Quake

"You know, when you two invited me over to your house in the middle of the night…..this is not how I thought things would go." Faith said as she buttered her bread.

The trio were sitting around a table at Quake, taking sips of their drinks and watching The Slayer pig out on their bread baskets. So for she was 3-0, the baked goods had stood no chance.

"Please, you couldn't handle the both of us." Cordeila quipped as she tried, and failed, to snatch a bite.

"So how are we paying for this? I mean, do they take real money or are we dinning and ditching at he end of the episode?" The Chosen one said, while covering her mouth so crumbles didn't escape.

Not for the first time, the original scoobies wondered how the Boston born slayer was surviving without help or any sort of job.
She certainly looked like she hadn't had a good mean in some time.

"Easy peasy," Xander said while flashing a credit card while Queen C checked the name.

"Who's Roger Kent?"

"Just an extra, I visited here a few eps back and pocketed his card when he wasn't looking. Hid it between my palms when the ep ended."

"….And since everything respawns, he's not missing a card and you can make as many charges as you want without a bill ever showing. That's wicked cool."

"Yeah, I've been giving all of this a lot of thought…" He trailed off as their waiter showed up with their appetizers.

"Alright, ladies, gentleman, who ordered the bacon wrapped plums?" At Queen C's hand gesture, he placed the plate in front of her.
Smokey, crisp bacon wrapped around dried plums, soaked in apple brandy and held tight with toothpicks.

"Two orders of crab cake poppers?" Faith's gimmy jazz hands were enough to have him place both plates beside her baskets of bread, now empty, and luckily for the waiter he didn't lose any fingers as she snatched the poppers up.

The waiter just gave her an amused look before turning to Xander, "and for you sir, the blini & caviar."

"Your main dishes should be out shortly."

"Yo, X, didn't know fish eggs were your thing." The Slayer said while shoveling in two poppers in her mouth at a time.

"I've never tried them. At a 75$ a dish I've never had the chance. But since money is literally no object right now, I'm going to live like a Russian oligarch. And what's more Russian then caviar?"

Cordy just watched on, as she pulled a plum through her teeth. Sweet & salty.

At Xander's first bite of his blini, a small stack of Russian pancakes with a golden-red layer of caviar on top, his brown eyes widened. "That….Jesus, that's good."

Each bite, he could feel the little eggs exploding in his mouth, they tasted buttery. And the tiny pops of the eggs flooded his mouth with flavor.

No wonder they were the food of kings.

"Now, what were you saying before?" Faith inquired, already 2/3s done with her plates and looking longingly at Queen C's bacon wrapped plums. She'd take Xander's word on the fish eggs.

"Well, with Buffy's fuckery coming to light, and Angel not being dead I thought you could use some time away to decompress." He told her, before taking another bite and 'mouthgasming.'

If there was anyone in the group with less reason to give princess Buffy second chances, it was the girl currently sporting a bruise across her cheek for trying to stake a vampire.

Not to mention her 'new' watcher turning out to be a lying bitch who wanted a gross arm-thing that shoots lightning.

Faith hadn't had the best day.

Which is why she didn't turn down Xander & Cordeila when they invited her home. She'd thought a hot brunette threesome was just what the doctor ordered. But she'd settle for an 'all-she-could-eat' meal, one she didn't have to pay for.

"Cor has already clued you in on what we're trying to do here, snatch up powers of our own. Which is where you come in, after the meal. While we're here, Piper's stuck 'real-time' in her shift. But then I have somewhere for us to go." He didn't elaborate further.

"And here we go…" There Johnny on the spot waiter was back, meals ready to go.

"Island Duck with Mulberry Mustard." All he needed was the quirk of Queen C's eyebrow to know where that went.

"Blackened Redfish, topped with crispy shrimp, a baked potato with all the trimmings, and a bowl of curry soup." Xander finally scooped up the last golden-red egg, and gestured for the fish.

And with a look of quiet disbelief he called over a second waiter carrying Faith's meal.

"And for our lady with the bottomless bit she calls a stomach, a 72 oz. porterhouse, rare, topped with onion rings, a backed potato with extra extra sour cream, and a side of spicy sweet potato wedges. All of which is free if you can finish it, by yourself."

