jwaneeta

Is there no end to the suffering we must endure at that idiot's hands? God, please go away.

This might be a spoiler, though not to anyone who's actually been watching the AtS:

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CYN: Hullo, hullo, hullo. We're in the stretch now, hey? We've almost got this thing wrapped up, hey?

SR. ANGELUS: This grief is like the sea. Endless waves of sorrow lapping at life's cruel shore. Retreating at the ebb only to return, a tidal bore of sadness, a surging onrush of anger, loss and pain.

CYN: Sister's still a little pouty about AtS.

SR. ANGELUS: Who shall deliver us? Where, O Lord, is thy justice? I just started liking this! What's going to happen to those poor people?

CYN: I'll tell you what'll happen: Lorne and Wes will get married and start their own line of gourmet frozen dinners, showering their honest wealth on their friends. Gunn will forsake his lawsharking ways and rediscover the meaning of life. Angel and Spike will both turn human after a severe pelting with magic eggs, and Angel will slope off to work in the Sudan after standing best man at Spike and Buffy's wedding. Fred will perfect synthetic healthcare and save the world from hunger, disease and low wages. Harmony will enter your convent and die of joy in the odor of sanctity at 115 years of age.

SR. ANGELUS: I wouldn't mind that so much. Are you sure?

CYN: Cross my heart. Okay, riddle me this, caped crusader: how do you write a sex scene without any sex?


The Code of the Watchers

by Cynthia Martin
ycymartin@cox.net

PG-13 for cussing and implied hanky panky



Didn't Schopenhauer boost for the modesty of lovers? Shame came into it somewhere, I'm not sure why, but any rate he was clearly supportive of couples getting a room, if you follow me, and didn't hold with public displays of affection. And as I lay panting under the axle of Jeffries' sedan and watched another gout of flame pierce the Iowan sky, I was obliged to admit the man had a point.

CYN: It's no secret that I suck at writing sex scenes. I'm just too square. I get all shy. Of course in a story like this you've got to have it, but what to do? And as funny as sex is in real life, it just doesn't seem to fly as comedy, usually. Certainly it's beyond my abilites.

SR. ANGELUS: Do you think that Gunn will go to heaven?

CYN: On a rocket. Anyway, I was thinking about the Hellmouth and the Flaming Hands, and about the Corn King stuff I'd read, I think it was in a book by CS Lewis, of all people. And about Wicker Men, don't ask me why. It just seemed to me that if you have flames shooting scores of feet into the sky, you can bundle a lot of mighty theme and delerious reunion shagging into one parcel. Very much wanted Buffy and Spike's flamey selves to represent joy and wild lurve, after he died so nicely.


Where was nature's sheltering veil when you really wanted it, I had to ask myself. Didn't somebody write a poem about the subject, something about all creation conspiring to conceal the Lovers' blushing pride from human envy and prying eyes?

The rain to the wind said,
"You something and I'll something, too"
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually, I forget,
And lay lodged, I think, on something else.

CYN: I got that poem off the internet after searching for hours and then mangled it to death. I can't remember the name, but I thought all those flowers getting the old smote in their beds was kinda sexy.

SR. ANGELUS: Do you think Fred might have a vocation?

CYN: You could send her some literature, Sister. Couldn't hurt.

SR. ANGELUS: I'll send her books, too. She's obviously a reader.

CYN: Excellent plan.


Perhaps that's the wrong one. At any rate, if you want conspiracy to conceal, strike nature from your list. Nature's sheltering veil was a bust that night in the cornfield. A reasonably blinding pillar of fire rose at intervals from amid the trembling rows, and one would have to be considerably dimmer than the dimmest brick not to infer what was going forward with Spike and Buffy.

CYN: La la la, offscreen sex, la la la.


We had high-centered between a ditch of sorts and a tussok of some description, and getting the sedan free was proving jolly Herculean. Much business having to do with crawling under chassis and wriggling among clods like the base worm was involved


CYN: Another reason I used a cornfield was because you can't drive a tank through them. They're impassible. Alfalfa, not so much.


To my astonishment the stalks parted and Spike and Buffy appeared in the glow of the headlights, entwined like a pair of smitten boas on a pharaoh's miter. Little tongues of flame darted about their clingy persons in a manner quite embarrassing to behold.

I indicated our marooned vehicle. "Stuck," I informed them succinctly.

