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doyleDamn, I suck. Given my record with WIPs I was leery posting this till it was finished, but it's now a month past the deadline and I'm smack in the middle of finals, so I thought I'd rather put this out than make ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lunarwolfik wait another couple of weeks.
This was supposed to be a very silly set of 10 related drabbles, and has instead abandoned all attempts at structure to just become silly indulgence fic.
Title: Your Guide To a Stress-Free Big Day (1)
Author: Doyle
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Buffy/Faith (bit of Willow/Kennedy, Angel/Nina, Spike/Illyria… basically, if I have a trope, this hits it.)
Notes: This is horribly late, but it’s my entry for the gay marriage ficathon. My assignment was forlunarwolfik who wanted a bachelorette party with Illyria in attendance and no schmoop. Takes place about two years after Chosen and a year after Not Fade Away.
Summary: I’m getting married in the morning/Ding-dong, the bells are gonna chime…
There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you all for a while now, and it should have been sooner, but I’ve been trying to think of the words -
“What do you think?”
Faith dropped into her lap, slinging an arm around her neck. “Cool, if you want them to think you got something terminal. Which, not saying that’s bad. Might net us more presents.”
Buffy sighed and drew a line through the sentence. “Can we just let Andrew do the invitations? Everything I write makes it sound like I’m giving them bad news.” She laid her hand against Faith’s back, playing with the ends of her hair. “And it isn’t bad, it’s the opposite of bad. It’s the anti-bad.”
“Could just say ‘good’.”
“You and your fancy English and your making sense,” she grumbled.
Faith reached for the pen. “Gimme.”
**
Hey – me and B are getting hitched at the retreat next month. Everybody’s invited. BYOB.
- F
**
They’d had a table once, before The Wedding took over Willow’s life. Now they had a pile of lists and faxes and magazines that sometimes got shoved to one side and then moved back, for no reason that Kennedy could see. She suspected it was magic keeping the whole thing from sliding onto the floor.
“Hey, maid of honour? Going on patrol.” There was no clear path to the other side of the tiny kitchen and she had to vault over the table just to kiss her girlfriend goodbye, but she did it without disturbing the paper mountain – yeah, definitely magic. Anyway, she knew she looked cool.
Willow grinned and mouthed “bye”. “No, Owen, that’s fine, bring whoever – Scott? Scott Hope? Oh, I didn’t know you were together, that’s great, I was just about to call him!”
“Does Buffy even know you’re inviting everybody in the history of the world?” Kennedy teased, and before she had any idea what was about to come out of her mouth she said, “You better not go this crazy when it’s our wedding.”
Willow fumbled the phone, her mouth freezing into an o of surprise.
Kennedy suddenly felt like a very, very small animal caught in the lights of a very, very big car. “Um,” she squeaked. “Patrol. Gotta go. You just – stay here. And plan stuff. Bye.”
The sooner Buffy and Faith got married the better, she thought as she made her escape. Bad enough it was making Willow insane. Now the madness had spread to her.
**
The Watchers’ annual retreat was an ancient, proud tradition, steeped in years of… tradition.
Andrew frowned at his internal narrator’s lack of descriptive power. An ancient, proud event steeped in years of tradition, that was better, but it wasn’t quite right. It was really a Slayers’ retreat this year, for only the second time ever, and it needed a name that reflected the scope, the majesty, the –
“Mr. Wells? Mr. Wells!”
“I’m sorry, what?”
The desk clerk gestured at the book in front of him with barely restrained annoyance. Clearly someone had never heard that the customer was always right. “If you could just sign here, please, we can get the ladies assigned to rooms.”
“I wanna share with Vi,” Rona said, leaning over his shoulder. He shooed her away.
“Please, don’t crowd the Watcher.”
“In training.”
“I was going to say ‘in training’.”
“Was not.”
“Was.”
“Not,” Rona said, turning back to the rest of the Slayers.
