WIP amnesty day
Feb. 6th, 2004 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doyleSince it's WIP amnesty day, a few unfinished (and likely to stay that way) offerings from me...
I have more unfinished stuff than I do finished, and most of it ends up being recycled in some fashion, but here are a few for posterity.
Considering that Connor was technically only two years old, the relentless questioning was to be expected. Wesley was used to it; enjoyed it, even. He liked to feel that understanding things made Connor more a part of the world.
Of course, it made grocery shopping take longer than it should.
"Cordy said there are candles on birthday cakes," Connor remarked, apropos of nothing, halfway between the frozen produce and the breakfast cereals.
"That's right," Wes said absently, scanning the shelves as he checked off Cordelia's seemingly never-ending list of essential, must-have-or-party-will-be-apocalypse items.
"How come the cake doesn't go on fire?"
An elderly lady gave them an odd look and hurried past, bumping Wesley with her shopping cart.
"The candles are very small," Wes explained. "About so big," he held his thumb and forefinger an inch or two apart, "and usually colored. Pink, or whatever."
Connor eyed him with suspicion. "But mine won't be pink, right?"
"These are the risks you take when Cordelia is left to organise things."
"She knows I hate pink."
"I think the attack on her slippers might have keyed her in."
"I thought they were demons," he said, eyes wide with fake innocence.
Wes remembered Cordelia's reaction to the unprovoked assault on her fluffy bunnies, and tried to keep his face straight.
Connor looked thoughtful. "Okay. I get the candles thing. But say if you did light a cake on fire…"
"It would burn, yes."
Wesley always found that crafty look of Connor's to be perfectly agreeable when it was aimed at Angel, or Cordelia, or anyone else in the world. When he was the only person around, it gave him what Gunn would probably term the screaming heebie-jeebies. "For the eleventh time this week, you are not getting a flamethrower for your birthday."
"Fred said there was one on E-Bay…"
"No."
"Onlytwohundreddollarsplustaxes?"
"Not if they give away a free Power Puff Girls rocket launcher with it."
The tiny "aw" reminded him of how young his lover actually was.
"Maybe for your eighteenth," he amended, praying to God the world would be asbestos-coated by then.
"This is my eighteenth."
"Your real eighteenth birthday in this dimension."
"I'll be, like, a hundred then," Connor grumbled.
More shoppers cast uneasy glances at the pair and hurried to leave the aisle.
**
"Do you think Connor's going to like all this?"
"Are you crazy?"
Fred gave her the lopsided grin of 'well, not recently…'
Cordelia grimaced. "Sorry."
"What's Angel doing?"
Cordelia inclined her head at the closed office. Someone had tacked a scrawled 'the boss is in… a snit' note to the door. "He heard the citizens of Angstville were going to appoint a new king unless he tried harder, so he's really going for the full-on brood today."
The complaint of "hey, vampire hearing," was muffled, but hurt.
"Angel's the best lover I ever had," Cordy said loudly. "He's so manly and he makes me feel all woman. Oh, baby."
They waited. No response, though there was a scraping that might have been someone ever-so-nonchalantly moving his chair closer to the door.
Fred giggled.
"We're back." Connor looked suspiciously at them as he bounded down the steps, arms laden with groceries. "Were you talking about doing… stuff with my dad?"
"Yep." Cordy grabbed the nearest bag and inspected the contents. "And if you and Wes hadn't been "doing stuff" in the parking lot - again - the ice-cream wouldn't be melted."
The speed with which Angel exited the office impressed even Connor.
"I'm going upstairs," he announced. "All the way upstairs. To the top floor."
"Take your cellphone in case I need to you do something," Cordelia called after him. He disappeared from view without looking back, and she rolled her eyes. "Oh, he loses the super duper hearing when he wants to."
"He's been kind of grr-y all day," Fred whispered. "More than the normal grriness, I mean."
Connor frowned, then seemed to shrug it off, turning to Cordelia. "Wesley's in the car. He says he's waiting for you and Gunn."
"Great," she said. "At least somebody read their to-do list." This was directed at Gunn, ambling in from the kitchen.
