New Fic, Now With Title! How to Be Good or Evil, Chapter 5a
Egads, has it really been that long since I've posted? Things have been... busy. Nothing worth going into detail about, but at least I've finally carved out a moment to make some progress on this fic, now with title!
How to Be Good or Evil, chapter 5a
Note: Thanks to red_satin_doll for catching a continuity goof! Xander was supposed to have brought the ax with him into the school. Chapter 3 is now updated to fix this.
Title: How to be Good or Evil
Author: thedeadlyhook
Pairing: Probably Spike/Buffy. Eventually. You know me.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters not mine; no infringement intended, and no profit is being made here.
Rating: PG, so far. I'll let you know when that changes. It will.
Warnings: Hm, not sure what to say here. Some horror movie-esque creepiness, although not much in this chapter.
Feedback: No obligation, but it's nice.
Summary: A complete reimagining of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 7, following the breadcrumb trail of where I'd originally thought things might go for the characters. Some ideas from the season will appear, but I'm making no real attempt to track canon here, so other thoughts and themes probably will not. We'll see where this experiment takes me!
Previous installments: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4a, Chapter 4b.
Chapter 5a: Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
The moment Xander stepped out of the school, his phone started working again. He practically leapt out of his skin at the shrill ring, and completed a half turn to run back into the high school before his brain caught up and identified the sound.
"Gahh!" He grabbed the phone his belt. "Hello?
"Xander?" Dawn's excited babble erupted from the phone. "What happened? I've been calling and calling, but I couldn't get through." Her voice then went faint, as if she was talking away from the speaker. "Will you guys just calm down! I'm talking to him now!" He could just make out several tinny voices screaming, along with a distant roaring sound.
Equal parts alarmed and relieved, he took a deep breath before answering. "I'm outside the high school now. Maybe we, uh, lost the connection because I was inside. You know, where you are, but... not."
Dawn had no problem keeping up with this logic. "You mean because we were in the same place trying to call each other, except in different dimensions or alernate realities or whatever, so the signal wouldn't work?"
"Something like that, yeah."
"Did you get ahold of Buffy?" She lowered her voice and cupped her hand around the phone. "I left her a bunch of messages, but now I can't go through to her number, either. Is she--?"
Thank god they'd just talked about this. "She's inside the school, yeah. With your school principal, no less."
"Is he evil?"
"Don't know, although I'm sure Buffy will find out. Just hang tight there, okay? And stay on the line. I'll keep you posted."
"'kay." Dawn lowered the phone. She could hear Xander continuing to talk to what she assumed must be one of his work crew. It made for a comforting background.
"You can't get through to her?"
Carlos's voice startled her. Dawn looked up. He was staring down at her from where he'd been restlessly pacing, still trying to get his mind wrapped around the whole "monsters are real" thing, apparently.
"I mean, you're her sister," he said. "Is she just not picking up? Doesn't she care?"
"What? No, it's, uh--" She stopped herself and cleared her throat. "She's actually here. In the school with us. We just can't see her because we're in a different, I dunno, time or space. Or something."
"Right." She expected him to launch a few more questions at her, but he just went back to pacing again. "I'm too young to die," he muttered. "I haven't even--my girlfriend never--" He targeted her with a laser-like stare. "Dawn, have you ever--?"
"No," she said, before he could even finish. "Seriously, this is not that time."
"Right," he said again, and returned to pacing. "Y'know, when you read comics or watch movies about this kind of stuff, you never think about being the one who might, y'know, get eaten by the monster."
"Everyone's the hero of their own story, I get that," Dawn murmured, although she was really thinking about what he'd said before, about being too young to die. She wasn't sorry she'd just turned him down because hello, vulnerable much? Plus she'd seen exactly how well that kind of before-the-apocalypse hookup could work out with Xander and Anya. But she'd only ever been kissed that one time herself--by a vampire, no less--and she'd never had a steady boyfriend. Just schoolgirl crushes on Xander and... oh, no way, she wasn't going to start thinking about him now. A hot flush ran up the back of her neck as she flashed back to the creepy apparition of Spike she'd seen in the school bathroom. The way he'd said you're not your sister and Big Bad Wolf's on your heels.
Maybe it was better that she hadn't done all that much yet.
