(no subject)

[skygiants]

Many moons ago, I promised shati that I would write her Cowboy Guy Riley fic. I also promised her Buffy/Peter Petrelli crossover fic. Being lazy, I decided not to write two fics, but one which would span both concepts!

. . . and then it got long, so it will now be a two-part fic which spans both concepts. Also it was written late at night when my keyboard had been destroyed by soda, which means too lazy to edit. Don't judge me!

Willow peered nervously around the crowd of people backstage, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. She was late - she knew she must have missed something important, and everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, and - was that a giant gray head on a stick? - and everyone she knew was going to see her look like an idiot, and -

And she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something behind her.

Also, the music for this scene was really oddly eerie.

Willow shivered, and then turned around, fast, trying to get a glimpse of whatever was following her.

"Uh, hi," said a boy with floppy hair. He was standing behind a table covered in slices of cheese. Willow noted, to some relief, that he seemed about as bemused by this fact as she did. "Uh - are you the cheerleader?"

"- no," Willow said, blinking at him. "Um, in the play? It's Death of a Salesman. I don't think it has cheerleaders."

The boy blinked back, and said, intelligently, "What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"I got here early," volunteered Riley, ambling up behind them, "so I got to be Cowboy Guy!" He beamed at the two of them, then did a double-take at the floppy-haired boy. "Hey, you haven't been to rehearsals."

"Neither have I!" said Willow, in some indignation, which prompted Riley to break into a thigh-slapping laugh before turning back suspiciously to the boy.

"No, seriously, who are you?"

The boy looked confused, and pushed back his hair. "I'm, uh - I'm Superhero Guy?" he offered, in a conciliatory tone.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Riley. "Oz here is Superhero Guy."

"Hi," said Oz, waving. His Superman pajamas were too large for him.

"What?" said the floppy-haired boy. "Look, I'm just looking for a cheerleader -"

"Oh, man," said Oz, clearly disappointed, "I really wanted to be Cheerleader Guy."

"No, look -" The boy paused, and then turned to Willow. "Are you sure this play is Death of a Salesman?"

"I'm not sure of anything!" Willow said, flailing her hands in the air in little circles. "This drama class is just - I think they're really not doing things in the proper way!"

Oz and Riley seemed to have disappeared by this point. The boy sighed, and said, very slowly, looking straight at her, "I just - I need to find the cheerleader. It's very important. It's to save the world."

". . . Buffy used to be a cheerleader," Willow remembered, suddenly, and craned her head around. "She's in the play. And she's really good at saving the world. I think she's onstage now, though, so she might not have time." She returned her gaze to the floppy-haired boy, who pushed back his hair again and gave her a distressingly earnest look.

Saving the world, Willow supposed, was probably important. She straightened and attempted to look like Extremely Competent. "I'm a witch, though. And I mean I've stopped a couple of apocalypses - there was this time with the Mayor, and he was a giant snake, and anyways I was very influential. So maybe I could help?"

"I really think it needs to be the cheerleader," said the boy doubtfully. "There was this Indian kid who showed up in my dream, and he told me I had to go back to -"

He stopped, looking as if a revelation had suddenly hit him.

"Hey, is this a dream?"

"It's drama class," said Willow, frowning out at the class. Anya was throwing a spitball at someone and Willow was very sure that they all ought to be paying attention right now. "Or it's supposed to -"

At which point she was cut off, because someone covered in mud jumped out from the curtains and tackled her to the floor.

"Hey!" said the boy. The mud-covered person didn't pay him any attention.

"Help!" Willow tried to gasp. She could see Oz and Tara laughing and pointing in the front row. The boy clearly could, too, because he looked resolute for a moment, pushed back his hair, and then glared -

- and Willow's attacker went flying across the room.

She didn't look pleased about that.

"We'd better get out of here," said the boy, and, grabbing Willow's arm, made a face that looked distressingly constipated. Willow was about to ask him if he needed a Pepto-Bismal, when she realized that suddenly they weren't in the classroom -

- in her dream? -

- anymore, but somewhere dark and gray and formless.

"Thanks," she said, awkwardly, and brushed nonexistent dust off of her skirt. "Um - this might be a weird thing to ask, but . . . am I still dreaming? Because I don't feel anymore like I'm dreaming. And my dreams always have background music. Usually it's creepy like something out of the X-files."

"Really?" said the boy. "My dreams always used to have Lindsay Lohan before they started being prophetic."

"The kid who was in The Parent Trap?" Willow said and then stared at him. "Ew, she's like fourteen! I don't think your subconscious is a very comfortable place for me to be!"

"She's in her twenties now," the boy protested, flushing, and muttered something about how she always turned out to be his cousin anyways.

"Ew," said Willow. "So - wait, you're from the future?"

"Uh. I'm not sure," said the boy. "I teleported - I think I did, at least; that's the way Hiro does it. But I haven't really tested it before. And definitely not in a dream." He fidgeted. "Look, I'm trying to get to a - this kid showed up and -"

"You told me," said Willow. "Except I was busy being attacked at the time. You're trying to find Buffy, right?"

"Your friend who's the cheerleader? Yeah. I think so. I don't think I'd be in your dream otherwise. I think -"

He hesitated, a moment, and then went on, "I think she's in trouble. I think I'm supposed to save her."

"Are you sure?" Willow eyed him. Admittedly, throwing the mud-covered person across the room with his mind was pretty impressive, but the bangs did not really inspire confidence, and neither did the Lindsay Lohan incest dreams. "Buffy's usually pretty good with the whole 'trouble' thing. I mean, giant snake Mayor."

"Last time I got told to save a cheerleader," Peter said, almost apologetically, "it turned out to be pretty important."

"Okay, well," Willow said, with a sigh, "I guess we'd better find Buffy. But if it turns out to be a waste of your time then don't blame me."

They stood for a moment in the gray nothingness.

". . . any minute now," Willow said, eventually.