Disclaimer: Guess what? I just heard that all the owners of any rights to
Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, and Angel: the Series had a party New Year's
Eve, where they showed all the episodes for the past three years, counting
down to midnight, since most of the people there had been too busy with
other projects to catch any of the episodes for a while. Joss Whedon was
especially eager to see how his brainchild had developed. Funny thing is,
by six thirty all the guests had committed suicide except for Charisma
Carpenter, who was unable to produce any theories as to why such a tragedy
occurred. "We were just watching the shows, switching between Buffy and
Angel episodes, when all of a sudden Joss started moaning, like he was in
pain or something, then he got the blunt spoon.. I don't understand it,"
was her quote. Anyway, since no one living holds the copyright, I guess I
ain't getting sued any time soon, so screw disclaimers!
Author's Notes: Hello again, my darling readers. It's always a pleasure to bring my humble snippets of B/A to the poor, taste- deprived public. I have to say that I admire every single person who had adhered to our ship, even in the face of unspeakable plot twists and the deluge of B/S and A/C fanfiction that has polluted the internet these few years.
I know that you're all loyal and honest, and I trust that you'll do your duty when I tell you that there is a Cordeliaphile in your midst. That's right. I know for absolute certain that at least one A/C fan has been reading this story, and I leave it to you to administer punishment. I've been lenient so far, but how many times can you warn a group off if they're just too stupid to understand that they're not wanted? Please leave suggestions for penalties and pleas for mercy in the review section. I'm sorry you had to hear about this.
Distribution: Send me a link, okay?
Inheritance
By Myopic
Part Six: It's a Subculture
Conner woke reluctantly at the sound of the bell, burrowing his face deeper into his arms for a moment.
Pete placed his math text book calmly into his bookbag, pulled the zipper with a practiced motion and swung the heavy blue canvas bag into the back of his best friend's slumped head. "Come on, we've got a date."
Conner's head jerked up with pain, and he glared at Pete for almost a minute before his words registered. "Oh!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, oh," Pete replied mockingly. "Let's go. Don't want to leave the ladies waiting."
Conner grabbed his unopened book and shoved it into his bag, with a crunch of paper, ran a finger through his thick, disheveled hair and grinned. "Let's go.
"Date, huh?" he mused at the doorway, as an idea formed. "We'll see what we can do about that."
Pete arched an eyebrow but didn't reply.
Spike woke reluctantly at the sound of a foot hitting his stomach. "Get up," Angel ordered.
The shafts of light from the small window at the top of the basement wall had grown very short, and shadows almost completely covered the room.
"Always were the damndest host, weren't you, Peaches?" began Spike as he pushed himself up onto an elbow, wincing at the pain that shot through his skull. "Haven't you any respect for a hangover?"
"Spike, I have no respect at all for anything pertaining to you," was the frank reply. "Now get up and tell me why you're here so I can throw you out as soon as the sun sets."
"Jolly nice way to treat someone who came here to help you," protested the blonde vampire. "Think I enjoy coming her for this abuse?"
"Excuse me if I doubt the selflessness of your motives. Now talk or I'll throw you out now."
"Nice," Spike muttered again. He sat up to lean his back against the wall as he lit a cigarette. "Heard some news I thought you'd be interested in. Family business. Effects me, too, or I wouldn't bother to care."
"Drusilla." It wasn't a question.
"Give the boy a plushy!" Spike exclaimed sarcastically. "Who else would it be? We three're the only ones left, aren't we?" He took a long drag. "Seems my crazy sire's world tour's brought her back to America. She's gathering muscle. Word is she wants to play happy family again. Whether we like it or not. Now, charming as it would be to spend the rest of my life chained to a wall for bi-daily tea parties with you and Dru - it ranks somewhere between swimming in a pool of holy water and testing out a solar-powered crucifix - I have other plans."
Angel's face was impassive. "Why are you telling me this? Why not just skip the country and let me deal with it myself? What do YOU get out of this Spike?"
"She's my sire, and I'm not strong enough to beat her by myself," Spike admitted after a moment. "I tried once, in Sunnyhell, for - I tried. Couldn't do it. Almost, but almost isn't really good enough odds in our world, is it, now? And since I'm not sure you can either, I figured the two of us together stood a chance."
"I haven't heard anything about Drusilla being in the area. How do I know you're telling the truth? She was never the strategic one. You always did most of her planning for her. If she was coming after me, I'd know about it."
"Don't underestimate her, Peaches. She can cover her tracks if she needs to. She's crazy, not stupid. Dru's been around the block a few times too, and she was trained by the biggest bugger in the underworld." He leveled his blue eyes at the older man as he casually asked his next question. "If Angelus actually gave a sod about our little family, what would be the first thing he'd do to bring us back together?"
"Eliminate anyone who stood in the way," Angel said automatically. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. He turned around and tried not to run up the stairs.