Carlos suddenly stopped pacing and slumped with his back against the tile wall beside her. Head hanging low like a defeated boxer's, he slid down to a crouch, balancing on his heels.
"Is it hard for you?" he said. "I mean--stuff like this? To be the bystander in, like, a monster movie, waiting to be eaten, o-or rescued? Like... she's Wonder Woman and you're just Wonder Girl?"
"Uh, not really," Dawn said after a pause. The question had caught her off-guard, although honestly, she really appreciated the distraction. "I mean, Wonder Girl has powers too, so she gets to do her own super stuff. I'm more like Aunt May is to Spider-Man. A relative that he's gotta rescue all the time." Without skipping a beat, she added, "And before you ask, I don't read comics, I have a friend who tells me about them."
"Oh," Carlos said, and then fell silent.
"But thanks. For asking about... how I feel. Not just about Buffy." She smiled at him, and he smiled back.
She didn't add that in that moment, he had become about 100% more attractive to her. And she might seriously reconsider his suggestion of a few minutes ago if they ever got out of this because, like she'd said earlier, hello, not the time.
The lights in the hallway began flickering and then dimmed to a glow barely above candlelight. The huddle of students by the door let out a synchronized moan, and one girl began a rising chant that threatened to escalate into full-blown panic.
"Ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod..."
"Can you help with that?" Dawn shot Carlos a pleading look and jerked her chin toward the noise. She clutched the cell phone tighter in her hands. "We really don't need whatever's doing this to notice us. I mean, any more than--"
"Got it." Carlos seemed grateful for distraction himself. He slid off the wall with a sense of purpose and went over to comfort the panicking girl.
Meanwhile, Dawn stayed huddled where she was, phone in hand, ears open for the comforting noise of Xander's chatter.
"Hang on a second," she heard him say, small and faraway through the speaker. "Willow's here and she'll---gah!"
The next sound through the phone was a burst of crackling static. Then, silence.
__________
One minute, he's talking to Dawn on the phone while also trying to confer with one of his crew on a walkie-talkie--surprise, when the foreman disappears from the site during the work day, all sorts of urgent questions seem to come up--and the next, there's a big burst of static, and he's holding up a finger to stop Willow from interrupting him and babbling something to Dawn, but that's before his brain catches up with the rest of him and reacts.
"Geez!" He reeled backward, hand clapped to his chest like a silent movie heroine. "My heart!"
"Sorry!" Willow waved her hands. "Still getting the hang of the whole teleporting thing."
He panted, half bent-over, trying to get his composure back. Willow looked---
He did a double-take like a cartoon character, stared.
She was dressed in an outift that looked odd even by Willow standards. For starters, she was barefoot. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders and was braided with flowers--not daises, but some other kind of wildflower he didn't recognize. Her bottom half was swathed in a batik-printed ankle-length skirt, and her top was a loose green cotton tank top that looked lke army surplus. But the crowing glory was a thick mat of gaudy necklaces and amulets of assorted shapes and sizes dangling around her neck. The overall effect was sort of Haight-Ashbury hippie meets Mr. T.
It took him a moment to find his voice. "Is it Halloween already?"
She shot him a wounded look. "Hello to you too."
"Sorry. It's just--" He waved his hands. The phone was still in his right hand, but he'd dropped the walkie-talkie in his shock; it was still hissing and crackling at his feet. "--there's this whole thing with the school, and Buffy's missing--"
"I know. The coven told me." Willow straightened, all business now. "That's why I'm here. Oh, just a second." She turned toward the school just as the front door banged open, accompanied by a bright flash like the strobe of a searchlight. Day turned into... more day. Brighter.
He blinked, helplessly. Through the dark spots in his eyes he could see Dawn and friends running through the door, down the stairs.
"Dawn!" She ran straight into his arms, and he gave her a one-armed hug while trying to kick the walkie-talkie out of the way, close his phone... his body and brain were still nowhere near in sync. "What happened?"
"I-I don't know. There was this burst of light, and... everything went back to normal." She looked around and her gaze halted on Willow. "Oh, hi."
"Hi." Willow waved. "I'm back."
"Yeah. Looks that way." Dawn pointedly turned away from her and addressed Xander. "Is Buffy still inside?"
