I've created a monster... 4 more

[doyle]

Orison

Dawn frowned over her English homework. Stupid British war poetry, she thought. She reread the line: "Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle/Can patter out their hasty orisons."

Two months ago, Spike would have been watching TV in the living room or just hovering nearby, on hand to explain the weird words. But she'd barely seen him since Buffy came back. Even when he was there, Dawn barely got more than a distracted "evening, 'Bit".

She told herself, over and over, that she was happier now than she had been all summer.

She sighed, and looked up "orison" in the dictionary.

Fight Club

He finds law school a breeze. He spends his days at classes and the library. His friends are smart and popular. His girlfriend is soft and pretty.

At nights, he goes to the meanest bars he can find and picks fights. He likes the look of surprise a 300-pound bruiser'll get when a skinny, long-haired twentysomething kicks his ass.

He fights whenever he can, because on the nights when he smashes some guy's face into the sidewalk he doesn't have the trippy, out-of-kilter dreams about another life. When he fights he doesn't worry that he might be two different people.

731

"One thing I don't get," Buffy says lazily. "This dream I had two years ago... a Slayer dream. I think. Faith said something about 'counting down from 730'."

Her mother frowns, and then smiles, as if she's got the punchline. "It's a countdown. Seven hundred and thirty days. Exactly two years. Like a crossword puzzle."

Buffy thinks about her friends, wonders how they're feeling on day 730-plus-one, if Willow is picking out a dress to bury her in, if they're looking after Dawn. But it's so perfect and calm here that it's easier to think about nothing and just drift.

Synchrony

Halfway through their first official meeting, the department heads of Wolfram and Hart were a little puzzled when their new boss suddenly stopped talking. He stared into space for maybe twenty seconds before someone timidly asked "Mr. Angel?"

"Something's happened in Sunnydale," he snapped. "Find out. And don't call me that."

"Spike's dead," he told Wesley a few minutes later, when the rest of their staff had been sent back to work. "I... felt it."

He would have said more, but that was when Gunn came through the door complaining about a naked British guy appearing in the white room.

Comments

[paratti.livejournal.com]

I'm loving these so much.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm getting whopping great ego-boosts from all your comments *g*

[debvel.livejournal.com]

Buffy thinks about her friends, wonders how they're feeling on day 730-plus-one...

Oooh, good one! Now I have to go look up what the X-Files episode "731" was about. :)

[ros-fod.livejournal.com]

Ooohhh...I love all of these, but I love, love, love "Fight Club." Excellent choice. Great execution.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I actually wrote that one with you in mind, so I'm glad you liked it :)

[ros-fod.livejournal.com]

Baby, you know what I like!

[magarettt.livejournal.com]

Um. . .I had to go look up "orison" in the dictionary. Then I cried. Poor, poor Dawn.