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Twisting The Drabbles

Chapter Text

"What happened to you? Bit a lamppost?"

"Ith not thunny! Ith he hadn' uthed ropeth I'd be asheth by now!"

"He?"

"He looked human. Walked right into my alley, ready thor thucking. I grabbed him and bit him and - and thith happened!"

"One bit - fangless wonder?"

"Thtop lathing! He moothed tho thatht - tied me up in ropeth and thaid thomething about the polith. Oth courth I managed to get three, wathn't going to wait thor thunrithe - or the polith."

"A demon?"

"Didn't thmell like one. Maybe he had an amuelet oth protection. I don't care. I'm getting out oth Metropolith."

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Pale, bloodless, the body lay in the alley. No breath, no life, no movement.

His hand twitched, his eyes opened, a gasp of fear. Shit! He scrabbled backwards until stopped by solid brick. I'm dead! I should be dead! His hand went up to touch his neck, and the dried blood crusted there. It doesn't hurt. Why doesn't it hurt?

"Shit!" He staggered to his feet. "I don't feel like a soulless monster," he muttered. "Why don't I feel like a soulless monster? Maybe soulless monsters don't feel like soulless monsters to themselves. Because of the not having a soul thing." He glanced around. There was no-one in sight. "Gotta get out of here. Gotta go before I hurt some-"

He ran. His heart pounded, his breath gasped, but he didn't notice. Every step was one word, a mantra against the darkness. "Can't. Let. It. Happen."

Streets gave way to grass, then sand. He turned, running down the beach, the breakers a soothing sound in the darkness. He glanced at the sky, paling in the East. Maybe this was far enough.

Xander sat on the beach, waiting for sunrise. He was very surprised when he didn't burn to a crisp.

"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!"
- Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Chapter Text

"Ooof!" Being suddenly pulled onto the back of a running horse was not good for the breathing. "Let go of me!"

"Suit yourself." The strong arm around her waist loosened, and she started to slip off the horse. The very fast, very tall horse.

"No, don't!"

"Changed your mind? Don't want to go back to that mob of bloodsuckers that were about to kill you?"

"I didn't need rescuing, thank you very much!"

"You're welcome. Besides, I wasn't rescuing you; just practicing my horsemanship. I'm a bit rusty."

"That was rusty? You decapitated four of them! What do you do when you're in top form?"

His voice went cold. "You wouldn't want to know."

"Oh, like that is it?" she said. "Mysterious stranger with a deep dark past, all mournful and broody and British; c'mon, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, ripped up the t-shirt and stomped on it -"

"Are you going somewhere with this metaphor, or are you getting lost in its labyrinthine convolutions?"

"What's your name? And if you say 'a friend' I'll kick you."

"You can call me Adam."

"Buffy," she said. "The Slayer."

"Ah. You didn't need rescuing. Want to make another assault on them?"

Chapter Text

"Anywhere?" asked the man in tweed.

"Anywhere in time and space." The dark haired man grinned.

Giles cast his mind back to the British Museum; dwarfed by those massive uprooted door-wards, carven bulls with the heads of men with long, stiff curly beards. "I should like to see the hanging gardens of Babylon," he said. "But not in the reign of Enlil-nadin-ahhe; he was involved in a particularly nasty demon-cult."

"Demons? You gotta be joking!" Rose protested.

"Aliens," the Doctor said. "Like the Sycorax."

"The Sycorax were aliens?" Giles exclaimed.

"Where were you last Christmas?" asked Rose.

"On the roof."

Chapter Text

"And she doesn't even remember!"

The lights in Caritas were dim. Angel ignored the off-key warbling from the kareoke singer on stage, and gulped at his seventh drink. Or was it the eighth one? The waitress had been taking away each glass as she'd brought him a new one, so he couldn't just count the empties to keep track.

"That's what you get for changing history," his drinking companion said grimly. "There's always a price. Be thankful your price was only memory."

Angel knew the fellow wasn't human. He didn't have any obvious signs of demonhood (apart from wearing a leather jacket in the heat of an LA summer) but he didn't smell human. There was something odd about his pulse, too; the drumbeat of his heartbeat was an oddly syncopated rhythm. Angel wasn't at all tempted to find out what the stranger's blood tasted like, which was a relief. No iron self-control required.

