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thenewbuzwuzzAuthor: thenewbuzwuzz
Fandom: BtVS
Rating: T, I guess
Word count: ~2K this chapter
Characters: Buffybot, Harmony
Warnings: Buffybot, Harmony; not particularly Spike-friendly
Working summary: A Spike stan and a Spike hater discuss their Spuffy-related woes while painting each other's nails or doing whatever skirt girls do together; eventually, unicorns.
UPDATE SCHEDULE: when I get around to it, possibly never!
Beta credit: my infinite gratitude to OffYourBird, without whom this wouldn't exist; and thanks to the wonderful thewiggins for the additional coherence check.
Feedback: always appreciated, including about things that aren't working so well; that being said, this is mainly an exercise in chapters, and I'm aiming for it to be of passable quality and to get. It. Done. THAT being said, I plan to revise it later before I post it on AO3, so if someone notices a problem at this point and tells me, they may save future readers from the same sad fate.
Notes: my cryptid of a WIP makes an appearance!!! It's totally acceptable to pat me on the back for the bare fact of posting, without ever reading it. :D
Unicorns Are Totally Real
Chapter 1: I Was Born on the Day Before Yesterday
I was born on the day before yesterday.
I had holes in my shoes, and I was crying the blues,
and I didn't have a place to stay.
– Charlie Smalls, “The Wiz – The Super Soul Musical”
-->Systems activated.<!--
Buffy opened her eyes and came face to face with a familiar redhead.
-->Willow
best friend
gay (1999-present)
witch
good with computers
“Hi, Willow!”
Play happySmile2.bvh<!--
Willow was talking under her breath. “I’ll just take a little look at you,” Willow said. “It’s not like I made you. And I’m not doing anything bad. It’s just, it would be such a waste to… There’s so much I could learn!”
“You like to learn,” Buffy said. “You learned to be a witch!”
“The language processing ability is amazing,” Willow said. “Not as good as Ted—I always regretted letting the others talk me out of studying him. Well, not this time.”
Buffy nodded and kept smiling. It was important to support her friends, even if she didn’t know what they were talking about.
She was in the basement of the Magic Box, she noticed. She'd been elsewhere when she fell asleep. They’d been rescuing Spike from Glory; all those little creatures in robes attacked and her Watcher was in danger, and there were sparks in places sparks shouldn’t be.
“Is Giles okay, Willow?”
“Who?” Willow asked. “Oh, Jiles. He’s fine. We all got home safely.”
“I’m glad!” Buffy said. “Giles is my Watcher. He tries hard to be a stuffy codger, but he has my back. Also, he has good taste in Scotch.” She beamed.
Someone rattled the doorknob. “Stay here,” Willow said and went up the stairs.
Buffy waited for 60 seconds, and then she missed Spike. He’d been all battle-scarred when she last saw him. She had to nurse him back to health.
Buffy opened nurseToHealth.fld. The first items in the folder were blood.gfd and costume.gfd. She read her list of good blood sources and decided to go to the hospital. She could get a nurse’s outfit there, too. Her current clothes were not cute enough. She’d woken up in some kind of loose pants and a t-shirt that smelled of dust.
The next thing she needed was a lift to the hospital so she could reach Spike ASAP. Buffy went up the stairs. She had her hand on the basement door handle when she heard her friends talking on the other side of the door.
“Tell me you got rid of the sexbot, Willow,” someone said in Buffy’s own voice. It was the other Buffy. “Just knowing it ever existed is going to give me nightmares.”
Willow squeaked a little. “All sorted,” she said quickly. “Nothing to worry about.”
Buffy’s friends wouldn’t help her. She marked askFriendsHelp.gfd as inactive. This was sad, but Spike was more important. She’d use the other door and get to the hospital on her own.
***
She found Spike!
She peeked into the upper room of Spike's crypt, standing on the ladder.
The other Buffy was talking to Spike. “The robot is gone,” she said.
The other Buffy was very smart, but sometimes she was wrong. Like when she didn’t pronounce Giles’ name right, or when she called Buffy a robot.
“That thing,” the other Buffy said, “it… it wasn’t even real.”
Was she still talking about Buffy? That didn’t even make sense. How could someone not be real? She’d have to ask Spike. He was really clever.
The other Buffy left a moment later, and Buffy rushed over to Spike. He was covered in sexy wounds. He clearly needed maintenance.
“Spike!” she said. “I brought you some blood!”
She got out the supplies sloshing in her pockets and headed for the microwave.
