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jwaneeta at 11:09pm on 13/02/2004
jwaneeta at 11:09pm on 13/02/2004Chapter one:
The Code of the Watchers
by Cynthia Martin
ycymartin@cox.net
R for language
Spike needs a summer job and Giles needs to make amends
For the Immortal Beloved, PG Wodehouse, and cherished betas Miriam and Diane
- Cyn (Mon 2003.10.27 at 01:55 pm EST)
CYN: Hi, this is Cyn. For reasons that don't bear close examination, I thought I'd take a bash at Plin's suggestion that folks offer commentary on their own stuff. I think I have some idea that it will help me get to sleep (I can almost guarantee that it will help you get to sleep). I wasn't sure how to tackle it, until I struck on the conceit of dividing my notes between myself and an alter-ego/evil twin. I've decided to call her Sr. Angelus. I was actually very good friends and sister novices with a Sr. Angelus, back in the dear old monastery. How's that for trippy? Tug that forelock, there, Sr. Angelus.
tense silence
CYN: All right! Excellent! Teeing off, I'll just say that I began writing this thing after I heard that James Marsters had signed to appear on AtS, but before any spoilers broke about how Spike would return. JM con-quotes were everywhere online, though, and he was shooting off his dear handsome yap about how boring it would be if Spike came back human, so I had a pretty good idea that humanity wasn't on the boards. And I knew there wouldn't be any Giles. So I picked the most AU thing I could think of and went with that.
Let me go out
Like a blister in the sun
Let me go out
Big hand I know you're the one
~Violent Femmes
CYN: I really like that song.
I bent over the shapeshifter, patiently adjusting her garish spangled ruff and trying to prevent a fresh onslaught of tears. "You looked wonderful, my dear."
CYN: Blah, blah, blah. Opening scene stuff, to establish that Giles is trying to find a niche in the post-averted-apocalypse world by running a magic club. And to shove a couple of supporting-casters in there before things got too far along.
"Mr. Giles!" The manager was darting through the tables, waving a cell phone. "Mr. Giles, we have a situation. The truck with the pigeons overturned on Howard Street."
CYN: Oh, yeah: Jeffries is based on a friend, a wonderful guy who manages an Office Max. I went to his wedding. That's his real name. He's cool with being in a story, but I haven't had the nerve to send him a link.
SISTER ANGELUS: There's bad language in this.
CYN: Well, yes. But not much. And Spike always apologizes. And anyway, using low jargon in a work of fiction is often necessary for artistic reasons. I bet God doesn't mind.
SR. ANGELUS: Oh, He minds.
CYN: I don't think so, okay?
SR. ANGELUS: Yes, and you're in a fine position to judge.
CYN: Anyway, Spike shows up in due course. I thought it would be kinda funny if he came out of an oven, because of the noble incineration angle, and because of the old bun in the oven stuff, as slang for pregnancy. Snazzy rebirth metaphors, see.
I closed my eyes and pinched my nose, marshaling my tone to its most even and reassuring. "I would suggest that you call your staff and mop it up, Mr. Dundee."
CYN: Oh, forgot to say that "Dundee" is the name of a posh neighborhood here in Omaha. I was going to buy one of the more modest houses there last summer, before my publisher went belly-up and plunged my widdle world into cash-strapped woe. I assume it's named after somebody rich.
SR. ANGELUS: A rich somebody who trafficks with dark forces. Sympathetically portrayed! Have you lost all fear for your own soul? It's a balloon waiting for a pin, I warn you.
CYN: So: Spike shoots out of the oven.
Water surged from a burst oven in a powerful torrent, cascading onto the floor. It reeked of myrrh and violets and I had barely a moment to register this odd perception when the oven shuddered, cried out like a living thing, and shot a human figure out onto the tiles.
The gushing flow stopped. A man lay on the floor, drenched and immobile, clad in jeans, one tennis shoe and half a black sweater.
CYN: And I figured it wouldn't do too much harm to have Spike's sweater mangled. I just didn't have the guts to go with shirtless, because, Shirtless Spike has ample representation in fic. Not that there's anything wrong with that. At all.
SR ANGELUS: Fry, lechery, fry!
CYN: Yeah, yeah.