"You don't know what it's like," Angel complained.

"My companions had their memories wiped," the other snapped. "Everything we'd ever done together, erased, like they'd never known me. Don't you tell me I don't know what it's like!"

"What do you do?"

"We remember for them."

Chapter Text

"Don't move!" The redhead flung up her hand. "Incendio!" Her hand was wreathed with a ball of flame, hot, but not burning her.

He flinched, then wondered why he had. Regeneration put a veil between the memory of death and the new life it gave; even death by burning. Then he realised it wasn't his death he'd flinched at. Not death, but possession; consumed by the rage of a dying sun. Burn with me. He couldn't forget that, no matter how he tried.

He saw an echo of that rage in her eyes. "Hello," he said gently. "I'm the Doctor."

Chapter Text

The lake was beautiful. The light glittered on the water; a gentle breeze ruffled their hair. Rose picked the wildflowers that grew profusely in the grass.

"So, where is this?" she asked.

"Lake Sunnydale," the Doctor answered. "They say it's haunted." He pointed at the lake. "There used to be a town there. Then one day it was swallowed up, just like that."

"All those people!" She stepped to the edge of the lake, and placed her posy on the shore.

"What are you doing that for?"

"Humans put flowers on graves."

A smile crinkled his eyes. "So they do."

Chapter Text

Pink, yellow, orange, azure, gold, peach, salmon... She couldn't think of enough words.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Buffy whirled, reaching for a stake. The dawn light on his face proved that the stranger wasn't a vamp, but he shouldn't have been able to sneak up on her. She was getting careless. But... there was something off about him. It wasn't just his fashion sense (very cool, actually, but velvet coats and white lace weren't particularly current). He looked human enough, with his brown wavy hair and gentle eyes, but... her slayer senses were telling her he wasn't human.

He smiled, accepting her stare, not startled by her sudden movement. "Sunrise is the most hopeful part of the day, don't you think?"

She relaxed. He might be uncanny, but he wasn't a threat. "Yes," she said, gazing again at the painted sky. How many times had sunrise saved her? "It's my favourite time of day."

He nodded. "The Earth turns its face to the sun; another night they've slept in blissful ignorance of the battles in the dark."

She shot him a startled glance.

He smiled at her again, with eyes full of secrets. "It's worth saving."

She grinned. "Yeah, it is."

Chapter Text

Bobby was wailing like a Chthora demon with its plug pulled. He had started the moment Xander had walked out the door. Little Bobby had banged on the door, screaming "Xan! Xan! Want Xan!"

"Xander isn't here," Anya said.

"Xaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" Bobby yelled, then lay down in front of the door, drubbing his heels on the floor, and screaming. The wails and screams were punctuated with cries for "Xan" and occassionally "Mom".

"Stop that!"

"Xaaaaan!"

"Screaming will not make him appear."

"Xaaaaan!"

Anya retreated to the lounge and tried to ignore him. When Xander dropped his cousin off to be babysat, he had assured her that Bobby would be easy to look after. For him, maybe.

She put cotton in her ears. It didn't help. She went back.

"I will give you candy if you shut up."

"Xaaaan!"

"If the wind changes when you do that, you will freeze that way. Do you want to look like a goblin?"

"Xaaaaaan!"

She returned to the lounge.

"Stupid goblin. I wish the Goblin King would come and take you away, right now!"

Silence.

She pulled the cotton out of her ears. Still silence. She went to the front hall. Bobby had vanished.

"Ooops."

Chapter Text

"The bog of eternal stench was a nice touch, professionally speaking," Anya said condescendingly.

Jareth frowned. "So how do you like being mortal?" he taunted.

"How do you like being King of the Goblins? Learned your lesson yet?"

"Don't pick lovers who'll call on the patron saint of scorned women," he snapped.

"Nope, that wasn't it."

"How," Jareth ground his teeth, "did you get through the Labyrinth so quickly?"

"You didn't think a few illusions would confuse me, did you? I was a witch before I was a demon."

"I was forgetting."

"So give me little Bobby and send me home," she demanded.

Jareth sighed, "You can have him, and welcome." He gestured, and Bobby appeared, asleep on a very large cushion.

