(no subject)

[lit_gal]

I miss writing fanfic, but I don't have the mental focus for a full-on story. So... it's meme time. You give me the summary of a story I never wrote, and I'll give you a snippet from that story. So, let's see what you can throw at me. I can write in Buffy, Sentinel, Firefly, SG1, NCIS, or SPN.

Comments

[ladysybylgrey.livejournal.com]

I've been on an NCIS kick... so something in that universe would be lovely... I love your sub!Tony pieces!

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Make up a summary of a story I didn't ever wrote, and you can have that sub Tony

[batgurl10.livejournal.com]

I would DEF like to play XD. do you mean give you a snippet of a written story? or a made up one?


Christina

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

You make up a summary. So last time I did this, some wrote something like...

How about that story where Willow ends up in bed with Angel and Xander?

And someone else said

I want to see a story where it turns out Daniel is the Sentinel.

With those summaries, I wrote them short scenes from those stories

[opsgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, Oh! I would love some more Xander crossovers -
How about, Xander is going to meet a new slayer, who is the daughter of a marine. But when he arrives, he finds the girl has disappeared and Xander becomes a suspect in her kidnapping and is placed in custody by the NCIS team.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

"Hey, that hurts, you know."

The gray haired thug kept pulling Xander along by his arm.

"I was just walking down the street.  You can't arrest me for that."

Young and fashionable thug hurried ahead to open a door for the whole arresting crew. This whole arrest thing was getting a little too serious what with him getting dragged into NCIS headquarters. What the hell was an NCIS, anyway? "You were walking around on a secure base.  You might want to come up with another story," young thug who was actually less than thuggish suggested.

"How was I supposed to know that?" Xander went for the puppy-dog look.  As he got older, it was getting harder and harder to pull off, but sometimes, just sometimes, he'd find that goofy charm could trump the hardest hard-ass.  Not so much with this crew, though.

"The eight foot chain link fence should have been a hint," gray-haired, cutie thug said dryly.

"There was a bug.  I have a thing for bugs ever since...never-mind.  You don't actually care about my childhood."

"No, we don't." Gray hair looked about ready to explode in a dirty nuclear bomb sort of way.

"When you lie, try to be specific," handsome thug advised with a sort of mock intimacy that almost made Xander smile.

"DiNozzo," gray haired thug growled.  Well that filled in one name.

"Right, boss.  Sorry, boss." The guard checking the agents' identification gave DiNozzo a sympathetic look as he scanned gray-hair's ID.  It gave Xander a chance to see the name Gibbs.

"Mr. Gibbs," Xander started.

"Special Agent Gibbs," DiNozzo corrected him.  Xander barely restrained an eyeroll as he started over.

"Special Agent Gibbs, you really are wasting your time with me."

Gibbs whirled around so fast that Xander almost wanted to ask about the guy's humanity, or lack thereof.  Shoving his face right into Xander's, he all but growled, "Harris, a Marine's little girl is missing. That is not a waste of time."

"That's not what I mean.  I mean of course she's important.  Way more important than me.  Way, way more, and I know that more than you might think. I just think you really don't want to waste your time with me."

For a second, Gibbs glared murder at him.  Slow, bloody, painful murder.  The man had a glare that vampires would envy.  "DiNozzo, get him to interrogation before I kill him."

"On it, boss," DiNozzo agreed even as Gibbs stalked away.

Xander turned his grin on his new captor.

"You can save that for someone who buys it," DiNozzo said as he started guiding Xander down the hall, scary girl and dweebie guy following behind.

"What?"

"That goofy, clueless camouflage you wear... That's been my shtick around here for the better part of a decade, so one professional faker to another, figure out how to drop the act before my boss comes back.  He saw through me in about two seconds, and he already has your number.  However with a fifteen year old girl missing, he's not going to play nice and he's really not going to avoid serious psychological damage as he pulls all your defenses to shreds.  So drop the act, drop your shields, and play it straight with Gibbs or you have no idea how ugly this is about to get."

For the first time since hitting DC, Xander was scared.

