The Valkyrie Part II
Aug. 16th, 2017 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Marvel Crossover AU (Self-Made Hero: The Infinity Mirror)
Summary: The last official member of their little team will take some work to retrieve.
Word Count: 800
Rating: Gen
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Marvel Crossover AU (Self-Made Hero: The Infinity Mirror)
Summary: The last official member of their little team will take some work to retrieve.
Word Count: 800
Rating: Gen
Buffy blinks a lot as she opens her eyes. It’s hard to remember where she is. Who she is. She’s been told not to, but she reaches back to remember her last dream. She wasn’t alone, The Slayer. She was one of a number of strong women. Valkyries. Training, fighting, and she wasn’t alone, she wasn’t weird, she was cool because she was good at this.
It had been a good dream.
“Your parents take you home today. Isn’t that nice?” the doctor asks.
She has almost no reaction in her heart. Of all the dreams she’s had, this isn’t one, this world of white and insanity. It has no pull. Yes, it might be nice, better than nice, to be just a cheerleader with a normal life, but she doesn’t know that life, she hasn’t lived it, so she can’t imagine it.
Still. Still, they react badly when she doesn’t react, so she smiles vacantly.
“Of course, it’s probably not for long, unless you get better. It’s a test. Maybe you’ll remember more of your life if you’re in a familiar environment.” The doctor is relentlessly cheerful, but he doesn’t believe it’ll work any more than anything else they’ve tried. She’s good at reading people even if she doesn’t understand how they interrelate, in the dreams. Or maybe it’s because? She’s had to pretend, to conform, to convince others that she fits.
It’s harder in this world than anywhere else, which probably makes it real. It’s hard to tell for sure.
The doctor leaves, and there’s silence for a bit as she tries to decide whether she should slip into another dream again because she’s bored or whether she should not do so because that means they might take this away from her, something in the white world.
And then she notices that the shadows are moving. Has she already slipped somewhere else and not realized it? But no, she’s still wearing the straightjacket. And none of the other dreams have had this white world.
The shadows coalesce into—Angel?
Are the dreams bleeding into the white world, now? She opens her mouth, but—
“Don’t scream,” he advises her, and she feels the urge to scream disappear in a way that she knows isn’t her own will. It feels a little like…Dracula? She’s had that dream once; is it in the ‘future’ or the ‘past’, according to how old she is at the time? She can’t even remember. “You are not insane. We’re here to rescue you, Buffy.”
She’s pretty sure they’ve never met, not in this white world, so the fact that he knows her name probably means something unless he’s a hallucination or a dream bleeding in.
He looks slightly worried that she hasn’t responded, which means he’s either real or a dream. If he was a hallucination, he’d be able to read her mind.
“Where are you taking me?” she asks hesitantly.
“The world needs you,” he explains, and then the door is opening, and the red-headed nurse pushing the wheelchair looks famil—
“Willow?” she asks hesitantly, and in response her best friend smiles at her.
“Xander wanted to deck out your escape vehicle more, but I pointed out that’d just draw attention,” she says, and it’s so blessedly normal that Buffy wants to kiss her.
Of course, a vampire’s strength is enough to pull the sleeves off, and they put her in a more normal shirt, and Willow’s pushing the wheelchair to places she doesn’t remember having seen, in this white world. Angel fades back into the shadows in a way he’s never done in any of her dreams, but it seems natural anyway.
They make it close to the front desk, and Xander’s leaning over it chatting up the receptionist wearing nicer clothes than he can remember him wearing, and rather than telling him to get lost, the lady is giggling and looking like she’s actually flattered by the interest. Those sunglasses are a little ridiculous, though, which she plans to tell him but not now as that will get attention they don’t need.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a voice yells, outraged, and that’s Mom in most dreams and this white world, and another voice—Angel?—swears quietly. At least they were seen by other people, so that means that they’re real, not dreams, but how will they deal with this?
