Joe's Note: So. That just happened between Willow and Xander. Didn't really intend for it when I wrote out my outline for this story, but then it just sorta started unfolding while I was working on the last scene of Chapter 5 and… well, I ran with it. I'll have to adjust some of my plans going forward to compensate, but I doubt you guys are gonna mind. Moving forward? By the end of the chapter, we'll see the rise of Michelle and the use of female terms regarding Xander. He's going to be living as a girl; it's probably a good idea for Michelle to start thinking of herself by her new name and using appropriate gender terms to describe herself, no? Not to mention… can you imagine how jarring it'd be to read Cordelia talking to or about 'Michelle' and then see 'Xander' reacting? Yikes. Pass. Also, you may notice a slight decrease in chapter length. When I transitioned from Blue Belle to Red, White, and Blue, I tried a few different presentation options which resulted in me having space to expand a few scenes. When I reverted to my original method of scene presentation before writing this chapter, that resulted in the first few chapters being a bit longer than the rest. With that said, any ongoing story I write tends to end up having the chapters grow as I go on, so maybe it won't be noticeable..?
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, Warren, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, DireSquirrel, Kentucky Fried Dragon, Joseph, mpop, RileyWestfall, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on P-atreon, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.
November 1, 2013
Sunnydale High School - Library
Sunnydale, California
Letting out an irritated sigh, Buffy Summers closed the book in front of her and pushed it away. For some reason, Giles had her researching transformative magic, the Roman god Janus, and especially anything that referred to the combination of those two. Why that? She had no idea. Why her? She… also had no idea. Where were Willow and Xander?
Oh, right, Willow was probably still helping her newly-arrived cousin settle in. Buffy frowned as she thought back to her brief introduction with the obnoxious redhead. Was it her fault that Willow and Michelle had looked really similar at a quick glance? And at a second glance, for that matter? It wasn't just the face and hair, either; the two of them dressed… the blonde couldn't even call it 'similarly'. She'd recognized Michelle's sweater as something Willow had bought for herself during their last trip to the mall. Which meant that the only real differences between the girls were… what? Different colored eyes and Michelle had freckles? Like Buffy spent a lot of time staring into other girls' eyes. Not.
That left Buffy with two equally unpalatable choices to pick from: she could either call Willow and try to convince her friend to ditch her own cousin to come to the library and do research she didn't want to do, or she could cut Willow out of things until Michelle packed herself back up and left Sunnydale to return to… wherever she was from. Except she didn't know how long Michelle was going to be in town for. Sure, she'd said a month, but if her parents were anything like Willow's? There was no saying it wouldn't end up turning into two months, the rest of the semester, or even the entire rest of the school year.
But even if it didn't… did she want to be without Willow's help for a month? She was the Slayer, not the Researcher. That was Giles's job… and Willow's. And Xander's. And maybe Michelle's too? Hmm. Maybe they could figure out a safe and non-freak-inducing way of introducing Michelle to the supernatural? After all, if she was going to be in town and in Willow's life and taking up the time and attention of the group's best researcher, wasn't it only fair that she gave back to the Scoobies in some way?
Because doing it all herself sucked. Scowling at the empty donut box leftover from a few nights before, Buffy grabbed another book and opened it, skimming the pages as she searched for the specific phrases Giles had told her to look for. Hopefully Willow and Michelle's night was turning out to be as boring as hers…
November 1, 2013
Rosenberg Household - Willow's Room
Sunnydale, California
"…holy shit." Sprawled on his stomach on Willow's bed with his flushed cheek pressed against the pillow, Xander tried to catch his breath even as the redhead chuckled softly and slid off the opposite side of the bed. How she could even move after what they'd been doing for the past three hours, he had no idea. Well… she'd been mostly a giver, which probably explained how she still had the energy to do anything other than exist as a limp puddle on the bed. But still. Mustering what little energy he had left, Xander peered back over his shoulder at her with wide eyes. "Wow. Just… wow. Where did you learn that? Any of that? All of that?"
Pulling on a blue slip that Xander remembered seeing both hanging on her doorknob that morning and then again at Victoria's Secret when he'd been shopping with Cordelia, Willow threw herself down in front of her computer and then spun the chair around to face him. "Well, there's a short answer to that but I'm not gonna give it to you. Mostly because I've been dying to talk about the whole thing with someone, and who better than the person who's going to have to keep all sorts of secrets for me anyway? So… do you remember what I went as for Halloween? I mean, you should, it was literally only yesterday." Pausing, she turned her head to check the computer. "Wait… okay, it's not midnight yet. Still only yesterday."