[taylorgibbs.livejournal.com]

Tony and Gibbs undercover in a BDSM club? Bonus if Jack and/or Daniel are there ;)

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Gibbs watched Tony fidget, his muscles tense so that Gibbs could see the hard cords under the skin. He itched to reach out and run his hand over the warm skin, to hold Tony down and buckle those black leather straps around his wrists for him. However, patience was Gibbs' game.

"You don't have to come, DiNozzo," Gibbs said mildly when Tony paused too long, his long fingers skimming the sewn edge of the black cuff.

"What? I've got your six, Boss." Clearing his throat, Tony started buckling the last wrist cuff in place, but his eyes kept darting to Gibbs... or more precisely, Gibbs' bare back. Gibbs made a show out of inspecting the black, silk shirt he'd chosen for the evening. Tony wasn't the only one who knew how to shop for tailored clothing, and Gibbs expected this shirt to highlight every line of his body, at least once he put it on.

Tony cleared his throat. "Do you really think Medwell is going to show?"

"Doubt it," Gibbs answered. "It's a long shot."

"Well, your gut beats any odds," Tony said firmly as he pulled the small leather vest over his chest. It didn't cover much.

Gibbs grunted. He thought the odds were pretty much zero tonight, but Medwell did sometimes use the club. If nothing else, they were building background for when they did need to come back. And if Gibbs had an ulterior motive, he had given Tony plenty of chances to back out. They were off the books, off the clock, and completely on their own. Any sane agent would have told Gibbs to come back with a surveillance plan, backup, and a supervisor's approval. Tony wasn't particularly sane.

"So, how are we playing this?" Tony asked with a cheeky grin that hid none of the insecurities playing beneath the surface.

"What does it look like?" Gibbs asked as he pulled the shirt on and opened the van's door. Stepping out into the chilly night, he felt his nipples harden. He glanced over to see Tony's hard, peaked nipples peek out from the open vest. A sparse scattering of hair trailed down Tony's stomach toward his crotch, and Gibbs made a point of looking away as he fastened a whip to a loop on his belt.

"Okay, it looks like you're a top and I'm..." Tony paused. "I look like a cheap rent boy."

Gibbs looked Tony up and down. "You look pretty expensive to me."

While Tony's mouth still hung open, Gibbs slid the van door closed and headed for the club. Just like he expected, Tony's footsteps chased him, and as always, his second walked at his side, one step behind--just where a submissive always placed himself when his master was in the room.

[andartha.livejournal.com]

Avengers (movie 2012)

Loki/Hawkeye (Clint Barton)

Downtime.

Agent Barton introduces the Trickster God to a bit of human culture.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I don't know that fandom, which is sad making. :(

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see something from that story you wrote where Xander and Willow go together to tell Angel about Buffy's death.


Gabrielle

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

"I don't want to do this." Willow pressed her lips together, and Xander could feel his own heart press into an even smaller space. He felt like the Scrooge, only in reverse with his heart growing smaller and smaller. Unfortunately, that didn't make the pain any better.

"I'm not doing it alone. If you don't go, I'm not telling him," Xander threatened. It wasn't his finest moment, but he didn't want to be the man here. He wanted to cry and throw a fit. He wanted to lay on the ground and kick his feet until some adult came along and fixed things. He was sixteen. He should have two more years of problems that could be solved in an after school special. He shouldn't have to deliver this news.

Willow looked at him with shining eyes, and Xander's pain doubled again.

"I..." He stopped, not sure what to say. He wanted to protect her. He wanted someone to protect him. He wanted to have never known Buffy. He wanted to find Buffy's broken body and hold her forever. He wanted today to have never happened.

They stood, staring at each other... two specks of nothing caught on the spiderweb of fate.

"Willow?" Angel's low voice ripped through the threads trapping them in place, and Xander turned, his heart beating painfully fast. Literally, his chest hurt. He reached up to rub the spot over his heart the way he would a pulled muscle, because that's what it felt like.

"Xander?" Angel's voice was a little louder, a hint of aggression showing at the edges, but Angel always had been a little edgy around Xander ever since Xander had shown up at the apartment and forced Angel to go with him to the Master's den. Yeah, and look how much good that had done.

A few months later, and Angel's grandchild took Buffy instead of his grandsire. Fate. Xander hated fate.

Angel looked from one to the other. "Willow, what happened?" Angel asked, his voice soft.

