Moments of Initiative
Sidekick vs Backup
Author: Lucinda
rating: pg? pg 13?
Main Characters: Graham Miller, Willow Rosenberg
Disclaimer: I own nobody from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Distribution: Bite Me, please?, NHA, WWW, WillowGraham... anyone else, just ask.
Graham Miller had just learned something that had turned things upside down. Again. When he was eighteen, he had discovered that vampires and demons were real. That every time he'd been reassured that the monsters of horror movies didn't exist, it had been a lie. There were demons and vampires. Probably magic as well. He still remembered what had caused his cherished notion that vampires didn't exist to shatter...
He could still remember that terrible night when he had discovered that there were really things that went bump in the night. This unhappy discovery had happened when a group of his friends had been out at some cabins by the lake and had been attacked by vampires. What had been intended as a celebration of graduation had ended in tragedy. They had been attacked by a groups of what he'd first thought were crazed people, but then he'd seen their eyes, yellow under heavy brows, seen the sharp teeth with his best friend Russell's blood flowing down the face of the inhuman thing that had just ripped his throat open. He had panicked, and found himself yelling and flailing, and then Katie had slipped, and he'd had to help her back to the cabin, and they had gotten in, along with his cousin Todd and Donnie and a girl he barely knew called Annie. The vampires had been unable to follow. He didn't understand why they couldn't enter the cabin, but he had been too grateful to complain. And too busy shaking with fear.
He had joined the Army to learn enough about fighting that he would never be unprepared for such a situation again, and that had prompted him to volunteer to join the Initiative when it was founded last year. He had come to accept that there were things out there that no human could fight on even terms. That was why they used tasers and other heavy firepower.
He had made a few friends in the Initative, Riley Finn and Forrest Gates. They were on the same team in the field, although they had separate duties once they were back to base. Forrest consulted with the various researchers, Riley worked with administration, and he did repair work, making certain the equipment all functioned properly. They worked well together, each giving a certain strength to the group. Things didn't go as well if anyone wasn't feeling well, or had been temporarily replaced by someone else. They were a team, perhaps the most practiced and smoothest team of the Initiative. They were aware of each other, and could generally predict each other's behavior. They depended on each other.
Riley had told them that Dr. Walsh wanted to run a few tests on some of the Hostiles, which was the official designation of the vampires and demons. He was explaining how Dr. Walsh had theorized that with proper behavior modification, the Hostiles could be trained to be useful instead of dangerous. Forrest had scoffed at the idea, saying that it was as crazy as the Slayer Myth. Neither Riley nor Graham had heard of it, so Forrest had proceeded with great amusement to tell about how demons feared 'the Slayer', who was a girl, or woman, that had been somehow given the power to fight and kill vampires and demons. One girl that could kick their asses. Sort of like the demon's version of a boogeyman. That idea had seemed absurd, impossible, and entirely beyond the possibilities of science. How could any human, especially a girl or woman fight these demons? They were stronger and faster than humans, and many were poisonous as well.
Actually, it turned out the Slayer wasn't a myth. She was Riley's new girlfriend, Buffy Summers. Buffy, who barely reached Riley's shoulder, was supposed to be able to take down a vampire in hand to hand combat. It boggled his mind. That didn't sound like a normal person, it sounded more like the sort of thing you would expect from a superhero. Which she sounded like, judging from the stories about her past adventures that Riley had relayed to them. She had battled horrible and powerful demons. Buffy had stopped things from starting the Apocalypse, on several occasions. All with the aid of her high school librarian, and two friends from her grade, one of which was now a construction worker, and the other... actually, he had a class with Willow on European History.
Willow was one of the people that helped Buffy. But it wasn't the same sort of help that he gave Riley, he was Riley's back-up, an ally of similar abilities. WIllow... if she wasn't a Slayer, what could she do? Wouldn't that make her more like a sidekick? How did she deal so calmly with all of this? He would never have imagined that Willow knew what lurked in the night from the way she appeared in class. He would have said that she was shy, a bit sheltered, the sort of person that was overlooked or unpopular in high school. The sort that would either faint or have hysterics when confronted with a demon. But, from Riley's stories about Buffy's adventures, Willow had been fighting demons and vampires since she was fifteen.
