Strategic Retreat
Mar. 9th, 2021 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerRemember how I said Xander was oblivious in the last installment? He is VERY oblivious to being flirted with. It's the typical Xander-needed-Anya-naked-to-get-the-hint intensified by Dresden DNA, metaphorically and spiritually speaking. Willow is awesome and immediately catches on to the fact that they Soulgazed. And I think stabby polite Mob Boss Spike is my favorite AU Spike. Also, at the very least early Angel (the one that offered Xander to Spike) would very much just run rather than try to save Xander.
Main Points:
Buffy/Dresden Files Crossover
Chapter Summary: Willow makes a dramatic entrance. (It's pretty much genre-required at this point.)
Word Count: 1908
Rating: Teen
Several of Steel’s guys accidentally shoot at her. I guess, even having been briefed, their nerves weren’t up to rampaging vampires. “Enlil, protect your servant who seeks to eradicate evil!” And then we go into bullet-time.
I say that, but not really, because messing with time is another Law. In reality, it’s a pretty cool and dramatic looking wind spell, keeping every single bullet aloft and preventing them from traveling further. That one looked handy, if anyone else is going to be taking pot shots at the poor Xanman. I'd have to figure out different wordage, of course.
“Stop shooting at the wizard,” Steel orders his men, tone matching his name. He calmly reloads. “Your lover?” he asks, quieter, to me.
I can’t stop the flood of emotion that overtakes me, nor the horrified sounding “No,” that shoots out of me. He raises the scarred eyebrow and I look away from the icy blue eyes before they crowbar anything else out of me. I examine and discard a thousand different replies. “We’d kill each other within a week.” Or at least hurt each other beyond recognizability. And given that I’d rather die than hurt her…yeah, not happening.
I glance back to see if he believes my response, just in time to notice the slightest flicker of a smile in his eyes, slightly thawed. “You’re not her type either, so don’t go getting any bright ideas.”
“Bright ideas? Me?” He can pull off the innocent, wide-eyed stare to an unfair degree.
“Funny,” I snarl, throwing up a hand and yelling “Arev!”, causing a vamp charging us to be flung backwards and over the rail from an unseen wind.
“I quite thought so.” He punctuates his statement with another two extremely well-aimed gunshots to the bellies of some of the other vampires coming at us. They fall, gurgling angrily. Something about his tone says he’s still quietly pleased by something, and, well, whatever. If he wants to make his move, I can at least get front row seats and watch and laugh and eat popcorn and send a few flowers for his funeral.
“Sekhmet, burn away my enemies!” Willow calls, and with a wave an entire group of vamps catch on fire. It occurs to me I’m not sure what all of this means for the whole Accord thing. Politics has never been my strong suit. I mean, if I paid attention, I’d probably have a clue. It’s just people, after all, with their different desires, and I’ve always been better at reading people than Willow. But I’d fallen asleep in our Government class, and that impression had always stuck with me.
Maybe I should be thinking of it in B5 terms. It’s so much more interesting that way. And probably isn’t completely off. Winter’s…Winter might be the Centauri. Summer’s the Narn. More approachable, and supposedly on the back burner, but I wouldn’t count them out. The image of Giles’ surprised face the next time I start paying attention to this stuff makes me chuckle internally.
Of course, all this depends on us making it out, but I’ve always felt like, with Willow at my side, I can accomplish anything, and this isn’t an exception. Even if, judging by that Resolve Face, she’s about to lecture me again. Whatever, I can take it. Better than dying. Or worse. “You should have called me.”
“And risked Mrs. Sasaki’s wrath? She doesn’t get people over to eat those cookies every day, you know.” I snark back to cover the wince, but still make a face as she hits me, lightly.
“I’m not kidding.” I get it already, but also, lemme have my terrible coping mechanisms, okay?
My shoulders slump. “Yeah, yeah. The criminal overlord over there would be happy to note it was all to keep his men in one piece, though, uh, not for their own sake.”
I’ve known Willow since we were in kindergarten, so she immediately gets it. “Mister. We could’ve figured out a sneaky plan.” I raise an eyebrow at her, and she holds my gaze as long as she can stand before she looks away. “Okay, fair, neither of us are sneaky.”
“I messed up. Done goofed. However you want me to say it. Mitigating circumstances exist, that you might lessen but not erase my sentence. Mostly that this is Angel’s fault and he’s scampered so you can’t even scold him. But I should’ve known better too.” This wasn’t the end of it, I knew. She would make me feel just guilty enough that I’d think twice before making the same mistake, but not enough that I got broody or discouraged in my attempts to become a better person.
