riverviewlogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

who: Derek Hale & Buffy Summers (open to Alcide Herveaux later?)
what: Checking out the fence
when: March 14
where: Around the portal and its surrounding areas
warnings: Language, maybe? TBD

It certainly hasn't been lost on Derek that the Quarantine is suffering some issues with the power. In spite of the fact that they've been assured that the fence's integrity isn't going to be compromised by that, Derek has learned a long time ago not to trust anything without verification. Of course, it's natural for him to turn to his best friend for something like this, because it's no different, really, than their own self-imposed missions to explore the Complex when they'd still been trapped there. The biggest difference is that they probably won't be arrested for doing it if they're caught.

Maybe the rest of the guard is confident that the fences won't be a problem in spite of the power outages, but Derek knows he and Buffy will feel a lot better if they just check for themselves. Besides, even if they find something, that doesn't mean they've been lied to; it just means that maybe those in charge are missing something that might need attention and that's not a bad thing, right? They're not being treasonous by going off on their own to explore their surroundings and make sure that everything is, indeed, safe; they're helping. He's gotten the idea so far that things are incredibly different in the Quarantine. People care about helping other people here. The hierarchies in place aren't there to oppress people on the bottom of the totem pole like they were in the Complex. They're certainly not looking for recognition, here.

He doesn't know how his pack feels about it, but Derek is not all that interested in leaving the Quarantine. There's nothing waiting at home for him except a lot of terrible memories and an incredibly broken family that doesn't feel too inclined to reconnect. The Complex sure as hell isn't anywhere he'd like to go again. Alcide isn't even alive where he comes from, anymore, so that leaves the options, as far as Derek can tell, at finding a way home and being miserable, potentially finding a way back to Buffy's home and being classified, again, as a monster worth hunting by probably the larger part of the hunting and slaying population, if he had to guess, or staying in the Quarantine and making it his new home. So, it would make sense that he's interested in making extra sure that this place is as safe as it possibly can be, since he's aware of the fact that there can be breaches.

"I'm going to check the fences further out, past the portal. You wanna come?" he asks, coming up beside Buffy. It feels much better being in real clothes instead of that God awful ORANGE jumpsuit, but more over, it feels good knowing that he doesn't have to carry around some rinky-dink laser gun to protect himself. He still has it, of course, just in case. But he doesn't need it now that he has the wolf back. He's apt to shift into a half-transition once they get further away from the rest of the guard, quite frankly, just because he can and he feels more in tune with his abilities when he is. "I feel kind of bad, honestly," he admits, "not just trusting that it's going to be fine, but...well. Friend Computer," he goes on, dripping with sarcasm, "was always so sure that everything was peachy, so...I just feel like we have to see for ourselves, you know?" If she doesn't want to come, that's fine, but he has a feeling she'll have his back. She always does.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Buffy has noticed the power issues as well; the lights in the coffee shop kept flickering between total blackout and brownout with occasional bouts of full power. She's ruined more than one frappachino because of it. It had also made her more than a little jumpy. She'd 'accidentally' broken a chair and fashioned a stake because you couldn't ever be too sure. Part of her paranoia is in thanks to the Complex, but she owes a good deal of it to the last decade and change of her life. In any case, she's all for verification that nothing janky is going on, that the fences are holding up, that everything is as safe as those higher up say it is. Taking out the element of arrest is refreshing.

Buffy isn't as confident as the rest of the guard. She lives by the whole Murphey's law idea of anything that can go wrong will go wrong. If they find something, Buffy isn't worried about placing blame, at least not right off that bat. She'll simply be glad they took precautions and that they found the something before it became a disaster (hopefully before it becomes a disaster). She''d rather be safe. Besides, patrolling will give her something to do, an outlet for that jumpiness and paranoid that the power issues have built in her. A patrolling Buffy is a productive Buffy, or a calm Buffy, something like that. She's gotten the same idea that Derek has in regards to how people feel about each other here. She doesn't think it's anything like the Complex, which makes her far more inclined to help out. Recognition isn't something that Buffy needs at all. She simply likes the idea that everyone else is helping out too. It makes her even more keen to protect people here and that means patrol, or at least that's how it starts.

