shadowscast (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadowscast) wrote2005-02-09 11:43 pm
shadowscast) wrote2005-02-09 11:43 pm
I really shouldn't do this
I just wrote a little beginning for a sequel to "Late Night Porn Store Blues." And I stayed up too late doing it. And now I'm going to post it here as a teaser, though I certainly shouldn't because I don't know when or if the darn story will be finished (I'm thinking late March, maybe?) and certain aspects of the backstory that are hinted at in the snippet will likely be outright changed once I've had time to really think them through.
But I'm tired and vulnerable and an attention whore, so here we go:
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in. (Leonard Cohen, "Anthem.")
Xander is dreaming about the firing squad when the phone rings just after noon. He wakes up drenched in sweat, tasting the Jack Daniel's from eight in the morning. He fumbles with the phone, dropping it twice before he manages to croak "H'lo?"
"I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" Giles asks.
"Yeah. No. You just woke me up. It's fine."
There's a pause at the other end, and Xander imagines Giles doing the math. "Still a bit jet-lagged, are you?" he suggests politely.
"Actually, I was up all night. Up and around I mean, not—not with the nightmares again." The one he just woke from is fading already, and he doesn't feel the need to share. "I found your girl."
"The Slayer?"
"Not a Slayer. Turns out she's some kind of primordial god, I didn't follow the whole story." Xander snatches his jacket from the floor by the bed and fishes the cigarette pack out of the pocket. "But that's not even the big news of the night. You'll never guess who not-a-Slayer lives with."
"Yes?"
He lights up a cigarette, takes the first drag. Smiles a bit. "Come on Giles, it's no fun if you don't guess."
"You did say I'd never guess."
"Okay, okay. She lives with Spike."
"Oh." There's the glasses-cleaning silence at the other end of the phone. "I did know Spike was alive, in fact; Andrew encountered him last winter. I suppose I should have mentioned it to you, but it hardly seemed likely that you'd encounter him randomly in a city the size of Los Angeles."
"Giles, I'm from Sunnydale. The laws of probability work differently around me. Anyway, I bet you didn't know he was alive."
"Sorry, I think we have a bad connection; I just said I knew he was—" Giles stops, catching the emphasis. "Wait. Alive? As in, no longer a vampire?"
But I'm tired and vulnerable and an attention whore, so here we go:
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in. (Leonard Cohen, "Anthem.")
Xander is dreaming about the firing squad when the phone rings just after noon. He wakes up drenched in sweat, tasting the Jack Daniel's from eight in the morning. He fumbles with the phone, dropping it twice before he manages to croak "H'lo?"
"I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" Giles asks.
"Yeah. No. You just woke me up. It's fine."
There's a pause at the other end, and Xander imagines Giles doing the math. "Still a bit jet-lagged, are you?" he suggests politely.
"Actually, I was up all night. Up and around I mean, not—not with the nightmares again." The one he just woke from is fading already, and he doesn't feel the need to share. "I found your girl."
"The Slayer?"
"Not a Slayer. Turns out she's some kind of primordial god, I didn't follow the whole story." Xander snatches his jacket from the floor by the bed and fishes the cigarette pack out of the pocket. "But that's not even the big news of the night. You'll never guess who not-a-Slayer lives with."
"Yes?"
He lights up a cigarette, takes the first drag. Smiles a bit. "Come on Giles, it's no fun if you don't guess."
"You did say I'd never guess."
"Okay, okay. She lives with Spike."
"Oh." There's the glasses-cleaning silence at the other end of the phone. "I did know Spike was alive, in fact; Andrew encountered him last winter. I suppose I should have mentioned it to you, but it hardly seemed likely that you'd encounter him randomly in a city the size of Los Angeles."
"Giles, I'm from Sunnydale. The laws of probability work differently around me. Anyway, I bet you didn't know he was alive."
"Sorry, I think we have a bad connection; I just said I knew he was—" Giles stops, catching the emphasis. "Wait. Alive? As in, no longer a vampire?"