"So this is McJay's," Summer said awkwardly, looking around her.
The room was pitch black at three-thirty in the afternoon. Black spotlights rotated from the many corners of the oddly shaped room, sending the white marble tabletops and checkerboard floor into blinding illumination. Techno and trance music blared from invisible speakers and even though it was the middle of the afternoon, couples were swaying against each other on the dance floor, reflecting more light from the metal accents on their clothes. The menus were shaped like tombstones. Pseudo-Goth Not exactly what she had been expecting.
She took another glance at her new friends, eying them closely. Dale was wearing a pair of normal blue jeans, a retro t-shirt from some nineties rock band. Her hair was all one color, and that looked like a pretty natural brown. Pete also wore jeans, his paired with a blue button down shirt . Conner wore a white t-shirt under a green flannel, also with jeans, though his were more faded than the others. Decidedly retro, but no hint of Satan worshipping tendencies. Summer was wearing a dark green dress with tall brown boots and trendy silver jewelry, her blonde hair gathered loosely at the nape of her neck with an alligator clip.
They looked like cast members of That Nineties Show who'd taken a wrong turn at the studio and ended up on the set of a Kill the Pretty music video.
Conner returned the waves of several dancers as Pete ushered them to their usual table.
"Yep!" Dale yelled over the music, looking as perfectly comfortable with the surroundings as the boys. "Isn't it great?"
Summer struggled for a reply, but was interrupted by the approach of their waitress. She was about nineteen, wearing a black polka-dotted dress that Donna Reid would have approved of. The 50's matriarch's opinion of her citrus orange hair probably would have been a bit less favorable.
"Hey, there," she drawled, flashing a grin Conner's way. "Looking good, as always," she observed.
Conner grinned cheekily, prompting Dale to hit him with a menu. She turned her glare to the waitress. "His ego's big enough, Diane. Why do you keep adding to it?"
Diane laughed easily and poured water into the glasses on the table. She stopped at Summer's glass and looked the younger girl up and down. "Who's the new recruit?"
"This is Summer," Peter announced, sipping at his water. "No lemon?"
"Pete. Every time you have come here, you've asked me for lemon in your water. Every time so far I've told you we only put the lemon in drinks you pay for. Why do you think this time will be any different?"
Conner popped his head up from under the menu Dale was smothering him with. "Because," he chimed. "He knows one of these days you'll succumb to his massive charm and fall at his feet, ready to bring him any fruits, condiments and other foodstuffs he asks you for."
Summer smiled and laughed with the waitress, but Dale dropped the menu, rolling her eyes and Peter smiled coldly. "Forget it," he muttered.
Diane shrugged and took out a blood red notepad. "So are you guys gonna order anything?"
Dale spoke up, asking for burgers, fries and Cokes for all of them.
"Thanks, Mom," Conner mocked her as Diane headed through the blood red door to the kitchen.
"I'm not your mother, Conner. Thank GOD," Dale retorted angrily. She narrowed her eyes at his laughter. "What? You guys always order the same thing and Summer doesn't know what's good, so I saved us all valuable time and got rid of Miss Minute Maid, all in one stroke. You should be thanking me."
"I DID thank you," Conner quipped. "Just kidding, just kidding! Calm down," he placated, holding his hands up in truce. "And I think Diane's hair is cool."
"In a stingy, power-tripping kind of way," Pete agreed sardonically.
"How can hair be stingy?" Summer asked wryly. The four of them looked at each other and laughed.
"So what do you think?" Conner asked as they paid their bill and left a generous tip - in cash, despite Dale's suggestion of writing her an IOU for a bottle of the non-citrus Clairol color of her choice. "She'd just get purple or something," was Pete's winning argument.
"It was kind of nice. Definitely not the kind of place I pictured you guys hanging out in, though. How did you guys end up hanging out there?" She pulled a loose strand of blonde hair back from her face.
Conner was distracted by the gesture, so it was Dale who answered. "Now that you mention it, I'm not too sure why we started going. Now we've been hanging out there so long it seems natural, but the first time I was pretty freaked out. That was a Friday night, though. You really should ease your way into that. It's way more normal during the afternoon. But. Pete, why did we come here the first time?"
"Conner wanted to," Pete replied, as if that explained everything. "When Conner wants to go somewhere, he whines and bitches until we go."
This got Conner's attention. "I do NOT bitch and whine," he protested, grabbing his friend by the bookbag, and lifting him a couple of centimeters off the ground.
Summer raised her eyebrows at the casual display of strength. "What made you want to go?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he shrugged, putting Pete down. "I heard about it and liked the atmosphere."
"Oh." There wasn't too much more to say about the subject.
"We DO have to take you on a Friday night, though," Dale announced after a moment. Are you doing anything this week?"
"Not really," Summer began.