Willow cracked. She crumbled. She collapsed to the ground with wails that forced Xander back away from her pain. He couldn't feel her pain, not without having it swallow him whole. He couldn't breathe. As Angel reached out to catch Willow, Xander turned and fled into the night. Running... always running. He had to run until his heart finally gave out and he could rest again because the image of Buffy's sightless eyes were more than he could survive.

[auroradream.livejournal.com]

Tony had always worried about one day having to watch Gibbs interrogate one of his significant others or one night stands. Especially after everything that went down with Jeanne and that whole debacle. Never in a million years would he have expected it to be Dean though---Dean who he randomly hooked up with for a week in Baltimore before he met Gibbs got together with Wendy.

So, basically Tony had a fling with Dean Winchester and holy crap, now he is being interviewed by Gibbs. Tony is having a total FML moment.

[zazreil.livejournal.com]

Especially season 1-3 when Dean was an adorable smart ass giggle

Zaz

[finlaure.livejournal.com]

Jim and Blair have some Fall fun with a pile of leaves.

[kaleecat]

hmmm, hard to tell if there's too many here.

This is actually an idea from my bunny hutch, one I would like to explore but that isn't going to happen anytime soon if ever. Plus I'm interested to see what little bit you would get from it. (plus I already gave the other one of interest to me away to tejas--I hope she writes it).

**
Giles had a full life before going to Sunnydale and it wasn't all Ripper all the time. After the debacle of Sweet the music demon he returns home--to the dim libraries & familiar stacks of the Oxford libraries. One day while digging through the new acquisitions in the back room he encounters an old student, the only one he ever slept with. Daniel Jackson certainly no longer looks like a lost waif with long hair & large glasses. Indeed, Daniel had grown up & was researching some very interesting things.
**

[chaoskir.livejournal.com]

Xander struggles with the fact that he has to take care of his empty eye socket and Spike forced him to do it.

[iria4285.livejournal.com]

Cordelia visited Xander before dieing and passed her visions to him... Xander has to become Angel's seer... or it's Spike's?

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Angel sniffed the air. Human. Humans didn't come here. Sometimes humans were dragged into this dark version of reality, this alternate timeline where creatures like Angel relived every mistake over and over. But those pitiful creatures stunk of madness and fear. Their minds collapsed under the weight of a hell designed for demons.

"You only smell human because you yearn to taste their blood, to break their bodies." Darla taunted him, but it was the body of Jenny Calendar that forced Angel to change direction. The apparitions each seemed to have their own logic--their own rules--and that gyspy loved to spring back to life with her milky eyes and dig her fingers into Angel's flesh.

"You deny the gifts I gave you, but you can feel the hunger. You miss the power." Darla shadowed him, but she had little power here, not beyond torturing him by conjuring his former mistakes.

"You can't deny yourself forever, and you are here forever," Darla promised with that smirk that Angel knew too well. That look promised pain, it appeared right before she taught him one more of her lessons. He'd bled, he'd screamed in chains, he'd crawled through demon intestines after seeing that look. Even now he shivered.

Naked, dirty, burned and shivering, Darla's look still scared him more than the horrors of this hell, but he supposed that's why she was here. To punish him.

"I know it's this way," a deep voice said in a cranky tone.

"It bloody well isn't." Spike. Or William. Sometimes Spike appeared, dancing with a railroad spike and on those days, the guilt nearly strangled Angel. He'd taken a vampire who wanted only to love Dru and he'd warped him into a monster.

"Who's the seer here?"

"If you say that one more time, I'm ripping those eyes out."

"You try, and I'm siccing Cordelia on you."

"She's dead, you nit. What's she supposed to do?"

"This is Cordelia. Dead or not, she will make you sorry you were ever born if you cross her."

"Bloody hell. Grow a pair, Harris. This eunuch look doesn't suit you."

Angel frowned as the normal heaving and rolling of the marshland finally showed him Xander Harris and Spike wading through the thigh-deep mud. Buffy had tormented him, and Willow loved to appear before him whispering her disgust. She'd had more power--inspired more fear than Angelus at his prime. Angel hated listening to her. He wanted to think of Willow as young and sweet and following Buffy with books clutched to her chest.

