"…And then I moved here," Buffy finished, telling her full story for the second and hopefully last time.
"Dude," Jesse said in stunned disbelief; even after everything he'd seen tonight, what she'd went through was horrifying.
"I know," Buffy agreed, "and I lived through it."
"Wait," Jesse said, "there was a dead guy in a locker when you two were gone and he had like, no blood whatsoever, could it have been a vampire?"
"Probably," Buffy said, "it's kinda their thing."
"Is he going to become a vampire?" Xander asked.
"I don't know," Buffy replied, "it depends on if he drank blood from the vampire before he died. See, the vampire sucks your blood, you suck theirs, and then you have another vampire. It's a whole circle of suck."
"So they gotta 69 to make a vampire," Jesse said with a nod.
Buffy made a face. "No sex involved, just violence and death."
"Did you have to put it that way?" Willow asked Jesse, looking a bit nauseous.
"Hey, this stuff makes me want to change my underwear, making fun of it helps," Jesse explained.
"Huh," Buffy said thoughtfully, "that would help."
"And it does," Xander agreed. "Now, what do we do about the locker kid who may or may not be getting up to spread the word about vampires?"
"We can probably sneak a word to the Watcher and let him deal with it," Buffy said, "it's only a fledge and he'll be able to do all the detective work to see if he's going to be buried or cremated."
Willow began giggling and everyone turned to look at her.
"Demonic Jehovah's Witness," she said before bursting out laughing.
"Funny, but not side splitting," Xander said.
"There's probably more to the joke," Jesse told him. Seeing that Buffy was confused, he explained, "Willow is not the best joke teller; if it's a really good joke, she's too busy laughing to actually tell it most of the time."
"I don't know, she's recovered a few times and told some good ones," Xander said, "we just gotta wait and see if this is one of those times."
The three waited and eventually Willow stopped laughing. "Give me a minute," she said, taking a deep breath and standing up. Willow picked up a book off the coffee table and held it to her chest before adopting a solemn air and acting like she was knocking at a door. "Hello, I'm here to spread the good word about vampires. Do you have a minute?"
Seeing that Willow was waiting for a response, Buffy decided to take the bait. "Um, no, vampires are all nasty biting and killing things."
Willow shook her head and put a disappointed expression on her face. "So many misconceptions. Do you mind if I come in?"
"Yeah- NO!" Buffy exclaimed and groaned while the others burst out laughing.
"That was a good one," Xander told Willow.
"Thankfully, vampires aren't that smart," Buffy said, "otherwise, considering how stupid people can be, there'd be a lot more vampires."
"What all is real?" Jesse asked.
"Are you getting philosophical?" Xander asked, surprised.
"No, I mean if vampires are real, what else is?" Jesse asked.
Buffy shrugged. "Lots of stuff I wish wasn't."
"Huh," Willow said thoughtfully, "I guess this means we can't just dismiss a lot of things as being crazy or conspiracy theories anymore."
"We don't do that anyway since Xander started taking trips to his own little world," Jesse pointed out.
"That's true," Willow admitted, "but now we'll have to look into things like aliens and the Flat Earth Society without immediately calling bull on them."
"No we don't," Jesse and Xander chorused.
"Jinx, coke!" Xander exclaimed before Jesse could.
"I gave you a Coke the day before yesterday," Jesse reminded him.
"Fair enough," Xander replied before turning to Willow. "Most of the stuff we dismissed as crazy was, though some of it probably wasn't."
"Well, that's clear as mud," Willow said.
"I mean, we know the Earth isn't flat, we've seen pictures from space," Xander explained, "and as for aliens… maybe?"
"They were probably demons," Buffy said, "there's enough strange looking everything to qualify."
"How about Bigfoot?" Jesse asked.
"I actually asked about that," Buffy said. "Meric told me they are a species of demon that prefers the wilds and avoids people, so they do exist."
"You owe me five bucks," Jesse told Willow.
"You bet Bigfoot didn't exist?" Buffy asked Willow.
