A/N: Set mid-season 3 of Charmed, right before Cole shows up on Phoebe's TV screen (except in this one, he doesn't). Vaguely season 4 of Buffy, she's just with Riley. It's been some years since I watched Buffy S4 and I'm mid Season 3 of Charmed rn (admittedly ahead of this episode) so its def more about the characters than following canon in this!
I can't promise this'll be too long, probably not more than a few chapters but hopefully a fun few chapters at that! I'm a college student and I wrote this because I have COVID-but I'm hyperfixated on both shows rn so I should be updating.
Anyway, have fun! This is me testing the waters with writing these characters so hopefully I did a *decent* job. I'm not too focused on having it be high brow lit but it should be a good time.
Phoebe sat criss-crossed on the couch, leaning her arms on her legs and eyes traced on the television screen. Billy, perhaps the fictional embodiment of male attraction, with whom she'd once kissed. Still, in her darker, more depressed times, the film was a comfort.
Of course, Phoebe outwardly looked far from depressed. Her bleached hair was tied up in space buns. She wore a tank with a slightly bedazzled Coke ad pasted on it, and a pair of her comfiest sweats (that may have been Piper's). Her face was free of makeup, clear but for one stubborn zit. No evidence of the drama that had happened only nights prior.
She'd let Cole go free, and holding the secret from her sisters was ripping her apart. In Kill It Before It Dies she became lost in a world miles away from witchcraft, and demons, and the Book of Shadows… But tonight, it wasn't scratching the right itch. Sally Mae was being chased, awaiting Billy's rescue, and Phoebe's fingers pressed down on the remote. The TV blinked off, and she leaned back against the cushion. She let everything out with a quick huff and straightened her posture. A pang of cold hit her like a brick.
Two teenage girls running up to the Halliwell's doorstep, eyes wide. Their fists banged on the wood of the door, and their cries filled Phoebe's ears. A figure loomed behind, with a face that was misshapen, angular–like that of a demon.
"HELP!" the girls yelled. "We need your help! Let us in!"
The premonition was brief, no more than a few seconds. Yet it left Phoebe with a bit of misplaced adrenaline, something that only fueled the antsy feeling she'd been trying to rid of. Her chest was tense, and her breathing panicked. After a few deep breaths, she bit her lip and got off the couch. Time to deal with them.
"Prue! Piper!"
Phoebe's voice was hoarse, almost mimicking the dread that was ensnared in her bones. And it wasn't about the premonition.
"What is it, Phoebe?" Piper emerged from the stairs in a blue cardigan and jeans. "I have to get to P3 soon for opening. I have a job, remember?"
"I had a premonition."
Before either Piper or Phoebe could say anything further, the knocking started.
"Shit," Phoebe said, turning to Piper in a panic. She forced a smile, "They always happen at the worst times, don't they?"
Piper rolled her eyes and pushed Phoebe towards the door. "Well go deal with it!"
Phoebe broke into a pathetic jog and opened the door. Two teenage girls were in front of her, a blonde and a redhead (probably eighteen or nineteen, she thought), the same girls from her vision. And…–she looked up–the same demon.
"Okay, okay, get inside!" Phoebe said. She shut the door behind them just as the demon approached, and made sure to go a few steps back.
Prue will kill me if we have to get more door repairs…
"He can't follow us," the blonde said shakily. "Bye-bye, Mr. Vamp."
"Vamp?" Piper asked, stepping into the entryway next to Phoebe. "That thing was a vampire?"
"Yeah," the redhead said, still catching her breath. "Vampire, undead, bad guy, etcetera."
"Ok, hold on a second," Piper crossed her arms. "Who are you, and why did you bring a vampire to us?"
"Oh, yeah. That'd be important," the redhead said quietly, with a nervous glance down at the floor.
"I'm Buffy Summers, the Slayer," the blonde took a confident step forward and offered Piper her hand to shake. Phoebe looked to Piper, who stayed closed off.
"The wha'?" Piper replied, her eyebrows raised.
"The Slayer, the vampire slayer, the Chosen one?" Buffy offered.
None of those titles were familiar to Phoebe, but still, something in her stirred.
"Never heard of her," Piper responded but still reached out to shake Buffy's hand back. "Piper Halliwell."
Buffy then turned to Phoebe.
"Phoebe Halliwell," Phoebe said, making sure the handshake was confident (unlike Piper's appeared). Once they let go, Phoebe's eyes then looked to the redhead, who stayed quiet for a moment before perking up as if she remembered to speak just then.
"Oh! I'm Willow Rosenberg. Uh… witch in training," the redhead said with a soft smile.
"Well how about that, we're witches too," Phoebe replied. "And you're in the right pla-"
"Uhh, Piper, Phoebe, who are these people?" A familiar voice called from behind. Prue walked down the stairs, dressed up for a night out. Her hair had a slight curl, and her makeup was absolutely on point. She wore a red satin top that tied in the back with a pair of leather pants.
"Prue, meet Buffy and Willow. Buffy's a vampire slayer," Piper said, words dripping with fake enthusiasm. Phoebe didn't hesitate to give Piper a slight nudge, and Piper quickly returned it.
"Vampire slayer? That's… odd. I've never heard of one before."
"Well us neither," Phoebe said. Let's not jump to conclusions, she thought to herself, and offered a distraction to her skeptical sisters. "Should we check the book?"
"Oh, don't worry! We're on your side!" Willow said quickly. "We decided to take a little trip to San Francisco before the semester started, but uh…the vamps up here are a little out of our league."
"No, they're not," Buffy said with a sigh. "Well, they shouldn't be."
"So…why are you here?" Piper asked.
It was like they'd unleashed a chatterbox.
Willow answered almost immediately–"That's where things get complicated. Normally, we'd just go to Buffy's Watcher, but uh…Sunnydale, San Francisco, not exactly next-door neighbors. We were in a supermarket and I guess we looked a little lost, so a guy came up to us and asked if we needed help–"
"His name didn't happen to be Leo, did it?" Piper asked, annoyance plastered on her face.
"Yeah, yeah I think so!" Willow said, oblivious. "He knew Buffy was the Slayer, and said that we could get help here with the Charmed ones."
"God, this is why I can't send Leo on grocery runs…" Piper muttered.
"Anyway, we came here. I'd read about you guys once, in one of Tara's books, so it seemed like a good idea to get your help. The Charmed Ones. I thought you sounded so cool."
"So what's your problem?" Phoebe asked, genuine concern pulling her out of her skepticism. She couldn't imagine having to deal with demons and evils at their age, never mind her own! "If the vampires aren't too hard to deal with, why don't you go after them?"
"I seem to have lost all my…slaying skills," Buffy answered, opening her crossed arms. "I don't have any explanation for it, but I went from being all Amazon warrior to a regular nineteen-year-old girl. There's gotta be some magical explanation, this thing doesn't just happen."
Phoebe went over it in her mind. Losing powers was a tricky one. Powers didn't go away for no reason at all, there had to be a bigger explanation for it. Maybe there was a demon messing with her abilities. They could search for one in the Book of Shadows. She hadn't ever heard of a vampire problem in San Francisco, but maybe they didn't want anything to do with witches. Demons were the troublemakers on their radars, forever and always.
Leo did send them to the right place, she concluded. But Piper beat her to the call.
"LEO!" Piper yelled, hands on hips. The whitelighter orbed in within a few seconds, and Piper's eyes were fixed on him. "Do you want to tell me how grocery shopping went?"