Buffy needs to get home. She's always needed to get home. Dawn is there. Her friends are there. The only reason she doesn't panic is because she knows the others will take care of Dawn. That being said, she's much happier here in the Quarantine than she was in the Complex. If she has to be away from Dawn, this is a decent place. As for getting back to Buffy's world, she'd take both Derek and Alcide with her and no one would hunt them. Sure, someone is bound to try and kill them if they get mixed up in her life, but they'd have the support and help of all her friends. Derek and Alcide are part of her family now, for better or worse and she's not going anywhere without them.

"Yes!" She jumps at the chance, the answer out almost before Derek's question is finished. She's still got the stake she'd procured at work and she probably smells like coffee, but she's grateful to be wearing a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, something normal that doesn't have a zipper all the way down the front. The whole half transition thing will be new for Buffy to see and she'll probably be a little curious, but she's comfortable with Derek's werewolfness and comfortable that when he says he has control of himself in wolf form that he's telling the truth. She doesn't blame him for wanting to shift just because he can. She's shattered a few things just because she could (nothing important--except the chair at the coffee shop and it was wobbly anyway--she swears). She smirks at the comment about trust and Friend Computer. "Trust issues, I can get behind. Besides, everyone always appreciates over achievers when it comes to safety. Count me in. I'm a safety girl." She'll definitely have his back, even if she didn't want to go.

Derek isn't even a little bit surprised that she jumps at the chance to come with him. She usually does and when the tables are turned, he never hesitates, either. It's just their thing ever since that first night when he'd been sharing a room with just her and he'd given her the gas mask so they could slip out after the SleepAid was released. It was always going to be easier to get a decent look around when less people were awake, but the problem with that was that it was also always going to be easier for their faces to get caught on one of the goddamn million cameras set up in that place. At least here, Derek has the idea that they'd be less punished and more thanked for double-checking, even if everyone is pretty confident that the fences will be just fine, power or no.

So he grins at her answer and nods in the direction he means to go, starting off that way. "Okay, you can be Safety Girl. I'm just going to stick with Derek," he teases.

Looking over at her and noticing the stake, Derek's eyebrows lift. "Really?" It's a playfully sarcastic sort of question, but he can't help it. He's never seen her with her weapon of choice and it just looks sort of funny and out of place even though he knows, for her, it makes perfect sense. He'll get used to it. "If I shift halfway, promise not to stick that thing in my chest? I mean, I've healed from worse, but it'll hurt like a bitch and I'd really rather not, if it's all the same to you," he says, only half-joking.

His voice is lowered because he has a feeling she'll be able to hear him just fine but they won't have to worry about anyone nearby overhearing. Buffy already knows who and what he really is, even if she hasn't had a chance to see it because The Computer repressed it. Here, he's free to transition whenever he wants. The first full moon will probably be a little big ugly and he's already planning on heading way out into the abandoned area with the hopes of his bloodlust turning on woodland creatures while he remembers what it feels like to retake control of it, but beyond that, he's pretty confident that he isn't going to have much of a struggle. Maybe Alcide doesn't have to contend with that same thing and they can transition together; maybe the larger wolf can keep him in line in the few hours it'll take him to get back into the habit of mentally gripping an anchor to keep him attached to his humanity.

Since it's not the full moon right now, though, that's neither here nor there. "...how's your hearing? I can pay attention to all of my senses, but it's a little easier to focus on one and scent is my preferred..." He's referring to how they'll determine any potential oncoming threats, but he doesn't clarify because he has a feeling Buffy already knows that.

