William Fic, Part 12
Feb. 15th, 2005 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedeadlyhookOkay, not sure about this one, but for now... plot stuff. Previous parts here.
The Center, Part 12
He's dragged out of sleep the next morning to the feeling of something soft brushing his face. Like a cobweb. Muzzily, he raises a hand to push it away, but in another second, it's back. He repeats the motion, groggy, and a soft feminine voice giggles in his ear. "Hey, you," it says softly. "Trying to do this without the throwing things, okay? C'mon, sleepyhead, time to get up."
His eyes snap open. The voice was Buffy's, of course--she's leaning over him, elbows in the pillows, and she's using a lock of her hair like a feather, running tickling trails over his face. She's wearing the world's cutest smile, sunny bright, and for a fraction of a second, everything in him clenches up with petrifying fear.
A dream. It must be.
"Good morning!" she says brightly. "Sleep well?"
And then he manages his own smile, pushing it past the half-frozen feeling in his chest. "Yeah. Good. Thank you." And that part's true, now that he thinks about it, now that the panic's beginning to fade--panic he doesn't really want to examine too closely. He doesn't know when he's ever slept so well, in fact, warm and relaxed and... at peace. Not for a very long time, at least. The last few nights he'd spent with Buffy, maybe, with his arms circled around her, floating on the feeling that she trusted him enough for that. Maybe then.
But it's getting hard to remember, really, what he felt then. Such a strange mixture of resignation and hope. And fear.
"I slept good too, thanks for asking," she says, and falls back onto her side, propping her head up with one hand. "So what now? We can go get you some blood once we're out, but until then, do you drink coffee or anything? Or is it a British thing in the morning to have tea?"
The happy chatter's a little headspinning, though.
"What is this, Buffy?" he finds himself saying. She gives him a patient look, a little head tilt.
"It's called having a nice morning," she says evenly. "What, is there some rule that we have to have a huge conversation about every little thing?"
"Right," he answers, and then he gets it. She doesn't want arguments or discussions. Just wants a nice day.
And that's fine. He'll tour guide her around as she likes, make a few pleasant memories. All well and good. And then they'll both get back on course with their lives.
He gives her a nod and she smiles back, slides out of bed. Still naked and parading around--hard to get used to, that--and heads over to do battle with the tea service, all set up very elegantly on a side table. He can tell from the way she fiddles with the teapot that she's probably never seen the plug-in type before, frowning and studying it like a rare artifact.
"So how do we handle the daylight problem?" she asks. She's figured out the pot now, has moved on to examining the biscuits and tea. "Should we, like, rent a car, or--"
"What's the weather like out there?" he interrupts. He leans back, hands locked behind his head. She puts a biscuit packet down and heads to the window, carefully slides the curtain aside, making sure to hold it in such a way that the light doesn't reach him. A small thing, but it puts a throb of affection in his chest, a swelling ache.
She's lovely framed in the window. Dreary gray light on her pink skin.
"Ugh, it's raining. Wow, it's really coming down."
"Welcome to winter in England," he says simply. "Don't think we're gonna have much of a problem."
__________
And they don't. Sure enough, it's still raining heavily by the time they're dressed and downstairs. He borrows a big old black brolly from the front desk for the day. Buffy laughs when she sees it, but cheerfully huddles under its protection once they're out on the streets, running through the downpour from one Tube stop to the next. The places she wants to visit are all typical tourist fare: Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus, the Tower of London and Big Ben. He only balks at some of the more crowded attractions, like Madame Tussauds, because he's not going to stand in any damn queues, but it goes alright. Not so many bad memories in those places. Too public.
It's the spots in between that do his head in, the back alleys and half-glimpsed corners that he recognizes from the old days. He finds himself unconsciously taking his old sunlight avoidance routes to stay out of the rain--pedestrian underpasses and department stores that can be cut through, the occasional covered arcade--and plenty of memories jump up at him there. He keeps seeing them, sooty old bricks sticking out beneath shiny facades, evidence of the old city, and his own bloody history is right there too, like bones jutting out through torn flesh.
