FF: Stuck In Overdrive (4/9)

["Jamie" <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

TITLE: Stuck In Overdrive (4/9)
AUTHOR: Jamie (jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I don't
own anything.
SUMMARY: A few months on from the events of 'Stuck In The Feedback Loop', Willow grieves Buffy's death. Xander has turned to other methods to cope, and Giles is at a loss as to what to do. The arrival of Billy, a boy who's comatose state allows for nightmares to become reality complicates matters further.
SPOILERS: Unless you haven't seen season one...
DISTRIBUTION: E-mail me.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Here it is finally. Sorry it took so long to get out, it'sbeen a week off from college this week for me, and I've um, had a bit too much fun. But yeah, I finished it today, even though I meant to get it out on Halloween. Damn. Enjoy, and please send feedback.



Not every cloud has a silver lining.



CHAPTER 4

God Called In Sick Today






"Let's admire the pattern forming
Murderous filigree
I'm caught in the twisting of the vines
Go ascend with ivy climbing
Ignore and leave for me
The headstone crumbling behind

Let's amend the classic story
Close it so beautifully
I'll let animosity unwind
Steal away the darkened pages
Hidden so shamefully
I'll still feel the violence of the lines."

AFI - God Called In Sick Today



Giles' father stood up from the wall and brushed some loose grit off of histrousers, smoothing them out at the same time. His face held the expression of a smile, yet his eyes were cold and emotionless. As he approached, their ice-blue colour reflected nothing within his soul that he felt for his son, no love, no joy. Only the cold.

Just as I remember

"Hello Rupert." His father said, coming to a stop in front of him. He flashed his wolfish grin again and held out his hand for his son to shake. Gilesdid not reply or offer his hand in return. He stepped away slowly, series of events and occurrences connecting in his head to allow the realisation of what was happening to dawn on him. The newspaper stories he'd read, the maggots in his house, his inability to read the street signs.everything.it all made sense.

Giles' father smiled as his son's eyes widened. Yes, you've finally understood, haven't you, he thought darkly, still grinning.

"If.then why are you here?" Giles asked, straightening up and raising his chin. "I never feared you."

"Ah, and that's where you STILL don't get it my boy." His father replied. "A pity really, but hardly surprising." Giles' lips tightened until they went white, undisguised hate and hurt in his eyes. "When I was, well, alive - you never feared me, this is true. However, one thing you wanted more than anything else was my approval. You wanted me to be proud of you, didn't youRupert." The apparition of his father tapped his head. "I know all your secrets boy, I was created from them because you fear them. I know that this desire has now manifested itself into a fear of failure and defeat. I am It."

"But you can't say it isn't justified." The ghost continued in a scornful tone. "Look at you now, wallowing in your own self pity when so many others are suffering." He stretched out his arm and swept it across the horizon. Strangely, Giles began to feel as if he were flying. He looked out over Sunnydale from his aerial vantage-point. The beginnings of dawn were beginning to show themselves in the sky, which turned a lighter shade of blue. AcrossGiles' field of vision, catastrophe was evident. Fires engulfed houses randomly along the landscape, sending thick, acrid black smoke rolling into the air. Around the fires, orange light illuminated scenes of chaos. Here, a werewolf chased a group of people down a street. There a pack of lurching zombies emerged from the hospital door. Then just as surreally as he had left his body, he returned. His father looked at him for a second, studying his face, then continued. "You've always been like this, always willing only to look out for yourself and never to look after anyone else. You might bear the title of a mature Watcher now son, but at heart you're still the sameselfish child that walked out on his future, his destiny and shamed his family on a self-serving whim." Giles was staggered by this tirade of abuse from his father. He choked down his emotion and forced his eyes not to startleaking tears.

"That's not true." He croaked, his voice hoarse and his throat sore.

"Let's try that once more with feeling, shall we old boy?" The apparition replied. Outwards it kept its stony expression, but inside it smiled. It felt like a cheetah cornering its prey, about to move in for the kill.

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Willow looked around the room in a shocked daze, taking in the carnage and blood. I don't understand! She screamed in her head, unable to make the connection between her mouth and her brain. Who's nightmare was this?!

Xander stood in the doorway, pale and sweating cold water from every pore. It was his nightmare, his dark fantasy.

"This is." He started. Willow and Billy turned their heads slowly towards him, still in shock. Billy's eyes had gone wide and he'd vomited in a cornerfurther down the hall. ".this is my fault.I dreamt of this."