How did she do it? Not only stand against such horrible things, but... to do so beside someone that probably didn't need any help. Someone far more physically capable than Willow would ever be. How did she manage to live in the shadow of a superhero? What motivated her to put herself in danger like that?
Maybe he could ask her.
He decided to try to talk to her about it if he got the opportunity. Maybe he could use the excuse of asking to study something for history? That should work, and if they went to the library, they should even have a bit of privacy to talk without it being so isolated that she might feel threatened.
He was so busy planning out how to talk to Willow that he missed a great deal of the lecture on the beginnings of the Napoleonic War. The good side was that he now had the perfect reason to talk to Willow, he could ask to get a copy of her notes. It was the perfect excuse to talk to her, and the fact that it was even true gave it strength. The down side... well, missing a lecture was never particularly good for his class work. There she was, now all he had to do was...
He bumped into her, hoping it would be perceived as an accident among all the students crowding out of the classroom. Only, he seemed to bump a bit hard, and she went crashing to the ground, papers scattering to the ground around her. "Oh my God, I am sorry! I didn't mean... let me help you pick those up. Are you alright?"
"I think I'm still in one piece... nothing broken but this pencil. umm... thanks... there should be a handout? Names, and dates... and you're one of Riley Finn's friends, aren't you? Graham?" Her eyes were focused on Graham, full of questions and mysterious thoughts.
If he could understand the mysteries in her eyes... He shook his head slightly, reminding himself that he wasn't here to stare at lovely green eyes. "I... didn't catch all of the notes today. Maybe... could I convince you to let me make copies of yours?" Internally, Graham winced. That had sounded absolutely terrible. Why would she ever let him use her notes when he had just knocked her down?
"I guess I could let you make copies. umm... I think there's a copy machine in the library. I have some time before my next class, if you'd like..."
He was delighted as they made their way to the campus library. She would let him have copies of her notes, and she was talking to him. That was good, it meant that maybe he could ask her about the whole Slayer/sidekick situation. As soon as they had a bit of privacy.
After what had felt like forever getting the copies made, which would be good for his class grade, they moved to a small study cubicle towards the back, so that Willow could explain anything her notes didn't make clear.
"So... how did you meet Buffy? Riley's had a lot to say about her, I have to admit it made me a bit curious." He was trying for neutral.
She looked at him, her eyes suddenly piercing, as if she could see into the depths of his soul. After a short pause that lasted an eternity, she spoke, her voice soft, the words precisely shaped and without any emotion. "You're in the Initiative like he is, aren't you?"
He felt stunned. Was he really that bad at keeping secrets? Did everyone know about them? Or had Buffy told her friends things just like Riley had told them? "Ahh... yes. What do you have against the Initiative?"
She paused for a moment, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Since I highly doubt that there are two groups of people running around with highly advanced weapons technology wearing camouflage, I'm thinking it was some of your Initiative people that kicked my door in a while back. Which I had to pay a fine for, by the way, something that I am NOT happy about."
He winced. "Sorry? But there... wasn't there... a Hostile?" The report had mentioned a student dorm entered in the attempted recovery of the escaped hostile. That had been Willow's room? Things couldn't be easy for him, could they?
Her brows dipped slightly in apparent puzzlement. "Hostile? He was a vampire, and pretty cranky, but he didn't actually... oh, you call them hostiles for your paperwork and records. Why do I get the feeling it wasn't quite an accident that you bumped into me, Graham Miller?"
Oh, she really was quick. He shifted a bit, feeling decidely guilty. "No, it wasn't quite an accident, although I didn't mean for you to fall. I... I wanted to ask you a few questions. Partly about Buffy... and partly about how you work together."
"Why? You're a military group with high tech equipment and a funding budget. Why do you want to ask about how we do things?"
"I'm not asking on behalf of the Initiative. It's just... some of what Riley's said makes Buffy sound like some sort of superhero. How do you work with someone like that? Somebody that can do things that you'll never be able to do? Riley hasn't got any field skills that I don't have, not really. Same equipment, similar targeting accuracy... same with the others on our team. But... none of us can fight a hostile hand to hand. We're partners, and it sounds sort of like you're more of a... sidekick." He hoped that didn't sound quite as bad to her as it did to him.