With a sinking feeling, Xander looked back at the school.
"Yeah. She's still inside."
How to Be Good or Evil, chapter 5a
Note: Thanks to red_satin_doll for catching a continuity goof! Xander was supposed to have brought the ax with him into the school. Chapter 3 is now updated to fix this.
Title: How to be Good or Evil
Author: thedeadlyhook
Pairing: Probably Spike/Buffy. Eventually. You know me.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters not mine; no infringement intended, and no profit is being made here.
Rating: PG, so far. I'll let you know when that changes. It will.
Warnings: Hm, not sure what to say here. Some horror movie-esque creepiness, although not much in this chapter.
Feedback: No obligation, but it's nice.
Summary: A complete reimagining of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 7, following the breadcrumb trail of where I'd originally thought things might go for the characters. Some ideas from the season will appear, but I'm making no real attempt to track canon here, so other thoughts and themes probably will not. We'll see where this experiment takes me!
Previous installments: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4a, Chapter 4b.
Chapter 5a: Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
The moment Xander stepped out of the school, his phone started working again. He practically leapt out of his skin at the shrill ring, and completed a half turn to run back into the high school before his brain caught up and identified the sound.
"Gahh!" He grabbed the phone his belt. "Hello?
"Xander?" Dawn's excited babble erupted from the phone. "What happened? I've been calling and calling, but I couldn't get through." Her voice then went faint, as if she was talking away from the speaker. "Will you guys just calm down! I'm talking to him now!" He could just make out several tinny voices screaming, along with a distant roaring sound.
Equal parts alarmed and relieved, he took a deep breath before answering. "I'm outside the high school now. Maybe we, uh, lost the connection because I was inside. You know, where you are, but... not."
Dawn had no problem keeping up with this logic. "You mean because we were in the same place trying to call each other, except in different dimensions or alernate realities or whatever, so the signal wouldn't work?"
"Something like that, yeah."
"Did you get ahold of Buffy?" She lowered her voice and cupped her hand around the phone. "I left her a bunch of messages, but now I can't go through to her number, either. Is she--?"
Thank god they'd just talked about this. "She's inside the school, yeah. With your school principal, no less."
"Is he evil?"
"Don't know, although I'm sure Buffy will find out. Just hang tight there, okay? And stay on the line. I'll keep you posted."
"'kay." Dawn lowered the phone. She could hear Xander continuing to talk to what she assumed must be one of his work crew. It made for a comforting background.
"You can't get through to her?"
Carlos's voice startled her. Dawn looked up. He was staring down at her from where he'd been restlessly pacing, still trying to get his mind wrapped around the whole "monsters are real" thing, apparently.
"I mean, you're her sister," he said. "Is she just not picking up? Doesn't she care?"
"What? No, it's, uh--" She stopped herself and cleared her throat. "She's actually here. In the school with us. We just can't see her because we're in a different, I dunno, time or space. Or something."
"Right." She expected him to launch a few more questions at her, but he just went back to pacing again. "I'm too young to die," he muttered. "I haven't even--my girlfriend never--" He targeted her with a laser-like stare. "Dawn, have you ever--?"
"No," she said, before he could even finish. "Seriously, this is not that time."
"Right," he said again, and returned to pacing. "Y'know, when you read comics or watch movies about this kind of stuff, you never think about being the one who might, y'know, get eaten by the monster."
"Everyone's the hero of their own story, I get that," Dawn murmured, although she was really thinking about what he'd said before, about being too young to die. She wasn't sorry she'd just turned him down because hello, vulnerable much? Plus she'd seen exactly how well that kind of before-the-apocalypse hookup could work out with Xander and Anya. But she'd only ever been kissed that one time herself--by a vampire, no less--and she'd never had a steady boyfriend. Just schoolgirl crushes on Xander and... oh, no way, she wasn't going to start thinking about him now. A hot flush ran up the back of her neck as she flashed back to the creepy apparition of Spike she'd seen in the school bathroom. The way he'd said you're not your sister and Big Bad Wolf's on your heels.
Maybe it was better that she hadn't done all that much yet.
Carlos suddenly stopped pacing and slumped with his back against the tile wall beside her. Head hanging low like a defeated boxer's, he slid down to a crouch, balancing on his heels.
