Buffy Big Brother - Week 2 - Day 2

The household slowly recovers from the night before. Buffy and co. have a renewed faith in the solidity of the revamped Sanctuary spell, after repeated attempts by an increasingly drunken Spike to circumvent it, ranging from the subtle ("...pass me the bottle opener, would you luv?") to the not-so subtle (trying to gut Giles with a buttered scone, before singing Rule Britannia and passing out).

Cordelia gains a new and rather unlikely companion in her "random" meetings in pursuit of Angel - the deranged vampire Drusilla. Forced to face reality, Cordelia is moved to finally resign herself to the fact that Angel is off-limits:

"One semi-fit guy in the entire house and he's caught between Therapy Barbie and Elvira's ugly sister!"

Drusilla clutched Madame Edith, her favourite porcelain doll, tightly to her chest. "Shouldn't say such things, my girl," she said softly, rocking back and forth where she stood, "Madame Edith gets upset to hear such nasty words, she does."

"You can tell that Chucky wannabe," Cordelia retorted, "that I could not, possibly, in the world, ever, care less what it thinks."

There was a hiss, and fingernails with razor-sharp points raced across Cordelia's neck, just far enough away so as not to trigger the Sanctuary spell. Drusilla's eyes blazed with sudden insane hatred. "You talks too much, my girl."

Cordelia, by now well used to these antics, never even flinched. "You wouldn't believe how often I get that."

"Something wrong, luv?" Spike inquired, appearing on the scene downing a glass of O Neg with an expression of extreme distaste.

Drusilla had changed again - now she sank to her knees, rocking Madame Edith, sobbing softly. "She says such bad things, Spike. Such wicked, naughty things. Bite her, Spikey. Bite her for mummy."

"Now now, Dru - you know the rules. We play nice-nice with these filthy animals for a while and then we get ourselves a nice little massacre in the country. Just you and me, you'll see," he soothed her, kissing her forehead softly.

Cordelia fought down nausea. "I thought I'd seen all the sickening vampires to last me a lifetime," she declared, "but you two - ergh. At least The Master just wanted us all brutally killed. He never spooned with anyone, least of all Drag Queen Victoria here. Act your age...act your era."

Spike's jaw set, his mouth thinning dangerously. Fairly nailing Cordelia to the wall with a stare of blatant, murderous, intent, he growled, "You do talk too much, Miss Maybelline. You're not even the sodding Slayer - what the hell gives you the right to talk to us like that?"

Cordelia beamed. "Why don't you ask the Master?" she trilled.

----

"Can I come in?"

Angel paused to thumb down the page on the book he was reading, wishing he could thumb down the surge of emotion that voice sent through him. "Sure."

Buffy entered the bedroom hesitantly. "I wasn't sure if you'd be sleeping or not, but I caught Giles on the way to one of his patented muffin mornings in the garden..." she trailed off, sitting lightly on Giles' bed.

Angel had expecting the trail off. Now he sat back and waited to see if his second prediction would be correct.

"You know them?"

Two out of two. "Angelus knew them."

"And you're not Angelus?"

"If you thought I was, would you be sitting there talking to me now?"

Buffy hesitated. "There's a Sanctuary spell," she replied, "so even if I did, Angelus couldn't hurt me."

"Yes he could, Buffy." There was not a single trace of lightness in Angel's tone. "You don't know what he's capable of. He knows what I know, and in his own, perverted, sick way, he feels what I feel. You would never be safe if he were here. Thankfully - "

"What you feel?"

Ouch. He hadn't predicted that one. Angel faced her honest, appraising stare and, to his amazement, found himself inwardly afraid. She had so much wisdom beyond her years, and yet in so many ways she -

"I'm not a child, Angel," Buffy said hotly. "Whatever you want to tell me, just tell me, and let's be done with it."

For Gods sake, just tell me, Buffy thought. Say it, just tell me everything and don't hold back or I'll break your admittedly sexy neck for you. Damn it, just do it, and when it's done, even if it's not what I want to be told, I can move on, I can deal...or at least, I can pretend to deal...

He didn't tell her.

He showed her.

"...but I got it back - well, most of it!"

Willow retreated back into her safe verbal place, and waited for Oz to adopt that ever-so-slightly puzzled expression that everyone new she talked to - and these were rare enough - seemed to adopt, as they struggled mightily to interpret what Radio Willow had just broadcast. Buffy was her best friend, but even she sometimes bore the quirked eyebrow scar of a conversation with Willow.

"You have the nicest way of looking at things," Oz said. "I like it."

Willow gaped for fully four seconds.

When this gaping period was over, she abruptly realised what she'd just done, came to her senses and attempted to cover by taking a sudden and enthusiastic interest in the view out of the living area bay window. Unfortunately for Willow, her legs seemed still to be stuck somewhere around nicest way of looking...

Oz didn't quite catch her before she fell. It was a close thing, though. His eyes, so usually placid, were full of pointed concern for her. "You OK, Willow?"

"Fine and dandy," she chimed back dazedly, sitting back down on the sofa again, his hands guiding her, "must be all those pesky legs of mine getting mixed up again...bad legs. Things were so much simpler when we all had tails, dontcha think?"

Oz smiled. "I bet you'd have had a cute tail."

"See you're not helping me balance here," Willow explained, exasperated. "Stop it, please."

"Stop telling you what I see?" Oz said, and now he did have that puzzled expression, and Willow discovered that it afforded her no comfort at all.

"I know what you see," she told him.

"I don't think you do," he replied. Damn him, was he always this languid? "I think I need to show you."

Suddenly on the verge of tears, Willow shook her head. "I don't need shown. I've always known what you - what Xa...what everyone sees, OK? So just don't show me."

So he didn't show her.

He told her.

----

"Another muffin, Xander?" Giles said pleasantly.

"God I hate my life," Xander replied.

Giles: "Really?"
Big Brother: "Would Giles come to the diary room"
(Giles duly gets up and is shortly plonked down on the outsized blue designer chair, still munching).

(Sexy voiced female ) BB: "Hello Giles"

Giles: "Hello Big Brother, or should I say big sister?"

BB: You seem to be in good spirits Giles. How are you this week?"

Giles: "I"ve discovered American undercooked biscuits and over-chocolatey muffins: I couldn't be happier. The Directors helped a lot too."

BB: "You mean the floor manager?"

Giles: "No, I mean the Directors" (Waves a bottle)

BB: "How do you think the new housemates are settling in?"

Giles: "Well it was a very stupid decision to bring in yet more vampires after the trouble we had before. William the Bloody is infamous and his companion seemes to be dangerous and unstable. I suppose you want to increase the viewing figures. Still, it was quite amusing watching Spike's pathetic attempts to attack me"

BB: "Big Brother is glad you aren't hurt."

Giles: "Yes, well you'd have to get up pretty early int he morning to catch me out."

BB: "Are you pleased about the guitar?"

Giles: "The others don't need to know I play. Their generation doesn't listen to real music anymore. They'd only mock me"

Giles: "Is that all?"

BB: Yes. Thank you Giles"

(Cuts away to Giles lounging in the living room, checking to see no one is listening)

(Sings to himself) "You don't know just what I mean, you could be a beauty queen"

Spike: Did you say something Giles?"

Giles: Err. No. Nothing!