Title: Dracula meets the Mommy

Author: Fabrisse
Email: Fabrisse@h...

Summary:   Joyce/Vlad

Dedication: With thanks to Gileswench,   it’s in response to her challenge at   "You got the stones"

Rating: G (my first G, I’m so excited)
Disclaimer: All hail Joss sole owner and profiter from the below named   characters. Not me. Dracula is probably in the public domain but if he isn't   he's either a) an historical figure or b) the property of one B. Stoker.

Content:   Spoilers for BtVS through "Buffy Vs Dracula"

Feedback:   Always welcome.

[ ] indicates Joyce interior monologue

The old song was right, it never rained in California.   Joyce Summers stood   at the door to the gallery and looked around.   Today was certainly not the   typical bright, sunny tourist postcard type of day.   Maybe in Monterey or   San Francisco they were used to thick fog, but Sunnydale?

Still it had been a productive day for Joyce, she and her assistant had   packed up the last show.   Nearly two thirds of the works had sold and the   gallery had made a tidy little profit.   And this afternoon they’d put up   Joyce’s dream show.   Three local artists all with different views of   Sunnydale.

Joyce went back in and checked the clock again.   She had nearly fifteen   minutes until closing time and nothing left to do.   The bell rang as the   door opened.   For a moment Joyce could see nothing there, then as if the   mist had coalesced, [Joyce, you’re delusional he must have just walked   through a thicker patch of fog.   Right on your doorstep] a young man stood   in the doorway.

The gentleman in question was probably around thirty and a bit overdressed,   but Joyce found herself warming to him as he walked around the gallery   looking at the works.   So many people came in and glanced around or tried to   start a conversation about "art" with a capital A and never really looked at   the things she offered, the things that she loved.   This young gentleman   [He’s quite aristocratic somehow and attractive in spite of the pallor.   Must be his eyes or his full red lips.   Oh my.] *really* looked.

Right now he was admiring the photographs that Jane E. was doing.   All of   them were of Sunnydale, but the angles were odd or some small piece of   carving caught at just the right time of day was the focus so that the   larger context of the piece was blurry.   Overexposure, silver and albumen   development added to the strangeness inherent in emphases.   It gave these   works an eeriness appropriate to the town’s death rate.

The oddest of all though were the ones taken during the freak snow storm two   Christmases ago.   All the cues from the architechture, the plants, and the   store names said "Southern California", but large white flakes and a light   dusting gave them a reflexive quality.

The gentleman signalled to her to come over.   "This one,"   he had a slight   accent that intrigued her.   She followed where his finger was pointing.   It   was one of her favorites a blurry snowball fight captured in crisp black and   white under the marquis of the Sunnydale cinema showing "It’s a Wonderful   Life."

"Are you interested in the history of the picture or would you care to know   more about the artist?"   Joyce had learned that the first questions were   never about price, they were like a first date.

"No.   I want to purchase it.   There’s an irony to it that calls to me like   the distant music of wolves."

Unless of course it was love at first sight.   In which case the buyer wanted   it NOW.   "It’s $300.   I know that seems a lot for a photograph, but Jane E.   only makes 3 copies of each print and then destroys the negative."

"Yes, I will have it.   And that one too."   He was pointing to the far wall.   Joyce hadn’t seen him so much as glance in that direction, but once again he   had selected the piece that Joyce considered the artist’s best.   Walt David   Green was a surrealist.   The town was Sunnydale; the time was always just   before dawn.   The paintings were of various landmarks in the town; the   colors included that clear green the sky sometimes takes in twilight.   And   always, somewhere, there was a trickle of red.   It could be at a neck or a   mouth or trickling in the gutter.   Sometimes you’d stare at one of his   pictures for hours and think, it’s not there.   But the next time you looked   it would flash out at you like a wound.   Occasionally a small blonde woman   with a very determined face would appear in the picture and somehow you knew   she could make the red go away.   Perhaps she was an angel; maybe she was   death.   Joyce always thought of her as Buffy.   And in this particular   picture, she appeared alone, staring directly at the viewer and holding up a   cross.   It was an exquisite work; the gentleman had taste.

"I’m afraid that painting is very expensive.   $5000.   But there are some…"

"That is not too dear for a piece of such beauty.   I understand that you   will want to keep them in the shop for others to view, but perhaps you’d let   me pay for them now."   Joyce’s eyes widened and she nodded.   Young,   attractive, and rich, why couldn’t Buffy meet a young man like him.   With   all that going for him though, he probably wouldn’t want someone as rough   and tumble as a vampire slayer.

His card went through, the signatures matched and it was time for Joyce to   go home.   For all the gloom and fog this had turned into a very good day.

"Perhaps you would permit me…" "Joyce" "Joyce, to take you out to dinner and   you can tell me about the artists and their works.   You obviously love   them."

Joyce found herself as flustered as a school girl under his steady gaze.   "I’m sorry, but tonight I have to get home to fix dinner for my daughter."   Joyce took her courage in both hands, "but afterward, maybe we could meet   for a drink at 9:30 or so?"

"I never drink … wine."

"Maybe coffee.   The coffeehouse up the street…" Joyce trailed off as she   remembered that tonight was open mike night.   She’d seen Mr. Giles   performing there once and had spent days remembering the uses to which the   hood of a car could be put.   "Or, if you wouldn’t think it too forward of   me, I live not far from here."   Had she not been looking toward her shoes,   Joyce might have noticed the small flash of triumph in the young gentleman’s   eyes.

"What a charming suggestion."   He smiled at her.   "I’m new to this country   and have yet to be invited into an American home."

Joyce wrote down the address and gave him some bare directions.   "This is so   embarrassing.   I don’t even know your name."

The gentleman’s smile reached his eyes this time.   Tonight would be most   entertaining, and, quite frankly, even dreamy virgins in filmy negligees   could pall after a couple of centuries.   "Please, call me Vlad."