"Hard at work on this end," he said, crunching a handful of potato chips. After a second under her glare, he passed the bag to Fred. "I'm good to go."
"Go where?" Connor asked.
"Since the boys can't be trusted not to buy you something lame, I'm supervising the gift shopping." She was rewarded with one of his rare, lightning-bright grins. "But Angel made me swear on my single, second-hand Gucci purse we wouldn't get you anything lethal or likely to wind up with you spending your next ten birthdays in the state pen."
"You sound like Wes," he complained.
"He said no flamethrower, huh?"
"Not surprised," Gunn said. "There's a reason nobody found Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Connor's got 'em."
--
"When I was a kid," Dawn says, "I thought you were, like, the coolest person on Earth."
Jeez, Cordelia thinks, you're still a kid, but then she reminds herself that Dawnie's all grown up now. She's still adjusting to all these changes - a world full of Slayers and Angel in charge of the Big Bad Law Firm and wasn't there a baby? She thinks she dreamed about a baby, but when she tries to ask Angel he gets that look she doesn't understand.
Angel doesn't love her anymore, if he ever did, and whether it's because of the whole possession-by-people-eating-goddess period in her life or just because she was asleep for three years, it's okay. She things he might have a thing going with his skanky Lilah-wannabe assistant. He always did prefer blondes.
--
Waves of joy and love practically oozed from her skin.
It was sickening.
The First Evil slunk lower in the seat - or at least gave the appearance of doing so without actually touching the chair - and, not for the first time, wished for some decent incorporeal tequila.
"I'm so glad you could come," her companion beamed. The woman had a smile that could steer ships around rocks. The First winced, and produced a pair of sunglasses from the air.
"Yeah, well," she said, "I'm not here for the scenery. Or the company. The Slayer keeps killing my Bringers. There's an outplacement agency here in LA said they could get me a fresh batch." She smiled. "I love this country. There's just no end of American Idol rejects."
"Still, it was good of you to take time to have coffee with me. Even if you can't drink it. It must be awful to be denied even the smallest of this world's physical pleasures."
The First narrowed hazel eyes.
"It's an unwieldy name," the woman reflected. " 'The First'. Not even a name so much as a description. Did you never think of calling yourself something more, well… interesting?"
The (probable) most powerful being on the planet bristled. "Just because we don't all go around calling ourselves Princess Moonie Fairydust or whatever your name is this time out…"
"Jasmine."
The tirade was stopped dead. The First raised her eyebrows, a disbelieving smirk widening across her face. "From Aladdin? You actually let them name you after a Disney faiwytale pwincess?"
For the first time, Jasmine's serene composure faltered. "Angel said it was a type of flower. I thought it was pretty."
"It is," the First assured her. "It's lovely." And she cleared her throat. It sounded like "Tinkerbell".
"I love who you're wearing," Jasmine said generously.
Despite herself, the First preened. An unfortunate consequence of ripping out one's minions tongues was that compliments were hard to come by. "This old thing? Oh, it's just a Slayer. She's already died twice."
"Third time's the charm."
"She's going down."
The goddess raised an eyebrow. "If you're so unconcerned, I wonder why you tried so hard to prevent my birth."
The First looked set to protest, then shrugged. She was entity enough to admit when she was busted. "Hey, I seem to recall someone sending miracle snow when I was trying to get my souled vampire to toast himself. All's fair in world domination."
"I did wonder - why Darla? I mean, there was no guarantee Connor would even know who she was."
She flicked a strand of hair from her face, then critically held it up to the light, squinting. "The Slayer really needs to change her shampoo. She's got split ends. Shiny, though."
"Darla?" Jasmine prompted.
"I know. Holtz could have worked. I just figured, what with his 'relationship' " - the two of them shared small, ironic smiles - "with Cordelia, there was a whole oedipal thing going on there. I mean, I know I played her character completely off…"
"Nooo," she said, "I thought you were good. The pink was a nice touch."
--
"Full fathom five thy father lies," the creature murmured close to his ear, "of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes; nothing of him that doth made…"
Holtz had been a practical man, not much given to romanticism. In Quor-toth, flights of fancy were a quick route to becoming some demon's prey, and so there had been few games or stories in Connor's childhood. He had never heard poetry, didn't recognise the words as such; but he thought that they were beautiful, for all their strangeness, and it was enough to still his hand.
