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jedibuttercup) wrote2019-09-02 02:25 am
jedibuttercup) wrote2019-09-02 02:25 am
Entry tags:
Fic: Cut-Rate Magical Insurance (B:tVS/Allstate Commercials; Gen)
B:tVS/Allstate "Mayhem" Commercials; 1800 words. Crack. For ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
twistedshorts.
Everything that can go wrong, is going wrong at the local Council House. And usually as wrong as possible. Willow and Buffy investigate.
Title: Cut-Rate Magical Insurance
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: K+/PG
Spoilers: Allstate Mayhem Commercials; Post-series for B:tVS; no comics
Notes: I had to do at least one crack-fic for the challenge....
Summary: Everything that can go wrong, is going wrong at the local Council House. And usually as wrong as possible. Willow and Buffy investigate.
Buffy stared out the front window of the local Council House, arms crossed over her chest. "What am I looking for here, Wills?" she asked, frowning out at the utterly normal-looking expanse of suburban yard, sidewalk, and residential side street on the other side of the glass.
Willow bit her lip, checking her watch, then looked up again. "Any time now," she said. "Just watch. Don't worry, you'll know it when you see it."
"Not all that fond of surprises these days," Buffy reminded her. "Especially surprises that come with a side-order of oogly boogly. This is about the epic spooky weirdness you called me here for, right?"
She threw a sideways glance at her friend; she looked good these days, suntanned from her long stay in Rio with strawberry blonde streaks in her shoulder-length red hair, dressed on Kennedy's parents' budget rather than Sunnydale resale shop vintage. She almost looked-- mature, a very strange realization to make considering that Buffy still didn't feel like her own cookies had finished baking.
Willow briefly met her gaze, smiling wryly at her, then turned back to the window. "Epic weirdness, definitely. Spooky? Not so sure. It's just-- well, you have to see it to believe it."
The view hadn't been completely static; there was a light breeze stirring the daisies in Mrs. Next-Door-Neighbor's flower bed, and Mr. Across-the-Street's dog had trotted outside to do his business, checking every corner of the yard for stinky trespasser scent that needed to be obliterated. Nothing that made her Slayer instincts alert even a little, though. The closest thing to a threat had been the guy on a scooter of some kind going by a few minutes ago, but he'd been on the opposite side of the street.
"Hey, there she is!" Willow perked up, then cupped one hand discreetly out of view of the window and began muttering something under her breath.
"Uh-- she looks like a mailman, Willow. Is she secretly a demon?" Buffy squinted, examining the woman in the post office uniform as she got out of her mail truck and headed for the sidewalk. She looked perfectly normal to the Slayer's eyes, about her own height, a little older, and pretty fit; probably an athlete of some kind off the job. Though that didn't necessarily mean anything; as long as she didn't eat kittens or babies or something, it wasn't really any of Buffy's business. If she was on Willow's radar, though, she probably wasn't all sweetness and light.
"Just watch," Willow repeated, shaking her head. "You'll see."
The mailwoman paused at the edge of the yard, hesitating for some reason as she stared at the front walk; then she shook her head, muttering something to herself, and moved forward with firm steps on the concrete. She reached the house, off to the left of where Buffy stood half-concealed by the living room's gauzy curtains, and reached for the old-fashioned letter box attached to the house-- which Buffy could have told her wasn't easy, when you were as height-challenged as they were. She frowned, then stepped up onto the brick stoop, and reached for the box again--
Then flailed, throwing her arms up in the air, letters showering everywhere as one of the bricks came loose under her heel--
Then sat down with a startled oof, as the telltale pale glow of Willow's protective magic eased her to a less disastrous halt.
Okay, so that had been a little startling, and sudden. But only for her, apparently; not for Willow.
"...Is it just the mailpeople? Or is it everyone who visits?" she asked, thinking it through.
"Everyone. And not just visitors; everyone that lives here, too. Though they put enough wards up someone can usually catch it before anything goes really wrong. Don't ask me about the raccoons in the garage, though," Willow added with a shudder. "I'm pretty sure they were already there before Colleen called me in."
"So it's not just the bricks. It's...."
"Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. And usually as wrong as possible," Willow confirmed, then waved her hand again as the mailwoman climbed shakily to her feet. The scattered letters unscattered just a little at the motion, drawing mostly into one loose pile and shedding the trace amounts of dirt and other outdoorsy stains they'd picked up when they hit the ground. The one that had taken the most initial damage, from what Buffy could see, had some kind of logo in the corner-- probably the college letter one of the girls there had been talking about at dinner the night before.
Willow was right; this was serious. It was only a matter of time before something irreparable happened.
It was also more than a little ironic. "Story of our lives, huh. Is there any such thing as a Curse of Murphy? Murphy's Law Curse? Something like that?"