Oh. Also, sometimes I don’t have common sense. I’d latched on to the idea that ‘everything police’ was my territory so hard, because people wouldn’t take Willow seriously even when they should, because I was protecting her from the nasty Doom, that somehow it just hadn’t occurred to me that duh of course she can help out with legwork. We’d have to have a talk about that later.
“If I might interject…” Steel’s voice interrupts us.
I glance over at his icy blue eyes, now doing an innocent, guileless impression that is scarily half-working, when Willow stills at my side. That’s never of the good. Instantly I glance back at her, and her eyes are narrowed, but not with anger. It’s her Learning face, and it’s wildly out of place here. I’m not sure what she might be realizing.
“Should you so desire it, I could arrange for an invitation for you both to the next one.” I blink, unable to make sense of the words for a second. That’s some impressive ego there. This went probably as bad as negotiations can go, and he’s already convinced he’s getting another meeting.
“You’d…really want two wizards as witness to your illegal dealings?” Thanks, Willow, I was having trouble finding the words, and you got the exact right incredulous tone, too.
“Are you concerned about a lack of proper attire? I could certainly make arrangements.” His smile is still contained, but I have the feeling it’s just hiding a wolf’s grin.
“You want me to give you my address,” I respond flatly.
“Well, I could probably find it on my own, but I would prefer you to give it to me, yes.” The voice is cool and detached, and there’s something in his eyes I can’t place.
“Mr. Guilty as Charged—” Willow begins, voice pure fire, and I flinch.
“I haven’t been charged with anything.” Steel’s cool exterior doesn’t break. I mentally tack on the word ‘lately’ to the end of the sentence, since I’m pretty sure he’s doing the exact same thing.
“Just what would you want us there for?” she continues, entirely unintimidated.
“It might lend some…legitimacy to the proceedings. In return, you would be able to monitor the conditions of said dealings.” Ugh. Ugh, ugh. I mean, if we couldn’t stop this from happening at all, it sounded like a reasonable approach, and he knew that, too. Ugh.
“You’re diabolically clever.” I could’ve sworn he preened at the words. “I’m sure you’ll understand when we say we have to take our time to think over your generous offer.”
He nods easily.
It’s the point at which she draws herself up to her full height that I get worried. She’s not tall enough to be vertically intimidating, but pair that with a still-smouldering temper from me trying to protect her, even if she knows that if I were under the Doom she’d do the exact same thing (…and yet, good intentions do not equal good actions all the time and I really should’ve come up with a better plan that included her, but contrary to popular belief I don’t do my best thinking under pressure) and the gathering power of a wizard and even Steel’s smile flickers for a second. Which, hate to admit it, but it means his threat detection is working as intended, because Willow could paste him without even trying and I would have to do a whole lot of that trying. It’s not like she’s leagues above me, or anything, but my powers lend themselves to enabling my Crash Test Dummy hijinks and hers really, really don’t. “In the interests of a fair warning, I’ve figured out a little loophole around the whole ‘murdering with magic’ thing. There is no Law of Magic that says I can’t erase all the fingerprints, and evidence, and blood from the shovel when I smash it into your head and use it to dig the grave if you hurt him.” My blood runs cold. She’s not just saying things. She’s actually thought about this. Which is terrifying.
“…I’m really good at shields. And you’re going to be there, if we even decide to go. He’s not going to hurt me,” I protest weakly, bewildered and more than a little scared of them both right now, and I swear there’s something really weird going on because they both look at me like you’d look at a particularly cute but not very bright puppy. “…What?” I ask warily, readying myself for a spell to check for possession because they’re very much weirding me out.
“Your point is taken, Miss…” Polite. Again.
“Rosenberg.” Willow drops all the menace, but Steel still looks a little intimidated. He’s trying not to show it, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s choosing now of all times to fiddle with his cufflinks.
“Your point is taken, Miss Rosenberg.” There’s no hint in his tone at his concern.
She shrugs. “A vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. I think he was going for a bigger smile that he just aborted. “You two have the most interesting turns of phrase.” He transitions smoothly into firing the gun at the stomach of another vampire that had apparently decided our little respite had made us sitting ducks and was attempting to sneak up on us. That fails—no bullets—and he actually snarls before—
Where the hell are those knives coming from? I get the vague, horrifying idea that maybe it wasn’t his cufflinks he was messing with earlier.
“You can go back to flirting or fighting or whatever you were doing before after we all make it out of this alive,” I protest and get another weird look from both of them. Whatever. I can worry about the both of them later, and for all I know Willow had a silent, magic-conversation with him because for whatever reason she didn’t want me to hear it. Maybe more threats I probably would be scandalized to hear. She’s so protective of me sometimes, but that’s a thought for another time. I need to focus for my spellwork. “Chad’rasha,” I murmur quietly, focusing all my attention on making a shield big enough for the three of us, and grin a little, because villain or not the three of us presented a picture intimidating enough to even vampires, as they scattered before us into corners. Time to beat a retreat before they bring out the big guns.