"You can't prove a negative, I bet Jesse five bucks that no proof of Bigfoot existing would be discovered in this decade," the red haired girl explained.
"I count as proof?" Buffy asked, amused.
"You totally count as proof," Jesse told her, "but don't get too swelled a head since we'd also count anything Xander said as proof too."
"Hey," Xander mock complained.
"He lands on a world without people," Willow explained, "so if Bigfoot existed it'd be more likely to be found there than here, since humans would have taken up most of the areas it'd choose to live."
"Your world doesn't have any demons," Buffy told Xander in wonder as it suddenly occurred to her.
"How do you figure?" Xander asked.
"Same reason we know there's no people," Buffy replied, "no cities."
"One big old empty world," Xander agreed. "If I had control over the whole jumping thing, I'd build a house there."
"There isn't anything scientific we can do, but if magic exists…" Jesse suggested.
"Could my ability be magical?" Xander asked.
"No idea," Buffy said with a shrug. "Yet another thing to have the Watcher check, they should be good at that, they have all the books."
"All the books?" Willow asked, eyes lighting up.
"All the books," Buffy agreed. "If it's old and icky they have books on it. The Slayer's Handbook had references to other books everywhere, so I'm going to guess a Watcher would have them to reference."
"And Willow looks to be our go-between with the Watcher," Xander said, amused.
"Go-between?" Buffy asked.
"She can pass on info without mentioning you so he doesn't get curious," Xander replied.
"And this way she'll have a chance to get her hands on books and info we can't find in the public library," Jesse said with a nod, "win-win."
"Are you sure you want to?" Buffy asked. "I mean, I'm not sure we'll need to know all that much he does, this is just a small town, and you'd have to read through tons of dusty old tomes."
Willow just looked Buffy dead in the eyes with a small smile on her face.
"Is that lust?" Buffy asked, confused, while the two boys burst out laughing.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"I thought this would be harder," Faith told Giles as Angel made a final sweep of the mansion, just to insure they'd found everything.
"We got lucky," Giles told her, "we had the right tools for what we were facing and backup in case of the unforeseen."
"That sounds more like proper planning than luck," Faith disagreed.
"Exactly," Giles agreed, "you have to make your own luck or it's only going to be bad."
"Fair enough," Faith said with a nod. "It's a weird way of putting it but relying on luck is a recipe for disaster."
"Quite so," Giles agreed.
The pair relaxed, enjoying a chance to catch their breath while Angel searched the grounds.
"Is fire the first thing everyone learns when they study magic or is that just the first flashy thing they learn that gives them a swelled head?" Faith asked.
"A little of both," Giles replied. "Fire is the easiest element to manipulate and one of the most destructive," he explained. "For instance, one of your first exercises is lighting and extinguishing a candle. Precision takes time to learn when manipulating it, but tossing a large ball of flames at someone is dead easy."
"It also sounds pretty awesome," Faith said, "I can see why it would make you overconfident, except for all the demons that consider fire a tasty snack of course."
"Of course," Giles agreed with a pleased smile.
"So how do we go about teaching me powers that will swell my head?" Faith asked with a grin.
Giles chuckled. "Well, once we get moved in and everything set up I'll start you on a physical training regimen, and…" his voice trailed off.
"And?" Faith asked.
"One of the things you should know about magic is that neophytes start off taking precisely calculated doses of hallucinogens to attain the correct frame of mind to perform magic while maintaining the focus needed to cast spells," Giles explained. "Now when I was a young adult I discovered that I could achieve similar results with alcohol… large amounts of alcohol."
"You learned magic by getting plastered?" Faith asked in disbelief.
"I got stoned a fair amount too," Giles admitted, "but it was mainly reefer, I have a distrust of hallucinogens."
Faith burst out laughing.
"While my methods were… unorthodox," Giles admitted, "they were effective."
"Any side effects?" Faith asked with a grin.
"I may have slept with a bird or two I hadn't intended and of course there were many hangovers," Giles admitted. "So many hangovers," he said with a sigh, "but really the only side effect is that the drunker I get the more powerful I become."