Andrew thought about making her room with Carol (insomniac) or Cho (high priestess of the cult of Avril), then remembered that Rona could and would kick his ass, and put her in the room with Vi. He thought about last year’s Christmas party and frowned. Yes, anything that kept Vi’s flirtatious attention away from Xander would be fine.
The wedding would be beautiful, he thought dreamily as the girls brought in the bags from the bus. Two Slayers coming together in a union that was powerful and meaningful and probably deeply symbolic of something, and who cared what so long as it was deep.
**
“Told you we shoulda called ahead.” Gunn did a quick count and came up with fifteen weapons pointed at them, five of those aimed right at him.
As the only hundred-percent human in their group of five, it didn’t seem right he should get a full thirty percent of the potential death.
“It’s okay,” Angel said, loud enough to be heard over the alarm. “We’re not – okay, we are demons…”
“Watch where you’re putting that ‘we’,” Gunn muttered.
Spike said, “Look, kiddies, friends of the brides, all right? Got an invite and everything. And will somebody shut that bloody siren off?”
The alarm stopped. The silence, that was more unnerving. Kind of sudden silence that could put a person on edge, and if the person was a scared sixteen-year-old kid with a finger on a crossbow trigger – well. Gunn’d been there himself.
He stepped forward, keeping it slow, careful not to move his hands. “It’s okay. Like Spike said, we were invited. Been too busy to RSVP, but we shoulda let Willow know when we’d get here. We didn’t know there was a demon alarm. These guys,” he nodded at Angel and Spike, both of them still smouldering from the run across the parking lot, “they’re vampires, but they’ve got souls. They’re friends of Buffy’s.”
One of the girls, a redhead in a hat, said, “Spike? We thought you were dead.”
He shrugged. “Reports of my death, all that.”
“We cool?” Gunn asked, and the girl nodded.
“It’s okay. Everybody, it’s okay. Back off.”
The weapons were lowered. Some of the girls stuck around, watching them warily; most of them broke off into groups, wandering out of the lobby, talking and laughing. Business as usual. He let himself relax.
Spike slapped him on the back. “Nice work, Charlie-boy.”
Nina said, “God, I can’t take you guys anywhere.”
**
All day, this conference room had been full of Watchers – most of them in the field for less than a year - attentively listening to seminars on records-keeping. Weapons maintenance. Training procedures. All of it very valuable, necessary information, and all of it very dull for the Slayers, who’d mostly abandoned the scheduled talks for Faith and Kennedy’s less official but more fun practical workshops.
Now everybody was setting up in the main ballroom for the party and Conference Room 1 was empty except for Giles, Xander and a stack of paperwork.
The latter, Buffy ignored. The first two were more than welcome, especially since she could hang with them and get away from the hundreds or new Slayers who either wanted to talk about the bad old days in Sunnydale – which made her feel ninety years old – or congratulate her on the wedding – which reminded her she was getting married, which made her panic.
Hiding was good. Smart of Xander and Giles to have thought of it first.
“I am most certainly not hiding,” Giles said. “I’m sorting out the logistical nightmare that comes from having a hundred and eight Slayers, sixty-three Watchers, a dozen civilians, two werewolves, two ensouled vampires, at least one demon and a god all in the same hotel.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The fact that it lets me hide is just a happy coincidence.”
Buffy was drowning in the numbers. “Xander, save me from the scary math.”
“I got your back,” he said. “We’ll just call them ‘the big bunch of people’.”
“And all of them guests at my big fat gay wedding. Which is in, oh, eighteen hours and six minutes.” She wasn’t going to panic. She wasn’t going to… “Oh God.”
Xander put his hands on her shoulders. “Buffy. Breathe. Find a happy place.”
“Can I take Faith to the happy place and live there forever and never come back?” She sounded pathetic, she knew, but it got her a hug. So it was all good.
