up at her owlishly - giving her no clues how to respond - so she follows the sound of Maggie clattering in the kitchen.
They open the bottle and Buffy does her best to help with dinner and not knock anything on the floor or burn anything. They talk about the girls and the weather and recipes and simple things. It’s easy. Like conversations were born in this kitchen in Louisiana and everywhere else there is only a mockery of this simplicity. Maggie smiles into her wine glass and Buffy smiles back and it doesn’t feel as forced as she’d figured on meeting the parents of the girl her sister is dating would be.
Just as everything is sizzling, a man walks into the kitchen in a long coat and with a furrowed brow.
Marty.
I only came to say I can’t stay, he shrugs. Work…
Yeah, work. Did you tell Audrey?
She understands.
He turns his bright eyes onto Buffy and her skin crawls under his gaze. They exchange pleasantries, his fingers linger on her hand and she pulls back. She can’t remember a word he says once they pass his smirking lips. She’s drowning. She feels cold down to her toes when he looks at her. She wants to slink away.
(She can feel Maggie’s presence, warm and steady, next to her. She smiles back at him and matches him beat for beat.
She feels Maggie’s pride slide over her like a warm blanket.
They match him, smile for smile, a pun for every witty comment.
Buffy feels as though she’s in a battle but can’t decide what is the prize. She just knows they’re winning.)
On his way out, his eyes catch on the bottle of wine in Maggie’s hand, Someone been by to see you?
Buffy brought it for me. Such a nice gesture, don’t you think?
His smile is hard, Fuck you Maggie.
Maggie raises her glass to his retreating back and takes a long swallow of her wine.
Dinner is just the four of them and it’s easier than any dinner Buffy has ever been to - which, considering the amount of emotional turmoil she’s seen in the past two hours, is remarkable. The girls tease Maggie and she blushes. Dawn and Buffy share awkward stories about growing up and Halloween costumes gone wrong and almost sound like normal sisters for once. Audrey and Dawn whisper to each other and giggle and that feels as right as anything else.
They make plans to meet for lunch and go sight-seeing the next day. Maggie hugs Buffy and the girls on their way out the door. Buffy lingers in her embrace a bit longer, tears in the corner of her eye.
There is a warm house and an embrace for her sister in a way she couldn’t give, and she can’t tell if she feels envious or guilty.
He’s leaning against the doorframe of her cheap hotel room when she arrives, smoke billowing over his head like a signal out into the night.
She has the courage, in a dark hallway, to ask, What’s haunting you?
He smiles and it creates more shadows on his face when she feels as though it should chase him away, What haunts all men. The memory of a girl.
(She takes that for what it is, even if it’s not what it seems, and leaves the door open for him to follow her through. She could be following him down and there’s no doubt in her mind that she doesn’t have the strength to pull him back out of whatever darkness he’s buried himself in, but his fingers and his mouth have left a mark.
And it’s been so very long since she felt haunted in the dark.
She leans into it like a burned out memory.)
She wakes to the scent of Maggie's perfume clinging to her hair and the taste of smoke in her mouth.
fandom: true detective / btvs
characters: buffy/rust(/maggie), audrey/dawn, marty, macie
word count: 1340
recipient: kikimay requested a crossover for the october meme
setting: post-S7 of Buffy, sometime in maybe 2005/6? Audrey and Dawn are actually canonically about the same age (as far as I can figure, since True Detective is neglectful with ages, but Audrey is a teen in 2002 when her parents divorce, so I'm placing them as being the same age because there's no proof otherwise) and Buffy ended in 2003 when Dawn was a sophomore in high school... so ... somewhere in their first year of college is when this takes place.
[It's a whole other world down here]Dawn has been living in the dorms in Louisiana long enough to have a girlfriend with parents who want to meet Buffy. So she packs a suitcase, leaves detailed instructions for feeding the cat that followed her home that one time, and packs extra sleeping pills for the flight.
She meets him in a corner drugstore a half mile from the house she’s meeting Dawn at and she’s pulling restlessly at the prim skirt she put on that morning, staring at the bottles of wine and wondering what the hell she’s doing.
Maggie likes wine. The father will like it if you bring whiskey.
Does he have a name, the father?
Yeah, dickwad.
Dawn always sounds a bit muffled in their phone conversations, a bit like she’s underwater or much further away than Louisiana. She always laughs when Buffy mentions it and says softly, It’s a whole other world down here.
He pulls out a wine, reaching over her head, and leaning over her shoulder to put it in her hands. He smells like smoke and metal, his fingers are long and lean on the bottle. She turns and he doesn’t move, it looks like an embrace (it feels like something she can’t explain), his face is gaunt and his eyes don’t seem to see her. She should ask him about the wine, she should thank him, she should push him away.
Instead, she stays very, very still.
The way you do around a wild animal out of its cage.
Even the most tame animals still carry about them a taste of feral possibility.
He doesn’t feel tame at all, his chest less than an inch from hers, his long neck angled down to look at her curiously. As if she were the wild thing nestled in his trap.
