Okay, I've got writer's block and I'm bored.  Dangerous combination.
Usual disclaimers.  Mel and DPs can archive

How Fanfic is Written
By: Cousin Mary (Jenkins)

Tiff sighed and looked across the paper-strewn table at her would-be
co-writer, Mary.  They'd met at the Raven after work and, for some reason
that totally escaped them now, had decided to spend the night writing the
next Great Canadian Novel... or at least a really nifty FK fanfic.

"I'm telling you Tiff!  We'll just have Vachon conveniently out of town!"
 The blonde explained, ready to get their story started already.  They'd
been at it for 3 hours and still hadn't come up with a basic plot
outline.

"You -always- have Vachon 'conveniently out of town,'" Tiff mimicked
before taking a sip of her Mountain Myst.

"I do not!"  Mary protested, though she couldn't quite meet her friend's
eyes.  Instead, she glanced around the dark club, the vampires looked
back.  Apparently her and Tiff had picked up quite a reputation among the
community for, well, excess weirdness.  (Gee write one 26 mass show
crossover or one Pam Grier-themed 70's party and you're branded for
life!)  "Well... do you have any ideas for this story?"

"Yeah, how about this?  We'll set it in the morgue," Tiff held up her
hands, like she was looking through the eye of an imaginary camera,
"Opening scene, Nat: hard at work on an autopsy."

"An autopsy on who?"  Mary asked, signaling the waitress to bring another
mocha.

"Um," Tiff's brow scrunched up as she thought, "A dead clown?"

Mary set down her empty cup with a clatter, "There is nothing funny about
a dead clown."

"Oh, you're right."  Tiff thought a moment, "A mime then?"

"That'll work," Mary nodded, pulling out a sheet of paper to start the
story outline,  "Okay, part one, Nat in the morgue, cuttin' up on a
mime."

"An undead mime?"

"Hmm," Mary chewed the end of her pen and grinned, making some more
notes, "An undead mime named Otis!"

"Perfect!"  Tiff laughed, slurping down some more Mountain Myst... the
sugar was -finally- hitting her full force now.  In the background the
vamps could be heard rustling uneasily.

"Kay, next Tracy walks in and-" Mary wrote.

"Tracy?  Does it have to be Tracy?"  Tiff rolled her eyes.

"Hey, Tracy's the star!  She's got to be there!" Mary insisted.

"Hello!  Nick is the star!"  Tiff told her, but got only a blank,
uncomprehending look from the DP listmom.  She sighed, "Okay, so Tracy
walks in."

"With Lacroix."

"Kewlness," Tiff grinned, "They're just getting back from a date and-"

"Excuse me... ladies."  Tiff and Mary's heads snapped up so fast Lacroix
was sure he'd given them whiplash, he turned his cold-as-ice gaze on them
full force.  "Did I hear you say you were planning on writing Ms. Vetter
and I visiting the morgue after a date?!"  His voice started out calm,
but by the end he was shouting.

"Um..." Tiff and Mary exchanged a look, unsure if the master vamp was
upset about the date or the morgue visit...  Mary shrugged, so Tiff
answered, "Yeah."

"And that seems likely to you?"  He arched a brow.

"Fine!"  Mary picked up her pen again, "Tracy and -Screed- walk into the
morgue after toilet papering CERK!"

"What?!"  Both Tiff and Lacroix looked at the blonde as she wildly
scrawled across the outline.

"Yeah!  Lacroix had just done a really rotten monologue," Mary's eyes
shined with the light of genius (or insanity... it was hard to tell in
the dim club)  "One where he miss quoted Milton and... and made a bad pun
about sailors!"

"Yeah!"  Tiff grabbed the paper with enthusiasm, "But then, Vachon, who
is -not- conveniently out of town, comes in and tells Tracy that she has
to leave the country with him because Lacroix is coming to kill her!"

Mary made a face, "Ew, not Vachon."

Just then, the Scruffy Spaniard in question walked up.  He smiled at
Tiff, and gave Mary a wary look, "What's going on?"

Lacroix turned to him, his face lit with a smirk, "You're leaving the
country with Ms. Vetter, since I am apparently planning to kill her."

"You're what?! Why?!"  Vachon paused, then blinked, "Where am I going to
take Trace?"

"You aren't taking Tracy anywhere!"  Mary leapt to her feet and grabbed
the paper from Tiff, "Because Otis!  Yes Otis, you forgot about the
undead mime didn't you?!  He wakes up on the examination table and tells
Nat that-"

"He's something very different than her!"  Tiff finished with a gleeful
squeal, happy that Nat was going to fall for someone who wasn't Nick!

"I thought you said he was a mime?"  Vachon asked, perplexed.

Tiff growled, "Okay, so he acts it out in charades then!"

"That'll be hilarious!"  Mary giggled, making a few dialogue notes,
"First word, first syllable, sounds like..."

"So," Tiff grabbed the paper back, "Nat and Otis go lock themselves in
the cooler together, while Vachon tries to convince Tracy to run off to
Luxembourg with him."

"But she won't go!"  Mary sat back down, throwing a handful of stale
pretzels Vachon's way, "Because she's desperately in love with Screed."