“Take it from someone who’s been there,” Xander told her. “Let Will deal with the small stuff and just think about the woman you’re marrying.”
He had to be thinking of Anya, she knew, and she squeezed his hand. It meant a lot that he’d even come. “Think about Faith. Right.”
“Possibly, if it’s your thing, wearing a cheerleader’s uniform.” He held up his hands. “I’m just saying.”
She smiled. “It’ll be fine. I mean, unless the priest turns out to be a demon taking human form so he can kill a hundred and eight Slayers at the one time.”
For a second, all she could hear was the hum of the fluorescent lights.
Giles scooped up his files and hurried to the door. “I’ll find Willow. There are spells that can verify the priest is human. Just in case.”
Xander said, “For the record, if that does happen, and I’m not saying it will; I’d just like it noted that it was you who jinxed us, not me.”
**
Seemed unfair to have to leave her own (bitching) bachelorette party just to get a smoke, but the whole hotel had some policy. Faith waited till the band was on break and the DJ played crap she couldn’t dance to anyway and headed outside.
She was lighting up when she heard people talking. Short laugh that sounded like Kennedy. A British guy, not Masterpiece Theatre enough to be a Watcher. Someone else, female.
Faith ambled into the garden. Kennedy was on her back, lying on Spike’s duster. He was sprawled on the grass, and Angel’s girlfriend, the werewolf, was rolling a joint. From the looks of it, not their first.
Cool. She dropped her cigarettes back into her pocket and sat down.
“Here comes the bride.” Nina lit the joint and passed it to her, smirking. “Is it tacky to thank you for marrying the competition?”
She shrugged. “Probably, but you’re stoned. S’all good.”
“Hey.” Spike prodded her in the side with a steel-toed Doc. She punched his leg, but she kept it light. “You can’t be in our club.”
Kennedy said, “He’s right. Sorry, Faith, we like you and all, but we didn’t even let – what’s he called? Skinny, says fuck all the time?”
“Somewhere English,” Nina said. “Kent? Wait, Devon.”
“We didn’t even let Devon be in our club, and he gave us pot.” Kennedy took a deep drag and slowly exhaled the smoke into the air. “Rebounds only.”
“Kidding me,” she protested. “Dude, I’m totally a rebound girl. Buffy never once looks at me that way, not one time, and then two days after Blondie kicks it I’m flavour of the month?” She rubbed her arms. Funny, pot usually made her feel warm. “Yeah, ‘cause that was all about me.”
“Two days? She said it was…” Spike shook his head. “Look. Doesn’t matter. Me and her, we hashed it all out that time last year. We’re all right.”
She gave him a long look. English had a good poker face, but he’d never played with her. “You being noble?”
“I’ve been noble,” he said, all seriousness, and the change in his voice made her frown – sounded kind of like Wesley. “Just for a change, I’m being realistic. She loves you. She’s marrying you.”
He didn’t say he was okay with it, but he sounded okay. Faith nodded, accepting what he’d said.
“That’s all she wrote, huh.” The cigarette was back to her, and she passed it straight on to Spike. “Guess I should get back. Since you’re not letting me join.” She paused. “Though I got a killer story about this flashback thing I did. Angel had wicked lame hair.”
Spike moved to give her more space. Nina said, “Of course, there’s always honorary membership.”
**
The poster at the front of the stage proclaimed this the Dingoes’ reunion tour, playing one night only. Which, Buffy thought, didn’t really count as a tour. But she had to admit, they sounded pretty good.
Devon’s band was actually good and Spike was dating a god. She wasn’t sure which of those was more freaksome.
Okay, he wasn’t dating her, exactly. In the three minutes all day they’d had to talk, he’d gotten shirty – still a good word and useful in many and varied situations – when Illyria’s name was mentioned. He didn’t even like her, he’d said. From what Buffy could see they spent most of their time together fighting and hitting each other, so from Spike’s point of view? Had to be true love.