"Great!" Dale exclaimed. "McJay's for Friday."
Notes: Hmmm. McJay's on Friday. Angel's son and Co. in a dark club late at night. Sounds safe and happy! Is Dru on the loose, or is Spike scheming? Will they ever find the Slayer? Will Conner ever get to the dentist? What about that field trip I mentioned way back in the first part? When will the Scoobies show up? Well, keep reading and you'll find out.
Author's Notes: Hello again, my darling readers. It's always a pleasure to bring my humble snippets of B/A to the poor, taste- deprived public. I have to say that I admire every single person who had adhered to our ship, even in the face of unspeakable plot twists and the deluge of B/S and A/C fanfiction that has polluted the internet these few years.
I know that you're all loyal and honest, and I trust that you'll do your duty when I tell you that there is a Cordeliaphile in your midst. That's right. I know for absolute certain that at least one A/C fan has been reading this story, and I leave it to you to administer punishment. I've been lenient so far, but how many times can you warn a group off if they're just too stupid to understand that they're not wanted? Please leave suggestions for penalties and pleas for mercy in the review section. I'm sorry you had to hear about this.
Distribution: Send me a link, okay?
Inheritance
By Myopic
Part Six: It's a Subculture
Conner woke reluctantly at the sound of the bell, burrowing his face deeper into his arms for a moment.
Pete placed his math text book calmly into his bookbag, pulled the zipper with a practiced motion and swung the heavy blue canvas bag into the back of his best friend's slumped head. "Come on, we've got a date."
Conner's head jerked up with pain, and he glared at Pete for almost a minute before his words registered. "Oh!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, oh," Pete replied mockingly. "Let's go. Don't want to leave the ladies waiting."
Conner grabbed his unopened book and shoved it into his bag, with a crunch of paper, ran a finger through his thick, disheveled hair and grinned. "Let's go.
"Date, huh?" he mused at the doorway, as an idea formed. "We'll see what we can do about that."
Pete arched an eyebrow but didn't reply.
Spike woke reluctantly at the sound of a foot hitting his stomach. "Get up," Angel ordered.
The shafts of light from the small window at the top of the basement wall had grown very short, and shadows almost completely covered the room.
"Always were the damndest host, weren't you, Peaches?" began Spike as he pushed himself up onto an elbow, wincing at the pain that shot through his skull. "Haven't you any respect for a hangover?"
"Spike, I have no respect at all for anything pertaining to you," was the frank reply. "Now get up and tell me why you're here so I can throw you out as soon as the sun sets."
"Jolly nice way to treat someone who came here to help you," protested the blonde vampire. "Think I enjoy coming her for this abuse?"
"Excuse me if I doubt the selflessness of your motives. Now talk or I'll throw you out now."
"Nice," Spike muttered again. He sat up to lean his back against the wall as he lit a cigarette. "Heard some news I thought you'd be interested in. Family business. Effects me, too, or I wouldn't bother to care."
"Drusilla." It wasn't a question.
"Give the boy a plushy!" Spike exclaimed sarcastically. "Who else would it be? We three're the only ones left, aren't we?" He took a long drag. "Seems my crazy sire's world tour's brought her back to America. She's gathering muscle. Word is she wants to play happy family again. Whether we like it or not. Now, charming as it would be to spend the rest of my life chained to a wall for bi-daily tea parties with you and Dru - it ranks somewhere between swimming in a pool of holy water and testing out a solar-powered crucifix - I have other plans."
Angel's face was impassive. "Why are you telling me this? Why not just skip the country and let me deal with it myself? What do YOU get out of this Spike?"
"She's my sire, and I'm not strong enough to beat her by myself," Spike admitted after a moment. "I tried once, in Sunnyhell, for - I tried. Couldn't do it. Almost, but almost isn't really good enough odds in our world, is it, now? And since I'm not sure you can either, I figured the two of us together stood a chance."
"I haven't heard anything about Drusilla being in the area. How do I know you're telling the truth? She was never the strategic one. You always did most of her planning for her. If she was coming after me, I'd know about it."
"Don't underestimate her, Peaches. She can cover her tracks if she needs to. She's crazy, not stupid. Dru's been around the block a few times too, and she was trained by the biggest bugger in the underworld." He leveled his blue eyes at the older man as he casually asked his next question. "If Angelus actually gave a sod about our little family, what would be the first thing he'd do to bring us back together?"
"Eliminate anyone who stood in the way," Angel said automatically. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. He turned around and tried not to run up the stairs.
"So this is McJay's," Summer said awkwardly, looking around her.
The room was pitch black at three-thirty in the afternoon. Black spotlights rotated from the many corners of the oddly shaped room, sending the white marble tabletops and checkerboard floor into blinding illumination. Techno and trance music blared from invisible speakers and even though it was the middle of the afternoon, couples were swaying against each other on the dance floor, reflecting more light from the metal accents on their clothes. The menus were shaped like tombstones. Pseudo-Goth Not exactly what she had been expecting.