Xander groaned before dragging another pillow over, using it to prop himself up a bit more as he rolled onto his back. If he'd known this was going to turn into an actual conversation, he would have kept his mouth shut. Seeing as how he hadn't, though… "Um, I honestly don't know what to call it. I wanted to ask but I couldn't really find an appropriate way to phrase it. Can I be like, Cordelia-grade blunt here?" Willow offered a faint shrug in response before raising an eyebrow at him. "Slutty schoolgirl."
"…sure, let's go with that. I'm sure you discovered some interesting stuff when you were invading my privacy this morning; I'm still not happy about that but at this point it's just… whatever. Can't change the past, so I might as well roll with it and let you in on my big secret before you stumble onto it by accident." Leaning back in her chair a bit, Willow ran her fingers through her hair slowly before sighing and nodding in the direction of her laptop. "After that whole mess with Malcolm… Moloch… I kept poking around certain parts of the Internet. More adult parts. One thing led to another and, well… nowI'macamgirl."
As familiar as he was with Willow's verbal quirks, it still took Xander's brain a few seconds to split that last rush of sounds into separate words and then he slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows as he stared at Willow in disbelief. "I'm sorry, I could have sworn you just said that you're-"
"A cam girl. Yeah. I did." The brief reversion to the shy, blushing Willow that Xander had grown up with lasted for only a few seconds, and then the girl who'd fucked him into a limp puddle of flesh on her bed reasserted herself. Willow drew herself up confidently with a toss of her head, the blush receding to a faint flush in her cheeks. "Considering what some of the girls we go to school with do to get a bit of attention from boys, I could be doing a whole lot worse with myself. Kinda like I did on Halloween. Which brings us back around to our original conversation and soon you'll understand how this all fits together. You were dressed as Senator Kelly and turned into… well, Mystique actually but still. You changed into another person entirely because you were dressed as them. I was wearing stuff that I usually only use for cam shows, stuff that's a bit more… Harmony-esque… than my usual outfits and so I turned into-"
"A sluttier Willow."
"Let's call her a more outgoing Willow. I don't like slut shaming girls as a rule and slut shaming myself is even worse. A version of myself. Whatever you want to call her." Willow paused for a few moments, brow furrowed in thought, before shaking herself back to the present and the discussion at hand. "But yes, I got taken over by a Willow who didn't keep her sexual adventures strictly digital. She ran around Sunnydale having fun in my body for a few hours the other night, and I came back to find not just those memories but her versions of certain events from the last two years. I guess we were alike enough that most things overlapped. Other things… not so much. Like when she found out about vampires, she got fixated on the whole 'they don't breathe' thing so she went out, found a cute girl vampire, and made her…" Xander's jaw dropped as Willow trailed off. "…not relevant to this discussion."
Yes. Yes it was. It was very relevant. It definitely needed to be a part of this discussion. Because as much as he hated vampires for what they'd taken from him, Xander was still a red-blood teenage boy. Sorta. Kinda. Sadly, Willow didn't seem inclined to elaborate and now that he thought about it, Xander wasn't really sure that he was awake enough to properly enjoy the tale. The redhead had worn him out in a way that literally nothing else in his life had; he couldn't remember ever being this tired before in his entire existence thus far. Letting himself flop back onto the pillows behind him, Xander let his eyes drift closed as Willow spun back around to face her laptop and began typing. Then something occurred to him and his eyes went wide, staring incredulously at the back of Willow's head. "So wait, everything we did tonight was just you working off other Willow's memories of… stuff?"
The rapid clicking of keys slowed to a stop and then Willow shot a smirk back over her shoulder at Xander. "I kissed Missy a bit more after I took my body back, but other than that? Yeah, pretty much. Just imagine what I'll be able to do once I have a little more first-hand experience." Jesus Christ. She'd probably literally kill him. Death by snu-snu. Sure, he'd get to stroll on up to Saint Peter and grin widely and announce that he'd had snu-snu… but he'd still be dead. Probably of exhaustion, possibly of dehydration. Turning back to what she'd been doing, Willow offered up a dismissive wave with her left hand even as the right began typing once more. "I learned at the one and only sleepover I was invited to that I'm terrible at sharing a bed, so if you could wander on down to your room before you fall asleep on me..?"
