What comes after
folder
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer › Het - Male/Female › Buffy/Oz
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
23
Views:
4,591
Reviews:
6
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer › Het - Male/Female › Buffy/Oz
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
23
Views:
4,591
Reviews:
6
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter 13: Behavioral Sciences
Chapter 13: Behavioral Sciences
Willow was silent as she drove towards the crater. Giles was lost in thought and she used that quiet time to take stock of what she would need to do.
Once the amulet was found and they knew where Drussilla was, they would have to device a plan to get her to collaborate with them.
Xander may be able to help with that. Drussilla had “liked” him before, called him pet names, maybe they could used that to convince her.
She started to think about the ingredients needed for the spell itself when Giles started murmuring to himself. She turned to him, a questioning look in her eyes.
“What’s natural?”
“What do you mean?”
“We… I have been blinded by the Council. I took their word as gospel and now that I begin to see things differently I realize that what they teach is wrong on so many levels. What’s natural and unnatural in the world?”
Willow looked at him again.
“We assumed so much. We assumed that vampires are unnatural and the Slayer’s job is to rid the world of them. But is it really? Maybe the Slayer’s destiny is simply to preserve life. How can we assume that vampires and demons are unnatural when Buffy has the heart of a demon, is she unnatural as well? This is something the Council doesn’t want us to ponder”.
“They withheld the knowledge that the Slayer’s strength, her healing powers, all that makes her what she is, gives her the ability to fight, this comes from the heart of a demon. We didn’t know this. Buffy told us after she went through the portal and visited the men who created the first Slayer, remember?”
“Xander said something to me yesterday. He said he had thought a lot about how we have acted towards Buffy in the past. About Angel, but especially how he acted, all of us really, towards Spike.
He said that we had been unfair, that we had forced Buffy to act against her nature. Made her renounce things that could have made her happy”.
“I think he’s right, I think that the Council of Watchers has been concealing the truth on purpose, to keep the slayers on a leash, as well as the watchers themselves. Are vampires unnatural or are they natural and simply evil?”
“Giles, I’ve been thinking about something that I wanted to tell you too. About the chip”. Willow was uncertain about Giles reaction before, but after his words, she thought it was a good time to share her concerns.
“Remember how we thought it was a good thing, to have Spike on a leash with the chip? I was thinking that it was a very bad thing”.
Giles turned on his seat, his expression one of deep concentration. “Go on”.
“Well, Kennedy is crazy about animals, you know? She makes me watch one documentary after the other.
Some time ago, we watched one about great carnivores, tigers in particular. It was very good, a lot of experts in different areas of science talking about them. There was a segment on behavior that got me thinking about the chip”.
“This zoologist was explaining about the pathological behavior of the tigers in captivity, they develop abnormal attitudes, bizarre patterns of movement, things they don’t do in the wild, like walking back and ford in front of the bars in their cages. This man explained that the animals did this because they environment was unnatural. They were unable to engage in their normal behavior and so they start acting crazy, they cannot relate to each other as they would normally do, mothers refuse to feed their young, etc.”
“I thought a lot about that, and especially about what he said regarding show animals, how they are forced to do things that are not in their nature. It was very sad, seeing this great tigers moving behind their bars, acting so… but it was not the behavioral aspects themselves that got me thinking about the chip, not really. It was how I felt about it. I was enraged about what we put those animals through, how we cage them and take them away from everything they know, how we leash them”.
“And I thought that what the Initiative did to Spike was very similar, force him to act against his nature, to lead a completely different life that the one he was made for. And we didn’t commiserate with him when he complained, we were happy about it”.
Giles was silent for a moment, then he spoke in a very calm voice.
“What you say is true. Is also true that the chip forced him to help us and perhaps to take the path he finally choose”.
“That’s just it, Giles. He choose. He didn’t need to be good, to help us. He could still be bad with the chip”.
“But he couldn’t harm people”.
“No, he couldn’t eat people, it’s not the same thing. Look, he could smoke right. What stopped him from setting Buffy’s house on fire when we were all there? He could have had his minions do it for him, even”.
At Giles pensive look she continued. “He was a Master Vampire, for heavens sake! He had plenty of minions to do his biding. He had Drussilla there for a while as well, she could have killed for him, Harmony could as well. He could have killed us without too much trouble. Maybe not Buffy, but Xander you or me? Dawn? Why didn’t he?”
