GarniGal's Journal:

Prompt - Empty Room

She keeps the door closed.

They think she wants her privacy; she’s a teenager, after all. Mother reminisces about her past. Father mutters about weddings. Siblings just roll their eyes.

She lets them think what they will, and steals out into the night with nothing more than a stick and a crucifix, leaving behind an empty room.

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They keep the door closed.

They pretend nothing changed; though fear and grief fills this house. Mother cries. Father yells. Siblings sit silently, too sad to roll their eyes.

They each touch the door when they pass it, pretending the room isn’t empty.

"And they lived ever after." Dru whispered to the moon.

"Happily ever after, pet." Spike mumbled against her cool white skin. "We'll live happily ever after."

Dru pushed him away then curled into ball with her hands buried in her hair. "Always dark, dark night, dark blood, scent heavy in the air, then
sun comes, and the sun makes me so sad, Spike! So angry! All my happiness, down in dust."

"Hush, princess. If ever the sun shines, I'll be your parasol. Spike'll keep you happy,  naught to worry you."

But she wouldn’t be comforted, as  long as they lived.

Extinction is quiet, without fanfare. There are no martial drum beats tolling each final breath. There is no fireworks show throwing light and colour on pale skin. There is no band playing Taps as blood leaches into thirsty soil. There is no audience, watching with tears in their eyes as the pulse in a throat flutters, stills… stops.

There is only a girl, broken on the ground and watching her too short life flash before her eyes.

There is only a girl, woken panting from a bloody dream and not yet aware that life as she knew it is over.

I posted this to my AO3 account, but I know some of you will only see it here. I admit, it was a quickie (who knew I could write 12 pages in one day, especially one in which I also worked 8 hours), so if there's any errors or oddities, don't hesitate to point them out and I'll clean it up.

Request was for Buffy and Veronica Mars crossover, Oz/Mac, Logan/Veronica. "Veronica figures out Oz's secret and Mac works her own magic against a werewolf hunter.

( Terrifying in a Whole New Way )

“Our Father…”

He sits at his mother’s side, but his attention is fixed on Lil Malick’s skirt, and how it displays her dimpled knees.

“Give us this day…”

He leads the prayer now, his strong voice and strong opinions building a church he can be proud of. He looks out over the congregation, attention caught by a girl in a short skirt.

“Lead us not…”

He travels to spread his message and finds himself trusted. If girls start disappearing when he visits their town, he prays all the harder for the poor lost souls, and leads the search parties.

“Amen.”

Back from my honeymoon and the first thing I had to do was write a drabble for open_on_sunday.
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She was sixteen when he came to town, with his clean, unstained shirts and heavy books in unrecognizable languages.

Her hands were hard and calloused from working in the fields, burned from cooking meals over a wood burning stove. Her clothes were dull from washing, simple and plain in design.

But he said he saw something in her, a bright spark that set her apart from her family and friends. He gave her hope that she wasn’t trapped into this life, made her dream of escape.

And he pressed a stake into her hand and led her into the dark.

Kendra didn’t play. Never built castles with rocks and twigs, never held a rag doll and crooned a lullaby.

Kendra didn’t tease. Never leaned on a car and looked through lowered lashes at a handsome boy, never giggled and squeezed his hand.

Kendra didn’t shout. Never clenched her fists and stomped her feet, never argued for one more hour before curfew.

Kendra didn’t cry. Never curled on her bed and sobbed her heart out because of some small slight, never grieved a loss with silent tears.

Kendra trained, was called, killed and was killed in her turn.

Faith didn’t play…

I don't know why this one gave me fits and wouldn't work until now.

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( First Meetings - The Fanged Four )

She woke spitting and fighting. They’d used magic to down her, after she’d outrun and outfought every hunter they’d set on her heels.
They wouldn’t risk a hunter to unknown magic. They still wanted to eat, after all.

She strained against her bonds. They’d tied her tightly, but left a length between her and the tree she was tied to.
They wanted her to fight, but not win. They needed to break her, after all.

She screamed with rage, but swallowed her pain. They’d looked at each other, pleased with what they’d done.
She was their crowning achievement, after all.

Shows: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Story Title: Baggage
Character/Relationships: Rupert Giles
Rating: PG
Warnings: Canon character deaths

He arrived with a suitcase, a trunk and a chip on his shoulder.

The suitcase had belonged to his father, the father who had spent so much of Rupert’s youth away from home. One of his first memories was of climbing up on the bed to watch Father packing. Mama had busied herself in the kitchen, making all Father’s favourite foods. He knew now how worried Mama had been, her eyes red from crying, her hands shaking from the fear that Father might not come home.

Mama hardly cried at all when Father’s broken hip meant he got pulled from field duty permanently.

The trunk was his great-great aunt’s, the only Slayer in a family of Watchers. He’d found it in the attic, in a dark corner where he’d hide from his father’s high expectations, his mother’s relentless optimism. A dark corner where he was far enough out of sight that neither of his parents would think of him for hours at a time. Just like his great-great aunt, apparently. He’d certainly never heard his parents speak of her, and based on the unlaundered clothing he finds tumbled about in the trunk, even her own parents had just shoved her things in this corner and forgotten about her. He emptied it out, and dragged it down to his room to store books in.

He didn’t know it at the time, but that’s when he decided to become a Watcher, just so he could read the diaries about Great-great Aunt Edith.

Every Watcher wanted a Slayer, but he hadn’t wanted this one. An untrained teenager brought up by her parents was not the dream. Especially an untrained teenager who’d already cost one Watcher his life. And California! Her parents were probably rich and stupid, with a spoiled and stupid child. There was little hope of her lasting the year.

But he’d do his best with her, try to keep her alive long enough to make some inroads into the vampire population. Surely she was capable of at least that much.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He went home with a suitcase, a trunk, and a broken heart.

The suitcase was new. He’d found a drop of blood on his old suitcase, and remembered a beautiful woman cold and lifeless in his bed.

He’d burned his father’s suitcase and hadn’t regretted it for a moment.

The trunk was filled with the books he couldn’t bear to leave behind. Grimoires and demonologies were tumbled together with the cheap paperbacks he hid in the bottom of his desk drawer. Only Spike had ever found them, hunting for a drop of ‘the good stuff’.

Tucked into the corner was a stake, wrapped in a silk handkerchief. He told himself it was for protection, but he remembered her whittling this one in the RV, desperate to find something, anything useful to do.

He hadn’t expected to be in California this long. He’d assumed that lack of training and lack of discipline would doom her to a brief lifespan. He hoped to keep her alive for at least six months, maybe as long as a year. He hoped to list few dozen vampires dead at her hands. That would let him go home respectably, get him a placement with a young potential somewhere in Europe; a girl he could inspire and mould into a great Slayer.

He hadn’t expected her intuition. He hadn’t understood what an asset improvisation could be. He had no idea that more than simple strength and speed could be used against the demons and vampires that stalked the night.

He’d never realized how much it would hurt when she was gone.