author- devylish
title- Little Problems Pt3 of Under A Blood Moon
rating- PG-13
category- AU
disclaimer- JW et al. own the BTVS crew. Burger King (I think) owns the 'have it your way' slogan.
feedback/distribution- let me know at devylish@hotmail.com
spoilers- ref. to SMASHED.
summary- Recap: Tahree has cast some sort of spell over The Champion and her Knight. After bringing down the house in Smashed, Buffy has studiously been avoiding Spike for the past 5 or so days, but she can't seem to get him out of her mind, especially when he drops off a little wicker basket at her back door. Buffy does what she does best, and tries to avoid thinking about him, this time by going to The Magic Box.
LITTLE PROBLEMS
"You look horrible!"
Anya's greeting made Buffy smile despite herself. "Thanks Anya." Plopping herself down at one the chairs located in the back corner of the magic shop, Buffy admitted, "I'm so tired I could fall asleep right here, right now."
"It's 930am."
"Yeah, I, uhh, I didn't sleep well last night." 'Or any night this past week,' she added silently. Damn dreams. Damn Spike. Damn Spike dreams!
"Well, please don't fall asleep here. I want the customers to think the shop is interesting and exciting, not boring and tired. Your sleeping at the table might give them the wrong impression."
Buffy chuckled and turned her attention to attempting to unrumple the newspaper she'd brought with her.
"What's that?"
Buffy groaned slightly and stated, "The classifieds. 'Buffy Summers: these days she doesn't just hunt vampires, she hunts jobs too!'" She slumped lower in her chair.
"Job hunting? Oh good! Now you'll be able to make money like I do!"
"That's the goal, but I'm finding that the only thing I seem to be qualified for is saving the world -- and unfortunately, the pay for that is not as high as you'd think."
The bell over the shop door tinged and Anya's face brightened. "Oh excuse me, I have to go help that man spend all of his money now."
Buffy watched the ex-demon's retreating figure with amusement before forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. 'Research. -- Looking for a job. -- A Buffy job. -- A job that Buffy can do...' Her eyes slipped down and across the rows and rows of available jobs --.
* * *
Thirty minutes later -- and a constant trickle of customers to keep Anya busy -- and Buffy: "HaaaaUmmmm," yawned. 'Geez. I should really put this on my resume. Multi-tasking. I can yawn, pretend to read a paper, and obsess about the greatest, most perverted night of sex in my life -- all at the same time. See I do have talents.'
'Talents.'
Since it wasn't too far from it anyway, her mind feverishly dropped into the gutter. 'Spike seemed to appreciate my talents, a lot.' She smiled and let her mind drop deeper into the gutter, allowing herself to think about the sculpted vampire who'd been haunting her day and night for a full week now. She recalled how surprisingly soft his blonde hair had been. Then she flushed with the realization that she now knew exactly what colour his hair would be if he ever stopped bleaching it.
Shaking her head, she tried to focus on the paper before her, but within seconds, she drifted back to contemplation of the angles of his face. It was a face that was not perfect by any means... but it was 'perfect' for him; for contained within the angles and planes of that face were those damned blue eyes... and that mischievous little boy smile. Imperfection perfected.
Buffy briefly gave up the pretense of reading the paper in favour of full fledged gutter wallowing. His skin. That had also surprised her. It was so smooth and, of course, cool. She shivered. 'Now that was perfection. Everything from his neck, to his shoulders, to his --.' Moaning aloud Buffy tried to give herself a mental cold shower. 'Kittens. He eats kittens... He likes to eat kit...' "Okay that's not helping the situation."
Crossing her legs Buffy glanced at Anya to see if her discomfort and distraction had caught the blonde's attention, but no, the petite shopkeeper was at the cash register, busily grinning at a female customer and her money. A quiet relief crept over Buffy and she lifted a hand to her eyes, rubbing them as she attempted to gather herself...
She resolved to try and be logical about this. Pen in hand she began to write down the things she needed to address in her life. Things she needed to deal with way before she gave thought to any fling, or one-night stand she might have had with Spike. In the margin of the classifieds, she scribbled:
1) Broke --
'Ignoring the bills that are piling up to the ceiling is NOT fixing the problem. You've no job, and you've got two -- no make that three -- mouths to feed. This is reason enough for you not to waste your little grey cells on Spike-filled thoughts -- let alone wasting time on Spike-filled nights.'
2) Been dead - not dealing with the being back amongst the friends thing --
She needed (wanted) to stop zoning out emotionally. Re-attach herself to the living... versus the unliving. She knew she had been so distant with her friends that she might have already lost them, but... She paused in her writings. While she knew they had only done what they felt was right, there were still these huge barriers between her and them. And it looked like it was going to be up to her to try to make them all stop feeling guilty about something they couldn't change. 'Yeah. How the hell do I make my friends stop feeling guilty about ripping their best friend out of heaven?'
3) Not feeling --
Even if she tried to tell them what it was like/what it is like for her, she knew they'd never understand. Spike, on the other hand, did seem to understand, or maybe it was just that he listened to her. Listened in such a way that she wasn't concerned about being judged for how she was feeling -- or not feeling. And then there was the fact that he did make her feel... something. Anything.