“Ninety-eight point six!” she chirped when the blood had reached 310 degrees Kelvin according to her optical sensors. “Just as you like it.” She wasn’t sure what ninety-eight had to do with blood or why it should point six, but she knew she was supposed to say this.
“Good dream,” Spike said indistinctly and started refuelling. She watched with deep satisfaction.
When Spike was finished drinking, she took the mug over to rinse at the sink. He sat still for a moment, eyes closed. Then his gaze focused on her, clearer than before. He looked at her sexy nurse costume.
“Either this dream is incredibly detailed,” he muttered, “or you’re not Buffy.”
“Why would you say that, Spike? The other Buffy said I’m not real. Do you believe her?”
“She wasn’t really talking about you,” Spike hedged.
Buffy nodded, smiling admiringly. She’d known it had been a misunderstanding. Spike made everything make sense.
“What was she talking about, Spike?” she asked. Open questions were useful. They were part of the program lstn_sympthtcly.gfd.
“What I did with you… to you… why you are… ah, drat.” He paused. “Look, I wasn’t honest with you, okay?”
“What are you saying, Spike? Did you do something evil? That’s okay! You are very evil.” She grinned.
“Guess I am at that. See, I only wanted to pretend I was with Buffy. That she… how it would feel if she cared.”
“But you know how I care,” she said.
“The other Buffy,” Spike said. And then, confusingly, “The only Buffy.”
He sat up and stretched, rolling his shoulders. “And that’s why it’s time to pull the plug.” His gaze swiveled to focus on her, and he got up slowly.
“You care for me, and I respect that,” he said, walking towards her. “I’ll do you the courtesy of making it personal.”
His words didn’t register at first. Spike was doing theProwl.bvh!
-->Execute atHisMercy.gfd<!--
“Oh, Spike!” she said. “I’m at your mercy!”
He caught her by the arm, a little on the tight side, but that was how the game went. “Stop wriggling so I can put you to sleep,” he said.
What was he saying?
-->Stop atHisMercy.gfd<!--
“I don’t want to go to sleep again, Spike! When I was asleep, I couldn’t remember you! It was very lonely.”
“Well, we don’t always get what we want,” Spike said. He paused and touched his lip, maybe to check if it was healing.
Spike was going to kill her for real. It was going to be like being in a world without Spike. She played crying2.bvh.
“Is this because I’m not real?” she said as she started to sob.
Spike looked upset. She’d upset Spike! So she cried harder. He didn’t do anything for a long time. Then he tilted his head back in frustration and let her go.
“Fuck. Don’t cry, okay?”
-->Crying2 paused.<!--
“What can I tell you? It’s not you. I can only be with one Buffy at a time, can’t I?”
“Oh, I think you could be with two Buffys if we all wanted.”
“Look, pet. It’s that simple. Buffy has me by the short and curlies. Buffy wants you gone. So, by Jove, you’re going to be gone.”
This was unacceptable. There had to be a way around it. “What if I became real? Would the other Buffy like me then?
“Good luck with that, kitten. Good sodding luck.”
“Thank you, Spike! I’ll go become real now! I’ll be back when I’m done! Good luck to you, too.”
She bent to kiss him goodbye, but he raised his arms to keep her away and said, “Go on, then. Time’s a-wasting and all.”
Spike was right, as always! The sooner she became real, the sooner she could come back and make him happy forever.
***
Buffy walked jauntily down Maple Court, retracing her steps to Warren’s home. She knew she needed to take care of this errand so Spike would make sweet love to her again, but she hoped it wouldn’t take too long, or she would miss him. It had been bad when she couldn’t find him. How much worse would it be if she wasn’t allowed to look for him? She’d heard things about missage of loved ones. Terrible things. Would she start to see him in every passer-by?
Buffy rounded the corner. A blonde vampire stood on a lawn next to a 1959 DeSoto Fireflite. Her skin was only a little warmer than the metal of the car, Buffy saw.
-->Vampire alert! COMBAT MODE ENABLED!<!--
Buffy drew her stake and stalked towards her unsuspecting prey. She felt better already.
“Fine! Be a bigot!” the vampire said. “I’ll just be out here… having a great time without you… and I’ll eat your dog, too! Oh, Fifi, I didn’t mean it. Here, who’s a good girl, come on, you’re the smartest pupper… Let me see if I have any treats for you. Do you want blood?”
Was it evil to feed blood to a dog? Would it make the dog a vampire?
-->COMBAT MODE PAUSED.<!--
Buffy scanned the vampire more closely.
-->Harmony Kendall
Former Schoolmate<!--
“Hi, Harmony!” Buffy said. “We went to school together!”