She took another glance at her new friends, eying them closely. Dale was wearing a pair of normal blue jeans, a retro t-shirt from some nineties rock band. Her hair was all one color, and that looked like a pretty natural brown. Pete also wore jeans, his paired with a blue button down shirt . Conner wore a white t-shirt under a green flannel, also with jeans, though his were more faded than the others. Decidedly retro, but no hint of Satan worshipping tendencies. Summer was wearing a dark green dress with tall brown boots and trendy silver jewelry, her blonde hair gathered loosely at the nape of her neck with an alligator clip.
They looked like cast members of That Nineties Show who'd taken a wrong turn at the studio and ended up on the set of a Kill the Pretty music video.
Conner returned the waves of several dancers as Pete ushered them to their usual table.
"Yep!" Dale yelled over the music, looking as perfectly comfortable with the surroundings as the boys. "Isn't it great?"
Summer struggled for a reply, but was interrupted by the approach of their waitress. She was about nineteen, wearing a black polka-dotted dress that Donna Reid would have approved of. The 50's matriarch's opinion of her citrus orange hair probably would have been a bit less favorable.
"Hey, there," she drawled, flashing a grin Conner's way. "Looking good, as always," she observed.
Conner grinned cheekily, prompting Dale to hit him with a menu. She turned her glare to the waitress. "His ego's big enough, Diane. Why do you keep adding to it?"
Diane laughed easily and poured water into the glasses on the table. She stopped at Summer's glass and looked the younger girl up and down. "Who's the new recruit?"
"This is Summer," Peter announced, sipping at his water. "No lemon?"
"Pete. Every time you have come here, you've asked me for lemon in your water. Every time so far I've told you we only put the lemon in drinks you pay for. Why do you think this time will be any different?"
Conner popped his head up from under the menu Dale was smothering him with. "Because," he chimed. "He knows one of these days you'll succumb to his massive charm and fall at his feet, ready to bring him any fruits, condiments and other foodstuffs he asks you for."
Summer smiled and laughed with the waitress, but Dale dropped the menu, rolling her eyes and Peter smiled coldly. "Forget it," he muttered.
Diane shrugged and took out a blood red notepad. "So are you guys gonna order anything?"
Dale spoke up, asking for burgers, fries and Cokes for all of them.
"Thanks, Mom," Conner mocked her as Diane headed through the blood red door to the kitchen.
"I'm not your mother, Conner. Thank GOD," Dale retorted angrily. She narrowed her eyes at his laughter. "What? You guys always order the same thing and Summer doesn't know what's good, so I saved us all valuable time and got rid of Miss Minute Maid, all in one stroke. You should be thanking me."
"I DID thank you," Conner quipped. "Just kidding, just kidding! Calm down," he placated, holding his hands up in truce. "And I think Diane's hair is cool."
"In a stingy, power-tripping kind of way," Pete agreed sardonically.
"How can hair be stingy?" Summer asked wryly. The four of them looked at each other and laughed.
"So what do you think?" Conner asked as they paid their bill and left a generous tip - in cash, despite Dale's suggestion of writing her an IOU for a bottle of the non-citrus Clairol color of her choice. "She'd just get purple or something," was Pete's winning argument.
"It was kind of nice. Definitely not the kind of place I pictured you guys hanging out in, though. How did you guys end up hanging out there?" She pulled a loose strand of blonde hair back from her face.
Conner was distracted by the gesture, so it was Dale who answered. "Now that you mention it, I'm not too sure why we started going. Now we've been hanging out there so long it seems natural, but the first time I was pretty freaked out. That was a Friday night, though. You really should ease your way into that. It's way more normal during the afternoon. But. Pete, why did we come here the first time?"
"Conner wanted to," Pete replied, as if that explained everything. "When Conner wants to go somewhere, he whines and bitches until we go."
This got Conner's attention. "I do NOT bitch and whine," he protested, grabbing his friend by the bookbag, and lifting him a couple of centimeters off the ground.
Summer raised her eyebrows at the casual display of strength. "What made you want to go?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he shrugged, putting Pete down. "I heard about it and liked the atmosphere."
"Oh." There wasn't too much more to say about the subject.
"We DO have to take you on a Friday night, though," Dale announced after a moment. Are you doing anything this week?"
"Not really," Summer began.
"Great!" Dale exclaimed. "McJay's for Friday."
Notes: Hmmm. McJay's on Friday. Angel's son and Co. in a dark club late at night. Sounds safe and happy! Is Dru on the loose, or is Spike scheming? Will they ever find the Slayer? Will Conner ever get to the dentist? What about that field trip I mentioned way back in the first part? When will the Scoobies show up? Well, keep reading and you'll find out.