Anya smirked. "Wouldn't stop crying, would he?"

Jareth scowled. "I had to cast sleep on him. Me, the King of the Goblins!"

Anya hesitated before picking up the boy. Fortunately, he didn't wake up. The Goblin King's castle melted away, and she was back in the apartment.

When Xander returned, he smiled at the sleeping boy, and then at Anya. "See, not hard at all!"

Anya opened her mouth, and then closed it again. Better not to say.

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"Anywhere in time and space. Anyone in history." The Doctor grinned. "What do you fancy?"

"Moses," Willow said. She frowned. "But he's rather difficult to date."

"You want to date Moses?"

"You're the driver; you'd have to date him."

"I do not want to date Moses!"

"Sorry, stupid idea. I mean, we don't even know which Pharaoh it was."

"Which Pharaoh?" The Doctor blinked. "Oh, that kind of date."

"What other kind of-?" She stopped, blushing as red as her hair. "I didn't mean - I just wanted to see -"

Of course, they ended up freeing slaves on Uxion Beta instead.

Chapter Text

"Ash nazg durbatuluk," the black-robed figures chanted. "Ash nazg gimbatul." The flames flared higher. "Ash nazg thrakatuluk." A shape formed in the fire, a slit of darkness. The flames rotated, angled like a magnetic field; the slit their magnetic pole. It looked disturbingly like the golden eye of a giant cat.

A blast of sound interrupted them. "Mary had a little lamb!" Dawn called through a megaphone. "Its fleece was white as snow!"

The cultists foolishly re-started the incomplete chant. "Ash nazg durbatuluk-"

The bonfire exploded. The cultists screamed as the flames engulfed them.

"Didn't even need Willow," Dawn said.

Chapter Text

It started after the band candy incident. Regressing in mental age had stirred something up; something buried deep. Little things at first: a doodle of a labyrinth; a spike of fear when the telephone rang; a state of heightened alertness when patrolling.

The leather jacket, he rationalized away. He couldn't explain buying the gun, or how comfortable it felt in his hand. Yet there it was, sitting on his desk. He shoved it in a drawer and took out a pen and paper. Think!

Curse?
Possession?
VR?

What was VR?


Virtual reality is real.

Something was messing with his head, with his self. Write it down.

He wrote another line, then gaped at the page: I am Rupert Oliver Giles.

What? His name wasn't...

The phone rang. He eyed it with trepidation, then snorted. Sure, there had been the demon Willow had scanned into the internet, but he didn't think they could travel down phone lines.

"Hello?"

A strange, familiar voice. "Oliver! I found you!"

A second of electronic noise, then a dialtone.

Sydney. She'd messed with his head again. No. She'd helped him remember. He was Oliver Sampson, not Rupert Giles. The Committee had a lot to answer for.

Chapter Text

The woman's eyes glowed gold. "Kneel before Osirus, your god."

"Pardon me, but I thought Osirus was a guy," Buffy said, glad that one of Giles' rambling monologues had lodged in her brain for once.

"Enough of your insolence, puny mortal!" Osirus held up her bejewelled hand, palm out. The centre of it blazed, and an invisible force rammed Buffy into the warehouse wall.

"Wait, did you just say 'puny mortal'?" Buffy clambered to her feet. "What are they teaching at Big Bad school nowadays? That is so passé." The jewellery must be some kind of magic weapon. If she could get close enough...

"Kneel or die!"

"I'm kneeling!" Buffy prostrated herself, face to the ground. A bit of sneakiness wouldn't go astray. "Let me kiss your feet, oh great and powerful Oz-Osirus. I am not worthy to lick the dust from your sandals."

"Osirus is gracious to his worshippers. You may kiss my feet."

Buffy crawled towards the god. The woman's feet were encased in gilt sandals, and her toenails glittered silver. Buffy kissed one big toe. Ugh. Then she leapt to her feet, grabbed Osirus's arm, twisted it behind her back, and removed the weapon. "Gotcha!" she said.

Chapter Text

Giles sipped his Scotch, and made a few more annotations to the list. Willow had hacked the Coroner's database, which made doing this much easier. She thought it was for keeping track of vampires; he didn't tell her what else he needed it for.

