Fic: Background Reading (Sanctuary)
Mar. 11th, 2011 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityAN: You know what I didn’t do for this ficlet? Research. Which is uncharacteristic, and I’m sorry. I’m invoking the Nikola Tesla “History Only When It’s Convenient” clause. Written for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sfa_history battle prompt Will Zimmerman, FBI Admission Requirements.
Spoilers: Up to the end of season one.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though it would be nice…
Rating: Teen
Characters: Will Zimmerman, The Five
Summary: Someone has done their homework. Will’s just not entirely sure who.
+++
Background Reading
There are some things that are in the manual. There are a lot of things that aren’t.
The physical requirements, the grades, the ability to handle firearms, all these things are practically engraved on the floor of the training rooms. What’s less apparent is how much reading there would be. This doesn’t bother Will, because he rather enjoys it and he’s a quick study.
It really annoys pretty much everyone else, though, so he does his best to downplay his excitement about it.
This is made increasingly difficult as the topics of study become more engrossing. There are rather more publicly accessible files than Will would have thought, though they’ve all been carefully edited. Some day he might have clearance to read the originals, but he’s not too concerned about that at the moment because what’s available is more than enough.
He’s not the first person through this program to believe in monsters.
Of course, their monsters are primarily psychological in nature, all of them names he’s heard before, Bundy, or names that were never figured out, Zodiac. He finds horrors in those files, and discovers he is unbothered by them, which he had always suspected would be the case. Yes, they remind him of his mother, but they remind him of something else too, the first person who told him he would be all right, even though he’s suppressed who that person was.
When he finds the folder on Nikola Tesla, he thinks it’s been misfiled.
As he pours over it, he starts to wonder why anyone ever thought that he was one of the crazy ones. There is so much science-fiction in those letters and notes that Will is pretty sure he could simply photocopy it, edit a few of the sentences, make up some names to fill the blacked out lines and sell it as a novel. He had no idea that Tesla had made this much of an impact, but it’s a compelling, if seemingly irrelevant read.
Will’s never been the type to forgo extra credit.
Years and several lateral career moves later, standing in a room where they’ve assured him there never was a child, Will won’t think of Nikola Tesla. He won’t think of Tesla when he meets Helen Magnus either, not even when he finally remembers what she said to him the first time they really met. He won’t think of Nikola Tesla, not really, until he’s in India and has seen the man resurrect a lightbulb from nothing.
Because even after Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes and the Invisible Girl, Will still balks at the idea that all of the stories are true.
Part of him, the part that clings to psychology like a drowning man clings to a life preserver, knows that this is because he hasn’t truly accepted what happened to his mother. He’s getting better at thinking about it, removing the blocks and accepting the fact that someday he might console a creature after it’s killed someone’s mother, but he’s got a way to go. And now he’s cracking jokes about a vampire and a serial killer, trying to ease the mind of a woman who can disappear at will.
He’s not unaware of how ridiculous that is.
He doesn’t have a lot of time for thinking in Bhalasaam. Well, not the productive kind of thinking, anyway. And after that there’s only a few brief moments of respite before he has to confront the fact that he just watched Sherlock Holmes die of old age and Nikola Tesla has taken his place in the lab next to Magnus. He calls to mind everything he remembers about the official version of Tesla, tries to figure out what’s applicable and what’s probably an altogether more realistic fabrication. And he remembers, for the first time in a while, how odd the placement of the Tesla information had seemed when he’d found it, all those years ago.
Will’s not given to paranoia, much, which is fortunate, because otherwise he’d probably waste a lot of time wondering who made sure he’d read that file.
+++
fin
Note: It’s totally Helen, btw, who’s done the homework. ;)
Also,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
penknife has posted the FBI File in question, and it definitely qualifies as "Seriously from the department of 'you can't make this stuff up.'"
Gravity_Not_Included, March 11, 2011
sfa_history battle prompt Will Zimmerman, FBI Admission Requirements.Spoilers: Up to the end of season one.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though it would be nice…
Rating: Teen
Characters: Will Zimmerman, The Five
Summary: Someone has done their homework. Will’s just not entirely sure who.
+++
Background Reading
There are some things that are in the manual. There are a lot of things that aren’t.
The physical requirements, the grades, the ability to handle firearms, all these things are practically engraved on the floor of the training rooms. What’s less apparent is how much reading there would be. This doesn’t bother Will, because he rather enjoys it and he’s a quick study.
It really annoys pretty much everyone else, though, so he does his best to downplay his excitement about it.
This is made increasingly difficult as the topics of study become more engrossing. There are rather more publicly accessible files than Will would have thought, though they’ve all been carefully edited. Some day he might have clearance to read the originals, but he’s not too concerned about that at the moment because what’s available is more than enough.
He’s not the first person through this program to believe in monsters.