She sighed, her fingers starting to trace patterns on the top of the table. "Sort of. We... most of the time, we help do research, or planning. I do a lot on the computer, you know, getting information of mauled bodies and icky details. Then, we help plan out the strategy, and let Buffy go kill it."
"How do you stand it? I mean, doesn't that put you in her shadow?" He wanted to understand.
"I can deal with that. I'm perfectly comfortable not being the center of attention. I really haven't ever been the focus... so that isn't really a change. But... if I do this, I'm helping make a difference, even if only for people who will never know. Does that make any sense? I mean, how could I live with myself knowing that I could be helping save lives, but I didn't want to give up a little time here and there to help?"
"I suppose... I never looked at it quite like that."
"How do you look at it, Graham? Why did you join the Initiative?" She looked curious, as if he was a mystery she had to explore.
"The summer after I graduated, I was at a lake with a group of friends. We had a bonfire, and we were just... having a bit of fun. The, these guys showed up, and started a fight, and the next thing I knew, they... they weren't human, and they were killing us. I panicked, Willow. I had no idea what to do, and I panicked. It was a miracle that I didn't get killed. I never wanted to be that helpless in the face of danger again. When the Initiative was formed, I figured that it would help me get over it, that big feeling..." His words slowed and halted, as he tried to figure out how to describe the feeling that the discovery of demons had caused in him.
"A feeling that this can't be real, that it's too horrible, too ugly to be possible? That you don't want the things that go bump in the night to be more than a foraging raccoon? That there is no monster in the closet?" Her words were soft, almost gentle.
He could only nod, wondering how she knew how it felt.
"It gets easier after a while. But... if it helps, we've never found a closet monster before. It's sort of like... when you realized that there are people out there that do bad things to girls who go out alone. It's horrible, and at first, you don't want to believe, but eventually, you can't deny it anymore. It's sort of loosing a type of innocence."
He sighed, having partly thought it would be something like that. "It isn't fun."
"No, it isn't. And nobody can make it so you don't know about these things once you learn. But... if you need to talk to someone? You can talk to me." She had a small smile.
Maybe things wouldn't be quite as bad. Maybe she could help him find some sense in all of this. Or at least, help him keep a measure of hope in the face of the dark.
end.
Sidekick vs Backup
Author: Lucinda
rating: pg? pg 13?
Main Characters: Graham Miller, Willow Rosenberg
Disclaimer: I own nobody from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Distribution: Bite Me, please?, NHA, WWW, WillowGraham... anyone else, just ask.
Graham Miller had just learned something that had turned things upside down. Again. When he was eighteen, he had discovered that vampires and demons were real. That every time he'd been reassured that the monsters of horror movies didn't exist, it had been a lie. There were demons and vampires. Probably magic as well. He still remembered what had caused his cherished notion that vampires didn't exist to shatter...
He could still remember that terrible night when he had discovered that there were really things that went bump in the night. This unhappy discovery had happened when a group of his friends had been out at some cabins by the lake and had been attacked by vampires. What had been intended as a celebration of graduation had ended in tragedy. They had been attacked by a groups of what he'd first thought were crazed people, but then he'd seen their eyes, yellow under heavy brows, seen the sharp teeth with his best friend Russell's blood flowing down the face of the inhuman thing that had just ripped his throat open. He had panicked, and found himself yelling and flailing, and then Katie had slipped, and he'd had to help her back to the cabin, and they had gotten in, along with his cousin Todd and Donnie and a girl he barely knew called Annie. The vampires had been unable to follow. He didn't understand why they couldn't enter the cabin, but he had been too grateful to complain. And too busy shaking with fear.
He had joined the Army to learn enough about fighting that he would never be unprepared for such a situation again, and that had prompted him to volunteer to join the Initiative when it was founded last year. He had come to accept that there were things out there that no human could fight on even terms. That was why they used tasers and other heavy firepower.
He had made a few friends in the Initative, Riley Finn and Forrest Gates. They were on the same team in the field, although they had separate duties once they were back to base. Forrest consulted with the various researchers, Riley worked with administration, and he did repair work, making certain the equipment all functioned properly. They worked well together, each giving a certain strength to the group. Things didn't go as well if anyone wasn't feeling well, or had been temporarily replaced by someone else. They were a team, perhaps the most practiced and smoothest team of the Initiative. They were aware of each other, and could generally predict each other's behavior. They depended on each other.
