The Color of Monsters

by CSR

Copyright © 2004

sratliff@adelphia.net

Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Andrew belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, and whatever studios and lawyers are involved. The Slayers do too. No one's making any money on this.
Distribution:  Watchers: http://thewatcherscouncil.net and Mystic Muse http://mysticmuse.net
Eh. I'm not picky.
Feedback: Sure. I mean, does anyone *not* want feedback?
Spoilers: None that I can think of. If you haven't already seen the ep that's central to this story, it's not gonna make much sense anyway.
Author's Notes: An Andrew plot-bunny jumped up on my chest in the middle of night and wouldn't go away until I wrote this. I'm as confused as anyone as to why that would happen.
Pairing: Just Andrew

Andrew heard the sounds of sniffling as he entered the computer room. Thoughts of hopping online and seeing if he could find a group intrepid adventurers to join him in a quick game of Neverwinter were quickly abandoned when he saw one of the younger Slayers crying, her head down on the desk by one of the computers.

Shalara the Fair, paladin of Lathandar, she of the shiny hair, could wait. True, he'd hoped to get her to fifth level tonight, but this was more important. And it wasn't like fifth level in the online game was the same milestone it was in pen and paper D&D. Not since the developers of the computer game had left out horses. There would be no mighty war mount for Shalara the Fair to summon and ride into battle, sweeping aside her enemies as if they were nothing. Lazy programmers.

So, he put aside his own personal needs and heeded the call to duty. One of the girls needed him.

"Hey there, little one, what's the problem?" he asked, though he suspected that he knew the answer before asking. She was a newbie; Faith had just brought her in from L.A. the week before, and it was probably her first time away from home for any real length of time.

He'd seen it happen before: A new girl settles in and seems fine for a few days, then it just comes crashing down; the homesickness; the missing of friends and family, even siblings who had been despised before leaving but who are now missed terribly; and the tight, cold realization that the monsters are out there, hungry, hating, and horrible beyond belief.

And waiting for her.

So, he knew the answer, but asked it anyway. Someone needed to. The girls trusted him, treated him like one of their own, like one of the girls.

"Come on, Carrie, you can tell me. Have some of other girls been picking on you?" It happened, though they tried their best to prevent it; teenage girls were teenage girls, Slayers or not.

"Has Kennedy been pushing you too hard?" Which also happened, though less often lately, thank the Goddess.

"Because, believe you me, girlfriend, I could dish you some class "A" blackmail material if you need it."

Also true: a hung-over Slayer and a digital camera was just too good a combination to pass up. Of course, if she ever discovered who had put those pictures up as wallpaper on every computer in the building, he was in for a world of hurt.

The girl shook her head. "It's my sister's birthday."

Bingo! That, he could fix.

He was rather proud of the bargain he had struck with that nice telemarketer fellow (the one with the Patrick Swayze voice) for primo long-distance rates. The upshot being that the girls could make all of the calls they wanted. (Nights and weekends only.)

"We'll call her!" he exclaimed.

"She's dead!" was the answer.

Okay, that he couldn't fix.

He hesitated. For all that they dealt in death, Slayers didn't seem to want to talk about it. He wondered sometimes if he was the only one who remembered Rachel. Her name was rarely mentioned, rarely even whispered, as if the very fact of her death could be silenced away. The plaque in the memorial garden was mute testament to her passing.

Still, he had to try. "Would you like to talk about it?" he asked.

Just when he thought that she wasn't going to say anything, she answered, "It's why I'm a Slayer."

"What? Didn't they give you the orientation? Almost a year ago, Buffy, Vampyr Slayer extraordinaire, had her lesb..."

"No," she cut him off. "Not how I'm a slayer, why I'm a Slayer: so I can find the demon that killed her and make it pay."

"Oh. Your sister was killed by a demon? Was it a vampyr?"

"I... I'm not sure. Maybe. I overheard my dad tell my mom that the police said it was a blow to the head and that... that it was quick. They never did find out what did it."

An unsolved mystery then. Perhaps he could help Carrie and see to it that justice was served all at the same time.

He slipped into the role as easily as donning a deerstalker hat. (The kind of hat that Holmes had never actually worn in the books, but which had been made so famous by Basil Rathbone that it was associated with the character forever after; even though Andrew considered Jeremy Brett the best Holmes ever, and he never wore a deerstalker.)

