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madimpossibledreamerI continue hoping I will not get to see WWIII in my lifetime.
~Dreamer~
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Buffy gets to know her ally a little better.
Word Count: 1014
Rating: Gen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
“I’m sorry to bring up memories that hurt, but why didn’t your Watcher call for help? You know the term ‘Slayer’, which you wouldn’t if she’d been called and we hadn’t found them yet…”
They’d been trying to make a better organization, and in some ways they’d succeeded. Slayers were no longer thought of as expendable. On the other hand, all this stuff about running an organization and being efficient wasn’t something any of them, even Giles no matter how much he played the responsible one, knew what they were doing.
His face gets a pinched look, and he continues to stare out the window, lost look in his eyes. “It was so quick. Popescu died with her, before she could call for help. She wasn’t bad, but she was new at this—I think it was decided that San Francisco didn’t need an experienced Watcher or much of a presence because it’s not exactly Los Angeles or one of the battlefronts. I was left for dead.” He pulls down the collar of his shirt and that is a pretty nasty scar on his collarbone.
She remembers Popescu, teaching the Romanian a bit of how to be a Watcher though she’d only done a bit of combat training with any of the new Watchers. She remembers that decision, because from what they could tell at the time there wasn’t much demon presence in the city and they had limited resources, stretched too thin and lacking the proper experience to assign people to the exact right tasks to make the most of their limited numbers. Of course, it’s worse now, but especially when it came to Watchers they had to make do.
She places a hand on his shoulder to try to reassure him. “She died, but her will didn’t, and we can carry it on together.”
Severin shivers. “I remember lying there in despair and I promised myself I would never feel that way again.”
He frowns and finally glances over at her. “Yes, sorry. I’m not sure she’d be happy I’m still putting myself in harm’s way, but…I don’t ever want to feel that helplessness again. And if I can stop this from happening to someone else, I want to do that.”
She’s surprised he’s not angrier at Slayers or the Slayer organization, but that shows he’s a rational human being. Then again, with his speech about actually being mad at the culprits, she maybe should’ve expected it.
He’s slightly more settled as they get through security, though when they get to the chairs to wait he somehow jumps and ends up in a sitting position in one of the seats. It might be a way to show off, but it seems more like more burning off of that nervous energy.
Maybe if she tells a story, it will help. “I have a friend who hates flying on planes.” It had been a bit of a surprise from Xander, considering he’d never actually flown in one. Which was also a bit of a surprise, but it turned out that road trips are as far as he’d ever gone when it came to traveling out of Sunnydale. When it had become time to travel from Cleveland to London, he’d babbled like he was going for a Willow Award, but she’d attributed that to the amount of caffeine he’d required to get moving that early in the morning. Dawn had reported, though, that his grip was white-knuckled on the armrests on either side of his seat, and the stupid scifi B-movie they were showing wasn’t enough to distract him. “He just had to be different from everyone else. It’s not like he’s afraid of heights or anything.” He’d actually enjoyed the view from the London Eye, when they’d briefly allowed themselves to be tourists before they got down to the real business of replacing the entire infrastructure of one of the most important organizations protecting the free world. “He just gets this feeling every time he steps foot in one that it’s going to crash. He’d apparently had nightmares about it since he was a kid. I blame all those dumb disaster movies he watches.” Though since he’d awoken to his birthright his powers obviously had something to do with dreams, so they might work like Slayer dreams. She’ll ask him about that at some point, when they’ve got the time and aren’t in constant crisis mode. At least it doesn’t seem apocalypse-adjacent so far and—nope, she’s not going any further with that thought because so far experience has taught her jinxes are a real thing.
“You like him,” Severin observes, sounding a little more settled and a little less twitchy.
She chuckles in response. “Not the way you’re thinking. He’s one of my best friends since just about forever.” Fortunately, that seems to have done the trick. Then again, acting like everything’s normal has been a coping mechanism for about the same amount of eternity.
~Dreamer~
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Buffy gets to know her ally a little better.