She was glad. Not, she assured herself, that she was going to be one of those married people who thought anyone single was a freak who needed to be set up with a similar freak so they could get married. She was being good about that. She hadn’t even casually hinted to Xander that Vi was into him, or asked Dawn whether she’d brought a date.
Dawn. She scanned the crowd, jumping to see over heads – since when were Slayers so tall, anyway? – and finally found her little sister, talking with Andrew and Spike’s non-girlfriend at the back of the room.
“Really? That’s so cool, because… oh, hi, Buffy. Illyria, this is my sister, Buffy, she’s the one getting married tomorrow. Buffy, this is Illyria, she’s, like, a billion years old and she made me.”
Buffy had never known it was possible to triple-take. “Whu?”
Dawn sipped her drink. “Well, Key-me, anyway.”
Andrew intoned, “Into this Key Illyria poured her malice, her strength and her will to dominate Mid… her will to dominate Earth. And the other dimensions and stuff.”
“You were raw power,” Illyria said, neon-ice eyes glittering in a way that made Buffy uneasy. “Unbridled energy, chaos incarnate. Where I walked, you followed, and wherever we went you lit the night sky like a thousand moons. Your own worshippers were legion.”
Legion, Dawn’s expression said. Think about that next time you want me to pick my stuff off the bathroom floor.
“So, have you… ever been to a wedding before?” Lame, she knew, but she wanted to change the subject before Illyria started to think about changing Dawn back into the shiny-lights-of-chaos-and-keyness, and the only other thing she could think of was you’re a god, huh? How’s that going?
Illyria glared at her, but she’d come to realize this was just a default expression, so she didn’t take it personally. “Pointless ritual. Your lives are brief and meaningless as an instant of bright sun in the dead of winter, but you cling to one another in the blind naivete that you can stave off death. You’re wrong.”
Buffy looked at Dawn. Dawn looked at Buffy. Andrew sighed with adoration and kept his eyes on Illyria.
“Okay,” Buffy said. “Guess you’re not going to help Will with the maid of honour speechy thing.
TBC
lunarwolfik wait another couple of weeks. This was supposed to be a very silly set of 10 related drabbles, and has instead abandoned all attempts at structure to just become silly indulgence fic.
Title: Your Guide To a Stress-Free Big Day (1)
Author: Doyle
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Buffy/Faith (bit of Willow/Kennedy, Angel/Nina, Spike/Illyria… basically, if I have a trope, this hits it.)
Notes: This is horribly late, but it’s my entry for the gay marriage ficathon. My assignment was for
lunarwolfik who wanted a bachelorette party with Illyria in attendance and no schmoop. Takes place about two years after Chosen and a year after Not Fade Away.Summary: I’m getting married in the morning/Ding-dong, the bells are gonna chime…
There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you all for a while now, and it should have been sooner, but I’ve been trying to think of the words -
“What do you think?”
Faith dropped into her lap, slinging an arm around her neck. “Cool, if you want them to think you got something terminal. Which, not saying that’s bad. Might net us more presents.”
Buffy sighed and drew a line through the sentence. “Can we just let Andrew do the invitations? Everything I write makes it sound like I’m giving them bad news.” She laid her hand against Faith’s back, playing with the ends of her hair. “And it isn’t bad, it’s the opposite of bad. It’s the anti-bad.”
“Could just say ‘good’.”
“You and your fancy English and your making sense,” she grumbled.
Faith reached for the pen. “Gimme.”
**
Hey – me and B are getting hitched at the retreat next month. Everybody’s invited. BYOB.
- F
**
They’d had a table once, before The Wedding took over Willow’s life. Now they had a pile of lists and faxes and magazines that sometimes got shoved to one side and then moved back, for no reason that Kennedy could see. She suspected it was magic keeping the whole thing from sliding onto the floor.