He eyed the guitar case propped up against the wall. His fingers itched for a good jam session. Later. Business first.

Giles leaned back as Joe pulled up a chair. "Do you miss the bookstore?"

Joe glanced around at the crowded bar and gave a wry smile. "Well, it was a heck of a lot quieter."

Chapter Text

He stepped out of the swirl of light. He was striking: cropped blond hair; cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass; eyes as cold as Arctic ice. He strode through the dark streets with the relaxed alertness of a predator.

"Poor Spike, hear you've been neutered," a voice jeered. "Reckon we can have some fun, now."

The blond smiled. "Love to have some fun, boys, but I'm in a hurry." Quick as thought, a silver pistol was in each hand. A moment later the two thugs were on the ground, cauterized holes drilled in each forehead.

"Fools. I failed murder rehab."

Chapter Text

The note on the fridge said "Gone for milk, back in five." But she hadn't been back in five minutes. She hadn't been back at all.

Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. When the Bobbies had appeared at the door, he could hardly take it in. But he had identified the body. He wasn't the only one there. The casualty list had been a long one.

It wasn't fair! How could it be that the most powerful witch of the age had survived vampires, demons and her own self-destructive impulses only to be killed by a glorified pepperpot?

Chapter Text

1. Martha Jones
Universe: Doctor Who/Buffy

Martha never got drunk. Well, hardly ever. After the year she'd had, she deserved this indulgence.

"You look like you could use a sympathetic ear," said the woman next to her.

"You have no idea," Martha said.

"Try me."

Martha grasped for something that wouldn't make her sound insane. "I walked out on him," she said. "He didn't even try to make me stay."

"Don't you just wish he'd get what he deserves?"

"I wish he'd lose his best friend, and it was his fault! I wish he'd find his beloved Rose and lose her to his identical twin!"

"Done!"

2. Sarah Gardner
Universe: Stargate/Buffy

"I give up!" the brown haired woman snapped. She took the letter she had been writing and ripped it into tiny pieces and tossed them in the bin.

"What are you giving up on?" Anya queried. "Or should I say who?"

"Daniel Jackson, that's who! He never writes, he never calls, I bet he's completely forgotten about me."

"Men! They're all the same. Don't you wish he'd get his?"

"I wish he'd get caught in a shotgun wedding, fall in love with his wife, and then lose her because she's been taken over by those precious aliens of his!"

"Done."

3. Servalan
Universe: Blake's 7/Buffy

Servalan fumed. Her new manicurist, Anya, gently buffed her nails to perfection.

"I know that look, darling. Man trouble?"

Servalan frowned. "One particular man. I offered him power, a place by my side, and he rejected me! All because his paranoid fancies said I'd kill him!"

"Men never like strong women," Anya said. "They feel threatened."

"He felt threatened all right."

Anya layered on the blood-red lacquer that Servalan favoured. "If you had a wish, what would you wish on him?"

"If his precious Blake wasn't dead already, I wish Avon's paranoia would get them both killed," Servalan said.

"Done!"

4. Only The Shadow Knows
Universe: The Shadow/Buffy

The ravishing brunette toyed with her glass, staring at the Bloody Mary as if it were someone else's blood, blood that she wanted to spill.

"Who are you mad at?" Anya asked. "If looks could kill, he'd be dead."

"Lamont Cranston. Philanderer, that's what he is! Just because he's rich, he thinks he can do anything! Secrets my foot!"

"Don't you hate it when they do that? Demanding your own secrets without telling you theirs? Don't you just wish...?"

"I wish he'd fall in love with a woman who knew all his secrets, who he couldn't hide anything from."

"Done!"

5. Gaila
Universe: Star Trek: Reboot/Buffy

Gaila was ranting. "He used me! He used me to cheat on the Koybashi Maru! Sure, the sex was good, but just because I'm an Orion doesn't mean that I think with my vagina."

Anya murmured sympathetically.

"I wish he'd puff up with hives so bad he couldn't move his fingers! I wish he'd freefall from a shuttle! And get beaten up! And hang from a midair platform by his fingers! And jump off it! And be marooned on an iceball! And get chased by monsters! And get strangled! And shot at! And beaten up again! And strangled again!"

"Done!"