They're crossing Trafalgar Square when he nearly runs into Buffy, not realizing that she's come to a halt.
"Are you okay?" she asks. She's staring up at him, troubled.
He shifts his grip on the umbrella. He hadn't realized that he'd fallen silent. She'd been cheerful, chattering, asking questions and making jokes. He'd barely been listening.
"Everything's alright, pet. I'm fine." It comes out sharper than he wanted, and he does his best to cover it, change the subject. "So what's next on your little list? Wanna duck inside somewhere for awhile, get out of this rain?"
"No, you're not fine. You're being really quiet. What is it?"
He rolls his shoulders, looks away. "It's nothing, Buffy."
"It's not nothing. Spike, I wanted us to have a nice time together. I can't have a nice day if you're not."
I can't have a nice day if you're not. She's really trying. He relents, tries to lighten up his mood for her sake. "Buffy, it's fine, alright? Just pick a new spot, and I'll take you there. Let's go." He waves his hand. After you.
Her expression doesn't change, still colored with worry, but she presses her lips together and begins to page through her dampened guidebook, rain spattering in a fine mist off her white vinyl coat.
"Okay, how about the National Gallery? You could show me some of that art you say you like." She turns to point at the building, directly across the way. And oh, leave it to her to go right for one of his favorite haunts as a human, a place where he'd contemplated things of beauty. And not so coincidentally, where he'd also waited on the steps like a predator for an acquaintance who'd laughed over his verses at that last, fateful party. A man he'd eventually turned into another kind of art, the kind the newspapers wrote headlines about. Portrait of man with his insides on the outside.
"No, let's go to the Portrait Gallery instead. It's right around the corner," he says gruffly, and grabs her hand, starts pulling her along before she even has a chance to answer. New building, not even there when London was his city, sweeping away all traces of the old workhouse across from St Martin-in-the-Fields. No nasty memories there, not now. And stuffy old pictures of kings and queens. Perfect.
She's still shooting him funny looks as they step inside, check the umbrella, their coats. But she walks around obligingly and examines all the pictures, silently reading the little captions. He follows her, pretends to be interested.
It's something of a relief to be bored.
And the irony is, when he was soulless, this would have been his deepest desire, no doubt about it. Even the boring parts. Buffy at his side. Buffy laughing and smiling. Buffy wanting his company.
Ridiculous to even think of it now, but he can't help it. Deepest desire. Christ, what a joke. Once upon a time it would have been Drusilla.
He stamps down on his thoughts, focuses on the paintings. Kings and queens. Standard education, in his day, to memorize long lists of of their names: Ethelred the Unready and Edward the Confessor. Harefoot and Lionheart and Longshanks. And William the Conqueror, his namesake.
But then again, he has his own name now, doesn't he? Just as earned as any king. William the Bloody.
Christ, but London was messing with his head.
"Spike?" Buffy calling him. He looked up. She was across the room, beckoning, pointing at a particular painting. He walks over to see.
It's small portrait of a woman done in an antique allegorical style. A fairytale landscape is visible over her shoulder, a knight on horseback, a tiny castle on a hill. In her hands, a small rosette of flowers. Ribbons in her dark hair.
It's a painting of Drusilla.
__________
For a long minute, he stares at it, gape-mouthed. Reads the caption card, the name there, the year. An obscure scion of royalty, 1875, by a semi-famous painter. One of a pair of portraits, the card informs, of sisters, the other in the hands of a private collector.
The second painting is reproduced in black-and-white miniature next to the card.
Darla.
His first thought, that some researcher at the gallery had simply gotten his wires crossed, promptly vanishes. He grabs Buffy's hand and pulls her with him toward the gallery's floor map.
