It's drabble time!

[quinara]

I've been writing some three-sentence pseudo-drabbles for penny_lane_42's Three Sentence Ficathon. So, please, have a flurry!

I. Seeing, Not Watching. [For snickfic: Buffyverse; Giles/Faith; because]

There comes a time when Giles thinks he's seen every fighting style under the sun - every slayer has their own, after all, with their skills born out of instinct rather than years of mastering a complete, if prescriptive, set of skills - and he's learned to analyse them all, to work out what the slayer's gut is telling her to achieve, be it jujitsu or streetfighting or gunwomanship, and train her to the height of her power.

Yet there is always one slayer he can never get a handle on, who kicks and cuts and shoots with no discernible pattern, who leaves him incapable of analysis, glasses never removed from his face so that he can always see her, watch her perform for him with a saucy wink and a backflip. Because, God help him, she isn't a slayer under his care - she's Faith, and she always makes sure he knows that, one way or another.

II. Power Shower. [For angearia: Buffyverse; Buffy; running water]

The first time she showers after the Master, she almost can't go through with it: the running water hits her face and even though it's warm, even though it falls in drops, it scares her - and it's a new sensation of fear, because though so many things in her life have the power to kill her (cars, cliffs, vampires, vampires), never before has she been presented with something that's actually succeeded.

She promised herself she would never be scared, not after becoming the Slayer - as the one girl in all the world with superpowers, what right does she have to be scared?

And so she makes herself a new promise, turning up the jet on the shower: first she's going to get clean, and then - she's going to get even.

III. Inside These Walls. [For angearia: Buffyverse; Illyria; world enough and time]

Before, the world had lain at her feet, ready to be conquered should she wish it; she'd been content with her kingdom as it was, where her power was stable, because after all there would always be time to conquer more.

But, of course, now all she was left with was this room, not owned so much as rented by a vampire who gave her tenancy, as constricting as the shell that shackled her form and thoughts, always pushing inwards, imposing on her ever-diminishing world. So different from before, and yet the time remained, mocking as with every second it stretched in front of her - what gave it the right to claim its sovereignty, when hers had been so cruelly taken?

IV. Sometimes I Contain Multitudes. [For ladyofthelog: Buffyverse; Spike; Brazil]

Beer. Dru.

(Buffy)

V. Promised. [For snickfic: Buffyverse; Spike; mpreg]

After Angel and Faith and Dawn, Buffy'd always said they were due a prophecy baby. But then the wound had come, right in her gut, an unsolicited hysterectomy - she'd met his eyes in the hospital as the doctor told her, her expression an odd mixture of amusement that they would always be different and sadness for what they'd somehow lost: guess we've beaten prophecy once more, huh, Spike?

Thing was, now that he was the one in the bed, doctors gabbling all around him as they anticipated his pain to come, her eyes held a similar expression, scared as he was but still feeling the ludicrous: guess we should have known.

VI. That Old Tune. [For mabus101: Buffyverse; Harmony; might have beens]

It was fun, being young and cute forever - at first - and then the twenty-second century came along, bringing middle-age into vogue and leaving her too young to get a job and permanently treated like a child.

She wondered who she would have become had she stayed alive, whether wrinkles would have given her face the dignity she craved as much as every magazine wanted her to, whether she would ever have seen the light and gone silver-flecked-brunette before '96 and escaped the burdensome, cringe-worthy memories of her look up to the 80s.

It hurt to realise the answer: probably not.

VII. You are Time through Which I Drift. [For pennydrdful: Dollhouse; Mellie; waiting]

The clock ticks on and Mellie waits for Paul to come back from work - it's half past two now, so only four hours left, maybe five? She has a job (she knows she has a job), but it always seems to happen on the days she's not living, the yesterdays and tomorrows and last week and next year; the rest of the time, the today and right now, it feels like her life is best spent waiting for Paul, or cooking for Paul, or watching for Paul, or dressing for Paul, or cleaning for Paul, or getting her treatment (to be healthy for Paul).

Another minute, and the hand goes by to two thirty-one; the part of Mellie that trained as a copywriter cannot help but wonder: is it madness, this love she feels?

VIII. How Worth It is the Acrylic Itch? [For caboca: Dollhouse; any character; asexuality]

Sometimes, Claire wonders whether she's been made this way by accident or design, whether it's all part of their perfect little agoraphobic doctor (no secrets are gonna get seduced out of her after all, though, God, it saddens her to think that's the way they'd imagined her giving information away), or whether Topher simply forgot about that part of the program, forgot to flip the switch and target her attraction at one sex or the other (or at both, or at animals, or at anything). When her thoughts turn in this direction she considers hacking into Topher's computer once more, digging up her file and poring over the data of her make-up, just to find out whether this thing is a part of her or a lack, a thread stitched in the chemicals of her mind or a peephole snag in the fabric.

But she never looks; instead she gets on with her job, patching up the dolls who smile blankly at her pretty clothes, who probably understand better than anyone else in the building that she wears heels to stand tall, not to cause erections with her legs; instead she keeps her place in the machine, facilitating all those deviant sexual needs of others, wondering whether she should pity them for their desire.

.

And three proper drabbles about Dawn - the first two are old, the third just written this morning for ladyofthelog. Also, the first is gen, while the second two are Dawn/Satsu (the third is possibly PG-13 - ooh er!).

I. Propaganda.

Mom had talked about Oxford. Giles wanted her to go to Oxford. Willow won’t stop going on about Oxford, how her mom bought her one of those ridiculous undergrad gowns, how she still likes to wear it sometimes, because she feels like it makes her think better.

Whatever. This is a new world and she’ll apply wherever the hell she likes. She’s got the grades. And so maybe the watcher’s life is calling, but that doesn’t mean she has to follow in every tweedy footstep of her predecessors.

Or maybe she’ll apply to Cambridge, just to really piss Giles off.

II. The Negative Space of Hot Beverage Condiments.

“You want Buffy but you'll settle for me? Wow, flattering. And hey, I was mystically created from her blood so it's almost like getting her. Bonus, huh?”

“Give me some credit!”

“For what?”

“Look, Dawn. The Buffy I fell in love with, she wasn't... But you! I...”

“Let me get this straight. I'm not a replacement for Buffy, but you're telling me your type robs banks? How is that better?”

“Just come for coffee. Once. Hell, as friends. If you don't swing you don't swing, but give me a chance. Please?”

“OK. Fine. But, for the record? I hate cinnamon.”

III. Shadow Caster.

Everything would be fine with Satsu, Dawn was sure of it. No wacky spells. After all, she’d slept with Buffy and nothing bad had…

Groaning, though not very sexily, Dawn broke their kiss and shook her head. “Sorry.” Why think of Buffy now?

Hands up her shirt, Satsu sighed. “It’s fine.” But then, smirking, she shifted herself higher round Dawn’s hips, making her scabby-ass uni bed squeak beneath them. “Though you know I’m with you, right?”

Buffy who? Dawn thought as Satsu reached back to her bag, leg curling up Dawn’s back. Goddamn, Slayers were flexible…

Wait. “Are those anchovies?”