Finicky






Xander was hungry because he only had half a cabdriver. Buffy was hungry because though she had all of Willow, almost all of Xander, Xander had siphoned off a lot of that when she was turning him. The two of them were wandering aimlessly down the dark streets of Sunnydale trying to figure out if they should eat anyone they know.

"How about the family?" Buffy asked.

"That would be like eating a half chewed hot dog out of the garbage when there are succulent pieces of fillet mignon walking around," Xander said.

"I guess the Harris family is not on the menu," Buffy concluded.

"How about Joyce? She's succulent?"

"Ewww. And that's too much like chewing on my own arm. Plus, she was majorly guilting me about ditching school. If she finds out that I'm not really dead, I'll never hear the end of it," Buffy told him.

"I think the growling of my stomach drowned out the part of your reasoning that made sense," Xander told her.

Before Buffy had the chance to explain it to him, they heard a cough from up the street. They swung around and changed direction. The hacking cough came from a woman, a little too bundled up for the weather, carrying a small shopping bag.

"What are you doing out at this time of night?" Xander said in a tone both concerned and menacing.

The woman sneezed in answer.

Buffy noticed she had a drugstore bag in one hand and a wad of tissues in the other, with a box of them under her arm. She also noticed watery eyes and a nose festively red and raw from wiping.

"You don't look very appetizing," Buffy told her.

"I have a cold," the woman said through her mucus stuffed nose.

"You don't say," Xander quipped.

Buffy looked all around. It was a quiet street lined with apartment buildings and parked cars.

"Where's the all night drug store around here?" Buffy asked trying to remember where she had seen one.

The woman pointed back where she came from.

"Around the corner," she said helpfully.

Buffy started off where the woman had pointed. Xander hesitated.

"Aren't we gonna...?" Xander asked pointing his thumb at the woman who was already going on her phlegmy way. She wasn't fillet mignon, but Xander was still hungry after splitting the cabdriver with Buffy when he could have gone for the whole cabdriver and some fries and a shake and then another cabdriver.

"She's full of germs," Buffy said.

"Does that matter? Do vampires get colds?" Xander asked feeling hungry and not particularly picky.

"I don't know. But I just got over the flu, and I am not sucking down on Ms. Phlegmy McMucus over there," Buffy declared and they were off to find the pharmacy.




The neon sign proclaimed that that the place was open twenty-four hours. Buffy and Xander walked in. Buffy grabbed a shopping basket. She planned to pick up some toiletries and magazines.

"Wow, the mediciny smell is extra mediciny," Xander noticed.

"Welcome to the unlife. No need to stoop and smell the roses. We can smell 'em just fine from up here," Buffy said as she picked up some cotton balls.

"These heightened senses can be kind of a pain in the ass. It's not all roses out there. How many things do you want to get a good whiff of," Xander complained.

Xander went toward the checkout counter. There was a guy behind the cash register, leafing through a tabloid. Buffy turned her head to one side as she eyeballed him critically. Xander picked up some candy bars.

"He's kind of pimply," Buffy said not bothering to keep her voice down.

"Hey!" the guy behind the counter objected.

"And you're kind of picky," Xander told her. He was ready to bite down, pimples or no pimples. The candy bars were for later.

"I don't want eternal acne to go with my eternal life," Buffy said as she walked away. She looked to see who else might be around.

"It's zits not the bubonic plague. They aren't contagious. You're not hungry because you noshed on Willow," Xander accused her as he dumped an armful of candy into her shopping basket.

"Was I supposed to let a perfectly good friend go to waste?" Buffy asked him.

"I guess not," Xander said grudgingly.

"You are just jealous because you only got second hand Willow," Buffy told him. "Anyway, she was magically undelicious."

They went to the back of the store. There were no shoppers around. But there was man in a lab coat working in the pharmacy.

"Hey, the pharmacist looks disease free, and his skin is unblemished. Unless a little myopia is a problem for you?" Xander asked seeing the pharmacist behind his counter, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"No, guys in glasses sometimes have nice asses," Buffy said.

Xander had nothing to say to that. The pharmacist was middle aged. His ass was covered by his lab coat. Most importantly, he didn't look like he had anything they could catch.

The pharmacist saw them approach, and he looked behind him. Buffy and Xander weren't paying attention, or they would have seen that he was looking at a mirror, and the two of them weren't in it. The pharmacist raised a spray bottle. This, Buffy and Xander noticed.

"Is that Windex?" Buffy asked.

The pharmacist pressed the trigger and nothing happened.

Buffy and Xander shrugged at each other.

The pharmacist fumbled with a sprayer, switching it to mist. A fine spray of holly water filled the air between him and Xander and Buffy. Xander and Buffy felt a sting of tiny holy water droplets. Their faces changed and hissed under the mist.

"Ow ow ow! What's a pharmacist doing with holy water?" Buffy asked as she dropped her basket and backed away.

"Spraying us with it!" Xander said totally unnecessarily,

"It's not a prescription drug," Buffy said as she looked for something to shield her from the holy water mist so she could go on the offensive. But it was all vitamins and herbal supplements in her isle.

"In case of vampires spray liberally. He's got no range. He's got it on mist," Xander noticed from his own isle.

The pharmacist took a moment to switch it to stream increasing the range of his weapon.

"Oww! Way to give him ideas," Buffy yelled at Xander. The stream hit her hand where she had raised it to cover her face. The phrase 'not the face, not the face' meant nothing to the pharmacist.

Xander shielded himself with an economy sized box of panty shields. Seeing what he was holding, Xander dropped them like they had cooties. Then feeling less squeamish and more holy water sprayed, he grabbed an item from the next isle - a package of Depends.

"They are absorbent, aren't they?" Xander said to justify his choice.

Xander decided that he would circle around and get at the pharmacist from one side while Buffy kept him busy on the other. He went down the isle. He didn't get far. As soon as Xander got to the front of the store, the checkout guy was waiting for him. The guy had a stake in one hand a hammer in the other.

"That's so classic. So Hammer," Xander commended him. "You don't mind a little punning, do you?"

Xander grabbed the stake from him with vampire speed. The guy hammered Xander on the knuckles, and Xander dropped the stake. The guy tried to pick it up. Xander stepped on it. The guy hammered Xander's big toe. Xander stepped off the stake.

"Ouch! Damn! You guys are really making me work for my supper. Come on!" Xander said unhappy to meet so much resistance.

The checkout guy had the stake raised and the hammer ready. Xander knocked them both out of his hands and kicked him in the kneecap. Then he bit him, and it was all worth it.

Xander was still licking his lips when he went to the back of the store to see how Buffy was doing. Buffy was doing fine. She had found the meager food isle. A dusty looking can of beans was her weapon of choice. She lobbed it at the holy water spraying pharmacist, and he was out like a light. Buffy was holding him up by his lab coat as she fed. Xander almost slipped on the holy water.

"Clean up on isle five!" he announced to no one.






To be continued...