Main Points:
Buffy/Dresden Files Crossover
Chapter Summary: Willow makes a dramatic entrance. (It's pretty much genre-required at this point.)
Word Count: 1908
Rating: Teen
“If you hurt a hair on his head, you’ll answer to me!” The entrance is unnecessarily dramatic, as Willow floats through the broken window, hair flaring out like she’s a siren underwater, but I can’t help grinning like a loon anyway. All right, we had a chance!
Several of Steel’s guys accidentally shoot at her. I guess, even having been briefed, their nerves weren’t up to rampaging vampires. “Enlil, protect your servant who seeks to eradicate evil!” And then we go into bullet-time.
I say that, but not really, because messing with time is another Law. In reality, it’s a pretty cool and dramatic looking wind spell, keeping every single bullet aloft and preventing them from traveling further. That one looked handy, if anyone else is going to be taking pot shots at the poor Xanman. I'd have to figure out different wordage, of course.
“Stop shooting at the wizard,” Steel orders his men, tone matching his name. He calmly reloads. “Your lover?” he asks, quieter, to me.
I can’t stop the flood of emotion that overtakes me, nor the horrified sounding “No,” that shoots out of me. He raises the scarred eyebrow and I look away from the icy blue eyes before they crowbar anything else out of me. I examine and discard a thousand different replies. “We’d kill each other within a week.” Or at least hurt each other beyond recognizability. And given that I’d rather die than hurt her…yeah, not happening.
I glance back to see if he believes my response, just in time to notice the slightest flicker of a smile in his eyes, slightly thawed. “You’re not her type either, so don’t go getting any bright ideas.”
“Bright ideas? Me?” He can pull off the innocent, wide-eyed stare to an unfair degree.
“Funny,” I snarl, throwing up a hand and yelling “Arev!”, causing a vamp charging us to be flung backwards and over the rail from an unseen wind.
“I quite thought so.” He punctuates his statement with another two extremely well-aimed gunshots to the bellies of some of the other vampires coming at us. They fall, gurgling angrily. Something about his tone says he’s still quietly pleased by something, and, well, whatever. If he wants to make his move, I can at least get front row seats and watch and laugh and eat popcorn and send a few flowers for his funeral.
“Sekhmet, burn away my enemies!” Willow calls, and with a wave an entire group of vamps catch on fire. It occurs to me I’m not sure what all of this means for the whole Accord thing. Politics has never been my strong suit. I mean, if I paid attention, I’d probably have a clue. It’s just people, after all, with their different desires, and I’ve always been better at reading people than Willow. But I’d fallen asleep in our Government class, and that impression had always stuck with me.
Maybe I should be thinking of it in B5 terms. It’s so much more interesting that way. And probably isn’t completely off. Winter’s…Winter might be the Centauri. Summer’s the Narn. More approachable, and supposedly on the back burner, but I wouldn’t count them out. The image of Giles’ surprised face the next time I start paying attention to this stuff makes me chuckle internally.
Of course, all this depends on us making it out, but I’ve always felt like, with Willow at my side, I can accomplish anything, and this isn’t an exception. Even if, judging by that Resolve Face, she’s about to lecture me again. Whatever, I can take it. Better than dying. Or worse. “You should have called me.”
“And risked Mrs. Sasaki’s wrath? She doesn’t get people over to eat those cookies every day, you know.” I snark back to cover the wince, but still make a face as she hits me, lightly.
“I’m not kidding.” I get it already, but also, lemme have my terrible coping mechanisms, okay?
My shoulders slump. “Yeah, yeah. The criminal overlord over there would be happy to note it was all to keep his men in one piece, though, uh, not for their own sake.”
I’ve known Willow since we were in kindergarten, so she immediately gets it. “Mister. We could’ve figured out a sneaky plan.” I raise an eyebrow at her, and she holds my gaze as long as she can stand before she looks away. “Okay, fair, neither of us are sneaky.”
“I messed up. Done goofed. However you want me to say it. Mitigating circumstances exist, that you might lessen but not erase my sentence. Mostly that this is Angel’s fault and he’s scampered so you can’t even scold him. But I should’ve known better too.” This wasn’t the end of it, I knew. She would make me feel just guilty enough that I’d think twice before making the same mistake, but not enough that I got broody or discouraged in my attempts to become a better person.
Oh. Also, sometimes I don’t have common sense. I’d latched on to the idea that ‘everything police’ was my territory so hard, because people wouldn’t take Willow seriously even when they should, because I was protecting her from the nasty Doom, that somehow it just hadn’t occurred to me that duh of course she can help out with legwork. We’d have to have a talk about that later.