It kind of is their thing. She likes that they have a thing and she likes that they're allowed to do it here. While Buffy doesn't need thanks (but it's nice), she is glad that there won't be any punishment for simply trying to protect people. At some point, she's going to want to look around at night, just to see how things are different because the world does look different in the dark. For now, she'll settle for a day trip.

"Okay, Smarty Pants," she rolls her eyes at him a little.

She shrugs a little at his question. "You'd be surprised what a stake through the heart will take care of." It's what she knows how to use, though if she could get her scythe here, she'd do it. She's comfortable with and capable with many weapons, but the stake is one that is a constant for her. It's also something she can make on the fly if need be, as she did this particular stake. "Scouts honor," she tells him. "I've never stuck it anywhere I didn't mean to." She tilts her head at him. "Would you really? Heal from it if I stuck it in your heart?" That's good information to know, not that she intends on ever using it against Derek, but it's still good information.

She keeps her voice at the same sort of level his is because it's not her place to out him if he wants to keep what he is quiet for a little while. She'd be okay with chaining him if he has the chains or putting him in a cage if necessary. He wouldn't be the first person she's chained up or put in a cage. It won't affect how she looks at him or feels about him.

"Uhm....sort of average human hearing?" She's sorry to disappoint him, but most of her senses are pretty average. "I'll keep an ear out and you keep a nose out. I have a sort of something is hanky sense. Like a spidey sense." Less mystical and more born from years of fighting the things that go bump in the night.

"No, no," he says, shaking his head and smirking smugly. "Der-ek," he adds, drawing the name out very slowly and intentionally before he breaks into a laugh. Hey, give the guy a break; he hasn't had a whole lot of reasons to laugh in the past decade. He takes what he can get when he can get it.

His eyebrows lift with interest and he gives a facial shrug and a nod. Probably plenty of things, come to think of it. Not everyone and everything can heal as fast and as well as he can, after all. Plus, she's a vampire slayer and he supposes it makes sense that her weapon of choice, in that case, is a stake. She probably has to use one on vampires and after a while, practice makes perfect with just about anything. And to his question about healing, Derek gives a solemn nod, looking over at her. Because he doesn't smell or hear anyone in the general range of what his earshot would be, he specifies when he answers.

"Only three ways to kill me, that I know of: wolfsbane, decapitation, cut me in half," he replies. The fact that he's willingly and proactively telling someone — anyone — that information should speak volumes. "I had an Alpha shove a blunt pipe straight through my back and out the other side to pin me to the floor. Hurt like a motherfucker and it took a couple of days, but it healed. I can take a licking and keep on ticking," he says with a nod as they go on.

He huffs a soft laugh when she cops to average human hearing. "Ahh, all right, how about you keep your 'hanky senses' dialed up to eleven and I'll keep the ear and nose out?" he offers. "It was worth asking. What all can you do, anyway?" he asks, looking around to make sure that they really and truly are, in fact, alone before rolling his neck on his shoulders and shifting half-way. His brow bulges slightly, ears grow out to a point, and he's a lot hairier-faced; fangs descend and his green eyes light up a glowing icy blue instead, but he's still very much Derek under the wolf. His eyes move toward the fence and he takes a step closer, listening for the low pitched hum, possibly inaudible to human ears; it's barely audible to his. "Well, the power is still on, at least here, it is..." he tells her, sounding a little more surprised than probably is entirely fair, considering they were assured that the fence wasn't going to crap out, after all.

His laughter makes her smile. Sh eknows that Derek hasn't had a lot to laugh about in his life. She's glad that she can make him laugh over something silly like this.

She can always behead a vampire and her scythe is good for that, but that's back home, at least as far as she knows. She's also used a cymbal, a variety of swords and a chain to behead them, but those were mostly situational. She prefers the stake or her scythe. She responds to his silent, somber nod with a facial shrug of her own.