"Willow, you're a skinny girl with a queen size bed who sleeps in the soldier position. Buffy and I could both sleep in here with you and you'd never even know."
"…why do you have to make this difficult for me? I was trying to be polite, but since that doesn't seem to be working… get out." Both the words themselves and the tone caught Xander off-guard, and he slowly rose into a sitting position even as Willow used her left hand to point insistently toward the door. "I made it very clear before we started that this was strictly a sexual encounter; one of the many things I learned from the other Willow's memories is that it's bad form to snuggle after a booty call. So it's time for you to take your walk of shame down to whichever guest room you're planning to turn into Michelle's room. Shoo."
"Pretty sure you're not supposed to have booty calls with friends who you don't have benefits with, either."
"Shoo."
"Especially non-benefit friends that you're living with."
"Ouste."
"What?"
"It's French for shoo."
Well. Fuck her very much then. After he'd let her talking into shifting his body to suit her whims and everything, even. A maelstrom of emotions whirled through Xander's head: shame, disgust, anger, concern… but in the end, exhaustion won out over everything. Something was clearly wrong with Willow if she was going to treat him of all people like this - especially after what they'd just done - but he was just too damn tired to deal with things at the moment. Grumbling under his breath, Xander slid over to the edge of the bed, swinging his legs over the side and testing them carefully as he slowly rose to his feet. Much to his surprise, they were actually capable of supporting his weight and so he shot one last dirty look at the back of Willow's head before wobbling his way across the room and out the door. Slamming it behind him elicited a muted curse from Willow, and Xander allowed himself a faint grin before setting off down the hallway.
Peeking first into one guest room and then the other, Xander found himself frowning as he doubled back. As much as he wanted to just flop down and go to sleep, if there was a chance that he'd be stuck with the room he passed out in? He kinda wanted to pick the better room. The problem was that they were hideously generic: each was home to an identical full size bed, the same nightstand, and a likewise uniform dresser. After making a second, more thorough inspection of his two options, though, Xander found himself noticing a few differences. The first bedroom - the one that didn't share a common wall with the master suite, which was a plus in and of itself - was two or three feet longer, and also had bigger closets and a bay window. Neither of those really mattered to him, per se, but it seemed like the kind of thing that a teenage girl would want for her room if she had the choice. And for better or worse, he was a teenage girl for the time being, who might eventually bring other teenage girls home to see his room.
As he wandered into his chosen room and closed the door behind him, Xander frowned as he realized that even if he made friends as soon as he returned to school as Michelle, he wouldn't be inviting them 'home' anytime soon. His new room needed a significant makeover; while there technically wasn't anything 'wrong' with it… it was quite obviously and undeniably a guest room. Unless his feminine side turned out to have all the personality of tapioca pudding, the bland colors and utter lack of personal touches in the room wouldn't suit her in the least. Granted the cover story they'd settled on for his sudden appearance did in fact have him as a guest in the Rosenbergs' home… but still. A girl who knew she was getting dumped on her relatives for a significant period of time would try to make herself at home, right?
But while there would need to be some decision-making followed by significant amounts of work in the near future, they - like unpacking the clothes he'd bought today - were concerns for… well, the future. Did his room need some new, less bland furniture to suit its new owner? Probably. Should they repaint the walls? Possibly. What color? He had no idea. What kind of… overall theme, style, whatever did he want for his new room? Again, Xander didn't have a clue. Figuring out the answers to those questions - probably answers to followup questions as well - and then doing something about them required two things that were in short supply at the moment: energy and Willow's help. Possibly Cordelia's assistance as an interior designer as well, which made a third thing that he was currently lacking.
And so for now? He was going to get some sleep. It'd been a long, strange day and tomorrow was probably going to be just as long. It'd definitely be just as weird. Especially if Willow kept acting like post-coital Willow instead of pre-coital Willow. Taking a step toward the bed, Xander glanced down instinctively and then froze as he realized that he was naked. Well, it was kinda to be expected, what with him forgetting to grab his clothes on his way out of Willow's room. Still. He didn't really like sleeping naked. What choice did he have, though? He wasn't going to go slinking back down the hall to retrieve what he'd left behind when Willow had tossed him out, and he certainly wasn't going to run downstairs like this either.
After a few more seconds of deliberation, Xander threw his hands up in the air. Fuck it. He was too tired to deal with any of this shit right now. He'd just sleep in the buff tonight and worry about his nudity - and everything else - in the morning. Staring down at his body, he undid the changes Willow had demanded over the course of their lengthy encounter one by one, until his body was finally back in a vaguely familiar state once more. He leaned over to flick off the light switch, stumbled over to flop down on the bed, and was asleep seconds after his head hit the pillow.