Word Count: 1014
Rating: Gen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
Severin has a lot of pent-up, restless energy, Buffy notices. He’s a little squirrelly, like that Wolfram & Hart Sawyer guy had been, which…actually probably isn’t a bad comparison. They’re both nervous but more competent than they appear, and that nervousness doesn’t prevent him from acting. He’s fidgety in the taxi as they go to the airport, tapping his foot and staring out the window. He probably feels guilty about his girlfriend’s death, but if she couldn’t handle it and he’s not, say, Willow-levels of witchy power, he really shouldn’t. Like he’d pointed out himself, he shouldn’t feel bad for what the bad guys do with their time, and if he’s not super powerful he couldn’t have stopped them in the first place. He’s younger than her by the look of it. She’d managed much harder at his age, but she had support. Sometimes. When they weren’t all being terrible people because of teenage hormones and general immaturity. From the sound of things, Severin and Clare mostly just had each other. And he’d joked around about the whole autograph thing, but maybe he’d really meant it. Which…hang on.
“I’m sorry to bring up memories that hurt, but why didn’t your Watcher call for help? You know the term ‘Slayer’, which you wouldn’t if she’d been called and we hadn’t found them yet…”
They’d been trying to make a better organization, and in some ways they’d succeeded. Slayers were no longer thought of as expendable. On the other hand, all this stuff about running an organization and being efficient wasn’t something any of them, even Giles no matter how much he played the responsible one, knew what they were doing.
His face gets a pinched look, and he continues to stare out the window, lost look in his eyes. “It was so quick. Popescu died with her, before she could call for help. She wasn’t bad, but she was new at this—I think it was decided that San Francisco didn’t need an experienced Watcher or much of a presence because it’s not exactly Los Angeles or one of the battlefronts. I was left for dead.” He pulls down the collar of his shirt and that is a pretty nasty scar on his collarbone.
She remembers Popescu, teaching the Romanian a bit of how to be a Watcher though she’d only done a bit of combat training with any of the new Watchers. She remembers that decision, because from what they could tell at the time there wasn’t much demon presence in the city and they had limited resources, stretched too thin and lacking the proper experience to assign people to the exact right tasks to make the most of their limited numbers. Of course, it’s worse now, but especially when it came to Watchers they had to make do.
She places a hand on his shoulder to try to reassure him. “She died, but her will didn’t, and we can carry it on together.”
Severin shivers. “I remember lying there in despair and I promised myself I would never feel that way again.”
He frowns and finally glances over at her. “Yes, sorry. I’m not sure she’d be happy I’m still putting myself in harm’s way, but…I don’t ever want to feel that helplessness again. And if I can stop this from happening to someone else, I want to do that.”
She’s surprised he’s not angrier at Slayers or the Slayer organization, but that shows he’s a rational human being. Then again, with his speech about actually being mad at the culprits, she maybe should’ve expected it.
He’s slightly more settled as they get through security, though when they get to the chairs to wait he somehow jumps and ends up in a sitting position in one of the seats. It might be a way to show off, but it seems more like more burning off of that nervous energy.
Maybe if she tells a story, it will help. “I have a friend who hates flying on planes.” It had been a bit of a surprise from Xander, considering he’d never actually flown in one. Which was also a bit of a surprise, but it turned out that road trips are as far as he’d ever gone when it came to traveling out of Sunnydale. When it had become time to travel from Cleveland to London, he’d babbled like he was going for a Willow Award, but she’d attributed that to the amount of caffeine he’d required to get moving that early in the morning. Dawn had reported, though, that his grip was white-knuckled on the armrests on either side of his seat, and the stupid scifi B-movie they were showing wasn’t enough to distract him. “He just had to be different from everyone else. It’s not like he’s afraid of heights or anything.” He’d actually enjoyed the view from the London Eye, when they’d briefly allowed themselves to be tourists before they got down to the real business of replacing the entire infrastructure of one of the most important organizations protecting the free world. “He just gets this feeling every time he steps foot in one that it’s going to crash. He’d apparently had nightmares about it since he was a kid. I blame all those dumb disaster movies he watches.” Though since he’d awoken to his birthright his powers obviously had something to do with dreams, so they might work like Slayer dreams. She’ll ask him about that at some point, when they’ve got the time and aren’t in constant crisis mode. At least it doesn’t seem apocalypse-adjacent so far and—nope, she’s not going any further with that thought because so far experience has taught her jinxes are a real thing.
“You like him,” Severin observes, sounding a little more settled and a little less twitchy.
She chuckles in response. “Not the way you’re thinking. He’s one of my best friends since just about forever.” Fortunately, that seems to have done the trick. Then again, acting like everything’s normal has been a coping mechanism for about the same amount of eternity.