The Spike-like thing took a huge gulp of air and began coughing explosively. Then it began sneezing, and this fit was followed by a brief transitional period, if I may so frame it, of scrabbling blindly at the floor like a mudskipper of the American bayous.
CYN: More birth stuff. And I wanted him to be wriggly and helpless. C'mon, admit it: wriggly and helpless!Spike makes every generous heart go pitterpat.
SR. ANGELUS: Feh.
CYN: Look, there's nothing wrong with appreciating beauty. And Spike's true beauty is a moral beauty, after all. Cast your eyes upon him there, all bedraggled after his trip across the planes! Remember his heroic death! Can you deny that your spirit broods over him with surpassing pity and tenderness?
SR. ANGELUS: I'll allow that he died well. All the more reason to avoid turning his opening scene into a wet T-shirt contest.
CYN: If you don't realize I showed terrific restraint with all that water, you don't know me very well.
SR. ANGELUS: Indeed, since you took off the habit, I hardly know you at all. You weren't this man-crazy when you were sixteen years old! Oh, how the nunnish are fallen. I tremble for you.
CYN: Thanks for the support. What a fine idea this was, one of my best. A perfect riot, and my sides hurt from all the hilarity and good feelings, but we're almost done with the chapter, sadly, and must needs push on.
Buffy had told me everything, poor girl, about the final moments on the lip of the Hellmouth. I knew that odds were vanishing small that the creature before me was actually Spike, but I thought it best to start with what I had.
CYN: Exposition, blah blah. Buffy's told Giles, so we know Giles is in possession of enough info to re-think his opinion of Spike, if he can decide that's actually Spike and not some revenant. Of course he does, so we swing into the "yep, I died and you can tell by my brief-but-guileless comments I didn't spend any time in hell," from Spike.
"Fuck me," it breathed. "Oh. Sorry."
Sr. ANGELUS: And there's where all your flapdoodle about honoring a martyr goes into the sump, because his first words are anglo-saxon. If Mother Christine could see you now.
CYN: If you're going start talking about that woman, do me a favor and clear out.
SR. ANGELUS: She had your number, all right, you free-thinking backslider. Fic writing! Half-naked, potty-mouthed vampires! Warlocks, seances, shapeshifters and free love! Why not become a Freemason, while you're at it?
CYN: I'm going to cut this short, because Spike's out of the oven and Giles is starting to ponder his past behavior deeply. And that's pretty much the point of the first chapter.
"Good Christ, Rupert, is that you?" The Spike thing winced. "Oh, sorry."
Sr. ANGELUS: Tacking on those apologies isn't going to cut any ice, you know, in Purgatory.
CYN: It's a freaking performance! It's a character! Shit!
I am not a sentimental man -- the exigencies of my profession preclude it -- but that was a moment to remember. I held Spike up by the collar of his borrowed chef's shirt and watched the wonder, awe and realization dawn upon his naked face as he confronted his reflection.
CYN: Rupert finally twigs to Spike being all human. He chokes back a manly tear. And so forth.
I released him and coughed, shielding my eyes.
CYN: See? Manly in the extreme.
Spike obliged me with a few more words: the flames of immolation, I gathered, had united him with the Oversoul as his corrupted form fell away, and he had spent a cheery span in Paradise. In that realm of light and peace he had found his cup of charity so brimful that when the reigning spirits offered him the chance to risk his life, soul and heart on a bizarre and unnatural -- yet positive -- re-embodiment, he signed up like a trooper and popped on through. I inferred that a certain amount of blameless attachment to Buffy came into play with this -- but bear in mind, that is my opinion only and all of the foregoing is heavily paraphrased.
CYN: So that's that. In the first bit I wanted to establish a kinder, gentler Rupert -- not that his resolve to act thus greatly softened his day-to-day with Spike, in the event. He strikes me as a guy who'd want to do right by Spike, given the chance, but who'd find the actual mollycoddling impossible to pull off. So he still bullies him a bit. Can't help it.
CYN:And speaking of bullies, a big thanks to Sr. Angelus for coming by and sharing. Without her nagging and jamming hot pins in my conscience when I was writing this story, it would have been pretty much the same experience, to be honest. Because I've learned to tune her out.
SR ANGELUS: ( cackles) Don't you wish.