“We can’t kill anyone, and we shouldn’t hurt them either. The best-laid plans…” Willow mutters under her breath, before pressing a locket Buffy doesn’t recognize into her hands. “We’ll be back for you, okay? Just hang in there.” And then she takes off running.
Xander’s hand fiddling with the pen turns white, but he carefully doesn’t react. And why should he? Why does any of this matter? Why does she matter?
It had been a good dream.
“Your parents take you home today. Isn’t that nice?” the doctor asks.
She has almost no reaction in her heart. Of all the dreams she’s had, this isn’t one, this world of white and insanity. It has no pull. Yes, it might be nice, better than nice, to be just a cheerleader with a normal life, but she doesn’t know that life, she hasn’t lived it, so she can’t imagine it.
Still. Still, they react badly when she doesn’t react, so she smiles vacantly.
“Of course, it’s probably not for long, unless you get better. It’s a test. Maybe you’ll remember more of your life if you’re in a familiar environment.” The doctor is relentlessly cheerful, but he doesn’t believe it’ll work any more than anything else they’ve tried. She’s good at reading people even if she doesn’t understand how they interrelate, in the dreams. Or maybe it’s because? She’s had to pretend, to conform, to convince others that she fits.
It’s harder in this world than anywhere else, which probably makes it real. It’s hard to tell for sure.
The doctor leaves, and there’s silence for a bit as she tries to decide whether she should slip into another dream again because she’s bored or whether she should not do so because that means they might take this away from her, something in the white world.
And then she notices that the shadows are moving. Has she already slipped somewhere else and not realized it? But no, she’s still wearing the straightjacket. And none of the other dreams have had this white world.
The shadows coalesce into—Angel?
Are the dreams bleeding into the white world, now? She opens her mouth, but—
“Don’t scream,” he advises her, and she feels the urge to scream disappear in a way that she knows isn’t her own will. It feels a little like…Dracula? She’s had that dream once; is it in the ‘future’ or the ‘past’, according to how old she is at the time? She can’t even remember. “You are not insane. We’re here to rescue you, Buffy.”
She’s pretty sure they’ve never met, not in this white world, so the fact that he knows her name probably means something unless he’s a hallucination or a dream bleeding in.
He looks slightly worried that she hasn’t responded, which means he’s either real or a dream. If he was a hallucination, he’d be able to read her mind.
“Where are you taking me?” she asks hesitantly.
“The world needs you,” he explains, and then the door is opening, and the red-headed nurse pushing the wheelchair looks famil—
“Willow?” she asks hesitantly, and in response her best friend smiles at her.
“Xander wanted to deck out your escape vehicle more, but I pointed out that’d just draw attention,” she says, and it’s so blessedly normal that Buffy wants to kiss her.
Of course, a vampire’s strength is enough to pull the sleeves off, and they put her in a more normal shirt, and Willow’s pushing the wheelchair to places she doesn’t remember having seen, in this white world. Angel fades back into the shadows in a way he’s never done in any of her dreams, but it seems natural anyway.
They make it close to the front desk, and Xander’s leaning over it chatting up the receptionist wearing nicer clothes than he can remember him wearing, and rather than telling him to get lost, the lady is giggling and looking like she’s actually flattered by the interest. Those sunglasses are a little ridiculous, though, which she plans to tell him but not now as that will get attention they don’t need.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a voice yells, outraged, and that’s Mom in most dreams and this white world, and another voice—Angel?—swears quietly. At least they were seen by other people, so that means that they’re real, not dreams, but how will they deal with this?
“We can’t kill anyone, and we shouldn’t hurt them either. The best-laid plans…” Willow mutters under her breath, before pressing a locket Buffy doesn’t recognize into her hands. “We’ll be back for you, okay? Just hang in there.” And then she takes off running.
Xander’s hand fiddling with the pen turns white, but he carefully doesn’t react. And why should he? Why does any of this matter? Why does she matter?
