Subject: [BA_Gutter] Fic. Waiting For Gordo
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 11:45:36 -0000
From: "philip_gavigan" <phgavigan1959@wmconnect.com>


        Waiting for Gordo;  a study of emergent BTVS/ATS  fan fiction
conventions clumsily wrapped up in satire.  One or two digs at Mutant
Enemy's failure of dramatic narrative included at no additional
charge.

        Author, pgavigan

        Authors note,  Whedon and ME; yes.  Me, no.

        Author's explanation.  One too many visits to the
FanFiction.net site and too many Buffy/Immortal and post ATS stories
with similar themes.  They tend to blur together after awhile and
this is the result.

        Author's thanks.  Much praise to the kind, considerate, and
very patient Tobywolf13 who, despite a very hectic schedule took the
precious time necessary to make this legible.  Any compliments should
go her way, all flames should be directed to me.

        *****

        Every major city in the United States will have at least one
watering hole where the patrons have an affinity for wearing
triangularly shaped pieces of soft foam rubber as hats.  They will
paint themselves in a clashing green and yellow combination, consume
massive amounts of bratwursts, onion rings and malted beverages and
cheer on a team that they secretly know has no true chance of winning
the Big Game. This is not, despite all the evidence to the contrary,
a sign of mass dementia.  It is the demonstration of a common passion
that binds those people who might have no other connection to each
other.  It's the idea of community, of being with ones friends. And
it is also a fact that if one was looking for a tavern where everyone
knew their name they could certainly find one where they could be
alone in a crowd.  It was exactly this attribute that had led one of
the last, if not surviving then at least existing products of the
Victorian Age to cozy up to the several yards of scarred teak and
cedar that constituted the main attraction of the Nowhere Inn.

        If there was an advantage to being a vampire headed to a
state of extreme intoxication, Spike thought, it was that you didn't
have to look at your reflection on the intrusive mirrors that most
bars still insisted on placing just behind the top shelf booze.  It
was funny to watch someone else grow progressively more plastered as
the evening went on, less so when it was your own face that wound up
with the complexion of curdled milk.  If one, however,  paid
sufficient attention a mirror could provide an early warning device
for both potential threats or people one never expected to see
again.  Sometimes these two possibilities were combined into a single
figure such as the Californian bottle blonde with the strident
attitude and a message to deliver.

        "Spike, since you did not come crawling back to my side at
the moment of your resurrection I have decided that I no longer love
you.  I have done this in spite of the fact that you died for me
after months of being my most steadfast and sometimes sole support in
the battle against the First Evil and that my out of hand rejection
of you makes me appear to be Sam Kinison's worse nightmare made real."

        For a moment a billion and one snarky, vicious, even shirty
remarks jostled and clanked and jockeyed for position against each
other under Spike's platinum tresses.   But he refrained from using
any of them, not so much so out of consideration for the girl in
question's feelings but rather his own growing appreciation of a
relatively pain free existence.  "I never thought you did."  He said
with utter sincerity.   "Love me, I mean.  Remember, held my hand and
lied to me in that sweet little baby girl voice of yours?  Hell of a
thing to do to a guy while his digits are turning into ash.  Always
wondered whom that little fib was meant to comfort, me or you?

        With that he returned his attention to the empty shot glass
before him and didn't even bother to watch as the woman spun on her
heels of her fashionable boots, worked her way through the crowd and
left the bar.  He sighed once before kneading his knuckles over his
temples in an effort to relieve the sudden, glaring pain that had
appeared along with Buffy.   The ache in his heart was a constant
that he had gradually come to accept as the one thing in the world
that was truly his.  Then he gestured with his cigarette, which
thanks to the intrusive efforts of health Nazis everywhere had again
become the ultra cool symbol of angst ridden rebels and not merely
the symbol for the abominably rude behavior of the French, for
another shot of something really cheap.  He downed it and was about
to follow with a beer chaser when he realized that that a certain
special someone had returned and was standing patiently behind him.