"What does it mean?" he asked, hardly aware he'd spoken at all.
Giles dreams in statistics.
Three hundred and eighty-six Slayers across six continents. Besides himself, only a handful of trained Watchers left. There's a certain black humour in a situation that forces him to conscript Andrew as a Watcher-in-Training.
It takes them a year to locate and contact all the girls. The thick sheaf of names and addresses Willow gave him becomes dog-eared and heavily annotated. When he closes his eyes and tries to get some sleep in the uncomfortable aeroplane seats, he sees the names and the pencilled-in notations.
The oldest Slayer is twenty-five. The youngest is barely ten. The mean age is sixteen. Thirty-eight are already mothers.
Two girls are in mental institutions, one in Calcutta, the other in Los Angeles. He gives an orderly in each hospital a handsome payoff for monthly reports. At night, the girls screech about monsters.
Twelve are in prison. He's disturbed to learn that only two of them were incarcerated prior to their being called.
Fourteen names are scored off the list. Andrew could make him a pie-chart - red for the eight who died by vampire or demon attacks. Blue for the sixteen-year-old girl killed in a car accident. Green for the six who listened to his words about monsters and destiny and then died like Chloe.
A year after Sunnydale and he's on yet another plane. Alone, as he has been for the past three weeks, because these are journeys he wants to make by himself.
He doesn't rehearse what he's going to say, because then it will sound rehearsed.
Besides, he's getting all too good at delivering bad news.
**
Molly's father roared obscenities and threw him out of the house. Chloe's mother clutched his hand, weeping openly, while her husband stayed silent. Chao-Ahn's grandmother listened quietly, never taking her eyes off his face, as the translator relayed his condolences.
He always apologises for taking so long to bring them word, adding that he couldn't tell them by phone, not adding that he had to look after the living before he could turn to the dead. Each time he thinks of the ancient telegrams his great-grandmother kept, news of sons lost in the trenches. He wishes he could add the words he gave Xander and Buffy last year about their loved ones dying as heroes, but the girls' families can't know the real story. It's for their own protection, their own sanity, and he hates it.
His last stop is in Orange County, almost full circle to where he began. The single name left on his list is Adler, Jessica. The woman who opens the door looks older than the fuzzy snapshot Willow found for him. She has a round, worried face, and a tentative smile that falters when he says her daughter's name.
"It's Mr. Giles, isn't it?" she asks as he follows her into the sitting room. She flutters around the room pulling cushions from chairs and fluffing them, seemingly at random.
Giles stands by the doorway, uncertain of where to sit that won't disrupt her sudden buzz of activity.
"The house is my sister-in-law's," she says, catching his eye. "Most of the furniture is mine, from Sunnydale, that's why it looks all muddled. She's - my sister-in-law, she's got a new house in LA. She said I could rent this place, wasn't that nice of her?" She's kneading and twisting a cushion in her two hands. "Do you want some coffee, Mr. Giles? Or tea, I think I have tea."
"Nothing, thank you," he says. Curiosity winning out: "How did you know my name?"
Her smile is glassy. Nothing behind it, and in a minute she'll tear the cushion. "Oh, my husband taught at the high school. I saw you around once or twice."
For the first time, his eye falls onto the row of photo-frames on the mantelpiece. A much younger Jessica standing with a thin, smiling man, a little girl held between them. Amanda in braces and pigtails, clutching a trophy, the same man with an arm around her shoulder. More recent pictures of Amanda as a teenager, only her mother beside her.
"James Adler," Giles remembers. "He taught chemistry."
"Amanda was eleven when he died." Her voice wavers. "Neck trauma. The police said that somebody must have tried to steal his wallet." She sits on one of the overstuffed armchairs, careful, as though she's afraid of shattering. "How did Amanda…"
Giles chooses the chair opposite, close enough to reach her if needed, distant enough not to crowd. This judging of space is a sad sort of second nature. "There was an earthquake," he says gently.
