First chapter of new fic
Aug. 28th, 2006 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constance_bThis fic was 'inspired' by Just Sue, so much so that it would count as plagiarism if she hadn't given me her kind permission to post it. I like to think of it as fanficcing her fanfic. Don't think I've stolen any actual lines but the overall idea, and a few of the details are hers, as is the overlapping POV in places. It's not really relevant to the first couple of chapters, I'll give details when I get to the bits I nicked. You can find her fic, Buyer Beware, here: http://redeem.dark-solace.org/
This is my also first try at writing plot, even a half stolen and barely existing one, unless you count 'Buffy and Spike get it on', and I'm not sure how much sense it makes. Hopefully it'll make some kind of sense eventually, not yet obviously, because this is only the first chapter and it's stupidly short. To be clear, everything that happened in Season Six is canon for this fic, and it starts maybe a week before Lessons.
The correct grammar belongs to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slackerace, the title and quote belong to Don Mclean, as usual the rest of the credit goes to Joss Whedon.
Prologue
I feel like a spinning top or a dreidel
The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle
You just slow down
Buffy barged into The Alibi Room for the third night in a row. It was Thursday, Dawn had been missing for two days, and while there was little hope of Buffy shaking anything new out of Sunnydale's shadier residents, she had no other leads to work on.
The Slayer had not been so alone since her first day at Sunnydale High. Willow was still 'recovering' and unreachable at some coven in England. She'd called Giles of course, but her Watcher had decided he could be of more use exploring the Watchers Council's vast information network and he'd not flown back to California or, as yet, turned up anything useful. Even the once steadfast Xander was working a contract in LA and Buffy was reluctant to call him back. They'd never healed the rifts in their friendship caused by Anya and Spike and Willow, or those caused by her own resurrection, and she knew when he'd been offered a lucrative out of town job he'd been glad to go.
And Spike, of course, was nowhere to be found. Not that Buffy regretted that, but at least there would have been someone at her side who shared her concern and would drop everything at her say-so.
This left Anya. Buffy wasn't sure about her Scooby status - newly re-recruited vengeance demons didn't generally want to be white hats - but Anya had been the only one to offer real and practical assistance so far, even if it was only helping file a missing persons report and occasionally showing her own brand of pragmatic comfort.
And Buffy was really scared. She just couldn't be the brains of the operation. She and Anya added together didn't make one half of Giles, and it had been two whole days without the tiniest scrap of a hint of a lead. The only thing keeping the Slayer upright was the failed locator spell Giles had tried; if someone was expending magical energy to keep her sister hidden then at least she wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere.
It was a couple of hours before dawn when Buffy decided to head for home to see if Giles had called her back. The Slayer vaulted over a fence to take a shortcut through a backyard; when she cleared Revello Drive she could see a light on in the front window and started running.
A freshly showered Dawn met her at the door in a white towelling dressing gown. Buffy had to stop and pinch herself.
"There you are," said Dawn. "I was worried. Giles has left, like, a dozen messages to call him and there's no food in the house that doesn't have mould on it."
Buffy stared, open mouthed. "We can order pizza," she said faintly.
She ran up the front steps and caught her sister round the waist. "Where the hell have you been?"
The teenager extricated herself from a Slayer strength hug. "I was kidnapped by slave traders," she said nonchalantly. "Then I escaped, had to find my own way home from LA. You haven't been answering the phone all night."
More helpless gaping on the part of Buffy, she grabbed the girl by the shoulders and gave her a shake. "Dawn! You can't be serious!"
"It's true!" said the teen indignantly. "And you totally owe Anya $80 for the cab. I had to go to the Magic Box; it’s lucky Anya hadn't teleported to Brazil or something."
Still, the Slayer just stared. "Well I was in a seedy part of town," Dawn rattled on, "and it's not like I had busfare-"
"You were kidnapped by slave traders?" Buffy repeated stupidly.
"I think they were after demons really, but apparently I set off the supernatural sensors still, must be some keyness thing. And they chained me up with a load of, like, hideous demons - that bit was quite scary... And I was going to be auctioned off, so it's lucky Spike was there or I might have been thousands of miles away before I escaped. Think what the cab fare would be like from Florida."
"Spike?"
"Is there an echo in here? Spike helped me to escape, but he was being really weird, kept pretending he didn't know who I was and he wouldn't talk or anything. He said he couldn't leave, or he could have stolen a car or something. And I don't think the pizza place will deliver this late, so I'm going to make popcorn. That doesn't go mouldy, right?"
Dawn squeezed past her bemused sister into the kitchen. "And you should call Giles," she called back over her shoulder. "It can't be four o'clock in the morning this time, because it's four o'clock in the morning here."
"Slave traders?" The girl paused in the pursuit of munchies to roll her eyes at her sister.
"Yeees."
"Spike?"
"Jeez. Is your brain not working tonight? Lucky I didn't wait for you to come rescue me, huh?"
Just that second the phone in the hall started ringing; the Slayer picked it up automatically, though her eyes followed her sister as she opened the microwave.
"Hello?"
"Buffy! I've been trying to get hold of you all night. Whatever was blocking our locating spell has been lifted, the coven got a bead on Dawn about two hours ago. She's a few miles out from Sunnydale. Now that you're home we can repeat the spell-"
"She's here, Giles."