“Hey, maid of honour? Going on patrol.” There was no clear path to the other side of the tiny kitchen and she had to vault over the table just to kiss her girlfriend goodbye, but she did it without disturbing the paper mountain – yeah, definitely magic. Anyway, she knew she looked cool.
Willow grinned and mouthed “bye”. “No, Owen, that’s fine, bring whoever – Scott? Scott Hope? Oh, I didn’t know you were together, that’s great, I was just about to call him!”
“Does Buffy even know you’re inviting everybody in the history of the world?” Kennedy teased, and before she had any idea what was about to come out of her mouth she said, “You better not go this crazy when it’s our wedding.”
Willow fumbled the phone, her mouth freezing into an o of surprise.
Kennedy suddenly felt like a very, very small animal caught in the lights of a very, very big car. “Um,” she squeaked. “Patrol. Gotta go. You just – stay here. And plan stuff. Bye.”
The sooner Buffy and Faith got married the better, she thought as she made her escape. Bad enough it was making Willow insane. Now the madness had spread to her.
**
The Watchers’ annual retreat was an ancient, proud tradition, steeped in years of… tradition.
Andrew frowned at his internal narrator’s lack of descriptive power. An ancient, proud event steeped in years of tradition, that was better, but it wasn’t quite right. It was really a Slayers’ retreat this year, for only the second time ever, and it needed a name that reflected the scope, the majesty, the –
“Mr. Wells? Mr. Wells!”
“I’m sorry, what?”
The desk clerk gestured at the book in front of him with barely restrained annoyance. Clearly someone had never heard that the customer was always right. “If you could just sign here, please, we can get the ladies assigned to rooms.”
“I wanna share with Vi,” Rona said, leaning over his shoulder. He shooed her away.
“Please, don’t crowd the Watcher.”
“In training.”
“I was going to say ‘in training’.”
“Was not.”
“Was.”
“Not,” Rona said, turning back to the rest of the Slayers.
Andrew thought about making her room with Carol (insomniac) or Cho (high priestess of the cult of Avril), then remembered that Rona could and would kick his ass, and put her in the room with Vi. He thought about last year’s Christmas party and frowned. Yes, anything that kept Vi’s flirtatious attention away from Xander would be fine.
The wedding would be beautiful, he thought dreamily as the girls brought in the bags from the bus. Two Slayers coming together in a union that was powerful and meaningful and probably deeply symbolic of something, and who cared what so long as it was deep.
**
“Told you we shoulda called ahead.” Gunn did a quick count and came up with fifteen weapons pointed at them, five of those aimed right at him.
As the only hundred-percent human in their group of five, it didn’t seem right he should get a full thirty percent of the potential death.
“It’s okay,” Angel said, loud enough to be heard over the alarm. “We’re not – okay, we are demons…”
“Watch where you’re putting that ‘we’,” Gunn muttered.
Spike said, “Look, kiddies, friends of the brides, all right? Got an invite and everything. And will somebody shut that bloody siren off?”
The alarm stopped. The silence, that was more unnerving. Kind of sudden silence that could put a person on edge, and if the person was a scared sixteen-year-old kid with a finger on a crossbow trigger – well. Gunn’d been there himself.
He stepped forward, keeping it slow, careful not to move his hands. “It’s okay. Like Spike said, we were invited. Been too busy to RSVP, but we shoulda let Willow know when we’d get here. We didn’t know there was a demon alarm. These guys,” he nodded at Angel and Spike, both of them still smouldering from the run across the parking lot, “they’re vampires, but they’ve got souls. They’re friends of Buffy’s.”
One of the girls, a redhead in a hat, said, “Spike? We thought you were dead.”
He shrugged. “Reports of my death, all that.”
“We cool?” Gunn asked, and the girl nodded.
“It’s okay. Everybody, it’s okay. Back off.”
The weapons were lowered. Some of the girls stuck around, watching them warily; most of them broke off into groups, wandering out of the lobby, talking and laughing. Business as usual. He let himself relax.
