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gen_storyteller2008-11-19 05:04 pm
green-maia.livejournal.com) wrote in gen_storyteller2008-11-19 05:04 pm
Entry tags:
Fic - "The Men's Auxiliary"
Title: The Men's Auxiliary
Author: Maia
Rating: PG-13 for a lot of swearing.
Length: 1,178 words
Disclaimer: It's all OCs, but the 'verse belongs to Joss.
This is a story which I wrote after it occurred to me that a consequence of "Chosen" and so many Slayers is...a lot of boyfriends and husbands of Slayers.
It's an interesting gender reversal: since civilization began women have stayed home worrying while their men went to war.
It's set in a post-"Chosen" world.
Note: "The Council Is Your Friend. Trust the Council" - is an allusion to Babylon 5
The Men's Auxiliary
The website was a stroke of genius. Pete wondered how he’d ever gotten by without it. It was great, when Lisa was out on patrol, to be able to log on and talk to other guys in the same boat. Kept him from going for beer to get through it. Going for beer every single fucking night - bad idea. Other guys, guys with experience, told him to save the beer for extended battles. And save the hard liquor for apocalypses.
Actually, better than beer was being with the other guys. In a major battle he couldn’t stand being home alone. Other guys couldn’t either. Usually they gathered at one guy’s place and watched tv and tried not to wonder how many of their wives and girlfriends would be dead before sunrise.
It sucked not being able to fight too. But the stupid Council... God, he remembered when he first met Lisa and she told him what she was and she mentioned the Council and he said, “The what?” and he’d had no idea, then, that that word would gain so much power. Fucking Council ran their lives.
Council wouldn’t let men do much. They had a point, he supposed - after all, men against vampires usually got killed quick. Enough slayers getting killed (he didn’t want to think about the numbers). Why waste more lives? But he felt so helpless sometimes. Sitting home. Waiting. Knowing that sooner or later Lisa... No, he couldn’t think about it. Other guys said it was better not to think about it. Yeah, it would happen, sooner or later - but better to enjoy the time you had.
Better to enjoy the time you had than curse fate for making you fall in love with a Slayer.
And of course, it wasn’t just the fear. That was the genius of the website. The site had been Greg’s idea, but Pete was the one who thought up the anonymous board. Loving a Slayer was so hard. And sometimes it made you feel like less of a man. And sometimes there were things you wanted to ask other guys about, but were too embarrassed to ask. Stuff you wanted to talk about without anyone knowing it was you. Like, "She had a nightmare last night, and I tried to wake her up, and she grabbed my arm and now I have this giant bruise, and she wants to know where it’s from, and I don’t know how to tell her that she gave it to me."
Or, "She got home last night and she had all this vamp dust on her and she wouldn’t talk about it, she just wanted to have sex right then and there, but I was pretty grossed out."
And, “Sometimes I wonder if she’s trying to get herself killed.”
There were the darker stories too, of course. So many Slayers. Not all of them adjusted well to their power. Some of them hurt the people closest to them. And some of the abused turned their pain and anger on others. Lot of families where the Slayer hit her husband and the husband hit the kids. And even - as usually happened - the Slayer reserved her violence for vampires, there were a lot of troubled relationships. Wasn’t easy, being a man in love with a woman who had had the power of a demon forced into her without her consent. Lot of the boyfriends and husbands wound up alcoholics or drug addicts.
The lesbian partners seemed to fare better. Pete wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was that women had been spouses to warriors for centuries. This thing with an army of superpowered women was new. ‘Til 2003, most Slayers had been killed before turning 18. No time for relationships to really become an issue. Now more than half of them lived to be 25, and some lived even longer than that. Long enough to marry. Long enough to have families.
Long enough to have guys in their lives who needed an online support group to stay sane.
Tonight, some guy whose “MODS” (short for “My Own Dear Slayer”) had been gone on a secret mission for months said he’d been re-reading The Odyssey and identifying with Penelope.
We should all take up knitting.
Weaving, actually.
Whatever. We’re all such girls.
Kind of makes you sympathize, though, doesn’t it? I mean, they’ve gone through this shit since civilization began.
