A Dozen Drabbles
By alliterator
Spoilers for Seven Seasons of Buffy and Five Seasons of Angel
Title: Dancing After Dark
Rating: G
Challenge: wordoftheday100's Gamboled challenge.
The girl had decided to dance that evening. It was an impulse she gave into when she heard the clacking of shoes on wood. Her shoes made contact with the floor and she laughed as she spun. She gamboled like that for some minutes until she saw someone out of the corner of her eye – a man, his dark eyes staring at her. He was gone, however, when she turned around.
Walking home, she bumped into a lady with blonde locks. "Beg your pardon, ma'am."
The lady grinned. "Don't worry about that. I have someone I want you to meet."
Title: What, You Think They Come Cheap?
Rating: PG
Challenge: wordoftheday100's Mephetic challenge.
"Angel!" Fred exclaimed as he walked out of the elevator dripping a green ichor. "What happened?"
"Stay back, Fred," Angel said. "Blood from a Venenifer demon is highly toxic to breathe. You better leave." Already the mephitic fumes where slightly burning the insides of her nostrils.
She left as Angel removed his jacket and placed it in the wastebasket. He pressed a button on his phone.
"Harmony, I want you to call containment and have them come in here with gasmasks to collect my clothes."
Angel sighed and then dialed the number of his tailor. "I need another leather jacket."
Title: Passionate Intensity
Rating: PG
Challenge: wordoftheday100's Inimical challenge.
Passion. It defines us. It gives us strength to go on living even when we know we have nothing else to live for. But eventually, passion betrays. It burns you up from the inside out, turning your intentions inimical in a heartbeat.
Of course, what's the fun in passion if it doesn't cause you to kill every now and then?
She looks around the room, flashing those doe eyes, searching for me. She doesn't look hard enough. She doesn't see the brilliant luminosity of my passion.
Soon that light will be so bright it will burn up everything she is.
Title: Babes in the Wood
Rating: PG
Challenge: wordoftheday100's Ken challenge.
"Now the robins so red, how swiftly they sped," Holtz sang to Steven as he rocked him back and forth in his arms. "They put out their wide wings and over them spread." Quortoth spread out as far as his ken extended. "And all the day long on the branches they throng." The landscape was bright and harsh and the baby squirmed in his arms. "They sweetly did whistle and this was their song." Slowly Steven stopped squirming and slept quietly. "Pretty babes in the wood. Pretty babes in the wood. Oh, don't you remember those babes in the wood."
Title: He Found It
Rating: PG
Challenge: wordoftheday100's Grandiloquent challenge
"What is a Tromax demon's special ability? Mr. Giles?"
"Um, to spit splick, Professor?" Ripper shifted in his seat.
"Wrong, Mr. Giles," The Professor glared at him and Ripper guessed that he might spit splick if he got any angrier. "Please stay after class today." The Professor went on with the rest of his grandiloquent lecture, but Ripper blocked it out.
Suddenly, a note came from behind him. Written on it were just scratches but Ripper recognized it as the code Ethan had made up. It read, 'Meet me at the cemetery at midnight.' Ripper crumpled the paper and smiled.
Splick is British slang for a disgusting fluid.
Title: Desperation
Rating: PG
Challenge: wordoftheday100's Mountebank challenge.
Darla was desperate - she had been to every mystic she could find. Either they had no idea what was inside her or they were mountebanks out to steal her money. If they were the latter, she took pleasure it eating them. In fact, if they were the former, she took pleasure in eating them. Why pay for an answer of 'I have no idea?'
She knew there was one way to figure out what was inside her. She could go to him. If he didn't know what it was, the least he could do was kill it for her.
Title: The Devil's Advocates
Rating: PG
Challenge: wordoftheday100's Impregnable challenge.
The Wolfram & Hart building, an impregnable fortress in the heart of the jungle of Los Angeles, stands there. Lawyers scurry about like ants, carrying briefcases filled with files that the District Attorney's Office would love to get their hands on, going places, filling out forms to sell their first born, performing rituals to give them luck on their next case.
This is where Faustian deals are made – signed in metaphorical and literal blood. Blood oaths that bind, contracts that extend past death.
So almost no one notices when a vampire falls through a window, burning up in the sunlight.
Title: The Torture of Memories
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: wordoftheday100's Nascent challenge.
Wesley leaned back on his chair, trying to sort out his nascent memories. They had all come back to him in a rush, a jumble of images, sounds, smells. He could feel Justine slitting his throat now. Lilah's panting as they had sex. His stomach flipping as he cut off her head.
"Are these the memories you needed back? Does this now make you Wesley?" What was his answer? What could he tell to her… it? He never expected this when he broke the box. If he had known, would he have still done it?
He can't answer that question.
Title: Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: openonsunday's David Bowie song titles challenge.
"So what are we doing tonight?" Spike clapped his hands in glee.
"We are doing nothing," Darla said. "I'm having a surprise for Angelus and I want you two to be nowhere in sight."
"Oh, pretty mum has a present for him," Drusilla cooed.
"Yes." Darla smiled. "And I want you two to not spoil it for us, do you understand?"
"Perfectly," Spike replied. After Darla left, he turned to Dru and said, "Can you tell me what's that surprise Darla's talking about?"
Drusilla's eyes went wide as she said, "A gypsy girl, all filled with exquisite delights… and surprises."
Title: Paperback Writer
Rating: G
Challenge: openonsunday's Book challenge.
Dawn walked through the college bookstore, searching through various shelves of textbooks. Pushing aside one, then the other, she finally found the one she wanted.
Walking up to the cash register, she stopped suddenly and looked at the new releases section of the bookstore. Standing out was a colorful cover that was obviously part of the fantasy genre: there was a half-nude woman holding a bloody axe in one hand and a glowing object in the other.
Dawn sighed and picked up the book. Five minutes later, Dawn walked out with her textbook and Andrew Well's latest Vampyre Slayre book.
Title: The True Beginning
Rating: PG
Challenge: openonsunday's Beginnings challenge.
In the beginning, there was the Earth. It was populated by a multitude of demons, all dominated by the pure Demons, the Old Ones. Their power stretched over the world and invaded every corner of the globe.
But soon, a new power arose. A new species, man, appeared. He was different than demons, more resourceful. He was able to trick the Old Ones into leaving the world with ancient magic.
But where the Old Ones ruled, new entities entered. These were subtler, less forceful evils. There was the ravenous Wolf, the corruptive Ram, and the seductive Hart.
Title: Burning Hot is the Ground, Liquid Gold is the Air
Rating: PG
Challenge: openonsunday's Minor character challenge.
It's hot where she is. Sweltering. She gingerly touches the scar on her neck, feeling the sweat drip down. She didn't know the dead sweat. Now she does. Well, it is awfully hot here. Hot enough to fry an egg.
She taps her heels on the ground. She's bored. After all, there's not much to do here besides stand in the blistering heat and wait. She checks her fingernails. Yep, still there.
She starts waving her hand like a fan, trying to cool off. It's useless. Another impatient heeltap and wishes she was still in Hell instead of Los Angeles.