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Brave New World
by Fay Jay
Summary: A character vignette set during "Bad Girls", this is my dabble at reconciling the
Wesley of Season 3 BtVS with the Wesley we know and love on AtS.
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been, Numfar. Not even a little bit. This is a
join--the--dots fic about "Bad Girls", which was written by Doug Petrie and belongs to
lots of people who aren't me. So don't sue, mmkay?
Author's Website: http://www.echonyc.com/~stax/Buffy/fayjay/index.htm
"Rupert Giles has proved to be a grave disappointment. He allowed emotions to cloud his
judgment regarding his young charge and so he failed us and he failed her. I am confident
that you will not let us down, Mr Wyndham Price."
His chest swelled with pride at having been chosen from so many men and women for
this honour. Older men and women, more experienced men and women, men and women
closer to Sunnydale - all set aside in favour of him. His exam results, his impeccable
knowledge of The Slayers' Handbook, his mastery of weapons and grasp of tactics, his
courage in the face of actual vampires (albeit in controlled circumstances), his fluency at
languages, his expertise in demonology and his excellent memory for arcana...it all added
up to this moment. He was the best. He would not let them down.
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California. Pure azure skies and sweet white sandy beaches. An air of unreality pervading
everything - landscape familiar from film, from television, from picture postcards. Like
stepping through the looking glass. Air warm against one's skin, the soft breeze stroking
the nape of the neck, gentling like a lover's touch. Everything a little like and yet so very
unlike England.
He felt it more in the little things, the petty things - differences in architecture, traffic lights,
width of the roads. Subtly wrong, faintly artificial. Everything shinier, newer, brighter than
home. Tea that arrived without milk. ("Oh, you wanted milk? You should've said, honey. I'll
getcha some now. Say, where you from?") Biscuits and gravy for breakfast, which clearly
couldn't mean what it sounded like. (Could it? Order it and find out. Oh! A sort of savoury
scone, or dumpling...) His linguist's brain delighting in these little differences, automatically
squirreling away information. Every new sight and smell was marvellous to him, his
perceptions of it all coloured by the exhilarating sense of purpose and pride, the marvellous
awareness that he was going to make a difference. They had chosen him.
It was not his first visit to the United States, but the tang of foreignness was still fresh.
Looking around him, Wesley was struck by the confidence the people here radiated - their
dumb, arrogant affluence, their obliviousness. Their innocence, like lambs to the slaughter.
Demons walking in the shadows of their lives and they never guessed. Oh brave New World.
He would not let them down.
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Sunnydale. The nomenclature here never ceased to amaze him. Sunnydale. Like a name
plucked from a story book - connotations of puppydogs and apple pie and laughing children.
White picket fences. Happy ever after. The American Dream.
The school was just what they had described, but it was still a shock to the system. Children
chewing gum, listening to personal stereos in the corridors, shouting and running like little
hooligans. Youths talking brashly back to the teachers, cheeking them. Girls with perfect
toothpaste-advert smiles and expensive-looking hair styles dressed more scantily than half
of the streetwalkers around Kings Cross. (Not that he had ever been to Kings Cross station
for those purposes himself.)
The library, when he found it, was a blessed relief. Quiet. Reassuring. Familiar. Although
like everything in this extraordinary country it looked new and barely-used. He reminded
himself that this was the eye of the storm, the hub itself. The Mouth of Hell. Scanned the
floor for evidence but saw only a floor.
Rupert Giles was not pleased to see him, which was only to be expected. Wesley found it
difficult to contain his own burgeoning delight and sense of bone-deep satisfaction at being
placed in charge of two Slayers, but he endeavoured - with variable success - to keep from
rubbing it in too much. Rupert Giles, Wesley reminded himself, had failed - he had shamed
his family and embarrassed his peers by being simply inadequate when it came to the crunch.
He had let sentimentality mar his ability to function as a Watcher, had lost sight of the big
picture. He had worried too much about being liked. Wesley Wyndham Price was not going
to make his mistakes. He would not be found wanting.
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Buffy Summers baffled him. She was nothing like the Slayers in Waiting that he had met.
She had never set eyes on the Slayers' Handbook. She did not keep her vocation secret from
her friends. She did not defer to him. She did not even seem to take him seriously.
And appallingly, she was the better behaved of the two Slayers in his charge. The undisguised
contempt Faith directed at him made him cringe inside. Made him feel ten years old. He
pretended not to see, not to mind.
He had, of course, known that The Slayer was always a teenage girl. But he had not understood
the implications of that until he found himself face to face with Buffy and then Faith. He stood
more chance of fathoming the motivations and interactions of the demons they fought than
of these extraordinary American teenagers.
He felt his confidence leaking slowly away, grew more pompous as he realised that these people
did not respect The Council. That they paid the barest lipservice to his authority. He squared his
shoulders and pulled a mask of cheerful confidence on tightly, heard himself sound patronising
as the frustration grew inside him. Listen to me, he thought desperately. I know what I'm talking
about. I'm good at this.
They will learn to respect my judgement, he told himself. They do not have to like me.