"She is -not-!"  The Spaniard yelled, he made a grab for the paper, but
Tiff snatched it away just in time.

"Not so fast V-man," The film student stuck her tongue out before getting
back to business, "We'll make sure you get a happy ending too," Tiff shot
Mary a look when she tried to protest, "A -happy- ending."

"Fine," Mary huffed, sitting back and mumbling under her breath about
haircuts and respectability.

"So we put in a big dramatic break up scene," Tiff scrawled across the
outline, not worrying at the fact that it was barely legible due to the
sticky Mountain Myst smudges.  "Where Tracy tells Vachon that she's loved
Screed ever since the first time he called her Baby-Jane."

"She doesn't love Screed!" Vachon insisted.

"Give it up my boy," Lacroix put a comforting hand on the Spaniard's
shoulder.  "Deal with your pain and move on with your life."  He chuckled
as the younger man growled.

"And what do we do about Lacroix?"  Tiff looked at Mary, who chewed her
bottom lip as she thought.

"Hmm, have him arrested for indecent exposure!  Him and Miklos... public
fountain.  And- eep!"  Mary squeaked to a stop as Lacroix's silver ringed
fingers came to rest around her throat.  He didn't tighten his grasp, but
just held his hand there... while she carefully rethought her
inspiration.  "Or... maybe something else."

"Something UFish?" Tiff didn't even look up from the outline as she
wrote, "Nick and Lacroix go to Aruba, to bond and what not."

"Ugh, how about -Janette- and Lacroix?"  Mary ignored the way the hand
tightened around her throat, "Have Nick run off and join the circus."

Lacroix chuckled and released her, "I think Nicholas would enjoy riding
in one of those tiny cars."

"Okay," Tiff stuck her pen behind her ear and read what they had so far,
"Nat cuts open an undead mime, Otis, who wakes up and falls madly in love
with her-"

"They should fall in love -before- she cuts him up," Mary interrupted.

"Oh yeah, okay," Tiff fixed that before continuing, "Then Tracy and
Screed come in laughing after T.P.ing CERK.  Vachon enters, Tracy breaks
up with him and then..."

"Vachon can go join Otis and Nat in the cooler," Mary offered.

"That'll work," Tiff nodded.

"Hey!"  Vachon didn't look happy, he started to reach over to Mary's
throat, but Lacroix caught his wrist.

"Perhaps you overestimate Dr. Lambert's charm?"  Lacroix turned his
attention to Tiff, who was busy giving Nat a plethora of men to choose
from.  The teen just gave him disgusted look and proceeded to put Miklos,
Bourbon and Reese in the cooler too.

"Come on Lacroix," Vachon whined, leaning towards Mary even as the Roman
held his arm, "Just give me five minutes, that's all I need."

Mary gave the slacker vampire a dirty look, "Keep it up scruff-monster
and in my next fic you're getting run over by a zamboni!"

"Ooo, I'm shaking in my boots!" Vachon growled.

With a growl of her own, Mary grabbed the paper and wrote, "Before making
it to the cooler, however, Vachon was struck down, in his prime, in a
freak zamboni accident!"

"A zamboni in a morgue?"  Tiff asked with a raised eyebrow.  She then
watched as her friend crossed out 'zamboni' and wrote 'floor buffer.'
"Ah, much better!"

"What?!  NO!"  Vachon read over their shoulders.  "You can't do that!"

"We can do whatever we want!" Mary announced with triumph, "We're the
writers!"

Vachon looked from Mary, to Tiff, and finally to Lacroix.  He found no
help.  "Fine!"  He shrugged off Lacroix's grasp and started off in a
huff, mumbling under his breath as he went, "Just wait Mary, you'll get
yours!  Yeah, won't know it's coming, then -wham!- right in the middle of
Ren's birthday fic!  Bwhahahahaha!"

Mary frowned as the Spanish vampire walked off laughing maniacally.  "Oh,
that's probably not a good sign."

"Get over it," Tiff shrugged, (It's easy to shrug off death threats when
they're directed at other people.)  "Okay, so everyone's taken care of.
Tracy has Screed, Nat has her harem, Vachon's dead.  Now all we need is a
moral lesson to wrap this all up."

"Moral?"  Lacroix quirked a brow.

"Yeah, you know, something to tell the reader how to live their life
right." Tiff explained.

"I know what a moral is!"  Lacroix wiped a hand down his face, trying
hard to remember why'd he'd decided to come over to this particular
table.  "What I meant was, how on Earth can you turn this... fic of yours
into something even close to a moral lesson?"

"Hmm," Mary grabbed the paper and wrote across the bottom.

Tiff leaned over, read it and nodded, "There ya go!"  The girls next paid
their bill, left a healthy tip and decided to go back to the Mansion and
watch Monty Python 'til sun up.

Lacroix watched them go, a baffled expression on his usually unflappable
countenance.  He looked down at their table and, among the discarded cans
of Mountain Myst, coffee cups, and scraps, he found the story.  He picked
it up and read the moral...

"Don't run with scissors."

** the end **
>>>>>>>>
send all comments and scissors to anteros@juno.com