But that was years ago. Years before the dragon, before Angle's final death, before this version of hell where all Angel's mistakes haunted him. And now Xander Harris had finally appeared stinking of humanity.

"Is that--"

"Fucking hell. It's about time. Where have you been hiding your fat arse?" Spike pushed through the muck, and Angel retreated. If this was William, he always had such special tortures for his grandsire. Angel didn't want the sharp pain to cut through his flesh.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh yeah, like you can't recognize crazy. I thought you and crazy were best friends," Harris said as he struggled to follow. "I don't know crazy half as well as you, and even I know that's crazy. That's bug ass crazy."

"It's not like you swim in the deep end of the sanity pool. Now shut it and help me grab Angel," Spike said.

Angel shook his head. Centuries. He'd lived in this hell for centuries. He knew the script of every being that appeared to torture him, and this wasn't right.

Spike reached for him, and Angel reared back, his gameface coming out even though it had never saved him in the past. Maybe these weren't apparitions. Maybe these were his fellow inmates. Angel had spent several decades enslaved to another demon. Maybe another had come to force him to his knees.

Harris slipped and ended up neck-deep in the muck. "We seriously need to get out of here."

"There is no getting out of here," Angel said, feeling his way around the words carefully. It'd been a long time since he talked.

"Well that's before I brought our shiny new seer," Spike said. Reaching over, he hauled Harris to his feet. The slimy mud dripped off Harris' shirt. "So, it's time to get back to the real world, peaches. The world is waiting for us." Spike offered Angel a wide grin.

[lady-quadress.livejournal.com]

I have a couple that you can choose from that are Spander.

1. write a story where Xander finds Spike at a Library Book Sale and Spike has to act tough so he can hide the books he bought.

2.Write a story where a spell causes Xander to lose his voice forcing Spike to become Xander's voice for the scoobies.

3. write a story based on How to date one Xander Bloody Harris

[kaleecat]

You have most excellent ideas. I especially like the first one.

[cammy-kat.livejournal.com]

I'd really like a scean from the story of where Tony and Brian cross paths again set in your biran and the frat boys 'verse, years later But pre movies... If it was at crime scean where they both wanted jurisdiction for... Would be awesome

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

"Never give the crime scene away." Gibbs' words echoed in Tony's head, even as he squared off against the Virginia cop.

"Navy victim, Navy jurisdiction," Tony said with his cheekiest grin as he refused to give one inch to Detective Body Odor.

"This is a task force, kid. You don't have the balls to play on our court." Detective Body Odor leaned in closer, and Tony had to give the guy credit. He was big, and intimidating, and the stinky factor did make Tony want to retreat. Unfortunately for the detective, Tony was even more afraid of his new boss. Tony had worked for some bastards, but Gibbs... he took bastard to a whole new level, and he knew everything. Absolutely everything. Tony wanted that.

Oh, he faked it. He faked all the confidence he needed. He sure didn't feel it with Detective Body Odor leaning into him. But Tony knew how to use his fear. He marshaled his terror at the thought of letting Gibbs down and leaned close to the idiot.

"I don't care who's on the task force. NCIS takes lead on this, and if you don't get your shoes off our crime scene, I'm guessing Special Agent Gibbs is going to add your body to the list of victims." Tony gave the guy his most helpful smile while clinging to the pieces of his confidence.

It wasn't easy. Finding out that his own partner had been dirty and Tony had never known... it had dinged the old DiNozzo confidence, and Wendy had then shredded a good deal of what's left. DiNozzos did not get left the night before their wedding. Oh, his father had screwed over one or two women that way, but the DiNozzo men did the screwing.

And still, Tony could feel his confidence erode as the detective gave him a squashed bug look. It wasn't fair. Tony was a fed. He survived two weeks with Hurricane Gibbs. He shouldn't feel like backing down.

"Tony?"

Tony turned to look at the new cop who'd joined the scene. He was young, younger than Tony. Maybe Tony just wasn't expecting this particular face because he had to search his memory.

"Brian?" Tony finally asked. Brian. Pledge Brian. Brian who had knelt at Tony's feet and sucked Tony's cock and let Tony tie him over a table and fuck his brains out. Brian who had helped Tony feel like a man again after Tony's knee had failed and his dreams had collapsed like a popped balloon. Brian.