November 2, 2013
Rosenberg Household - Willow's Room
Sunnydale, California
"You didn't learn how to drive from your Halloween spirit, did you?"
"I… don't think so. I didn't know I could do most of the things I did in the library until Cordelia attacked me, though, so I might be able to. Why?"
Even as her fingers danced across the keyboard, flicking from a cluttered document in Pages past an application Xander didn't recognize but that featured endless rows of white text on a black background and then onward to Safari, Willow raised her right hand to tap at the screen. Specifically, the California Department of Motor Vehicles' logo. "It's a lot easier for me to get you a fake state identification card than a fake driver license. Which kinda makes sense if you think about it, since one only requires you to show up with two forms of ID while the other requires classes and tests. So if you don't think you're going to need a license, I'd like to cut that particular corner for Michelle."
"Well, part of me thinks it'd be cool to be able to drive and just pointed out that your parents left at least one vehicle in the garage when they left for… wherever they are right now. It's hanging out with a part of me that's pointing out that if I know kung fu or whatever that was in the library, there's a good chance that I'd be able to drive if you tossed me behind the wheel." Trailing off, Xander racked his brain in hope of sparking… something… the way Cordelia's attack had caused him to manifest his awesome new fighting skills. Nothing. Damn. Then he took in the thoroughly irritated expression on Willow's face and let out a nervous chuckle before raising his hands in surrender. "But a really big part of me realizes that you're being incredibly generous by taking the time to do all this for me and so yeah, if you wanna cut that corner, that's fine. I can always drive illegally if I have to." That earned him another unpleasant look, causing Xander to quickly offer up a disclaimer. "Which I won't have to ever because that would be wrong."
Willow continued to eye him balefully for several seconds before snorting and returning her attention to the laptop's screen. "Uh huh. And I'm Emma Frost."
There was an excellent opportunity there for some shapeshifting-fueled physical comedy - especially given that Willow seemed to want him to be in any form other than Michelle's for the time being - but Xander decided to let it pass. After all, there would be plenty of similar openings in the future; Willow stumbled into a 'surely'-based Airplane! joke at least once every two or three days. Hmm. Note to self: see if there were any celebrities from their generation named Shirley that he could shift into next time Willow set up that joke. The classics were all well and good, but sometimes fresh material could be fun.
Speaking of Willow's sudden aversion to Michelle… Xander still didn't know what to make of that. Thinking back, his choice of form hadn't appeared to bother her while they were at school yesterday, and it certainly hadn't kept Willow from making out with him or taking him up to her room to fuck. Nor had it put her off the actual fucking, at least not at first. While his memories of the previous night were a bit hazy for obvious reasons, and the requests for changes had come fast and furious after she'd gotten him to agree to the first one? He'd had at least two orgasms before that point. Although him shifting out of Michelle's form hadn't kept her from being a total bitch to him when they were done. Hmm.
Whatever had set her off the night before, though, she'd at least realized that she'd behaved badly. Xander had woken up to a knock on his door, which had opened to reveal a apologetic-looking Willow bearing the gift of s'mores Pop-Tarts. Which she didn't keep in the house, meaning that she'd run out at some point to buy his favorite breakfast food. She'd delivered them to his nightstand before scampering off, returning a minute or so later with several bags of clothing. Bags of detagged, more neatly folded and carefully sorted clothes, he'd discovered twenty or so minutes later when he'd finally gotten out of bed and begun poking around. By then, Willow was gone; after delivering another load of bags, she'd visibly struggled to find the right words to say before eventually giving up and wandering off.
It hadn't been until nearly two hours later that she finally showed her face again, in which time he'd eaten his Pop-Tarts as slowly as possible, taken a long shower, stumbled through picking out an outfit, and put away the rest of his new clothes. Evidently in favor of the avoidance option, Willow had come breezing in talking a mile a minute, grabbing him by the wrist and leading him down the hall to her room. He'd gotten plunked down on her desk to the right of her laptop as she went over their entire agenda for the day and then almost off-handedly ordered to transform back into the girl he'd been for her the previous night, leaving him sitting there in unfamiliar skin as she worked her digital magic to bring Michelle into existence. Occasionally she needed some input, like her question about his ability to drive or lack thereof, but mostly he just sat there looking cute and thinking. Which had led to his current predicament and the questions bouncing madly around the inside of his head. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "Why don't you like me?"