4) And then there's Dawn --
'She seems to almost hate me these days. All we do is fight. We fight more than Spike and I fight. Fought. And then she runs up to her room and I go running out of the house to go and slay someone/thing. She's just so hard to handle. Abnormally hard to handle. No way all teenagers could be this hard to handle. I know I was never this difficult - well except for the whole setting fire to a gym... and blowing up the high school.' Hmmmm. 'Maybe Dawn isn't as difficult as I think she is.' A rueful smile played at Buffy's lips as she tapped the top of the pen against the edge of the newspaper. She admitted to herself that she was utterly confused about how to reach Dawn. She wasn't their mom. She didn't have that maternal skill. Slayers weren't built that way. Ask her to gut a T'la demon and Buffy was all over it. Ask her to have a heart to heart with her fifteen year old sister, and Buffy was clueless. 'And honestly -- even if I did know what tricks/hoops I needed to jump through to get to her... I don't know if I'd have enough energy to do so. I don't even have the energy to 'reach' myself, much less a hormone ridden teen.'
All these problems. All of them demanding so much of her energy. She certainly didn't need to add lust -- for a vampire no less -- to the mix.
Glancing at her hastily scribbled notes, Buffy clucked with dissatisfaction. All of the little problems she'd written down in little 2-3 word phrases had small scribbles next to them. Scribbles that looked suspiciously like tiny railroad spikes. The demon was everywhere now. With all of her friends, with her family, within her dreams. He was just everywhere.
'Yep. Every railroad track leads right back to the Spike. Damn.'
Dropping her traitorous pen, Buffy ran her hands through her hair, pushing it up and away from her face. Closing her eyes she felt her stomach rumble. Hunger. Food. Food would be good. Something... something beefy... 'Hmmmm, I wonder if the Doublemeat Palace is open this early.'
* * *
Half an hour later found Buffy climbing the steps of the Summers' home, Doublemeat Burger, fries, and shake in one hand, and an application in the other.
She was starving. Starving and pissed off. It had taken her twice as long as necessary to get home because of the difficulties she'd had getting her Doublemeat Medley made to her specifications.
'You'd have thought I was asking them to give me their first born! Make a simple request, and end up having to talk to the manger to get it done!'
** "Ma'am, what seems to be the problem here?"
"The problem? The problem," Buffy huffed hungrily, "is that your staff -- uh, Lorraine here, doesn't want to make me a rare Doublemeat Medley with the works on it! I thought you guys were suppose to 'make my burger, my way?'"
"That's our competition's motto ma'am."
Buffy had glared at him. Her eyes training all of her hungry anger at him.
Stumbling a step or two backwards, the manager had suddenly acquiesced to her demands. Half turning to Lorraine, he ordered her to "ring up the young lady's order. Immediately." He then proceeded to back further in the kitchen, keeping his eyes directed at Buffy as he added: "I'll just go make certain that the cook gets your order done right."**
'Maybe I should stop slaying baddies, and just start glaring them to death...' Buffy grinned to herself as she settled down on the living room couch and ripped open her bag of yummies. Unwrapping the paper that enclosed her Doublemeat Medley burger, she picked up the sandwich. She watched the greasy, still red juices of the burger settle at the bottom of the paper wrapping. Her stomach cramped with hunger. "Okay, okay!" She mumbled and opened her mouth with watering anticipation.
-- She could have cried with frustration when she was stopped in her pursuit of mastication bliss by the sound of the front door opening.
"Buffy! What are you doing here?"
Buffy groaned and turned toward her 'estranged' sister.
"That's my line." She looked at Dawn's guilty face and steeled herself for an inevitable argument. Reluctantly putting her meal back down into its puddle of juices, she faced Dawn head on. "Why aren't you in school?"
"I, umm, I... I decided to come home for lunch."
"At 11am? Without permission? Dawn!"
"I'm not a child Buffy," Dawn began defensively.
"You're 15 years old!"
"Jesus Buffy! I took care of myself all summer long while... while you were gone." Dawn blinked rapidly and then hung her head in the brief silence that followed. Then she screwed her courage back up. "I don't need your permission to eat lunch. I don't need anything from you! I... I'm not your daughter. I'm not even really your sister!" Dawn turned and began to flee (a trick she learned from Buffy herself) up the stairs.
Buffy could feel the anger boiling up in her. It was the same argument every time, and she just couldn't take it anymore. The constant fights, the baleful eyes, the deafening silence... Enough! Her voice exploded from her small frame: "Dawn Elise Summers!"
Dawn paused in her race up the stairs and turned to face her sister.
"I can not, will not, take this anymore! There are rules that you have to follow; rules that I have and will continue to set up! If you want to be treated like an adult, then you better start acting like and adult! I don't --." Buffy stopped in mid-cliche rant when she saw Dawn visibly pale.
"Dawn...Dawn!?" Buffy flew off her perch on the couch and reached Dawn just before she fainted and fell down the steps.
TBC