Spike slapped him on the back. “Nice work, Charlie-boy.”
Nina said, “God, I can’t take you guys anywhere.”
**
All day, this conference room had been full of Watchers – most of them in the field for less than a year - attentively listening to seminars on records-keeping. Weapons maintenance. Training procedures. All of it very valuable, necessary information, and all of it very dull for the Slayers, who’d mostly abandoned the scheduled talks for Faith and Kennedy’s less official but more fun practical workshops.
Now everybody was setting up in the main ballroom for the party and Conference Room 1 was empty except for Giles, Xander and a stack of paperwork.
The latter, Buffy ignored. The first two were more than welcome, especially since she could hang with them and get away from the hundreds or new Slayers who either wanted to talk about the bad old days in Sunnydale – which made her feel ninety years old – or congratulate her on the wedding – which reminded her she was getting married, which made her panic.
Hiding was good. Smart of Xander and Giles to have thought of it first.
“I am most certainly not hiding,” Giles said. “I’m sorting out the logistical nightmare that comes from having a hundred and eight Slayers, sixty-three Watchers, a dozen civilians, two werewolves, two ensouled vampires, at least one demon and a god all in the same hotel.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The fact that it lets me hide is just a happy coincidence.”
Buffy was drowning in the numbers. “Xander, save me from the scary math.”
“I got your back,” he said. “We’ll just call them ‘the big bunch of people’.”
“And all of them guests at my big fat gay wedding. Which is in, oh, eighteen hours and six minutes.” She wasn’t going to panic. She wasn’t going to… “Oh God.”
Xander put his hands on her shoulders. “Buffy. Breathe. Find a happy place.”
“Can I take Faith to the happy place and live there forever and never come back?” She sounded pathetic, she knew, but it got her a hug. So it was all good.
“Take it from someone who’s been there,” Xander told her. “Let Will deal with the small stuff and just think about the woman you’re marrying.”
He had to be thinking of Anya, she knew, and she squeezed his hand. It meant a lot that he’d even come. “Think about Faith. Right.”
“Possibly, if it’s your thing, wearing a cheerleader’s uniform.” He held up his hands. “I’m just saying.”
She smiled. “It’ll be fine. I mean, unless the priest turns out to be a demon taking human form so he can kill a hundred and eight Slayers at the one time.”
For a second, all she could hear was the hum of the fluorescent lights.
Giles scooped up his files and hurried to the door. “I’ll find Willow. There are spells that can verify the priest is human. Just in case.”
Xander said, “For the record, if that does happen, and I’m not saying it will; I’d just like it noted that it was you who jinxed us, not me.”
**
Seemed unfair to have to leave her own (bitching) bachelorette party just to get a smoke, but the whole hotel had some policy. Faith waited till the band was on break and the DJ played crap she couldn’t dance to anyway and headed outside.
She was lighting up when she heard people talking. Short laugh that sounded like Kennedy. A British guy, not Masterpiece Theatre enough to be a Watcher. Someone else, female.
Faith ambled into the garden. Kennedy was on her back, lying on Spike’s duster. He was sprawled on the grass, and Angel’s girlfriend, the werewolf, was rolling a joint. From the looks of it, not their first.
Cool. She dropped her cigarettes back into her pocket and sat down.
“Here comes the bride.” Nina lit the joint and passed it to her, smirking. “Is it tacky to thank you for marrying the competition?”
She shrugged. “Probably, but you’re stoned. S’all good.”
“Hey.” Spike prodded her in the side with a steel-toed Doc. She punched his leg, but she kept it light. “You can’t be in our club.”
Kennedy said, “He’s right. Sorry, Faith, we like you and all, but we didn’t even let – what’s he called? Skinny, says fuck all the time?”
“Somewhere English,” Nina said. “Kent? Wait, Devon.”