Brian smiled easily, no embarrassment at having run into a man who used to make a game out of selling Brian's ass to the other frat brothers. "Tony DiNozzo. You're a fed?" Brian held his hand out, and Tony stepped past Detective Stinky to meet Brian at the crime scene tape that was supposed to keep the other cops out of Gibbs' scene.

"Brian. So, you joined the force?"

Brian shrugged. "I'm more of an intern on this one. My captain saw a chance to get rid of a smart mouth for a few weeks."

Tony opened his mouth, and that smart ass remarked wanted to come out. He wanted to say that he could find all sort of uses for Brian's smart mouth. However, he had been Brian's Dom, a man who took care of his sub and who commanded pledges. "Well, as long as you keep your feet on that side of the line, I'm very happy to see you and your smart mouth."

Tony turned to Detective Body Odor. "And unless you want to find out what sort of federal pissing match feels like, you'll get your feet on the other side of that line. Because honestly, I don't have a whole lot of work to do, so harassing you would be a pleasure. And I do mean pleasure." Tony gave the guy a huge grin.

"Oh yeah, that's the Tony I remember," Brian said with a laugh. Detective Body Oder just looked confused, but that was okay because Tony could see Gibbs crossing the parking lot, coffee in hand.

[bulisen.livejournal.com]

Tony and Daniel are (half?)brothers and it's time for Gibbs and Jack to meet the family. Of course some alien and/or terrorist attacks during dinner making everthing just a little bit more awkward.

[blackheisei.livejournal.com]

On one hand, praying worked and Xander was going to be saved from the monster of the week. On the other...Spike was not the rescuer Xander had in mind.

[batgurl10.livejournal.com]

Aha...thank you. XD


honestly---I would LOVE to see a scene where Sam and Dean are trying to break in somewhere for some reason and they run into Jim and Blair....Older of course so as to fit the time lines...but whatevers. I just want Jim using his sentinel senses to catch these two "punks" who were trying to steal _____. I get the feeling that dean and Jim would have lots of snarky things to say to one another and might even get into a fist fight???? @@ XD

[lady-ceylonna.livejournal.com]

From the Blair/Riley universe:

Riley's past and present meet. Blair always thought vampires were myths, but Slayers might have been female Sentinels. Giles isn't happy about being pegged as a watcher.

Perhaps something were Jim notices Spike's lack of heart beat....

[ruefull.livejournal.com]

I think Dean Winchester would take one look and listen to Gibbs and know this was the daddy he'd been waiting for his whole life. (I'm shameless, I think things like this all the time! *g*) Gibbs has all the gruff directness of John, but with the tender, gentle side that got drowned in demons and booze. Dean getting the chance to be Gibbs boy, just for a night even, would be awesome! Bonus if there's a spanking and cuddles, because I am just that greedy, yes ma'am. *g*

[keladry4664.livejournal.com]

Seconded!

[clucksy.livejournal.com]

I'd really like a scene from that fic where Dean and Spike are Death's bitches and they have to share the pet bed in the corner of Death's bedroom, but Dean snores and Spike is a snuggler.

[zazreil.livejournal.com]

Gibbs as a young NCIS agent investigating the deaths of a naval officer or a naval officer's families follows the trail of the suspected killer (John) to 6 -8 yr old Sam and 10-12 year old Dean barely scraping through using the five fingered discount. And you know how protective Gibbs is of kids

[kendermouse.livejournal.com]

i absolutely love the "Thoughts Colored Ugly" verse that you've created. So something like this:

Jayne had known it was a gorram stupid idea but he'd done it any way. You'd think he'd have learned that wandering off on his own, even if it was for a good reason, was a bad idea. But he never had been accused of being the smartest guy around. So now, instead of having a special birthday present for River, he was naked on a dirt floor, with a gorram lump on the back of his thick-headed skull, heavy cuffs on his wrists and a go tsao de shen jing bing looking down at him like he was the newest prettiest in-heat cur in the pack.

River wasn't gonna kill him when she found them, because she *would* find them. No. She wouldn't make it that quick. She'd kill this chun zi for touching what was hers. She'd save the really fancy stuff for the sha gua who'd been so distracted trying to decide which new weapon to buy her that he'd forgotten to take care of her favorite weapon... himself.