Riley had told them that Dr. Walsh wanted to run a few tests on some of the Hostiles, which was the official designation of the vampires and demons. He was explaining how Dr. Walsh had theorized that with proper behavior modification, the Hostiles could be trained to be useful instead of dangerous. Forrest had scoffed at the idea, saying that it was as crazy as the Slayer Myth. Neither Riley nor Graham had heard of it, so Forrest had proceeded with great amusement to tell about how demons feared 'the Slayer', who was a girl, or woman, that had been somehow given the power to fight and kill vampires and demons. One girl that could kick their asses. Sort of like the demon's version of a boogeyman. That idea had seemed absurd, impossible, and entirely beyond the possibilities of science. How could any human, especially a girl or woman fight these demons? They were stronger and faster than humans, and many were poisonous as well.
Actually, it turned out the Slayer wasn't a myth. She was Riley's new girlfriend, Buffy Summers. Buffy, who barely reached Riley's shoulder, was supposed to be able to take down a vampire in hand to hand combat. It boggled his mind. That didn't sound like a normal person, it sounded more like the sort of thing you would expect from a superhero. Which she sounded like, judging from the stories about her past adventures that Riley had relayed to them. She had battled horrible and powerful demons. Buffy had stopped things from starting the Apocalypse, on several occasions. All with the aid of her high school librarian, and two friends from her grade, one of which was now a construction worker, and the other... actually, he had a class with Willow on European History.
Willow was one of the people that helped Buffy. But it wasn't the same sort of help that he gave Riley, he was Riley's back-up, an ally of similar abilities. WIllow... if she wasn't a Slayer, what could she do? Wouldn't that make her more like a sidekick? How did she deal so calmly with all of this? He would never have imagined that Willow knew what lurked in the night from the way she appeared in class. He would have said that she was shy, a bit sheltered, the sort of person that was overlooked or unpopular in high school. The sort that would either faint or have hysterics when confronted with a demon. But, from Riley's stories about Buffy's adventures, Willow had been fighting demons and vampires since she was fifteen.
How did she do it? Not only stand against such horrible things, but... to do so beside someone that probably didn't need any help. Someone far more physically capable than Willow would ever be. How did she manage to live in the shadow of a superhero? What motivated her to put herself in danger like that?
Maybe he could ask her.
He decided to try to talk to her about it if he got the opportunity. Maybe he could use the excuse of asking to study something for history? That should work, and if they went to the library, they should even have a bit of privacy to talk without it being so isolated that she might feel threatened.
He was so busy planning out how to talk to Willow that he missed a great deal of the lecture on the beginnings of the Napoleonic War. The good side was that he now had the perfect reason to talk to Willow, he could ask to get a copy of her notes. It was the perfect excuse to talk to her, and the fact that it was even true gave it strength. The down side... well, missing a lecture was never particularly good for his class work. There she was, now all he had to do was...
He bumped into her, hoping it would be perceived as an accident among all the students crowding out of the classroom. Only, he seemed to bump a bit hard, and she went crashing to the ground, papers scattering to the ground around her. "Oh my God, I am sorry! I didn't mean... let me help you pick those up. Are you alright?"
"I think I'm still in one piece... nothing broken but this pencil. umm... thanks... there should be a handout? Names, and dates... and you're one of Riley Finn's friends, aren't you? Graham?" Her eyes were focused on Graham, full of questions and mysterious thoughts.
If he could understand the mysteries in her eyes... He shook his head slightly, reminding himself that he wasn't here to stare at lovely green eyes. "I... didn't catch all of the notes today. Maybe... could I convince you to let me make copies of yours?" Internally, Graham winced. That had sounded absolutely terrible. Why would she ever let him use her notes when he had just knocked her down?
"I guess I could let you make copies. umm... I think there's a copy machine in the library. I have some time before my next class, if you'd like..."
He was delighted as they made their way to the campus library. She would let him have copies of her notes, and she was talking to him. That was good, it meant that maybe he could ask her about the whole Slayer/sidekick situation. As soon as they had a bit of privacy.
After what had felt like forever getting the copies made, which would be good for his class grade, they moved to a small study cubicle towards the back, so that Willow could explain anything her notes didn't make clear.