CYN: Sorry? Didn't catch that.
***
The Code of the Watchers
by Cynthia Martin
ycymartin@cox.net
R for language
Spike needs a summer job and Giles needs to make amends
For the Immortal Beloved, PG Wodehouse, and cherished betas Miriam and Diane
- Cyn (Mon 2003.10.27 at 01:55 pm EST)
CYN: Hi, this is Cyn. For reasons that don't bear close examination, I thought I'd take a bash at Plin's suggestion that folks offer commentary on their own stuff. I think I have some idea that it will help me get to sleep (I can almost guarantee that it will help you get to sleep). I wasn't sure how to tackle it, until I struck on the conceit of dividing my notes between myself and an alter-ego/evil twin. I've decided to call her Sr. Angelus. I was actually very good friends and sister novices with a Sr. Angelus, back in the dear old monastery. How's that for trippy? Tug that forelock, there, Sr. Angelus.
tense silence
CYN: All right! Excellent! Teeing off, I'll just say that I began writing this thing after I heard that James Marsters had signed to appear on AtS, but before any spoilers broke about how Spike would return. JM con-quotes were everywhere online, though, and he was shooting off his dear handsome yap about how boring it would be if Spike came back human, so I had a pretty good idea that humanity wasn't on the boards. And I knew there wouldn't be any Giles. So I picked the most AU thing I could think of and went with that.
Let me go out
Like a blister in the sun
Let me go out
Big hand I know you're the one
~Violent Femmes
CYN: I really like that song.
I bent over the shapeshifter, patiently adjusting her garish spangled ruff and trying to prevent a fresh onslaught of tears. "You looked wonderful, my dear."
CYN: Blah, blah, blah. Opening scene stuff, to establish that Giles is trying to find a niche in the post-averted-apocalypse world by running a magic club. And to shove a couple of supporting-casters in there before things got too far along.
"Mr. Giles!" The manager was darting through the tables, waving a cell phone. "Mr. Giles, we have a situation. The truck with the pigeons overturned on Howard Street."
CYN: Oh, yeah: Jeffries is based on a friend, a wonderful guy who manages an Office Max. I went to his wedding. That's his real name. He's cool with being in a story, but I haven't had the nerve to send him a link.
SISTER ANGELUS: There's bad language in this.
CYN: Well, yes. But not much. And Spike always apologizes. And anyway, using low jargon in a work of fiction is often necessary for artistic reasons. I bet God doesn't mind.
SR. ANGELUS: Oh, He minds.
CYN: I don't think so, okay?
SR. ANGELUS: Yes, and you're in a fine position to judge.
CYN: Anyway, Spike shows up in due course. I thought it would be kinda funny if he came out of an oven, because of the noble incineration angle, and because of the old bun in the oven stuff, as slang for pregnancy. Snazzy rebirth metaphors, see.
I closed my eyes and pinched my nose, marshaling my tone to its most even and reassuring. "I would suggest that you call your staff and mop it up, Mr. Dundee."
CYN: Oh, forgot to say that "Dundee" is the name of a posh neighborhood here in Omaha. I was going to buy one of the more modest houses there last summer, before my publisher went belly-up and plunged my widdle world into cash-strapped woe. I assume it's named after somebody rich.
SR. ANGELUS: A rich somebody who trafficks with dark forces. Sympathetically portrayed! Have you lost all fear for your own soul? It's a balloon waiting for a pin, I warn you.
CYN: So: Spike shoots out of the oven.
Water surged from a burst oven in a powerful torrent, cascading onto the floor. It reeked of myrrh and violets and I had barely a moment to register this odd perception when the oven shuddered, cried out like a living thing, and shot a human figure out onto the tiles.
The gushing flow stopped. A man lay on the floor, drenched and immobile, clad in jeans, one tennis shoe and half a black sweater.
CYN: And I figured it wouldn't do too much harm to have Spike's sweater mangled. I just didn't have the guts to go with shirtless, because, Shirtless Spike has ample representation in fic. Not that there's anything wrong with that. At all.
SR ANGELUS: Fry, lechery, fry!
CYN: Yeah, yeah.