"What is it?" she hisses, a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you know abo--"
"No," he cuts her off shortly. His finger traces lines on the map, tracking out a route. He launches into motion again, pulling her behind him, her hand still in his.
They climb the stairs to an upper floor. He takes the steps two at a time. Finally he reaches a room more dominated by photographs than paintings, and he searches the images, moving quickly.
He finds what he's looking for in a glass case. a studio portrait that he actually remembers being taken, around 1885 or so, in Paris. His head's held proudly high in a dark-draped room, his arm leaning casually on a classical column.
The caption identifies him as the last holder of an old English name that died out before he was born.
There's a picture of Angel in the case too, taken in the same photo studio. Similar caption. He reads the two cards again and again, looking for clues.
"That's really not your real name, is it?" Buffy whispers. She squeezes his hand, and he glances at her, shakes his head. Then tugs at her to follow him.
They collect their umbrella and coats, leave the gallery. He sets a brisk pace, almost too fast for Buffy. She has to trot quickly to keep up. While they were inside, the rain had stopped, replaced by gusty winds and scudding gray clouds. Buffy yanks the closed umbrella from his hand and opens it anyway, nervously glancing at the sky.
"Where are we going?" She's panting, a little breathless, her arm extended at full stretch to keep the umbrella over his head.
"Somewhere we won't be watched," he growls, and leads them at sharp speed through old routes, weaving through back alleys and over the Thames into Southwark, to an out-of-the-way pub, the kind that only survives on the patronage of locals. He pitches his accent right for the area and orders them pints, sits her down in a dark corner and puts his own back to the wall, a place where he can see the entire room.
Pint in front of her, a flickering candle dimly illuminating her face, Buffy sucks in a breath and finally speaks.
"So what was that all about? Why did they have your picture? Or are you really royalty and I never knew?" Her expression tells him that she's already guessed his answer.
"No, love, sorry. Not a frog prince." He manages a grim smile. "Those were wanted posters, Buffy. Mug shots. And I'll give you one guess who had them put there."
She just looks at him, frozen silent. Not wanting to believe it, maybe. He can't imagine she hasn't come to the same conclusion she has.
He sucks in his own breath, says it.
"Your council. Your new council of Slayers."
TBC
The Center, Part 12
He's dragged out of sleep the next morning to the feeling of something soft brushing his face. Like a cobweb. Muzzily, he raises a hand to push it away, but in another second, it's back. He repeats the motion, groggy, and a soft feminine voice giggles in his ear. "Hey, you," it says softly. "Trying to do this without the throwing things, okay? C'mon, sleepyhead, time to get up."
His eyes snap open. The voice was Buffy's, of course--she's leaning over him, elbows in the pillows, and she's using a lock of her hair like a feather, running tickling trails over his face. She's wearing the world's cutest smile, sunny bright, and for a fraction of a second, everything in him clenches up with petrifying fear.
A dream. It must be.
"Good morning!" she says brightly. "Sleep well?"
And then he manages his own smile, pushing it past the half-frozen feeling in his chest. "Yeah. Good. Thank you." And that part's true, now that he thinks about it, now that the panic's beginning to fade--panic he doesn't really want to examine too closely. He doesn't know when he's ever slept so well, in fact, warm and relaxed and... at peace. Not for a very long time, at least. The last few nights he'd spent with Buffy, maybe, with his arms circled around her, floating on the feeling that she trusted him enough for that. Maybe then.
But it's getting hard to remember, really, what he felt then. Such a strange mixture of resignation and hope. And fear.
"I slept good too, thanks for asking," she says, and falls back onto her side, propping her head up with one hand. "So what now? We can go get you some blood once we're out, but until then, do you drink coffee or anything? Or is it a British thing in the morning to have tea?"
The happy chatter's a little headspinning, though.
"What is this, Buffy?" he finds himself saying. She gives him a patient look, a little head tilt.