On that note she stopped the car, they were a few feet from the crater.
Willow was silent as she drove towards the crater. Giles was lost in thought and she used that quiet time to take stock of what she would need to do.
Once the amulet was found and they knew where Drussilla was, they would have to device a plan to get her to collaborate with them.
Xander may be able to help with that. Drussilla had “liked” him before, called him pet names, maybe they could used that to convince her.
She started to think about the ingredients needed for the spell itself when Giles started murmuring to himself. She turned to him, a questioning look in her eyes.
“What’s natural?”
“What do you mean?”
“We… I have been blinded by the Council. I took their word as gospel and now that I begin to see things differently I realize that what they teach is wrong on so many levels. What’s natural and unnatural in the world?”
Willow looked at him again.
“We assumed so much. We assumed that vampires are unnatural and the Slayer’s job is to rid the world of them. But is it really? Maybe the Slayer’s destiny is simply to preserve life. How can we assume that vampires and demons are unnatural when Buffy has the heart of a demon, is she unnatural as well? This is something the Council doesn’t want us to ponder”.
“They withheld the knowledge that the Slayer’s strength, her healing powers, all that makes her what she is, gives her the ability to fight, this comes from the heart of a demon. We didn’t know this. Buffy told us after she went through the portal and visited the men who created the first Slayer, remember?”
“Xander said something to me yesterday. He said he had thought a lot about how we have acted towards Buffy in the past. About Angel, but especially how he acted, all of us really, towards Spike.
He said that we had been unfair, that we had forced Buffy to act against her nature. Made her renounce things that could have made her happy”.
“I think he’s right, I think that the Council of Watchers has been concealing the truth on purpose, to keep the slayers on a leash, as well as the watchers themselves. Are vampires unnatural or are they natural and simply evil?”
“Giles, I’ve been thinking about something that I wanted to tell you too. About the chip”. Willow was uncertain about Giles reaction before, but after his words, she thought it was a good time to share her concerns.
“Remember how we thought it was a good thing, to have Spike on a leash with the chip? I was thinking that it was a very bad thing”.
Giles turned on his seat, his expression one of deep concentration. “Go on”.
“Well, Kennedy is crazy about animals, you know? She makes me watch one documentary after the other.
Some time ago, we watched one about great carnivores, tigers in particular. It was very good, a lot of experts in different areas of science talking about them. There was a segment on behavior that got me thinking about the chip”.
“This zoologist was explaining about the pathological behavior of the tigers in captivity, they develop abnormal attitudes, bizarre patterns of movement, things they don’t do in the wild, like walking back and ford in front of the bars in their cages. This man explained that the animals did this because they environment was unnatural. They were unable to engage in their normal behavior and so they start acting crazy, they cannot relate to each other as they would normally do, mothers refuse to feed their young, etc.”
“I thought a lot about that, and especially about what he said regarding show animals, how they are forced to do things that are not in their nature. It was very sad, seeing this great tigers moving behind their bars, acting so… but it was not the behavioral aspects themselves that got me thinking about the chip, not really. It was how I felt about it. I was enraged about what we put those animals through, how we cage them and take them away from everything they know, how we leash them”.
“And I thought that what the Initiative did to Spike was very similar, force him to act against his nature, to lead a completely different life that the one he was made for. And we didn’t commiserate with him when he complained, we were happy about it”.
Giles was silent for a moment, then he spoke in a very calm voice.
“What you say is true. Is also true that the chip forced him to help us and perhaps to take the path he finally choose”.
“That’s just it, Giles. He choose. He didn’t need to be good, to help us. He could still be bad with the chip”.
“But he couldn’t harm people”.
“No, he couldn’t eat people, it’s not the same thing. Look, he could smoke right. What stopped him from setting Buffy’s house on fire when we were all there? He could have had his minions do it for him, even”.
At Giles pensive look she continued. “He was a Master Vampire, for heavens sake! He had plenty of minions to do his biding. He had Drussilla there for a while as well, she could have killed for him, Harmony could as well. He could have killed us without too much trouble. Maybe not Buffy, but Xander you or me? Dawn? Why didn’t he?”
On that note she stopped the car, they were a few feet from the crater.