STICKS AND STONES
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them, Joss does, and so do the Brothers Grimm, probably.
SUMMARY: A modern-day fairy tale about what may happen when you don't colour inside the lines.
PAIRING: Oz/Xander. My god. I actually wrote Oz/Xander. Well, kinda, anyway. Does wolfy Oz count?
RATING: PG-13 for language.
FEEDBACK: Love it.
ARCHIVE: Wherever, just let me know first please.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: No clue where this came from. I started writing a Giles/Ethan story, then this came out of it... but I've been working on a similarly themed story in another fandom for a while, now. Call me cynical, but sometimes people don't react the way we'd like them too.
There once was a story about a big bad wolf.
No, scratch that. There one was a story about a big, bad werewolf. And this werewolf was so big and so bad, that no one could stand against him when he got angry. Luckily, he lived in the woods, so...
No, wait. Um...
He lived in the city - or a small town - but everybody is angry in those places, and you get used to it. And people died, but no one noticed.
So this big bad werewolf tried to not get angry, because there was a hunter in town. As long as he didn't get angry and kill people, the hunter would leave him alone. So, each night, he'd go into the woods and --
No, it's the other way around. In the morning he'd go into the woods, to check whether he'd killed anyone, and whether he'd have to run. Each night that the moon was whole he'd hide in the woodcutter's shed... hide underneath all the books where the moon couldn't call to him. It was a very loud moon, you see. You had to hide from it or it would catch you.
Now, in this town lived many young girls, some of whom died when they were attacked by other wolves. But this werewolf didn't want to kill them, see, so he hid. Anyway. So, when these girls went out, they learned to go out armed with... swords. No, stakes. Little pieces of wood that wolves were frightened of... no, that doesn't make any sense. Wait.
Yes. I have it now. The wolves were frightened of the wood because it reminded them of where they came from. Plus, it left splinters.
But the werewolf isn't frightened. He grew up in the woods - he's frightened of the silver, of metal, of the small town and it's pretty girls, so defenceless for him. He could lose his temper so easily and eat them all up, shoes and bonnet and all, so he's frightened. Because then the hunter would come for him, and then everyone will carry silver and metal.
Bad Bad Bad, thinks the werewolf, and hides underneath the books.
Now, the werewolf doesn't live alone in this small town, otherwise he might be lonely and, well, you know what happens when werewolves get lonely, don't you? But this werewolf has friends. There's one with red hair - Little Red Riding Hood - and one with dark hair - Snow White - and one with blond hair - she's the hunter. She's his friend as long as he doesn't hurt any of the little girls with their small pieces of wood.
This is fine for him, because they let him hide underneath all the books in the woodcutter's shed... the woodcutter having burned down his old home in the middle of the small town.
It all makes sense eventually.
Anyway, the woodcutter wasn't a terribly bad man, only...
No, wait. I lost it.
Let me start again.
Once upon a time, there was a werewolf, who didn't want to eat little girls.
Unfortunately for everyone else, he had a real taste for the little boys of the town. I know, I know, even in those days, political correctness ruined the happy endings.
So, the werewolf wanted a little boy to snack on, but he knew that it was Wrong. He was supposed to be happy with Little Red Riding Hood, wasn't he? Or something like that.
I'm not telling it right.
It was the whole of the moon that set him off. Buried in his mountain of books and music and incense, he still heard a call. Hansel and Gretel left the bread crumbs, and he had to follow because there was no witch handy. And he couldn't harm his little red riding hood, so he let her get away. But the prince - the one supposed to be waking someone up, or meeting someone at the ball, or something like that - little Hansel, no, he didn't let him go.
Okay. So Hansel went to live with the werewolf in the woods -- no, wait, I forgot there weren't any woods. Um... right. Hansel was scared of the werewolf, because he thought he should be scared. After all, werewolves were supposed to gobble up little girls, not no-longer-little boys. But the werewolf didn't mind, because Hansel was what he had a taste for at the time. And so he swallowed the boy whole, taking care not to harm him.
No, that doesn't make any sense. How did the boy get out?
The moon was out, and Hansel lived in the gingerbread house with the werewolf. Little Red Riding Hood was upset that the werewolf didn't want to gobble her up, but Hansel got on and...
Oh, forget it. It doesn't really matter anyway - before the werewolf got around to gobbling up Hansel, the moon was out again, and he was angry. But he didn't have a pile of books to hide under anymore, because the gingerbread house was not the woodcutter's shed. He had been abandoned by his friends, because he didn't gobble up the little girls like he was supposed to. One or two, it wouldn't matter, because little girls that died quickly were a dime a dozen in the small town. Instead, he'd chosen Hansel, and that was Wrong.
The little girls of the town were scared and furious. They knew that a werewolf was on the loose, and that he didn't want to eat them up. They were angry, because that was their whole purpose, wasn't it? But they didn't call the hunter to take care of the werewolf, because she'd be happy that he wasn't gobbling up little girls anymore - happy that he was living in the gingerbread house with Hansel in the woods that didn't exist.
Hansel had been careless. He'd forgotten his trail of bread crumbs, and the little girls and little boys of the village - angry that Hansel wasn't baking the werewolf into a gingerbread cake - found the gingerbread house in the woods that didn't exist. Hansel was out that day, or perhaps he was in and the story simply forgets him. In any case, the werewolf was alone when the children came, carrying their pieces of wood and their pieces of silver.
They tried to wound him, but they could not. They tried to kill him, but they could not.
Yet, in the morning, when the sun rose up to reveal the werewolf in his true form - that of a boy, just like all those other little boys in the village - it was pretty darn clear that he'd been bludgeoned to death with big fucking rocks.
So much for happy endings.
fin