        "Spike, I have found True Love with the Immortal, despite the
fact that Whedon has never introduced a character with his attributes
that wasn't a filthy, soulless demon and I had spent the seven years
in Sunnydale establishing the fact that I can only love men with
souls.  I am able to find True Love with the Immortal as I have
apparently lost between fifty to one hundred I. Q. points since the
end of my series and never bothered to do a simple background check
to find out that the Immortal, who is my True Love, has a past
history with you and Angel --- who are now to be hence forth known as
Buffy's Once True Loves--- of torture and sexual humiliation.  I am
also in complete denial of the fact that by his very definition of
being Immortal means that he will be unable to regard me as anything
other than a temporary source of carnal release.  I can do all of
this because I have found True Love with the Immortal, who is
charming, sexually gifted and really, really needs to get some kind
of name.

        "Good on you", he said while wondering if somehow Willow had
managed to repair his Shag-bot toy.  No, that was undoubtedly the
original, less pleasant version 1.0 walking out of the bar a second
time and walking out on him yet again. The ice pick that had been
inserted just behind his right eye before traveling along his neural
pathways to his right cranial hemisphere was really beginning to
party, so much so that his hair was starting to clench.  He had
complete confidence that it would soon migrate south down to his
butt.  Probably to join forces with the other pain in the arse who
had returned and was waiting to lay into him again.

        "Spike, it is now time for you to join the desperate campaign
that I and the Immortal, who is my True Love, am waging against an
inadequately developed yet somehow immensely powerful and dangerous
foe.  I am about to risk your life, those of Angel, my sister, and
associates even though I cannot offer any substantial reason for you
to join this crusade of mine and the Immortal's, who is my True
Love.  I can do this because even though I have found True Love I
still illogically assume that I remain the center of the universe for
you and Angel..."

        "Who shall be henceforth known as Buffy's Once True
Loves..."

        "And by the process of having once been Buffy's, that's me,
Once True Love you must always act like a properly whipped male and
assist me whenever I request your aid even though you have absolutely
no reason to help me.  I also expect that you will have the good
taste not to bring up the Immortal's, who is my True Love, behavior
during his campaign of harassment and embarrassment against you
throughout your last visit to Rome as it might lead me to doubt the
truthfulness of his lies asserting that he didn't seek me out as
merely another sexual conquest to rub in your face."

        "Tell you what, I'll send you a memo just as soon as I care.
Maybe have your people get together with my people and we'll... "
Spike's sardonic response trailed off into nothingness as he realized
he was delivering it to Buffy's backside, which pretty much seemed to
be the story of his life.  Any time he had actually had anything
important to say to the Slayer she would never hang around long
enough to hear it.   A quick glance at the mirror confirmed that she
had made her way to and out of the door and was now already coming
back.

        "Spike, it is now time for you to follow me into an
apocalyptic battle that will result in your untimely staking and the
elimination of one of the most interesting characters from the
Jossverse even though the author of this story hasn't put the time or
energy into creating any interesting characters to replace you and
has reduced the remaining Scoobies to faint replicas of their most
extreme and grating personality traits."

        "The whelp has a personality?  I thought Season Six took care
of that minor impediment."

        Buffy continued her recitation as if there had been no
interruption, or at least none that could possibly penetrate her Zone
of Ultimate Self-Absorption.  "I will eventually discover to my
surprise and to no one else's that the Immortal, who is my True Love,
is in reality a conniving monster who plans to destroy the world for
no readily evident reason since he will thereafter have no place to
store his infinite supply of hand tailored Italian silk suits.  I
will speedily kill him with incredible ease despite the overly long
build up suggesting that he is all-powerful because of the great
spiritual strength that your painful demise will impart me.  Well,
that and the fact that most fan fiction writers can't compose a
decent fight sequence.   This will allow me to fall weeping into your
despised grandsire's arms and, in loving memory of you, I will again
find True Love with Angel who will hence forth be known as my Soul
Mate despite the fact that the sole time that we ever mated he lost
his soul and returned to being the vicious monster Angelus.  Who,
while he had no love for me, I still loved and allowed to slaughter
the innocents of Sunnydale while I happily staked any vampires who
were not my True Love."

        "Died for you once Slayer; been there, done that and got the
bloodstained T-shirt."

        "Can you tell me where Angel is so that I can tell him that I
have found True Love with the Immortal?"

        Spike closed his eyes for just a moment before saying in a
strangely gentle tone, "He's sitting on the barstool to my immediate
right you ... you blonde you."

