FIC: Fight Club Sunnydale
Jul. 1st, 2007 13:20![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schizoauthoressOkay, I JUST finished my entry for the No School Like the Old School Ficathon. Yay!
*****************
TITLE: Fight Club Sunnydale
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Willow/Oz, slight mention of Buffy/Angel
SPOILERS/TIMELINE: slightly before “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”
SUMMARY: Oz muses on his new membership into Buffy’s “fight club”.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: I totally meant for this to be of wider focus, and intended to switch point-of-view, but Oz decided to channel Jack and took over. Any lines you recognize from the book “Fight Club,” by Chuck Palahniuk are intentional.
WORD COUNT: 1,029
PROMPT: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sexycereal for the 1st annual ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
oldschoolbtvs ‘No School Like the Old School Ficathon’.
She looks at you, and you know that she's seeing somone soft and cuddly. Sleek, furred, strong...but no teeth. It bothers you, a little bit. There's something with teeth in you, inside you, and if she doesn't see that, it could be dangerous. She doesn't want to see it, but most people in this town won't see things they don't want to see.
You'd think that Willow would be immune to the denial disease.
"The first rule of fight club is," Xander whispers, out of the dark, "you do not talk about fight club."
You grip the stake hard, 'til the ridges of the wood, the little planes and angles that Xander cut to bring the wood to a point, imprint themselves on your palm. A new identity, over the love line and life line and fingerprints of Daniel Osbourne's hands. Making him someone new. Now you're someone from the fight club.
"The second rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club."
He whispers, sub-vocal, and the look that Buffy is giving him tells you that she can hear him. Probably as clearly as you can. You don't see the harm in it -- no way is Buffy going to be distracted. Tonight is patrol night.
It's strange, how easily your life molded around Willow, molded around her friends Buffy and Xander. Mere weeks ago, you would not be wandering the cemeteries of Sunnydale (not even on a dare, you're smarter than that) at night, a sharp stick in hand.
("Stake," Willow insisted when you first called it that. Buffy chirped, "Mine is called 'Mr. Pointy'!" and was totally unaware of the phallic symbolism...)
Vampires are out and about, and there's no erasing that knowledge inside your brain.
The first and only attack of the night comes in the cemetery on the north side of town, but it’s a big one. You don’t get a good look at how many vampires there are, but you know that there’re enough of them. Buffy takes out one right away. Willow manages this as well, and you’ve got her back, taking out the vampire that tries to jump her. No one messes with your Willow.
If this is your first night at fight club…
Xander gets grabbed, tackled; Buffy, trading blows with three vampires at once, doesn’t see him. You dive into the fight, grab the back of the vampire’s head and yank him away from Xander’s neck. The point of the stake plunges into the monster’s back, and…
No good. You must have hit a lung.
In a moment, though, the vampire explodes into a cloud of vile-smelling dust, and Xander flashes a grin at you and says, “Thanks,” even though he's the one that staked the vamp.
…you have to fight.
-----
The next night is different. Devon insists on a practice, and three hours later, you're on the stage at the Bronze. There are people everywhere, dancing and laughing and talking, but you only have eyes for the flash of long red hair under the lights, which will signify safety. She'll be safe when you can see her.
You never know when she’ll show. The fights go on for as long as they have to.
But it isn’t her you see first – Xander’s lurid Hawaiian shirt catches your eye halfway through the set, but she’s there beside him with Buffy, who is looking upset. Most likely, it's something to do with Angel...Angelus, rather. You've heard Xander muttering during research sessions, why won't she just stake him and be done with it?
As Devon starts a new song, the one you worked with him, you think about it.
If it was Willow who was a vampire, could you stake her "and be done with it"?
-----
Afterward, when another band is providing entertainment, you break away from the Dingoes and enter the fight club's inner circle. Maybe before, you would have held back on embracing Willow, giving her a kiss, out of respect for Buffy – it’s not easy watching your friends be happy and romantic when you aren't, something you know very well – but it's really not fair to Willow. Besides, you're a werewolf in love. By definition, she's supposed to drive you wild.
Not that you're wild. No. You're Willow's tame werewolf. Friendly to all that she counts as friends, because Daniel Osbourne is nothing if not malleable. Practically a space monkey.
Xander offers you a drink, and after half an hour under the hot lights, you’re very thirsty, so you accept. It’s a lemon-lime soda, which the Bronze tries to pass off as brand-name (there’s no fooling your sense of taste) and which has half of its ice cubes already melted. There’s hardly a fizz as you gulp it down.
----
It’s a few days before Valentine’s, and Giles asks you for help in researching Angelus, since you’ve got a free period. Usually, there’s no problem with this. Old books and arcane knowledge are cool. It’s that…
Well, death and torture are decidedly not. And apparently, they’re also unavoidable, when reading about the former Scourge of Europe. Fifty minutes of reading about slaughter, hearts being torn out, and small animals being nailed to walls – you’re not exactly looking forward to lunch, now.
Even Giles looks a little green at the end of the session. As he packs up the Watcher diaries – you wonder if the Watchers ever kept real diaries, or if they just recorded these sick scenes of terror – he asks you not to say anything to the others. He’ll be the one to tell Buffy what she needs to know.
You nod. But when they’re talking and laughing around you, sitting at a table in the lunchroom, you feel guilty. There’s supposed to be no excuses, no lies.
How can you do anything good if the bonds between you and the others are false?
----
That night, you dream. You dream of slaughter, the hunt, of sinking fang and claw into flesh. Dreams of hearts being torn out, of small animals (humans) being savaged and torn. Angelus’s actions…done by you, as the werewolf.
