Title: Down on the Farm
Author: mahaliem
Spoilers: After Season Four before Season Five
Summary: Buffy goes to visit Riley in Iowa but all does not go well.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The characters belong to ME Productions and Joss Whedon.
Thank you to my beta readers – flippykitten and treacle-antlers.
The plane was landing in Sioux City in just a few minutes and I was excited. I hadn't seen Riley in months. He'd gone back to stay with his parents after recovering from his ordeal with Adam and was using the summer on the farm to readjust to life without strength-enhancing drugs. When his parents had graciously asked me to visit for a week, I'd jumped at the chance to be with him.
Summer without Riley had been horrible. I'd missed him so much. To make it even worse, Spike had been following me around, trying to get back in my good graces after that fiasco with Adam. Every night when I patrolled, there he was, appearing like a pimple on the day of a big date, unwanted and impossible to blot out no matter what cream or makeup you used.
When vampires attacked, he dusted them before I even pulled a stake from my pocket. Then he would smirk and ask me if I was getting slow in my old age. And how he could talk. It didn't seem to matter what the topic was, it was all hail to Spike, the all-knowing, all-seeing, always right about everything and everyone vampire. I wish there was some way to shut him up. But for the next week, he was an annoyance I didn't have to deal with. A week with Riley and no Spike, it was going to be wonderful.
As I entered the terminal, I saw Riley towering above others, waiting for me with flowers in hand. As he engulfed me in a hug, I wondered if he had always been this tall or if he'd grown a few inches, like ten.
- Traffic controllers are even now sending planes to circle 'round his head.
Wait, what was that? It sounded like Spike, like he was inside my mind. Disconcerted, I broke away from Riley and gave him a shaky smile.
"Hey, you okay Buffy?
"It was a long plane trip."
He smiled at me with that pleasant, open face of his. What a beautiful smile he had, I thought. It made me feel good, like all was right in the world.
- Yeah, the model for the sodding yellow, happy face.
Oh, no. Please no. It had to be some kind of spell; it had better be a spell. Spike-type thoughts kept invading my brain. I'd spent so much time with him that somehow he'd infected me. Thousands of miles away from Sunnydale and I still couldn't escape him. Life wasn't fair. Determinedly, I resolved to ignore it. This was supposed to be my 'good visit with Riley time' and I wasn't going to let that creep ruin it.
After we collected my baggage and stowed it in the back of Riley's red pickup, we headed for the farm, quickly leaving the city far behind us. I snuggled closer to him as he spoke enthusiastically of his plans for our week together. When he mentioned hunting, I quickly nixed the idea. I don't mind killing all manner of evil beings, but there was no way I was shooting Bambi's mother. He decided that we'd go fishing instead and even gallantly volunteered to put the worms on the hook if it bothered me so much to hurt innocent creatures. The big event of my visit was to be a large family barbeque the day before I left. The barbeque was where he planned to introduce to me his brothers and sisters.
"I've got to tell you, Jack, Peter, Rose, Edward, Robert, and Mary can't wait to meet you.
"You've got six brothers and sisters? God, I'm glad I'm an only child!"
"Yeah, and they're all older, too. When I was little, they used to call me the runt of the litter."
"So, how many people will be at this barbeque, anyway?"
"I'm not sure," he said, shrugging his oversized shoulders. "My brothers and sisters will bring their husbands, wives, and all the kids. I guess it depends on whether my cousins decide to come or not."
Okay, I really wasn't looking forward to being the star guest at a gathering of what sounded like half of Iowa but I'd faced demon hordes, so I guessed I could handle the Finn clan.
- Demon hordes weren't planning to bland you to death.
As we traveled, he sometimes lapsed into silence and, despite what my inner Spike said, it wasn't because he didn't have anything filling his brain. I glanced out the window, at the fields upon fields of corn. Riley gushed about how fertile the land was, how it was God's country. Occasionally, the endless rows of corn were replaced with soybeans. I didn't know what they were at first, but Riley supplied the information. In fact, every time we went past a plot of land, Riley could tell me exactly what was planted there. It would have been very interesting if I were into plants. For career day I'd checked that I liked shrubs but, to tell the truth, they didn't really do that much for me.
I'm sure that there are many beautiful, exciting, wonderful places to see in Iowa. This wasn't it. It was just fields and more fields, and when we passed a pig farm, I discovered an exciting new smell.
- This place is deader than my cemetery.
Okay, that comment I had to smile at.
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At last we reached the Finn farm. I knew this because when we turned on the dirt road, there was a little wooden sign that said "Finn Farm". As we pulled to a stop in front of the white farmhouse, his mother and father came out to give me a hug. They were both tall and broad. When his mother hugged me, it seemed like a jiggling mountain was embracing me. His father looked me up and down and chuckled.
"Heck, son, you picked this one too early. She hasn't grown nearly enough."
- Oh goodie…Farmer's Almanac humor. Bet he knows some chicken crossing the road jokes, too.