"Yeah, let's try to make sure none of that happens. Pipe included." She shudders a little at the imagery. She doesn't like the idea of someone she cares about being hurt and she'd certainly beat the crap out of someone for hurting him. Of course, if they could beat Derek, she's not entirely sure how'd she fare. She'd find a way though. That's what she does; Goddesses, uber-vamps, other slayers, vampirized slayers...she always finds a way.

he makes her chuff a soft laugh when he tells her to keep her hanky senses dialed up. "I'll let you know if I get the hair raising on the back of my neck thing." She can't help but doing a double take when he shifts halfway. "Whoa." After a moment, she shakes her head and gets back to his question. "Super strength, speed, stamina--I only need about four hours of sleep a night and I can get by on much less. Enhanced healing and super resilience. Oh! Prophecy dreams, but those are never really regular. They're reserved for big things. Really rotten. I always feel hungover after one. I'm supposed to have a vampire sense, but mine never really worked right." She'd only ever really felt Angel. Her 'hanky' sense is something developed over the years, just a sense that something isn't right. She hums a little. "I'm really good with weapons. Well, as long as they aren't guns. I don't like guns. I have wicked aim. Definitely something to do with slayerness and super coordination, agility, balance, grace...that sort of thing. I used to do a stumble and fall to help draw vamps in and away from public areas, but I don't think I've ever actually stumbled and fell." At least not since becoming a slayer.

As for the power being on, she nods. "Good to know. It's got to be running on a totally different system, right? Or maybe they've got great backup generators."

Nodding, Derek huffs a soft sound that might be a laugh if the memory of being impaled like that in front of his baby sister was anything to laugh at. It isn't. "Yeah, I'd like to avoid it, personally," he agrees. "It isn't pleasant. But..." he says, looking over at her as they move, "it does come in handy, being able to heal like that. It means I can fight harder and with more reckless abandon to protect the people I care about. When you can survive being knocked off a ledge and landing on a busted escalator three stories below, you tend to throw caution to the wind a little more easily, knowing that you'll be able to walk it off if you're patient enough."

Her initial reaction to his shift puts Derek on edge for a second, worrying that hearing he can do it and actually seeing it are two entirely different things that will change her opinion. But then she shakes her head and moves on and Derek visibly relaxes. She just seemed surprised; not frightened. Buffy may or may not realize just how big a relief to him that is.

While she might not have super senses, Buffy's array of abilities is a pretty vast one, by 'human' standards. Maybe she's pseudo-supernatural, like Lydia; still technically human but definitely enhanced with abilities that other humans don't possess. "What's a vampire sense? Like just...being able to tell when someone is a vampire, or...?" he wonders, eyebrows lifted with interest. "...yeah, I don't like guns, either. My ex suggested it was because I didn't know how to use one. I told her it's because I've been shot. Repeatedly. I'm willing to admit, though, that guns have saved my ass a time or two, so I can't hate on them too much," he admits, thinking not only of the time when he'd been fighting with a complete loss of his werewolf powers back home, but also of that freeze gun thing Gracie had back in the Complex the day of the Anti-Specials riot.

"It sounds like we have some similar abilities," he says thoughtfully. "The healing, the agility, speed, strength, stamina..." he adds to clarify as they move. "And yeah, it must be. But the thing about generators is that they're not a full power source, are they? I mean, they tend to have less power and last less time than being on the grid, right? ...so there's bound to be weaknesses," he thinks aloud, looking to her with eyebrows raised in question, silently asking for her opinion on the matter, because she might know more than he does about that sort of thing.

As they continue the path, following the fence, he's listening for the steadiness of the hum to make sure it stays in his ears. As soon as it falls away, he'll know there's something wrong, so that's his current focus. "Those are most of my abilities. I already told you, I think, about the memory stuff that I can technically do with my claws in people's necks, but again...not a fan of trying it because I never learned properly and it's entirely too easy to kill somebody by doing it wrong," he goes on, "and I can transfer pain. I mean like...if you got hurt really badly in a fight, I could siphon some of your pain out of you and into me so we could share it. You'd be in less pain or, if I took it all, in no pain at all. I bounce back fairly quickly from that sort of thing because the pain doesn't linger in my body as heavily, most of the time, but... So there's that. I can't turn people into werewolves. Anymore, anyway. Where I come from, only the Alpha can do that and I gave up my Alpha spark to save my sister when she was dying. You know, I don't actually miss having that extra power and responsibility as much as I thought I would've."