I have more unfinished stuff than I do finished, and most of it ends up being recycled in some fashion, but here are a few for posterity.
Considering that Connor was technically only two years old, the relentless questioning was to be expected. Wesley was used to it; enjoyed it, even. He liked to feel that understanding things made Connor more a part of the world.
Of course, it made grocery shopping take longer than it should.
"Cordy said there are candles on birthday cakes," Connor remarked, apropos of nothing, halfway between the frozen produce and the breakfast cereals.
"That's right," Wes said absently, scanning the shelves as he checked off Cordelia's seemingly never-ending list of essential, must-have-or-party-will-be-apocalypse items.
"How come the cake doesn't go on fire?"
An elderly lady gave them an odd look and hurried past, bumping Wesley with her shopping cart.
"The candles are very small," Wes explained. "About so big," he held his thumb and forefinger an inch or two apart, "and usually colored. Pink, or whatever."
Connor eyed him with suspicion. "But mine won't be pink, right?"
"These are the risks you take when Cordelia is left to organise things."
"She knows I hate pink."
"I think the attack on her slippers might have keyed her in."
"I thought they were demons," he said, eyes wide with fake innocence.
Wes remembered Cordelia's reaction to the unprovoked assault on her fluffy bunnies, and tried to keep his face straight.
Connor looked thoughtful. "Okay. I get the candles thing. But say if you did light a cake on fire…"
"It would burn, yes."
Wesley always found that crafty look of Connor's to be perfectly agreeable when it was aimed at Angel, or Cordelia, or anyone else in the world. When he was the only person around, it gave him what Gunn would probably term the screaming heebie-jeebies. "For the eleventh time this week, you are not getting a flamethrower for your birthday."
"Fred said there was one on E-Bay…"
"No."
"Onlytwohundreddollarsplustaxes?"
"Not if they give away a free Power Puff Girls rocket launcher with it."
The tiny "aw" reminded him of how young his lover actually was.
"Maybe for your eighteenth," he amended, praying to God the world would be asbestos-coated by then.
"This is my eighteenth."
"Your real eighteenth birthday in this dimension."
"I'll be, like, a hundred then," Connor grumbled.
More shoppers cast uneasy glances at the pair and hurried to leave the aisle.
**
"Do you think Connor's going to like all this?"
"Are you crazy?"
Fred gave her the lopsided grin of 'well, not recently…'
Cordelia grimaced. "Sorry."
"What's Angel doing?"
Cordelia inclined her head at the closed office. Someone had tacked a scrawled 'the boss is in… a snit' note to the door. "He heard the citizens of Angstville were going to appoint a new king unless he tried harder, so he's really going for the full-on brood today."
The complaint of "hey, vampire hearing," was muffled, but hurt.
"Angel's the best lover I ever had," Cordy said loudly. "He's so manly and he makes me feel all woman. Oh, baby."
They waited. No response, though there was a scraping that might have been someone ever-so-nonchalantly moving his chair closer to the door.
Fred giggled.
"We're back." Connor looked suspiciously at them as he bounded down the steps, arms laden with groceries. "Were you talking about doing… stuff with my dad?"
"Yep." Cordy grabbed the nearest bag and inspected the contents. "And if you and Wes hadn't been "doing stuff" in the parking lot - again - the ice-cream wouldn't be melted."
The speed with which Angel exited the office impressed even Connor.
"I'm going upstairs," he announced. "All the way upstairs. To the top floor."
"Take your cellphone in case I need to you do something," Cordelia called after him. He disappeared from view without looking back, and she rolled her eyes. "Oh, he loses the super duper hearing when he wants to."
"He's been kind of grr-y all day," Fred whispered. "More than the normal grriness, I mean."
Connor frowned, then seemed to shrug it off, turning to Cordelia. "Wesley's in the car. He says he's waiting for you and Gunn."
"Great," she said. "At least somebody read their to-do list." This was directed at Gunn, ambling in from the kitchen.
"Hard at work on this end," he said, crunching a handful of potato chips. After a second under her glare, he passed the bag to Fred. "I'm good to go."
"Go where?" Connor asked.
