16: Trivial Pursuits

The hulking vampires grinned down at them. Josh stared nervously back, and edged a little closer to Toby. "Told you we should've brought Donna," he muttered.

"This might be a good time to remind you that you're carrying the weapons," Toby said quietly.

"Yeah." He had the bag over his arm, but how was he supposed to get at the contents without having said arm ripped off?

The lead vampire smirked in anticipation. "Nice of the boss to send us an appetiser."

Josh figured it was now or never. He whipped the bag off his shoulder and open in the same motion, yanking out a bottle of holy water as Toby grabbed a stake. Thank God for all that practise, trying to quickly pull out his lunch before Donna could spot it and insist on sharing.

"Yeah? Well this appetiser's got teeth!" Not the most brilliant comeback ever, but he was pretty proud of himself for being able to talk at all, under the circumstances.

The vamp looked surprised for a moment, but it didn't last long. "So the puny humans want to dance? Okay. I could do with working up an appetite." His companions snickered, and then they moved in...

"And you work from the original Sumerian?"

"Ah, er, some of the uh, later texts are translated into Latin." Giles pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Alas, not always very well, so I prefer to, ah, translate it for myself where I can."

"Fascinating!" The president's eyes were lit up in a way they seldom were at these sorts of events. Wesley nudged Donna surreptiously.

"I didn't realise the president was a scholar of these matters." He sounded surprised.

"Oh, he's quite the geek," Donna nodded. It figured; a room full of people who wanted to schmooze or talk politics, and all the president wanted to do was discuss ancient Sumerian texts.

Returning with a drink, CJ rolled her eyes. "I see the president's stolen my date."

The First Lady followed her. "Oh dear, is my husband monopolising your nice Englishman?" she sighed.

"Well, it's hard to say who's monopolising whom, but they seem to be enjoying themselves, ma'am."

Abbey shook her head. "I'd better break this up before he decides to leave the party and run off to get his books." She stepped up to her husband, who absently slipped an arm around her.

"Hey there, babe."

"Jed, there are people at this party who came specifically to talk to you," she reminded him quietly.

"Yeah, but I don't want to talk to them," he grumbled.

"I'm sorry, Mr. President, I've been taking up your time," Giles apologised quickly.

"Not at all, not at all," he insisted jovially, as his wife dragged him away. "It's been very interesting talking to you!" He turned to the First Lady. "Abbey, do I have to?" he groaned.

"Deal with it, pumpkin." She led him off to join a group of chatting ambassadors.

Giles polished his glasses. "Your president is, uh, really quite the talker."

"Yeah. Sorry to abandon you like that," apologised CJ.

"No, not at all! He has some absolutely fascinating views on European mythology. It's quite a shame, really; he'd be invaluable in our line of work."

"Well, maybe you can recruit him. But, you know, after he's finished being the president would be good."

"Yes, uh, I suppose he probably is a little busy."

"Just a touch," CJ agreed. Wesley and Giles went off to compare notes with Buffy, and CJ looked at Donna. "Ye gods, what have we started?"

"Witty, good-looking, and he can hold his own in a trivia match with the president," Donna observed. "You go, girl!"

"I'm going, I'm going!" she agreed. She grinned at Donna. "So how's Wesley?"

"Oh, he's nice."

CJ narrowed her eyes at her. "Nice? What does that mean?"

She purposefully played dense. "Means he's not nasty?"

But he ain't no Joshua Lyman, either.

Where was Josh?