He stops suddenly and his eyes shift toward the woods, away from the fence as he holds an arm out to stop her from continuing to walk, wordlessly communicating that he hears something that doesn't necessarily fit. It could just be a person exploring or a wild animal wandering in the woods nearby. ...or it could be a threat. His chin lifts, head tilting back a little bit as he scents the air in search of a familiar smell of wildlife, but he can't quite place the scent he gets. Derek's arm falls back to his side, but not before he extends his claws. "There's something out there," he whispers. "I can't tell what it is."

Buffy is pretty resilient but it sounds as if Derek is even more resilient, which is a good thing. It means she has to worry less when he's fighting, worry less when he's out. She gives him a disapproving look. "Let's not fall off any buildings and onto anything, okay? There'd be blood and a mess and I hate trying to get blood out of things."

It doesn't change her opinion, but it is one thing to hear it and another to see it. She'd been caught off guard. The only werewolf she's seen shift is Oz and he lost complete control when he shifted. She is surprised, surprised that he has control, surprised that he doesn't look like Oz when he shifts.

She's still human; she's simply got essence of the demon, whatever that means, in her make-up. She understands more about herself than she used to, but some of the science-y-mystical bits of it are still a mystery to her. "Like, being able to tell when a vampire is around," she answers. "Supposedly I should be able to feel them before I even see them," she shrugs a little. "It just never worked for me." She's not going to go into the whole Angel thing because it's complicated. "Oh, I can use one. I shot a demon with a rocket launcher once. I just think people get hurt more often with them than they actually help, at least where monsters are concerned. Besides, shooting a vampire would only piss them off. Same goes for a lot of demons." She looks over at Derek. "Being shot would be a good reason not to like them though." She'd been shot once and that had not turned out well. Yeah, she doesn't like guns.

She nods along because, yes it does sound like they have similar abilities. "We ought to make a good team." She's pretty sure they will. She knows they work well together without their abilities. "As far as I know? I don't have a lot of experience with generators though. Anyway, weaknesses, that's why we're out here. I want to make sure if there are any, we find them."

"Yeah, I remember. We don't want you doing that unless it's necessary," she smiles slightly at him so he knows she's not really scolding or anything. She knows he doesn't want to do that. She shakes her head a little at the pain thing. "I can handle pain so use it on someone else. She's learned to fight through pain, to push it aside until she's got time to deal with it. She winces a little at the comment about the responsibilities of turning someone into a werewolf. She'd had to deal with the responsibilities of turning a bunch of girls into slayers and while she would never have wished for things to turn out the way they did (because now she has the guilt of hundreds of deaths on her shoulders) she is relieved to no longer have that responsibility. "I don't know if anyone ought to have that power," she says a little absently, talking more broadly than narrowly.

She stops the moment he does, getting the message that he wants her to be still. She doesn't quite hold her breath, but she does turn on stealth mode. She watches him scent the air, not finding it that different from the way a vampire would do the same thing. She goes into defensive mode, stake in hand, nodding at Derek. "Want me to go first? I do a great helpless and innocent act," she whispers back.

In spite of the morbidity of her statement, Derek can't help but laugh a little at the nonchalance with which she delivers it. Maybe that's one of his favorite things about Buffy. They can have casual conversations about the sorts of things that would absolutely horrify most people. "I'll do my best," he promises playfully. Obviously, it's preferable to Derek, too, not to be falling off of buildings. It hurts. He'd rather not repeat it.

