Mad, Dog, and Englishman

[deird_lj]

A five-drabble ficlet, written for still_grrr.

The prompt was "friendship: Wes and Gunn", and I decided to go into the Birthday-verse for a while...

Mad, Dog, and Englishman
 
When he first meets them, the English guy’s already down one arm – and still seems to think he’s the best of the lot of them.
“…and if your squad altered its fighting pattern the way I’ve outlined here, you could increase your kill ratio by almost-”
“Hey English. Shut it. My crew, my rules. You got it?”
“Er… yes.”
And there’s nothing else that needs saying.
 
The werewolf’s okay – doesn’t talk too much.
“Oz.”
“Gunn.”
“Cool.”
“Yep.”
 
And it’s weird, because out of all of them, the vamp is the one he gets along with the most – visions and all.
 
* * *
 
“He’s losing it.”
 
Wesley looks up from his book. “We don’t know that for certain.”
“The guy’s convinced that his ex-girlfriend – his evil ex-girlfriend – has come back from the dead. That sounds like losing it to me.”
 
He turns to Oz. “You agree with me, right bro?”
Oz considers it carefully. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Plus, yesterday morning I caught him talking to the window.”
“Be that as it may, we still need to explore all the possibilities. Including ex-girlfriends rising from the grave.” Wesley holds out a book. “We need to research.”
 
Like that’ll help. “You research. I’m going vamp hunting.”
 
* * *
 
Darla’s revamping hits Angel hard.
 
They realise how hard when he takes them downtown, and after two hours of wandering around, sword in hand, insisting “but I saw it!”, they figure out that he’s talking about the stabbing that was mentioned on the news – three weeks ago.
 
Wes and him glance at each other, and then simultaneously suggest that maybe Angel should go home and have a nice warm mug of blood, “…and Gunn and Oz can stay here to save that young woman.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, no problem, man – we can kick some bad-guy ass. You take the night off.”
 
* * *
 
“…and then he insisted we fly to Paris to save someone he killed two hundred years ago, and last night he woke me up to tell me that we needed to go clean out a vamp nest. You know – the one we cleaned out a week ago?”
 
Wes nods, looking worried. “I think his visions are starting to get confused with his memories.”
Oz raises an eyebrow. “No, really?”
“Maybe it’s time for us to stop taking him out to fight with us.”
 
He’s right, of course – as always.
“Well, we gotta do something, bro, ‘cause this is getting weird.”
 
* * *
 
These demons are fierce – and slimy. And they’ve got a mad set of teeth on them.
 
He slices his axe through one, and yells, “Too bad wolf-man’s out of the fight tonight!”
Wes nods as he skewers another. “That’s the problem with full moons: they tend to happen right before battles.”
“Could have used the help.”
“Yes – but we’ll do fine.”
“Can’t beat the best team in LA, right?”
“Right!”
 
And it looks like they’ve almost won… but then six more come running into the alley.
 
Gunn grips his axe tight. “You got my back, English?”
“I’ve got your back.”

Comments

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I like this a lot - lovely and straightforward friendship, with a rising desperation that's characteristic of the Birthdayverse. I'm glad that Oz is working with Gunn and Wesley, since they could really use the help, although I guess Oz didn't get to learn any meditation techniques before coming to L.A. (Maybe that's why Oz was absent when Cordy came to them in the Birthday verse... a full moon? I suppose a lot of things could have happened between the closing fight here and "Birthday.") Brilliant title, hee!

[deird1]

Thanks!

Oz's presence is actually due to a fic I wrote a while ago - I put Oz into various alternate realities including this one, and now I really can't picture the Birthdayverse without him there...

[taiba.livejournal.com]

Birthdayverse?

[deird1]

From the episode Birthday, in Angel. If you remember, Cordy hasn't joined the Fang Gang, and so Fred wasn't there, Wesley had lost an arm, and Angel was completely insane...

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

Aww, that was sweet. Gunn and Wes friendship is kind of adorable. And I like Oz's appearance. It's interesting.

And LOL at crazy Angel.

[deird1]

Glad you liked it!

[dreamincolor.livejournal.com]

Very nice Gunn voice. (I can't ever seem to get his voice down at all, despite living with a woman who talked very much like him for a year.. Something about it just always manages to evade me. So, I'm extra impressed. -nod-) Liked him calling Wes English, and the super-brief intro with Oz. And speaking of the wolfman, you managed to make him fit nicely into the birthday-verse crew..and really, you're right. He should have been there, would have added to the muscle they seemed to be lacking - with Angel being crazy and all.

Anyway, nice one. Spot on - you do wonderful with alternate universes. -squash-

[deird1]

(Oooh. I like your icon.)

Glad you liked this! AUs are so interesting.

You're right about Gunn - his voice is really tricky.

You know, I don't think I'll ever be able to think of the birthday-verse without Oz anymore. He just fits so nicely into it...