        "Hi Angel."

        "Hello Buffy", the strangely not brooding vampire murmured.
Instead his features were set in the aspect of a man who has suddenly
discovered himself basking in the warm glow of an out of control
nuclear reactor.  Both men watched as the perky Slayer took her perky
smile, perky hair and perky bosom out of the bar.  By this time the
assembled tipplers were well aware of what was about to happen---as
it had already occurred several times over---and stood where they
were so her Perkiness could make her unimpeded way back to the pair
at the bar.

        "Angel, I have decided that I no longer love you because you
are the evil head of an evil law firm, although that's pretty much a
universal tag for anyone who heads a law firm. I have done this
despite the fact that you appeared out of nowhere in the last two
episodes of my show to save my life and provide the Deus Ex Machina
device that allowed me..."

        " 'ere now..."

        "Spike, who is another of Buffy's, that's me, Once True Loves
to save the world.  Of course, I still get all the credit for it
since I am the title character and, despite how miserably I treat
him, I will forever more remain his One True Love in spite of the
fact that there are women who look like Emma Caulfield, Charisma
Carpenter, and Michelle Trachtenberg present in the Jossverse.  Evil
casting director."

        Neither Angel nor Spike bothered to say goodbye as Buffy
turned away to head towards the door, which by this time had acquired
a porter to expedite the whole exiting and reentering process.
Instead Spike took a last drag off his cigarette before tossing it in
Angel's untouched beer and said, "Do you really want to go through
all of that again?"

        "No way, and I think I know how to shock her out of it."

        Spike nodded and when Buffy came back and before she could
open her mouth both vampires took their full glasses, well Spike's
was half empty by this time, and doused their contents squarely into
her face.  She fell back sputtering, gasping for breath as she tried
to pull the soaked hair from her eyes.  "Beer bad," she shrieked,
every patron of the low class establishment wincing as she notched up
the next shout one extra octave "Beer bad."

        "That's a matter of opinion, luv."

        "Are you kidding?  It's hell on cashmere.  Where am I?  How
did I get here?  What am I doing here?  Where did this cigarette come
from?"  Buffy looked at the disintegrating butt that she had just
plucked from a drooping curl before making one of her
patented 'eyuck' noises and tossing it aside.   Her eyes followed the
soggy missile's flight and widened to comic proportions when she
realized just who was wearing the black leather coat upon which it
came to rest.  "Spike," it was not quite a whisper, not quite a sigh
that she made as she reached out to touch the figure before her.  It
was more of an acknowledgement of the universe being set right again.

        "Calm down Slayer.  What's the last thing you remember?"
Spike gently pulled her hands away from his jacket's lapels and let
them rest on his opened palms.  It would hurt enough when she would
withdraw  from him so why try to delay the inevitable by holding on
to the sunshine?

        "I was standing on the lip of the Sunnydale crater with a
wholly inappropriate and somewhat frightening smile on my lips for
someone who has just watched a loved one impersonate a Roman Candle."

        "Don't knock yourself out over it, Slayer.  Joss already made
it clear in an interview that only expendable loved ones died at the
end of the series.  I guess I was in the 'I love you Spike with the
type of devotion that disappears the moment I run out of the
Hellmouth so you can burn to death in the privacy that you deserve'
category."

        "That's not funny."

        "I didn't write 'Chosen'; deal with it."  He wouldn't let his
eyes look down at his empty hands, he just couldn't.   "So what else
do you remember?"

        "Nothing really.  I thought I was supposed to be in Cleveland
but I can't remember it at all.  Guess I should be grateful for small
mercies.  I mean ... Drew Carey and Mimi are from there. . . "

        Neither man bothered to interrupt the now pacing woman, both
figured it would do her no harm to vent for a few minutes.  A few
minutes became a few more minutes then added a few more minutes onto
what it already had for good measure.  And the venting continued.
For most people this would constitute an out of body experience.  For
Buffy Summers it seemed just about right.  Suddenly she shuddered and
turn dramatically to face them.  Not because it was a particularly
dramatic moment, it was just that she was unable to do anything
casually after being on a soap opera for a couple of years.