Buffy regarded me, the sedan, me, the sedan again, and then turned her dazed eyes upon Spike. "There's a problem with the car, Spike."

"Before God I worship you," breathed Spike by way of answer.

SR. ANGELUS: That's just blasphemy. But I'm glad he's going to make an honest woman of her. She can work on his scandalous penchant for deity-substitution later.

CYN: Sure. She'll go at it like gangbusters.


"Tell me this is real," sighed Buffy, abandoning the subject of cars.

Spike broke the kiss. "I cherish and adore you. I live and die in you. I love you like the rain, Buffy, like the rain."

"I love you like the rain too," testified Buffy moistly.

CYN: Whoops, I forgot to correct that bit about the seraph. Well. *taps* No time like the present. There.

"Oh, God! Say it again! No, stop, don't!" Spike's mental equilibrium seemed rather loose on the spindle, but his face was incandescent with devotion. "You don't have to say that, it doesn't matter. Oh, Buffy, my seraph, my light, my all. Just let me serve you. Let me wait upon your word and tremble at your smile. Let me... let me... do errands, water your lawn, fix your telly..."

CYN: That's better. It was sticking in my brain like a tack.


"Buffy," vowed Spike, "I am your possession. I am in your hands. Tell me I am yours."

SR. ANGELUS: At least he understands what love is, unlike most of this ungenerous and cowardly world. Perhaps I've been a bit impatient with his potty mouth.

CYN: All the world loves a lover, Sister.

SR. ANGELUS: Clearly not, or they wouldn't be cancelling the Angel. (piteously) Why are they cancelling the show?

CYN: It's a mystery. Some thing to do with filthy lucre.

SR. ANGELUS: Oh! The hounds!


This ghastly avalanche of romantic rot was capped by another sheaf of flame, which sprang from the earth and enfolded the lip-smacking pair like a glowing sail.
"Forgive me..."


SR. ANGELUS: And he knows he's a sinner. Also good.

CYN: Mmm. Uh, I mean, yeah: at least he knows that much.

It was dashed hard on the eyes but my mood improved with every step. Certainly we all remained in mortal danger from foes unknown with no real plan except blind flight, but I couldn't quash the topping glow that comes of seeing the face of Duty when she is satisfied. My chief aim had been achieved. Buffy and Spike were stuck to one another like plasters and Love had bridged the inky void of Death. Spike and I were square, or near it. Moreover I felt certain that the Watcherly succession had been assured -- there's nothing like burning an acre or so of corn to render a lad amenable to guidance re: career options. All in all, the checklist was in fine shape.

CYN: Until I ran out of time and tossed the checklist. Sigh.


At length we encountered a crossroads and two buildings thereat: one, a roadhouse of dilapidated and uncertain appeal and across from it a simple home -- dark but for a string of Christmas lights illuminating the legend Mend Your Ways or Count Your Days painted large on the clapboards facing the tavern. Some tension with zoning laws, I surmised.

CYN: That's a real place. It's out in Bellevue, south of Omaha. Actually the Repent! sign is very well-made, with wooden letters nailed to the wall of a house across from a tavern. But I made it more amatuer because it sounded more likely, I thought. Still get the whimwhams thinking about the people who live in that house, who went to such effort over a thunderously scolding sign. The real one says: Turn From Sin and Run to God, or something like that. All very good advice, but it seems a little hard to nail it onto the side of your house.

SR. ANGELUS: I will refrain from commenting about the courage of your convictions or lack thereof.

CYN: Will you? Starting when?


"You are my paradise," he told her.
"Your hair is just the same," replied Buffy, combing it with her fingers.

SR. ANGELUS: He seems like a nice young man. Why must he be such a persistent idolater?

CYN: It's his way.


"Do you forgive me for the bot?" murmured Spike.
"I forgive you."

"Do you forgive me for the tower?"

"All the time."

"The eggs. How about the eggs?"

"What eggs?" asked Buffy innocently.

SR. ANGELUS: You really need to get over those eggs, dear.

CYN: They made no sense! They were completely illogical! What eggs?

Distantly, I heard Stan's phone ringing.


CYN: Okay, a little schtick over towing, and that's that.


"Spike." I tapped him. "Fancy a game of pool?"


SR. ANGELUS: I wonder if Angel will find that nice girl Darla in the Sudan. Darla's the one for him, I think. They could settle down and raise goats.

CYN: Sister, you're uncanny. How did you guess?