"Is it hard for you?" he said. "I mean--stuff like this? To be the bystander in, like, a monster movie, waiting to be eaten, o-or rescued? Like... she's Wonder Woman and you're just Wonder Girl?"
"Uh, not really," Dawn said after a pause. The question had caught her off-guard, although honestly, she really appreciated the distraction. "I mean, Wonder Girl has powers too, so she gets to do her own super stuff. I'm more like Aunt May is to Spider-Man. A relative that he's gotta rescue all the time." Without skipping a beat, she added, "And before you ask, I don't read comics, I have a friend who tells me about them."
"Oh," Carlos said, and then fell silent.
"But thanks. For asking about... how I feel. Not just about Buffy." She smiled at him, and he smiled back.
She didn't add that in that moment, he had become about 100% more attractive to her. And she might seriously reconsider his suggestion of a few minutes ago if they ever got out of this because, like she'd said earlier, hello, not the time.
The lights in the hallway began flickering and then dimmed to a glow barely above candlelight. The huddle of students by the door let out a synchronized moan, and one girl began a rising chant that threatened to escalate into full-blown panic.
"Ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod..."
"Can you help with that?" Dawn shot Carlos a pleading look and jerked her chin toward the noise. She clutched the cell phone tighter in her hands. "We really don't need whatever's doing this to notice us. I mean, any more than--"
"Got it." Carlos seemed grateful for distraction himself. He slid off the wall with a sense of purpose and went over to comfort the panicking girl.
Meanwhile, Dawn stayed huddled where she was, phone in hand, ears open for the comforting noise of Xander's chatter.
"Hang on a second," she heard him say, small and faraway through the speaker. "Willow's here and she'll---gah!"
The next sound through the phone was a burst of crackling static. Then, silence.
__________
One minute, he's talking to Dawn on the phone while also trying to confer with one of his crew on a walkie-talkie--surprise, when the foreman disappears from the site during the work day, all sorts of urgent questions seem to come up--and the next, there's a big burst of static, and he's holding up a finger to stop Willow from interrupting him and babbling something to Dawn, but that's before his brain catches up with the rest of him and reacts.
"Geez!" He reeled backward, hand clapped to his chest like a silent movie heroine. "My heart!"
"Sorry!" Willow waved her hands. "Still getting the hang of the whole teleporting thing."
He panted, half bent-over, trying to get his composure back. Willow looked---
He did a double-take like a cartoon character, stared.
She was dressed in an outift that looked odd even by Willow standards. For starters, she was barefoot. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders and was braided with flowers--not daises, but some other kind of wildflower he didn't recognize. Her bottom half was swathed in a batik-printed ankle-length skirt, and her top was a loose green cotton tank top that looked lke army surplus. But the crowing glory was a thick mat of gaudy necklaces and amulets of assorted shapes and sizes dangling around her neck. The overall effect was sort of Haight-Ashbury hippie meets Mr. T.
It took him a moment to find his voice. "Is it Halloween already?"
She shot him a wounded look. "Hello to you too."
"Sorry. It's just--" He waved his hands. The phone was still in his right hand, but he'd dropped the walkie-talkie in his shock; it was still hissing and crackling at his feet. "--there's this whole thing with the school, and Buffy's missing--"
"I know. The coven told me." Willow straightened, all business now. "That's why I'm here. Oh, just a second." She turned toward the school just as the front door banged open, accompanied by a bright flash like the strobe of a searchlight. Day turned into... more day. Brighter.
He blinked, helplessly. Through the dark spots in his eyes he could see Dawn and friends running through the door, down the stairs.
"Dawn!" She ran straight into his arms, and he gave her a one-armed hug while trying to kick the walkie-talkie out of the way, close his phone... his body and brain were still nowhere near in sync. "What happened?"
"I-I don't know. There was this burst of light, and... everything went back to normal." She looked around and her gaze halted on Willow. "Oh, hi."
"Hi." Willow waved. "I'm back."
"Yeah. Looks that way." Dawn pointedly turned away from her and addressed Xander. "Is Buffy still inside?"
With a sinking feeling, Xander looked back at the school.
"Yeah. She's still inside."