October: [042] "What's in the box?"
Co-written by diminished9th and thatwas_nifty


He hadn't been invited, but he was riding the elevator up to her apartment anyway. Over the last several months, he and Willow would randomly meet and each time was something that brought them closer and closer. It was like any other of their meetings, aside from the non-invite. Oz wore tennis shoes, baggy brown corduroy pants, a bright yellow tee-shirt and due to the chill in the air he wore a thick leather coat. On his shirt the words 'Right side up' were printed in red. And on this evening his hair was dyed raven black. In his hand he carried a small box wrapped in Halloween wrapping paper printed with small candy corns.

At Willow's door, Oz knocked and waited. It occurred to him that he might be interrupting something but only after he had knocked.

Really, he wasn't interrupting much. Unless you counted organizing your crystal collection as much. Giles and the watcher's council had been keeping Willow busy but the last few days had held a distinct lull that left her bored and wondering what next. She'd been spending a little bit of time with Buffy but overall; bored. So really if one looked at it that way, Oz was saving her from something. She was dressed in a pair of casual khaki cargo pants and a sweater that could only be described as Willow-typical. It had a hundred different colors in it and her darker hair was loose around her shoulders. Most of the time, Willow still forgot to check the peephole. One of the downfalls of growing up in Sunnydale. Anything nasty needed an invitation most of the time so when she opened the door, she was pleasantly surprised and even gleeful to see Oz standing there with a Halloween box.

"Oz!" she said with a happy grin. "Is that a broom? You know one of those tiny ones that fold in on themselves? Because I've got a broom but I don't have a collapsible one."

Oz arched a brow, looking down to the small box that fit in his hand and back up to Willow. He was amused, but his expression didn't really change. "There are brooms that fold in on themselves?"

"In theory?" Willow admitted with a shrug. "I mean they have telescoping everything else. Why not brooms?" She stepped aside so that Oz could come in. "So what's up? Besides possible telescoping brooms?"

"Wow, I under-shot this one." Because really, what was this gift compared to a telescoping broom? Oz stepped inside and looked back, waiting for Willow. "You know, you can exchange it. I won't mind."

"Exchanging?" Willow asked as if it was a foreign word. She closed the door behind Oz and then stepped back to his side. "But then I don't get to keep whatever shiny thing you brought me. It is for me right?" Not that anyone else lived here but a girl could never be sure. Maybe he was just letting her check on something to see if she thought Cady would like it.

"Oh, yeah. It's for you." Oz held the box out to her and a little pang of nerves hit him. He knew what it was and it was kind of important to him. But he wasn't sure how Willow would take it. Really, it could go either way. He shoved his hands in his coat pockets after she took the box. "You can open it now or later or... whenever."

Willow squealed a little with glee when Oz gave her the box. The smile on her face was brilliant as she started to pull up the edge of the wrapping paper. "There's no later in presents," she told him. "Only nows." She got the paper off the box and then opened it. At the sight of the contents her eyes teared up as she reached in almost reverently and pulled the Pez witch out. The one he'd gotten her in high school had been buried when Sunnydale cratered. She threw her arms around him in a hug, one hand still clutching the pez witch but right now there weren't any words coming out. Just resolve face. She wasn't going to cry. Or at least she was going to make a brave little toaster attempt at it.

Watching Willow's reaction to the pez witch, which he knew hadn't survived Sunnydale, made him feel better. His nerves smoothed out and he remained the calm onlooker as she lifted the pez dispenser from the box to study it. When she hugged him, Oz slowly pulled his hands from his coat pockets to return the embrace and hold onto her. He knew Willow well enough to know when she was putting on the brave face. "Better than a telescoping broom?"

She nodded in response, taking a few minutes before she pulled back, fists edged in the overly long sleeves of her sweater. "'Cause it's a Pez witch. And everyone buys me a broom. Like I actually fly on one." She took a deep breath and ran the fingertip of one index finger over the head of the Pez witch. To most people it was a silly, plastic, candy dispenser but to Willow (and by proxy Oz) it represented so much more. Pez Witch was the first gift he'd ever given her when they'd gone out before. Having him give her another one was a little like having him give her a second chance (or a fourth or fifth as the case may be). "Thank you," she told him then her eyebrows knit together and her entire face fell. "But I don't have anything to give you."

Oz lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. "I don't want anything. This was just a... I mean I saw it and I thought of you." He reached in his pocket and withdrew a package of several lines of various flavors of pez. "I always like the red ones." He did have a thing for red, he always had.

[Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

-Trainspotting]

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1 question...
1 chance...
1 honest answer...

