Alan woke to the alarm clock, stumbling over to the other side of the room to turn it off before he knew what he was doing. Absentmindedly, he reached to the back of his computer to flick it on, listening to all the fans spin up with a certain measure of pleasure.
The next item on the agenda: breakfast. He got a sandwich from the kitchen, munching on it on the way back to his room. Alan logged into the computer, loading up Eudora once the machine had finished loading, then clicked to retrieve his email.
Heck, what was the time? Noon?! Bu--hold on, Friday. Bus in twenty minutes to the first lecture of the day. Ahhhh, the easy life of a uni student. Not. Assignments due in all his papers, and he was sure he'd get more right after handing in this lot.
Right, email finished downloading. What was available today? Distillers, synth-diy, stories, the FFML... oooh, stuff in his inbox. Nearly all his email could be filtered easily, being of distinct categories. The remainder, nearly all spam, went to his inbox. Occasionally, though, he got some email from a live human.
Not today, it seemed. The From: field was listed in the table as being from some "Goddess Relief Office", and had a subject of wishes or something. Obviously pr0n spam. Yeesh. Alan wished he could hunt the evil spammers down with a spade, but real life didn't work like 'Postal2'.
Hmmm... not much today on the other mailboxes. Distillers was full of discussion on grain mashes, synth-diy was full of theory postings on unity gain followers, and FFML had something about Powerpuff Girls. (Everytime he heard the name of that series, Alan had to seriously remind himself that the name did *not* mean that the heroines were drug users.)
*KnockKnock*
Courier, yay. Alan signed for the small, yet bulky envelope. Hmmm, for him. He turned it over, looking for a senders address. None. He shrugged then opened it.
What the hell?
Who on earth would send him some porn tape? Sexy Goddess something or other. Must've been Luke. Great. Well, Luke paid for it, he can have it. Alan left the tape and the package on Luke's desk, with a note about it. Then he left for the day. Lectures. Yay.
* * *
Later that night, Luke found the tape (strangely enough.) He had no idea where it had come from; he hadn't ordered it. Nonetheless, he was interested in what was on it. He thought about getting the other guys to watch this too, but Alan was the only one in and he'd given the tape to Luke.
He wandered to the lounge, loading the tape into the brand new VCR and turning on the stone-knives-and-bearskins TV. After a few false starts, he convinced the TV to coexist with the VCR and play nicely for the next few minutes, then pushed play.
My oh my. Someone knew how to film T&A.
"Yeah! Take it off!," Luke commented, as the camera slowly panned up a reclining woman's body. She was tanned, and dressed in exotic clothing. White hair flowed onto the sheets surrounding her. Then the picture went fuzzy.
"Dammit!," Luke swore. Had to be the TV.
He fiddled with the tuning for a moment, before a female voice said, "It was about right before."
He blinked, as a shapely leg emerged from the TV, kicking him back onto his butt. The body attached to the leg slid out of the thick glass, arching her back to get out of the narrow aperture.
The tanned, white haired woman blinked. "Hey, you aren't Alan!"
"What?," Luke whatted. "This isn't a joke on him by someone?"
"Nope. Where is he?"
Luke pointed down the hall, his brain in a state of disfunction due to too many mental shocks. Woman do not come out of televisions. At least, Buffy never did. Why couldn't she be Buffy?
* * *
Alan had the door closed and the amp turned up, listening to some rock songs far too loudly. He was working on an Evangelion 'fic, and talking about it at the same time with a good friend in the Philippines. So far, the events were proceeding canon, with subtle twists.
He wanted to write a fic that would make Buffy less losing, but couldn't bring himself to watch the episodes. Alan grinned, thinking of Buffy trying to take down Alucard of the Hellsing Institute.
*KnockKnock*
"Enter," Alan absently yelled, keeping typing. The playlist was up to 'Sturm Und Drang', and he was quite enjoying himself between the computer and the music.
"Are you AlanP?," a female voice asked. The voice was not a high pitched fourteen year olds voice, but neither was it a forty year old matron's. Alan turned to look at the entrant. He blinked, having to consciously drag himself to the Real World. She was not Misato, he was not Kensuke and this was not NERV. The music was still KMFDM, however. He took in her appearance.
"Nice cosplay, 'Urd'. I take it you're a friend of one of the other guys?," Alan asked.
Urd blinked. "What? Cosplay? Why would someone cosplay as me?" Alan was still not thinking rationally, due to working on his writing. (Characterisation will do that to you.) He was still acting as if he was chatting over the internet.
"Because you're damn hot, is why," he replied. "And any real anime junkie has seen Ah! Megami-sama."
"You're taking this surprisingly well," Urd commented, frowning slightly at the music. "Could you put some other music on?"
Alan did so, swapping in the nearest audio CD. He winced as 'Engel' by Rammstein began playing, but Urd caught his hand. "Leave it."
"Ummm... I'm not thinking correctly at the moment -- my mind is still screwed up from that da-um, the fic I was writing. And I'm on a caffeine high at the moment. You know, I thought that that lemon fic about you was quite funny."
The frown reappeared.
"Oh, uhm, sorry. The one where you didn't grant a wish wish, but... Uh, I'll be quiet now," Alan said, his mind panicking and sending a 'kill -9' to his voice process as the rest of his mental cylinders caught fire and his mind started turning over.
Urd grinned. "For a moment there, I was worried you'd start talking about those uninspired tentacle fics! Yeah, I thought that fic was funny too. Why? Wanna try?"
Alan held his hands up in defence. "Yeah right! I'd need to be some kind of immortal drow fighter to keep up with you physically! I don't know if I'd wish to stay with you forever like that!"
He jumped to his feet, the chair falling over onto a small pile of assignments, letting out a short, explosive 'Fuck!'
"You aren't here to grant a wish, are you?," he said, worried he'd wasted his chance at World Peace or something.
He fell backwards onto his bed as Urd raised her head to heaven, hands in supplication as a beam of light broke through the roof. She levitated, and the contents of the room started spinning around her. "I guess you are," he sighed.
* * *
Light. Painful light, stabbing into his eyes. Alan quickly clapped a hand over his sensitive eyes, going stationary for the moment."
"Urd?," he tentatively asked.
"Yeah? You okay there?," she replied. Wishes weren't supposed to hurt the wisher... well, not divine wishes, anyway.
"I... think I am. It's just that the eyes of your average drow are used to the Underdark. Can you wander down the hallway and ask Luke for his sunglasses?"
"Sure," Urd agreed. As she wandered off to see Luke, Alan reached up and flipped the lightswitch off, getting a certain measure of respite.
* * *
"Hey, kiddo, can Alan borrow your sunglasses?," Urd asked Luke. He was poking the buttons on the VCR, trying to figure out how one of Alan's anime characters got out, and how to get Buffy out.
"I'm busy," Luke snapped, immune to all requests while concentrating on something.
Annoyed, Urd spun the rotund computer nerd around, getting his attention.
"Sunglasses?"
Luke blinked. This Urd chick had very nice... assets. Alan was a lucky man. A bit tall for his liking, however.
"In my room just there, on my desk," he answered. "Hey, how do I get Buffy out of the TV like you came out?"
"What?," Urd said. She'd never gotten a leftfield question like that before.
"Well, it'd be neat if Buffy the Vampire Slayer could come out," Luke said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Nah, you don't want that," Urd replied. "Reality tends to follow people around. Trust me, you don't want vampires running around. Even loser vampires."