It’s a good wine, he drawls out.
I don’t know anything about wine.
Neither do I.
She smiles and it is quick. He smiles back and it is soft and languid.
(They have sex in the back seat of her rental car in a dark corner of the parking lot. Her face is lit up by passing cars, but he remains in the shadows.
He’s a good ten years older than anything she should be messing with. She’s a bit too innocent for anything he has to offer her.
They fit inside each other like a hand and glove.)
A woman with brown hair and soft eyes opens the door and Buffy could swear she knows absolutely everything about her within a split second. Like being opened up and dissected in the span of mere seconds.
She’s Maggie, the mother, and she greets Buffy with a warm hug, leading her into a living room where three girls are curled up watching television, happy as a pile of warm wiggling puppies.
There’s introductions of course and Buffy smiles her best guest smile and Maggie’s warm hand on her arm gives her more strength than she thought she needed to get through something so simple.
She hands Maggie the wine and talks too fast, Dawn rolls her eyes in the background.
What is it mom?
Oh it’s nothing. Just a silly thing.
Is the wine all wrong? I don’t know anything about wine.
Maggie’s smile is sad, Oh no, this is one of my favorites! It’s just that…
Mom? Audrey’s voice carries in it a soft warning.
This is the wine Rust always brought. You girls remember your dad’s old partner, right? She throws the last over her shoulder as she heads to the kitchen, but not before Buffy noticed the tears in her eyes.
She looks back at the girls, waiting for one of the daughters to follow their mother, to inquire, to be daughterly and concerned.
Macie stands up and snorts, She cries more over that fucking loser than she ever did about dad.
Dad is a tool, Mace.
Fuck you, Audrey. And fuck this happy family dinner. She slams the front door on her way out.
Dad says he’s coming tonight. But I’ll bet he won’t show. So don’t worry, you won’t have to deal with him.
Buffy thinks this last is directed at her, but she’s not sure how to respond, and Dawn is staring up at her owlishly - giving her no clues how to respond - so she follows the sound of Maggie clattering in the kitchen.
They open the bottle and Buffy does her best to help with dinner and not knock anything on the floor or burn anything. They talk about the girls and the weather and recipes and simple things. It’s easy. Like conversations were born in this kitchen in Louisiana and everywhere else there is only a mockery of this simplicity. Maggie smiles into her wine glass and Buffy smiles back and it doesn’t feel as forced as she’d figured on meeting the parents of the girl her sister is dating would be.
Just as everything is sizzling, a man walks into the kitchen in a long coat and with a furrowed brow.
Marty.
I only came to say I can’t stay, he shrugs. Work…
Yeah, work. Did you tell Audrey?
She understands.
He turns his bright eyes onto Buffy and her skin crawls under his gaze. They exchange pleasantries, his fingers linger on her hand and she pulls back. She can’t remember a word he says once they pass his smirking lips. She’s drowning. She feels cold down to her toes when he looks at her. She wants to slink away.
(She can feel Maggie’s presence, warm and steady, next to her. She smiles back at him and matches him beat for beat.
She feels Maggie’s pride slide over her like a warm blanket.
They match him, smile for smile, a pun for every witty comment.
Buffy feels as though she’s in a battle but can’t decide what is the prize. She just knows they’re winning.)
On his way out, his eyes catch on the bottle of wine in Maggie’s hand, Someone been by to see you?
Buffy brought it for me. Such a nice gesture, don’t you think?
His smile is hard, Fuck you Maggie.
Maggie raises her glass to his retreating back and takes a long swallow of her wine.
Dinner is just the four of them and it’s easier than any dinner Buffy has ever been to - which, considering the amount of emotional turmoil she’s seen in the past two hours, is remarkable. The girls tease Maggie and she blushes. Dawn and Buffy share awkward stories about growing up and Halloween costumes gone wrong and almost sound like normal sisters for once. Audrey and Dawn whisper to each other and giggle and that feels as right as anything else.
They make plans to meet for lunch and go sight-seeing the next day. Maggie hugs Buffy and the girls on their way out the door. Buffy lingers in her embrace a bit longer, tears in the corner of her eye.
There is a warm house and an embrace for her sister in a way she couldn’t give, and she can’t tell if she feels envious or guilty.
He’s leaning against the doorframe of her cheap hotel room when she arrives, smoke billowing over his head like a signal out into the night.
She has the courage, in a dark hallway, to ask, What’s haunting you?
He smiles and it creates more shadows on his face when she feels as though it should chase him away, What haunts all men. The memory of a girl.
(She takes that for what it is, even if it’s not what it seems, and leaves the door open for him to follow her through. She could be following him down and there’s no doubt in her mind that she doesn’t have the strength to pull him back out of whatever darkness he’s buried himself in, but his fingers and his mouth have left a mark.
And it’s been so very long since she felt haunted in the dark.
She leans into it like a burned out memory.)
She wakes to the scent of Maggie's perfume clinging to her hair and the taste of smoke in her mouth.