August 23 - A New Hiding Place in Plain Site (BtVS/Loki)
Title: A New Hiding Place in Plain Site
Author: Glitterangelem
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Loki
Characters: Kid Loki, Alligator Loki, Buffy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 983
Notes: A follow-up to my previous entry https://twistedshorts.livejournal.com/1120790.html. A little bit of show and comic mash-up where it concerns Qeng Tower from the Void. Spoilers abound for the Loki tv series. I am really enjoying writing this Variant Buffy, so hope you enjoy!
He seriously doubted the integrity of the Tower.
The Tower had existed in the Void for as long as he could remember - which was quite a long time indeed - but Kid Loki had never felt the desire to venture into the structure. The partial destruction of the building, as well as the clear damage of the remaining portion was off-putting to say the least. That and its vicinity to Alioth made it a place to avoid at all costs.
Buffy, it seemed, cared little about those concerns.
Once the three of them had crept silently through the debris field and into the Tower - he was surprised how silently she could move, especially while carrying Alligator Loki - she relaxed as soon as they pushed the doors closed behind them. Almost as if the building was a safe zone and not the aforementioned disaster potential it really was.
“Oh, you’ll like it here,” she called over her should as she led them through a long hallway, partially destroyed doors literally their path. “It might look like an imminent failure, but the structure is quite sound.”
Buffy paused to pat the wall, as if to reinforce her confidence, only for the panel to fall down at their feet with a crash. With a shrug, she continued walking. “Okay, so bad example. But really, the building is surprisingly soundproof for only having half of its walls in some rooms, the threadcount of the sheets are designer level, I swear, the refrigerator in the kitchen still somehow works, and we have our very own Giles to help us out whenever we call!”
Kid Loki and Alligator Loki both stopped in their tracks, looking around warily at her words. “I thought you were alone?”
Alligator Loki growled in agreement.
“Oh, Giles isn’t a person,” Buffy explained as they entered into a stainless steel-encased room, one that, after further inspection, turned out to be a kitchen. “Well, okay, the original Giles was a person. He was my last Watcher before I got stuck in this hell on earth. Or not earth? Since this isn’t really earth and just an in between place, it’s just kind of a kill in nowhere? Anyway. No, his name isn’t Giles. I just call him that because of his British accent and he gets really annoyed with me. In fact, I know that he’s listening right now and pretending he’s not. He sulks because the original owner of this building sold it to a bad guy, who hacked into his systems and he got stuck here when we were sent to the Void.”
“Yes, give the strange Loki all of our secrets,” a voice - Giles, Kid Loki assumed - called out testily from the ceiling. “That sounds like a wonderful plan.”
“And there’s the Giles I know and love,” Buffy said cheekily as she pulled open a door and disappeared into what seemed to be a small storage room.
“For the millionth time, my name is not Giles,” the voice said, annoyance tinging its words.
Pulling out a box from the storage room, Buffy tossed it to Kid Loki. “Yes, but you don’t seem to remember your name, so I choose Giles. Voted on by me and decided by me.”
Not allowing the…Giles…to continue, she turned back to the Lokis. “So I don’t know if we have any food digestible for alligators, but feel free to raid the pantry or the fridge. Just close the door to the fridge so the food doesn’t spoil. It is so hard to find any edible food in this place.”
Alligator Loki hissed and jerked his head with what some would consider a nod and immediately set forth towards the refrigerator.
“How long have you been here?” Kid Loki asked, still feeling a bit off balance with the entire situation, even as he sat on the surprisingly comfortable chairs set up at the table. The box she had thrown him wasn’t one he recognized, but the food inside smelled well enough. “From what you said earlier, you haven’t been around a lot of other people.”
Buffy grimaced a little at that, sitting across the table from him. “I don’t really know how long I’ve been here. Time is…hard to gauge, you know? There’ve been a few other people over the time, but…they’ve been lost.”
“A few other variants of me,” she admitted, her expression turning bitter. “But Buffy’s seem to be a self-sacrificing lot. I sacrificed my happiness with a person I loved, sacrificed my happiness to help protect others and what did it get me?”
Raising her food as if in an ironic toast, she waved her hand around to gesture to the space around them. “Maybe I’m a bit selfish when I don’t want to sacrifice myself anymore. The other Buffy variants I ran into weren’t at that stage yet. Sacrificing themselves for other people. People that might not care about them. People that didn’t even know about them.”
“To Slayers,” she said sarcastically, the smile gone from her face. “No wonder we’re such a dying breed.”
He did not know how to respond to that, really. Up until Old Loki had sacrificed himself for the others, it was not a lie to say that Lokis were not ones for putting others over themselves. As they had told New Loki when he appeared, Lokis survived. They endured. They were selfish individuals, that was not to be denied. He did not know what to say to a person who so clearly had put others before herself. Instead, he said, “So, I guess we wait for now.”
She nodded, and from the open refrigerator, Alligator Loki growled. “We wait. To see if the Lokis that went passed Alioth find a way to end this Void. Unless we get bored. Then who knows? Maybe we’ll find a way to bust out of this joint.”