The Spike-like thing took a huge gulp of air and began coughing explosively. Then it began sneezing, and this fit was followed by a brief transitional period, if I may so frame it, of scrabbling blindly at the floor like a mudskipper of the American bayous.
CYN: More birth stuff. And I wanted him to be wriggly and helpless. C'mon, admit it: wriggly and helpless!Spike makes every generous heart go pitterpat.
SR. ANGELUS: Feh.
CYN: Look, there's nothing wrong with appreciating beauty. And Spike's true beauty is a moral beauty, after all. Cast your eyes upon him there, all bedraggled after his trip across the planes! Remember his heroic death! Can you deny that your spirit broods over him with surpassing pity and tenderness?
SR. ANGELUS: I'll allow that he died well. All the more reason to avoid turning his opening scene into a wet T-shirt contest.
CYN: If you don't realize I showed terrific restraint with all that water, you don't know me very well.
SR. ANGELUS: Indeed, since you took off the habit, I hardly know you at all. You weren't this man-crazy when you were sixteen years old! Oh, how the nunnish are fallen. I tremble for you.
CYN: Thanks for the support. What a fine idea this was, one of my best. A perfect riot, and my sides hurt from all the hilarity and good feelings, but we're almost done with the chapter, sadly, and must needs push on.
Buffy had told me everything, poor girl, about the final moments on the lip of the Hellmouth. I knew that odds were vanishing small that the creature before me was actually Spike, but I thought it best to start with what I had.
CYN: Exposition, blah blah. Buffy's told Giles, so we know Giles is in possession of enough info to re-think his opinion of Spike, if he can decide that's actually Spike and not some revenant. Of course he does, so we swing into the "yep, I died and you can tell by my brief-but-guileless comments I didn't spend any time in hell," from Spike.
"Fuck me," it breathed. "Oh. Sorry."
Sr. ANGELUS: And there's where all your flapdoodle about honoring a martyr goes into the sump, because his first words are anglo-saxon. If Mother Christine could see you now.
CYN: If you're going start talking about that woman, do me a favor and clear out.
SR. ANGELUS: She had your number, all right, you free-thinking backslider. Fic writing! Half-naked, potty-mouthed vampires! Warlocks, seances, shapeshifters and free love! Why not become a Freemason, while you're at it?
CYN: I'm going to cut this short, because Spike's out of the oven and Giles is starting to ponder his past behavior deeply. And that's pretty much the point of the first chapter.
"Good Christ, Rupert, is that you?" The Spike thing winced. "Oh, sorry."
Sr. ANGELUS: Tacking on those apologies isn't going to cut any ice, you know, in Purgatory.
CYN: It's a freaking performance! It's a character! Shit!
I am not a sentimental man -- the exigencies of my profession preclude it -- but that was a moment to remember. I held Spike up by the collar of his borrowed chef's shirt and watched the wonder, awe and realization dawn upon his naked face as he confronted his reflection.
CYN: Rupert finally twigs to Spike being all human. He chokes back a manly tear. And so forth.
I released him and coughed, shielding my eyes.
CYN: See? Manly in the extreme.
Spike obliged me with a few more words: the flames of immolation, I gathered, had united him with the Oversoul as his corrupted form fell away, and he had spent a cheery span in Paradise. In that realm of light and peace he had found his cup of charity so brimful that when the reigning spirits offered him the chance to risk his life, soul and heart on a bizarre and unnatural -- yet positive -- re-embodiment, he signed up like a trooper and popped on through. I inferred that a certain amount of blameless attachment to Buffy came into play with this -- but bear in mind, that is my opinion only and all of the foregoing is heavily paraphrased.
CYN: So that's that. In the first bit I wanted to establish a kinder, gentler Rupert -- not that his resolve to act thus greatly softened his day-to-day with Spike, in the event. He strikes me as a guy who'd want to do right by Spike, given the chance, but who'd find the actual mollycoddling impossible to pull off. So he still bullies him a bit. Can't help it.
CYN:And speaking of bullies, a big thanks to Sr. Angelus for coming by and sharing. Without her nagging and jamming hot pins in my conscience when I was writing this story, it would have been pretty much the same experience, to be honest. Because I've learned to tune her out.
SR ANGELUS: ( cackles) Don't you wish.
CYN: Sorry? Didn't catch that.
***