"This isn't a dream." Billy whispered quietly, as if afraid something wouldhear him. Willow glanced down at the boy and walked out of the room, careful to avoid all of the.human debris.

"No it's not." She said at the same volume that he had, kneeling down and pushing his hair out of his eyes. She stood back up and turned to face Xander.

"Xander, get a grip. I need you to tell me what happens in your dream." Shesaid, gently yet forcefully. He didn't reply and she shook him. "Xander!"

"Everyone whoever shunned me. Every group in school that turned me away, every clique that decided I wasn't good enough for them.they all died. I mean, I wanted to kill them sometimes, but never like this. Not like this." He trailed off, staring into the cold, glassy eyes of Cordelia. The cheerleader's eyes were still open, staring vacantly into nothing. Her throat had been bitten in at least three places. He turned around to check on Billy, leaning against the doorframe for support. He wiped his now wet eyes with his forearm and sniffed, looking at the floor. There was silence between them for long moments. Then Xander looked up, feeling Willow's hand come to rest on his shoulder. He held her gaze for a second and smiled sadly. She turned and walked back into the room, looking around once more. The older boy turned to look at Billy.



He was stood rigidly still; a white-gloved hand firmly latched onto his shoulder. Xander followed the path the figure's anatomy made to its head from its arm. It was wearing a baggy jump suit, pinstriped with various vibrant colours. Three fluffy red bobbles ran in a line up his chest area, terminating in a bizarre neckpiece, white with net-curtain style stitching. Its face was bone white, with a giant red nose and flaming orange hair appropriately permed. His eyes were filled in dark violet, and a small blue tear was painted below the left.

Xander's jaw dropped in horror, but before he could scream the clown lifteda finger to his mouth and shushed him silently. All that he could manage was a choked gasp.

The clown crept forward with exaggerated motions, winking at Xander as he went past. As he grasped the door handle, Willow stiffened. The clown furledits eyebrow annoyedly and swung the door shut as she turned around. She caught a glimpse of the Clown's face as the door swung shut on her, it's annoyed expression turned to one of maniacal delight. From behind the closed door it giggled insanely and the sound of a key turning in the lock was heard. Willow bolted forwards, desperately trying to reach it before the bolt connected into the lock slot. She was too late, but pressed on anyway, jumping shoulder first into it. The door didn't even splinter slightly and she rebounded off of it with bone jarring impact, biting her tongue stupidly in the process.

"NO!" She screamed desperately and hammered against the door again and again, even though the injury she'd suffered to her ankle earlier was beginningto flare up again. She turned around and looked wildly at the room, slumping to her knees crying silently. The corpses all looked back where they lay, reflecting nothing at all. She sniffed one last time and picked up a chair, letting someone's arm flop to the floor in the process. With an effort she heaved it at the window, allowing the steel legs to smash through the panes. She hurried forwards and tripped over the leg of someone. Falling on her front, her face smashed to the floor and into a puddle of someone else'sblood. She opened her eyes, her vision blurry with pain and saw the face of Harmony. Her perfectly detailed and made up features reflected back, perfect mascara on perfect closed eyes, with the only impurity being a streak of mascara where a tear had run down her face. Willow gasped, tears springing to her eyes. Somehow, having someone she knew in this massacre face to face with her brought it all home. Tears fell from her blood-spattered eyes as she flew up with a start and dived out of the smashed window, tiny shardsof glass creating shallow cuts on her thighs and stomach as she sailed over them. She rolled and caught her fall, standing up in one fluid movement.

She looked around and realised she was stood in the middle of the auditorium.

"This has gone beyond old." She muttered under her breath, wiping her tearsaway as he strode down the centre aisle of abandoned seats. Her sadness and grief were beginning to warp and twist into pure anger for whatever caused this, and if anything stood in her way between her and her friends now she would kick its all the way back to Hell. She mulled over what had just happened, her separation from Xander and Billy, the Clown. How could she let it happen.she should have been paying more attention.

"Shit." She whispered hoarsely, her throat ravaged from emotion over the last six hours. Suddenly she was aware of a presence in the room. She looked over at the stage, and as if on cue a voice came from the shadows.

"Did you expect anything less to happen. After all, they did trust you didn't they." The voice chuckled and a figure stepped slightly out of the shadows, just enough so that the morning sun beginning to stream through the windows could reveal a part of his face. Willow felt cold shivers go down her spine. It was the Ugly Man. Her resolve faltered for a second, only for a second however. She didn't let any of her fear becoming evident in her posture, her voice, her movements or her face.