The look he gave her was equal parts curiosity & disbelief, after all…he'd seen her destroy three baskets of bread topped high and two plates of poppers.

Tapeworm perhaps?

"We'll also want a dessert menu."

"Dude was a pussy."

"Faith, you asked for seconds."

"So? I ate it all, it was free. I can ask for more if I wanna." The trio made their way outside of the Charmed Ones manor.

"It's fine by me, but the poor guy was not expecting to feed a supernatural tummy." Xander said with a grin, his own meal and the pie afterwards more then enough for him.

"Tummy is a super not sexy word, yo." Faith told him with a smirk, until Cordeila turned to her with a grin and said, "really?" She leaned over to whisper into the shorter teens ear.

"Never had a guy, hard and read to pop stroke a hot load onto your flat….tummy?" At her shiver, Queen C rested her case.

"Well," Xander ignored the byplay and focused on the task at hand, "it was a great meal. We'll have to come back again, go through the menu. I don't think I could eat an entire 72 oz. But I'd love to try."

Faith perked up at that, Cordy's teasing forgotten at the prospect of more food.

A point that wasn't missed by either teen. Depending on how dire her situation, it might need to become a nightly tradition.

"So, what's the dealy-o? I haven't ever watched this show. Who are we wacking?"

"Well, I already grabbed the athame from their attic earlier, so we're just waiting on our que. I think we've been going about this all wrong." Xander said while watching a car pull into the witche's driveway.

"Well, seeing as we've been jerked around and failed 10 out of 10 times, I'll say." Cordeila snarked.

"…and here we go." Xander took off towards the car as soon as the driver's seat opened.

"Sir, I work at the local high school's paper. Could I ask you a couple of questions real quick?" The teen pulled out a notepad & pencil from his back pocket as the girls watched on without a clue.

Detective Rodriguez looked mildly irritated while his partner Detective Anderson's look was bordering on pissed. "We're kind of in the middle of something…"

"It wont take but a minute, tops!"

"Fine. Let it never be said that I didn't make time for our youth." Rodriguez spoke, leaning against his car while Anderson looked ready to pop a blood vessel.

"The work of a….cop is rather straight forward, am I right? You don't let yourself get bogged down in the little things."

"Well, we have paperwork to deal with. But as a general rule things aren't nearly as mysterious as cop shows would have you believe."

"Yeah, that's been a problem I've been having recently. Putting too much thought and prep into things, dotting Ts, crossing I's"

"…I'm not quite sure that's how the saying goes…"

"What's the hold up here? We're working, kid." Anderson growled.

"Yeah, maybe not, but that's the thing. I'm used to doing things one way, and I've been trying to do the same thing in the same way without results. You see my problem?"

Bewildered, Rodriguez looked from his partner to the kid asking questions in confusion, "I can't say that I do. What school did you say you go to?"

Xander continued, drawing angry stick figures in his notepad, then drawing tiny stakes in their hearts before continuing, "But I've come to a conclusion. I've over complicated things, these situations while similar aren't the same. You see what I mean?"

"Son, I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. But as my partner pointed out, we actually are on a case. So he and I will be asking the residents of this home….actual questions, not roundabout open ended nonsense you seem to be doing. And it would behoove you to be gone by the time we get back, or we might run you in for a drug test. You see what 'I' mean?"

Faith & Cordeila just looked on from their position on the sidewalk.

Nodding, Xander closed the notepad of angry staked vampires, and put his pencil behind his ear. "See! Straight and to the point. That's what I've been trying to get too, while I came here trying to play chess….what I needed to be doing was playing checkers."

"Son, I think we're done here…" But Detective Rodriguez was cut off by the three rapid stabs to his kidney by Xander's athame, as quick as bunny's fucking. The last stab, he kept the blade sheathed in the upper level demon while it glowed a redish hue in the scooby's hand.

Andersons shout of surprised and his quick run around the back of their car, while drawing his weapon, was halted when his partner burst into flames and vanished.

The IAB officer looked on, stupefied as his partners killer simply dropped the murder weapon, got on his knees & laced his fingers together on top of his head.

"I surrender."

At this point Prue, Piper, and Phoebe opened their front door to see what all the shouting was about.

Faith turned to Cordeila and mouthed 'the fuck?'

"Dude, are you going to arrest me or what? I've got places to be in half an hour."