some domestic dramas (or, trying my hand at curtain!fic)

[wisdomeagle]

I think I'm going to bed. Get at least some sleep, then wake up for TOS. Considering waking up for XF, actually, at 2, which would throw my sleeping schedule off even more, but at the moment, I'm more concerned with getting enough sleep than getting sleep at socially approved times.

cheese_munkey? I hope you're feeling better. I love you very much and take care of yourself. Death is absolutely not allowed.

Now that we're clear on that concept, I wrote curtain!fic.

[Buffy/Mal and the word "door", PG-13, fluff, 535 words, for cadence_k]

New Luxuries

"That's it, missy. We're getting a door for this room!"

Buffy struggled to hold the thin scrap of blanket around her naked waist as Mal searched the tangled mess on the floor, looking for his belt. From the (empty) doorframe of Buffy's bunk, Jayne laughed.

"Agreed!" Buffy said, and accidentally let the blanket slip a bit. "Damn," she muttered. "But first let me get some clothes on."

++

"I could solder some sheet metal on, no problem," Kaylee told them. "Or if you want something fancier, I'm sure someone on the crew has somethin' pretty to go over the sheet metal."

"We are not putting sheet metal on the door to my room," said Buffy. "I may have come a long way from Sunnydale, but I still refuse to live in a room that's all..."

"You've got a problem with the amount of metal on Serenity?" Mal asked

"Well, no." Buffy had no desire to lose an arm. "I was just hoping for something a little... nicer."

"We can always stop at the outpost on our next drop," Kaylee said, still hanging from a ladder. "They've always got the nicest things."

"We'll do that then, Miss Summers." Mal ushered her out of the engine room. "After you."

++

"Doors?" asked the shopkeeper, after setting Kaylee up with some shimmery satin and helping Inara pick out ripe - or riper than usual - fruit. "Don't sell a lot of doors."

"I understand that, and I respect that, but my lady here wants a door for her bunk. I think you can respect that."

"I surely can. Well, miss, what kind of door do you want?"

"Uh, brown and wooden-y?" She would have specified a kind of wood, but it had been a long time since she'd needed to carve a stake. She considered the implications of doors. "Maybe not brown... maybe painted?"

"We can paint it back on Serenity," said Mal patiently. "Just look at the doors, and pick one you can live with."

Buffy sighed and looked at the selection of wooden planks that were masquerading as doors. She'd never thought of a door as a luxury - more like a necessity, before Dawn learned the meaning of the word "PRIVATE KEEP OUT YOU LITTLE BRAT" - and it was a little daunting realizing that Mal buying her a door was like, well, like a present. A really expensive, luxurious present that he wouldn't have bought for her if they hadn't been... intimate.

"What do you think?" she asked him, sidling closer to him, edging into his airspace. "Does this plank look sufficiently soundproof to you?"

Mal smiled at her. "Whatever you want. You're the lady. Me, I wouldn't know a door from a wormy piece of plywood."

"This one," she decided, pointing at a piece of wood that seemed a little more aged than the others, a little ragged around the edges. It had a deep, dark knothole running right down the middle that made her think of things hiding in graves, of dark things, of sex.

"An excellent choice." The shopkeeper moved to prepare their new door for transport back to the ship, and Mal took Buffy by the hands and whispered, "That wasn't so hard, now was it?"


[Fred/Wes and the word "spatula". PG. Absolute and total fluff. 664 words. For callmesandy]


Bonus

"You know, Wesley," Fred said with a smile, "it's really a miracle that you managed to survive this long without starving to death. Have you had the company doctors check out your metabolism?"

"We don't have company doctors," Wesley responded, struggling through the door to his apartment with another box of Fred's books. "However did you acquire all these? You haven't been back for a year yet."

"I had my parents ship a lot of them here and -- careful! That box has my lab gear in it! And we should really look into getting some doctors. And hazard pay. Why doesn't Angel give us hazard pay?"

" I rather suspect Angel is fond of keeping at least some of his earnings to feed himself and his child."

Fred pondered and glanced around Wesley's kitchen one more time. "You really never cook, do you?"

Wesley shook his head. "There really isn't going to be room for both of us to work in the living room, is there? Are you planning on bringing a lot of work h-home?" His voice caught. Home. From now on, their home.

Fred seemed to notice the trembling in his voice, because she stopped frowning at his lack of kitchenware and came over to give him a peck on the cheek. "C'mon," she said. "Let's go shopping."

++

Wesley stared at the assortment of kitchenware that confronted him. He picked up a potato peeler, then put it down, feeling silly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a potato with the skin still on. Fred didn't notice him; she was too busy looking at the endless rows of plates and forks and knives and tools that Wesley wouldn't know what to do with. She picked up a rubber scraper and turned it over and over in her hands.

"What's that?" he asked, moving closer to her side.

"It's for lickin' frosting off of," she said with a smile, and tossed it into their cart. "What kind of food do you like to eat?"

"Er, well..."

"I don't know how men live without women to take care of them."

"Cordelia can't cook either," Wesley muttered.

"At least she tries!"

"Would you rather be living with Cordelia, then?"

"Cordelia's got a roommate," said Fred, frowning as she tried to choose a plate pattern that she liked. "Besides, I don't think she'd want me living with her."

Wesley shook his head and looked once more at the kitchen appliances.

"A spatula!" Fred said suddenly. "For flipping pancakes, and for flipping tortillas - will you fry me tortillas? - and for scrambled eggs, and..."

"We could buy two," Wesley said. "Really splurge."

"Even though Angel doesn't give us hazard pay?"

"I'll ask him about it. See if we can get some sort of bonus. I could translate extra prophecies, or..."

"We could get a spatula with a wooden handle and then whittle it into a stake, so if a vampire came into the apartment while we were frying sausages, we wouldn't have to turn our back to the stove to dust it!"

"Or that," Wesley agreed.

"I think I could figure out the angles so that if we set up some sort of ricochet device above the stove, you could fling the spatula just so and not even have to worry about getting your hands dirty with dust!"

Wesley bit down hard on his smile. He wanted to cup his hands around those words, to protect them with his life. Fred was still examining two spatulas, flipping imaginary pancakes with each hand, testing the heft of them.

"They're like weapons," she said. "Tools, weapons, they're all the same. Killin' demons is no different from frying eggs."

Wesley didn't follow her logic, but he would follow Fred to the ends of the earth. He took the spatulas from her hands and laid them gently in the cart, then, gathering her body to his, he kissed her, not bothering to notice the people who stopped and stared.

Comments

[wisdomeagle]

*grin*

Glad you enjoyed.