"It's called having a nice morning," she says evenly. "What, is there some rule that we have to have a huge conversation about every little thing?"
"Right," he answers, and then he gets it. She doesn't want arguments or discussions. Just wants a nice day.
And that's fine. He'll tour guide her around as she likes, make a few pleasant memories. All well and good. And then they'll both get back on course with their lives.
He gives her a nod and she smiles back, slides out of bed. Still naked and parading around--hard to get used to, that--and heads over to do battle with the tea service, all set up very elegantly on a side table. He can tell from the way she fiddles with the teapot that she's probably never seen the plug-in type before, frowning and studying it like a rare artifact.
"So how do we handle the daylight problem?" she asks. She's figured out the pot now, has moved on to examining the biscuits and tea. "Should we, like, rent a car, or--"
"What's the weather like out there?" he interrupts. He leans back, hands locked behind his head. She puts a biscuit packet down and heads to the window, carefully slides the curtain aside, making sure to hold it in such a way that the light doesn't reach him. A small thing, but it puts a throb of affection in his chest, a swelling ache.
She's lovely framed in the window. Dreary gray light on her pink skin.
"Ugh, it's raining. Wow, it's really coming down."
"Welcome to winter in England," he says simply. "Don't think we're gonna have much of a problem."
__________
And they don't. Sure enough, it's still raining heavily by the time they're dressed and downstairs. He borrows a big old black brolly from the front desk for the day. Buffy laughs when she sees it, but cheerfully huddles under its protection once they're out on the streets, running through the downpour from one Tube stop to the next. The places she wants to visit are all typical tourist fare: Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus, the Tower of London and Big Ben. He only balks at some of the more crowded attractions, like Madame Tussauds, because he's not going to stand in any damn queues, but it goes alright. Not so many bad memories in those places. Too public.
It's the spots in between that do his head in, the back alleys and half-glimpsed corners that he recognizes from the old days. He finds himself unconsciously taking his old sunlight avoidance routes to stay out of the rain--pedestrian underpasses and department stores that can be cut through, the occasional covered arcade--and plenty of memories jump up at him there. He keeps seeing them, sooty old bricks sticking out beneath shiny facades, evidence of the old city, and his own bloody history is right there too, like bones jutting out through torn flesh.
They're crossing Trafalgar Square when he nearly runs into Buffy, not realizing that she's come to a halt.
"Are you okay?" she asks. She's staring up at him, troubled.
He shifts his grip on the umbrella. He hadn't realized that he'd fallen silent. She'd been cheerful, chattering, asking questions and making jokes. He'd barely been listening.
"Everything's alright, pet. I'm fine." It comes out sharper than he wanted, and he does his best to cover it, change the subject. "So what's next on your little list? Wanna duck inside somewhere for awhile, get out of this rain?"
"No, you're not fine. You're being really quiet. What is it?"
He rolls his shoulders, looks away. "It's nothing, Buffy."
"It's not nothing. Spike, I wanted us to have a nice time together. I can't have a nice day if you're not."
I can't have a nice day if you're not. She's really trying. He relents, tries to lighten up his mood for her sake. "Buffy, it's fine, alright? Just pick a new spot, and I'll take you there. Let's go." He waves his hand. After you.
Her expression doesn't change, still colored with worry, but she presses her lips together and begins to page through her dampened guidebook, rain spattering in a fine mist off her white vinyl coat.
"Okay, how about the National Gallery? You could show me some of that art you say you like." She turns to point at the building, directly across the way. And oh, leave it to her to go right for one of his favorite haunts as a human, a place where he'd contemplated things of beauty. And not so coincidentally, where he'd also waited on the steps like a predator for an acquaintance who'd laughed over his verses at that last, fateful party. A man he'd eventually turned into another kind of art, the kind the newspapers wrote headlines about. Portrait of man with his insides on the outside.
