Fic: The Tao of Not Murdering All Your Friends, R, part 2 of ?
I wash my face. When this fails to cause a lightbulb to switch on over my head, I repeat the process. Frankly, I'd put up with a candle at this point. A match, even.
I wash my face again. I remain stubbornly matchless.
None of this makes any sense. The Willow-shaped thing in the other room clearly isn't Willow, or she would know that Luke has been dead for three years now. So why is she trying to persuade me that she is? I'd say that she's a shapeshifting demon, but I don't know of any creatures besides vampires who need invitations. And she clearly needed an invitation.
I realize at this point that my hands have automatically pulled out my cell phone and speed-dialed Buffy and Willow's dorm. My hands are a lot smarter than I am.
“Hello?”
Evidently the real Willow is fine and I nearly had a heart attack over nothing. I feel an utterly irrational impulse to scream at her for scaring me half to death.
“Who am I speaking to? Is this Jerry? If this is Jerry, I'm not Willow and also you can find someone else to teach you about early modern English village constables because we are through, mister, and I hope you get eaten by frogs and by the way I forgot to mention that class has been moved to Thursdays at-”
I hang up. I wonder who Jerry is. Not important right now.
Giles once told me that it helped him to remain calm in emergencies if he made a list in his head of the major outstanding questions. That seems like a pretty good idea right now.
1. What is the thing in my bedroom?
2. Is it going to kill me?
3. It's going to kill me, isn't it.
4 through 7. Fuck.
8. Why hasn't it killed me already?
9. Should I call Willow again and find out where Buffy is?
10. Buffy will kill me if I make her ditch class for evil-slaying purposes again.
11. Why can't I ever handle anything myself?
12. I'm a useless excuse for a human being, aren't I?
13. I probably have a bright future in the sewage industry.
14. I wonder what the sewage industry pays?
15. It probably pays pretty well because no one wants to do it and maybe I could help Willow and Buffy through college and be useful that way and they would treat me as a friend again instead of a sort of mascot and at what point did I turn into a teenage girl because this is pathetic.
16. Also, seriously, why hasn't it killed me already? Is it a vegetarian or something?
17. Maybe it's from out of town and it ran into one of the vampires from that nest we cleaned up in Oxnard and the other vampire made me sound really badass to make itself sound better.
18. That was really cool, huh? With the flamethrower and everything. I mean I did set Scott's hair on fire but other than that it worked pretty well.
19. Can I kill it with a flamethrower?
20. Maybe I could wrench out some piping or something and funnel gasoline through it. If I had gasoline.
21. Or I could just hit it with the pipe.
22. But I mean, seriously, why hasn't it attacked me already? Because my normal Rule For Life In Sunnydale is that if it doesn't try to kill you when you're alone with it it's either not an evil bloodsucking fiend or Angel and the fact that it does not conform to this pattern bothers me.
23. Maybe it really is Willow but it isn't from this world?
24. Yes! That must be it!
25. It's Willow ... from the future! Like in Star Trek.
26. Except if it's Willow from the future, why is she a vampire?
27 through 39. FUCK.
40.There has to be a way to stop this from happening.
41. Maybe that's what she's back here for, only she went to me instead of Present Willow because they can't see each other because of the Prime Directive.
42. Wait, doesn't that prevent people from the future from tampering with the past?
43. Screw the Prime Directive. I'm going to find whatever is responsible for bringing Luke back and sodomize it with a stick.
44. Assuming it has the right holes.
45. If it does not have the right holes, I will make them.
Armed with this resolution, I return to Future Willow in the bedroom and say, in my sternest voice (modeled closely on Giles), “You'd better tell me the whole story.”
She runs away.
Next
I wash my face again. I remain stubbornly matchless.
None of this makes any sense. The Willow-shaped thing in the other room clearly isn't Willow, or she would know that Luke has been dead for three years now. So why is she trying to persuade me that she is? I'd say that she's a shapeshifting demon, but I don't know of any creatures besides vampires who need invitations. And she clearly needed an invitation.
I realize at this point that my hands have automatically pulled out my cell phone and speed-dialed Buffy and Willow's dorm. My hands are a lot smarter than I am.
“Hello?”
Evidently the real Willow is fine and I nearly had a heart attack over nothing. I feel an utterly irrational impulse to scream at her for scaring me half to death.
“Who am I speaking to? Is this Jerry? If this is Jerry, I'm not Willow and also you can find someone else to teach you about early modern English village constables because we are through, mister, and I hope you get eaten by frogs and by the way I forgot to mention that class has been moved to Thursdays at-”
I hang up. I wonder who Jerry is. Not important right now.
Giles once told me that it helped him to remain calm in emergencies if he made a list in his head of the major outstanding questions. That seems like a pretty good idea right now.
1. What is the thing in my bedroom?
2. Is it going to kill me?
3. It's going to kill me, isn't it.
4 through 7. Fuck.
8. Why hasn't it killed me already?
9. Should I call Willow again and find out where Buffy is?
10. Buffy will kill me if I make her ditch class for evil-slaying purposes again.
11. Why can't I ever handle anything myself?
12. I'm a useless excuse for a human being, aren't I?
13. I probably have a bright future in the sewage industry.
14. I wonder what the sewage industry pays?
15. It probably pays pretty well because no one wants to do it and maybe I could help Willow and Buffy through college and be useful that way and they would treat me as a friend again instead of a sort of mascot and at what point did I turn into a teenage girl because this is pathetic.
16. Also, seriously, why hasn't it killed me already? Is it a vegetarian or something?
17. Maybe it's from out of town and it ran into one of the vampires from that nest we cleaned up in Oxnard and the other vampire made me sound really badass to make itself sound better.
18. That was really cool, huh? With the flamethrower and everything. I mean I did set Scott's hair on fire but other than that it worked pretty well.
19. Can I kill it with a flamethrower?
20. Maybe I could wrench out some piping or something and funnel gasoline through it. If I had gasoline.
21. Or I could just hit it with the pipe.
22. But I mean, seriously, why hasn't it attacked me already? Because my normal Rule For Life In Sunnydale is that if it doesn't try to kill you when you're alone with it it's either not an evil bloodsucking fiend or Angel and the fact that it does not conform to this pattern bothers me.
23. Maybe it really is Willow but it isn't from this world?
24. Yes! That must be it!
25. It's Willow ... from the future! Like in Star Trek.
26. Except if it's Willow from the future, why is she a vampire?
27 through 39. FUCK.
40.There has to be a way to stop this from happening.
41. Maybe that's what she's back here for, only she went to me instead of Present Willow because they can't see each other because of the Prime Directive.
42. Wait, doesn't that prevent people from the future from tampering with the past?
43. Screw the Prime Directive. I'm going to find whatever is responsible for bringing Luke back and sodomize it with a stick.
44. Assuming it has the right holes.
45. If it does not have the right holes, I will make them.
Armed with this resolution, I return to Future Willow in the bedroom and say, in my sternest voice (modeled closely on Giles), “You'd better tell me the whole story.”
She runs away.
Next