Choco_cherries Challenge: Lessons in How to Live

[lirazel]

Ha!

New choco_cherries entry, and the prompt is London, which totally cracks me up.  It also means I'll probably be writing several different entries for this round.  But here's the first one.

Title: Lessons in How to Live
Author: Lirazel (penny_lane_42)
Fandoms: Supernatural/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairing:  Jo Harvelle/Xander Harris
Wordcount: 299
Prompt: London
Summary:  He isn’t Dean, and that’s the first strike against him.

He isn’t Dean, and that’s the first strike against him.  The second is the patch over his eye and the flannel he wears (because he doesn’t wear it like Dean does; this guy looks like a lumberjack, not a hunter); the third is the lectures.  He assumes that the girls don’t know anything about the world of vampires and boogeymen, and he starts them with the basics when all she wants to do is learn how to use her new strength to be the most effective hunter she can be.  She thinks he’s patronizing, he thinks she’s a smartass.

She learns quicker than any of the rest of them do: they were schoolgirls, not so long ago, concerned about boyfriends and softball games and nail polish.  None of them have seen real darkness, not like she has: it all seems so exciting to them when it’s so nightmarishly familiar to her.

She sees that same familiarity shining—no, not shining: darkening—in his eye, and she hates that she recognizes it, feels it tugging at her.  He, at least, has seen the real world and knows it. 

And that’s what she hates most about him, more than the other things combined.  He’s seen everything there is to see, and he still smiles.  Still makes lame jokes, most poking fun at himself, and there’s no desperation lurking behind them like there was in Dean’s devil-may-care attitude.  The brokenness Dean tried to hide—that she could understand; it fit neatly into her world.  But Xander…he really means the jokes, the encouragement, the hope.  She can’t understand how to live like that, and it frightens her.

But she lets him kiss her in the dark in Highgate Cemetary one night, and it isn’t so bad.

 (Maybe she tastes hope on his lips.)

 

Comments

[ava-leigh-fitz.livejournal.com]

Oh. Wow.

That was amazing. I can totally see that pairing working and how he's so like Dean and yet so not. I love that you really made that point, that he isn't and she stops expecting him to be. I love that you made her a Potential because thinking about it, Jo totally would.

Honestly though? It's this line that was just absolutely perfect: But Xander…he really means the jokes, the encouragement, the hope. She can’t understand how to live like that, and it frightens her.

In a sentence you manage to convey so much about these two people, and it's all absolutely true.

How're you finding London?

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! It seemed like such a random thing to me, came out of nowhere, and I wasn't sure if it was going to work, but I'm so glad you thought it did.

And I know Jo's totally too old to be a Potential and the timelines are all off, but I just couldn't get the idea out of my head.

So very glad you liked it!

I'm liking it very much. It's intense, really--Saturday we ended up down by like Covent Garden and there were six million people and I was like, "I'm suffocating!" But we're actually living in Chelsea--not in a super nice place, though, which is what everybody assumes immediately--it's a dorm for international students. But it's such a convenient location and so pretty around here. I've spent a bit of time at the Victoria and Albert museum and then today at the BM (with all the school kids in their cute little uniforms) and of course will be going back again and again to both. So yeah, loving it, even if I'm totally depressed about how poorly the dollar is doing compared to the pound.

But a post about all that stuff shortly, hopefully.