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He couldn't remember the last time he had been in such a place. Wasn't quite sure whether one
should describe it as a club or a bar or something else again. He noticed cockroaches skittering
underfoot. Squalid. Noisy. Smoky. Hot. Young people thrashing around on the dance floor. Bare
limbs. Couples entwined in corners. Ripe and heedless youth on every side.
He stuck out like a sore thumb.
He was proud of himself for tracking the Slayers here, though - wished they would use beepers
or walky talkies or mobile phones, some way of keeping track of them. He must arrange some
system.
And there was Buffy (ridiculous name!), being chatted up by some boy in a corner when she
should certainly have been patrolling the streets. No sense of responsibility, although that wasn't
entirely her fault. She had learnt bad habits from Mr Giles.
He approached her gently, trying not to sound too fuddy-duddy, to strike the right balance
between authority and friendliness. Failed utterly.
Excruciating the way that she looked at him - wearily, contemptuously. Jolt of surprise when
Wesley realised that this boy knew about her Sacred Duty, even knew about the talisman and
Baltazar. Not a boy, in fact - a young man, several years older than The Slayer from the looks
of things, and as impossibly beautiful as all these people seemed to be. Did every blessed
person in this town know about The Slayer and her work? Did she think it was some sort of
game?
Excruciating, the ease with which she spotted and extracted the amulet Wesley had placed
in his jacket for safekeeping, but then she was The Slayer and she was supposed to be
observant. He tried to be proud of her but felt himself flushing, feeling foolish.
Wesley felt another pang go through him as she casually handed the amulet to her friend
and asked him to put it somewhere safe. Took in the complete trust and ease between
these two young people and felt like a small boy pressed up against a window, standing
outside in the rain and looking miserably in at a roaring fire. Felt something inside shrivelling
up, an impending sense of failure and inadequacy. But I'm good at this! I'm on your side, he
wanted to protest. Please listen to me.
"If I may...Baltazar is dead. Am I the only one that remembers that?"
She ignored him.
He reminded himself that it was not her fault and tried not to mind. They don't have to like me.
Mr Giles has accustomed her to a different style of Watcher and she thinks that is what she
needs. I don't have to be her father or her friend. In time they will respect my judgement.
Felt like Caliban, despised and dispossessed, helplessly watching Miranda and her Ferdinand.
Tried very hard to ignore the little inner voice telling him that he was going to let everyone down,
that he wasn't up to the job.
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Nothing had prepared him for the fear. Shame welling up at the unexpected surge of terror he
felt at being surrounded by demons, at being restrained by cold, dead flesh. These were not
controlled circumstances.
Crimson-eyed horror stifling in its rolls of fat, appallingly alive in spite of all the confident
assertions made by respected demonologists in their scholarly tomes. Teeth gleaming
wetly, razor sharp. You cannot always trust the books, he realised with painful surprise.
Sheer astonishment at how Rupert Giles carried himself - the suicidal bravado of the man
in the face of these monsters. Incredulity on Wesley's face as his stomach clenched in
terror and his companion cheerfully provoked Baltazar. Nonononono, he wanted to
shout - No, why are you doing this? Don't provoke the monster - we must play for time,
must bargain, talk, lie, find some leverage, do anything to keep those teeth from closing
over tender flesh. I need time to think! I have only just arrived - there must be some mistake.
I can't die now.
Felt all control slipping away, knowing he had no way of communicating with the Slayers,
that they would not be coming to save him. This was not how it was supposed to be.
Heard his heart pounding in his ears, his voice gabbling desperately, willing to say anything,
do anything, frantically playing for time and trying to think of a way out. Disgusted by his own
terror, by his horrified vulnerability, his inability to think clearly now, when it mattered most of
all.
(You see, you just aren't good enough, said the voice in his head. You were never good
enough. Worthless. You will always let them down.)
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Humiliation on top of humiliation. The boy from the bar was a vampire and he had not realised
it. His Slayer trusted a vampire more than she trusted him.
And she was right to.
They moved like an oiled machine, working together with the unthinking ease of utter trust.
Exhilarated. Fearless. Joyous. Terrible.
Mr Giles ("Let Captain Courageous here go and I'll tell you what you need to know...") had flung
himself into the fray and now fought beside the Slayer, as Wesley should have done himself.
Wesley was a perfectly good fighter, had spent hours training in different types of combat... but
his limbs felt like lead and he felt physically sick with terror at the visceral reality of it all and in
spite of all his best intentions he felt himself failing, falling, weak, awash with shame and misery
and a sense of his own inadequacy. They did not respect him. They did not want him. They did
not need him.
(Never good enough)
And if this was the thing to which his whole life had been geared, the sacred responsibility he
had spent years preparing for, the honour he had yearned for more than any other, the palpable
proof that he was capable, that he was intelligent, that he was valuable - if this was it and he had
failed at the first hurdle, where did that leave him?
(Never good enough)
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Gathering the shreds of dignity. Settling the patched mantle of authority back around
newly-squared shoulders. Rallying his forces. Showing them he was good enough. Sounding
authoritative, sure of himself. And yes, the shame of that first encounter with the Forces of
Darkness burnt like acid, but Wesley knew that dwelling on it would get him nowhere. Let go.
You are not a child. You let the side down - all the more reason to try harder. Do better.
Take charge.
(Never good enough)
He would not let them down.
End
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