"If that was all it was, it wouldn't be..." Willow began, shaking her head, then gasped and thrust her hands toward the roof.
There was a very strange series of loud squishy thumping sounds above them-- and then a very large tree branch bounce-rolled off the roof, landing right in front of the window.
"Warm spring breezes," Willow hissed under her breath as if it was a curse, then turned back to Buffy, green eyes bright with irritation. "As I was saying. If it was that, it wouldn't be so hard to stop. Something's definitely going on here. And something's definitely causing it, 'cause this is the only house on the block with a heaping helping of extra-bad luck with no-luck cherries on top. I'm just having a hard time tracking down what it is; it's like nothing I've seen before. I thought you might be able to run down some rumors? Find the local demon bar, or something?"
"If someone's causing it, then someone's gotta know who I have to Slay to stop it," Buffy agreed. Then she frowned, an old memory teasing at her thoughts. "Speaking of seeing-- have you tried that Monsieur Silk Knickers ritual Anya told me to try when Mom first got sick? The one that clued me in about Dawn?"
"Monsieur Silk... oh!" Willow grinned at her. "You mean tirer la couture! That's actually a great idea-- though I think we're a little beyond stinky incense and trancing these days. Here."
She held out her hand; Buffy took it, then blinked as her eyes tingled and everything-- shifted, taking on a slightly grainy, sepia-toned texture. "Whoa, I think it's working."
"Pulled the curtain back," Willow said smugly. "I should have thought of this before. Now, let's see-- Whoa! Who is that?"
Buffy blinked at her alarmed friend, absently noting the thick black and white streaks that had appeared in Willow's hair, then followed the witch's gaze out the window-- and instantly recoiled, herself. Sprawled on the front walk where the mailwoman had been was a man in a dark suit, complete with tie and shiny shoes, with windswept-looking brown hair, a five o'clock shadow, a bruise under his eye, and a butterfly bandage taped to one cheek. He was grinning madly in their direction.
So was the copy of him sitting on top of the fallen branch, with leaves stuck in his hair.
So was the version of him that seemed to be stuck to the driver's side of the truck in the driveway, just back of the front window.
So was the duplicate of him approaching down the sidewalk, a fist full of way-too-many dog leashes in his hands, and the other one that was somehow tumbling in the road, heading in the vague direction of their yard. And more: she could feel them, almost like vampires, lurking just out of her sight. Every one of them was disheveled in a slightly different way, but they were definitely all the same guy. Being. Thing.
"Oh my god; he's everywhere," Buffy blurted in surprise.
"No wonder I was having trouble," Willow said, then waved her hand sharply, wiping away the sepia-toned overlay and all the cloned suit-guys with it. The neighborhood went right back to being innocuous, though now that Buffy was aware of the lurking danger, she could still sense the invader's presence in the ordinary-looking, harried dog walker, the plastic bag drifting in the breeze, and the Slaymobile's blind spot. "It's a manifestation!"
"A manifa-what?" Buffy turned to her, alarmed. "We're not talking another First Evil here, are we?"
"No, no. More like-- some kind of entity of Chaos? Like that Halloween thing Giles' old frenemy did that once. Very minor deity-level power, which is why it's just us being affected. Someone must have done something dumb and summoned it unbound; everything that's happening, it's, it's not being done deliberately, it's just little tiny pieces of the entity itself, making the unlikely likelier."
"You think it's something that can be Slayed, or banished?"
"Or maybe-- protected against? If I call an all-blessing down on the house; hmmm...."
She drifted off in magicky thoughts, then pulled out her smart phone to dial the coven and get more advice; Buffy left her to it and went to the house's library instead, tracing her finger down the mixed rows of ancient and reprinted-off-the-Internet tomes, and plucked out one on 'Chaos deities'. Just to check.
She found Janus there, as Willow had suggested; but he disqualified by virtue of having two faces. And he wasn't the only one with a distinguishing feature. All of them seemed to be easily identifiable, if you knew how to look: like a black widow spider with its hourglass. And on the next to the last page--
"Mayhem," Buffy said grimly, staring at the handsome-ish, battered image. On the nose naming, much?
Though of course, she was one to talk. She wondered what his original name had been....
Then something went fzzt in the outlet where one of the lamps was plugged in, and the bookcase Buffy had selected her index from acquired a sudden unwanted accessory.
She lunged across the room and began beating at the growing flames with the book in her hands. "Willow!" she yelled, aghast. "I think it knows what you're up to, and it's fighting back!"
"Got it!" Willow yelled back. Then a cooling wind seemed to blow through the house, carrying with it a sentence spoken in a very deep, comforting voice:
You're in good hands.
The flames wilted, then winked out; the book in her hands lost the soot staining its edges; and the scorch marks around the outlet evaporated away. Buffy stared, then went back to the front room, and gaped at the complete lack of tree branch on the lawn. Mayhem was gone.