His mother showed me to the room where I would be staying. The bedspread was blue and white gingham and there were white lacy curtains at the window. This didn't look like the room of a soldier of the Initiative. I turned to Riley and raised an eyebrow at him in puzzlement and, when his mother left us alone, he explained.
"My parents, they don't believe in premarital sex."
"But studies show that it actually does exist."
- Good one, Slayer.
Riley didn't get the joke. He just hemmed and hawed about their religious beliefs and how being under their roof we needed to respect their wishes. Wait, was he telling me what I thought he was saying? I'd traveled all this way, spent all that money to come to see him, and there was going to be no sex?
After I unpacked, Riley took me on a tour of the farm. He showed me the barn, which was stinky, the animals, which were cute, but stinky, and the fields which were boring but at least weren't too stinky.
As we walked around, he told me about the different things they grew on the farm. The farm, like the other thousands I'd seen getting here, mostly grew corn. They had a few small patches of other things, too. When he began to explain about growing potatoes, I prepared myself for a battle with my inner Spike - not going to say a word, not going to say a word.
"The potatoes have done really well."
Not going to say a word, not going to say a word.
"For such a small plot of land, we've managed to harvest quite a large number over the years."
Not going to say a word, not going to say a word.
"And the size of them – enormous. You should see them."
- Looking at one right now, mate.
Aaargh! Nasty Spike had won.
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The days passed in what can only be called bucolic bliss. Well, bucolic bliss if you don't mind stepping in things you don't even want to think about and being a hundred miles away from the nearest mall. But Riley was so sweet, so loving. He really was a wonderful guy. And when he kissed me good night and softly shut my bedroom door leaving me alone, it made me want to scream and hammer my fists against the wall in frustration. I tried to shrug it off, tried to convince myself that it was not such a big deal, anyway. The Spike inside me agreed and started creating a list of the top ten things more exciting than Riley's lovemaking.
Halfway through my visit, his parents drove into town for a big night of Bingo and left us alone. I suggested to Riley that this might be a good time to really get to know each other again. He just looked stunned.
"I'm sorry, Buffy, but we can't have sex under their roof. It would betray their trust."
"We don't have to do it under their roof. There are a thousand bloody (Oh god, did I really just say bloody?) acres where we could go. Those cornfields have to be good for something besides growing corn."
Riley just sat there, shaking his head.
That night, in my lonely bed, I was desperate. If reality wasn't going to happen, then fantasy would have to do the trick. I thought of how he kissed me good night and closed my eyes. I could almost feel him touching me, caressing me, first my cheek, then my neck, then down to my breasts. I imagined his mouth moving from my lips to my ear, whispering in that husky voice he gets when he's aroused.
- Slayer.
I jumped out of bed and turned on the light. It had to be some sort of trick. I was supposed to be thinking about Riley, not him. And especially not, yuck, thoughts like that. Maybe it was just the change in diet that was messing up my head. All those healthy vegetables and whole milk, I wasn't getting my daily requirement of grease. Feeling a little bit better with this explanation, even though I knew it made absolutely no sense, I managed to get to sleep after an hour of tossing and turning.
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The day of the barbeque finally arrived, the mob descended on us, and every single one of them felt the need to hug me. Aunts, uncles, and cousins hugged me. Sisters, brothers, and Great Aunt Margaret who had driven seventy whole miles to see me in her ancient Oldsmobile, hugged me. All the little ones, most with sticky fingers hugged me, too. Them, I didn't mind. At least with the children I wasn't pressed up against a series of chests and breasts, almost suffocating. God, what did they feed these people out here? Were there growth hormones in the water?
- Grow them Finns big out here on Finn Farm.
Shut up, Spike.
- Kind of makes you want to lop off some of that height, don't it. Prune them down to size.
Yes, Spike thoughts still bombarded me. Every introduction, he had to make a comment. Every time they chatted about their animals, farm equipment, or one of the few people in the state that hadn't come to the barbeque, he made some snide, nasty remark. My only recourse was to continue to tell myself, "Shut up, shut up, shut up."
It was as everyone was leaving that I realized how I must have appeared to all of them. Great Aunt Margaret kissed Riley good-bye and told him that I was perfectly lovely and she was sure a doctor could help with that constant muttering problem.
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Striding through the cemetery after returning home felt great. I was back to a place where I could walk with little fear of stepping in something nasty. Running into something nasty was a different story, but given the two choices I preferred vampires. They didn't stick to my boots. Then I saw him. He was sitting on a tombstone, smoking a cigarette and when he saw me a big grin lit his face.
"Slayer! Back from visiting farm boy, I see. What's that git call Iowa…God's country? Or should that be God-forsaken country"
Without saying a word, I punched him hard in the face, hearing a satisfying crunch when I hit his nose. It started bleeding immediately, tiny rivulets running down while his fingers tried to staunch it.
"Bloody hell, Slayer! What was that for?"
I didn't say anything. I just turned and left him there, bleeding and cursing me. I smiled. "God-forsaken country" – that was cute.
The End
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