by magista
Dialogue from "Tabula Rasa" by Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Thanks to and Joan the English Chick for the excellent transcripts, without which this story wouldn't have been possible.
Randy ran after her and grabbed her arm. "Bloody hell, what are you doing?"
Reflexes Joan hadn't known she possessed took over, and she spun to take hold of his other arm and flipped him neatly to the ground. Before he could rise she had knelt over him, straddling his hips and preventing further struggle. He resisted at first, then stilled, looking up at her with not so much threat in his eyes, as utter confusion.
Joan only stared, realizing that Randy had no idea what she was seeing in his face. "You don't know who you are…"
Just like a woman to pick a time like this to state the bleeding obvious. "Right, none of us do, and we're being chased by--"
"You're a vampire!"
Of all of the things he might have reasonably expected her to say while holding him down to the ground with her body, this one was definitely not on the list. "How can you say-- I…me… a vampire? No."
"Check the lumpies. And the teeth."
He'd humour her, that's what he'd do, and so he went ahead and ran one hand over his… grotesquely distorted face. And nearly sliced his thumb open on his… yes, clearly those were fangs. The world that had started off seriously down the rabbit hole already took an upsetting lurch sideways.
"I kill your kind." An observation? Or a promise?
"And I bite yours." His hand fell away from his face and the unpleasant but unassailable truth. "So how come I don't want to bite you? And why am I fighting other vampires?"
Joan frowned in confusion, but before she could think to frame an answer, Randy came up with one of his own, and lifted himself up on his elbows to address her. "I must be a noble vampire. A good guy. On a mission of redemption. I help the hopeless." He laughed as the true enormity of his situation hit him. " I'm a vampire with a soul."
"A vampire with a soul? Oh my god, how lame is that?" Nevertheless, she stood and allowed him to rise.
Once he reached his feet, he began to pace back and forth, and it seemed as though his mouth was geared directly to his feet. "I'm a hero, really. I mean, to be cast such an ugly lot in life and then to rise above it. To seek out better, nobler things. It's inspirational, isn't it? And the two of us… natural enemies, thrown together to stand against the forces of darkness. Utter trust. No thought of me biting you, no thought of you staking me…"
"Depends on how long you keep on yapping," she retorted. She had to wonder just how her perspective had skewed with the realization of her own abilities when the sound of more approaching vampires became a relief. Without a word, Randy drew close, taking up a defensive position at her side.
The fighting drew them apart, but they still kept watch on each other. Each took on two of the approaching vampires, punching, kicking and head-butting, fighting any way they knew how. Joan kicked over a mailbox and used the shards of the wooden post to stake one of the vampires running towards her, but as she then spun to thrust it at the second, he knocked it out of her hands. Still, she fought on.
Two down and two to go, and Randy held a vampire for her as she kicked and punched at him. "Don't mess with Joan the vam--"
Reawakened pain nailed her soul bloody to the earth once more.
A fist came out of nowhere and sent Buffy spiraling into welcome oblivion.
Moments later, even that small comfort was torn away as a boot brutally thudded into her stomach, not once, but twice, and yet that physical pain was only a small thing compared to the agony of memory.
"Joan! Jo--!" Randy was struggling with the last of the vampires, desperately trying to free himself to come to her aid. He slammed the two of them together and both fell to the ground. In an instant he was over them with a stake pulled from his pocket, thrusting once, "From dust," then twice, "to dust."
He moved quickly then to where Joan was lying on the ground, curled in agony. He put out his hand to help her rise, but she ignored it and staggered to her feet on her own.
"Joan? What's wrong?"
She didn't answer, only looked at him with such loathing, as though he were some repulsive object she had just managed to scrape from the bottom of her shoe. Then she turned and ran off into the night.
"Joan! Joan-- wait!"