"No, let's go to the Portrait Gallery instead. It's right around the corner," he says gruffly, and grabs her hand, starts pulling her along before she even has a chance to answer. New building, not even there when London was his city, sweeping away all traces of the old workhouse across from St Martin-in-the-Fields. No nasty memories there, not now. And stuffy old pictures of kings and queens. Perfect.
She's still shooting him funny looks as they step inside, check the umbrella, their coats. But she walks around obligingly and examines all the pictures, silently reading the little captions. He follows her, pretends to be interested.
It's something of a relief to be bored.
And the irony is, when he was soulless, this would have been his deepest desire, no doubt about it. Even the boring parts. Buffy at his side. Buffy laughing and smiling. Buffy wanting his company.
Ridiculous to even think of it now, but he can't help it. Deepest desire. Christ, what a joke. Once upon a time it would have been Drusilla.
He stamps down on his thoughts, focuses on the paintings. Kings and queens. Standard education, in his day, to memorize long lists of of their names: Ethelred the Unready and Edward the Confessor. Harefoot and Lionheart and Longshanks. And William the Conqueror, his namesake.
But then again, he has his own name now, doesn't he? Just as earned as any king. William the Bloody.
Christ, but London was messing with his head.
"Spike?" Buffy calling him. He looked up. She was across the room, beckoning, pointing at a particular painting. He walks over to see.
It's small portrait of a woman done in an antique allegorical style. A fairytale landscape is visible over her shoulder, a knight on horseback, a tiny castle on a hill. In her hands, a small rosette of flowers. Ribbons in her dark hair.
It's a painting of Drusilla.
__________
For a long minute, he stares at it, gape-mouthed. Reads the caption card, the name there, the year. An obscure scion of royalty, 1875, by a semi-famous painter. One of a pair of portraits, the card informs, of sisters, the other in the hands of a private collector.
The second painting is reproduced in black-and-white miniature next to the card.
Darla.
His first thought, that some researcher at the gallery had simply gotten his wires crossed, promptly vanishes. He grabs Buffy's hand and pulls her with him toward the gallery's floor map.
"What is it?" she hisses, a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you know abo--"
"No," he cuts her off shortly. His finger traces lines on the map, tracking out a route. He launches into motion again, pulling her behind him, her hand still in his.
They climb the stairs to an upper floor. He takes the steps two at a time. Finally he reaches a room more dominated by photographs than paintings, and he searches the images, moving quickly.
He finds what he's looking for in a glass case. a studio portrait that he actually remembers being taken, around 1885 or so, in Paris. His head's held proudly high in a dark-draped room, his arm leaning casually on a classical column.
The caption identifies him as the last holder of an old English name that died out before he was born.
There's a picture of Angel in the case too, taken in the same photo studio. Similar caption. He reads the two cards again and again, looking for clues.
"That's really not your real name, is it?" Buffy whispers. She squeezes his hand, and he glances at her, shakes his head. Then tugs at her to follow him.
They collect their umbrella and coats, leave the gallery. He sets a brisk pace, almost too fast for Buffy. She has to trot quickly to keep up. While they were inside, the rain had stopped, replaced by gusty winds and scudding gray clouds. Buffy yanks the closed umbrella from his hand and opens it anyway, nervously glancing at the sky.
"Where are we going?" She's panting, a little breathless, her arm extended at full stretch to keep the umbrella over his head.
"Somewhere we won't be watched," he growls, and leads them at sharp speed through old routes, weaving through back alleys and over the Thames into Southwark, to an out-of-the-way pub, the kind that only survives on the patronage of locals. He pitches his accent right for the area and orders them pints, sits her down in a dark corner and puts his own back to the wall, a place where he can see the entire room.
Pint in front of her, a flickering candle dimly illuminating her face, Buffy sucks in a breath and finally speaks.
"So what was that all about? Why did they have your picture? Or are you really royalty and I never knew?" Her expression tells him that she's already guessed his answer.