"Okay then, my dear Watson, perhaps we can crack the case. The first thing we have to do is not jump to conclusions. We can't rule out the human factor. Not all monstrous acts are committed by monsters, and not all villains wear green and purple. We must consider all the evidence carefully before jumping to conclusions. What leads you to believe that it was a demon that committed this foul deed?"

"She was in Sunnydale when it happened, Holmes," she replied, getting into the game, there was even the barest hint of a smile. Of course, her fake British accent wasn't as good as his fake British accent, but she was young, and also hadn't had the opportunity to hang with Spike. Hanging with Spike had improved his Britishese tremendously.

"Ah! A good assumption, Watson. Happening in Sunnydale makes it 79% more likely to have been the result of demonic activity."

He sat in front of one of the computers and opened up the connection to the FBI criminal database that Willow had set up.

Carrie sat beside him, and after a moment asked, "Andrew..."

He silenced her with a frown and a raised eyebrow. She looked puzzled for a moment, and then caught on. "Holmes," she corrected herself, "why green and purple?"

"That, Watson, is somewhat of a long story. It began, as many stories do, with a book. This book was entitled "Seduction of the Innocent" and was written by a man who feared greatly for the youth of America – or who wanted to enrich himself off the fears of the gullible; that's debatable. What isn't debatable is that Dr. Frederick Wertham proclaimed that delinquency was caused by comic books. Or, graphic novels, as is the preferred term."

"Comic books?"

"Yes. He said that if something wasn't done about these books, the youth of America would begin cursing and possibly chewing gum in class."

"Chewing gum in class? You're kidding," she exclaimed, dropping out of character; but Andrew let it pass this time.

"Not in the least. It was, my dear Watson, a far more gentle time. In 1954, the US Senate Subcommittee Investigation on Juvenile Delinquency in the United States was convened, and it looked for a while as if graphic novels were doomed. To prevent this and to stave off such horrors as in-class-gum-chewing, the Comics Code was created. It set forth many rules for what was allowed to be shown in graphic novels, including what the characters were allowed to wear. While it wasn't specifically mandated, many villains were thereafter clad in green and purple garb. This was so that all the innocent children could easily distinguish the heroes, who wore primary colors, from the villains, who wore green and purple with a little orange thrown in occasionally for variety. Of course, over time, the code was loosened and now the bad guys can wear anything they want." ("And they usually have the coolest costumes," he thought to himself.)

"Or practically nothing if they want." She wrinkled her nose. "Someone left some of those laying in the rec room. What's with all the butt floss?...Ewww!"

"Those were probably Willow's," he muttered, then changed the subject. "Moving right along then, Watson, since we can't easily distinguish between the monsters and the non-monsters, or maybe non-monster monsters would be a better phrasing, we will have to gather all our data, form a hypothesis, investigate, and, ultimately, apprehend the villain or villains responsible, thus enforcing general rule six of the Comics Code."

"General rule six, Andr…Holmes?"

"General rule six of the original comics code: In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal be punished for his misdeeds," he quoted.

The database was open now and prompting for a name. "What was your sister's name, Watson?"

"Katrina. Katrina Silber."

He typed the name, and the picture appeared. His face when white; his hands went numb.

He'd never learned her last name. Never thought to; it was just a game – not something real. He closed the database. "Carrie," he asked, all pretense fled, just Andrew again, "c-can we do this some other time? I'm not feeling very well."

"Sure," she answered, disappointment warring with concern in her voice.

He rushed to the restroom down the hall, barely making it before what was left of his dinner came back up. Between heaves, "It was just a game," became his mantra. And, "Why didn't I die?"

Carrie listened outside the door and decided that she would just happen to forget Andrew's promise to help her find her sister's killer. He wasn't really cut out for such things.

"His," she thought to herself, "is a gentle soul." And it sounded pretentious even as she thought it, but since it was just in her head, that was okay.

It was like an epiphany. (She had just learned that word in English class and really liked using it.) She realized that this was what Slayers were for: To protect people like Andrew from the types of monsters that had killed her sister. She would work to be the best Slayer that she could be so that she could protect him and all the people who could not protect themselves. Revenge could wait. Perhaps one day she would cross paths with the creature that murdered her sister and show it just what a Slayer was all about.

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