"Whatever you just did," she said fervently, "you're doing that to every house we own."
(x-posted on twistedshorts and on AO3)
twistedshorts.Everything that can go wrong, is going wrong at the local Council House. And usually as wrong as possible. Willow and Buffy investigate.
Title: Cut-Rate Magical Insurance
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: K+/PG
Spoilers: Allstate Mayhem Commercials; Post-series for B:tVS; no comics
Notes: I had to do at least one crack-fic for the challenge....
Summary: Everything that can go wrong, is going wrong at the local Council House. And usually as wrong as possible. Willow and Buffy investigate.
Buffy stared out the front window of the local Council House, arms crossed over her chest. "What am I looking for here, Wills?" she asked, frowning out at the utterly normal-looking expanse of suburban yard, sidewalk, and residential side street on the other side of the glass.
Willow bit her lip, checking her watch, then looked up again. "Any time now," she said. "Just watch. Don't worry, you'll know it when you see it."
"Not all that fond of surprises these days," Buffy reminded her. "Especially surprises that come with a side-order of oogly boogly. This is about the epic spooky weirdness you called me here for, right?"
She threw a sideways glance at her friend; she looked good these days, suntanned from her long stay in Rio with strawberry blonde streaks in her shoulder-length red hair, dressed on Kennedy's parents' budget rather than Sunnydale resale shop vintage. She almost looked-- mature, a very strange realization to make considering that Buffy still didn't feel like her own cookies had finished baking.
Willow briefly met her gaze, smiling wryly at her, then turned back to the window. "Epic weirdness, definitely. Spooky? Not so sure. It's just-- well, you have to see it to believe it."
The view hadn't been completely static; there was a light breeze stirring the daisies in Mrs. Next-Door-Neighbor's flower bed, and Mr. Across-the-Street's dog had trotted outside to do his business, checking every corner of the yard for stinky trespasser scent that needed to be obliterated. Nothing that made her Slayer instincts alert even a little, though. The closest thing to a threat had been the guy on a scooter of some kind going by a few minutes ago, but he'd been on the opposite side of the street.
"Hey, there she is!" Willow perked up, then cupped one hand discreetly out of view of the window and began muttering something under her breath.
"Uh-- she looks like a mailman, Willow. Is she secretly a demon?" Buffy squinted, examining the woman in the post office uniform as she got out of her mail truck and headed for the sidewalk. She looked perfectly normal to the Slayer's eyes, about her own height, a little older, and pretty fit; probably an athlete of some kind off the job. Though that didn't necessarily mean anything; as long as she didn't eat kittens or babies or something, it wasn't really any of Buffy's business. If she was on Willow's radar, though, she probably wasn't all sweetness and light.
"Just watch," Willow repeated, shaking her head. "You'll see."
The mailwoman paused at the edge of the yard, hesitating for some reason as she stared at the front walk; then she shook her head, muttering something to herself, and moved forward with firm steps on the concrete. She reached the house, off to the left of where Buffy stood half-concealed by the living room's gauzy curtains, and reached for the old-fashioned letter box attached to the house-- which Buffy could have told her wasn't easy, when you were as height-challenged as they were. She frowned, then stepped up onto the brick stoop, and reached for the box again--
Then flailed, throwing her arms up in the air, letters showering everywhere as one of the bricks came loose under her heel--
Then sat down with a startled oof, as the telltale pale glow of Willow's protective magic eased her to a less disastrous halt.
Okay, so that had been a little startling, and sudden. But only for her, apparently; not for Willow.
"...Is it just the mailpeople? Or is it everyone who visits?" she asked, thinking it through.
"Everyone. And not just visitors; everyone that lives here, too. Though they put enough wards up someone can usually catch it before anything goes really wrong. Don't ask me about the raccoons in the garage, though," Willow added with a shudder. "I'm pretty sure they were already there before Colleen called me in."
"So it's not just the bricks. It's...."
"Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. And usually as wrong as possible," Willow confirmed, then waved her hand again as the mailwoman climbed shakily to her feet. The scattered letters unscattered just a little at the motion, drawing mostly into one loose pile and shedding the trace amounts of dirt and other outdoorsy stains they'd picked up when they hit the ground. The one that had taken the most initial damage, from what Buffy could see, had some kind of logo in the corner-- probably the college letter one of the girls there had been talking about at dinner the night before.
Willow was right; this was serious. It was only a matter of time before something irreparable happened.
It was also more than a little ironic. "Story of our lives, huh. Is there any such thing as a Curse of Murphy? Murphy's Law Curse? Something like that?"
"If that was all it was, it wouldn't be..." Willow began, shaking her head, then gasped and thrust her hands toward the roof.
There was a very strange series of loud squishy thumping sounds above them-- and then a very large tree branch bounce-rolled off the roof, landing right in front of the window.