        "Oh.  My.  God.  Those Mutant Enemy writers.  They Mary Sued
me. A mysterious figure embodying every trait that Jonathan had in
that universe of his  appears out of nowhere, seduces me with
apparently no effort and dispatches you both out of hand.  If anybody
had had the gall to post that at Spike's Salvation they would need a
fire extinguisher to save their computer.  And it's canon now,
canon."  Angel nodded in sad confirmation while Spike signaled the
bartender for a fresh round.  Buffy made her way to one of the
lopsided tables with mismatched chairs set around it and began to
root through a garish yellow plastic bowl filled with unshelled
peanuts.  It wasn't that she was particularly hungry or oblivious to
her current state and location, it was more that she needed to do
something with a sense of normalcy to take the edge off the sudden
wave of nervousness that threatened her

        "So why are you guys sitting around in a bar?"  A peanut was
popped into her mouth and swallowed whole.  "Why am I here?"

        "Writer of this bit doesn't think we could make it out of the
alleyway.  What with the Hordes of the Nine Levels descending upon us
and what not.  Wasn't meant to be a real story anyway so he plopped
us down somewhere where we could at least get a drink."

        Angel looked Buffy over and firmly shoved aside the idea that
Nina had a much better, more voluptuous figure.  Such thoughts,
despite being true, could not be tolerated as he and the Slayer had
been voted one of TV's most romantic couples ever despite the fact
that they had seen each other perhaps six, maybe seven times in the
last five years.  Instead he decided to tell Buffy just why she was
here with them.

        "Sees you as the archetypical fallen champion who loses
herself once her mission is fulfilled.  Thought what happened in Rome
made perfect sense if you are viewed as someone who's been fighting a
war that she never volunteered for since she was fifteen and is now
determined to enjoy herself as much as humanly possible by getting
everything in life that she thought she was denied.  It's also the
simplest answer to the question that has plagued the Senior Partners
since the days of the first Slayer: 'How do you defeat the Heroine,
you let her win.'"  His voice caught, he coughed, sniffed once and
then again before finishing with, "If you're not the champion, what
are you then? You're here because there's really no other place for
you to be."

        "So that's it is it, "Buffy shook her head back and forth,
not caring as the wet, cold curls slid across her face.   "So seven
years of trials and tribulations, sacrifices and tears, a really
lousy movie and fighting for the just cause and growing as a person
are tossed aside because Whedon was annoyed that Gellar couldn't
appear on his show.  I was created as a response to the 'dumb blonde
in peril cliché'.  I finished up as either the 'naïve woman tourist
abroad seduced by the Latin Lover' or the 'woman perpetually making
bad relationship decisions'.  Great.  Wonderful."  The Slayer crossed
her arms and snarled.  It was not a pout and there was definitely
nothing cute about it, it was a snarl.

        "Don't get 'em twisted.  Fury and Bell already are on record
that 'TGIQ' was written with plausible deniability built in.  Trust
me; if there's ever another live action production of us done again
they'll concoct some plausible reason to explain away the affair even
if it does directly contradict the episode.  'ell, even most of the
fan fiction authors hand you a 'get out of jail free' card."

        She thought about this and began to calm down just a bit.  If
Season Six had proved anything it was that she could behave in the
most self-centered and destructive of fashions and still be forgiven
for her actions no matter how hurtful they might have been.  That
brought to mind her current situation and for a moment Buffy looked
at the men who looked back at her with hope, resignation and fear
reflecting in their eyes.  Then she pushed the blonde vampire aside
and climbed onto the now vacated stool.  Spike didn't even spare the
energy to shrug at her action; he just sat down at the next one over
so that she would be flanked with him on one side and Angel on the
other.  It was expected, somehow even comforting.

        Buffy set her elbows upon the bar's damp surface, put her
fists together and rested her chin in the cradle they formed.  "So
we're caught here, huh? Well, at least that explains the title.
Three characters stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for something
that might never happen."  Both of her companions turned to look at
her with matching expressions of astonishment on their faces.  Her
responsive smile was fifty percent smugness and fifty percent saucy
wench as she picked up Spike's shot glass and took a cautious
sip.   "I had Theatre Appreciation."

        And because it was a Buffy fan fiction the author surrendered
to one of the strongest of the genre's conventions and let her have
the last word.

        "Could of at least have left us with a bottle of baby oil.
Evil writer."

*****