That's all you get. Ask me one question. Any one question, anything, no matter how crazy it is. An honest answer. No catch.

All comments will be screened so your question stays private between you and me, and only you will get to see my answer to your question. But I dare you to repost this and see what people ask you.


OOC: Pretendy kind of screening

[Rebuild]

co-written with diminished9th, whattingawhat and stillacrime

OOC: Co-written with whattingawhat, diminished9th, that_wasnifty, and stillacrime. Set post the London trip.


Willow was there. That was really the only three words that Oz kept running over and over in his ever-active mind. Buffy had said that Willow had returned from London with her and would be looking for an apartment in New York City. It had been years since he had seen or had any kind of in-depth conversation with Willow. And he wasn't even sure that there would be one now. The only reason that Buffy had invited him over was to physically meet the boyfriend and to get an overview of how the meeting in London had gone.

( Read more... )

[Rebuild]

This contains spoilers for #16 of S8 Btvs Comic mixed with a bit of my own storyline and shared with whattingawhat. The Giles is one in my own head and not binding to anyone


She hears about it from Xander but she thinks she felt the shock long before she knew what it was. She’s tied to the slayers through magic. She’s tied to the earth and to the universe so she feels the big wounds and global warming isn’t even a blip on the map compared to the hit the side of good just took. She’s trying to focus on that, focus on the big picture because if she looks at the small one, all she’s going to see is Kennedy and the picture she keeps with her when she travels. They’re in Rio, arms around each other and they look so happy.

“I should have insisted she come with me.” They are words spoken to the wall in Giles’ guest room. He keeps a flat in London and she’s been invited to stay as long as she likes. She’s aware it’s probably partially selfish. There’s going to have to be a lot of rebuilding. They lost the majority of their army in that explosion. She wishes she could put a filter on her brain that would let her deal with losing Kennedy later because right now…

There’s a soft rap on the door and Willow looks up. “Come in.”

The opens and Giles steps inside with a tray. “I thought perhaps you could use some tea.”

Willow forces a smile and pulls her legs up so that Giles could take a seat on the foot of the bed if he chose. “The English cure for everything.”

Giles shrugs one shoulder, tilting his head in something that is a bit like an apology and entirely an agreement of her statement. He sits the tray on the nightstand and pulls the chair to the side of the bed closer. “Given enough tea, the English are quite capable of anything.”

“Better stock up then. We’re gonna need a lot of tea.”

[Do Over]

“Do overs?” Willow squeaks, her eyes going wide for a moment. Her brow furrows and she’s considering the therapist’s words carefully. “Sure. I mean who doesn’t have a life full of things they wish they could do over? There was that biology test in seventh grade that I got a C on and that time in gym class…okay most of gym class.”

The therapist gives her a look that clearly says move it along so she takes a deep breath. “I guess I’d start with the night I put Angel’s soul back. I would have done it sooner. I wouldn’t have put Buffy in that position. I would have-“ she stops and shrugs at the therapist, giving her a shy smile. “That’s a do over and then…” she furrows her brow. “I wouldn’t have abused the magic so much. I wouldn’t have tried to make Tara forget. I would have protected her better.

“Tara was killed by a stray bullet. There’s little you could do about that,” the therapist reminds her, referring to her notes on file.

Willows nods in agreement. “Yeah…I know. It’s just-Tara seems like she should be a do over. I just don’t know for sure what along the way I’d do over.”

“Perhaps hindsight is not always twenty-twenty,” the therapist suggests.

“Things got so complicated there for a little while. I was trying to make everything easy with the magic. For Buffy, for Tara…for everyone and it was really making everything harder. And then when Tara died…that’s a big old do over there. Red flashing sign do over,” Willow says, eyes growing wide again.

“It seems as we get older life does get more complicated.”
“But afterwards, things got easier and harder and different. Everything went kind of s’plody and now things have been alright in Scotland. I wouldn’t do over much about the last few years. I feel like I’ve sorta gotten it together, you know? Like maybe life’s fortune cookie cracked open and for once the little slip of paper makes sense. We play that game, Kennedy and me when I bring back Chinese. We crack open our fortunes and read them out loud with the words in bed tacked onto them and then-and that’s probably over share Willow.”

“You can share anything you want in this room. It’s all confidential,” the therapist explains.

Willow smiles at her and shakes her head. “No. That’s a good part of my life. It’s not a do over.”

test test test test

testing

test test

So here's the part where you make a choice: What if you could have that power...now? In every generation, one slayer is born... because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman (points to Willow) is more powerful than all of them combined. (Willow whimpers) So I say we change the rule. I say my power...

and I think that's a wrap. Oh hey diminished9th