"Warm spring breezes," Willow hissed under her breath as if it was a curse, then turned back to Buffy, green eyes bright with irritation. "As I was saying. If it was that, it wouldn't be so hard to stop. Something's definitely going on here. And something's definitely causing it, 'cause this is the only house on the block with a heaping helping of extra-bad luck with no-luck cherries on top. I'm just having a hard time tracking down what it is; it's like nothing I've seen before. I thought you might be able to run down some rumors? Find the local demon bar, or something?"
"If someone's causing it, then someone's gotta know who I have to Slay to stop it," Buffy agreed. Then she frowned, an old memory teasing at her thoughts. "Speaking of seeing-- have you tried that Monsieur Silk Knickers ritual Anya told me to try when Mom first got sick? The one that clued me in about Dawn?"
"Monsieur Silk... oh!" Willow grinned at her. "You mean tirer la couture! That's actually a great idea-- though I think we're a little beyond stinky incense and trancing these days. Here."
She held out her hand; Buffy took it, then blinked as her eyes tingled and everything-- shifted, taking on a slightly grainy, sepia-toned texture. "Whoa, I think it's working."
"Pulled the curtain back," Willow said smugly. "I should have thought of this before. Now, let's see-- Whoa! Who is that?"
Buffy blinked at her alarmed friend, absently noting the thick black and white streaks that had appeared in Willow's hair, then followed the witch's gaze out the window-- and instantly recoiled, herself. Sprawled on the front walk where the mailwoman had been was a man in a dark suit, complete with tie and shiny shoes, with windswept-looking brown hair, a five o'clock shadow, a bruise under his eye, and a butterfly bandage taped to one cheek. He was grinning madly in their direction.
So was the copy of him sitting on top of the fallen branch, with leaves stuck in his hair.
So was the version of him that seemed to be stuck to the driver's side of the truck in the driveway, just back of the front window.
So was the duplicate of him approaching down the sidewalk, a fist full of way-too-many dog leashes in his hands, and the other one that was somehow tumbling in the road, heading in the vague direction of their yard. And more: she could feel them, almost like vampires, lurking just out of her sight. Every one of them was disheveled in a slightly different way, but they were definitely all the same guy. Being. Thing.
"Oh my god; he's everywhere," Buffy blurted in surprise.
"No wonder I was having trouble," Willow said, then waved her hand sharply, wiping away the sepia-toned overlay and all the cloned suit-guys with it. The neighborhood went right back to being innocuous, though now that Buffy was aware of the lurking danger, she could still sense the invader's presence in the ordinary-looking, harried dog walker, the plastic bag drifting in the breeze, and the Slaymobile's blind spot. "It's a manifestation!"
"A manifa-what?" Buffy turned to her, alarmed. "We're not talking another First Evil here, are we?"
"No, no. More like-- some kind of entity of Chaos? Like that Halloween thing Giles' old frenemy did that once. Very minor deity-level power, which is why it's just us being affected. Someone must have done something dumb and summoned it unbound; everything that's happening, it's, it's not being done deliberately, it's just little tiny pieces of the entity itself, making the unlikely likelier."
"You think it's something that can be Slayed, or banished?"
"Or maybe-- protected against? If I call an all-blessing down on the house; hmmm...."
She drifted off in magicky thoughts, then pulled out her smart phone to dial the coven and get more advice; Buffy left her to it and went to the house's library instead, tracing her finger down the mixed rows of ancient and reprinted-off-the-Internet tomes, and plucked out one on 'Chaos deities'. Just to check.
She found Janus there, as Willow had suggested; but he disqualified by virtue of having two faces. And he wasn't the only one with a distinguishing feature. All of them seemed to be easily identifiable, if you knew how to look: like a black widow spider with its hourglass. And on the next to the last page--
"Mayhem," Buffy said grimly, staring at the handsome-ish, battered image. On the nose naming, much?
Though of course, she was one to talk. She wondered what his original name had been....
Then something went fzzt in the outlet where one of the lamps was plugged in, and the bookcase Buffy had selected her index from acquired a sudden unwanted accessory.
She lunged across the room and began beating at the growing flames with the book in her hands. "Willow!" she yelled, aghast. "I think it knows what you're up to, and it's fighting back!"
"Got it!" Willow yelled back. Then a cooling wind seemed to blow through the house, carrying with it a sentence spoken in a very deep, comforting voice:
You're in good hands.
The flames wilted, then winked out; the book in her hands lost the soot staining its edges; and the scorch marks around the outlet evaporated away. Buffy stared, then went back to the front room, and gaped at the complete lack of tree branch on the lawn. Mayhem was gone.
"Whatever you just did," she said fervently, "you're doing that to every house we own."
(x-posted on twistedshorts and on AO3)