"I'm not afraid of you. I'll never be afraid of you. Go back to whatever hole you crawled from and leave Billy alone. God dammit he's a child, what the hell did he do to you?"

The Ugly Man stared at her for a second and chuckled softly again, althoughthis time he seemed more dangerous than amused.

"It's sweet that you think you can reason with the creatures of the night."He said. But just as quickly as his grin had come it faded. He stepped outfully onto the stage, his boots thundering on the planks noisily. "But youdon't get it, do you. I was never after the boy, I was coming for you Red.He just seemed appetising at the time." Willow looked at him in disgust and felt the familiar anger boil up inside her, setting her bloodstream on fire with its potency. Her muscles in her legs jerked slightly in response tothis and begged her to use them.

"You've just justified my killing you ten time over." She flexed her hands experimentally and began to stalk forwards.

"That's what I want. That fire, that rage. That inner anger boiling at the surface, ready to erupt at anyone and anything at the last second. I know all your filthy little secrets Red, I am your every violent impulse barely contained. I'm your every little black thought that crosses your mind. I'm your shame, I'm your anger, I'm everything you hate about yourself and everything you wish you could change." 

The Ugly Man flicked his wrist out and began to pull upwards on an invisible string. Willow's jumper sleeves moved up her arm with his motion, as if tugged by an invisible string. Her sleeve moved past her elbow, exposing dark red, almost black, jagged lines across her skin. He seemed bored as he continued, half-sighing, half-contemplating his actions. "Your pain, your sorrow, your suffering."

The Ugly Man's voice suddenly shifted to a much more feminine tone, higher,more airy. It was a voice Willow had heard in her dreams for three months,two weeks and a couple of days. Buffy's voice.

"Your failures."

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The clown pulled the two boys along, grinning, laughing and skipping maniacally. His high giggle penetrated the otherwise silent and desolate hallway,reverberating off the walls and sounding to Xander as if there was more than one clown. Billy stumbled over his feet and fell to the floor. Xander yanked free of the clown's grasp and picked him up, pushing him behind him. He turned to face the clown who had stopped to study them, hands behind his back like a good school boy. Xander balled his fists and took a step forward. The clown grinned extra wide and honked his nose with his left hand. Hisright came out slowly from behind his back, revealing a very long, wicked-looking knife.

Xander closed on the clown before the monster could react and swung with all the strength and force he could put behind it.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The Slayer screamed out in anger and hate at the Ugly Man. She closed the distance between them in a few seconds, screaming and shouting at him for disgracing Buffy's memory, for trying to get to her by using Buffy's voice. She sobbed uncontrollably and screamed as she swung.

The Ugly Man smiled.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Xander's fist connected with the jawbone of the clown and it went down in aheap, the force of the punch throwing it to the floor and unconsciousness.He looked at the clown and spat on its body, taking the knife and sliding it in between his belt and his jeans. He started back in fright and cried out as the Clown began to bubble. A sudden streak of fire race down its suitand it burned to dust in seconds. Xander looked down at it again and kicked the dust into a cloud before running back to Billy, feeling liberated andfreer than he had in a long time.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The Ugly Man grabs Willow's fist and she swings out with the other, sobbingfrantically and screaming at him over and over, saying she didn't fail her. She beats her hands against his chest repeatedly and he backhands her. She spins around, dazed, but doesn't lose her footing. However he is behind her in a flash and puts her into a sleeper hold, tightening the grip gradually and putting his other hand over her nose and mouth so it cuts off her air supply. Willow flails frantically, tears rolling down her cheeks. 

After a minute of violent thrashing, her lips begin to turn blue and her movements become less pronounced, her biting against his hand less hard. The room around her begins to spin and she begins to feel spacey, as if she isn't really in the room.

"Chalk up another failure Red. This time you really messed things up. But never mind, it'll all be over soon.

He tightens his grip with a jerk, eliciting a soft moan of pain from her ashe stamps on her injured ankle, breaking it and bringing her back to reality. All she can feel is his breath hot in her ear and the pain from her ankle, the smell of rancid and acrid burnt flesh against her nose as he whispers to her.

"All I want is your acquiescence. Do you want me to end it Red?"

The room fades out around Willow as she lets tears roll down her cheek and over his hands. She nods lethargically, sluggish from the pain and loss of air. She can't see his face, but she imagines him smiling as she loses consciousness.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Anthony Giles, or the spirit resembling him, looked up at the rapidly brightening sky and retrieved his pocket watch from his jacket. He flipped it open, then smiled, almost sadly, at the knowledge of what was to come. He closed it again with a quiet click and put it back in his jacket pocket.