“We didn’t even let Devon be in our club, and he gave us pot.” Kennedy took a deep drag and slowly exhaled the smoke into the air. “Rebounds only.”
“Kidding me,” she protested. “Dude, I’m totally a rebound girl. Buffy never once looks at me that way, not one time, and then two days after Blondie kicks it I’m flavour of the month?” She rubbed her arms. Funny, pot usually made her feel warm. “Yeah, ‘cause that was all about me.”
“Two days? She said it was…” Spike shook his head. “Look. Doesn’t matter. Me and her, we hashed it all out that time last year. We’re all right.”
She gave him a long look. English had a good poker face, but he’d never played with her. “You being noble?”
“I’ve been noble,” he said, all seriousness, and the change in his voice made her frown – sounded kind of like Wesley. “Just for a change, I’m being realistic. She loves you. She’s marrying you.”
He didn’t say he was okay with it, but he sounded okay. Faith nodded, accepting what he’d said.
“That’s all she wrote, huh.” The cigarette was back to her, and she passed it straight on to Spike. “Guess I should get back. Since you’re not letting me join.” She paused. “Though I got a killer story about this flashback thing I did. Angel had wicked lame hair.”
Spike moved to give her more space. Nina said, “Of course, there’s always honorary membership.”
**
The poster at the front of the stage proclaimed this the Dingoes’ reunion tour, playing one night only. Which, Buffy thought, didn’t really count as a tour. But she had to admit, they sounded pretty good.
Devon’s band was actually good and Spike was dating a god. She wasn’t sure which of those was more freaksome.
Okay, he wasn’t dating her, exactly. In the three minutes all day they’d had to talk, he’d gotten shirty – still a good word and useful in many and varied situations – when Illyria’s name was mentioned. He didn’t even like her, he’d said. From what Buffy could see they spent most of their time together fighting and hitting each other, so from Spike’s point of view? Had to be true love.
She was glad. Not, she assured herself, that she was going to be one of those married people who thought anyone single was a freak who needed to be set up with a similar freak so they could get married. She was being good about that. She hadn’t even casually hinted to Xander that Vi was into him, or asked Dawn whether she’d brought a date.
Dawn. She scanned the crowd, jumping to see over heads – since when were Slayers so tall, anyway? – and finally found her little sister, talking with Andrew and Spike’s non-girlfriend at the back of the room.
“Really? That’s so cool, because… oh, hi, Buffy. Illyria, this is my sister, Buffy, she’s the one getting married tomorrow. Buffy, this is Illyria, she’s, like, a billion years old and she made me.”
Buffy had never known it was possible to triple-take. “Whu?”
Dawn sipped her drink. “Well, Key-me, anyway.”
Andrew intoned, “Into this Key Illyria poured her malice, her strength and her will to dominate Mid… her will to dominate Earth. And the other dimensions and stuff.”
“You were raw power,” Illyria said, neon-ice eyes glittering in a way that made Buffy uneasy. “Unbridled energy, chaos incarnate. Where I walked, you followed, and wherever we went you lit the night sky like a thousand moons. Your own worshippers were legion.”
Legion, Dawn’s expression said. Think about that next time you want me to pick my stuff off the bathroom floor.
“So, have you… ever been to a wedding before?” Lame, she knew, but she wanted to change the subject before Illyria started to think about changing Dawn back into the shiny-lights-of-chaos-and-keyness, and the only other thing she could think of was you’re a god, huh? How’s that going?
Illyria glared at her, but she’d come to realize this was just a default expression, so she didn’t take it personally. “Pointless ritual. Your lives are brief and meaningless as an instant of bright sun in the dead of winter, but you cling to one another in the blind naivete that you can stave off death. You’re wrong.”
Buffy looked at Dawn. Dawn looked at Buffy. Andrew sighed with adoration and kept his eyes on Illyria.
“Okay,” Buffy said. “Guess you’re not going to help Will with the maid of honour speechy thing.
TBC