Vampire sense. Huh. Derek gives a thoughtful facial shrug. "I guess that would be pretty handy for someone like you," he agrees. "Sucks that yours doesn't work right." He nods his agreement with Buffy's assessment about guns. "Yeah, I've always kind of felt like they were needlessly aggressive in a really wussy sort of way. Like if you can't just fight with your bare hands or a close-contact weapon, chances are you shouldn't be fighting at all. Then again, I'm biased. Most of the people I know who use long distance weapons have tried to kill me. ...again, repeatedly." Now, he's also thinking of bows and arrows, but he tries not to be so against them because at least Allison started using them for the right reasons instead of all the wrong ones, like her shitty aunt. He's still bitter. Truthfully, he probably always will be.

Derek has no doubt that they'll make a good team. He's already seen that they tend to work off one another's thoughts without ever really having to say anything. They watch one another's backs. They're usually on the same page. Given their abilities now that they have access to them, the two of them should be pretty damn close to unstoppable and Derek likes the odds of that. "Yeah, agreed. If we can find a weakness, then we can let the people who do all that technical crap know so they can fortify it. If we can keep those things out of here, that's better for us all."

A soft huff of amusement follows her comment about the memory transfer. He's on board with that. If he really has to do it, he'll do it, but Derek can't really foresee a circumstance where it would be of dire necessity and if it isn't, then he'd prefer to skip it. It's just entirely too dangerous and he doesn't want the responsibility of the fallout if something goes wrong when he tries. "Yeah, well," he says almost dismissively, "I can't handle seeing people I care about in pain so you're going to have to just suck it up and let me if the time comes." He's not budging on that. If she's in some pain but still functioning, that's different, but if her pain has her down for the count, he's not going to just sit back and let her fight it. "Probably not. I turned a few people. One of them asked me to. Three of them, I offered and laid out the pros and cons and they accepted. ...but one bailed on me, two were killed by other Alphas," he says, which isn't entirely true. Technically, he killed Boyd, but he hadn't been given much of a choice and Boyd had told him to do it. That doesn't make it any less awful, but he's wiling not to shoulder the entire blame for Boyd, at least. "And one of them, I kicked out of my pack to protect him. He took it personally because I executed it really poorly. He was with another pack for a while, but then he left town. I can't blame him, considering." Why he's sharing that, he's not really sure, other than the fact that he trusts her with the information and there, presumably, aren't any cameras around to capture the conversation and arrest him for being a mutant or what the hell ever they called it back at the Complex when a clone had extra powers and abilities. "So I don't know...I think some people can wield the power responsibly. I just...wasn't one of those people, I guess. My mother was an amazing Alpha. So was my sister," he says and then looks away. Apparently good Alphas die and the shitty ones live to see another day. He, Peter, and Deucalion are perfect examples of that theory.

At first, with her offer, Derek shakes his head. He doesn't feel right about sending her in as bait until he at least has a general idea of how close or far the creature, whatever it is, happens to be from them. He holds up a finger to tell her to wait, because he isn't going to turn her down completely, he just needs another moment to assess the situation. "I'm gonna transition the rest of the way and we can go at it together," he whispers, peeling his shirt up over his head. "Sorry ahead of time, but if I leave these on, when I shift back out, they're gone for good," he adds, unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans as he lets the shirt fall to the ground. "You go right at it," he says and gestures with one hand pointing to where he suspects the scent is originating and then he drops his jeans, kicking them off to the side. "I'm going to try to cut around behind it. Yeah?" he asks, hooking his thumbs at the waistband of his boxer shorts. There's no point in making her uncomfortable for longer than he has to by standing there discussing strategy completely naked, but shifting into full wolf before he's finished discussing with her doesn't make sense, either.

Gallows humor really is one of the things that has gotten Buffy through the last decade. It's better to laugh than cry and all that jazz, and a lot of the things she laughs about she would cry about if she didn't laugh, like the idea of losing Derek. He's become very important to her in a relatively short amount of time, but she thinks that maybe really good friends are like that. After all, it hadn't taken her long to become attached to Willow and Xander.