Author: Glitterangelem
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Loki
Characters: Kid Loki, Alligator Loki, Buffy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 983
Notes: A follow-up to my previous entry https://twistedshorts.livejournal.com/1120790.html. A little bit of show and comic mash-up where it concerns Qeng Tower from the Void. Spoilers abound for the Loki tv series. I am really enjoying writing this Variant Buffy, so hope you enjoy!
He seriously doubted the integrity of the Tower.
The Tower had existed in the Void for as long as he could remember - which was quite a long time indeed - but Kid Loki had never felt the desire to venture into the structure. The partial destruction of the building, as well as the clear damage of the remaining portion was off-putting to say the least. That and its vicinity to Alioth made it a place to avoid at all costs.
Buffy, it seemed, cared little about those concerns.
Once the three of them had crept silently through the debris field and into the Tower - he was surprised how silently she could move, especially while carrying Alligator Loki - she relaxed as soon as they pushed the doors closed behind them. Almost as if the building was a safe zone and not the aforementioned disaster potential it really was.
“Oh, you’ll like it here,” she called over her should as she led them through a long hallway, partially destroyed doors literally their path. “It might look like an imminent failure, but the structure is quite sound.”
Buffy paused to pat the wall, as if to reinforce her confidence, only for the panel to fall down at their feet with a crash. With a shrug, she continued walking. “Okay, so bad example. But really, the building is surprisingly soundproof for only having half of its walls in some rooms, the threadcount of the sheets are designer level, I swear, the refrigerator in the kitchen still somehow works, and we have our very own Giles to help us out whenever we call!”
Kid Loki and Alligator Loki both stopped in their tracks, looking around warily at her words. “I thought you were alone?”
Alligator Loki growled in agreement.
“Oh, Giles isn’t a person,” Buffy explained as they entered into a stainless steel-encased room, one that, after further inspection, turned out to be a kitchen. “Well, okay, the original Giles was a person. He was my last Watcher before I got stuck in this hell on earth. Or not earth? Since this isn’t really earth and just an in between place, it’s just kind of a kill in nowhere? Anyway. No, his name isn’t Giles. I just call him that because of his British accent and he gets really annoyed with me. In fact, I know that he’s listening right now and pretending he’s not. He sulks because the original owner of this building sold it to a bad guy, who hacked into his systems and he got stuck here when we were sent to the Void.”
“Yes, give the strange Loki all of our secrets,” a voice - Giles, Kid Loki assumed - called out testily from the ceiling. “That sounds like a wonderful plan.”
“And there’s the Giles I know and love,” Buffy said cheekily as she pulled open a door and disappeared into what seemed to be a small storage room.
“For the millionth time, my name is not Giles,” the voice said, annoyance tinging its words.
Pulling out a box from the storage room, Buffy tossed it to Kid Loki. “Yes, but you don’t seem to remember your name, so I choose Giles. Voted on by me and decided by me.”
Not allowing the…Giles…to continue, she turned back to the Lokis. “So I don’t know if we have any food digestible for alligators, but feel free to raid the pantry or the fridge. Just close the door to the fridge so the food doesn’t spoil. It is so hard to find any edible food in this place.”
Alligator Loki hissed and jerked his head with what some would consider a nod and immediately set forth towards the refrigerator.
“How long have you been here?” Kid Loki asked, still feeling a bit off balance with the entire situation, even as he sat on the surprisingly comfortable chairs set up at the table. The box she had thrown him wasn’t one he recognized, but the food inside smelled well enough. “From what you said earlier, you haven’t been around a lot of other people.”
Buffy grimaced a little at that, sitting across the table from him. “I don’t really know how long I’ve been here. Time is…hard to gauge, you know? There’ve been a few other people over the time, but…they’ve been lost.”
“A few other variants of me,” she admitted, her expression turning bitter. “But Buffy’s seem to be a self-sacrificing lot. I sacrificed my happiness with a person I loved, sacrificed my happiness to help protect others and what did it get me?”
Raising her food as if in an ironic toast, she waved her hand around to gesture to the space around them. “Maybe I’m a bit selfish when I don’t want to sacrifice myself anymore. The other Buffy variants I ran into weren’t at that stage yet. Sacrificing themselves for other people. People that might not care about them. People that didn’t even know about them.”
“To Slayers,” she said sarcastically, the smile gone from her face. “No wonder we’re such a dying breed.”
He did not know how to respond to that, really. Up until Old Loki had sacrificed himself for the others, it was not a lie to say that Lokis were not ones for putting others over themselves. As they had told New Loki when he appeared, Lokis survived. They endured. They were selfish individuals, that was not to be denied. He did not know what to say to a person who so clearly had put others before herself. Instead, he said, “So, I guess we wait for now.”
She nodded, and from the open refrigerator, Alligator Loki growled. “We wait. To see if the Lokis that went passed Alioth find a way to end this Void. Unless we get bored. Then who knows? Maybe we’ll find a way to bust out of this joint.”