Compassing Wonders


Because you want the grace that others have,
You judge it straight a thing impossible
To compass wonders but by help of devils.
 [Joan of Arc, Henry VI, Part One]



Sheila Perez and Jane St. Clair issued a challenge:

For those who don't get the ref, Verona Beach is the Miami-Beach-meets-Mexico-City setting of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. Art deco meets Shakespeare, with guns and run-down amusement parks. (If you haven't seen Romeo + Juliet, you need to. Glorious, messy, deeply slashy, madly cool even if you normally can't stand DiCaprio. Go rent it tonight!)

And I said, I think a great many fandoms could be improved by AU-ing in Verona Beach. And she agreed. So. The challenge. Take your fandom of choice, your favourite characters, and take 'em to Verona Beach. For the weekend or their whole lives, it's up to you. Write fic! Then send us a link!

So this is my take on that challenge.

Giles and Oz in Verona Beach are not the Giles and Oz of Sunnydale. Yet they kind of are. Everyone is Catholic and flashy and passionate and gaudy as fuck. Except Oz, who's passionate but quiet as a forest mouse.

This is a work in progress and thus far incomplete. There's much heresy here, more smut, violence of the emotional, physical, and aesthetic stripes, and some pretty wanky meditations on vision, desire, and textuality. A certain blonde slayer and thickheaded vampire also feature prominently, or will.


One. In which Daniel appreciates Verona Beach and Gilles appreciates Daniel.
Two. In which Gilles takes Daniel home and pain is discovered to emerge from pleasure. Or vice versa.
Three. In which a mass, of a sort, is celebrated and we are enjoined to honor images.
Four. In which confession and memory keep rising upward.
Five. In which things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Six. In which Daniel goes bathing several times over.
Seven. In which promises are made and ice-cream is devoured.


Main Fiction Index