Of course, their monsters are primarily psychological in nature, all of them names he’s heard before, Bundy, or names that were never figured out, Zodiac. He finds horrors in those files, and discovers he is unbothered by them, which he had always suspected would be the case. Yes, they remind him of his mother, but they remind him of something else too, the first person who told him he would be all right, even though he’s suppressed who that person was.
When he finds the folder on Nikola Tesla, he thinks it’s been misfiled.
As he pours over it, he starts to wonder why anyone ever thought that he was one of the crazy ones. There is so much science-fiction in those letters and notes that Will is pretty sure he could simply photocopy it, edit a few of the sentences, make up some names to fill the blacked out lines and sell it as a novel. He had no idea that Tesla had made this much of an impact, but it’s a compelling, if seemingly irrelevant read.
Will’s never been the type to forgo extra credit.
Years and several lateral career moves later, standing in a room where they’ve assured him there never was a child, Will won’t think of Nikola Tesla. He won’t think of Tesla when he meets Helen Magnus either, not even when he finally remembers what she said to him the first time they really met. He won’t think of Nikola Tesla, not really, until he’s in India and has seen the man resurrect a lightbulb from nothing.
Because even after Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes and the Invisible Girl, Will still balks at the idea that all of the stories are true.
Part of him, the part that clings to psychology like a drowning man clings to a life preserver, knows that this is because he hasn’t truly accepted what happened to his mother. He’s getting better at thinking about it, removing the blocks and accepting the fact that someday he might console a creature after it’s killed someone’s mother, but he’s got a way to go. And now he’s cracking jokes about a vampire and a serial killer, trying to ease the mind of a woman who can disappear at will.
He’s not unaware of how ridiculous that is.
He doesn’t have a lot of time for thinking in Bhalasaam. Well, not the productive kind of thinking, anyway. And after that there’s only a few brief moments of respite before he has to confront the fact that he just watched Sherlock Holmes die of old age and Nikola Tesla has taken his place in the lab next to Magnus. He calls to mind everything he remembers about the official version of Tesla, tries to figure out what’s applicable and what’s probably an altogether more realistic fabrication. And he remembers, for the first time in a while, how odd the placement of the Tesla information had seemed when he’d found it, all those years ago.
Will’s not given to paranoia, much, which is fortunate, because otherwise he’d probably waste a lot of time wondering who made sure he’d read that file.
+++
fin
Note: It’s totally Helen, btw, who’s done the homework. ;)
Also,
penknife has posted the FBI File in question, and it definitely qualifies as "Seriously from the department of 'you can't make this stuff up.'"Gravity_Not_Included, March 11, 2011
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:09 am (UTC)*smiles* Sometimes you really have to feel sorry for poor William. Heh. Though in fairness, you can't blame him for the cognitive dissonance. Nikola's file is not so much an introduction to Helen's world as it is to a world all its own. There are monsters, and then there are death rays ...
Awesome little ficlet!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:18 am (UTC)But on the other hand: Tesla!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:17 am (UTC)especially the part about the aliens in Colorado Springs, because you know how ridiculous that is! :) Of course Will's seen it, and boggled completely!no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:18 am (UTC)(I really did try to write stories about people OTHER than Tesla for this thing, but so far I'm oh-for-2...)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 07:18 am (UTC)And of course Helen made sure the Tesla file ended up in Will's hands. Will doesn't get Tesla though.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:34 pm (UTC)Never mind...just answered my own question. :)
Glad you liked it!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 02:40 pm (UTC)I feel sorry for Will to some degree because he doesn't half get thrown in the deep end without a float by Helen. And now, even before that, he finds out about Helen's world and just how closely related it is to his own... that's got to mess with your head. Especially when you meet the real-life Nikola (Vampire) Tesla.
I like the fact that you cover how human Will is in this; he's not been brought up in Helen's world and he's had nowhere near the amount of time that Henry, Ashley or a lot of the Sanctuary folk have had to adapt and to integrate, so I'm happy that you showed that he's trying to cope with the information overload by falling back into his 'world' which only has a monster in his nightmares.
I'd love to read more about Will because you really do have him pinned as close as an author can without actually writing the plots of the shows and stuff themselves (however, if you did write the show episodes I highly doubt I'd be against it).
Once again, this was fantastic and I'm immensely jealous because I HAVEN'T GOT THE TIME to do any writing! But I will settle for reading what you write because you're brilliant. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 02:51 pm (UTC)I don't write a lot of Will (I have one other story he's in), but the one thing I do find intriguing about his character is his descent into Helen's world.
Glad you liked it! Thanks again for the note. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 02:10 am (UTC)Also: He calls to mind everything he remembers about the official version of Tesla, tries to figure out what’s applicable and what’s probably an altogether more realistic fabrication. I love that bit about the unbelievable things in Tesla's file still being more believable than reality.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 01:39 pm (UTC)And yes, Will + Tesla = interesting, I think. Glad you liked!