BtVS Ficlet: Halloween

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Title: Halloween

Fandom: BtVS

Author: badly_knitted

Characters: Buffy, Angel, Spike, Scoobies, and random monsters

Rating: G

Spoilers: Halloween.

Summary: Buffy and the team become what their costumes represent.

Word Count: 448

Written For: juliet316’s prompt ‘BtVS, S!2Buffy, she'd been so looking forward to a night off. Then she chose that costume.’ at fic_promptly.

Disclaimer: I don’t own BTVS, or the characters. They belong to Joss Whedon.

Tucked away at the back of her mind, she’s still who she should be: Buffy Summers, slayer of vampires, demons and things that go bump in the night. But that little voice is being overruled by a new persona, a sweet, innocent Southern belle, terrified to the point of swooning by the hideous creatures that seem to be everywhere. She has no idea how she came to be in this strange place full of things she can’t begin to understand, but all she wants is to go home.

A young woman in lewd clothing, and a soldier of sorts help her to safety in one of the small dwellings where she finds a picture that could be of her, except that she would never dress in such low attire. Nothing makes any kind of rational sense.

The tall, handsome man who suddenly appears seems to be an able protector, and for a brief time she almost feels safe in his company, until he turns with his face changed beyond recognition, and she realises that he too is a monster. The world has gone completely insane; it’s simply too much for her, so she opens the door and flees for her life, out into the night.

Everywhere she turns, there are low men seeking to steal her virtue and monsters thirsting for her blood. Fear freezes the blood in her veins, almost paralysing her, until help arrives in the form of the soldier, the catwoman, and the vampire. She cowers in fear, but they vow on their honour that this one is a good vampire. With no choice but to believe them, she must allow him to sweep her off her feet and carry her to safety, though her very flesh crawls at his touch; or so she tells herself.

Their safety is short-lived, however and they are forced once more to flee, out into the perilous streets, where vampires and monsters corner them, holding her protectors captive. The vampire who stalks her now is most assuredly not the good kind, and she fears her life may be over before it has properly begun, until suddenly…

It’s such a relief for Buffy when she snaps back to normal again. Spike looks almost comical standing there with her wig in his hands, but she doesn’t give him a chance to collect his scattered wits, laying into him, unleashing all her frustrations. This was supposed to be her night off, and instead it’s been a nightmare.

As Spike heads for the hills, Buffy feels a tremendous sense of satisfaction. As much as she complains about her lot in life, she realises she doesn’t want to be anyone except who she is.

The End

Comments

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I've not seen too many tics that deal with Buffy/Elizabeth's mindset during that episode, it must have been truly terrifying and disorienting (didn't Spike almost kill her before she snapped back to herself? I recall that being one of my favorite moments in S2.)

You capture that "hi honey I'm home" moment beautifully. Of course Buffy is relieved to get her strength back; what about the rest of the poor ordinary folks who never have it to begin with?

This was supposed to be her night off, and instead it’s been a nightmare.

My favorite sentence?

One tiny concrit, if I may: you describe Elizabeth as "a southern belle"; I believe she was meant to be an "18th English gentlewoman" because she is trying to be more like the women she imagines Angel was attracted to 200 years ago (which in fact would mean Darla and high-class prostitutes most likely.)

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Thank you!

Trouble was, I wrote this last October during my first attempt at fic_promptly's Contest Week, where the aim is to fill as many prompts as possible. I wrote 42 ficlets in 7 days and I couldn't take the time to study the source material in any depth so I was working from an episode transcript, by which I mean I briefly skimmed the parts I needed tom refresh my memory of the episode. I haven't watched the episode in several years, and it's entirely possible, even probable, that I'm remembering incorrectly but in my head I could hear Buffy sounding like a Southern Belle so that's where that idea came from. She most likely was meant to to be English, but... *shrugs* I don't really fancy editing it on all my accounts so I'll leave it as is.

I'm glad you liked the story, it was one of my earliest ventures into writing Buffy-Verse but I enjoyed the exploration of Buffy's altered mindset. Contest Weeks generate so many ficlets in so many fandoms though that I have a backlog of nearly 200 still waiting to be posted to my journals so this one ended up waiting a year to see the light of day!

I think Spike came very close to killing Buffy but was so bust gloating that Buffy came back to herself before he quite got around tom it. I always like Buffy and Spike best as deadly enemies.

May I also say, I really appreciate your thoughtful feedback; that's so rare these days when most people's idea of a review is along the lines of 'This was good.' While it's nice to hear that, it's much more helpful to be told what a reader likes or dislikes about a story.