"I'm assuming you're talking about Michelle-you and not you-you, since we're best friends and all?"
"Mmm."
"Because while Michelle-you doesn't damage my self-esteem or anything despite being a 'better' version of my own body? Having sex with her does make me feel disgustingly narcissistic. Pretty much 'I need to schedule a session on one of my parents' couches' levels of narcissistic. But on the other hand, you're pretty much my only option for sex for the foreseeable future unless I start acting like the other Willow did. Which is obviously a viable option, seeing as how she did it… but I'm not sure I'm ready to be the ginger Harmony of Sunnydale High." Willow switched to typing with just her left hand as the right reached up, resting for a moment on Xander's knee before slowly sliding upward toward the hemline of her skirt. "Then I realized that Michelle is just an outfit for you. You're no more her than you are me or Cordelia or anyone else you've imitated since you got those powers. At least not yet. So there wasn't anything wrong with asking you to shift into someone else so I wouldn't feel disgusting when we were done. Although I waited until I'd gotten you off a time or two because I figured that it would make you more receptive to the idea."
As far as plans went, it certainly wasn't a bad one. It had worked, after all, which was more than Xander could say about most of his plans. Reaching down, he put his hand over Willow's to still its wandering as he eyed her uncertainly. "You're assuming, of course, that I want to have lots of sex with someone who made me take a walk of shame last night." Which would have been a lot more shameful if it hadn't involved stumbling a few yards down a hallway with really soft carpet but still. It was the principle of the matter.
Willow responded with a smirk before stretching out a finger and scratching her nail gently over the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, making him squeak and squirm about atop her desk. "I'm sorry, who's the one sitting here on my desk in the form of my choice specifically to fulfill my ogling needs while I work?"
"Yes, and you can let people drool over you and not have sex with them. Case in point, Cordelia's entire life since puberty started."
"So you're saying that you don't want more of what I gave you last night?"
"You mean being treated like the ginger Harmony you're worried about becoming? No, can't say that I do." That made Willow flinch away and try to pull her hand back, but Xander grabbed the redhead's wrist to keep her from retreating. "I get it, that this… whatever it is… is a temporary thing. We're exploring, no feelings, no attachment, and when it's all over, things will probably be weird but we'll have to figure out how to go back to being friends without benefits. And don't think that I'm not glad to have this, because it's doing wonders to make me comfortable with the fact that I'm not the person I was a day and a half ago. But just because you don't love me - or at least love me that way - doesn't mean you have to be a bitch about things. Or rub my face in the fact that we're basically just using each other. Just because there's no flowers and chocolate and romantic dates in my future doesn't mean that I have to get treated like a hooker you're paying by the hour, does it?"
Letting out a deep sigh, Willow rolled her chair a foot to the right before leaning down to rest her head on his lap. "I'm sorry. I just… panicked. I was running off other Willow's memories and that's how she handles things after. And since I didn't have any other experience to fall back on, I just kept acting like other Willow and that's probably the reason why she has literally no experience with being in a relationship. Not that this is one, but it's not what she did either and so I shouldn't treated it like that."
Xander nodded despite the fact that Willow couldn't see it before reaching down to run his fingers through her hair slowly. "No, you shouldn't have. I forgive you. This time. Try it again and I will throw you out of this room. Literally. I will pick you up and toss you out." Turning her head, Willow stared up at him with wide blue eyes, making Xander chuckle. "A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend. Also, think of it this way: if you'd let me sleep in here last night, I would have been right here when you woke up to play with more."
"…why didn't I think of that?"