“Oh, hi, Buffy!” Harmony said. “I mean, well met, Slayer!” She sagged. “I really don’t have the energy for this.”
“What are you doing?”
“I was trying to catch up with Fifi here,” Harmony said, looking on sadly as the dog trotted away. “But it looks like Fifi doesn’t want to know me now that I’m dead. Ew, it’s starting to congeal.” She tipped the thermos lid over and watched the blood flow into the lawn. “It’s like, you die, and life just stops. Suddenly everyone’s too good for you. It’s not like Aphrodesia is fully human herself, I do NOT think.”
Aphrodesia Smith was another alum of Sunnydale High. “That’s odd, she’s listed in my database as human.”
“You have a database? That’s, like, totally creepy. What does your database say about me?”
She retrieved the entry. “Harmony Kendall, former schoolmate.”
Harmony waited.
“That’s it?! I spend all those hours planning and studying, building a team, developing my leadership skills, and not even a blip on your radar? Not even, like, a little note, ‘Harm was the big bad for a week. She’s decent with a crossbow.’ Just, ‘former schoolmate’? Ugh. Sometimes, I don’t know why I try.”
“You were the big bad?”
“I try to be evil, and nothing. My own team turns on me. I try to be one of the good guys, and it’s the same thing all over again. Like that Angel is so much better. He killed our computer science teacher! But oh no, he gets to prove himself and have colleagues and stuff. The first little slip-up from me, and it’s all ‘get out of my town’. It’s easy for Cordy to say. She has a town she’s welcome in. I... don’t.” She started to cry.
Buffy executed comforting1.gfd. “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re still totally the baddest.”
Harmony sniffled. “I don’t even want to be,” she said. “I just want to belong somewhere. To, to meet my coworkers at the water cooler and gossip, or meet my clique in the cafeteria and gossip. God, I’d settle for having even one person to really talk to.”
“Talking is very important,” Buffy said, nodding.
Harmony continued, “I thought Cordelia would be that person. We were so close in high school, you remember, right? So happy… never mind, that’s all behind me now. And now it turns out Aphrodesia is too human to come out and meet me, or something, the snobby byotch, and I really don’t have anyone left to try.”
“You can talk to me,” Buffy said, playing encouragingSmile3.bvh. “I’m a very proficient listener. It’s one of my specialties.”
“Thanks, Buffy,” Harmony said. “I guess I really underappreciated your emotional intelligence when you were trying to kill me.”
“I was? Oh, because you were the big bad?”
“Yeah, absolutely.” Harmony preened a little. “What about that, by the way? Don’t you want to kill me anymore?”
Buffy pondered. “You are a vampire,” she said. “It’s my sacred duty to slay vampires.”
Harmony pouted and began to back away slowly.
“But you’re also an ex-schoolmate. It’s my social duty to say hello to those. And”—she wrinkled her forehead daintily—“I couldn’t say hello to you if you were dust. I mean, I could, but you need to respond for the operation to be successful, and I don’t think you would. If I’d killed you.”
Harmony stared, halting her escape.
Buffy continued, “Spike is a vampire, too. I don’t slay Spike because I like him. Also, he hasn’t killed anyone in a while.”
“Pfft. He couldn’t if he tried.”
Buffy considered. It was important to have friends and family, she knew. And she didn’t have any left, or rather, they didn’t want to support her. She could use some help in her mission to become real so that she could be with Spike.
“Harmony Kendall, would you like to be a Scooby?”
NOW WITH CHAPTER 2. \o/
no subject
Date: 2019-03-08 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-08 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-08 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-08 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-09 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-10 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-11 01:43 pm (UTC)I found Spike's opinion of Giles rather touching. And I really loved: "Not even, like, a little note, ‘Harm was the big bad for a week. She’s decent with a crossbow.’ "
Looking forward to more when/if you're ready to share!
no subject
Date: 2019-03-11 02:01 pm (UTC)Thank you very much! *hug*
no subject
Date: 2019-11-17 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-11-17 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-11-19 12:39 am (UTC)Such a good point.
I love how Buffybot's view of Giles is rather Spike-specific :)
I guess I really underappreciated your emotional intelligence when you were trying to kill me.
Hahaha!
no subject
Date: 2019-11-19 05:42 am (UTC)Buffybot's view of lots of things is Spike-specific. Ooh, I could play with that some more...
And, scarily enough, I signed up to explore that point about Ted in a whole separate story for whichwillow.
this is hilarious
Date: 2019-11-30 10:33 pm (UTC)Re: this is hilarious
Date: 2019-11-30 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-06 09:58 am (UTC)