"So... how did you meet Buffy? Riley's had a lot to say about her, I have to admit it made me a bit curious." He was trying for neutral.
She looked at him, her eyes suddenly piercing, as if she could see into the depths of his soul. After a short pause that lasted an eternity, she spoke, her voice soft, the words precisely shaped and without any emotion. "You're in the Initiative like he is, aren't you?"
He felt stunned. Was he really that bad at keeping secrets? Did everyone know about them? Or had Buffy told her friends things just like Riley had told them? "Ahh... yes. What do you have against the Initiative?"
She paused for a moment, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Since I highly doubt that there are two groups of people running around with highly advanced weapons technology wearing camouflage, I'm thinking it was some of your Initiative people that kicked my door in a while back. Which I had to pay a fine for, by the way, something that I am NOT happy about."
He winced. "Sorry? But there... wasn't there... a Hostile?" The report had mentioned a student dorm entered in the attempted recovery of the escaped hostile. That had been Willow's room? Things couldn't be easy for him, could they?
Her brows dipped slightly in apparent puzzlement. "Hostile? He was a vampire, and pretty cranky, but he didn't actually... oh, you call them hostiles for your paperwork and records. Why do I get the feeling it wasn't quite an accident that you bumped into me, Graham Miller?"
Oh, she really was quick. He shifted a bit, feeling decidely guilty. "No, it wasn't quite an accident, although I didn't mean for you to fall. I... I wanted to ask you a few questions. Partly about Buffy... and partly about how you work together."
"Why? You're a military group with high tech equipment and a funding budget. Why do you want to ask about how we do things?"
"I'm not asking on behalf of the Initiative. It's just... some of what Riley's said makes Buffy sound like some sort of superhero. How do you work with someone like that? Somebody that can do things that you'll never be able to do? Riley hasn't got any field skills that I don't have, not really. Same equipment, similar targeting accuracy... same with the others on our team. But... none of us can fight a hostile hand to hand. We're partners, and it sounds sort of like you're more of a... sidekick." He hoped that didn't sound quite as bad to her as it did to him.
She sighed, her fingers starting to trace patterns on the top of the table. "Sort of. We... most of the time, we help do research, or planning. I do a lot on the computer, you know, getting information of mauled bodies and icky details. Then, we help plan out the strategy, and let Buffy go kill it."
"How do you stand it? I mean, doesn't that put you in her shadow?" He wanted to understand.
"I can deal with that. I'm perfectly comfortable not being the center of attention. I really haven't ever been the focus... so that isn't really a change. But... if I do this, I'm helping make a difference, even if only for people who will never know. Does that make any sense? I mean, how could I live with myself knowing that I could be helping save lives, but I didn't want to give up a little time here and there to help?"
"I suppose... I never looked at it quite like that."
"How do you look at it, Graham? Why did you join the Initiative?" She looked curious, as if he was a mystery she had to explore.
"The summer after I graduated, I was at a lake with a group of friends. We had a bonfire, and we were just... having a bit of fun. The, these guys showed up, and started a fight, and the next thing I knew, they... they weren't human, and they were killing us. I panicked, Willow. I had no idea what to do, and I panicked. It was a miracle that I didn't get killed. I never wanted to be that helpless in the face of danger again. When the Initiative was formed, I figured that it would help me get over it, that big feeling..." His words slowed and halted, as he tried to figure out how to describe the feeling that the discovery of demons had caused in him.
"A feeling that this can't be real, that it's too horrible, too ugly to be possible? That you don't want the things that go bump in the night to be more than a foraging raccoon? That there is no monster in the closet?" Her words were soft, almost gentle.
He could only nod, wondering how she knew how it felt.
"It gets easier after a while. But... if it helps, we've never found a closet monster before. It's sort of like... when you realized that there are people out there that do bad things to girls who go out alone. It's horrible, and at first, you don't want to believe, but eventually, you can't deny it anymore. It's sort of loosing a type of innocence."
He sighed, having partly thought it would be something like that. "It isn't fun."
"No, it isn't. And nobody can make it so you don't know about these things once you learn. But... if you need to talk to someone? You can talk to me." She had a small smile.
Maybe things wouldn't be quite as bad. Maybe she could help him find some sense in all of this. Or at least, help him keep a measure of hope in the face of the dark.
end.