Who: Lexi Branson and Buffy Summers What: Lexi Fills Buffy in on Vampire Stuff When: Backdated: Beginning of August Where: A Bar Rating/Warnings: Family Friendly Status: Complete!
Everyday Lexi woke up, wondering if this was the morning that she’d wake up a vampire, but so far she was still human. She had to admit that she was relieved each morning when she felt her heart beating and was able to open the curtains without burning up. It was fortunate since her job consisted mostly of her spending hours outside and if and when she became a vampire chances were, she’d have to quit her job unless she wound up with a daylight ring like practically every other vampire in her dream world. Sure, Damon claimed he knew someone who could make her a ring, but she didn’t really feel like being in Damon’s debt.
However, while becoming a vampire would definitely put a damper on various aspects of her life, Lexi was enjoying the whole compulsion thing. She didn’t use it too often, but she had used it a few times to get a supply of blood bags just in case and she was currently using it to get free drinks for her and Buffy.
“So,” Buffy began kind of awkwardly, waiting for the bartender to step a few feet away so they wouldn’t be subject to the strangeness of their conversation. “This...compulsion thingy.” Eloquent, as always. “Do all of you guys get to do that?”
Admittedly that was something the vampires she’s encountered, dream-wise, lacked. And it honestly unnerved her that these group of vamps acquired that skill. Sure, Lexi was just using it for free booze, but in the wrong hands, this was something Buffy would categorized as ‘potentially bad.’
Lexi nodded in response to Buffy’s question, “Yeah. It comes easier to some than others, usually depending on your Sire or how much control you’ve got. In the dreams I was turned by one of the original vampires, so I’ve always been a little stronger than some other vampires.” Of course, in the dreams, Lexi hadn’t known that Elijah was an original vampire. He’d simply approached her and asked if she wanted to be able to take care of her brother without worrying that something would happen to her like their parents. “I’m just surprised that I can do the whole compulsion thing since I’m not actually a vampire yet.”
Buffy was making an attempt to understand the, um, vampire culture of the county, instead of going ‘stabbity stab’ with anything that walked in the night with fangs. And she wasn’t going to deny that there was something slightly...instinctual about it, either. But if Caroline was doomed to become one and she was eventually going to move in with her and Allison, then she had to get used to it. “So, what are you guys vulnerable to? Sunlight, obviously. Stake in the heart still work? Decapitation? Garlic and crosses?”
“All of the above,” Lexi said, taking a sip of her drink, “Holy water and Vervain too. However, unlike other vampires, we have reflections. Don’t really know why that is, but we do.” Lexi tried not to question the dreams too much aside from the part where they somehow turned people into the things they were in them, if they were something beside human. “Is that how vampires are in your dreams?” Lexi knew that there were different kinds of vampires in Orange County, or at least there were people who dreamt about being different kinds of vampires and she was curious about the ones in Buffy’s dream world.
“Not the vervain, no,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “And no, mine...don’t have reflections. They don’t even have a soul. And the only one that does have one is because he was cursed by gypsies.”
Explaining that sounded ridiculous. Ugh. What has her life become? Seriously?
Buffy took a sip of her drink - a double tequila sunrise. “Are you scared? To turn, I mean.”
“Wow. That sucks. Both the no soul part and the being cursed part.” Lexi didn’t know how the whole soul thing worked in her dreams once someone became a vampire, but she knew that not all vampires were completely evil in her dreams. After all, Stefan drank animal blood with the exception of when he fell off the wagon, but she’d always been there to help him find his way back and she always would be. Well, until Damon killed her of course. She’d known about that for awhile now, no thanks to Damon, but she’d only just now had said dream and it made her dislike of Damon even stronger, “I think I’d be crazy to say no. My best friend and his brother and practically everyone else in my dream world who are vampires, have daylight rings, but me. I had a pretty cool mood ring, but no daylight ring. So, if and when I turn, it’s gonna put a damper on my life a little.”
Buffy winced. “Then you’d really be turning into a ‘creature of the night.’ Nothing like that exists in my dreams. At least if it does, I don’t know about it. Usually once they go into the sunlight, they get set on fire and then there’s vampire dust everywhere. No one has like...a spare? Or knows how to make one?”
“Damon claims he knows a Wizard who might be able to make one, but it’s not even something that every witch in my dream world can do. So, I don’t know if this Wizard can actually do it and to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to have to owe Damon anything.” Damon was the last person whose debt she wanted to be in.
“That’s the overly happily married guy who is all gung-ho about his vampire brethren, right?” He’d been the first she encountered on the net, although she hadn’t met him in person yet. His wife seemed nice enough, but Buffy didn’t know what to think about him. Definitely not harmless, she knew that much. “I know another vampire, and I think she might be the only different one from you guys. Jubilee? I can ask how she strolls around in the sun unscathed. She might have something else that might work.”
Was it bad that Buffy wished they’d all be confined to the hours of the night? She felt guilty thinking about it, but how long would it take for one of them to turn the entire batch sour?
Lexi nodded, rolling her eyes before taking a sip of her drink, “That’d be the one. He’s an asshole.” Lexi could have gone into much greater detail about why she didn’t like Damon and all the other scumbag things he’d done in the past, but she didn’t want to bore Buffy with the details at the moment, “I think I’ve heard of her. At least seen her on Valarnet. I may have talked to her, but I don’t remember. I’ve talked to so many people over the last year there.”
That was an awfully strong reaction to him. Buffy could sense the obvious disdain for the guy and she was more than curious now. Considering he’d been the one who was mostly adamant about the whole ‘good vamp’ thing. “Is he an asshole, or is he an asshole that comes with bad news?”
“The latter.” Lexi said, recalling the various things he’d done in real life as well as the dreams, “He’s the type who thinks that nothing he does could possibly be considered wrong. And somehow he always gets out of it.” She wasn’t going to go into detail about how he’d cheated on Elena only to have her take him back and defend him as well.
“What a guy,” Buffy said sarcastically and sighed. She stirred her drink with the straw and poked the floating cherry. It’d been watered down a bit from the melted ice. “It’s hard to believe that you...and Caroline become vampires, though. I’m afraid how it’s going to change the both of you.” Caroline mostly, since she just started to get to know Lexi. But Caroline was sweet and cheery - how could someone like that survive that kind of lifestyle? “I don’t know. I don’t how I should feel about being friends to people I’m supposed to stake. No offense.”
Lexi could understand that, but from what she’d seen from her dreams, she wasn’t really that different in the dreams than she was in real life, “I can’t say anything about Caroline as a vampire, but I’m not really that different in the dreams than I am right now. In the dreams, when we become vampires, it magnifies certain parts of our personality. And I tend not to drink from people too. At least, I have the self control not to take too much if I do.” It was for that reason that she was able to help Stefan so much in the dreams.
That didn’t seem too bad, all things considered. If Lexi didn’t feed off humans, she couldn’t imagine Caroline doing it, either. Especially since she was so against it now. Doing it would...go against everything she stood for.
“Thanks,” Buffy said out of the blue after a minute. “For talking to me about this.”
“Oh, it’s not a problem,” Lexi smirked, glad that she could have put Buffy’s mind at ease about vampires. Well some vampires. There was very little she could say to try and put anyone’s mind at ease when it came to Damon.