She lifts one shoulder in a shrug at his critique of her lack of powers. "I've survived pretty well without it. I tend to trust my other senses like no one but a vampire is going to be caught dead in something that looks like it's majorly last decade." Not only has she survived (okay, not talking about how she's died twice ~~three~~ times, focusing on the still here part) but she's flourished without it. "Plus, way too easy to shoot the wrong person," she points out. It's how Tara got shot when Warren had only meant to shoot her. So noted. She'll just have to make sure to keep her 'ows' in check when around Derek. She doesn't see the point in handing him extra pain if it's something that she can cope with herself. She does appreciate that he's got her back, that he would help out if she is down for the count, and if she's truly down for the count, she'll probably allow it with a minimum of complaining. As he continues on talking about responsibility and his failed attempts at being an Alpha, her brow furrows a little. It couldn't have been easy, having all that responsibility, but then that's something she knows about intimately, and since he's confessing. "Long story short, out of necessity, we had to make all the girls that could have been slayers actual slayers. Magic big bang, lots of slayers so we spent almost a year, I guess, rounding them up and taking them to this castle in Scotland so that I could train them and set them on the right path, you know?" Because it's not too far off from what he tried to do. "It didn't work out. I mean...it did, for a while, but..." she pauses and takes a deep breath because she's spent a long time coming to terms with this. "Slayers die and all of mine did, no matter how I tried to protect them. A couple of them went bad, too angry and bitter at me for what I did and how I ruined their lives to see anything else." She'd had to kill them too. She shrugs, as if it's nothing, as if she doesn't still have nightmares and carry around an albatross of guilt over it. "Anyway, I get it. I don't think I'm cut out for that kind of responsibility either." Actually, she had done really well with that sort of responsibility, but as she mentioned: slayers die; it's in the actual job description, she just hasn't gotten the memo yet.

Aww, Derek. That's adorable, but she's fake bait. She just needs to throw in a stumble and fall. flip her blonde hair a little and the monsters start drooling instead of paying attention like they really should. When he gives her the universal gesture for wait, her brows go up, her expression saying 'well...come out with it'. Of course, then he starts stripping and she's entirely distracted. She turns around sharply on her heel, but not before she turns the shade of red usually reserved for Christmas. She doesn't feel that way about Derek and that's the problem. If she were attracted to him, she'd probably ogle him a little, blush a lot and make some fairly ridiculous remarks that wrap up with a ramble and her foot firmly lodged in her mouth. She can hear the zipper on his jeans and that just makes her feel all the more awkward. She understands why he's stripping; she'd probably do the same thing in his shoes, but that doesn't make her less embarrassed to bear witness to it.

"Yup. Got it. Right. As in I go, not as in right, gotcha. I mean, also in--yes." She gives him a thumbs up over her shoulder, back still firmly turned to him. She fumbles a little with the stake, making sure she's got a good hold on it then takes a couple of steps in the correct direction, giving him a chance to call her back before she really commits to the plan of action.

Derek frowns a little when he hears her story. It doesn't sound too terribly unlike his own pack's origin, although he supposes her thing is more tangible than the fact that Derek just assumed the Alpha pack would ravage the town, and instead of hunkering down like Satomi and her pack, he stupidly decided to stand and fight. The price ended up being entirely too high; he should've known better. He'd known almost all of those Alphas when he'd been younger; they'd worked closely with his mother back when things were simple. "Well, luckily for us, it doesn't seem like the sort of responsibility we'll have to shoulder ever again," he replies sagely.

The way that Buffy reacts when she realizes what he's doing is almost enough to make him laugh. He'd expect that sort of response from Katniss. Somehow, he hadn't expected it from Buffy. She'd seemed like the type of person who would take it in stride. Maybe it's just because he's him and the relationship that they have makes it too weird to be flippant and silly about it, like she has been with others. He can respect that, but it's a thing she's going to have to get used to if they're going to go off on these excursions together. Derek doesn't show the wolf to just anyone, but the fact that Buffy already knows about it gives him the wiggle room to do what he feels he needs to to make a situation shift in his favor. So, with that thumbs up over her shoulder, Derek finishes undressing. "Okay, I'm shifting, so I can't talk anymore. Do not stake the big black wolf if you see me before you find the thing, please and thank you," he says with a little grin before making his smooth transition into full wolf form.