And you used to be such a nice person.
END
cross-posted to:oldschoolbtvs
*****************
TITLE: Fight Club Sunnydale
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Willow/Oz, slight mention of Buffy/Angel
SPOILERS/TIMELINE: slightly before “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”
SUMMARY: Oz muses on his new membership into Buffy’s “fight club”.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: I totally meant for this to be of wider focus, and intended to switch point-of-view, but Oz decided to channel Jack and took over. Any lines you recognize from the book “Fight Club,” by Chuck Palahniuk are intentional.
WORD COUNT: 1,029
PROMPT: Written for
sexycereal for the 1st annual oldschoolbtvs ‘No School Like the Old School Ficathon’. She looks at you, and you know that she's seeing somone soft and cuddly. Sleek, furred, strong...but no teeth. It bothers you, a little bit. There's something with teeth in you, inside you, and if she doesn't see that, it could be dangerous. She doesn't want to see it, but most people in this town won't see things they don't want to see.
You'd think that Willow would be immune to the denial disease.
"The first rule of fight club is," Xander whispers, out of the dark, "you do not talk about fight club."
You grip the stake hard, 'til the ridges of the wood, the little planes and angles that Xander cut to bring the wood to a point, imprint themselves on your palm. A new identity, over the love line and life line and fingerprints of Daniel Osbourne's hands. Making him someone new. Now you're someone from the fight club.
"The second rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club."
He whispers, sub-vocal, and the look that Buffy is giving him tells you that she can hear him. Probably as clearly as you can. You don't see the harm in it -- no way is Buffy going to be distracted. Tonight is patrol night.
It's strange, how easily your life molded around Willow, molded around her friends Buffy and Xander. Mere weeks ago, you would not be wandering the cemeteries of Sunnydale (not even on a dare, you're smarter than that) at night, a sharp stick in hand.
("Stake," Willow insisted when you first called it that. Buffy chirped, "Mine is called 'Mr. Pointy'!" and was totally unaware of the phallic symbolism...)
Vampires are out and about, and there's no erasing that knowledge inside your brain.
The first and only attack of the night comes in the cemetery on the north side of town, but it’s a big one. You don’t get a good look at how many vampires there are, but you know that there’re enough of them. Buffy takes out one right away. Willow manages this as well, and you’ve got her back, taking out the vampire that tries to jump her. No one messes with your Willow.
If this is your first night at fight club…
Xander gets grabbed, tackled; Buffy, trading blows with three vampires at once, doesn’t see him. You dive into the fight, grab the back of the vampire’s head and yank him away from Xander’s neck. The point of the stake plunges into the monster’s back, and…
No good. You must have hit a lung.
In a moment, though, the vampire explodes into a cloud of vile-smelling dust, and Xander flashes a grin at you and says, “Thanks,” even though he's the one that staked the vamp.
…you have to fight.
-----
The next night is different. Devon insists on a practice, and three hours later, you're on the stage at the Bronze. There are people everywhere, dancing and laughing and talking, but you only have eyes for the flash of long red hair under the lights, which will signify safety. She'll be safe when you can see her.
You never know when she’ll show. The fights go on for as long as they have to.
But it isn’t her you see first – Xander’s lurid Hawaiian shirt catches your eye halfway through the set, but she’s there beside him with Buffy, who is looking upset. Most likely, it's something to do with Angel...Angelus, rather. You've heard Xander muttering during research sessions, why won't she just stake him and be done with it?
As Devon starts a new song, the one you worked with him, you think about it.
If it was Willow who was a vampire, could you stake her "and be done with it"?
-----
Afterward, when another band is providing entertainment, you break away from the Dingoes and enter the fight club's inner circle. Maybe before, you would have held back on embracing Willow, giving her a kiss, out of respect for Buffy – it’s not easy watching your friends be happy and romantic when you aren't, something you know very well – but it's really not fair to Willow. Besides, you're a werewolf in love. By definition, she's supposed to drive you wild.
Not that you're wild. No. You're Willow's tame werewolf. Friendly to all that she counts as friends, because Daniel Osbourne is nothing if not malleable. Practically a space monkey.
Xander offers you a drink, and after half an hour under the hot lights, you’re very thirsty, so you accept. It’s a lemon-lime soda, which the Bronze tries to pass off as brand-name (there’s no fooling your sense of taste) and which has half of its ice cubes already melted. There’s hardly a fizz as you gulp it down.
----
It’s a few days before Valentine’s, and Giles asks you for help in researching Angelus, since you’ve got a free period. Usually, there’s no problem with this. Old books and arcane knowledge are cool. It’s that…
Well, death and torture are decidedly not. And apparently, they’re also unavoidable, when reading about the former Scourge of Europe. Fifty minutes of reading about slaughter, hearts being torn out, and small animals being nailed to walls – you’re not exactly looking forward to lunch, now.
Even Giles looks a little green at the end of the session. As he packs up the Watcher diaries – you wonder if the Watchers ever kept real diaries, or if they just recorded these sick scenes of terror – he asks you not to say anything to the others. He’ll be the one to tell Buffy what she needs to know.
You nod. But when they’re talking and laughing around you, sitting at a table in the lunchroom, you feel guilty. There’s supposed to be no excuses, no lies.
How can you do anything good if the bonds between you and the others are false?
----
That night, you dream. You dream of slaughter, the hunt, of sinking fang and claw into flesh. Dreams of hearts being torn out, of small animals (humans) being savaged and torn. Angelus’s actions…done by you, as the werewolf.
And you used to be such a nice person.
END
cross-posted to:
oldschoolbtvs