January drabbles: Wesley - and recs!

[beer_good_foamy]

Still keeping it up, like John Holmes said. 3 down, 28 to go. Today it's Wesley's turn to get a spot of torture served up.

Title: The Only One To Grieve
Author: Beer Good (beer_good_foamy)
Rating: PG13
Character: Wesley
Timeline: Angel s4
Word count: 100

"Hello, Shady Oaks Rest Home? May I speak to Mrs Morgan, please."

(...)

"Mrs Morgan? My name is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce..."

(...)

"Actually, I'm sorry to... It's about your daughter."

(...)

"I know she's not there, I'm..."

(...)

"Mrs Morgan... your daughter is dead."

(...)

"Lilah, yes. I'm -"

(...)

"No, I'm... quite certain she didn't visit you yesterday."

(...)

"I'm... We... knew each other."

(...)

"I just wanted you to know that her death was... that she didn't... That she cared a great deal for you and... she will be missed."

(...)

"Lilah. Your daughter, you senile-"

(...)

"No, I don't want to talk to... Goodbye, Mrs Morgan. My condolences."

(.)



A/N: Now I've killed two of Wes's girlfriends in 24 hours. I feel mean. Now, what to do with Virginia... ;-)


Also, I rec'd five non-LJ stories over at buffyversetop5. Check'em out, they're pretty darn good. I was thinking about reccing some Kennedy stuff for us non-haters, but my teflon memory could always use a jog, so all suggestions welcome...

Comments

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Wesley really is probably the only one who'd care enough isn't he? I always find it annoying that when they kill off a character there's generally never any follow up on those it affects. Joyce's death was one of the few times and I still regard that as one of the best eps. That scene where Anya wails about how she doesn't understand death and Xander punches the wall is one of the most powerful in the whole series.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading! Agree completely about "The Body", and there are definitely cases where there could have been more follow-up on deaths, but I guess... for one thing, most of them (Angel, Buffy, Tara, Anya, Spike) take place in or near the season finale, which means we don't see the characters for 3 months afterwards. And there are a few more cases; Jenny being one example, Giles is clearly out of sorts for several episodes afterwards (he's almost zombie-like in "Killed By Death" and "I Only Have Eyes For You", he almost gets in a fistfight with Xander at the mere mention of Jenny's name in "Becoming"). And of course, Fred's death destroys Wesley completely. But that said, I *am* a complete sucker for dealing-with-the-immediate-fallout-of-death fics (working on one about Giles post-"The Gift" right now) and it would have been nice to see more of that... realism on the show. Of course, considering how often people die in the Buffyverse, that could have been an entire spinoff series' worth of episodes... :-)

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Fred's death is actually the one that annoyed me most because she'd not simply died but had her soule destroyed and I felt that that ultimate violation was not sufficiently appreciated on the show. I wanted to write a series of short fics showing the reactions of people as they were attending Fred's 'funeral'. I've done two (here) but I got stalled. I plan to go back eventually.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

From what I've heard, they had originally planned to go deeper into the whole Fred/Illyria thing but that was one of the things that had to be brushed aside when the series was cancelled (they received word on this while filming "Underneath", I think). *insert obligatory curse on FOX here*

(Of course, they could have spared us the wannabe Lemmon/Matthau of "The Girl In Question" and used that time on more interesting stuff...)

But yeah, I agree that it was too easily done. The real pity is that it would have given the show an opportunity to get REALLY metaphysical and try to get to the bottom of this thing that's been sort of a black box ever since BtVS 1.07: Just exactly what the hell IS a soul (in the Buffyverse) anyway? What is it made of? Who makes it? What does it actually DO to a person? (Angel can commit murder with a soul or without; Warren has a soul, Clem (presumably) doesn't; etc.) Where does it go when it's removed - where was Angel's soul between 1753 and 1898, where is the soul of every non-souled vampire, is Richard Wilkins' soul sitting in a jar somewhere?

Illyria would have been the perfect instrument for this; from what I recall of interviews with Whedon and Minear, there WERE indeed plans to bring Fred back in some form or other, but at the same time - by NFA, it does seem that Illyria is developing some sort of soul of her own...

I guess we'll never know. Which is ironically fitting in questions regarding the afterlife... ;-) Will check out your ficlets too!

[obiwahn.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh. It hurts.

Brilliant!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!