Title: Permission
Characters: Dawn Summers
Rating: K
Summary: The setting is Dawn in a grocery store.
Spoliers: Up to Season 7 of Buffy.
“Yeah?”
“Faith?” Wasn’t Kennedy or Amanda on phone duty today?
“Again, yeah?”
“Um, Buffy around?”
Silence from the other end of the line. Dawn twirled a set of keys around her fingers. Rows of brightly colored cereal boxes were in either direction. She could hear other customers mulling around in different aisles.
“Dawn?”
“Buffy, hi. Xander’s going to let me drive home. Him and Andrew just got some game they have to try out right now, or they’ll both, like, not make it to geek heaven or something.”
“Okay…”
Dawn held her breath.
Buffy sighed. “Be careful. Okay?”
Dawn smiled.
Title: Take-Out
Characters: Xander Harris, Andre Wells
Rating: K
Summary: Dinner.
The thick smell of soy sauce and greasy noodles moved along the currents in the room. Currents being driven by the air-conditioning unit which kept away the stifling heat of the summer.
“How is it?” Andrew glanced quickly from Xander’s oil-soaked lips back up to the deep-brown eyes.
“It’s great!” Xander’s enthusiastic reply sent a shock of warmth through Andrew, who was too distracted by the flutterings in his stomach to notice the sensations from his own taste buds.
“Yeah. Love this stuff. The last time I ordered this was when I had just seen Star Trek: Insurrection.”
Xander smiled.
Title: Alive
Characters: Lilah Morgan
Rating: K
Summary: Lilah, after events in Habeas Corpses.
Licking her lips she finds something liquid and metallic--bitter.
Blood.
Gets dizzy as she raises her hand to her forehead, searching for head wounds. Knows to treat those with care and caution. Doesn’t find any gashes or tears or oozing pustules. Tender spot in her left temple, probably just bruised.
Car passes by, illuminating puddles and dumpsters. Sees the first stray sprinkles fall from the sky.
No longer in the light, she sighs. Looks behind her into the deep dark. Nothing but stale air.
Turns back toward the street. Stumbles.
While reaching out for the wall--realization.
She escaped the massacre.
Title: First and Last
Characters: Cordelia Chase, Doyle
Rating: K
Summary: A kiss.
Spoliers: Angel ep Hero
Current situation? Obviously not up to her, what with the big glowy thing, the huddling and the shivering people, Doyle’s lips on hers…
Lips that pressed soft and aimed low, but somehow managed perfection.
Cordelia had had plenty of kisses--plenty--some of them not so good, some of them knee-buckling great, but she had never felt one that moved so thoroughly through each and every curve and seam of her body. It somehow left a trail of heaviness and lightness and something pure in its wake.
First and last of such kisses, and she couldn’t hold on any tighter…
Title: Stimulation
Characters: Xander Harris, Andrew Wells, Knox
Rating: K
Summary: First meeting.
Spoliers: None
Xander doesn't know if he likes the look the guy gives Andrew, full of sliding and meaning that is somehow appreciative, open. He thinks maybe he should say something to interrupt, but then...
The guy turns those sparkling eyes to him, and Xander's breath rasps against the back of his throat. Gulping, Xander extends his hand and introduces himself with a hitch in his voice.
A smile beams bright and full. "Knox. Pleasure to meet you."
And Xander mentally agrees. Remembers Andrew's denim-clad knee pressed against his during the drive. Knows this contact generates even more exhilaration.
He smiles back.
Title: Fracture
Characters: Buffy Summers
Rating: K
Summary: Finding a chink in the armor.
Spoliers: Up to Season 7.
Buffy knows there are tricks, keys, and codes to everything. Everything can be seen, torn, or set free by something else. Dangerously high fevers allow a person to see the Kinderstod. Dawn’s originally green energy that once harnessed opens rifts in between dimensions. A little stone possessed with too much good intention and hasty want--and not enough thought--can cause new punctures and links, disrupting already fragile existences. Buffy sees the hordes of vampires whose power and strength are so great that she feels the weight of them buckling the earth. She knows there’s a magic to break them.