“If I might interject…” Steel’s voice interrupts us.
I glance over at his icy blue eyes, now doing an innocent, guileless impression that is scarily half-working, when Willow stills at my side. That’s never of the good. Instantly I glance back at her, and her eyes are narrowed, but not with anger. It’s her Learning face, and it’s wildly out of place here. I’m not sure what she might be realizing.
“Should you so desire it, I could arrange for an invitation for you both to the next one.” I blink, unable to make sense of the words for a second. That’s some impressive ego there. This went probably as bad as negotiations can go, and he’s already convinced he’s getting another meeting.
“You’d…really want two wizards as witness to your illegal dealings?” Thanks, Willow, I was having trouble finding the words, and you got the exact right incredulous tone, too.
“Are you concerned about a lack of proper attire? I could certainly make arrangements.” His smile is still contained, but I have the feeling it’s just hiding a wolf’s grin.
“You want me to give you my address,” I respond flatly.
“Well, I could probably find it on my own, but I would prefer you to give it to me, yes.” The voice is cool and detached, and there’s something in his eyes I can’t place.
“Mr. Guilty as Charged—” Willow begins, voice pure fire, and I flinch.
“I haven’t been charged with anything.” Steel’s cool exterior doesn’t break. I mentally tack on the word ‘lately’ to the end of the sentence, since I’m pretty sure he’s doing the exact same thing.
“Just what would you want us there for?” she continues, entirely unintimidated.
“It might lend some…legitimacy to the proceedings. In return, you would be able to monitor the conditions of said dealings.” Ugh. Ugh, ugh. I mean, if we couldn’t stop this from happening at all, it sounded like a reasonable approach, and he knew that, too. Ugh.
“You’re diabolically clever.” I could’ve sworn he preened at the words. “I’m sure you’ll understand when we say we have to take our time to think over your generous offer.”
He nods easily.
It’s the point at which she draws herself up to her full height that I get worried. She’s not tall enough to be vertically intimidating, but pair that with a still-smouldering temper from me trying to protect her, even if she knows that if I were under the Doom she’d do the exact same thing (…and yet, good intentions do not equal good actions all the time and I really should’ve come up with a better plan that included her, but contrary to popular belief I don’t do my best thinking under pressure) and the gathering power of a wizard and even Steel’s smile flickers for a second. Which, hate to admit it, but it means his threat detection is working as intended, because Willow could paste him without even trying and I would have to do a whole lot of that trying. It’s not like she’s leagues above me, or anything, but my powers lend themselves to enabling my Crash Test Dummy hijinks and hers really, really don’t. “In the interests of a fair warning, I’ve figured out a little loophole around the whole ‘murdering with magic’ thing. There is no Law of Magic that says I can’t erase all the fingerprints, and evidence, and blood from the shovel when I smash it into your head and use it to dig the grave if you hurt him.” My blood runs cold. She’s not just saying things. She’s actually thought about this. Which is terrifying.
“…I’m really good at shields. And you’re going to be there, if we even decide to go. He’s not going to hurt me,” I protest weakly, bewildered and more than a little scared of them both right now, and I swear there’s something really weird going on because they both look at me like you’d look at a particularly cute but not very bright puppy. “…What?” I ask warily, readying myself for a spell to check for possession because they’re very much weirding me out.
“Your point is taken, Miss…” Polite. Again.
“Rosenberg.” Willow drops all the menace, but Steel still looks a little intimidated. He’s trying not to show it, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s choosing now of all times to fiddle with his cufflinks.
“Your point is taken, Miss Rosenberg.” There’s no hint in his tone at his concern.
She shrugs. “A vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. I think he was going for a bigger smile that he just aborted. “You two have the most interesting turns of phrase.” He transitions smoothly into firing the gun at the stomach of another vampire that had apparently decided our little respite had made us sitting ducks and was attempting to sneak up on us. That fails—no bullets—and he actually snarls before—
Where the hell are those knives coming from? I get the vague, horrifying idea that maybe it wasn’t his cufflinks he was messing with earlier.
“You can go back to flirting or fighting or whatever you were doing before after we all make it out of this alive,” I protest and get another weird look from both of them. Whatever. I can worry about the both of them later, and for all I know Willow had a silent, magic-conversation with him because for whatever reason she didn’t want me to hear it. Maybe more threats I probably would be scandalized to hear. She’s so protective of me sometimes, but that’s a thought for another time. I need to focus for my spellwork. “Chad’rasha,” I murmur quietly, focusing all my attention on making a shield big enough for the three of us, and grin a little, because villain or not the three of us presented a picture intimidating enough to even vampires, as they scattered before us into corners. Time to beat a retreat before they bring out the big guns.
