Inspired by waiting for several stories to load. Good advice at the end. (Makes ya hafta read! HAHAHAOOHHOHOHOHEHEHEHEE!!) The story he's reading is make-believe, as far as I know. No infringe benefits here!!!!!!! FK and the mention of BTVS belong to their TPTB. Wow. Archive at fkfanfic, ftp, whereverelseaslongasyousendmetheaddy! ;) Thanks, Lisa, for the pre-post praise!!! To Stop the Infernal Noise By Kathy Walsh Nick Knight stared at the Buffy/Angel fanfic site as he waited for the story. He waited. He looked at his watch. He started timing. /Even *really* good fanfic shouldn't take this long to load!/ the vampire thought. Two minutes later, his Internet Service Provider's logon dialogue box popped up. "Oh, great, disconnected again!" His delicate vampire ears were assaulted by a horrid grinding, whining, screeching noise. The woman on his couch looked up groggily. As the computer continued its machinations, he rushed to minimize his browser and word processor windows. It certainly wouldn't do for Nat to see the 'relationship' story he had written, or the one he was trying to read. The beeping and wailing continued as Dr. Lambert stormed over to her undead friend, sleep clogging her eyes. "Can't you turn that infernal noise *OFF*?!!" "No," Nick said, speedily closing the browser windows featuring Buffy/Angel 'romantic' pics. Natalie looked over his shoulder at the screen. The internet mess was spread over a desktop of Buffy and Angel smooching *hard*. "Hey, that guy looks like you!" Natalie grinned at her boyfriend. "But that blonde ditz...." "She's not a ditz!" Nick interrupted defensively. "She's a Slayer, and her name is Buffy." Natalie gave him a strange glance. "Uh, whatever. Y'know, she looks an awful lot like Tracy... waitasecond... that's Tracy's face on that picture! Sheesh, Nick, don't you find enough ways to torment the poor girl at work? Take it off right now!" Nick sighed, "Sure, Nat, whatever you say..." and complied. /Oh, well,/ he thought, /at least she didn't see that the title of the story was _Love on the Night Shift_./ He leaned back in his chair and started to read his story. "You have mail," Tracy's voice rang out. Nick was startled from his engrossed reading. /More email. Just when it was getting _interesting_, too./ It was a forward from Tracy. He opened the file. It read: " How to Stop the Infernal Noise by Kathy Walsh Go to your logon screen. Hit the Settings button, preferably not too hard. ;) Click the Connections tab. Then whack that one's Settings button. Near the bottom of the window, there is a button that says Properties. Click that one, too. Under Connect Using, thump Configure. Right smack in the middle of the next screen is a slider that says Speaker Volume. Slide it on down to Off. Send an appreciative email to Kathy Walsh for discovering ;) this. Piccolo_Kathy@hotmail.com " Nick followed the directions with glee. Now he could read and post more 'Buffy/Angel' fic without Nat's knowledge. He blessed the day he was assigned to work with Tracy Vetter! /Y'know, if she is so much like Buffy, she *could* probably kill Lacroix!/ He started to type a story.... Kathy Walsh, pocket_protector@hotmail.com -- please post @ fkfanfic&ftp -- Val, CP, Faithful, RoGe, Seducer, Les Mis, N&N (on altruistic days), Raven's Cellar, Night Shift, IB, occasional Vaquera, DP(iccolo), CotK, Nanette (just friends), Ravenette, DoD:OotMR, Diviant, (L)C, Dark Knightie (lose the angst already!), Addict (Hopelessly Devoted to Lu), and Mikie