"No, love, sorry. Not a frog prince." He manages a grim smile. "Those were wanted posters, Buffy. Mug shots. And I'll give you one guess who had them put there."
She just looks at him, frozen silent. Not wanting to believe it, maybe. He can't imagine she hasn't come to the same conclusion she has.
He sucks in his own breath, says it.
"Your council. Your new council of Slayers."
TBC
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-15 07:23 pm (UTC)Not to mention dieing to know what's up with the portraits! And that is the perfect setting for Drusilla!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 09:43 am (UTC)...but then that's my typical trick, I guess. When I find the characters getting stuck, there's always the option of something happening to break them out of their stasis.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-15 07:51 pm (UTC)I'm mystified, but on the edge of my seat!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 09:45 am (UTC)Bah. This is why all my stories turn into these huge, rambling tracts!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-15 07:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 09:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-15 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 09:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-15 08:50 pm (UTC)This Spike is tearing my heart out. I hate the joss!verse conceit of the soul making him all guilty and sad.
*kicks joss*
I hate that he's so unhappy and Buffy is still pissing me off with her 'la la la let's pretend' bullshit.
*sigh*
And the pictures - gah!!
This chapter?
Just riled me all up.
:)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 09:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 10:32 am (UTC)Riled in a good way.
I'm glad you don't take exception to my Spuffy hate.
I do LIKE Buffy, just not with Spike, you know?
And especially not with all the Joss!Verse baggage.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 11:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 12:31 pm (UTC)I have, however NEVER thought that Spike needed redemption, and ME's whole deal with THAT pissed me off, as well. I LIKE Demon!Spike! I like Spike without a chip and without a soul and guilt-free. And personally, i think he could have lost the damn thing any time in season five and been fine vis a vis helping out the Scoobies and whatnot.
*sigh*
Sorry.
No rants.
:)
I'm enjoying the story!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 01:31 pm (UTC)So I guess you could say my approach to Spuffy (and to all the Scoobies, actually, in some of my other stories) comes down to the fact that I don't think we saw them really learn anything from their trip to the darkside. Not yet. Season 7 was in many ways no better than Season 6 - it was still about emotional distance and exploitation, and I wasn't any more convinced of Buffy's "healing" at its end than I was in "Grave." But in post-series fic, I can toy with the sorts of levers she needs to finally get there that we never saw, and then just... go there. And that's where I find her interesting, where I find the continuing challenge of Spuffy interesting. And no, it's not easy. It's hard. The urge is always there to have Spike walk away, because he enjoys life the way she doesn't, or at least used to. But then again she used to as well... and now he's got the guilt... they keep crashing back into each other, no matter how hard I try. They still have things to work out. And I don't think either one of them has it in them to completely walk away.
Thanks for all the commentage, by the way. Talking it out like this really helps me to get my own thoughts straight.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 06:44 pm (UTC)Romantically, it does nothing for me.
And whatever the writers were trying for in seasons six and seven, I really never got it. They went out of their way to show Spike loving Buffy, helping her, protecting her family and friends when really, he could have just walked away. And then the utter stupidity of 'Seeing Red'. Jayzus.
And he did NOT want his soul - he wanted the chip out. They fudged it for later but, he went to get the chip out.
*sigh*
I want my DEMON!
:)
I think the whole 'love' thing was so overrated, anyway - i mean, she was like 22!! She didn't need a 'soulmate' or anything else!! Crazy stuff.
Why TV always tries to push the characters into love is beyond me.
Glad my ranting helps!
:)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 07:39 pm (UTC)Yeah, that did rather take Buffy's own relative goodness down a notch, the fact that he was outperforming his vampire mandate just by not doing bad things, let alone doing active good, while Buffy was shown consciously stooping to doing hurtful things instead of... well, not. Made for a confusing morality play, at the very least.
I think the whole 'love' thing was so overrated, anyway - i mean, she was like 22!! She didn't need a 'soulmate' or anything else!! Crazy stuff.
