Fanfic snippet

[sinanju]

snippy asked me quite some time ago to write her a Buffy/Anita Blake crossover story. I took a run at it, but never got more than a few paragraphs into it.


Prophetic dreams were nothing new to Buffy Summers. Not an everynight thing, certainly, but she'd had them often enough to learn to recognize them for what they were. So she was quite certain that this was nothing of the kind. She really was lying in a graveyard in her nightgown.

Buffy had awakened shivering, reached to pull her bedclothes higher--and realized that she had none. Nor a bed, nor a ceiling overhead. Just a cotton nightgown which was clinging to her where the dew on the grass beneath her had soaked thru it. The shock washed thru her in heated rush of adrenaline as

Buffy leapt to her feet and glanced around.

A cemetary. At night. Nothing unusual there--not for her, anyhow. Though usually she was dressed more warmly. Buffy shivered, realizing that one side of her cotton nightgown was soaked with dew and clinging to her skin. Apparently she'd been lying here for a few minutes.

That thought led to a few questions. How had she gotten here? And where was here? It wasn't any cemetary in Sunnydale, that was for sure. After three years of patrolling, she was familiar with all of them and this one didn't look familiar.

A murmur of voices drifted on the night air. Buffy turned to see a cluster of about a dozen people on the far side of the cemetary. Mostly men, mostly in suits. Buffy started walking toward them, watching and listening. Suits and...briefcases. Watches and cellphones. Papers. Handshakes.

Lawyers? What were lawyers doing in a graveyard a few minutes before dawn?

Buffy had begun to wonder if any of them would notice her approach when one figure turned to look at her. It was a woman very close to Buffy's own height, with short curly black hair and dark eyes. She was wearing black jeans, black sneakers and a dark red t-shirt under a black denim jacket. Now that she was looking in Buffy's direction, Buffy could see a drying waxy paste smeared on her cheeks and forehead along with something dark that Buffy suspected was blood.

In fact, now that she was closer, Buffy could smell blood. A lot of it. Recently spilled. It kind of squicked her that she was familiar enough with that concept to be so certain of it, but there it was. Buffy wondered if she'd stumbled into some kind of vampire power lunch and wished that she had thought to bring along at least one stake when she had gone sleepwalking or...whatever.

The dark haired woman spoke one word, softly but clearly. "Larry."

A young man with red hair, also casually dressed, who had been conversing with several of the men in suits turned his head. Buffy saw him take in the woman's alert posture, then shift his gaze to Buffy. His eyes widened a bit but he said only, "I see her."

Buffy glanced back at the woman and was shocked to see her leveling a handgun at Buffy in a two-handed grip. "Whoa! Let's not get all Pulp Fiction here," Buffy said. She stopped moving and raised her hands.

"Who are you?"

"Buffy Summers. And you are?"

"Anita Blake. What are you doing here?"

"I was going to ask you the same question."

"You answer my question first," Anita said. Her voice was cold, but not as cold as her expression.

"No, I mean I was going to ask you what I was doing here. Last thing I remember is going to bed. Then I woke lying on the grass here."




Problem is that they come from two very obviously different worlds, so I had to figure out how to get them together and I've never come up with a good answer. I've read crossovers where characters from incompatible worlds coexist anyhow, but they annoy me. That's lazy writing. It's a cheat.

Of course, the fact that they do have very different experiences of vampires opens up lots of entertaining possibilities. Buffy expects vampires to go paft! and turn to dust when she stakes them; Anitaverse vampires don't do that. And what's Anita going to think the first time she sees Buffy displaying the kind of strength and speed that only lycanthropes or vampires can muster, when she's clearly neither? Or discovers that this slip of a girl has been killing vampires for years with nothing but a sharp stick? On the other hand, Buffy has mostly been fighting third-rate vampires with none of the hypnotic powers even the lowliest vampires in Anita's world possess, to say nothing of the Master level vampires' abilities.

Lots of potential there, if only I could figure out how to bring them together.