With that, he takes off into the woods, tearing into the brush and continuing to scent the air. Once he finds the scent has gotten incredibly strong and then suddenly started to taper again, Derek turns back around. Now, he's behind it. The closer he gets, the more it smells like a kanima, but what the hell is a kanima doing here? That can't be right...

But, sure enough, when he gets close enough that he can see it through the brush, whatever the thing is, it is in fact covered in dark scales. God dammit... he thinks, because if Buffy goes at that thing and it is a kanima, she won't know to avoid the claws that'll absolutely be able to paralyze her with a single, slimy swipe.

Buffy nods a bit at that. She's not sure the scythe even has that kind of power punch anymore, not after Willow drained it to make all the slayerettes. Of course, it's always felt like it had power; it'd always felt like hers and that hadn't changed after Willow had done her thing.

She totally would have taken it in stride, if it'd been anyone else. As it was, it was like seeing her brother naked (if she had a brother) or Giles naked. It wasn't anything needed in her life. She'll get used to the idea of it and it won't surprise her so much if it happens again. She grins despite the fact he can't see it. "Pinky promise," she tells him, realizing that he won't be able to respond. She starts off toward where Derek had pointed her.

WIthout Derek's sense of smell, she doesn't know what she's walking into, but her spidey-sense is definitely going off the radar. There's something here. She makes quite a lot of noise as she moves toward the danger, but anyone who has tracked anything would be able to tell she was making noise on purpose. The sneak attack is coming from Derek, not her.

She steps into the small clearing where the creature is and wrinkles her nose. There's no surprise on her face and no fear in her body language. In fact, she seems casual and confident. "Tell the truth," she says in a scolding sort of voice, "you wanted to be a teenage mutant ninja turtle, didn't you?"

The lizard creature hisses at Buffy, something dripping from it's teeth and starts to lunge. She dodges and makes use of the move by levering a back kick somewhere near where the creature's kidneys might be. The creature turns, swiping at her, but she manages to stumble back a little, recover and slam a hard right jab into the creature's...nose...plate? She's holding her own, but she's also trying to listen for Derek, trying to catch a glimpse of him through the trees.

If he could, overhearing Buffy's comment to the creature, Derek would laugh. He's not sure what it is about Buffy that makes it so easy for her to make those little quips when she's facing something more dire than would usually call for them, but she never misses a beat. He kind of loves that about her. It forces a levity into a situation typically void of it and sometimes that makes it easier to focus on the task at hand and get it done.

...maybe that's why she does it, he thinks, as he draws a little nearer. He waits until she engages it a little bit in battle, distracting the thing before he plans to move in to join the fray. It'll be easier if he can hit it when it's preoccupied, especially if it is a kanima, because the last thing he needs is for one or both of them to end up completely paralyzed because they've taken a swipe or a bite in the melee. Even werewolves can't bounce back from that faster than normal.

Once it stumbles a little, shaking its head like whatever she's done has especially upset its balance, Derek lunges out of the brush, slamming into the back of its legs to knock it onto the ground on its back. He has no idea if the thing can communicate with words or anything, so he doesn't make a move to kill it right away so much as he scents it so that he'll remember that smell later and will be able to actually identify it as a threat, and he checks the claws on its hands and feet to make sure that they're dry. The appear to be, in any case, so that leaves him hopeful. Teeth bared, Derek hovers near the creature, growling, fur standing on end. It seems to be ignoring him in favor of trying to get up again, but also seems to be having some trouble with that. Maybe Buffy's hit was well-placed enough to actually knock the little bugger off kilter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only