Yeah. It sucks. If the sex weren’t so good I’d be out in a minute.
Sex and violence. It’s all the same thing to them.
Guess it’s the demon thing.
Yeah. What percent demon do you think they are, anyway?
I don’t know. Had a fight with MODS though and told her that she should start acting like a human being, and thought I was dead from the look on her face.
They’re scary sometimes.
MODS says something’s up in Shanghai. Council might send us there.
Shit.
I just wish I knew what it was, but she won’t tell me. Or can’t tell me. Whatever.
It sucks. We just have to pick up our lives and move someplace ‘cause the fucking council tells us to.
The Council Is Your Friend. Trust the Council.
Cut the geek crap.
It is like that, though, isn’t it?
Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if they’ve got us under surveillance.
Why would they? We’re just the fucking Men’s Auxiliary to their girl army. We’ve got no power.
I don’t know. They creep me out.
They creep us all out.
Pete stared at the screen. Yeah, they gave him the creeps too. Whole thing gave him the creeps. He wondered what was happening in Shanghai, and whether Lisa would be involved.
*
No, she didn’t have to go to Shanghai. She had to go to Cleveland. Hellmouth problem. He wasn’t allowed to go too.
Greg’s wife went too. Pete practically lived at Greg’s house. They drank a lot. Forget the stupid rules about hard liquor. Seemed like things were bad in Cleveland.
They played video games. Anything to do with monsters was good. Made him feel closer to Lisa. As though blowing stuff up on a tv screen could help her with whatever she was facing.
He had nightmares every night.
A bunch of the guys got together and watched football. You could almost forget, for a while, what was happening.
Kyle’s son Ethan was flipping out. Pete took him to the aquarium. Ethan watched the dolphins eating fish and wanted to know if vampires were going to eat Mommy.
Life started to get into a weird routine. They all went through the motions of their lives, waiting for news.
They were all at Kyle’s house when the call came. Ethan was asleep, thank god. Phone rang and Kyle answered it. “Battle’s over,” he told them as he listened.
“How many dead?” Greg asked.
Kyle listened more and then went white. He put the phone down slowly and looked around at them without seeing them.
“Kyle, how many?” Pete asked.
“578.”
"Oh, God."
Only 800 had gone in.
*
Author: Maia
Rating: PG-13 for a lot of swearing.
Length: 1,178 words
Disclaimer: It's all OCs, but the 'verse belongs to Joss.
This is a story which I wrote after it occurred to me that a consequence of "Chosen" and so many Slayers is...a lot of boyfriends and husbands of Slayers.
It's an interesting gender reversal: since civilization began women have stayed home worrying while their men went to war.
It's set in a post-"Chosen" world.
Note: "The Council Is Your Friend. Trust the Council" - is an allusion to Babylon 5
The Men's Auxiliary
The website was a stroke of genius. Pete wondered how he’d ever gotten by without it. It was great, when Lisa was out on patrol, to be able to log on and talk to other guys in the same boat. Kept him from going for beer to get through it. Going for beer every single fucking night - bad idea. Other guys, guys with experience, told him to save the beer for extended battles. And save the hard liquor for apocalypses.
Actually, better than beer was being with the other guys. In a major battle he couldn’t stand being home alone. Other guys couldn’t either. Usually they gathered at one guy’s place and watched tv and tried not to wonder how many of their wives and girlfriends would be dead before sunrise.
It sucked not being able to fight too. But the stupid Council... God, he remembered when he first met Lisa and she told him what she was and she mentioned the Council and he said, “The what?” and he’d had no idea, then, that that word would gain so much power. Fucking Council ran their lives.
Council wouldn’t let men do much. They had a point, he supposed - after all, men against vampires usually got killed quick. Enough slayers getting killed (he didn’t want to think about the numbers). Why waste more lives? But he felt so helpless sometimes. Sitting home. Waiting. Knowing that sooner or later Lisa... No, he couldn’t think about it. Other guys said it was better not to think about it. Yeah, it would happen, sooner or later - but better to enjoy the time you had.
Better to enjoy the time you had than curse fate for making you fall in love with a Slayer.