"That sounds like a horrible combination," Faith said bluntly.
"Oh it was," Giles readily agreed. "There is a very good reason I moderate my drinking these days."
"Glad to hear it," Faith replied. "So… I'm looking at a lot of drunken nights in the future?"
"And many, many, many hangovers," Giles agreed.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"You got this?" Jesse asked Willow as the four of them gathered in the hall outside the school library.
"If you can't do this, it's okay," Buffy told her, "we can just drop a note in the book slot or something."
"I'm talking to a librarian about a book I've read," Willow said, "If there was ever anything for me to get, I've got this," she said confidently.
"Are you sure?" Buffy asked nervously.
Willow smiled at the concern in her eyes. "Dude," she said with a smile.
"Good, we'll meet you in the quad," Jesse replied.
"I'm not all up on Dude-speak," Buffy reminded them as Willow entered the library, "what did she say?"
"That we're worrying for nothing, books are her thing, and she's been looking forward to this," Xander said.
"And that she wouldn't mind dragging one or both of you into the nearest janitor's closet," Jesse added.
"What?" Buffy asked, wide eyed.
"It wasn't that blatant," Xander said, rolling his eyes. "Willow appreciated our concern and felt a great deal of affection for the both of us for giving her this opportunity."
"Pretty sure my translation was more accurate," Jesse said. "And that's my cue," he said as he spotted Cordelia across the quad and left.
"All I got from her dude was amusement, confidence, and excitement," Buffy told Xander as they picked a tree to sit under.
"Well it's translated through our own understanding, and Jesse…"
"Is a horndog," Buffy said with a grin.
"Exactly," Xander agreed as they broke out their lunches.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Hello," Willow said, trying to catch the librarian's attention.
"Yes, how may I help you?" Giles asked.
"A couple of days ago a boy was found dead in one of the lockers, completely drained of blood," Willow said.
"I knew of the death but not that he was drained of blood," Giles said. "Are you sure?" he asked intently.
"The body was pale and had no signs of subcutaneous bruising," Willow replied, "Meaning-"
"The blood was drained before he died so it had no time to settle into his extremities and cause the standard postmortem bruising you'd expect," Giles finished for her.
"Exactly," Willow agreed. "I just caught a glimpse and didn't get a chance to check his mouth so I can't say whether he had any blood in it."
"Which complicates… um," Giles took off his glasses and nervously cleaned them. "I believe we've skipped over some necessary parts of this conversation."
"I'm Willow Rosenburg, I go here," the red haired girl introduced herself.
"It's very nice to meet you," Giles said politely, "and I'm Rupert Giles the school librarian, we have met before. No, what I'm wondering is how you know of…" He waved a hand.
"The Supernatural?" Willow asked. "Well, I read the book we kinda borrowed and then returned, plus I've seen vampires. So… yeah, I'm kinda in the know and would like to know more, if just to avoid it and know what sort of thing I hear about I should be passing onto you."
"No sudden urge to hunt monsters?" Giles asked cautiously.
"No, no, no, and no," Willow said with a shudder. "I'm more of a research and cheer on the monster fighter type of girl."
"Oh," Giles said, relieved, "that is good to hear. Far too many people who discover the supernatural exist rush right into it and come to bad ends."
"No bad ends here," Willow said, "I'm not rushing into anything but doing research in a well lit room way away from any graveyards."
"What are you trying to research?" Giles asked, a bit confused about where this conversation was going.
"Scary monsters and how to avoid them," Willow said, "also dead boys in lockers and how to make sure they aren't going to become scary monsters."
"Oh," Giles said, "sorry if I'm saying that a lot, but most people, much less teenagers, are rarely this rational about discovering the supernatural. It's a nice surprise, I must admit, but still… surprising."
"So… What books should I study?" she asked.
Feeling somewhat on familiar ground, Giles quickly recovered, "What languages can you read?"
Typing By: Abyssal Angel