"Since the boys can't be trusted not to buy you something lame, I'm supervising the gift shopping." She was rewarded with one of his rare, lightning-bright grins. "But Angel made me swear on my single, second-hand Gucci purse we wouldn't get you anything lethal or likely to wind up with you spending your next ten birthdays in the state pen."
"You sound like Wes," he complained.
"He said no flamethrower, huh?"
"Not surprised," Gunn said. "There's a reason nobody found Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Connor's got 'em."
--
"When I was a kid," Dawn says, "I thought you were, like, the coolest person on Earth."
Jeez, Cordelia thinks, you're still a kid, but then she reminds herself that Dawnie's all grown up now. She's still adjusting to all these changes - a world full of Slayers and Angel in charge of the Big Bad Law Firm and wasn't there a baby? She thinks she dreamed about a baby, but when she tries to ask Angel he gets that look she doesn't understand.
Angel doesn't love her anymore, if he ever did, and whether it's because of the whole possession-by-people-eating-goddess period in her life or just because she was asleep for three years, it's okay. She things he might have a thing going with his skanky Lilah-wannabe assistant. He always did prefer blondes.
--
Waves of joy and love practically oozed from her skin.
It was sickening.
The First Evil slunk lower in the seat - or at least gave the appearance of doing so without actually touching the chair - and, not for the first time, wished for some decent incorporeal tequila.
"I'm so glad you could come," her companion beamed. The woman had a smile that could steer ships around rocks. The First winced, and produced a pair of sunglasses from the air.
"Yeah, well," she said, "I'm not here for the scenery. Or the company. The Slayer keeps killing my Bringers. There's an outplacement agency here in LA said they could get me a fresh batch." She smiled. "I love this country. There's just no end of American Idol rejects."
"Still, it was good of you to take time to have coffee with me. Even if you can't drink it. It must be awful to be denied even the smallest of this world's physical pleasures."
The First narrowed hazel eyes.
"It's an unwieldy name," the woman reflected. " 'The First'. Not even a name so much as a description. Did you never think of calling yourself something more, well… interesting?"
The (probable) most powerful being on the planet bristled. "Just because we don't all go around calling ourselves Princess Moonie Fairydust or whatever your name is this time out…"
"Jasmine."
The tirade was stopped dead. The First raised her eyebrows, a disbelieving smirk widening across her face. "From Aladdin? You actually let them name you after a Disney faiwytale pwincess?"
For the first time, Jasmine's serene composure faltered. "Angel said it was a type of flower. I thought it was pretty."
"It is," the First assured her. "It's lovely." And she cleared her throat. It sounded like "Tinkerbell".
"I love who you're wearing," Jasmine said generously.
Despite herself, the First preened. An unfortunate consequence of ripping out one's minions tongues was that compliments were hard to come by. "This old thing? Oh, it's just a Slayer. She's already died twice."
"Third time's the charm."
"She's going down."
The goddess raised an eyebrow. "If you're so unconcerned, I wonder why you tried so hard to prevent my birth."
The First looked set to protest, then shrugged. She was entity enough to admit when she was busted. "Hey, I seem to recall someone sending miracle snow when I was trying to get my souled vampire to toast himself. All's fair in world domination."
"I did wonder - why Darla? I mean, there was no guarantee Connor would even know who she was."
She flicked a strand of hair from her face, then critically held it up to the light, squinting. "The Slayer really needs to change her shampoo. She's got split ends. Shiny, though."
"Darla?" Jasmine prompted.
"I know. Holtz could have worked. I just figured, what with his 'relationship' " - the two of them shared small, ironic smiles - "with Cordelia, there was a whole oedipal thing going on there. I mean, I know I played her character completely off…"
"Nooo," she said, "I thought you were good. The pink was a nice touch."
--
"Full fathom five thy father lies," the creature murmured close to his ear, "of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes; nothing of him that doth made…"
Holtz had been a practical man, not much given to romanticism. In Quor-toth, flights of fancy were a quick route to becoming some demon's prey, and so there had been few games or stories in Connor's childhood. He had never heard poetry, didn't recognise the words as such; but he thought that they were beautiful, for all their strangeness, and it was enough to still his hand.