"Oh? That's good. So the crisis is over?"
"I think so," said Buffy, with uncharacteristic uncertainty. "There were slave traders," she added vaguely. "Can I call you back tomorrow?"
TBC...
This is my also first try at writing plot, even a half stolen and barely existing one, unless you count 'Buffy and Spike get it on', and I'm not sure how much sense it makes. Hopefully it'll make some kind of sense eventually, not yet obviously, because this is only the first chapter and it's stupidly short. To be clear, everything that happened in Season Six is canon for this fic, and it starts maybe a week before Lessons.
The correct grammar belongs to
slackerace, the title and quote belong to Don Mclean, as usual the rest of the credit goes to Joss Whedon.Prologue
I feel like a spinning top or a dreidel
The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle
You just slow down
Buffy barged into The Alibi Room for the third night in a row. It was Thursday, Dawn had been missing for two days, and while there was little hope of Buffy shaking anything new out of Sunnydale's shadier residents, she had no other leads to work on.
The Slayer had not been so alone since her first day at Sunnydale High. Willow was still 'recovering' and unreachable at some coven in England. She'd called Giles of course, but her Watcher had decided he could be of more use exploring the Watchers Council's vast information network and he'd not flown back to California or, as yet, turned up anything useful. Even the once steadfast Xander was working a contract in LA and Buffy was reluctant to call him back. They'd never healed the rifts in their friendship caused by Anya and Spike and Willow, or those caused by her own resurrection, and she knew when he'd been offered a lucrative out of town job he'd been glad to go.
And Spike, of course, was nowhere to be found. Not that Buffy regretted that, but at least there would have been someone at her side who shared her concern and would drop everything at her say-so.
This left Anya. Buffy wasn't sure about her Scooby status - newly re-recruited vengeance demons didn't generally want to be white hats - but Anya had been the only one to offer real and practical assistance so far, even if it was only helping file a missing persons report and occasionally showing her own brand of pragmatic comfort.
And Buffy was really scared. She just couldn't be the brains of the operation. She and Anya added together didn't make one half of Giles, and it had been two whole days without the tiniest scrap of a hint of a lead. The only thing keeping the Slayer upright was the failed locator spell Giles had tried; if someone was expending magical energy to keep her sister hidden then at least she wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere.
It was a couple of hours before dawn when Buffy decided to head for home to see if Giles had called her back. The Slayer vaulted over a fence to take a shortcut through a backyard; when she cleared Revello Drive she could see a light on in the front window and started running.
A freshly showered Dawn met her at the door in a white towelling dressing gown. Buffy had to stop and pinch herself.
"There you are," said Dawn. "I was worried. Giles has left, like, a dozen messages to call him and there's no food in the house that doesn't have mould on it."
Buffy stared, open mouthed. "We can order pizza," she said faintly.
She ran up the front steps and caught her sister round the waist. "Where the hell have you been?"
The teenager extricated herself from a Slayer strength hug. "I was kidnapped by slave traders," she said nonchalantly. "Then I escaped, had to find my own way home from LA. You haven't been answering the phone all night."
More helpless gaping on the part of Buffy, she grabbed the girl by the shoulders and gave her a shake. "Dawn! You can't be serious!"
"It's true!" said the teen indignantly. "And you totally owe Anya $80 for the cab. I had to go to the Magic Box; it’s lucky Anya hadn't teleported to Brazil or something."
Still, the Slayer just stared. "Well I was in a seedy part of town," Dawn rattled on, "and it's not like I had busfare-"
"You were kidnapped by slave traders?" Buffy repeated stupidly.
"I think they were after demons really, but apparently I set off the supernatural sensors still, must be some keyness thing. And they chained me up with a load of, like, hideous demons - that bit was quite scary... And I was going to be auctioned off, so it's lucky Spike was there or I might have been thousands of miles away before I escaped. Think what the cab fare would be like from Florida."
"Spike?"
"Is there an echo in here? Spike helped me to escape, but he was being really weird, kept pretending he didn't know who I was and he wouldn't talk or anything. He said he couldn't leave, or he could have stolen a car or something. And I don't think the pizza place will deliver this late, so I'm going to make popcorn. That doesn't go mouldy, right?"
Dawn squeezed past her bemused sister into the kitchen. "And you should call Giles," she called back over her shoulder. "It can't be four o'clock in the morning this time, because it's four o'clock in the morning here."
"Slave traders?" The girl paused in the pursuit of munchies to roll her eyes at her sister.
"Yeees."
"Spike?"
"Jeez. Is your brain not working tonight? Lucky I didn't wait for you to come rescue me, huh?"
Just that second the phone in the hall started ringing; the Slayer picked it up automatically, though her eyes followed her sister as she opened the microwave.
"Hello?"
"Buffy! I've been trying to get hold of you all night. Whatever was blocking our locating spell has been lifted, the coven got a bead on Dawn about two hours ago. She's a few miles out from Sunnydale. Now that you're home we can repeat the spell-"
"She's here, Giles."
"Oh? That's good. So the crisis is over?"
"I think so," said Buffy, with uncharacteristic uncertainty. "There were slave traders," she added vaguely. "Can I call you back tomorrow?"
TBC...
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 12:36 pm (UTC)