regarding homelessness

[monoculi]

So your game plan consists of... scrutinising various options and flapping?

Y'know, I hate to break it to you, but flapping does not an application write, my friend.

P.S. Congrats on the icons. Of course, not a single one has the patch, but I'm sure you won't let a basic requirement like that get in the way of your crazy.

Comments

[herotypical]

...Nah. Putting plaques up in bathrooms? That sounds a little like serial-killer behaviour, doesn't it?

[monoculi]

Maybe a little. Also, there might be rust issues. [He's putting way too much thought into this...]

So. We've established you have a mantle place, and that you've been busy curing obscure ills. What else is new in Buff-Town?

[herotypical]

I'm fighting someone else's war. Have been for a few years.

Oh. And I've got wings. Two of them. Surprise.

[monoculi]

[Way to drop some crazy bombshells, Buffy. Xander looks incredulous.]

Okay, we'll just... park the war thing for a sec, I'll get back to it - but, uh. Wings? As in 'you are the wind beneath my'?

[herotypical]

[ a look. ]

As in Paul McCartney &. It's kind of a package deal, at Luceti.

[monoculi]

[pfft, Xander is fully aware she loves that song, let's not pretend.]

Riiiiiight. So does that mean you can fly?

[herotypical]

[ if you can't pretend, you can at least deny deny deny. ]

Sadly? No. They're a little too small for flight. They're like appendixes: ultimately useless, and yet still strangely the source of many medical disasters.

[monoculi]

[denial is a fine thing.]

So they don't give you any advantage in this war of yours - or theirs. Who's the they, by the way?

[herotypical]

They're called the Malnosso. We're their test subjects and their conscripts. Their ant colony, really. Probably their reality show, on weekends. It's kind of a long story.

[monoculi]

[Xander's currently grimacing.]

It sounds like the kind that doesn't have a happy ending.

[herotypical]

Putting it another way, some months it's only half as hellish as Sunnydale was. At least we know who our big bad is. And at least we can trust their experiments to end.

[monoculi]

[and Buffy said she'd been in this place for years. Years. That's got to mess with anyone's head. With a furrowed look of concern, he reaches out to touch her hand.]

Are you doing OK there? I mean, I know you have a mantle place and all, but...

[herotypical]

[ she grabs onto xander's hand. a little desperately. willow is hardly the only one she's missed. ]

I'm...fine. The mantle comes with a house, y'know. [ and the house comes with a live-in boyfriend, but-- ] So that's something. And my fellow lab-rats can be really...sweet. Fun. Aggravating, sometimes. But they're usually good folk.

Don't worry about me, Xand; I'm Buffy Summers. I'm made of sterner stuff. You can't bring me down with just a pair of wings and a few war-games.

[ downplay. downplay it all. ]

[monoculi]

I always worry about you, Buff. It's in my job description. [yeah, he can sense the downplaying. he gives her hand a reassuring squeeze.]

...so, Malnosso, huh? Does that sound like a pasta special to you, or is that just me?

[herotypical]

[ xander's her heart and her strength; it would be pretty tough to hide anything from him. ]

...Like a sinister ravioli. Or a bad lasagne. [ ... ] I guess they're some kind of hot-shot research corporation, on the outside. Dedicated to the pursuit of finding a way home at the expense of their captives' dignity and sanity. Aaaand now I'm kinda craving mac and cheese.

[monoculi]

Kinda like the Initiative, but more ambitious and/or crazy?

[Oh dear, who brought up the subject of food?] Mmm, mac and cheese. Truly the food of the gods.

[herotypical]

Very Initiative-y, actually. Complete with kidnappings and wacky side-effects, though the Malnosso don't just take the demons. They take all of us.

[monoculi]

Sounds like a laugh riot. Have you ever seen them?

[herotypical]

Some of them. They deign to speak to us from time to time. We're not their only operation.

[monoculi]

Something tells me we wouldn't find anything about these guys in Giles' books...

[herotypical]

Not when they control the contents of the town library, at least. Censorship at its worst. Or best, depending on your perspective.

[monoculi]

For our purposes, I think we'll go with worst. Not that I'm the biggest reader of them all.

[herotypical]

...Eh. You did good, reading-wise. Always there to pitch in and spread the research labour. I have to do most of it solo, these days.

[ which you just know she hates, having usually been the one who got to skip the research sessions. ]

[monoculi]

[yeah, he was always pretty envious about that.]

Well, maybe not for much longer.

[herotypical]

...So I've seen. Word travels fast. [ and she probably shouldn't be looking so damn happy except she hasn't seen him -- game-wise -- in years. ]

Is it wrong that I'm kinda...glad? I mean -- hey, letting BFFs get stuck in feathery hell-holes doesn't exactly fit the definition of heroic. But I'm having a hard time seeing the bad, here.