"What does it mean?" he asked, hardly aware he'd spoken at all.
Giles dreams in statistics.
Three hundred and eighty-six Slayers across six continents. Besides himself, only a handful of trained Watchers left. There's a certain black humour in a situation that forces him to conscript Andrew as a Watcher-in-Training.
It takes them a year to locate and contact all the girls. The thick sheaf of names and addresses Willow gave him becomes dog-eared and heavily annotated. When he closes his eyes and tries to get some sleep in the uncomfortable aeroplane seats, he sees the names and the pencilled-in notations.
The oldest Slayer is twenty-five. The youngest is barely ten. The mean age is sixteen. Thirty-eight are already mothers.
Two girls are in mental institutions, one in Calcutta, the other in Los Angeles. He gives an orderly in each hospital a handsome payoff for monthly reports. At night, the girls screech about monsters.
Twelve are in prison. He's disturbed to learn that only two of them were incarcerated prior to their being called.
Fourteen names are scored off the list. Andrew could make him a pie-chart - red for the eight who died by vampire or demon attacks. Blue for the sixteen-year-old girl killed in a car accident. Green for the six who listened to his words about monsters and destiny and then died like Chloe.
A year after Sunnydale and he's on yet another plane. Alone, as he has been for the past three weeks, because these are journeys he wants to make by himself.
He doesn't rehearse what he's going to say, because then it will sound rehearsed.
Besides, he's getting all too good at delivering bad news.
**
Molly's father roared obscenities and threw him out of the house. Chloe's mother clutched his hand, weeping openly, while her husband stayed silent. Chao-Ahn's grandmother listened quietly, never taking her eyes off his face, as the translator relayed his condolences.
He always apologises for taking so long to bring them word, adding that he couldn't tell them by phone, not adding that he had to look after the living before he could turn to the dead. Each time he thinks of the ancient telegrams his great-grandmother kept, news of sons lost in the trenches. He wishes he could add the words he gave Xander and Buffy last year about their loved ones dying as heroes, but the girls' families can't know the real story. It's for their own protection, their own sanity, and he hates it.
His last stop is in Orange County, almost full circle to where he began. The single name left on his list is Adler, Jessica. The woman who opens the door looks older than the fuzzy snapshot Willow found for him. She has a round, worried face, and a tentative smile that falters when he says her daughter's name.
"It's Mr. Giles, isn't it?" she asks as he follows her into the sitting room. She flutters around the room pulling cushions from chairs and fluffing them, seemingly at random.
Giles stands by the doorway, uncertain of where to sit that won't disrupt her sudden buzz of activity.
"The house is my sister-in-law's," she says, catching his eye. "Most of the furniture is mine, from Sunnydale, that's why it looks all muddled. She's - my sister-in-law, she's got a new house in LA. She said I could rent this place, wasn't that nice of her?" She's kneading and twisting a cushion in her two hands. "Do you want some coffee, Mr. Giles? Or tea, I think I have tea."
"Nothing, thank you," he says. Curiosity winning out: "How did you know my name?"
Her smile is glassy. Nothing behind it, and in a minute she'll tear the cushion. "Oh, my husband taught at the high school. I saw you around once or twice."
For the first time, his eye falls onto the row of photo-frames on the mantelpiece. A much younger Jessica standing with a thin, smiling man, a little girl held between them. Amanda in braces and pigtails, clutching a trophy, the same man with an arm around her shoulder. More recent pictures of Amanda as a teenager, only her mother beside her.
"James Adler," Giles remembers. "He taught chemistry."
"Amanda was eleven when he died." Her voice wavers. "Neck trauma. The police said that somebody must have tried to steal his wallet." She sits on one of the overstuffed armchairs, careful, as though she's afraid of shattering. "How did Amanda…"
Giles chooses the chair opposite, close enough to reach her if needed, distant enough not to crowd. This judging of space is a sad sort of second nature. "There was an earthquake," he says gently.
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no subject
on 2004-02-06 11:24 am (UTC)I love you something awful.
Except awful in the good sense, not, you know. In the awful sense.
Love! And bunnies! And fluffy things! And love!
Re:
on 2004-02-06 11:37 am (UTC)