"Come on Rupert, it's almost time."

The younger man flinched at his father's words, breaking the silence between them had had lasted for minutes.

"Time for what?" The older man looked at him and two sets of blue eyes stared into each other.

"Time for you to realise the extent of what will happen should you fail in your task."

Giles stared in a confused haze as his father walked on, then set off afterhim.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The same disembodied feeling overcame Giles as he walked that he had felt earlier. Once again he felt himself detach from.himself.and float up over the school. He looked to his right and his father still stood there, but whilst Giles' form was spectral and translucent, his father's was whole and opaque.

They drifted over towards the large auditorium building and stopped by an open window. As if being tugged by invisible force, Giles passed through thewall and descended gracefully to the ground. He felt his father drift downnext to him and looked over.

"Watch." The apparition said sadly, and pointed over towards the stage. On top of it, Willow fought against the grip of a hideous creature. His hands were over her mouth and nose airways, and his elbow curved suddenly into a wicked crook at her neck. Her face had gone red. Giles cried out and tried to move forwards, but his father restrained him, unusually strong.

"Don't try to interfere. This has to happen. Just watch."

The brute lowered his head to Willow's ear and whispered in it. Her eyes closed slowly. The creature glanced at them and stamped on her food, creatingan audible snap. His Slayer cried out weakly in pain and fatigue. Giles struggled against the grip of his father, his features becoming less translucent by the second.

"Let me go.PLEASE!" He cried, "He's killing her!"

"I know." The apparition said quietly. Giles struggled viciously yet helplessly as he watched what happened. Willow's head lolled back into the creature's dark embrace, and it whispered something to him again. Her head lazilydrifted for a second, then a pain wracked daze she brought it into an almost invisible nod. The creature smiled, and Willow hung loosely in its arms,the life retreating from her body. Her head fell to face him and Giles wasstruck by how terribly beautiful she looked. Her lips were blue and her face ashen, the tears running down her face had stopped, and all that was left was the simple beauty of this girl. A jerk of her body and a kick of the monster to her knees snapped him out of his crippling sadness. They buckledunder the pressure applied to them, and she fell so her head was at waist height.

"Have your last request, Red." He snarled evilly, and placed his hands about her head. She swayed in his grip, the colour returning to her skin and her lips reddening again. Giles struck out at his father and flew out of the embrace, heading for the stage.

"NO!" He screamed, desperate to reach them and end this macabre scene playing out in front of him. The next few seconds happened in slow motion for the Watcher, as he stumbled and fell to the floor, looking upwards when he landed and scrambling to his feet.

It smiles as it feels the life return to the Slayer. She was a good opponent, she kept It running for a long time. That was why It was doing this for her quickly.

With a flick of It's wrists, the Slayer's read head snapped to the side. A loud crack penetrated the air and reverberated throughout the hall. It smiled and chuckled slightly as It began to disintegrate, It's job having been accomplished. Within a second, all that was left was dust blowing with the gentle breeze,

Willow's head jerked forwards immediately after her spinal column broke, and she fell forward. Her face hit the wooden stage floor on its side and bounced lightly, coming back to rest permanently the second time. Her shoulderlength red hair fell down strand by strand afterwards, wavering in the breeze until evenutally it all came to rest, framing her face and blending with the small trickle of blood falling from her half-open mouth.

Giles screamed in anguish and agony as he was pulled out of the auditorium and back to his body outside the front of school.

By the school gym, Xander heard the scream and stopped dead in his tracks.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Overhead, grey clouds began to gather. The blotted out the sun and ever so light drops of rain fell from their swollen mass to land on the grass and pavement outside, creating dark spots where they struck.





End Part 4.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamie
jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"So go ahead and label me an asshole cuz I can accept responsibility for what I've done, but not for who I am." - NOFX, 'Don't Call Me White'
http://www.buffywillow.com

Glory: Funny. 'Cause I look around at this world you're so eager to be a part of ... and all I see is six billion lunatics looking for the fastest ride out. Who's not crazy? Look around. Everyone's drinking, smoking, shootingup ... shooting each other, or just plain screwing their brains out 'causethey don't want 'em anymore. *I'm* crazy? Honey, I'm the original one-eyedchicklet in the kingdom of the blind. 'Cause at least I admit the world makes me nuts. 

Xander: Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with deadboy on this one. 
Angel: Could you not call me that?