[that work? ::grin:: Not that i have a thing for Domme!River and sub!Jayne or anything. ::wicked grin:: ]

pax,
the kendermouse

[fourthice.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if you've watched any of the Iron Man movies or the Avengers? Because I'd really like to read a fic involving Xander working for Tony Stark.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I haven't seen them. Sorry. :(

[baudown.livejournal.com]

Ooh!

Xander goes to LA to rescue/care for a very badly damaged post-NFA Spike.

Please?

[runriggers.livejournal.com]

Sentinel:

picture in my mind - one crouched in a shower stall (doesn't necessarily have to be at the loft) obviously in distress. The other sitting outside the stall trying to give support either silently or otherwise. What is causing the distress? Who is where? How is it resolved?

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Jim sat outside listening as the shower ran. It had to be cold by now, but Blair was still sitting on the floor of the shower, every breath a ragged gasp. More than once, Jim had cried in front of Blair. When Danny Choi had died, Jim had sobbed and screamed at the unfairness of it all.

Despite that, Blair tried to swallow every grief. He sat at the bottom of a cold shower and tried to hide his pain.

Jim let his head thump back against the wall. He couldn't do anything until Blair let him in, but sitting in the hall and listening to his best friend suffer... this was hell.

A series of bangs made Jim suspect that Blair was pounding on the wall. He had a right. If Blair wouldn't let Jim in to help, maybe pounding on the bathroom walls was as close as he could get to cathartic.

Eventually the water did turn off, and Jim stood up and headed for the kitchen. Hovering was guaranteed to drive Blair into a flurry of lectures on personal space and everyone having their own way of grieving.

After a lifetime of grieving, Jim understood that. He'd grieved a mother who hadn't loved him enough to deal with her own hatred for Jim's father. He'd grieved lovers and brothers-in-arms. He'd grieved for Jimmy Choi. He'd held younger servicemen as they endured their pain and loss. He'd sat with the wives and families of injured men. As an officer, he'd suffered for every loss that touched on his company.

But oddly, it was the people he'd loved most that never let him close enough to grieve with them. The wife of a sergeant in his unit would cling to him and cry as he sat in his BDUs after a training accident. The girlfriend of a fallen police officer would take his hand on her shoulder as an invitation and turn and bury her face in his neck and scream at the injustice in the world.

However, let Caro miscarry for the second time, and she turned cold...told him it didn't matter. Let Blair get his heart broken by the death of his mother, and the man hid in the bathroom. There was a special pain to never being enough--never knowing how to help the people you wanted to help the most.

The bathroom door opened with a click, and Jim stood in the middle of the kitchen, not sure what to grab in order to look like he hadn't been hovering. He still stood, indecisive and searching for some sort of prop when Blair came into sight.

His hair hung in wet clumps, his sleeping pants clung to his damn body, and his eyes were dark wells of pain that made Jim's heart ache in sympathy.

Blair took a step closer, and then another, and for a second, Jim was confused, unsure whether Blair was truly moving toward him rather than moving toward the sink for water, or hell, maybe toward the refrigerator so he could make a souffle. With Blair, who the hell could predict his logic.

But then Blair moved right in front of him. Jim opened his arms, and Blair threw himself forward, his arms clinging tightly while a flood of tears slipped free.

"Oh, Chief." Jim rested his cheek against the top of Blair's head and rocked him gently, Jim's arms holding him tight. Blair didn't answer. He cried. And Jim held him close.

Snippet: Shared Grief - Broodfest Thunderdome 2002

[farmgirl62.livejournal.com]

Post "Hells Bells", Xander stays at a motel in LA and runs into Angel (post Forgiven). The two are in a bar and have a debate over who is the most deserving of the pain they are currently experiencing. Emphasis should be on the truth each sees in the other person's situation and in the character of the other person. They are more alike than they know.

ETA: Angel thinks he (Angel) deserves eternal pain and suffering, Xander thinks what he did and who he is makes him (Xander) the one who should be in the most pain.