"Hell if I know. You're supposed to be the brains of this operation." That made Willow giggle and then Xander gave a gentle tug on her hair before nodding in the direction of her laptop. "Speaking of which… how are things going? And are you sure this is even going to work? I mean-"
Rolling her eyes, Willow straightened up before scooting back over to sit in front of her laptop. "If only you'd been this enthusiastic about going to school before Halloween; you might have had something higher than a 2.9 GPA. But yes, I'm sure this is going to work. I've already inserted grades for Michelle into her old school's servers and reenrolled you at Sunnydale High. Hit the SSA and got you a new number, which was that stretch where you asked if I was trying to chew a hole in my lip. I was about to tackle the state-level servers to do the rest of your primary identity needs when you started asking me deep questions. Gimme maybe thirty minutes or so and it'll be like Michelle Flaherty has always existed. I'm actually a little worried about how easy this is; I was expecting it to be easier than a federal level server but I'm breaking through their security like it doesn't even exist…"
November 2, 2013
Senator Robert Kelly's Office
Los Angeles, California
Rereading the priority email from her mole within Sacramento's information technology department, one of Raven's eyebrows crept upward. Someone from Sunnydale was attempting to hack into the state birth registry. Intriguing. Up until now, she hadn't given any thought as to what had happened to the mind of her young doppelgänger during the events of the previous night. Perhaps she should have, Raven realized. What if she'd ended up here in Los Angeles, in Raven's body? Seen what Raven was doing with her life and decided to take a page or two from her book? Although, given where she was - and why she was there - at the moment… who was she to judge if the girl did decide to pursue such a path? Coming to a decision, she fired off an email instructing Forge to let the hacker through, but to document their every move so she could review it later.
Sunnydale. Why the fuck did her Mini-Me have to live in Sunnydale? Even discounting the town's other superhuman residents - Lorna and her spawn in particular - it was a place that Raven had no desire to visit anytime soon. She'd recently spent a few hours there as Robert Kelly, shaking hands with the town's mayor and visiting a section of the waterfront district that was undergoing revitalization thanks to grants from one of the Obama administration's initiatives. That had been more than enough for her; the magic that permeated the town made her skin crawl in the worst way…
A heavy pounding against Kelly's office door pulled Raven from her thoughts and she grimaced. Speaking of making her skin crawl. Still, she needed answers that she couldn't get through conventional methods and so sacrifices had to be made. Given her staff had long ago left for the night, she didn't even bother to shift out of her base form as she crossed her office, opening the door and nodding to the monster of a man waiting impatiently outside. "Victor."
"Red." Giving her a fanged smile, Victor pushed past and sauntered into her office, throwing himself down in a chair that gave a loud groan of protest at the abuse. "So, since I doubt even you've figured out where Erik is yet, much less how to talk to him… I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this is a personal project."
Closing the door, Raven made her way over to Victor and perched on the arm of his chair, draping herself across his back. Running her fingers through his hair, she brought her free wrist up under his nose. "Take a good sniff. Your next stop is a town about an hour up the coast called Sunnydale. I need you to track down a teenage girl with my form and powers, and this is the only possible lead I can give you."
Victor chuckled before nipping gently at her wrist. "Misplaced another one of your kids, eh? You really need to learn to keep those legs of yours closed, Red." Narrowing her eyes at the insult, Raven gathered a fistful of hair and pulled hard, which only made Victor growl and stare up at her with hungry eyes. "Standard rates apply, by the way, even if this is just recon and not wet works."
Sliding off the chair, Raven shuddered as she made her way back around behind her desk, flopping down in her chair. And now came the skin-crawling portion of negotiations. "And who am I going to be turning into for you this time, Victor?"
Victor tapped his claw-like nails against the arm of the chair as he pondered that. "Not sure. You ever seen that show Mad Men..?"
"Christina or January?" Raven rolled her eyes at the inquisitive noise she received in response. "Yes, Victor, I'm familiar with the show in question. Elisabeth Moss seems a bit too… mundane… for you for some reason. That leaves Christina Hendricks, January Jones, or one of the lesser actresses, and you do seem to have a thing for the popular girls." After a few seconds without a response, she scowled and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "Don't look at me like that. I'm a United States senator with an extraordinarily efficient staff. Do you have any idea how little work I actually do? Without Netflix to help me pass the time, I'd go insane."
Victor let out a low chuckle at that before sobering. "Christina. She kinda reminds me of Emma, just… actually human. Emma frightens me sometimes and I'm… well, me." Tilting his head to the side, he thought for a moment. "Actually, she's probably what would happen if you crossbred Emma with that little Grey bitch that follows Xavier around. Reminds me, I still owe her one for that shit at the Statue of Liberty. Falling two hundred and fifty feet onto a boat hurts like a bitch. Maybe I'll put her on my to-do list; a nice hard revenge fuck sounds like a lot more fun than tracking down Xavier's kids and going another round or two."
"Especially since they keep beating you."
"Keep running that mouth and I'm going to raise my rates, Red. Effective immediately."
"Shutting up." Because a night of getting fucked as Christina Hendricks in exchange for finding out what was going on in Sunnydale was a pretty good deal in Raven's opinion. Given Victor's tastes, who knew what he might come up with if he really applied himself?
