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"It's Okay; I'm with the Band."
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Two women trotting down a long, cinderblock hallway.

"No, Buffy, this way!"

"No, look--"

"Buffy, check out the trail of tongue-studded idiots!"

The blonde paused, and realized that Dawn was right: There were at least eight decked-out punks coming towards them at various distances down the hallway Dawn was indicating. She conceded the point without comment, and the two of them clacked down that hall towards the source of the dejected musicians.

** ** **

"Okay, thanks dude. Maybe next time."

"Yeah, good job, keep it up, don't stop trying, have a nice day, promote world peace, hug a tree," Oz muttered.

Once the applicant had wondered off, Xander shook his head. "Momma mia, that was awful. You're right, man; I think they're getting worse."

"Well, these are the ones that didn't have the initiative to get up before noon and get the early spots in line. It would follow that there'd be a significant drop-off in time devoted to practice with such personality types, and therefore skill level."

Xander raised an eyebrow. "So we've worked through the expletives phase of rage, and moved onto cold logic?"

"Damn right. Promise me something, Xander?"

"Hm?"

"Shoot me in the foot if I ever try open auditions again."

"In the name of all our sanities, that's a sacrifice I'd be willing to make."

Oz suddenly blinked. "Wait a sec. Do you hear something?"

Xander sat up. "You mean the complete absence of off-key singing and random percussion?"

"I do. My God. It's over!"

The door burst open. "Sorry we're late! Our car exploded and we had to buy a new one!"

The two slender women squeezed through the door in unison, popping out like a champagne cork on the third try, and stood there alternately gasping and making excuses. When one ran out of breath, the other jumped in.

"--And then we ran out of gas, but the station only had regular--"

"--but first we had to get money from the atm--"

"--and they were all broken so we had to drive to New Mexico to find one that had ten dollar bills--"

"--and then there was a detour--"

"Shut the hell up!"

Both the new arrivals snapped their mouths shut and blinked fearfully at the blonde with the clipboard. Anya smiled. "Now. You, with the shiny hair, what do you want? Are you the people from Krytech?"

"We're here to audition. Together. We're kind of a set," Dawn explained, pushing said shiny hair behind her ears.

There was a thud as Oz dropped his head onto the card table.

Anya just kept smiling. "Oh, well in that case, take a number." She held out a little pad of number cards. Buffy and her sister looked around the completely empty room, across at the slightly embarrassed Xander and collapsed Oz, then at each other. They shrugged in unison, and each walked up to take a card from Anya.

Three of the four non-Anya inhabitants of the room watched as she stood smiling for a second, looked down at her pad, and said, "Number 93, please approach the table. Number 94, be prepared to audition in two minutes. Number 93?"

Buffy and Dawn glanced down at their cards, and Dawn waved hers a little.

"Okay, if you could please--"

"-Anya!" Xander broke in. "Thanks. Why don't you go see how the guys are doing in merchandising? I think we can manage on our own."

"Oh, right!" Anya, obviously thrilled by the idea of handling something related to profits, quickly skirted by the two sisters on her way out the door.

Xander broke the subsequent silence with a clap. "Okay. Gotta tell ya, you're the only girls that we got wanting to try out. And, frankly, we're not a girl band, so it's severly unlikely you'll get the spots. You may want to try Amy and ah, what's-er-name, Tara over at Calorimeter*Met. I heard they were looking for a new drummer..."

Dawn pulled a pair of drumsticks out of her purse. "Can we at least audition before you kick us out on the street?"

Xander shot a helpless look at Oz, who still had his head on the table. He caught the shorter blonde girl's concerned look out of the corner of his eye, and mouthed, 'he's fine.'
Dawn frowned at the bass guitarist she'd seen on posters and CD covers. Well, at the top of his head. He looks like he's seen a lot of talent today, she thought grimly. As a regular patrolling the audition circuits around these parts, she knew that tended to translate into 'brain-dribbling crap'. Still, no reason to be rude.

She strided over to the table and brought the drumstick down hard, near the man's left ear.

Rat!

Oz jumped up with an unmasculine yelp.

Dawn rapped again, this time following it up with the other stick.

Rat rat!
She started a simple rhythm, four/four, 1s and 3s, then started rolling every other. Then started double-tapping every third.

Abruptly she shifted the rhythm, accenting the offs, and started an accel, subtly nodding her head to the pulse.

When she had sped up into a blur of hands and taps, and Xander and Oz were both watching like hypnotized cobras, she tagged it and abruptly stopped.

Xander and Oz blinked. Buffy smirked. Dawn just stood there, watching them.

Oz cleared his throat. "That was actually really good."

"Uh, yeah," Xander seconded. He and Oz shot each other a look. These could quite possibly end up being the first musicians they'd seen today. After hours of surface-level posers, actual skill came as a bit of a shock.

He looked up at Buffy. "You drum, too?"

"Sing," she corrected.

Dawn spoke up. "And rhythm guitar."

"Don't need guitar," Oz said quickly.

"You need a vocalist," Buffy pointed out.

"We need a vocalist," Xander repeated, to his bandmate.

Oz stood and leaned into him. "We need a male vocalist," he whispered.

Xander whispered back, out of the corner of his mouth, moving his lips as little as possible. "Right now, we need any decent vocalist without a substance abuse problem. Let's get technical on the x/y chromosomes when we're not starting a tour in four days."

"You must be kidding me! A girly frontm--woman would change our whole sound!"
Buffy and Dawn, who could of course hear everything the guys were saying, shared a worried/resigned glance.
Dawn cleared her throat. "You do remember my comment about us being a set, right? We come in pairs." She ignored the look Buffy shot at her.

"Any change is going to be a new sound! As long as it's a good one, who the hell cares??" Xander said.

"I thought you were against a new frontman!"

"I'm on a pro-talent campaign here, man."

"We don't know if she has talent!"
There was a moment of quiet to concede the point. Then, as one, Oz and Xander turned to look at Buffy expectantly.

She opened her mouth.


...Three loud minutes later, the Summers Sisters were hired.

"Don't all the band members need to give the okay?" Dawn asked, slightly stunned. In two years of auditions like this, they'd not once been actually hired.

Xander waved a hand. "The only other member that counts any more is Spike, and he forfeited his veto priviledges when he opted not to sit through three hours of the Tryouts From Hell."

"Yeah," Oz elaborated.

"So we're both hired?" Buffy pressed.

Xander shrugged. "You said you were a set, right?"

The blonde's face fell slightly. If she was just in as Dawn's pet...

Oz noticed. "Hey. You kicked ass," he comforted. "And I'm thinking a seriously hot female lead with some cords like yours could not be such a terrible idea. Ladies," He smiled. "Welcome to XCOD."

1: Buffy beamed. Dawn beamed.

2: The two girls abruptly spun into a squealing, bouncing hug.

2.05210: Oz and Xander backed away, wondering if maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

!! !! !!

Just so there's no misunderstanding among the readership: XCOD is not clever. It means I couldn't think of a cool band name.

And it stands for 'eXploding Clouds Of Dust.'

That is also not clever.

I'm sorry.

~Star Mouse

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