And of course, it wasn’t just the fear. That was the genius of the website. The site had been Greg’s idea, but Pete was the one who thought up the anonymous board. Loving a Slayer was so hard. And sometimes it made you feel like less of a man. And sometimes there were things you wanted to ask other guys about, but were too embarrassed to ask. Stuff you wanted to talk about without anyone knowing it was you. Like, "She had a nightmare last night, and I tried to wake her up, and she grabbed my arm and now I have this giant bruise, and she wants to know where it’s from, and I don’t know how to tell her that she gave it to me."
Or, "She got home last night and she had all this vamp dust on her and she wouldn’t talk about it, she just wanted to have sex right then and there, but I was pretty grossed out."
And, “Sometimes I wonder if she’s trying to get herself killed.”
There were the darker stories too, of course. So many Slayers. Not all of them adjusted well to their power. Some of them hurt the people closest to them. And some of the abused turned their pain and anger on others. Lot of families where the Slayer hit her husband and the husband hit the kids. And even - as usually happened - the Slayer reserved her violence for vampires, there were a lot of troubled relationships. Wasn’t easy, being a man in love with a woman who had had the power of a demon forced into her without her consent. Lot of the boyfriends and husbands wound up alcoholics or drug addicts.
The lesbian partners seemed to fare better. Pete wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was that women had been spouses to warriors for centuries. This thing with an army of superpowered women was new. ‘Til 2003, most Slayers had been killed before turning 18. No time for relationships to really become an issue. Now more than half of them lived to be 25, and some lived even longer than that. Long enough to marry. Long enough to have families.
Long enough to have guys in their lives who needed an online support group to stay sane.
Tonight, some guy whose “MODS” (short for “My Own Dear Slayer”) had been gone on a secret mission for months said he’d been re-reading The Odyssey and identifying with Penelope.
We should all take up knitting.
Weaving, actually.
Whatever. We’re all such girls.
Kind of makes you sympathize, though, doesn’t it? I mean, they’ve gone through this shit since civilization began.
Yeah. It sucks. If the sex weren’t so good I’d be out in a minute.
Sex and violence. It’s all the same thing to them.
Guess it’s the demon thing.
Yeah. What percent demon do you think they are, anyway?
I don’t know. Had a fight with MODS though and told her that she should start acting like a human being, and thought I was dead from the look on her face.
They’re scary sometimes.
MODS says something’s up in Shanghai. Council might send us there.
Shit.
I just wish I knew what it was, but she won’t tell me. Or can’t tell me. Whatever.
It sucks. We just have to pick up our lives and move someplace ‘cause the fucking council tells us to.
The Council Is Your Friend. Trust the Council.
Cut the geek crap.
It is like that, though, isn’t it?
Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if they’ve got us under surveillance.
Why would they? We’re just the fucking Men’s Auxiliary to their girl army. We’ve got no power.
I don’t know. They creep me out.
They creep us all out.
Pete stared at the screen. Yeah, they gave him the creeps too. Whole thing gave him the creeps. He wondered what was happening in Shanghai, and whether Lisa would be involved.
*
No, she didn’t have to go to Shanghai. She had to go to Cleveland. Hellmouth problem. He wasn’t allowed to go too.
Greg’s wife went too. Pete practically lived at Greg’s house. They drank a lot. Forget the stupid rules about hard liquor. Seemed like things were bad in Cleveland.
They played video games. Anything to do with monsters was good. Made him feel closer to Lisa. As though blowing stuff up on a tv screen could help her with whatever she was facing.
He had nightmares every night.
A bunch of the guys got together and watched football. You could almost forget, for a while, what was happening.
Kyle’s son Ethan was flipping out. Pete took him to the aquarium. Ethan watched the dolphins eating fish and wanted to know if vampires were going to eat Mommy.
Life started to get into a weird routine. They all went through the motions of their lives, waiting for news.
They were all at Kyle’s house when the call came. Ethan was asleep, thank god. Phone rang and Kyle answered it. “Battle’s over,” he told them as he listened.
“How many dead?” Greg asked.
Kyle listened more and then went white. He put the phone down slowly and looked around at them without seeing them.
“Kyle, how many?” Pete asked.
“578.”
"Oh, God."
Only 800 had gone in.
*