Re: Snippet: Shared Grief - Broodfest Thunderdome 2002

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

"So, you got the book?" Xander asked as he slipped sat on the stool next to Angel. He wasn't up to small talk. Nope. Not now. Not ever. And yeah, Angel had saved the world, but Xander didn't feel any need to be reasonable in his hatred.

Angel slid the heavy tome down the bar to Xander.

“Thanks for nothing,” Xander said. Normally he reveled in a chance to verbally torture Angel. After all, if he had to drive for two days straight to get a damn spell book, the least he could do was entertain himself. However, poking a silent Angel wasn’t much fun. “What has you acting more depressed than normal?”

Angel slowly spun a shot glass of some amber liquid.

“I mean, this is broody, even for you.”

“You have your book. Go away.” Angel didn’t look up from his drink.

“You know, I would, but I am obligated to poke fun of you. It’s in my contract.”

Angel gave Xander a sidelong look, but he didn’t answer. Now Xander knew something was wrong.

“I suppose I could stick around for a while and verbally torture you. I mean, they don’t need the book until next week’s Armageddon.”

“Why not? It’s not more than I deserve.” Angel lifted the glass and threw back the contents in one gulp.

“Someone’s feeling a little martyrish.”

Angel narrowed his eyes, which tended to undermine his comment that he wanted torturing.

“That’s okay, I can see how saving the world would make you feel like shit. Yep. Totally. Except for the part where it makes no sense and you’re an idiot.”

“Cordelia is dead.”

“Um, for a while now,” Xander said, suddenly confused. “Unless she’s come back at some point and you’ve killed her again. That would be new.”

“She’d be alive if it wasn’t for me.”

“I doubt it. Didn’t that law firm capture her and try to pull her eyes out? I’m pretty sure she’d die of that, and even if she didn’t, trust me, having an eye pulled out… not fun.” Xander frowned. “And when did I start reassuring you? I don’t like you.”

“Because I don’t deserve to be liked.” Angel spit the words out. “I went to work for them. I worked for that law firm. I really thought I could change them.”

“I stood up the woman I loved. And actually, that was the me being nice part. I drove her back into demonness and there was death and guilt and a lot of blood involved. A lot.”

“My crew is gone. Most of them are dead. Don’t pretend you know how I feel, boy.”

Xander snorted. “Right. The fact that I was so desperate to fix the world that I called Sweet into this universe and people’s heads exploded…there’s no guilt there. No siree. Nope.”

“I spent a hundred years—”

“If you start that crap about crawling through alleys, I’m going to poke you with a sharp wood stick. Eating rats is not guilt-worthy. Bath-worthy? Oh hell yes. It might even be therapy-worthy, but killing rats is not something to apologize for.”

“So, you know more about guilt that I do in two hundred years of pain?” Angel didn’t even hide his growl.

“Hell yes. You feel guilty about not saving the world, about not being perfect enough to fix everything—which implies that you think you’re some superhero who should be perfect. Now me, I’m a normal person feeling guilty for doing truly shitting things that cost people their lives, so excuse me for getting really tired of you having to win every contest.”

Angel turned on his chair and faced Xander for the first time. “And you think you should win this contest?”

“Well… yeah. At least I’m not feeling guilty about my lack of being utterly perfect and saving the world.”

“No, you just think your guilt and pain can outweigh two-hundred years of suffering.” Angel raised his eyebrows, and about a minute too late, Xander realized he’d stuck his foot in his mouth. Okay, that sounded arrogant, not that Xander planned to admit that to Mr. Broody Pants.

A green demon walked up and put another glass of amber something in front of Angel and left a tall glass of something fruity with one of those little umbrellas in front of Xander. “Sweetcheeks, you’re both annoying, and I do mean number one with a bullet to the top of the charts annoying. So have something to drink and spare the rest of us your depressing stories.” The demon gave them both an overly bright smile before turning to the scattered crowd. “My lovely ladies and dashing demons, who is up for some karaoke?”

ooooh

[(Anonymous)]

oooooh fic-petit fours!

If it's not too late and/or you have the time still?

Firefly/SG-1

River confuses Teal'c, and frustrates O'Neill. And yet another club has banned SG-1 - because, apparently, they can't have a simple beer without busting a syndicate.

If you have the time, thank you!

(grrlcookery from tth, just emerging from ExamHellFortnight hence the late message)