A very good point, and why I was boggled to see the Angel lurve resurrected so late in the game. Like, wtf?
I'm not a believer in soulmates, myself. I think any number of people can be happy with any number of other people, depending on their needs at the time... right now, I'm interested in the reasons why Buffy and Spike might need each other (or not, as the case may be).
And yeah, the ranting does help. ; )
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 05:19 am (UTC)*do i sound bitter? sigh*
And the Angel love, yeah, particularly weird in the face of season five Angel where he's supposededly in love with Cordy... Blah.
'Soulmates' is an odd concept - I don't believe in it, either. I really don't think people are meant to be married 'for life'.
:)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-15 09:28 pm (UTC)Dayum, and I have like, to go to work, and what-not....Really waiting now,for the next bit.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 09:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-15 09:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 09:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 12:27 am (UTC)Nice to see a London I recognise, though it doesn't rain all the time. Not even most of the time!
Very intrigued by the portraits and Spike's paranoia.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 10:01 am (UTC)Glad to hear London's coming off recognizable! I admit to pushing the rain a little hard, although as a visitor, I've never been there where I didn't get downpoured on at least once per trip, never mind time of year (Murphy's Law, I suppose). But I really wanted the image of the umbrella, and a helpful reason why Spike could go out in the day.
Very intrigued by the portraits and Spike's paranoia
Thank you. More to come on this!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 01:57 am (UTC)And I loved how haunted Spike was - it rang very true. Poor guy!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 10:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 02:27 am (UTC)I loved the atmosphere and how revisiting the past's affecting spike and how Buffy just doesn't get it. And great plot twist at the end.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 10:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 05:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 10:08 am (UTC)But thank you. If I can pull it off right, the plot twist will give me a chance to push those two crazy kids into a meaningful place by the end.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 06:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 10:13 am (UTC)unexplainable whimsy.
I love that wording. Unexplainable whimsy. That really is the mood I've been trying for throughout, of a sort of "Through the Looking Glass" vibe, with Spike in the Alice role. The rules are all different, and he just can't find his feet.
Question
Date: 2005-02-16 11:50 am (UTC)Re: Question
Date: 2005-02-16 11:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 08:36 pm (UTC)??? It's a fanfic junkie's occupational hazzard; getting muddled between all the many WIPs in your head. I had some dim memory of Angel and Spike being on the run from the Senior Partners or W&H. That it's the COW after them has me good and flummoxed...Are they after information on that last battle? Do they want them in protective custody? I see you've posted Part 13 already (bless you) but I'll have to wait to satisfy my curiosity until tomorrow night, when I can bring home and read the hard copy I'll print at work tomorrow.
You're really living up to your name with this one.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-16 08:49 pm (UTC)Tell me about it. I've got that problem writing too many at once, and they all tend to interconnect...
The CoW are new players on the board with this one. Toys made a suggestion to me that I may add into the next chapter to make things a tad clearer, but this is the first time it's come up. Currently, Angel and Spike are playing a Catch-22 between the Senior Partners and any number of other unidentified demons, but the key thing is that they're very active in the demon underworld right now. How the CoW is likely to interpret this, well...
You're really living up to your name with this one.
I live for the suspense. : )
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 01:37 am (UTC)Buffy is very much the girl who's rarely been abroad here, and it's endearing; although I find Spike being so suspicious a little suspicious myself. See you've updated though so I'm sure you'll assuage or confound!
Loved, loved, loved the Fanged Four pictures :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 03:59 pm (UTC)I find Spike being so suspicious a little suspicious myself.
He's got reason to be; hopefully I can clear that up.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 12:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 03:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-08 01:40 am (UTC)That put a big lump in my throat, as did all her trying so hard in this chapter. You've pushed my Buffy button with that. :)
Twist at the Gallery had me gasping. This just keeps getting better and better!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-09 07:22 am (UTC)